##VIDEO ID:UduACdrCEUE## [Music] and e e e good evening again uh can I get a motion to uh return to public session so move second Char may we got a roll call please M dep pent yes M Fury yes Mr loses yes M mener yes Mr Peach yes M borski yes M Ryan Yes M wolf yes yes um superintendent report is is next yeah thank you Dr C welcome good evening everyone our um annual njsla and District assessment presentation will be this evening um in a moment I'll introduce you to the administrative staff uh they are going to review the results of last year last Springs uh administration of the student learning assessment in language arts math and science uh we will also hear the presentation of District test results which includes um I ready Diagnostics as well as writing benchmarks and some math end of year assessments C cumulative assessments thank you um as well as the dynamic learning map for our students with special needs and the access for L's for our multi- Learners um so this is a comprehensive overview of all of the assessment results from um last year's student performance um and with that I would like to introduce Dr Brown I believe you're going first with language arts thank you all for being here tonight by the way this the entire administrative team is here um and each principal will also share with you um some results for their building Focus areas from last year and set some Focus areas for this year as well Dr BR good evening so I'm the supervisor of humanities I'll take you through the language arts portion of the presentation so we'll start with NJ SLA scores and we'll begin with our third graders so these are njsla the the graph is set up with the state at the top bar and the district at the bottom the purple shows whether students have exceeded met or not yet met expectations with the darkest purple being exceeding and then that next darkest purple being the needing we combine those two sections to make our basically our proficiency rate so here we have the third grade with passing with a 69% and the state passing with 43% and we're about 25 percentage points above the state averages you continue to see that Trend as we move into fourth grade where our district scores are increasing and now we're more more towards the mid 7s but we're still about 25 percentage points above where the state sits and then we continue into seventh grade with those same Trends SE I'm sorry fifth grade with those same Trends with them having a 77% proficiency rate still about 25 percentage points above the state as we move into sixth grade we still continue to be about 20% above where the state is and then in seventh grade we're continuing to still be above State averages and then eighth grade that um that Gap has closed a little bit more we'll talk about eighth grade a little bit later on in the presentation now these are just the individual scores for this year where all your questions usually come and the information that you want to know is how we've compared to like years in the past as groups of students and then groups of grade levels so those are the laudal scores which will come next and then after we do the longitudinal scores then I'll stop and have you ask questions anything that I haven't answered as of yet so here's the longitudinal scores these are the same grade but different different students as they move through the grade so if you look at third grade all the way on the left these are our past five years of test scores with the dark purple on the right hand side being Armor's current scores from right now and you can see as students move through third grade every year they're taking a very nice step up that Trend continues in fourth grade fourth grade is my one of my most consistent grade levels even a pandemic could not stop them from making progress they moved Sly through up until a really nice percentage of where they are now and then fifth grade also is very consistent with their scores holding about where they were last year sixth grade moved up a little bit seventh grade took a little bit of a dip but this isn't a cause for concern because when you look at the cohort of students that same group moving over time their scores will have head held steady they didn't lose any academics and then in eighth grade we took a little bit of a dip there now this is the view of the same group of students as they move through the grade so on the left hand side that that light purple are third graders as they moved into the dark purple the fourth grade and you can see they took a really nice step up and made a lot of progress as they moved from third to fourth grade the next section is our fourth grade as they moved into fifth graders still staying steady and then fifth grade into sixth sixth grade into seventh now when you looked at it across a grade level that looked like it took a dip but this group of students really actually didn't they stayed consistent in their academics and that could just be due to the difference in personalities of a class everyone learns at a different rate so when we looked here seventh grade it looked like there was a dip when you look at the actual students there wasn't as they moved through that's just a difference in a in the academics of a group and the learning rate of a particular group of students and then here we have the seventh grade moving into eighth grade and there there's a there's that dip there so in the middle school we have a lot of new things that we're trying this year a lot of them coming out of the new standards for literacy that the state put out so we had an opportunity to revise our curriculum and when we did we spent a lot of time at the middle school thinking about how that how we wanted that progression to look how we wanted the lessons to lay out so that the students were getting the maximum amount of reading and writing time where we wanted our Focus to be on things like conventions and grammar and spelling in in the writing sections and reading stamina and things like that so as we made those changes to the curriculum our next njsla SC through the results of all the curricular work we did over the summer this year and the preparation for the standards we also at this grade level at the eighth grade level made some staffing changes so we're interested in seeing how that progresses during this year too do you have any questions about the grade level scores so then we'll move into subpopulations so now we looked at the scores as grade levels now we'll look at them as specific groups of students so these are this is our proficiency by race at the bottom of the slid you can see the percentage of Readington populations that produce this score so most um most populations here either stayed steady or took a little bit of a step up um specifically our our population of black students did did very well this year and took a very nice step up for a second year in a row um Hispanic population has increased their growth and everyone else stayed just about the same it is worth noting that our multiple the population of multiple races and white population is shrinking slightly year after after year and so that does affect our proficiency rates as we either test more students in certain groups and less students in others here we have proficiency by gender we're just a couple of percentage points off where we are from last year so that's very consistent and then our proficiencies by program now if you remember last year our elll population we didn't have anyone pass and the reason for that was we had all of our really high level we call them in the district ml our ml students had graduated out of the ml program and were counted in our Jed Ed population and the students that were left were new to English and were not prepared with the proper English proficiency at that point in time to take an assessment like the njsla so this year that when we tested that group of students again you can see that they need that 20% growth so we were very pleased to see that um our free and reduced lunch population had made a very nice um increase after last year as did our special Ed and then our Section 504 and our G and populations stayed about the same as they were the year before that dip in the in the Gen EDG population we were able to track back to a very specific grade level so you think now that we've made some changes we shouldn't see that again next year do you have any questions about any of the njsla scores in entirety before I move on to District benchmarks okay so these are our in-house District benchmarks starting with I ready so I ready gives us a a a growth score so a typical student would grow 100% in a year and that means they made a whole grade levels worth of growth in a year which is exactly what you want if you have above 100% then they're growing more than a grade level so at 150% our students had grown on an average of about a grade level and a half and the reason that's meaningful is that if they're functioning below grade level now they're starting to fill gaps and if you can do a year and a half's growth a couple years in a row you'll get even a very far behind student back up on grade level and if they're increasing and they already are on grade level then those are students that are in exceeding expectations levels of the njsla and they're learning things beyond their grade level on the right hand side the green yellow and red shows our proficiency as a district for reading remember that njsla test reading and writing I already only tests reading and what's nice to see here is we have a good proficiency rate for the students that are on grade level if you look at the bottom underneath it has like from x per and that shows those percentage for those sections at the beginning of the year so it shows you that our on grade level students are growing and our below grade level students are shrinking as the year goes on this is the overall placement k38 so that gave you an overall District view this is the individual grp gr level view from fourth grade on these levels track very closely to our njsla scores and it's always good to have multiple data points that are in line when you're looking at a program and then we have writing benchmarks so we have three writing benchmarks a year we start with narrative in September so you look at kindergarten and those are the ones you're going to see the most growth because I can if you remember what your children were like as kindergarteners they learn a lot from September when they are just learning their names until the end of the year when they're able to actually write full sentences so that those scores there are the ones you're going to see the most growth in this is September this is the very first one they take but narrative writing skills translate through all of the benchmarks so as they move into informational which is more toward mid year you can see kindergarten already bumped up so much now these scores are more around the mid 80% range and then at the end of the year we have opinion and argument this is the most difficult of the three benchmarks the scores did increase in most grade levels a little bit from informational but they generally stay about the same because they increase in difficulty of the actual task do you have any questions about our district benchworks all right then I will leave you with the math section and M pouch so good evening everyone I'm Sarah I'm the math supervisor um as well as science we'll take a look at some of that information as well um if you remember from last year uh we were making uh steady grain gains across the board in math where the state had pretty much remained the same they didn't show much improvement this year the state actually has shown some improvement in the math scores which is always nice to see whereas our uh grade levels are pretty much hold holding steady um with some exceptions so the same as Ela first we'll take a look at each grade level um looking at the districts meeting and exceeding level on the bottom where the state is has their meeting and exceeding at the top and um third grade has is about 177% higher passing rate than the state when we look at fourth grade we can see that we're still in those High Teens um with about 19% higher passing rate than the state at 63% in looking at fifth grade we can see that we have a 58% passing rate and um that is uh slightly higher than last year um at about 2% and still still again Heights 18% higher than the state passing rate looking at sixth grade we have a passing rate of 53% where the state is at 36 which again is highing we have 17% higher um of our students passing as compared to the state level seventh grade we have a 37% passing rate which is the same as uh the state at this point it is important to keep in mind that uh roughly our top 10% of students is removed from this test where Advanced and honor students in sixth grade all take the sixth grade test looking at seventh grade our honor students who participate in algebra one are not incorporated into this assessment when we look at seventh grade as a whole and regardless of what test they took the passing rate is at 44% looking at 8th grade we have 20% passing um for the district same thing here except for um advanced math kind of compounds the number of students removed so when we're looking at our eighth grade results this is where we have our top 10% of students who are in Algebra 2 have been removed from these scores and our Advanced students who are participating in Algebra 1 are not part of these scores so we're looking at the remaining uh eighth graders who are not in advanced or honors math and they're at 21% when we put all eighth graders together regardless of what test they took whether it was Al one Al two or the eth grade test the passing rate for eighth grade students was at 56% which is much closer to the other grade levels at the middle school one of the things that we want to take a close look at and we're able to dive into and discuss with the staff is we were also given an what's called an Evidence statements report and that circles back and lets us know exactly what standards we uh struggled with and maybe didn't perform as well as the state level LEL and what standards we um were able to exceed the expectation for um those particular areas when we looked at this test um we noticed that the there were evidence statements in the areas of expressions and equations and that there were eight of those evidence statements we scored below the state on so that was immediately something that we need to Circle back when we take another look there were another six questions on the test based on the standards of expressions and equations so making a total of 14 questions out of a 40 question test so almost a quarter of the test is on expressions and equations and we were about 5050 at whether we exceeded the state or were below the state on those standards one of the things that we came to to and that was that holds true for last year as well so this is obviously a very important standard for this grade level and things that we definitely want to take a look at as we did another Deep dive we wanted to see um what questions we succeeded on and which questions we struggled with and it was very interesting to see that the uh equations and expressions standards that we did very well on were current was the unit that the eighth grade class was currently learning when we looked at the standards that we did not score as well on for expressions and equations we found out that that's that's part of a unit that's taught in October so we really need wanted to we've been working with the teachers and brainstorming on how do we how do we have that um how do we have students gain and retain the information so that they're able to um apply it again later in the year so we've been looking at you know how do we do kind of cumulative reviews as we go as well as you know what can we do to help students retain the information especially when a quarter of the test is on one area of the standards when we take a look at Algebra 1 this is a combination of our honors seventh grade students and our eighth grade students who are taking advanced math and we have a 94% meeting or exceeding rate Which is 54% higher than the state also keep in mind that the state results are for any student taking algebra one so those this we're carry imparing our seventh and eighth graders to um freshman or sophomore at the high school level when we look at the results when we look at um the 6% of our students who did not pass that that's a total of four students so we're looking at a very small small population so four out of 66 students didn't meet the expectations in Algebra 2 we can see that um we have 80% of our students meeting were exceeding and were 21% higher than the state results this is very consistent with the student the scores for the algebra one students when these students were algebra one students this is very consistent so the algebra 2 um results are consistent with the students um who were as as they were in algebra one um and again this is a total the 20% of students not meeting or exceeding comes to a total of four students um so we have a very high percentage of of passing when you're looking at such small groups every individual highly affects the percentage rate taking a look at all of the third through Algebra 2 um standards focusing in on the middle school we are exploring um new resources that we're testing out this year so that we can Implement new programming next year um to help with instruction and we're also um have had the additional bonus of the new school schedule allowing for more instructional time so looking at new materials as well as the additional time we would um anticipate to see improved scores at the middle school level questions about individual grade levels knowing that the next slides go into those longitudinal and the cohorts looking at how students perform from year to year okay so here we have um different students um from year to year so how does third grade typically perform as a whole or how does sixth grade typically perform as a whole looking um to the right is the our most recent school year for the uh 23 24 school year um the darkest colors and the lightest colors are the farthest out which would be the 2017 2018 scores um again looking at um pandemic recovery uh the bar graph kind of splits itself very nicely now the two bars to the right are most recent y years the two bars to the to the farthest to the left and that are the lightest are pre-pandemic scores the bar in the middle was our first return back to State Testing when we look at the performance uh from grade level to the grade level we can see that the current or last year's third and fourth graders did have a drop in their um percentage of passing rate fifth and sixth grade remains pretty consistent in seventh and eth grade um again the scores are a little bit lower than past seventh and eth grade uh cohorts and we've SE a nice increase in algebra one and Algebra 2 um remaining pretty consistent when we look at the same students and how they do from one year to the next when we look at that first graph looking at third grade to fourth grade and fourth grade to fifth grade we can see that not only did it not match as how typical typically third and fourth grade has performed over the years there was also a drop in in the students performance from third to fourth grade as well as from fourth grade to fifth grade again looking into this and trying to pinpoint how why or how this might be happening we have gotten a tiny bit of information um we were just received on Friday a report that gave us did give us some uh District Factor group information which is an outdated um group but at least it's comparing us to schools that have similar populations um even though it's it's um you know outdated based on the census from 20 years ago um but it does give us a little bit more information and looking into um moving from fourth to Fifth and moving from fifth to sixth I found it was very interesting that both the state had a drop in the um students performance from one year to the next as well as the cohort so whatever is going on is happening universally across the state and we're we're performing um similarly to our dfg's where everyone's looking at their scores from those grade level to grade level kind of wondering what what was happening happening there um until we can get more information from other districts we wouldn't be we we can't really say other than it's consistent with what other districts are seeing um but we want to take a look at when again we look at those evidence statements when we go back and say okay which standard was it it was one question out of 40 that we scored below the state on so that doesn't give us a whole lot of information to to go on so we're spending um time with the teachers again reviewing the standards reviewing the testing platform and making that the students are as prepared as possible um the the decrease in performance from sixth to seventh grade um keep in mind is compounded by the removal of the on honors students um because they were part of that sixth grade group and now is seventh grade they're not taking H for account in there we have another bar where we show our grade six to algebra so that would be our honors students who took the sixth grade assessment and then as seventh graders took took the algebra assessment and then from seventh grade to algebra are advanced math students the students who took the seventh grade test but now we're taking the algebra test um at the at the next year while the eighth grade scores are not where we would want them to necessarily be and we'd like to see some improvement there you can see from the chart here where it shows from Seventh to 8th grade that is consistent for those students so the students who are performing consistently from Seventh to 8th grade we would just like to see that bar raised across across the board so questions about the grade levels and how they and the longitudinal as well as the cohorts okay next we have our subpopulations uh first we'll be taking a look at the an exceeding rate um for proficiency by race you can see that we report this out as a district because um when you have um uh any population less than 10% you need to to not either not report it because it's too small our workaround is a report as the district um so that we are able to to see um how we're performing most of the um most of the races per formed pretty pretty close to the same um with our Hispanic population taking a nice jump up as well as um our white and multiple populations are also becoming smaller um so that when we're looking at such small percentages um for multiple population at only 4% every that could be the difference of one student looking at gender we're at an almost 50-50 split between male and female and uh students are holding pretty consistently in their performance with only a difference of um three percentage points um for the males and a two percentage Point difference for female um from one year to the next and um we can see that our males and females are performing very closely to the same uh uh at the same percentage rate um which is nice because you typically see your he about um females not performing as well in stem areas and here we can see that our female population is is holding their own looking at proficiency by program we look at our uh elll or ml population free and reduced lunch 504 special education and gen Ed um the two outliers here most of our sub populations have remained pretty consistent we can see that our MLS or elll students have made significant improvements which was really wonderful to see the teachers have been working really hard to make sure that they're meeting the needs of these students and that they've had additional training and materials provided for them and it certainly made a difference um we can see that there is a bit of a drop in in special ed um but the rest of our programs have remained fairly consistent questions about any of the um sub subgroups I a question just comment to go back to that El number because I just want to give you credit and the team credit because that population is increasing in the district so to have that huge jump with an increase in population is amazing and you're doing a fantastic job I know that sheltered English instruction and different um interventions that you're doing so I just wanted to point that out thank you and Mr Tumalo and his team have have gone above and beyond to like I said to provide additional training and then we're working closely together to make sure everybody has the materials in order to assist students next we'll take a look at our cumulative assessments as well as diagnostic results so this next slide is relatively new um mostly because we've been um working on these cumulative assessments so the this would be our in-house District assessments and um we these were teacher designed and they've been implementing them for the last two years and having worked out some of the Kinks I really wanted to take this opportunity to share some of this information with you um this data paints a a slightly different picture than our njsla or even diagnostic results and um I think my I feel that the biggest difference here is that njsla and the diagnostic are digital assessments and at the middle school they're not administered by the teachers or haven't been administered by the teachers math teacher in in the past and with the scheduling change we will be able to have our Math teachers administer the math diagnostic which I think will make a a bit of a difference but most importantly these these cumulative assessments are paper and pencil assessments and students can't just click and move on um they have a paper and pencil they're able to show their work it's given by their math teacher and the results are much more in line with what we're seeing on the report card grades as well as teachers formative assessments as they move through this school year um this also speaks to why we're not hearing from the high school that our Stu middle school students are coming in unprepared our students are successful at the high school level and we haven't had any indication that there are concerns that we need a change in programming looking at the njsla scor that may not track but when we're looking here at what students can do with paper and pencil we can see that we have much uh much more success at the middle school as and looking at what was the average score for each grade level and what percentage of students scored 80% or higher so again knowing that eighth grade is is a focus and something um that we want to keep moderate monitoring are on level eighth graders who took paper and pencil assessments the average score was an 84% and looking at how many of those students scored in 80 or higher we were at 68% so that that definitely speaks to a different result than what we've seen for njsla as well as the diagnostic which are both digital assessments um so I thought it was important that we were able to share um a different data set to help paint a clearer picture and I know this is new any questions about uh or any more additional details you'd like about the cumulative assessments okay taking a look at our um K8 diagnostic growth over the course of the year as Dr Brown mentioned to the left we have our um uh progress towards typical growth so anything above 100% means that students are beginning to close gaps they've not only made a full Year's worth of growth they have that additional piece being able to to fill in when we look at uh the current placement as to how many students are within the grade level expectations we have 73% um as a district and down below it shows you where we came from so that our students who are um two or three years below those numbers are getting percentages are getting much smaller whereas our students um performing within grade level expectations is getting larger a little more detail breaking it out by grade level we can see that we have um some consistency from grade to grade in fourth and third fourth and fifth grade scoring at 81 um 87 and 80% is not exactly a match to their njsla scores um but is much more in line with their cumulative assessments that we just took a look at um as well as more um proficiency being shown at sixth seventh and eth grade as well so this would be the last slide regarding math is there anything I can provide uh clarification on next we have science usually science science is a little bit quicker because only two uh grade levels take the njsla for science we have our fifth grade students um as well as our eighth grade students um there are a couple additional slides compared to previous years because we finally had um some data to track from one year to the next because the Science assessment was was fairly new it had only been administered once prior to um school closures and so that they're just now compiling um information for us to look from year to year when when we look at our um science scores we can see that we're at a 52% uh proficiency rate it does it is different than math in math we have our five buckets of two for meeting and exceeding one for approaching and then um the below or partially proficient whereas here for science we have advanced we have proficient we have near proficiency and Below um the state has remained the same for three years in a row they've been at 20 Hing at 27% for three years now um and the district has shown an improvement of 3% compared to last year looking at our performance for 8th grade we're at 25% in the proficient or Advanced proficient and the state is at 19% um the state actually has a slight increase at 19% um whereas um we're performing 6% higher than um the state as well this is slightly different than the eighth grade results we saw last year and we'll see that in the longitudinal reports um but it does um uh it it is a different group of students being assessed so here we have a little bit more information where we're able to take a look at our fifth grade and the eighth grade um over time so how has fifth grade performed and it's been pretty consistent from the beginning um eighth grade is is a little bit more up and down um looking at last year's um population it was a very large 8th grade class so again that's going to kind of affect um the percentages there when we look at proficiency by race we can see that um we have 5% for Asian population 2% for black 12% for Hispanic four for multiple and 76 for white um again with only 5% of two grade levels um in with our Asian students moving from 50% to 81% um when you're looking at such a small population that could be the difference of one student even though it was a significant percentile um so again it was also nice to see in this instant where our Hispanic students are holding fairly consistency with a little bit of improvement we've also been focusing on what science material can we provide uh for students um in in other languages proficiency by gender again remains about the same it's still about a 5050 split and we have um 33% of our females and 39% of our males in the um proficient and advanced proficient range and then finally we have our um uh subgroup populations of Els or mLs are free and reduced lunch 504s and special education as well as gen head and um we can see some significant improvements in our free and reduced lunch population our El um population um we didn't have any students in the proficient or Advanced proficient range just as we've seen that increase of proficiency in math we would like to see that increased proficiency here for science um obviously a much more um language oriented subject than math so we can see how this could be um have caused some a stumbling block for some of those students we are looking at um we have we've started to implement new programming um at the middle school with a new primary resource and the students and the teachers have all had are very well received we're doing a pilot in fourth and fifth grade with a program that is much more phenomenon based than just content and information based and we're hoping to see th as those results roll up to see these scores increase as well okay and that will bring us to the DM assessment unless there's anything I can answer for you just if you wanted to quickly mention because we did talk about in committee the um the schedule of NJ njsla being administered this year yes so it's it's it's several days of testing and we're looking to have um the least amount of impact on instructional time um we've tried different schedules over the year uh years whether it's um taking two days of testing having the weekend for a break and then coming back for another two and then Fifth and eighth grade have to come back for another two days um so we're always trying to find find the best balance there um this year based on administrative and teacher feedback we're going to be um administering the assessment in a in a week so that we have two days of the LA a day off and two days of math and then Fifth and eth will have to cycle into the next week to complete the science assessments um we are looking at which doesn't matter which assessment is given first um and last year for the first first time we gave uh Ela uh having getting to go first uh their try and we'll have to wait and see if there's any kind of trends that come from that so um it was a different roll out as to which day which subject was taken on and we'll have to wait and see if there's any correlation to uh the scores with that always makes me think of like science is the last one administered so there's yeah yeah it it is and it's it's partly due to scheduling and partly because it was new so it kind of got tacked on to the end um but we we're certainly trying to figure out you know what what has the least impact on instructional time and what what's the most effective thing for the students when it for the fifth and eighth graders especially when it comes to six days um well half days not all day but it takes up quite a bit of the morning so next year when we're looking at this we have uh instruction CH Time Has Changed maybe the order of testing has changed and also curricular changes yep standards have changed as standard yeah for for math the standards have changed for science um they've remain the same but we have a programming change so we're we're trying as as many things as we can to find Improvement okay thank you very much I will turn this over to I believe Stacy heagle and Mr jimo before can I ask a question about grade yeah it's both for Math and English so we noticed a dip right for eth grade um and it was mentioned for both that we're taking a particular look at eth grade was there also any consideration to looking at the foundational years leading up to that to identify so just as we looked at at Le for mathematics just as we looked at which standards are we struggling with we also did the same thing at seventh grade and it wasn't surprising that the St standards that the seventh graders were struggling with tie into those um equations and evaluations so it it yes it is definitely a multi-year something to look at because the eth grade te the eighth grade teachers and the eighth grade students aren't the only ones who own those scores every grade level that came before them impacted those scores so we're certainly circling back and looking at um how how we can close that gap before they even get to e grade thank you and um the updated stand we had updated standards both for Math and for English for this school year they're being implemented these results were for last spring which were based on the prior standards and then also a prior njsla exam which ties back to those standards y so it's going to be very hard to have comparative data from year to year with the standards change and and different things that that we're that we're implementing to um to show growth and Improvement so yes these assessments are based on the old standards next year when we're looking at these results it'll be on the new standards thank you I just want to play like the song to shark Tech as we're coming up here right that would be really cool so so actually Anthony and I were going to behave ourselves tonight but then we've gotten a couple comments about if we are going to behave ourselves or not so I said we don't don't okay I think we need I think we need a little bit of relief here okay okay so Anthony and I have have been finding jokes about data there's not many there not many not many we found one we did find one and we we we were going to do a couple but we did present this to Sarah pouch who actually has said keep it mov do do all right so let's it works okay I'll do it we've looked at a lot of barographs tonight why do bargraphs always hold a grudge because they can't stand to be compared Terri all right [Music] last I Stacey I am the director who needs no introduction who needs no introduction so anyhow um so the DM so the uh the Dynamic learning map is an alternative assessment for 1% of our children who are significantly cognitively impaired who are not able to take um our our Statewide njsla even with accommodations so with that with everything that um Dr Brown and Mrs pouch has presented 99% of our special education students are taking their general education and jsla with accommodations or um just taking it uh generally um our glm assessments offer an opportunity for our students to be able to show what they know in ela Math and Science when you take a look at the numbers we have a very as I said uh less than 1% of our students um are taking the dlm um this year if you can take a look I'm looking at students who have either met our Target or have exceeded uh during attech I did present that our language arts literacy actually declined from last year um however our math and science the number of students who have met our Target or exceeded has um increased as I shared at at Tech the only thing I can think about uh last year in terms of looking at the children who had taken the dlm we did have some staffing changes at Holland Brook that's the only thing I can think in terms of why our our language arts um uh scores had decreased and again it was it was a very small number last year I believe the number of students who um met their target or exceeded was 62% and then this you know this past year it was uh 50 58% um also the state is going to be changing the criteria for students who are eligible to take uh the Doom that criteria has not been uh has not come out yet as soon as that criteria is out I I will certainly present that um to the board as well as share with our um as with our staff any questions with [Music] dlm I would like to turn it over to you know Mr tumelo and very seriously I know that Mrs Pou and and both Dr Brown um had brought up about the increase in our mls in terms of how they are um their their scores have increased um Mr Tumo has done an amazing job um with this project over the past two years working with staff um uh working with our ESL teachers um rolling out a very challenging uh professional development in the sheltered instruction or sheltered English instruction uh PD so I really do want to thank Anthony for the work that he's done because it has been amazing and it is actually really showing in the um in our test results thank you you're very welcome it's definitely a team effort for sure for sure um so I want to share a little bit about our MLS and what who who they are um these are the language the native languages spoken um currently in our district uh right now um I did add as well um just just some numbers of years of students um that in in the ESL program So currently um we have eight students that have been in the program less than a year 15 students in the program for about a year five students more uh for two years and then seven students three or more years so the data does kind of show that in terms of we have majority of our students are early in the Pro ear new to the program so so basically there's there's four categories that um the the access score the access looks at they look at U Reading Writing listening and speaking um and then there's uh six proficiency levels um entering emerging developing expanding bridging and reaching so for criteria in terms of um exiting the program students have to get a 4.5 or higher um on the on the English language Prof proficiency test sorry um but also part of that criteria is class performance um reading level and then teacher recommendations that's also part part of that now once a student does um exit the program um there there is about a two or threee um period of consultation um so the ESL teachers are still looking in and checking in on the student making sure that they're progressing um if they need any additional support once they exit um so so just some data here um the we have students um who have exited the program for about a year three of them um and then two or more years we have six students um so our data we did make progress um I don't have a chart to compare from last year but I have some data to to show um some growth So currently in the 20123 24 school year we had 18% um entering uh in the 2223 school year we had 28% that were entering um and as far as emerging we have 12% um 22 23 school year was 22% um developing it's 44% um and then the 2223 school year was 34% so there's some some some growth there um expanding it's 18% um and in the 2223 school year was 11% um bridging 8% um and in the 2223 school year it was zero and then um zero for both in reaching where we are so we are making progress It's been a a collective effort um and I'm really proud of our ESL teachers our ml teachers and our staff they're doing a great job one thing that is not added in here is our preschool population we do not identify preschool uh population students as an ESL student however what we are doing is we do have an es u a teacher and ESL a teacher who is Consulting with all of our preschool teachers in District as well as our Learning Centers so that we are providing um a differentiated support for those children that are coming in with um with with other language so we're going to be finding a way to be able to track those students um but that is something new this year um to our preschool program so interventions good don't try to pop us now I I can't sorry I'm very boring so so the current interventions we have been Place some of them we could we move from year to year if they're successful and we choose to keep them others we change and update according to our students needs so specific to this year that's new we have math and Ela both have curricular revisions due to the new standards all buildings have a designated intervention period so students that get intervention have that during a time that's not math literacy so it's supplemental rather than replacement that's research Improvement to be more effective um the district also hired a new literacy coach over at the middle school part- times now we have a middle school um literacy coach there part-time and a math and then we have a handwriting pilot for kindergarten and first grade as research has shown that handwriting is important to the accuracy and automaticity of students reading and then we have updated math primary resources for KI and then a new pilot for math resources at 6 Fe and that brings us to the end um of the district data presentation and then moving on to building principles do you have any questions about the interventions okay so then this brings us to White House and Dr dza good evening I'm here to talk a little bit about White House school and as you have heard we um typically the district is seed State expectations on evidence statements I think that's expected because we're an amazing district and when we look um at the evidence statements we try even though we're exceeding the state on many levels the best approach um we use at White House is to try to look at the graph where the state is falling and see the points closest to the state would be potential areas for growth and the points for furthest away from the state would be our areas of strength and as you see this year in mathematics we kind of have um last year in mathematics we concentrated on operations and algebraic thinking on mastering the concept specifically with inverse operations we're going to continue on with that exact goal this year because it it is an area of growth we're happy to report that we're still killing fractions our kids do really Wellness fractions as far as um language arts we last year we kind of have a similar goal but not exactly last year we looked across texts or synthesis this year the evidence statements show that we should look um for evidence within a text so they're related Loosely related um but same concept same concepts for children have to kind of um what they're reading and um find the evidence the next slide oh it's me sorry the next slide shows um some of the things that we're continuing to do we do building data days during faculty meetings and those are times when teachers have have the opportunity to analyze data the coaches are usually available and they attend them sometimes supervisors come we continue to use the data conversation guide that has been adopted for three years we think it's a great tool um and in addition we keep the conversation and the dialogue alive throughout the year with I ready data and the benchmarks and this year um student growth objectives they're only for non-tenure um teachers but we still continue to focus on I ready when we build those goals and um I don't know any other questions the rest of the slide kind of repeats when I went over quickly ear thank you and now turn it over to Dr hi I'm Christen hickens the principal of Three Bridges school and let's see I have to move this you can tell which one you have to move it's the one that's warm off okay so last year uh for language arts we were focusing on um the author's message based on an anal is of characters interactions mood and theme in order to enhance students comprehension so they needed to be able to read and kind of discern the clues for what was the mood and what was the author trying to set up tough skill for eight and niney olds um we shined a bright light on that we did a lot of professional development uh we utilized uh it actually was an art program called The Art of comprehension where we brought artistic qualities into reading and writing and also looking at art so it was a collaborative effort between the art teacher and the classroom teachers um and we sared in that area we went 20 points higher than the rest of the state in that area for this year so we're going to continue that Focus because we can't say oh we taught it last year and then take it away and here's the other thing when White House and Three Bridges have a unique situation that we always have a new cohort of students so we're looking at our data from one year that doesn't necessarily play for the data for the next year in terms of the students because everybody has different strengths and weaknesses um last year a math we were focusing on multi-step problems uh including modeling and reasoning we are still going to be looking at multi-step problems for modeling and reasoning but we really hammer down into what we were going to do with this and it's multiplication and division and the um evidence statements that were multiplication and division based were the ones that we struggled with the most um so what we're going to do with that is think about when are we teaching it in the year when do we kind of go onto other areas and are we not picking it back up in time for testing so it's like we teach it really heavy at the beginning of the year then time lapses and we're doing fractions and geometry right and then we're like oh here multiplication and because like oh oh we still have to do that so yes they do um and we're going to make sure that we are bringing that around uh in addition in language arts um we're going to continue doing our last two year focuses but we're going to now move on to comparing and contrasting the most important details on Research based articles so if you're studying volcanoes one article has volcanoes another article has volcanoes they want the children to compare and contrast um what each article is teaching them so that's a difficult skill it's also difficult on the computer because it's hdly between two different sources uh but we're going to have the kids even more prepared for that though they s above the state still something that we want to take a look at uh we definitely are going to continue using our I ready data something that we found very useful is looking at the students who met their stretch growth we're talking about growth like like if you achieve 100% growth you've done your grade level there's another level of growth called stretch growth and if you hit that stretch growth two years in a row when you're below grade level you should be on grade level so the teachers need to be cognizant of who didn't reach the stretch growth that we wanted them to so we get them there and if they did make sure that we keep pushing them forward so that's you know data that we're going to keep using we use faculty meetings cpts and the coaches the coaches mean a lot one-on-one with the teachers to talk about their specific students their classroom and their small group instruction making sure that they're hitting those skills so we're just going to keep plugging away and saying this is this is great this is what we can do better and let's go so that is the end of brid any questions I'd like to introduce Dr Moss good evening Bo members Mr B Dr Hart Jonathan Moss principal of Hook school I'm here tonight to talk to you about our areas focused from 23 24 and then of course our areas of focus for 24 and 25 so as we look back to last year um taking a look at the things that the building did we looked at njsla data obviously with supervisors um and came to an understanding of some areas Focus which for reading of literature uh and measurement of data um the positive thing for Holland Brook is that across all those evidence statements that there was Improvement we were above the state or at the state across all of those things um some of the reasons having conversations with people try to understand why we saw that some of the things that were implemented is that any area of focus that was documented we created a for staff that provided sample items uh skills to Target that were then implemented uh into the classroom as we look into this year uh for 2425 as some of the things like Dr Brown talked about that we have an intervention period for all of our students throughout the day and if students are not taking out for intervention there's enrichment opportunities for their students um we're looking at math and action which will be connecting all of our students math to real life opportunities and we'll lose use those small groups uh from IR ready data so as we looked at Focus areas for this year the good thing is that we saw the challenge area was across both grade levels which I think is good because we can look at the whole school as one the two things that we noticed were multiplication in mathematics so working with the coaches and the supervisors we're looking for ways because multiplication seems to be a topic early on in the school year so we're looking for opportunities to embed it throughout the school year um looking at pacing guides to ensure that multiplication um is talked about throughout the school year and then on the ELA perspective I know as Dr Higgins was talking about comparing contrasting we saw similar things also at Hollen Brook that students did really well in individual texts and but then when comparing it to multiples that's where we saw that room for improvement so be looking which of course is just a difficult skill in general when you ask students to look at more than just one thing uh so we'll be looking at obviously with our intervention teachers um talking with non-fiction fourth and fifth graders comparing within a Tex um and our literacy coach will provide resources for our staff to assist that questions thank you Mr Charon a wonderful honor to have the last two slides in the whole presentation um I don't have any data jokes I do have oh come on I have I do have D jok though delayed humor reactions might always get people I do just want to take a moment um because we've been talking through this presentation it's been a tremendous presentation we've been talking about data um and and the sum of 1,400 students work over the past year and these are snapshots into their learning it it's not the whole picture of their learning it is just a snapshot um we prepare our students extremely well um for for for each grade level and Beyond um some of you have seen that you have students in high school and Beyond and uh we do tremendous work uh but yet this is Evergreen work it is work that continues to drive us uh to make us better and to make our students better so um I just wanted to to make mention of that and the hard work that our teachers power professionals uh and our supervisor administratives have we're doing um so we did a whole school review with our data conversation guide that's a shared focus at RMS even though we are concentrated in terms of language arts and Math teachers um one of our biggest areas of responsibility is to ensure that uh we take a shared responsibility of the data points right so even if you don't happen to teach these subject areas you have a responsibility to the students um and their overall proficiency levels uh we did Focus specifically on strategy groupings in both math and language arts specifically the small group conferencing model um we had a brand new intervention model at the middle school last year which was a combination of a push in and a pull out model where the interventionist would push into the classrooms and then also pull students out and that was based on their tier levels and what the students needed we found great success in that um talking about the sheltered English instruction we did that specifically for math and language arts teachers last year after Middle School um which is why we see uh think some tremendous growth in those areas also most of our uh elll or ml students are also in intervention as well too so that's they got an extra dose of of those S sorts of things uh and then we also really focus highly on instructional rounds peer-to-peer modeling of what works really well for classroom instruction differentiation Innovation as well too um our Focus for language arts we worked uh with our literacy consultant last year and our coaches um working on those conferring and strategy grouping ping small groups of students um and then um focusing on this larger uh concept of informational tasks uh this is an evergreen goal for us um informational uh reading and writing are two areas that we continue to work on uh and for math we had a focus of fraction and Inger operations um we had extra math help uh I ready learning path during academics support uh and we worked individually on on goal setting one of the things that I hear from the high school when I have my meetings with the High School administration up there is that we do prepare our students really well for High School uh even though we took a dip last year in eth grade um our students are fully prepared for high school um this year um we decided to change a lot of things up at the middle school one of the biggest things that we did was we had a brand new schedule for the middle school that emphasizes equal mathematics and language arts uh instructional time um so students um they actually get a double period of language arts and a single period of math one day and the next day they get a double period of of math and a single period of language arts um we rotate our periods um that helps the the needs of young adolescen and actually we've seen tremendous uh growth in that the start of the Year where we have less students tardy uh than ever before um and that's partly because kids are getting to school on time thank you parents and less road closures but also this has been helping them as well too uh We've also instituted daily recess lunch and a flex period um which has helped a lot um we do have dedicated math and language arts coaches at the middle school level and now our SEI training sheltered English instruction is moving on to the other content areas especially the vocab Rich content areas of social studies and Science and of course they're getting the same training that our language arts and Mathematics teachers have as well um so if you pop into any of those classrooms some of the things that you're going to see are fantastic board walls with high level leverage content vocabulary words that are specific that will help a lot of students out um a current challenge area is geometry for us in math uh that's an evergreen bow that's going to be there if you look at our irating data that's the area that we struggle with the most there um and then focus on um improving all three grade levels we talked about those foundational levels in math not just e8th grade but had build on that over the next couple of years um and then again challenge area for for ELA is going to be informational test one of the things that we want to make sure that we build in this is not just language arts for informational tests but we see a lot of that non-fiction reading and writing in science and social studies between that and our SEI training we're we're hoping to see some good growth in there as well on the subject of addressing needs of young adolescen any any move to restrict cell phones in any way like um like permanently just like to get rid of them from the W I don't know if I have the power to do that we as we asked them to keep in their lockers and they generally do yeah I was at the high school my daughters in high school I was at parents a lot of the classes have like an area in the class kid comes in and puts his cell phone on oh in the pockets yeah no we also find out the high school what they don't tell you is a lot of kids that's their fake phone they have an old phone that they put in there and the real phone is still on they do that too so when a kid it is something we we generally don't have an issue with selfing school it's not been an issue appreciate that thank you oh yeah thank you for that that was great I have a question on the flex what constitutes flex and how does that intervention help with what we've sorry I tried to get you before you said up um so the flex time is a time that we've kind of structured the beginning the year um for one um some extra work that the kids are catching up on some academic review work uh we do have some reading time where the kids are just silently reading as well too and um we've implemented some um wh School uh community service pieces in the flex as well too what we also find is that Flex is going to be a time that evolves for us I see us running a lot of enrichment during that time too some student run clubs and things of that nature So currently we have our enrichment classes running model un spelling bees things of that nature running during this time um for all students what's interesting about this time too is that this is the time off every kid has the same time off very similar to the high school high school has their um unit know right we don't have an hourong lunch um but we do have a time where kids from all three grade levels can get together to go collaborate on certain things as well too so um so far it's a little bit more structured a little bit more rigid and that's just because we wanted to implement something with a little bit more structure for kids to uh experience to start the year instead of just going every which way uh I do plan on implementing some more clubs in the near future and some also some uh some opportunities for teachers to have touch point with kids as well too like for instance um our Mandarin teacher we have two students who are brand new to Mandarin in seventh grade so generally kids take Mandarin in sixth grade but they're brand new to the school and we didn't want to dissuade them from drawing Mandarin but they're already a grade level behind from everybody else because they're in the prior District they had actually taken Spanish so she actually meets with them during this time too to try to catch them up a little bit in their world language as well too is there an opportunity for homework help during that time or is this uh not currently right now now we do have homework we do have a homework room before and after school thank you as far as time Mr Charleston for Mrs wol the uh flex period is wrapped around lunch so there's three periods in the middle of the day where it's like 20 minutes of lunch 20 minutes of resets 20 minutes of flex is that correct so that's how students rotate in the middle of the day just for time purposes yeah yeah thank you you can sit down I have a couple of comments know um first of all everyone really did a great job with your presentation so thank you for that you know I have to say um I think as an educator this is like one of my favorite meetings of the year I just I kind of like the data uh but it really shows that the the consistent analysis of the data that you guys have done over time has really been beneficial because you really see over time you know the advantages and it is like um Mr charlson said it's really a testament to how well that you know the teachers the assistant The Specialist everybody is doing so it's um it's really nice um I think in general there's been a relatively fast um academic recovery you know post pandemic you know yes there's some gaps there's always going to be gaps but in general um as Dr D Roa said the district is exceptionally um doing very well uh and I I also really glad to hear of the schedule changes at at at um at RS in particular and I appreciate the work that was put into that I know it was a lot of time to to do that and it's also I we appreciate the work of the RTA to settle that and the in the contract to get that extra time and it shows uh this is this is the result of it is when you have you know people putting a lot of work into something that is so beneficial you're going to get the results over time so I just I just want to say you know we really appreciate that great job that concludes my superintendent report thank you all for coming you are more than welcome to stay um but we we have an agenda to go through you're certainly welcome to go as well thank you all for coming really appreciate it great job [Music] everybody okay moving along on the agenda we are now open to the public limited to action items on the agenda [Music] okay so the mic this is the mic it's different than when I was here okay thank you first I'm Eric dling rington um is it green is it green press Green Oh am I down now it's green you're good not been on this side of the podium uh Eric sring uh from rington I was a member of the board for 12 years uh I'd like to speak today uh in uh support of the uh solar uh uh uh uh referendum that's on the um proposal that's on the uh agenda and first I want to just congratulate the board for uh getting it to the point the the Committees that have gotten it to this point I also want to specifically uh acknowledge um uh Jason Mr B uh his herculian efforts uh in in getting it to the point where it has uh where it's now where it can be voted upon this has been a long torturous Road for for everybody to get it here and I just wanted to specifically uh give Mr B a shout out um I want to note that the um uh that this is the second installation of of solar as you will know the the financial benefits of the first installation were very significant uh it saved the district Untold money tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars I I don't have an exact accounting on and that money either um benefited the taxpayers of Readington or uh freed up for the district to spend on whatever books you name it whatever was that the district was able to spend it on so uh it was tremendously beneficial for the district these contract also have uh known costs for electricity it allows the district to budget with certainty to know what the costs will be as opposed to just buying it Off the Grid whatever the price happens to be at that moment and to get to a point where we're buying most of our electricity at a known price has significant planning benefits uh the original uh I I have certainly have not seen a contract that's uh being uh proposed here uh so I don't know but the original uh group of panels uh after 15 years the power purchase agreement uh the panels are uh the the um the provider has to either um take them off the property or sell them to the district at a minimal cost and they don't want them back they want they they will sell them at a minimal cost which means that the electricity will be free I will say that for those who have questions about the longevity of panels the panels on my property are now 15 years old and they are very happily producing and I am very much enjoying the fact that that electricity because I paid for a long time ago it's nice and cheap because of that but beyond the financial benefits of the district let me also say that the installations will have significant educational benefits for the students here in rington there are living breathing example of what stem can do they're a reminder to people that when there are problems that we can solve them through engineering science technology and math they have real value people can look at them and there are problems that are coming in the future the children who are in these hallways right now are going to be on this Earth to the year 2100 they're going to be here at the turn of the century and right now one of the demands the demand for electricity that we are developing right now is huge between all the cloud computing all the um uh the data centers and AI right now the demand for electricity from those is approximately 4% of America's energy use by the end of this decade it's predicted to be 20 to 25% of America's energy use we need to really think about where that energy is going to come from it's a huge huge issue and we need to start paying attention to that we can play a part in that here and additionally aside from that one of the main reasons why it was advocated by the board at the time is also because the panels are emissions free and in 174 years of the data that is kept on the temperatures of the Earth the 10 highest temperatures are in the last decade all 10 are in the last decade and that's something to think about now we are here I should say I say we the district is here to teach the students to provide for their education it's done beautifully my children have done wonderfully in this world and I thank the district for them but we also have to make sure that the world that we give them is somewh that they can confidently inhabit and for that I I wish for all of us that you vote for this thank you very much thank you Mr zman okay there was a one correspondence was an email from SCC regarding the Boe activities U moving on to the approval of administrative reports can I get a motion to adopt 1.01 to 1.03 so move back second Caroline um there's a motion to adopt the minutes can I get a motion to adopt go back and oh any comments here sorry about that any comments on the administrative reports so um sorry Dr the administrative reports include the board goals for the year so I just want to point that out because we know we had significant discussion at the last public board meeting um to land where we are today and then we shared additional feedback um to get them updated so I just wanted to highlight that safety was added as a board goal um in followup from our conversation at the last meeting and also that there was additional I believe it was Mrs py that had suggested adding further detail to make the goals more measurable and that was done in governance and structure looking at more specifics so I just wanted to make that comment and then just remind the board in case there was any further questions or comments to make sure that they are measurable as we move forward into the year thank you and the they were sent out thank you so did hope everyone had a chance to look at them and okay thank you um I appreciate that sure yeah I know it's a late night highlight and and also just make a comment on academic achievements I really really appreciate you know all the work of our administrators and our teachers to ensure that we're consistently performing above the state but and and then but also in looking at the data we're still not quite back to pre pandemic levels when I look at it year over year so I just want to highlight how important I think that academic achievement goal is and to see how we as a board can you know provide Frameworks or remove barriers to help us get there because I think that would be a goal is getting back to prepandemic levels um in this coming year we're close but not quite there right thank you okay does anyone have any questions about that or comments regarding the the goals that were sent out okay thank you then thank you for clarifying that okay can we get a motion to adopt 2.01 1. oh there's no there's no I don't have it sorry got it thank you okay uh can we get a roll call please for again 1.01 to 1.03 M Dent yes M Fury yes Mr L yes M Menor yes Mr Peach yes M bagorski yes is Ryan Yes is Wolf yes yes keep keep M because I printed it today so just in case there was up thank you all right can we get a motion to adopt 2.01 so move be second Carolyn any questions about that any comments can we get a roll call please is dep pendon yes is Fury yes Mr loses yes M mener yes Mr Peach yes M borski yes M Ryan Yes m p yes yes can we get a motion to adopt 3.01 to 3.11 so move second Caroline and I know we have a committee report we do yes the committee met on September 24th we discussed several topics for capital projects all projects are advancing as planned and the time is on track for completion as expected projects include the RMS main office HVAC nurse Su and Furniture it switch and access point project first respond of radio enhancement and the White House art room referendum and expiring debt the referendum planning is well underway and this topic will be on the November 12th Board of Education meeting to educate both the board and the public the architect will assess ongoing needs and projected costs are expected to be available in November final expense additions can be added Ed in December During the period of November through December the board will evaluate suggested projects to include in the referendum as well as evaluate what has successfully been included in Prior referendums the plan is to create a comprehensive list of projects and priori what will be included in the referendum versus What expenses can be covered by reserves the board is deliberately engaging the public early to create awareness about this opportunity to invest in our school district an open public forum on the referendum is planned for December 3rd solar expansion proposals board discussed comparison of the solar expansion proposals from Easy energy and exact solar uh easy energy offers a lower year one rate has knowledge of the prior System since they built and currently service it and would provide a single point of contact if selected for both the prior and new system a fixed rate is offered by easy energy which will result in projected savings over the next 10 years the committee recommended approval of EAS energy for vendor selection due to the strength of their proposal health insurance transition update challenges have been encountered with the health insurance transition including ID card and backend data issues approximately 10% of enrollers have had a transition challenge that was raised to the administration's attention Protocols are in place to mitigate future issues and the administration is actively addressing in partnership with the Union the backend data issue remains unresolved and the Administration has escalated to Brown and Brown Transportation the district was mostly fully staffed prior to the start of the school year however staff attrition occurred unexpectedly and on day one the district was short six bus drivers due to either attrition and were onboarding and training for new hires the Staffing shortage has resulted in full utilization of backup and mitigation plans and coverage for all routes presents a daily challenge for the district the committee discussed potential mitigation strategies including possible communication to parents to lessen the burden on the district lowincome population and assistance there has been a large increase in the lwi income population which is expected to continue growing as a result of a state change that allows Medicaid eligible students to be automatically qualified for low income status the state threshold to qualify for low income is also increasing which allows more children to qualify the benefits of this change are the district can provide free lunch and breakfast for students as well as receive more financial support for the district Staffing adjust are being made to ensure the expanded student population is properly supported uh the cafeteria audit is was listed on the agenda but not discussed um payment and R of taxes the board discussed the background and implications of the pilot program as well as what opportunities there are to communicate with the public on the impact of these programs and how to best partner with the township no decisions were taken electric School Bus Grant the committee discussed the possibility of additional grant funding for electric School Bus more information is needed and meetings will occur with OEM and fire to be prepared for electrical vehicles and then Finance um the bill list was also reviewed and we set the next meetings for October 18th and November 20th thank you does anyone have any questions or comments regarding those minutes okay maybe get a roll call please m dependo yes M Fury yes Mr loses yes M mener yes Mr Peach yes M borski yes M Ryan Yes m w yes yes moving on to education technology can we get a motion to adopt 4.01 to 4.06 so move second Caroline and I know we have a report we do uh the edtech committee met on October 9th uh Dr Hart was unable to attend this committee meeting um so I welcomed everyone and opened the floor to the curriculum supervisors uh they gave us a presentation with the njsla the presentation that we saw this evening um Dr Brown and Miss pouch presented the assessment results from the spring um areas of focus were identified by the curriculum supervisors and building principles to address learning gaps the full presentation shared um the dynamic learning map I'm like do I go through this whole again if we just just saw the presentation but uh Dynamic learning map was presented by Miss beagle Mr Tumo presented the access for Ells um the building level the principles did not uh prepare the slides with the areas of focus they didn't present that in our edtech meeting so we you know saw that tonight um we discussed professional development Mrs cryle presented the October inservice schedule as well as the fall teacher Academy the teacher in service happened Monday Tuesday I gu yesterday and today um it was it took place on the RMS HBS campus and I heard that there were food trucks and not not not this one there was well cookie Maiden was here and we had hot chocolate station set up teach I knew there were some desserts or surprises or something planned so that's fantastic um the agenda items are the njsla presentation sustainable Jersey that's table for next um field trips student teaching we did not schedule a meeting so I don't know if we I have to look at our calendar okay look calendar and send up dates for that that's what I got thank you Mr anyone have any questions or comments regarding those minutes maybe we got a roll call please is the pendo yes M fi yes Mr Lopes yes Mrs mener yes Mr Peach yes M borski yes M Ryan Yes M wol yes that's yes moving on to Personnel can I get a motion to adopt 5.01 to 5.18 so move jener Caroline and we have a committee report yes the committee met on September 18th at 8:45 a.m. we discuss Staffing updates for the 2024 2025 Academic Year The Substitute job fair The Substitute job fair will take place on Tuesday October 22nd from 10:00 a.m. to noon for appointments and walk-ins and from 400 p.m. to 6: p.m by appointment only at the Readington board of Education building we discussed preschool bus par professionals and the job description was updated free and reduced lunch population enrollment and Personnel matters agenda items include new hires substitutes and the job description and the next meeting is scheduled for October 30th at 8:45 a. thank you Mr does anyone have any questions or comments regarding those minut he got a roll call please Mr Pinto yes M fiori yes Mr loses yes Mrs mener yes Mr Peach yes M poori yes Mrs Ryan Yes m w yes yes moving on to communication can I get a motion to adopt 6.01 so move back second car and we have a committee report a very comprehensive uh committee report once again um okay so the the policy committee met on uh September 18 and we first discussed uh the new Chronicle newspaper covering news in rington Township rington rington Township in Flemington the chronicle will be a monthly publication which comes out the first of every month if our district has any advertisements or news we wish to include and must be provided to the chronicle by the 15th of the prior month Dr har Dr Hart noted that we were able to already Place items in the October Edition including a job job ad and press releases in addition rington Township the RT Township committee is moving ahead with plans for its own newsletter to be published quarterly so now we'll have at least two news outlets for our Communications uh Dr Hart then shared a report on the s'more platform which we now use for district Communications and this report showed um how s'more gives us data on the readership of our newsletter we get news per month as well as how long each person spends viewing content and so we can utilize that to Target our Communications uh next we discussed um part of an ongoing discussion about potentially using njsba for our policies instead of Strauss esate uh Dr Hart reported on additional conversation he had with njsba policy director um he had inquired into why njsba policies Do Not Mirror the language that's St uses one example being the use of so-called inclusive pronouns uh njsba respond that is actually in the process of including inclusive pronouns um Dr R also noted that njsba policies tend not to mirror the code as much as Strauss does njsba njsba allows the code or statute to speak for itself without copying all the language and njsba uh also can uh often combine several policies into one where Strauss tends to write individual policies for each code provision so those are some of the differences uh next we uh discussed um policies on on the most recent policy alert uh first um for policy and regulation on physical examinations um two sets of policies and regulations and part of the reason for the revisions are updates to tuberculosis testing required by the Department of Health Strauss is recommending that a policy simply State the board will follow whatever this is the current Department of Health guidance for TB testing so we don't have to revise our policy each time and then the second part of the Visions had to do with the extent of pre-employment examinations and testing that we require during the hiring process um now the proposed revisions would have given us the option of making offers of employment conditioned on comprehensive Fitness for duties exams and which would include psychological assessments as well as drug testing including testing for cannabis use um however the board attorney advised gave us advice on the potential downsides of doing such testing and Dr Hart um added that require comprehensive drug testing or psychological assessments as conditions of employment that would places had a competitive disadvantage in hiring because many districts in our region do not require such testing um and we also uh emphasize that we would still retain the ability to perform more comprehensive exams and testing at a later time if a specific concern about employee arose you know after their hiring dur during their employ the committee had a discussion about the issue um some members agree that the comprehensive pre-employment testing would place a district at a disadvantage in hiring one member felt that there should be some psychological assessment of candidates before they are perit permitted to be around young children when there's potential for harm but the policy on the agenda tonight would provide that besides a physical exam no additional pre-employment evaluation will be conducted um the next policy uh pertain to service animals and Strauss has Revis this to make it consistent with New Jersey statute as well as federal law requirements next we discuss the our policy on Stu uh student suicide prevention uh based on revisions to state law and this includes requirements to train staff members about pretending suicide looking for warning signs as well reporting requirements and our response protocols the committee had a lively discussion over the revised policy with the result being that the policy will be tabled until our next meeting one member objected to the apparent lack of of a requirement that parents the lack of requirement that parents be consulted and allowed to participate in the district's initial assessment of a student who has attempted suicide or exhibited warning signs another not noted noted that the policy sooner required that the district refer a parent to the division of child protection if the per if the parent disagreed with the school's assessment and recommendation Dr Hart pointed out that the language of the policy may be required by coder statute and he's going to clarify which language is mandatory to our next meeting um so that that one is not up for tonight the next policy um we discussed retains to Emer in crisis situations and this has been updated to include the requirement that School Safety and Security plans address the unique needs of students with disabilities during fire drills school security drills and emergency situations one member raised the issue of whether this policy included bus emergencies and evacuations and whether bus drivers were aware they had to address the need the needs of students with disabilities Mr bomb advised that the bus drivers and AIDS do in fact receive training they have students with special needs on their buses and how to handle emergency situations uh next we discussed our communications consultant um and and her agreement um so this is an ongoing arrangement with our communications consultant and Dr Hart noted that um she's now working with us on two items the first is the general Implement implementation of our Communications plan and the second is planning for the upcoming referendum and uh the consultant will be working on getting out information about the referendum including through public for sessions lawn signs and newspaper articles so the agenda items uh tonight are policy 3160 4160 5337 and 8420 and we schedule our next meeting for October 29th at 4M thank you be always comprehens wasn't too bad at all thank you does anyone have any questions or comments those minutes okay we get a roll call please M defto yes M fi yes Mr Lo yes M mener yes Mr Peach yes mski yes M yes M yes Dr scale yes moving on to unfinished business do we have any I think we're good goals went through yes good job can I just follow it's a question I'd asked Mr Charleston I don't know if it's old business I I brought up the at least my desire to have some kind of cell phone policy or some kind of restrictions or at least discuss it and um you know if anyone agrees with me on that you know maybe we could discuss it at a later time or have a discussion in the policy committee um you know I found the comments you know rather flippant from from Mr Charleston about it and I think it should be taken seriously and you know there are there are ways you can restrict it I mean I was at the high school and they take it very seriously they have all these things in place you know the kid puts the the phone in in a certain part of the class my door's already doing it and and they have um a lot of the teachers are very on board with it so I think it's a problem and from what I read a lot of districts are struggling with what to do with it and you know I'm troubled by the comment that we've we've either we fixed it or it's not an issue at all and that's all i' like you know anyone else supports that i' like this to do something about it well I I mean I personally couldn't agree with you more regarding U well not necessarily that I I thought you know I I don't agree that his comments were flippant but I think he was just you know focused on the data and then this was something kind of related which is okay it was in the context of he was talking about stuff they're doing for teenagers get like recess and do this no I agree so it's like he brought it up that's no I I I agree with that but honestly I couldn't agree more with respect to the cell phone policy I mean it's now it's actually becoming very popular it's in the news it's in newspaper high school public high schools are are limiting use of of so this is a this is not new we have been talking about it um I totally agree that you know something should be done because there's just absolutely no question that if a student is doesn't have their cell phone with them they're going to pay more attention to what's going on in the class so I couldn't agree more I don't know anyone else feels as far as what to do about it it's certainly a much bigger conversation but I I think it's something that's certainly valid and it it should be um it should be something that we should talk about any other thoughts at the um back to school night a lot to add to Randy's points um the teacher said they've already noticed huge Improvement in student attention um you know less distractions in class and you know it's just going very well at the high school was the feedback that we got and it my son's reported the same so yeah yeah thank you yeah I'm not surprised at all if if a schoolwide effort is made there will definitely be change there's just no doubt about it um that is documented thank yeah so I don't if anyone else has any of comments just have a question about it yeah I thought I thought um I could be wrong but that at the middle school was it sixth and seventh graders this is probably going back a few years had to have them in their lockers but eighth graders were allowed to have them on them I'm not sure if that's still accurate um we piloted the pocket chart that I think Randy and Ellen are referencing several years ago I think it might have be a year prior to Mr Charleston's arrival and I think we did it for 8th grade only so that might be what you're referencing that was several Maybe maybe you have a child that was maybe in sixth or seventh grade but eighth graders were allowed to carry it with them and they did the pocket chart and they used it as a they wanted to see how it worked um and we discont I Mrs mof's not here anymore you know we discontinued the use of the pocket chart which leads me to believe that there was some evidence that was collected that it really wasn't working um but we did try it a couple of years ago um so that might be what you're thinking that e8th grade was allowed to do it a couple years ago and they had the pocket chart assigned to them can I can I offer some anecdotal having um it is very remarkably different this year there's zero tolerance for cell phones so they're they have to be stored in the locker they're um given a warning they're confiscated it's it's a very different situation I feel this year than in years past for the middle school so yeah I didn't know that I was trying to find that out and it was just like yeah it's not a problem and but I'm I'm hearing I I I'm hearing that also that it's there no cell phones are in the classrooms right now so well that's good I mean it proves that any rule if you put a rule in place and you actually follow it and enforce it it will work so yeah so um I think the pockets could work I know they have worked and whether you might want to revisit that that's up to you but it's certainly something to consider but I'm happy to hear that what's going on now in the middle school is working that's great thank you any other thoughts about that so I guess we can talk more about Poss their options I'd like to hear more detail from Mr charlson because I think that it's I I agree with you I don't think it's an issue I think it's a perceived issue and I think Mr Charleston maybe in his attempt to be funny I don't know he's a pretty funny guy maybe it sounds a little flippant but I think that it's it's been a much more enforced rule over the course of the Year this year and I think that that combined with the middle of the day flex and opportunity periods where kids engage with one another during lunch and then move to outside during recess and then have their Flex time I think even that downtime is so much more structured that there's not an opportunity really to use the phone but I'd have to get the data in more detail about whether or not it's an actual issue and require some sort of enforcement or protocol change or policy change or you know something along the lines of um you know doing something more with enforcement I I I don't have the answer to the question I mean if he solved it I think that's great because he solved a huge problem but it didn't sound like it just sound like he was saying it's not isn't considered a problem at all which is surprising because everyone else every other District seems to struggle with it well I think this is this is the hard part because this is like the trans transitional time you know kids are so used to having them then we're going there's a r what we have to do with this like anything else is you really have to start with those kids are they getting mim's third grade I hope not where whenever they're starting fourth grade fifth grade whenever they're starting is really when the rules have to be enforced because then by the time they get to 8th grade they're just going to be used to the system so it will we'll get to that point hopefully that if a consistent approach to you know just having no cell phone use during school day would um would be easier over time so this is a hard time so thank you anyone else about that just um when the board last discussed it there was broad Support also in the community to look at it and where we had ultimately landed at that time I think was education that we had sent something out more um to parents and teachers like with suggestions versus a policy but it does sound like there's been a change since then so maybe it would be great if the board could get an update in any way that's appropriate um to see if that is something we'd want a motion to revisit in policy or if it's being handled in a different way administratively yeah thank you thank you great thanks anyone else or anything else regarding um any unfinished business all right uh moving on to new business from the board I know we had a green committee meeting so there are some minutes as well yes thank you a lot of minutes tonight um so the green Comm committee meets quarterly uh this meeting was the first of this school year September 26 we talked about the Strategic Focus areas for the 2425 school year Mr B shared the minutes from the strategic planning meeting that took place over the summer with um Hall and I as board members in the administration the Strategic Focus areas for 2425 were discussed the committee was invited to review these and make suggestions on the action plan tracking document which has finer details broken out uh of the Strategic Focus areas uh for pillar one so uh the green committee has three um three pillars that we follow for sustainable um initiatives pillar one reduceing environmental impact and costs Mr bow and Mr race gave updates on the solar array project which we obviously um voted on tonight um just see if there's anything in there that I should report out um yeah so uh it was about the different negotiating bids um Mr B also notified the committee that our district received a grant for one electric School Bus complete with a charging station this happened back in the spring but the committee hadn't met I guess end of the spring um the uh Mrs betterman added that the Readington will be the first school district in Hunter County to own an electric bus uh Mr Lopes noted that adding an EV to our Fleet will help with our sustainable Jersey recertification application which will um happen over in this coming spring for pillar two improve the health and wellness of schools students and staff Mr bone was contacted over the summer by Mr Becker a Readington Township environmental commission member uh inquiring about partnering on hike or cleanup some sort of project in the learning Woods which is a property very near through Bridges schooli suggested that the committee could see how the pilot fourth grade field trip goes and revisit that idea at a later date for the fourth grade field trip U Mrs adari Miss pouch and Mrs orandi of Readington water watch gave an update on the field trip details students will be busted to lacam Trail uh they will hike to different learning stations that are aligned to the science curriculum um these stations were designed by rvcc students and faculty and it was suggested that perhaps 8th grade Capstone students could help maintain these stations or potentially signage so that this field trip could happen on an annual basis uh for pillar three provide Environmental Education a discussion regarding the TBS bios Swale and desire to utilize remaining grant funds on upkeep and maintenance um through long-term efforts with Ruckers local vendors high school students among others Mr Charleston suggested submitting a request for the project to be considered as part of the e8th grade civics day to help with clean up and pulling invasives in that bios swell um Basin uh students would just need on site somebody on site to help identify uh which were invasive plants or which were native plants Miss Freeman and Mr Charleston shared the news that RMS received a sustainable Jersey grant for $10,000 for go Action News uh this is to purchase cameras recording devices and other audio visual equipment this is a new Encore class at RMS um it's there's a partnership with wh y PBS in Philadelphia student reporting Labs uh it's described as a student driven news and info project for healthy happy communities this ties into the district's communication goal um very much looking forward to that for unfinished business um Miss Freeman with was recognized by sustainable Jersey as a sustainability hero it was a huge honor and it it was a a very um wonderful write up for all the efforts that Miss Freeman has uh done for the district congratulations to her U Mrs betterman highlighted local new school Construction in South hunterton School District uh specifically the Lambert regional Lambertville sorry lville Regional Elementary School with green aspects to potentially consider in our own referendum um Miss Freeman shared that New Jersey Autobon and others have a climate change hub for research and professional development consideration moving forward there are upcoming PD opportunities for staff to be shared with Mrs cryle for future Partnerships and then we scheduled our next Green committee meeting uh on November for November 21st thank you m FY does anyone have any questions or comments regarding those minutes I do have one thing to add I know this will show up for our November green committee but we were just notified last week through or that we can publicize for the state of New Jersey um the D grant for two additional electric buses so I know the green committee will be very excited to hear that when they uh when we meet again in November 21 so I just wanted to mention that so we have the One Federal Grant from EPA in the spring and then two more uh for the state of New Jersey was only I think 16 districts or something that that actually received the grant so w pretty amazing that's great thank you okay uh anything else any other questions or comments about okay I just want to mention that I attended the HSA business meeting on October 9th as the board liaison so just wanted to provide a super quick update um this was the first meeting led by the newly elected executive committee who serves two-year terms um the president's report included um sharing district-wide activities that they hosted so far this year including the new staff luncheon the new family welcome um and the welcome back breakfast for the staff in September they've had card my yard signs at all of the schools and there was a Home Room rep meeting on the second day of school um for volunteers in the classroom um upcoming districtwide events included clothing dri Cooks night out tomorrow and a Next Level kids night out um and they also shared some updates on technology being used including cheddar up for payments um and each School VP shared updates for their individual schools and they are seeking volunteers for various um events throughout the year um if anyone wants to volunteer to chair in the community um and I just shared an update for the board on the board goals that we had drafted that we voted upon tonight um and just a reminder that Board elections are in November um and Dr Hart also shared the district updates and their next business meeting will be in January great thank you very much sure any questions about anything regarding those that report all right um we now open to the public for anything on or off the agenda hi everyone um I just wanted to talk about the electric School Bus grants I was so excited to see that redt is at the Forefront of adopting these electric school buses the green committee's worked for years with Mr B to try and move this initiative forward so I wanted to share some more information that I was able to find um the grants total $840,000 to purchase the electric school buses and the charging infrastructure and I think that that's really a nod to the efforts of this board to not um per extra cost to the taxpayers but to take advantage of these grants that are available so um the one from the governor's office was the electric School Bus Grant from the New Jersey DP and um this move towards electric school buses is not just good for the environment it's good for our children and for our students fine particulates found in diesel exhaust from school buses are especially harmful to Children these particulates can penetrate deep into their lungs leading to decreas increased lung function increased asthma severity and increased risk of lung cancer children whose lungs are still developing breathe at a faster rate than we adults do so that makes them more susceptible to these health risks thank you to the board for taking this important step to ensure the health of future generations of students at rington schools I appreciate thank you Mr [Music] betterman anyone else like to any other comments from the public okay uh can I get a motion to adjourn so we pass second Caroline M yes M Fury yes Mr loes yes M men yes Mr Peach yes mski yes M Ryan Yes m w yes yes [Music] I