##VIDEO ID:j050klB1l-w## okay any correspondence Miss Hill no all righty now we need a motion to approve the minutes from the September 24th meeting so move second I have Mr Smith and Mrs babone um Mr Callahan yes Mr Fernandez yes yes Mrs napalitano yes Mrs Pabon yes Miss pyck yes Mr Smith yes Mr Walsh and Mrs Bloom yes okay and now we move to our little bright spot in the evening our student council Representatives Morgan good evening Board of Education members and administrators my name is Morgan K swmhs student council Board of Education representative I would like to begin with activities and events the students and staff triumphantly celebrated the return of saho Hometown hero and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member John bonjovi during an overh hourong visit to the school on behalf of the districts on behalf of the school district Mr gluh husy the high school principal dedicated the Performing Arts Center which consists of the auditorium and music Suite to Mr Bon Joi who surprised Everyone by generous ly donating funds to construct a state-of-the-art music studio in the music Suite in memory of Al panello his deceased music teacher mentor and inspiration later in his visit Mrs Bloom president of the sville Board of Education and chairperson of the swmhs Hall of Fame inducted Mr Bon Joi into the S swmhs Hall of Fame the visit concluded with Mr bonjovi speaking with Mr gluh husy about a variety of pictures that portrayed his rise to name from his SVO Roots Mr Bon Joi answering questions from students and finally providing a few autographs on October 4th staff and students recognized and celebrated all fall sports teams during the fall pep rally in bomber Stadium the prep rally featured a musical performance by the marching band a choreographed cheer by the bombers cheer squad and many events including a 4x1 field goal kick tug-of war and musical chairs the seniors win the events but don't worry they will have some tough competition at the next one at the high school our students had a wonderful time dancing the night away during the first ever homecoming dance congratulations to chase Rogers and kayin coun on being crowned homecoming king and queen at the bomber blout and homecoming football game in Performing Arts last Saturday evening the swmhs marching band hosted the annual night of a thousand stars band competition in the bomber Stadium if you have never attended did the home band show it is a spectacular evening of wonderfully choreographed marching band music 60 seniors will be attending the career Council college fair tomorrow the students will be able to network with over 75 colleges by meeting admissions representatives and obtaining information about programs majors and Campus Life the National Honor Society is accepting donations for hurricanes Helen and Milton relief our contributions can provide need support to those in need at these times congratulations to the September students of the month Cooper heidleberg Vincent warano witz Daniel Johnson and Fernanda V henriquez Beetlejuice Beetlejuice beetlejuice a Halloween movie night will be held on October 17th on the SW MHS football field tickets can be bought for $5 from the student council member don't forget to bring blankets and a lawn chair for a cozy and Eerie evening of Cinema Delight moving on to sports girls volleyball the girls volleyball team won consecutive matches last week over W wlaw harridge and Perth Amboy High Schools to improve their season record to an impressive 105 tennis team the girls tennis team defeated North Brunswick High School last week to earn its fifth match win of the season their record is now 5-9 girls field hockey congratulations to the girls field hockey team for winning the white division the S SW MHS field hockey team defeated Keyport high school with a score of 5-0 during senior day last Saturday to improve their season season record to 761 cross country team the boys and girls cross country teams performed well this past weekend during the cross country fall classic congratulations to Bryce white Damen Oliver Angelia Lei Molly Logan Morgan Coons and Julia kle for medling soccer team the girls soccer team defeated South Playfield high school last week to earn its fifth win of the Season moreover it was coach mcgary's 100th career Victory their record is currently 561 the boys record is 481 football team the freshman football team is currently undefeated all season with a record of 7-0 the varsity team lost a tough game against Piscataway High School win or lose all the amazing student athletes continued to compete fiercely and demonstrate the teamwork and sportsmanship that makes us all proud to be bombers we hope all athletes have a fun and successful rest of their season thank you for your time and support good job okay can we ask questions sure first of all ladies I'm sorry I'm wearing the glasses but I got a boooo oh how did that happen don't don't tell them Mrs Bloom no I had to have something a procedure done so I I'm GNA wear them so I don't icky everybody out um so first and foremost did you go to the homecoming dance no I couldn't make it darn it I had a cross country meet that day and I got home too late and congratulations I didn't I didn't get the piece about the girls team but congratulations on yet another medal how many medals is that now is that is that your fourth medal this year I had four invitationals and I medal at three that's amazing you rock thank you and what's it being like living in the same house as the homecoming queen um it's pretty normal outstanding job as always buddy thank you okay thank you Morgan Alana good evening Board of Education members and administrators my name is Alana sery seril Middle School student council Board of Education representative here's what's going on at seril Middle School the PTO is hosting the Board of Education candidate town hall on October 23rd at 6:30 at seral w Memorial High School the BMX bike assembly is on October 25th the November PTO meeting is on November 12th the SMS got town is scheduled for December 6th and is currently looking for town to sign up the student council and the PTO took part in the fall beautification day earlier this month we would like to thank the PTO for organizing the mums pumpkins and other fall Decor the student council will hold their monthly meeting next week community service will be meeting on October 17th community service school spirit week for week of respect violence awareness week and Red Ribbon Week will take place on the week of October 21st through 20 October 25th the food drive will begin in October and collaboration with the student council community service is planning a hurricane victim Drive coordinating with other clubs two students who are part of the seral middle school fbl will be attending the fall State leadership conference at Keen University on October 23rd with members from the high school the students will attend workshops and network with students from other schools across the state the career Club will have their first meeting tomorrow for 7th and eighth grade students their first trip will take on November 22nd to the East Brunswick magnet school now on to the seral Middle School fall Athletics the boys and girls cross country teams are keeping above 500 records with three regular season meets remaining on Saturday October 26th the boys and girls teams will compete at the county championship at Thompson Park in Monroe New Jersey the sms's gr field hockey team consisting of 32 athletes is having a wonderful season that is quickly coming to a close in two short weeks as of today the blue team has one win three losses and four ties and the great team has zero wins but scored their first goal of the season in yesterday's game it was very exciting the two teams have about four games left that they look forward to playing with an eighth grade celebration game coming up next Wednesday October 23rd at 400 p.m. against East Brunswick the girls and coaches are also thankful for the community support in several successful fundraisers like bag old day and apparel sale best of luck to the several Middle School field hockey players in the rest of their season the SMS girls blue soccer team had a great game last week against matachin we held matachin to zero goals with some incredible Saves by goalie Alicia Mendoza this upcoming week the bombers have three away games against some tough opponents we are hoping for a bombers Victory this week the boys blue soccer team is currently two to four two and four while the gr team is 1- six both teams have lost some close games as well and look better as this season continues they are very excited to close out the last few weeks of the season on a winning note thank you very much for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the students at cille Middle School outstanding Alana I love how comprehensive your reports are and how detailed great job thank you thank you thank you go do your homework thank you ladies very very much thanks morg by okay uh board president's comments well of course I would be remiss if I didn't say a few words about John bonjovi uh it was my pleasure as chair of the Hall of Fame committee to induct him as well as Dave Zabo akn from skidrow into the SE of a war memorial high school hall of fame um I had no idea that Dave did not know that he was being inducted but that was John's little surprise for him and glue kept me out of the loop so when I'm saying to him come and he's not coming and he's looking at me like I have three heads that was why he was genuinely surprised and it was a lovely moment for Dave uh I found John banoa to be very gracious and very um into interacting with the students which was really great for the kids who were there from the Performing Arts uh and fine arts classes at the high school so we look forward to him coming back again hopefully he will uh stay involved with his Alma Mo okay Miss napalan I guess I'm going to be the third person who's going to say something about it uh thank you to Ser a w Royal High School class of 1980 graduate and world famous Hall of Fame musician on entrepreneur and humanitarian John bonjovi for taking some time to visit with our students at the high school and for donating thousands of dollars to construct a state-of-the-art music studio in the music Suite of the high school in addition he donated hundreds of shirts for the school to sell in which the proceeds would go to the students in our performing arts program congratulations to the seral war Ro high school girls field hockey team for winning the greater middle conference white division championship and then congratulations to the seral W roal High School girls soccer team head coach Jillian McGary on her 100th career Victory which was just said with by Morgan but we just to it's great all righty Dr time always thank you Mrs Bloom it's a very special evening I'd first like to acknowledge all our incredible leaders here our district leaders and our building leaders from our administrative team which we like to call The A Team because they are simply amazing for being here tonight and for all their incredible support of our faculty and of course of our Central Administration so you all rock and thank you for taking the time to be here tonight is a night where we go ahead and present you the state of our school district however we have a very special surprise for you this evening because ironically Brody Canan one of our Air Force Junior Roc Cadets emailed me a couple of weeks ago and he said Dr Labby can I give a presentation to the board and public on the current state of our our our Junior RC program and the presentation that I got was nothing less than extraordinary and it speaks volumes about Brody as well as Colonel tamasi our new leader of our RC program of course Master Sergeant Nolton and all of our Cadets so it is with great pleasure that I introduced to you this evening seral War Memorial High School junior Air Force Junior RC Cadet Brody Canan so that he can present you the state of our RC program at the high school Brody thank you very much Mr doc lby hello good evening uh Board of Education family and faculty my name is Brody Canan and I'm here to present Cal's unit nj2 173 very own Air Force jior ROTC so little little broken no sorry one moment okay before we start I'd like to say a little bit about me so I'm actually a fourth year in jrc to freshman that's very old um I'm the unit's core Commander so in essence that is Mrs Bloom the president of the Boe uh I achiev the rank of Colonel and I also participate in three Sports since freshman year achieving Varsity all three so to distinguish jrtc and RTC two very common misconceptions is jrtc is actually a high school elective it's five credits at our high school and during that it's a it's allowed to be chosen by any high schooler and incoming eighth graders to become freshman and in r Junior rgc there is no military contract binding you to the military it is 100% free and it's really just to improve your character and the leader you become and if a Cadet spends three or more years in jrtc they achieve an E3 rank which is a pay grade to the military in Roc it's actually a class class in college and when you first first join it's really a test run they want to see if you're committed and if you are if you spend two or more years in that same R ROTC or if you transfer out to a different one the military is you show the military you are committed to the cause and our country so they uh actually pay for your college and once you get out and serve your country you are enlisted as a second lieutenant and that is once again a pay rank for you next one yeah so what actually is jrgc it's a conect run program or CRP we work on your character so who you become in the future whether that's helping an old lady across the street oh sorry whether that's helping a very young lady across the street great recovery relations so how you interact with people um first impressions are everything and if you don't make the first impression then it can set you up for failure however RC Junior ROTC sets you up for success and your professionalism how you interact with others uh how you present yourself to the school and not only when you wear this uniform you are representing Cal's jrtc you're also representing the United States Air Force so anything you do uh reflects upon our military standing and the person you are inside and outside the school and in jrdc it's a chance to become a leader or a young leader I've had the privilege of being our jrgc and it's helped me achieved many things I was a delegate for the American Legion boy State um that was a great time and RC jrtc sorry uh very much helped that process uh it's an opportunity to connect with others uh Making Connections is everything networking is what you do later in life it's the root of all actions you choose in life and being as a whole body or family for those who maybe not have a family at home or struggle to make friends RTC everyone's the same at least Wednesdays on Wednesdays we all wear the same thing it's like a um a private school in the sense we are a family we're the unit nj2 173 so inside the classroom like a traditional teacher and students instead of the teachers teach and the students follow it's actually the teachers do teach however instead the students lead and we have a flight Commander a flight Sergeant PT and logistical rep so what the flight Commander does is they take the attendance they uh organize the class in the objective for that day whether that be conducting drill um the lesson plan or any activity we might do and then the sergeant is the vice president to that Commander he's that he he or she is there for an absence in the commander uh the PT is physical training so every Friday we actually go to the gym or we go outside on the track and we conduct our physical training as is required so we have a lot of fun we play like dodgeball um maybe not dodgeball pinball pinball um we play Pinball we run our mile so it's a candidate fitness assessment our CFA and we really evaluate ourselves on our physical health and a logistical rep is the person who hands out the very shiny uniform you see today they organize that flights standings in uh logistical problems and handing out those uh logistical needs so lessons we learn are proper etiquette how you uh organize yourself at a dinner table what side that SPO spoon or Fork goes on I know there's many it's very confusing um and aviation hisory history so where who invented the the airplane not many people know it's the right Brothers but could could any of you answer who are the two brothers oh there you go Mrs Mrs Bloom Mrs Bloom on the case he went to high school with him oh no no I I remember you graduated last year you you graduated last year um so yes see the abuse that I have to take you but as you can see not many people knew that only two I saw Mr Smith was you who raised your hand yes so two people out of the whole board they but that's all right that's what we learn that's what we are that's what ROTC teaches that's what we want to preach we also learn unarmed drill so that's how we March our Color Guard presented and they were armed with a rifle yes however instead they were only marching with it instead flipping it how you see color guard and band that's something we also do in our TC but they March and that's what we do we organize oursel in a unit and In Cadence as one we March together and we conduct a little family get together every every day so our Cadet core so we have 33 returning Cadets and um surprising to me we have actually 52 new Cadets so that's actually uh I believe a 60% increase from last year we've actually had we've I don't think I've ever had this many Cadets re new Cadets coming from either a different School uh a different grade or from the Middle School it's very cool and it's very it's very humbling to see I've had the chance to work with many of these new Cadets in my own classroom Charlie flight and they're astonishing they're great leaders they uh they're very good listeners we have some in the audience today Charlie flight if you'd like to raise your hand we got one where's Tomkins he's here he'll be he's here but they're very good people they're great uh and I'm excited to make them better leaders and we offer 40 plus jobs for Cadets and like the be Board of Education each person has a specific job in RC we have many specific jobs and runs down a leadership core I'm the top of it and it just runs down um Mrs Cadet Alyssa Sher in the back if you'd like to raise your hand she's my vice uh core Commander so she's my vice president Mr Bobby Shaw if you like to raise your hand he will be taking my position in the second semester we switch every year first semester is the first senior and then the second one's the second um I believe Daniel madano is actually our protocol officer which is our politician in RTC so there's many more our ncos are non-commissioned officers or the vice president to an officer so if a commander is so a commander of a drill team they would have an NCO the drill com the drill NCO uh same thing with public affairs our social media team they have a commanding officer and then below them is their NCL so events we have many events such as our own little prom it's called the military ball we have a lot of fun I've had many many great times there I've actually hosted it and presented all the events that happened during it Mr Bobby Shaw has been our um has been my secondhand man in each military ball and it's been very amazing uh field trips so we've been to Maguire Air Force Base uh we've been on a classified airplane so no pictures were allowed unfortunately um we've been we saw the fire station at that uh base as well and last year we actually went to Fleet week and that what Fleet Week is is a week where Navy ships come to port and citizens are able to board and learn more about it uh we went on the USS USS baton then that was a light carrier so it held aircraft um mobile vehicles in the hangar Bay and if the bottom right the bottom very bottom picture is actually graduated seniors with Marines uh near motor the one above that is when we went on the McGuire Air Force Base I believe that's a C130 and then above that is actually the volley uh volleyball tournament we've hosted in the school events and the Miss The Incredibles won it was a very very great game um and we hold competition such as drill and PT Raiders so PT is the physical training it's like an American Ninja Warrior for anyone in the audience and Boe uh and drill is what the color guard just did but in a mass formation uh AP and RNR that ASO AP stands for is awareness presentation team we come to the middle school and we teach about drugs how harmful they are uh statistics about them and then RNR is Recruitment and Retention we try to recruit new Cadets from the Middle School to come to the high school and join jrgc obviously last year it was a great success given the 52 new Cadets Mr Chris sorry and then our future plans in our program is a flight training so so Mr uh Colonel tamasi he's had the opportunity to give us a trip to a airport where three cadetes are able to go up in an airplane and have the chance to fly it with a instructor certified instructor and give or take 40 minutes in that plane and they come back down but it's that opportunity to have that chance to fly a plane which not many people do I've I've had the privilege of doing that it's amazing I recommend everyone here to do it it's not the same thing as sitting that passenger plane um an RNR trip to the Middle School very soon that will be hosted by Mrs Alysa Sher in the back she so she will organize that and um connect to the middle school we'll be going there soon uh the Comm changing of command so that happens at the end of the semester that'll be around the 27th of January and that is when I give my position to Mr Bobby Shaw and I take over his which is the Inspector General uh the unit inspection is the 20th so my birthday that'll be fun um it's basically a uh officer from the headquarters of jrtc comes out to our unit and inspects on how well we are doing whether that be drill uh class performance new Cadets returning Cadets our grades and really oversees the overall aspect of our leadership unit and our Mass formations that's when each class each flight uh or class gets together and we all are in the one same room and we all organize ourselves accordingly and that's when we practice for the unit inspection and our military ball is to be determined but that's mostly after prom I believe Bobby was it after prom our first year yes our our first year was actually right after prom very soon it was a great time so our seniors myself will have a second chance to have a lot of fun but that is all for our Junior rgc program are there any questions from the Boe or family and faculty no um how many um students actually go on to serve in the military yes that is a great question so from what my understanding about I believe 40% so a lot of the people I knew um and I hung out with in RC went on to become an officer in the military one of them was the Katy callow if you ever heard of them Adrien and Nar um they went on to attend Cen Hall and go to upen their air for their Air Force RC program and they are now believe their senior year or no junior year becoming officers and their scholarship is paid for because they are a third year and they are going to become second lieutenants soon another person is Kayla Soo no I'm sorry um who it sandal that's who I called him we called him Pablo he went on to the Marines and National Guard Marines Navy and Air Force are all for that many people go on uh Gavin candelario uh he went to the Coast Guard so many people who I had the privilege of speaking with and connecting myself with many of them went to pursue a future uh military career and myself as well uh hope to plan the Air Force Academy as well very good good luck thank you any more questions this is Bloom if you see Orville and Wilbur tell them I said hello will excellent presentation thank you so much thank you very much ma'am great job R excellent excellent he want okay again another round of applause for our Junior rooc Cadets led by Brody great work great work Cadets and thank you konel uh we're going to do mine first Chris it's the um state of the schools address all right let's see if it works okay so as we have done for the this will be the 11th year in sville Board of Education meeting in October we dedicate toward presenting to the public and of course to the Board of Education the state of our school district so I welcome all of you to the 2024 state of the schools address oh and Chris I am gonna need you thank you sir all right so just a an overview we're going to go over the overview our accomplishments uh and our goals and so forth so the overview the purpose of our state of the schools address is to provide the school Community with the current level of thoroughness and efficiency can go to the next slide of our educational program services and the business operation next slide here are some of our major accomplishments from 2023 2024 we installed hva systems for the entire Truman School in the second floor of the high school we installed new windows at arus Slover in the Middle School refurbished student bathrooms replaced quarter floors and constructed a secure retention vesb at Slover we replaced the roofs at arith the upper elementary school uh and that the high school they were either uh replaced or raled and the roofs at the middle school and Wilson school should be replaced or resal by the end of this month we installed electrical grids and switch gears at samel as well as the high school and in the Pro are in the process of doing the same at truman we're preparing to replace the windows at Wilson the upper elementary school and the high school we also began preparing the upper elementary school middle school for the installation of hva systems in fact we're ahead of schedule with regard to that and the controls and dampers in the e-wing at the middle school have been replaced so that there's air conditioning there too at the Upper Elementary School the parking lot was repaved this summer The handrails for the exterior staircase that leads up to this boardroom um were replaced and the drainage system also at the S you know here where the stock room is was repaired student bathrooms at arith are being refurbished as we speak and hopefully will be done within the next month or you know several weeks and then we'll go out to do the student bathrooms and some staff bathrooms at the middle school and finally the parking lot at truman is scheduled to be repaved as well this spring so we've done a lot in terms of buildings and grounds and that of course much of it is due to the taxpayers and the voters in sville who approved our 2022 $97 million Bond referendum we still have much work to do and we're hopeful that all of our bond referendum projects will be completed by December of 2025 some other major accomplishments if you had the chance to listen to miss Grossman's presentation during the summer our High School AP courses continued to demonstrate extraordinary results 11 courses saw an increase in average score in which five classes had an average score of four points and that's taken into account that five is the highest point total you can get in fact the average score for AP pre-calculus in which it was the first year it was offered was a 4.9 too that means nearly every single child that took that test and by the way in seral all of our AP students take the test we got a 4.92 so um that's an incredible accomplishment to the teacher of that classroom but all of our advanced placement teachers at the high school more 11th grade students than ever demonstrated graduation proficiency assessment on the New Jersey graduation performance assessment in fact 90% of our 11th graders passed the English language arts portion which is a 3% increase from last year in 8% better than the state average 62% passed the mathematics part which is 5% better than last year and 7% higher than the state average students across the district also demonstrated progress as eviden by their performance on the New Jersey state learning assessment students in grades four 5 8 and N demonstrated considerable progress in in English language arts in mathematics sixth and seventh grade cohorts performed better as did eth and ninth grade students who took the algebra one test in fact if you just consider the students in the Middle School who took the algebra 1 test 73% of them were proficient on the algebra one test which I think is an extraordinary accomplishment as well so we had many accomplishments um so next what we do is we go through our goals and we'll begin with Finance so one of our goals was to secure funding to finish the carports and rooftop solar panel projects at the high school if you're not aware we ran into legal problems with green Skies who is the company um that we contracted with to do this project we're right now at a stalemate with them so that goal is in progress we just recently had mediation with them and we have decided to move on from that project and you'll see something soon in terms of us moving forward with completing that on our own we also had a goal of securing funding to purchased the remaining 54 passenger seat buses and mini buses needed for the district to perform 100% of our bus routes and I'm happy to tell you we achieved that so currently I think we have 70 buses around around 70 buses and we perform 100% of our IND District bus routes something that um we're real proud of our next goal which is also in progress is to renovate the current bus garage for the purpose of transforming into a buildings and grounds complex a couple of meetings ago we placed that on our longrange facility plan that is something that we're currently working with our architect in terms of concept uh Concepts and we're hopeful that at some point either at the end of this year or next year we'll get started on doing that our next goal was to work with the district financial advisers to monitor the interest rates to refund the series 23 20 2013 bond by June 2024 if the interest rates were favorable um they were not favorable they're getting there though they're close to being favorable so that's a goal uh that we're hopeful to accomplish pretty soon but at the time throughout last year those interest rates weren't favorable for us next one which is in progress is also where is was to secure local and grant funding to continue to pay for tier 2 and tier three Mental Health Services actually that's not in progress It's a mistake that was accomplished that was achieved as you all know we use effective School Solutions and they do pro provide comprehensive tier 2 and tier three Mental Health Service Services which include Psychiatric Services throughout the district and that's K through 12 and then secure payment method for parents to pay fees and fines with credit cards by September 2024 and that was achieved as well moving on to facilities some of these already mentioned complete the site development of a new Transportation complex on the Cheesequake Road by September 20124 obviously we all know that we are currently in litigation with the bureau over that so that is still in progress complete facilities Improvement referendum bid projects 1 in three and six by September 2024 uh we still have we've achieved that but as I said before the we're a little bit upset with our Roofing vendor because um there are two still there are still two roofs that need to be resealed or replaced and that was at the Wilson and Middle School however those should be done within this month and of course finishing the carport rooftop solar panel projects that in progress for the reasons I explained previously we also uh wanted to explore the parking area deficiencies at the Eisenhower school and at the middle school that is also a work in progress and explore drainage problems at the high school athletic fields Arla school and samsa upper elementary school to establish a plan of action by 2024 we did achieve that in fact we resolved the drainage problem here at the upper elementary school I spoke about that earlier and we're hoping that after football season we'll be able to take a better look at the drainage issue in the stadium so that we can remediate that as well obviously we don't want to dig up that area while we we still have um sports teams in action but as soon as our fall Sports season is over we're we'll you know we'll dig up a certain area and take a look and see why we're not able to to drain that area as well as we should be moving along to information uh technology and operations we wanted to complete the upgrade of the fysical server Network infrastructure that was achieved upgrade the district Network switching infrastructure rure that was achieved complete the expansion upgrade of district and Inter agency communication through our walkie-talkie or two-way radios which was also achieved complete the installation of a new public address system at truman we achieved that as well complete the effective inflation implementation of district and individual School threat assessment teams which by the way was mandatory by Statute uh that was also achieved as well we also wanted to secure funding for a new public address system at samel we did achieve that in fact we will be installing that system uh Mrs C have we started that yet it's in the process yeah we're in the process of doing that now uh we also wanted to secure funding to construct and install an Esports lab in the media center at the high school we achieved that if you recall from our budget uh we went ahead and approved that as part of our budget so we're looking forward to that and we'll actually be getting started with that sometime toward the end of this calendar year in the beginning of the next calendar year and we wanted to secure funding to appoint appropriate staff in each school for technology integration facilitators we achiev that and by the way that the feedback that I've received it's been very successful um very effective our principles and our faculty are very happy with the support they're getting from these technology integration facilitators which are teacher our teachers who receive stiens to do that work so we're very pleased with that accomplishment in terms of student achievement while we did not achieve uh 1A which was for 56% of our students in grade n meeting or exceeding expectations as measured by the 2024 New Jersey state learning assessment um the cohort Baseline was a 45.3 we didn't achieve the 56% but we did do we did raise that level from 45.3 to 52.4 with likewise with B we didn't achieve that as well which we wanted 50 56 54% of the students in grade four meeting or exceeding expectations as measured by again new the 2024 New Jersey student learning assessment the Baseline of that cohort was 43.6 and that cohort increased to a 49.8 which is a great Improvement did not reach 54% but again it was an improvement of that cohort next goal is 2A we did not achieve and that was for 65% of of our 11th grade students to pass the 2024 New Jersey graduation performance assessment however again the previous score was 56.5 and we increased that to a 61.6 and finally the 2B we did accomplish and that was for 40% of our 45% of the students enrolled in grade s meeting or exceeding expectations as learned as measured on the 2024 New Jersey student learning assessment in math so we did achieve that moving along to some of the other goals we had which was to increase the percentage of students with disabilities being appropriately educated in the least restrictive environment we wanted to increase that by 45% uh we did not achieve that but we did reach 43.6% which was an improvement from the previous 2% improvement from the previous year so we're getting there with that number four effectively implement the hegr phonic program we achieved that we also achieved the implementation of a districtwide science benchmark assessment likewise we achieve the development and implementation of a district-wide writing assessment in fact on the agenda this evening we're appointing people to perform that assessment correct Mr Rosman the scoring team very thrilled about that we also uh we we're taking a look at the virtual and or augmented reality instruction across the curriculum uh we did not achieve that uh we're taking a look at that this year we're we're examining whether that's something that we need to recalculate on number eight uh in terms of selecting funding for the implementation of a new uh special education alternative literacy development program we achieved that in fact we actually purchased and have been implementing sundai systems correct Mr naster and number nine select and secure funding for the implementation of a new high school English language arts program uh by September 2024 and of course Miss gross and we accomplished that and how is implementation going for that um all of the teachers have been trained the students are using it they're very pleased with it and we are piloting it at the middle school and I bumped into two middle school English language arts teachers that stopped me to tell me they absolutely love it so they're hoping that it's something we bring in for next year that's wonderful thank you and then moving on to culture and climate we did have a goal of decreasing violent and uh substance abuse related student behaviors unfortunately that was not achieved so that is something that we are still working on number two increasing student attendance and decreasing the number of students who are chronically absent as compared to the previous school year we achiev that we also achieved improving student learning and social emotional development by addressing the diverse needs of students in grades four through five through the implementation of a diversity equity and inclusion youth advisory Council that was achieved we also achieved increasing minority representation for the 2024 2025 school year uh this is our staff representation staff minority representation as compared to the previous year through the creation and action plan collaboratively developed by a diverse Coalition of Administrators so we're real proud about that and finally expanding leadership capacity within the next 5 years to creation of what's called a secession plan we also achiev that too so as you can see we achieved many of the goals that we identified for the previous school year however there are still some goals that we are still working on um we also took some steps forward with regard to student assessment and Miss Grossman we'll talk a little bit more about the New Jersey uh student learning assessment results in a moment however we went ahead and we we we want our Focus this year to be on prioritizing we need to prioritize what we teach what outcomes we're trying to achieve we need to utilize the district has Prov provided an abundance of resources not only in programs uh it it also includes human resources and professional development and so forth and we need to execute with Fidelity so that is our our motto for this school year is prioritize utilize and execute go on to next slide Chris and with that being said we have some goals outlined already for the 2024 2025 school year that we're asking you Board of Education members to approve this evening first one is uh in finance if the lawsuit with the burrow is adjudicated and that's coordinating the bidding and overseeing of the construction of the new Transportation complex by December of 2025 if the contractual matter with green Skies that I just spoke about early is mitigated coordinate the completion of the high school solar power purchase agreement by September 2025 number three secure funding to purchase and install emergency generators uh for some of our K through2 schools secure funding to purchase and install a greenhouse at at the high school by September 2025 secure funding to refurbish the bombers Beyond Apparel Store uh by September 2025 we're already almost there go ahead Mr in the moment of serendipity the walls came in at bomber blue and gray so we just have to do the floors secure funding to install trailers and renovate the current bus garage I spoke about that earli for the purpose of creating an extra service Bay and eventually transforming it into the buildings and grounds complex by 2000 December 20 2 and uh if you're not aware of it we are in the process of signing a lease with Our Lady of Victories uh school so that we can secure funding to operate both the project before Cheesequake school and the r Lady of Victory schools uh and that's something that Miss Burns and Miss Hill have been working uh very diligently on going into facilities at the lawsuit again with the burough is adjudicated complete the site development and parking lot of the new Transportation complex by September 2025 it's the contractual matter with green SK is if green Skies is mitigated oversee the completion of the high school solar project number three install emergency generators number four install trailers and renovate the current bus garage for the purpose of creating an extra service Bay until the transportation complex is developed and eventually transforming it into the build- and ground complex number five installing that Greenhouse number six renovating and refurbishing OLV so it's ready for September 2025 number seven again to Mr Nas's credit re refurbishing the bombers Beyond Apparel Store uh which by the way we're we're still we're probably going to change the name of that I don't know if you want to add anything Mr vanderbeck and his team like the shortened the bombers store um but we might move into the bombers gift shop as well okay and it's also going to be a community Hub and explore parking area deficiencies at the Eisenhower School in fact we had our architect already out to the Isaac Howard school so that we can provide the Board of Education with some Concepts that we'd like to do there information technology and operations we want to install that new public address system at samsa which we're already in the process of doing distribute and maintain student identification cards for all students in preschool through 12th grade and that's important because if you don't recall we have uh the we's the bus app and what goes with the where is the bus app is a tablet that each one of our bus buses will have so that our students can use their student IDs swipe into the tablet so now not only will parents be able to track the bus now they actually be able to track the child on the bus so we need those uh IDs most of our schools are making great progress with that we're hopeful that all of our students will have IDs by uh the end of December number three enhance the district uh cyber security plan through the implementation of multiactor authentification and strong password system for all staff members by the end of December number four secure all Network MDF and IDF locations at Eisenhower uh and the Truman schools by June 2025 and I apologize for the spelling error there with Truman and Eric can you MDF and IDF can you go ahead and share the Acron what those acronyms are more specifically those are our Network closets it's the main Network closet and then the secondary Network closet throughout the buildings thank you sir number five upgrade the technology and security infrastructure at OLV number six secure funding for one technician and two campus security monitors at at olov number seven construct and install that Esports lab that I spoke about earlier in the media center at the high school and number eight purchase e Esports lab equipment and Resources by January 2025 in terms of student achievement we're still looking at um increasing 56% of our students in grades 3 through five medum or exceeding expectations as measured by the 2025 New Jersey student learning assessment currently the 2023 2024 cohort is 49.7 B 57% of our students in grade 6 through N9 meeting or exceeding expectations is measured by again the 2025 njsla and the Baseline for that cohort is 51.5 moving on to mathematics number two 2 a 67% so we want to continue to increase that percentage of students that passed the graduation performance assessment now to 67% and as I spoke earlier that cohort or last year's results were 61.6 so we want to raise it to 67 B 45% of the students enrolled in grades 5 through 7 meeting or exceeding expectation as measured by again the 2025 New Jersey State student learning assess New Jersey student learning assessment and that cohort is uh Baseline was at 38.3 so we want increase at to 45% some other goals students in prek will show Improvement in their overall Readiness for kindergarten as evidenced by 51% of our four and five-year-olds demonstrating Readiness in the tools of the Mind skills prek academic CH checklist and again 46% is the current Baseline effectively Implement my reading in Mathies in grades three uh in grade three by December of this year effectively Implement study sync English language arts program program as we spoke about earlier in grades 9 through 12 and as Miss Grossman said we're well on the way to that explore and pilot study sync uh in grade 6 to8 by January 2025 administer the first districtwide writing assessment for students in grades 4 through 10 and we're well on the way to that in fact as Mr Gman said we've already asked the board to appoint our scoring team on this agenda explore and pilot potential purchase of a new math textbook in electronic resources for grade 6 through 7 by June 2025 increase the percentage of students with disabilities being appropriately educated in the least restrictive environment and of course that's 80% of the day and we talked about that earlier we didn't get there yet but uh 45% is our goal and we're ask we're trying to do that again for this school year open the new bombers Beyond store or and Community Hub by 2020 June 2025 and I think we're well on the way to that as well effectively imp the sundai system Al literacy development program uh in grades K through 5 by December 2024 again Mr NASA spoke earlier we're well on the way of that purchase and uh purchase profession and professional develop teachers for the expansion professionally developed teachers for the expansion of the sundai system alternative literacy development program in grade 6 through 8 Resource Centers by June 2025 and explore pilot and potentially purchase a new research-based alternative math program for resource center students in grades 4 through 8 by June 2025 and finally two goals for culture and climate decrease violent student behaviors that result in suspensions particularly long-term suspension as compared to 2023 204 24 school year and increase student attendance and decrease the number of students who are chronically absent we still want to keep that on our radar um because we have far too many students that are chronically absent those are our goals and objectives next is our budget development calendar you want to that sure um so our next important date is December 6th 2024 that is when all budget data is due in systems 3000 from our internal team from our uh administrators here uh January 7th will be our re organization meeting and that will be our first budget presentation which is the Food Services state of operations uh we intend to submit a balanced preliminary budget to the board on January 17th and then our we anticipate our meetings will be January 21st February 4th February 18th and March 4th for all of our budget presentations where our administrators come out and present uh what they're looking to do in the future budget year uh our March 18th Board of Ed meeting would be the approval of the preliminary budget uh we do have right now scheduled April 1st for let the children lead and then April 29th would be our public hearing and Board of Education adoption of the final budget and that's it any questions questions on anything that Miss Hill or I just presented to you before we move to Mr Glock malloy's HIV self assessment ratings I don't have a question but I want to make a few comments um on buildings and grounds this referendum has been a massive project and you and the administration team done a great job moving it forward and a special thanks to Mr Coleman bergger because this he's taken on the job that most other school districts Outsource and saved our district tons of money and moved this project in a great Direction so I want to thank you for that I want to thank M Gman and everyone for the great a AP scores um I don't think you can understate the fact that you mentioned unlike other districts all of our students take the score take the test and we still are are achieving those scores so that's a great great accomplishment um and also great great accomplishment that we're now doing all of our bus routes so again thank thank you Dr lbby Aaron the whole and the whole the whole team um on Mental Health funding for tier two and three tier three again excellent job by by the administration I don't know another school district that that does as great a job with mental health and not just for our identified students but just in general as a culture our teachers and our staff and our administrators always going above and beyond to address the needs of our student body which is exceptional and I want to thank you and the administration for that um I also want to thank Eric for identifying our it needs especially MF a and uh and our it infrastructure and for identifying that and tackling that so Eric great job with that and a great job with the Esports program as well so listen I I can go on and on but I I want to get home tonight so I'm going to stop talking now thank you Mr Fernandez you anyone else okay Mr Glock Malloy is going to now present our 2023 2024 harassment intimidation and bullying self assessment ratings okay so look our presentation leader over there stop smoing the screen so our HIV self assessment numbers as we've seen in past years this is the first time you'll see these numbers we will see them again in the spring after the Department of Education um reviews and submits them back to us um there have been no substantial changes to the Hib self assessment process um throughout the course of this year we are required to review our Hib procedures our trainings our programs um as well as our reporting mechanisms within each school the principal and their abs team uh meet to review this information um following that it's sent over to the district office um we produce a presentation for the board to see tonight from there we submit it to the Department of Education who reviews the data and eventually issues a final grade report for each district um which we must then post to our school websites the criteria for the Hib self assessment as I said hasn't changed year-over-year um in several years now um there are eight top level categories that the schools self assess on um you can see those there on the fifth slide within each of those categories the schools rank themselves either does not meet partially meets meets or top score of exceeds requirements and you can see on our first chart there on slide eight these are our scores broken up by school and an average for the district um overall for the 2324 school year the school year that has just passed again if you're looking at home or looking at the um paper presentations it's easier to compare what each category is and then the scores as you're looking across the pages as opposed to just being able to see it on the screen although we are starting to get smaller and smaller in font as we get more and more years of this I think I'm eventually going to have to curtail some of our years and take them off I left our last two years in the Big Font but here is our Hib self assessment comparison from 1314 through the 23 24 year you can see certain changes year-over-year um sometimes there are changes in the criteria sometimes there's changes in administration we launch new programs we change programs so we do see small fluctuations but overall our score our schools score pretty consistently year-over-year and then last up this was a new reporting requirement starting the 2223 school year um this is a report of hivs that are preliminarily self assessed by the the principle and the administration where someone reports a potential bullying incident but upon review it doesn't meet the initial threshold for bullying investigation doesn't mean that it's not addressed under code of conduct simply means it doesn't hit the criteria for Hib investigation so they don't move forward it was however reported it is addressed in some fashion within the school um but we do starting with the 23 2223 school year and then following into the 23 24 we have to report um when we have a report that is not investigated for one reason or another and with that that concludes our 2324 Hib self assessment score review anyone have any questions yeah I have one question on Eric if I can um there's probably not an answer to it right now but just maybe something to think about I mean I see arith as statistically nomal compared to the other elementary schools um obviously soon body there isn't that dramatically different from all the other ones is it possible just the way it's being analyzed and reported there is different than the other schools or you referring to the preliminary yeah you're your last one yeah your your final page here we got 12 and 11 and the other ones are basically zeros and ones so there's a couple different ways to look at this and the individual schools um handle it differently um as a report comes in um some of the administration choose to move forward with a report anyway and then have it as an unfounded and some of the administrators choose to do the threshold assessment identify that there is no criteria met and close it at that point um any parent that receives a was not investigated um report from a principal can then choose to appeal it and it would move forward as a full investigation anyway so it's just a different way administratively of handling it from a parental rights or student rights perspective whether or not it is ascertained at a threshold assessment or whether it's moved forward into a full investigation you're hitting that same criteria it's just at which point are you analyzing does it meet HIV threshold um if uh if the if an administrator chooses to move forward without doing a threshold assessment it still is evaluated under the same criteria it would just then become an unfounded HIV so it's just different ways of reviewing it so what we're saying is that arish just does it a different way than the other elementary schools and that's you run forward with a full investigation the anti-bullying specialist usually a guidance counselor does the investigation consults with the principal and they come up with consensus when you're doing the threshold assessment the building administrator the principal does the initial assessment in consultation with the counselor and makes the determination there so it's really just a process of whether the principal is looking at it ahead of time and saying this doesn't hit the criteria anti-bullying specialist do you concur as opposed to the anti-bullying Specialists going through the full investigation and saying it doesn't meet the criteria principle do you concur but the criteria is the same for all the elementary schools it is the same yes so I mean again we don't need to hatch this out here we can certainly talk about it offline if you want but um again just statistically it's anomaly so it seems like there's something different in the way it's being evaluated there from the other elementary schools I guess it's not that it's evaluated differently it's just um Mr Preston chooses to use the threshold assessment some of the other uh ele principles choose not to use it they let it go forward as an investigation at which point it's unfounded it's just a different way of doing it and our policy supports both gotcha that's that's the answer I needed and thanks for explaining to an idiot like me so no I apprciate that to me from a numbers perspective it does stand out right from a obvious there was something different going on there and you just explained it so from a policy perspective it's just an option of at which point do you want to evaluate the HIV and honestly which chart does it show up on either which way it's going to show up on a chart as a number okay perfect great thank you excellent I have a question um as the board members what can we do to change this the way hibs are investigated like who controls this what can we do as a body here to change this process so for us uh with our Hib process and with our overall code of conduct our counseling process it is always about our student well-being um so whether we find an Hib or we don't find an HIV we have a remediation procedure because for some reason the activities ended up on a principal's desk ended up on a guidance counselor's desk so we engage in remediation no matter what whether it is founded or not um as the board members know and some of the public may know HIV is a very specific set of criteria it has to hit a number of criteria that are defined in law the typical schoolyard bullying which we may classically think may not actually meet h IB criteria um so from a perspective of what board Administration student body teaching body we focus on um really climate and culture that's what it comes down to and then when there is a problem between two students we focus on what remediation steps be it meet with Administration parent conference counseling peer mediation all of those and many more um it's how we focus on addressing the specific issues when it comes to HIV it is really do the actions of two or more students hit a specific set of legal requirements if so we report it as Hib if not we don't however either which way we're taking steps to engage with those students to see what's wrong what's going on and how do we resolve the issue so that CR hold on one second that criteria then is not set by us as policy makers it's set by the state of New Jersey that is correct thank you but I guess to kind go along with what Eileen and ELO were saying if I'm a parent looking at the website and seeing this report without your explanation and my child goes to arith I'm seeing a grossly different number than if my kid goes to Eisen hour do should we get in place a policy that each School handles the reporting of these things in a similar manner so that we're not seeing big number differences in these reports if if the principal there is handling it one way and all the other principles are handling it another way not to say one way is right or one way is wrong they're both doing the same end result but it's being reported grossly differently here that is one possibility the other possibility is sometimes in the individual School communities you get different variations of reports um you know arith May in any given year they may have uh a group of parents a group of students a group of teachers um that are reporting that hey this looks like bullying this looks like bullying and the administration the counseling staff are are looking into it where the other schools may not so statistically you may even if you didn't have a policy for threshold you still may see statistical anomalies between the K3 schools you don't see it as much in samsel middle or high school because it's one group of students and they just flow through we can certainly look at the policies and dive deeper into the data to see um you know where those patterns fall um but overall each and every report is ultimately at the end of the day reviewed by me and then reviewed by Dr Labby so you know at any point we see something that doesn't fall within the confines of the regulations or within our school procedures we work with the principles and the anti-bullying Specialists to then you know either continue that investigation process or um review how we're assessing that threshold but but to your question Mr Smith we can definitely meet as an administrative group to to try to build more uniformity and consistency yeah that's that's with the application of the application of how we're doing it yeah thank you any other questions questions for Mr Glock Malloy okay so now we're going to turn our attention to as I mentioned earlier our 2024 New Jersey state learning assessment results as well as our SAT results so Mr Walsh is so excited um so the good news of the evening is you get to jump halfway through the packet uh we're going to be starting on slide 21 because this is the presentation that we've been working on since the summer sharing the results for you and by the way if you are watching at home um the full present is on the uh website so you can look at the full presentation the reason why we're jumping to the njsla scores and the SAT scores is because they have yet to be reported to the board and public uh Miss Gman did report all the other assessment results during our August meeting all right thank you so the New Jersey student learning assessment is um administered Every Spring I swear I'm trying all right Chris it's not working I apologize do an investigation how come it works for Eric and not for anyone else it's I have no soul I'm not sure I don't so the New Jersey student learning assessment was administered in the spring in May in English language arts mathematics and science so on slide 22 you will see that um the results for our students in grades 3 through n are reported here for you Saville's proficiency percentage range from 41.5% in grade three to 57.6% for grade 5 the results were slightly disappointing um we did make some achievement as Dr Labby indicated in his state of the schools report but we were a little disheartened to see that some of our students fell below the state percentage um in fact in all but two grades they fell below the state average which is not something that we were anticipating uh grades 8 and five did exceed the state a average the chart um on slide 22 also breaks down our grade three by school it is the only grade level tested where there are multiple locations two of our schools exceeded the state average Truman and Wilson while two of the schools fell below the state average arith and Eisenhower and we do have different populations in all four of those buildings as well as um other factors that could contribute towards that on slide 23 we have our cohort and grade level year-to-year data for English language arts grades 5 and 8 outperformed in comparison to 2023 which is a highlight cohorts from grades 3 to 4 grade four to 5 grades 7 to 8 and grades 8 through 9 indicated Improvement and if you look at the chart you can see that we colorcoded the cohorts of students for you to be able to compare and in reviewing the data with the supervisors and the principles that I thank for being here and support this evening students in grades six and seven has been identified as a focus group as well as our current fourth graders not that we don't look at all of our students but this is something that we're really going to be paying attention to to make sure that we remediate what they need before the spring of 2025 on slide 24 we have our disaggregated data required by the New Jersey Department of Education for our subgroup um we identify gender groups ethnicity groups economic status and specialized programs such as multilingual Learners special education and 504 students the top row indicates the total proficiency percentage as a reminder for each grade level so you can compare how the uh subgroups did in each of those grade levels for English language arts As you move down the chart you will notice the lower percentages for our students with IEPs and multilingual learners and that is something that we anticipate because those populations often do struggle with standards-based high stakes testing and it is something that Dr Labby indicated we will be looking at materials to support moving forward on slide 25 we have um did a little bit of digging in our supervisor groups and we identified the language arts um literacy standards that we are going to be targeting for 2425 based on the evidence statement reports that are provided by the New Jersey Department of Education we also shared this information with one of our professional development Partnerships that we are going to continue this year for the love of literacy so that we can support our staff in making sure that our children are able to demonstrate the ability to um Master these skills when they take the test in the spring of 2025 if you look towards the right hand side of the column you'll notice that we start talking about writing and that is a uh hyperfocus for us we started last year and we're going to continue this year looking at it one of the things that Suzanne capro um Pam Schleck Audrey Burns and I spoke about is the fact that demonstrating your ability to do something on a test could look very differently than being able to complete that reading skill within a classroom or independently so writing often becomes an obstacle so that is something that we are taking a look at but when we developed the district writing assessment that was administered last month um in our grades 4 through 10 language arts courses we selected the type of writing assignment for those grade levels based on this evidence statement report so different grade levels worked on um narrative or research simulated task or literacy response based on what the weakness was from last year so what we have tried to do um again with the other data that we have received from testing and from grades and Link at Benchmark over the years develop an action plan for each of our content areas so slide 26 is talking about our action plan for English language arts we are having uh grade level and building data meetings to evaluate the evidence statements for the specific grade levels and the buildings uh kicked that off here at samsul Upper Elementary School with uh Mrs kogle andise so it was wonderful to be able to work with her and Mr TOA on looking specifically at their students we also are using this to Target our PD with For the Love of literacy we expanded our use of heery phonics to include grade two because we found that some of the foundational reading skills that our students are struggling with in grade three might have those needs met by expanding that program prr we are also expanding the use of age of learning's my reading Academy to grade three to support the students as they move in towards that um we've talked about this at student achievement and other meetings we've kind of realigned our elementary supervisory program so that one of our elementary supervisors Mrs Pam schluck is going to be working with language arts literacy and social studies uh Mr toy will be working with mathematics and science we are piloting study sync in grades 6 through 8 to see if the change with resources and materials that we give our teachers and our students can make a difference we are also implementing new guides in grades 3 through 12 um I'm sure that you've noticed over the past several months those of you that are on the student achievement committee have really done a lot of reading for us um but we've approved over 50 curriculum guides in the last four months and that is because of the new Adoption of English language arts standards new materials and some new courses that we are offering so all of those guides are going to be in implementation um as a matter of fact you will be looking at some writing curriculum guides on the agenda this evening and next month we are looking at an Interventional reading program that we can use with special education teachers um we're going to be using snd days but we're also looking at what our academic support instruction teachers are going to be using uh and we're looking at what programs are out there that could enhance our fontis and panel classroom um and help our teachers to meet the needs of our students in English language arts and grades K through 5 and then we are looking at some scope and sequence guides for our staff based on the njsls in our department meetings does anyone have any questions on English language arts I have a sure um is there any reason why why you don't trust the board not you personally but the you know Department the Ed Dr lbby and the administrators why you don't trust us members of the board to write the curriculum I mean I am a business professional I may not be a teacher I don't know much about education other than what I learn here but why don't you trust me to write that curriculum because the people that we UST in writing the curriculum are the people that implement the curriculum and those other teachers thank you any other questions gr yes I hate to beat a dead horse that's okay but um with the exception of maybe eth and nth grade why do you think there's such a such a drastic drop off from pre shutdown days to today because I I feel like we've gotten past that in so many ways I know my daughter in middle school has caught up so much and has learned so much since what she lost in those years and I think she's passed it now and the eighth grade scores seem to reflect it that they maybe but some of the other scores like in grade three grade four they're so far off 2019 did the test change did the way we evaluate change what has changed to make it that different so there are so many factors that go into performance on state-based testing I think that there were some uh modifications to the assessment you know the New Jersey Department of Education Works with a not for-profit new Meridian company and developing the njsla and they constantly update what it is that they are doing they have restructured the standards and they are increasing the rigor that's something that Governor Murphy has been talking about a lot Statewide with literacy in fact looking at the scores in literacy across the state New Jersey seemed to take a little bit of a dip this year um there are also other factors that go into it again it it might not be that our students aren't able to do it but that they're not performing on the assessment so is that something where we can look at increasing our you know Comfort level for students taking these State tests is it something where we look to align our curriculum guides and our materials you know there are a lot of factors that go into it um we have been working over the years and and I was surprised at this to be honest with you I know that you and I talk a lot about curriculum so I was surprised um with the English language arts scores this year we've been working with professional development and when I spoke with one of our Partnerships who is very involved in the state and standard development and I shared our scores with him from last year he was surprised at our scores so I think that we're looking at it from a multi-tier approach we're going to continue to look at professional development with best practices we are going to look at our materials we've been using fontas and panel for several years we it's no secret that we brought in hegerty phonics because we felt that there was a weakness there so we are bringing in components that will enhance when we identified writing as something that we wanted to Target right it was a two-year goal so that's something that's rolling into this year from last year um we've written a lot of curriculum guides aligning it to the assessment but the fact of the matter is this State Testing is is so different from the performance in a regular classroom so we're looking at it from all angles to see if we can identify those root causes just for that reason can can I jump in for for for a moment so if you do the math and you look at the year that um those third and fourth graders what what year they were in during the pandemic they were kindergarteners in first graders in 2020 21 literacy development has changed over the past 30 years or since we've all been in school there was a time period in which kindergarten was predominantly half days and you focused on letter identification now these students are expected to begin reading by midyear in kindergarten first grade they should be reading and they should be moving to a point where they're beginning to develop fluency word recognition and the basics for um vocabulary comprehension and story comprehension how do you do that remotely how do you do that how do you keep a 5-year-old's attention or a six-year-old's attention in front of a camera and you know we brought our students back before many districts did however parents still had the right to opt out and to keep their kids home and we all know that those schools even though we were open were sparsely populated with kids we have virtually no kids on buses so I would say a good 70 to 75% of those kindergarteners and first graders in the two most pivotal years that they have to learn how to read missed it had to do it virtually so I think and again we we try not to ever use the p word as an excuse anymore and I'm trying to get away from it but when you look at where those kids were during the pandemic it hurts those are by far and you know some people will argue with me and I'm sure I'm going to hurt people's feelings but my opinion is those are probably the two most important school years for any student because that's where you're learning how to read and you're learning conservation of numbers for mathematics if there are concept Cal or skill-based gaps there recovering by third grade where you're really learning you're reading to learn not learning to read anymore it becomes that much more difficult so I hate to use it as an excuse but if you go back and look and I think that's what the state's recognizing too because the state definitely saw a drop in grades three and four in terms of literacy and that's because those kids were in kindergarten and first grade respectively yeah I hate to use the the p word anym I hate it too yeah I feel like we trying we're trying to be past it but there is a certain reality to it and we're still seeing it social emotional development of our kids but I do appreciate too like Miss Gman was saying if there's changes to the test every year the state is making the test more rigorous yeah it's causing us as a school district to reevaluate how we're teaching kids and it's making the kids better even though the scores may seem lower if that makes any sense I I does it makes a ton of sense to me and I agree with you Mr Smith sorry Mr Crosman that's okay all right sorry now the math all right mathematics um so beginning on slide 27 we're going to take a look at our mathematics scores we can see that grades 6 7th 8th and Algebra 1 saw grade level improvements um that was a focus for us last year uh so we are continuing to push as Dr Labby mentioned with our goals even those that we did not achieve from 2023 2024 we had growth of 5% 6% 7% so we acknowledge how far the kids have come but yet we set our smart goals moving forward slide 28 um indicates the proficiency percentage for each grade level and courses because as they get older they um test by their course for middle school and high school and this again represents our students in grades 3 through n they are the only students that take the njsla grades 3 four and five exceeded the state percentage our middle school students fell below the state average which if you think back to what Dr Labby said about investigating some new programs that's why we are going to be doing that is to see if we can bring in some materials to better prepare the students we do celebrate that 87% of our Algebra 2 students at the high school demonstrated proficiency better and 100% of our middle school geometry students met or exceeded the 750 cut score for that exam as well slide 29 um is going to speak to our subgroups for mathematics with the disaggregated data by grade level and course and again we anticipate seeing lower percentages when it comes to our multilingual Learners and it comes to our students with um disabilities because this is something performance on a state test is one of the things that is uh often related to those challenges faced by those students on slide 30 we took a look at the evidence statements for mathematics as well so Mr toy and Dr Maharana and I sat down and looked to see uh how our students performed and where they struggled on the mathematics exams at the different levels earlier today we met with our 2425 professional development partner New Jersey teacher to teer for mathematics and we shared this data with them as well so that they could focus the upcoming coaching sessions and it was nice to hear because the coaches that work for New Jersey teacher to teacher are often teachers in other districts and they were echoing what we were saying when we identified you know our our students are struggling with modeling and reasoning reasoning throughout the grade levels they were like our district saw the same thing so it was nice to be able to get feedback from other districts and hear and have them know what they're going to do to share with our teachers in grades three four and five our uh slide 31 has our action plan for mathematics again we are having grade level in building data meetings to evaluate these evidence statements and to talk about the student performance specific to the locations we are reviewing our math four and five curriculum guides right now to see if there's alignment and increased rigor expectations we are providing that targeted consistent professional development for our Math teachers we expanded age of learnings my math academy to include grade three for 2425 um again mentioning we realigned our supervisory team so Mr Dan toy is going to be working with our K through five teachers for mathematics and science sence um Mr tooy is also developing a prompting guide something similar to what we use with fontis and panel in English language arts that he's going to be working with his grade level department meetings on um having the teachers look at that scope and sequence and looking at what to ask and what to do when a child struggles with certain skills we are going to be looking at new tools um one is envisions success maker which is another um component to The Envision math series that we have in District and one of the coaches that we met with today was talking about her success with it in her District so we're looking at that as well as some other materials um we are going to be looking at resources for grades 6 through 7 we've already started to look at a University of Pittsburgh program uh that might meet our needs we have some other meetings coming up and then we'll be meeting with some of the bigger publishing companies to see what's out there and we will be employing the district curriculum and instruction committee that has representation from all grade levels all content areas and all buildings we come together to talk about topics of curriculum so they're going to be joining us in the exploration of new materials as well and then we are looking for a um Interventional program to support our mathematics uh focused on our special education and our academically struggling students and that wraps up our math anything on mathematics all right I'm going to jump right into science then so um taking a look at science starting on slide 32 the data is somewhat limited the state does not provide us with the amount of information related to science that it does for mathematics and language arts uh sville students in grades 5 8 and 11 all saw an increase in their percentage performance for from 2023 students in grades 5 and 11 exceeded the state average which is something that we were really happy about and grade 8 basically was equally statistic wise they met the state average um slides 34 35 and 36 are the subgroup data for science um please note that science is broken down into four levels of proficiency not five like mathematics and English language arts and um we are waiting on our topic data till to come back the um individual score reports for science actually we just received those so they'll be going out uh through parent square and if no one has any questions on science I'm going to jump right into the SAT data so I want to thank Mrs Donna sakola for providing this information for us um with her partnership and work with the college board so the class of 2024 had a mean score of 1,091 which is a very applaudable mean score 177% of our students utilized an SAT waiver and the reason that we wanted to draw your attention to that is because it's indicative of how many of our families qualify for free and reduced lunch um that is another benefit for applying for free and reduced lunch here within the district is it does qualify you for waivers for the SAT so notable results on slide 39 8% scored a 1,400 or above which those of us that remember the SATs that's a really good score 12% of ours scored in the highest group in mathematics and 5% in the highest group in language arts literacy and the last slide that I'm sharing with you this evening was provided by college board based on the survey that the students um complete when they actually take the SAT and I thought that it was really interesting for the board to look at what careers our students are interested in and to think about the academies that we've worked really hard to bring to the district over the last several years um and if you look Health Professions and related clinical Sciences computer and information Sciences business management marketing related Support Services biological and biomed Sciences engineering and psychology and the first four we all have a iies for at the high school so I thought that was great and it talks a little bit about um our test takers and what they are interested in so it was really just kind of a interesting look at our class of 2024 that's great data yeah that misstic Cola she's amazing isn't she she is amazing can't do it without us she's in person today she's normally watching from home I think she should wave from the there she is there she is y myself off if no one has any questions that concludes Mrs Bloom that would actually conclude all of our reports for this year state of the schools address as as always I am so impressed first of all that she can speak that long without taking a breath uh I don't think anyone in the room is surprised that I can talk a lot information that is in her head just boggles my mind thank you so much thank you thank you okay so we are done now with our presentations Mr Walsh is very happy about that yes I I went to the back half Dr Labby on behalf of the high school administration that has to be up fairly early can they leave absolutely all of our the preschool all of our a team thank you very much for coming guys we appreciate it give The A Team a big hand thank you good call grman they paid me to do that so that concludes our presentations we will now move on to board discussion Mr Smith want take through finance and in sure we'll be very quick with this one uh last Tuesday evening the board finance committee met uh during the meeting Mr colenburg provided an update on all the facility referendum projects um everything is moving along he reported that Safeway the one company that we've been pushing finally started work on the Middle School roof uh and it's just the last section that needs to be done there and same thing with Wilson that is pretty well done just a few things need to be finished there uh in addition he informed us about the renovation of the last two bathrooms at arith are underway and should be finished by the end of the month um s uh the Upper Elementary School Paving is done Truman Paving will hopefully be done in November uh it's still over the hallway flooring is done except for a ramp in the building and that's not done due to the need of asbest abatement um and then we got an update on green skies and the path we're taking with them and that was about the extent and excitement of the finance committee meeting and I'll just add to the I was actually I had the opportunity to go visit the Arla school last week and I went into the bathrooms that are finished they look spectacular so Jimmy and his team did a fantastic job on the bathrooms they complet Ed and I expect that the other two bathrooms will look the same so kudos to Mr cburg and his team for the work they've did absolutely good job Jimmy any questions for Mr Smith job thank you Mr Smith okay uh Miss pilac Personnel sure uh the Personnel committee met earlier this evening uh we reviewed open positions for both certificated and non-certificated staff uh we discuss the upcoming professional development day which is scheduled for November 5th and uh the pre preparations are well underway we actually have on the agenda for approval this evening uh and we also discussed our midyear job fair which is going to focus on leave of absence and non-certificated openings in transportation the cafeteria and the maintenance department that's it Mrs Bloom okay any questions for Miss pilac no okay Mrs is naano governance we don't have we didn't have a meeting we're having it on the 27th this month oh that's right we 29th I believe it9 289th 28th 29th yeah so9 okay thank you Mr Callahan student achievement o on October 2nd the student achievement committee met during that meeting M Gman reviewed the seven curriculum guides that we are approving tonight she also reviewed that great presentation that she just made a short time ago during the state of the schools address um after that Mr Glock Malloy reported the very positive feedback we're getting on parents Square everybody seems to love it parents Administration faculty and students everyone is very pleased with it Mr naster provided the feedback on the implementation of the Sunday systems as he and Dr Lobby mentioned earlier during the state of the schools address that's the new alternative literacy development program for students with disabilities and then finally Mrs Bert provided us updates on all the grants she's working on Issa Grant Perkins Grant climate change and the the implementation of the new linkit intervention manager and then she also gave us the update for the upcoming preparations for November 5th staff development day if I can add something just like to give a big shout out to our teachers particularly our elementary school teachers by the amount of communication that goes on between those teachers and parents it's extraordinary so uh again big shout out to all of our teachers particularly our elementary school teachers for such great communication with our parents any questions for Mr Callahan no okay all righty my turn uh middle sex County School boards Association had their first meeting of this year on October the 7th um the presentation that was given was on AI uh it was a very interesting presentation I do have a business card for you Mr Glock Malloy the presenter was from East Brunswick and they have a whole system set up uh as to what discipline will be for violating AI all kinds of regulations I mean this is another rabbit hole that we're going to have to go down but um they really seem to have done a really good job I'm sure you collaborate with uh tech people from other districts but I was very impressed and I can't even remember his name maybe you can but uh he was excellent and that's it for uh school boards Dr Labby Educational Services anything uh nothing to report do okay um at this time we will open to public on agenda items only oh no we have to no wait okay I'm good I'm getting getting ahead of myself agenda items only anybody seeing none on agenda items okay we will [Music] then any questions on the superintendent report has given it needs to give it so there we go no questions good we' had so many I will go fast I promise number uh let's begin with finance and infrastructure page three number 17 we're asking you to accept an award from grow New Jersey kids valued at $115,000 for professional development service is coaching and classroom essential subscriptions for our Preschool teachers and we thank Mrs Burns say she always is uh very aggressive in getting that money from that organization so great job Mrs Burns number 19 which you can find on page three approval of a contract with mcab environmental services for services r related to aestus abatement for the potential floor replacement at the sville middle school and that's in the amount of 8,120 number 20 which you can find on page three approval of the purchase of a 2024 Ford Transit 350 passenger van in the amount of $625 2340 and I believe that's going to be for our bombers Beyond program correct Mr naster that's great number 34 uh which you can find in the addendum Miss Bert has been hard at work writing uh an application for our New Jersey high impact tutoring Grant you might have heard through the media that the Department of Education came out with that it's not as much money as we had uh the previous year um but it's still the curriculum we're asking you to approve tonight number two we do have a long-term student suspension that we're asking you to approve number four which you can find on page 14 in fact all of these you can find in page 14 we're asking you approve a new threads of compassion I love that name for a club by the way threads of compassion and production and Technology clubs at the high school with Ashley Taylor being the adviser for Threads of compassion and Justin Sanford being the adviser for the production and Technology clubs and we can't thank the two of them enough for uh agreeing to advise our students in two great clubs any questions on those items or anything else on student achievement all right seeing none on governance we're just asking you to approve the district goals that I presented earlier in my slideshow presentation of course that's for the 2024 2025 school year and of course the 2025 2026 budget development calendar that Miss Hill went over with you any question questions on that okay let's move on to Personnel if you go to page 18 and 20 as well as well as the addendum items six and seven as well as 27 and 28 we're asking to hire new certificated non-certificated staff for this school year number eight which you can find in page 20 we're asking you to prove a non-certificated staff member for this year numbers 10 and 11 which you can find on page 21 we're asking you to approve paid coaches with their stiens as well as some volunteer coaches for the school year and finally number 17 which you can find on page 23 we're asking you to prove staff members to facilitate I love this a multi-lingual learner Academy that's fantastic I think it's the first time we've done that right or is it the second year no this is the first time and we are using our newly awarded title 3 immigrant funds for that so we've been working this is the first year that we have to identify preschool multilingual Learners so that's going to result in more funding for the district so as you all know we spend uh a great deal of money and and use utilize a great deal of resources for the tutoring of our students you know we provide what are called literacy cmy and Mathies for our elementary students and our middle school students we provide tier three tutoring that's one-on-one intensive tutoring for students in grades K through 12 uh we also through the high New Jersey high impact tutoring Grant uh we provide that online tutoring to students at risk as well and we provided that for grades three and four and as everyone knows we uh purchase pure deck which is 24 hours 7 days a week tutoring for any student that might needed in the middle school and high school and now you can add to it the multilingual learner Academy which is tutoring for our students that are multilingual Learners and then I didn't put this on my report but also I love the fact that we have a we're asking you to appoint our writing assessment District writing assessment scorers and that concludes my report Mrs Bloom okay any questions for Dr Labby okay seeing none I would just like to point out on page five the presenters for the professional development you will see my name at the top I want to assure everyone that I volunteer and do this for free since I cannot pay myself but I love doing it so I do it for free and it's a standing room only class by the way everyone wants to be in that class oh thank you am I supposed to say no to that yeah I think we vote no on that but you know it's not going to change anything okay at this point we will take a motion to approve the superintendent report I make a motion second okay there we go okay Mr Callahan yes Mr Fernandez yes Mrs napalitano uh no yes Mrs babone yes Miss pyck Mr Smith yes Mr Walsh yes and Mrs Bloom uh yes but on Personnel 18 I have to abstain on Kevin Bloom okay it's not sa okay Al righty okay I need a motion to uh open for public we don't need a motion second third oh it's been a long night Al righty uh we will now open to public for uh anything at all please be uh reminded that you have three minutes if you choose to speak and we limit our time to 30 minutes total good evening Dr Labby and members of the board you probably all know me I'm Robert buet live at 7 Tyler Street in Morgan seille Morgan uh that's the home of Wayne Grant Memorial Field uh it's a field that honors in perpetuity one of the heroes a falling son of Cil who uh gave the ultimate sacrifice in combat during the Vietnam war and it's a memorial that wouldn't be here without the efforts of this board and I'm eternally grateful for that thank you that's not why I'm here tonight though I'm here because there's a storm Gathering a storm you all know about and the storm is related to one issue and it's policy 5756 uh it's a storm that's powered by disinformation and lies and uh there's not a lot of facts out there so I wrote some questions for Dr Labby about let me put some readers on here I think they're my wife so bear with me ask some questions it's about some information and misinformation making its rounds in social media specifically regarding curriculum policy 5756 and the role of our Board of Education in general and I think you can clarify that it'll Tamp down a lot of the misinformation out there in social media throughout the buau there's a lot of chatter about our health curriculum and how the current health curriculum takes away a parent's right to teach out children as they see fit uh can you explain to several parents exactly how a curriculum is written if the local board of education is responsible for writing curriculum and what rights does a parent have over the teaching of this health curriculum to their child is all the district curriculum on the Ser website and was it made available to the community prior to its adoption in our schools the parents had the right to opt out of the health curriculum and had they always had that right would you the Ser of a board of education ever seek to remove that right from from parents we can agree that policy 5756 is a Jersey state guidance on providing safe Environ environments for transgendered students is that correct it's being said this policy keeps parents out of the conversation regarding issues of sexual orientation and gender identity can you tell me how many times since policy 5756 was enacted here years ago a parent has been kept out of a conversation about a student's sexual orientation or gender identity and if so why specifically that conversation did not take place and what do you feel is the biggest misconception or or miscommunication regarding policy 5756 not complex questions but these are the things that are out in social media it's these simple questions that are being loaded with misinformation and lies and people aren't getting the truth out there there's a big storm coming all right uh you saw it in Oldbridge right you saw in a lot of school districts over over the past last year uh I think you to get ahead of it with facts and get this out to people that'll tamper down a lot of that um can thank you can I can I ask that the gentleman repeat the the curriculum questions just go to the questions you got it all right the how is curriculum written yeah okay how is curriculum written if the if the local board of education is responsible for writing curriculum and what right does a parent have over the teaching of this health curriculum to their child okay um and you also asked if it was on the website yes and was it shared with parents correct okay and then just so I have all the questions for the policy that you mentioned can you repeat those questions too okay just the questions I'll tell you what I do it even better to save you guys time I actually wrote it down in my hand and I'll pass it on to you these are the questions i j okay thank thank you thank you okay anyone else from public before drct Labby answers first time I've seen Miss Burns here in about three years I think since dropping off at door 14 um hello board Dr Army um Anthony spado gabes dad uh Washington Road I wanted to come today and talk about the power of involvement of showing up I didn't grow up here in sville I grew up in a farmtown on Upstate New York I learned about people like Dwayne Merill who was my bus driver and also a judge and also a farmer uh I learned about Sher Murphy who was my lunch lady uh who watched me grow up for a decade before I even knew that she was there people who worked hard and wore a lot of hats um I hoped that when I grew up I would find a place like this that I could help make feel a little bit more like Walton New York when I watch these Board of Ed meetings um and the policy wonk and me watches them all I work hard to remember that you guys have families you go back to at the end of every night it might be harder for others to realize how much work you guys do Educators and Community leaders do a ton um I ran for board in 2021 against Mr Esposito Mr Walsh and Miss pyoc um I ran because I was the product of some pretty amazing teachers who refuse to let me fall we know that the presence of a single supportive Community member has been shown to be determinative sometimes life- saving for our kids and I will share for the first time publicly that folks like you are sometimes the reason that people like me choose to stick around when life feels like it might be a little too heavy when you're a kid you are sometimes the hope so I wanted to thank Mr Esposito Mr Walsh Miss pilac for the grace and advocacy with which you have served now I'm pretty on the record as being part of a Disney family um we love the parks we love the movies all of it when you're a kid you think that the magic is in the characters it's in the Micky and The Minis and the goofies um but when you grow up you realize the magic is in the people it's in the storytellers and the workers who take their dreams and turn them into real things for our kids for us we are the magic it's in all of us um so to the people in the fight the Educators the board everybody in the room and watching our transportation team our food service team our custodial team um everybody who takes the time to both care and do thank you from this Dad now we have an election coming up uh where we are again going to turn to our community to help us pick the people whose history of showing up for our kids time and time again ought to count no leader no candidate has everything you're looking for but some have a history of working for the residents of this burough over the years and that should matter some may choose to talk about the things they will take away the things they will remove the things they will resend but what if like you we talked with integrity and honesty about the things that we can create the things that we can build the things that we can give we can choose fear and disconnection and isolation or as a community we can choose a different way to lead with hope with collaboration to invite more people to participate in this great conversation and I think when given the choice between fear and hope seral residents choose hope in these moments we must show up so to our board members in closing in conclusion comma Mrs Van loone of seventh grade is smiling somewhere in conclusion comma um thanks to everybody who understands that we are here to represent all of sel's kids no matter what they look like no matter who they love no matter who they pray thank you very much Mr spinato may you never stop showing up when it counts thank you guys very much thank [Applause] you Dr Labby did you want to yeah oh yes I'm sorry we need to close public motion please second third yeah okay Dr lbby okay um so again there was there were several questions so first of all how is the curriculum written um you know we think we' I think I've answered this already today um curriculum is written by Educators the same people that Implement curriculum are the actual people that write the curriculum these are the people that are the most proficient in the curriculum as well as the standards and you know one of the other misnomers is well why do we write curriculum well there are a number of different reasons and and that is because mostly because standards change and then in this particular topic this particular curriculum the standards changed and we were required by the Department of Education to get our Educators together that teach those standards so that they could go ahead and revise our curriculum so that those standards were addressed appropriately within that curriculum and I have to tell you and this was led by miss badami our um supervisor of physical education she did an extraordinary job of integrating you know or working with our teachers I should say to integrate those standards into our curriculum in the most appropriate and I'll say that again age appropriate manner for each grade level in that physical education and health curriculum that was noted before um can you explain to parents is the Board of Education responsible for writing curriculum well Board of education members are not however the board of education is responsible for making sure that the school district goes ahead and revises or adopts curricula based upon the standards uh if you look at board ethics the two things that a board of education is most responsible for is policymaking and curriculum improve approvement and that's why we make sure that if we're going to revise or create a policy it's the Board of Education that goes ahead and approves that or and adopts it same thing with curriculum our Educators write it and that's facilitated by our supervisors and our directors and we ask our Board of Education to look it over and approve it however with this particular curriculum because it was such um a controversial Topic at the time and people that are here might recall it and people that are listening at home or watching at home might recall it before our Board of Education approved any of these grade levels that we did and we did them in different grade level bunches I personally sent an email out to the entire Community to share that curriculum with the entire community and I have to tell you only about five parents I really think it's it might have been a little bit less five parents commented back to me on the curriculum and I sent it through a broadcast email to the entire community and that was grade kindergarten through 12th grade prior to every board meeting where we asked the board to adopt that curricula we sent it out I send it out personally to the entire Community um is all the district curriculum on the seral website yes it is um and if you ever have any questions about where to find the curriculum email me or more importantly email Miss Gman or Mr Glock Malloy and they will direct you to that area but I believe it's right on the curriculum and instruction page of our website correct M Gman yeah they just go to sville k12.nc.us on that website and have been since 2022 when they were approved next question was what rights do a parents have over the teaching of this health curriculum well first of all you have the right to be our partners in the education of your children to get involved and support your child through any of the curriculum that we are implementing or teaching your children uh we recognize that as a partnership between the home and school that's how we're going to create create the greatest outcomes and many of our parents work hand inand with our teachers um in implementing and teaching the language arts curriculums the math curriculums the science curriculums as well as the health curriculums however parents also have the right to opt out of this particular curriculum in fact this is the only curriculum that a parent can actually opt out of and that's something that is is is you know required by the Department of Education and we have no intention of stopping that however I will say this I probably could count on one hand the number of parents that have opted out of that curriculum once they read it they recognize that whatever it is they're reading on Facebook or any other social media Outlet it's not true and they also realize too that just because the standards say one thing it doesn't mean that the curriculum is actually going to state that explicitly again I give great credit to the extraordinary teachers and of course Miss madami who facilitated the writing of that curriculum to do it in such an age appropriate manner uh I think I answered all the questions on that so with regard to policy 5756 which if you're not aware it's our transgender students policy and uh first and foremost I I think it's important that people realize I this about policy for the most part policy is what's called performatory most policies that are adopted by the Board of Education are aligned with State Statute and then New Jersey administrative code in fact if you look at the process New Jersey legislature will go ahead and with the governor's approval enact legis legislature or law the Department of Education then develops would have called New Jersey um academic um Administrative Code administrative code New Jersey Administrative Code regulations and thanks they then require the Departments uh the individual Boards of educations to create policy not to do anything other than to help their staff implement the regulation as well as the law so in essence our policies are just a guide for our staff to go ahead and Implement what the law says we have to do and in this particular case that's exactly what this is there is law that states that we have to do these things the policy is created to help our staff follow the law so if we were to revise or even resend this policy we would still be obligated to follow the law and more importantly held liable if we violate or do not comply with that law so I think that's one thing that people really need to understand about any policy particularly that policy it's being said that the policy keeps parents out of the conversation regarding issues of sexual orientation and gender identity can you tell me how many times since the policy was enacted many many years ago by the way a parent has been kept out of a conversation about a student's sexual orientation or gender identity first of all if you take the time to read the policy nowhere in the policy does it state that staff members cannot tell parents about students who are having questions about their gender identity or expression the only thing the policy states is that first and foremost the policy is created to align with the law so that no child in our district is fac with a hostile learning environment and that includes children who have gender identity or expression questions so you cannot create a hostile environment for a student of A different race a student of a different religion a student of a different gender and this policy says you can't also do it for students with gender identity or expression questions but nowhere in the policy nor in the law does it state that staff members cannot tell parents in fact if you read the policy it states that that does happen however it does state in the policy that in some cases in which reporting to a parent might result in that child doing harm to themselves staff members don't have a duty to tell the parent as I've been superintendent here for my 11th year I do not have a single case in which we have not communicated with our parents and thankfully we have not had a case in which communicating with a parent with regard to this topic might result in a child doing harm to themselves however if you dive deeper into the law and why that is in the law it's because the alarming rate of suicide of students schoolage students who have gender identity or expression questions or issues and they do not have a safe place to discuss them with a responsible adult um was enacted a ago a parent yeah I answered that one and it's so why specific there was not enough if so so back to the biggest misconceptions I think the biggest misconceptions of that policy is that it's saying that staff members cannot talk to parents and that's false I just get finished saying how extraordinary our elementary school teachers communicate with our parents I also just got finished saying that if we want to ensure the best outcomes of our students the the home and the school have to work together as a partnership withholding information will lead to mistrust and I think all of our teachers all of our counselors all of our child study team members all of our therapists all of our staff do an exceptional job of communicating at all times with our parents and there's nowhere in that policy that it states that they shouldn't or they can't all it states again is if a staff member feels that a child is going to do harm to themselves if something regarding that child's gender identity or expression is communicated to their parents the staff member does not have a duty they are not required to report that to the parent I think I answered all those questions and and Dr Lobby what people don't understand is the school a teacher a school nurse a counselor if a child appears to be abused if a child appears to come in with any concerns about home life you're required to take action aren't you absolutely by Statute we are required and if we do not we risk the suspension or or our license being revote so that that doesn't matter if a child's coming in because they feel threatened because they're not doing their homework or if they feel threatened because they're coming out as gay or they're questioning gender with or without this policy we're obligated to do something about it that's correct so so the policy so just to clarify the if we were sended 5756 it really would just lead to more confusion or not more but confusion because teachers wouldn't know what the policy is and how to handle the situation but the law that protects those children does not change it's still in play no matter if we resend it revise it whatever the New Jersey statute those laws that protect transgender children are still in effect yes and in my opinion revising or resending that policy would be putting us on a course for disaster because you would be sending the message to our staff that they don't have to follow that law and that will ultimately lead to the violation of that law and the liability and heaven forbid it's not a taking their life or harming themselves that will come with that and and that's a law that's been around since I think 200 theg yeah the lgbtq plus part of the anti-discrimination law in New Jersey went into effect in 2006 yeah so this is a law that's been around for almost 20 years yes and because of misinformation now we have people that are calling for policies that they know nothing about to be taken away it appears so well not happening with this board member and it's not happening with this superintendent oh I had a question just to clarify for the public okay can't is it about my black eye I think Lucy hit you with one of her heels right her big heels um what I wanted to say was when this policy 5756 okay when a child comes forth and says I believe I am a girl and it's a boy or vice versa a boy saying he's a girl or feeling that he's a girl he's transgender those children if they feel that if they went home their parent is not going to handle this information that they're going to be in trouble and they that's when we do not tell the parent so I'll clarify again it's not that we do not it's then that's the professional Judgment of that faculty member that is working with that child what we're what the policy says is they don't they're not required to tell the parent in that particular case but it's up to the professional Judgment of that staff member me personally Miss bone if I was that staff member and I felt that telling the parents would put them in great harm I would yeah cuz I think like what people forget too and I think this is important for everybody in seille to start keeping in mind is that behind closed doors people speak freely parents speak freely they say racist things they say sexist things they say things against uh hatte hatred speech but they think they're getting away with it because their doors closed and their neighbors aren't listening nobody's listening but who is listening the child so if I was someone who was a child who felt that I was homosexual I was transgendered and I have spent my entire childhood listening to my parent rant about everybody gays um all different racist groups like they my parent is just racist and I know this because I've heard them okay I might have a legitimate fear that if my sexuality feeling was known especially as I get older okay high school kid coming out if I was outed by the school my life could be ruined and that's what people don't realize is the person who knows that parent the best is the child who lives with that parent so when kids are afraid of their parents that fear is real yeah so I think people need to realize that does not change if a parent is racist they are sexist they have hatred in their heart against different groups that child is the first person that will be aware of that parents feelings and they would be afraid and I think that's what people got to understand why some children not all children but some children will be in that situation and even if we as a board we keep this policy in place and we save that one child that is good enough for me and I'm sorry but that's how I personally feel as I said earlier too in my response uh in the very few cases that we have had here in seral since I've been superintendent our parents of those students have been amazing and very supportive uh and very nurturing and worked very closely with our staff members to help their children oh I I know what I missed okay so we also have that program where we have that thanks to Mr um Glock mloy that if kids Google how to commit suicide or how to harm themselves our computer system identifies that right absolutely in fact um missola and Mr Nasser are all over that we get what are called um Beacon alerts and I I sometimes don't think that Miss sleeps at all um because she's basically answering these things at all hours of the day as is Mr naster and a recollection the two of them probably saved up to five or six students lives last year one student was actually in the act of harming themselves um and they um they actually made the call to the police who arrived at the student's house and uh you know intervened but yeah we we do get those alerts and um you know our our administrators and our counselors are monitoring them and some the ones I just mentioned are monitoring them at all times during the day and I also want to state that I had heard that in a few of those cases not everyone but a few of them the parents really didn't they didn't even though you're telling them hey your child it has it may be trying to commit suicide they're writing or looking up information out a kid suicide the parent did not have any interest in your involvement in alerting them to that is that true sadly that's not only correct um it went further than that the parents were in in many ways very aggressively um sometimes nasty toward us when we were calling them alerting them that you know we just we just saw a search your child just searched Suicide Hotline um and um the the the level of disdain that we would receive from them when we would call them and like you know listen no one wants to make that call to a parent but um people there there were some not many that were were very unpleasant and and not pleased with us calling them to report this to them and and the fact that any parent even one parent would not be interested if their children children is comp uh considering killing themselves is unbelievable and I think that's what the public parents and seille need to understand is you may be a good parent you may have your child's confidence your kid might come to you with everything but there are other parents out there where that's not true so that's why our board policies are very important okay whether you uh you know you're you're for transgender kids or you're against them it doesn't matter this protection needs to stay in place because we don't have parents from Mayberry looking like Andy griffi um you know in our in our Mist we have parents who really don't care and that's really what we need to focus these policies on protecting those childrens in those specific households so please let's I would like to make sure that this you know stays in play thank you Mrs B would I be from maybery with my black eye no because Andy would never have a black eye Goomer my who's that other guy Goomer Andy M Mr Andy Griffin got along with his board President we love each other well I'll just say that's because I'm a girl from Brooklyn I know how to take care of myself but I would also like to say just latching on to what we've been discussing anyone and several of us have who has spent time as a teacher in a classroom knows that you love every kid most of the time I think in my years of teaching I won't tell you how many I could count on one hand the kids that I had trouble with but again I taught art no I never had Pat I was there after him um it was a different environment I taught art so I walked around and I spoke to the kids we had conversations Monday mornings I would put my fingers in my ears and say no no no too much information I don't need to know what you did over the weekend but they wanted to share they wanted to be part of an adult I think cuz some of them didn't have that and I know I shouldn't tell the story but I do there was the one young man who would come in every morning and say Miss where's my morning hug and I would give it to him because he obviously didn't get it at home and we're still friends on Facebook and he's married with children but I think people forget that we are people just because we're sitting here on the board doesn't mean that we don't have children we don't have families we understand all of this and we are here to do the best that we can and you all know I'm a glutton for punishment cuz I've been here forever but that's why we do it to make a difference so I thank everybody for their input tonight and I think it's time to close shall we close I don't think I got my evening hug though oh well I will give you anyone who wants a hug I'm always available for hugs okay meeting adjourned yay do we