##VIDEO ID:_swkPut3ETI## and to the for be our I'd like to call to order tonight's meeting of August 27th regular public meeting Mr Jones can you please call the roll miss barve here Miss Bower here miss Boro Miss Brody here miss serani here Miss Williams Miss Winkler here Dr Cole Kowski here Mr Murray here for is present please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance ready again I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God ivisible with liberty and justice for all okay uh an executive session prior to the meeting we cover Personnel Hib and legal status I'm now going to move over to the superintendent for the superintendent report thank you we recently had two Community open houses for for the referendum and a third open house is coming which will be virtual on September 9th at 700 p.m. and you can register for that by visiting spfk12.org future and there you will get a zoom link um today we also welcomed our new teachers in new teacher orientation um it it took place yesterday and it will tomorrow too and we have over 30 new eager Educators join joining our ranks so thank you to our our HR department for bringing all of those new Educators on board and thank you Dr McGary for you know designing the the the program along with your supervisory team and the other administrators to to welcome our new staff and finally many of our current teachers are already in their classrooms and if they're not in their classrooms I know that they are working on making Dynamic lesson plans it's such an exciting time of the year for for all of us as we get ready to start up for the 24 25 school year thank you Dr M uh business administrator report Mr Jones yeah so it's uh been a pretty busy summer at Evergreen so we are just finishing up we expect it to be open on time um been a lot of hiccups getting getting it through so quickly but we have been able to inspections are this week Furniture is there you know of course a couple items we still need to order but uh overall pretty solid for how quickly we've done it um our stairs at the high school are wrapping up in the back the brand new stairs we're waiting on some items that are back ordered but it's essentially completed at this point um our we're still waiting our bleachers at the high school auditorium or the high school gym um are coming in soon they we'll miss a couple games without them but uh not too not too bad um they replaced took them out out read to the floors and we're just waiting for the install be fairly quick uh should happen shortly um and then we have um some new cameras being installed on the football field um most likely in the next week or two to expand um our security coverage um so lots of stuff going on um we had our audit was our first phase of our audit was completed and um they'll be coming later in uh September to finish up that's it thank you Mr Jones uh board president announcement the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have the advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of the public bodies in which any business affecting the interests as discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of the ACT Scotch L family board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by and having the date time and place thereof posted at the Board of Education offices located at 313 South Avenue Fanwood New Jersey such notice was also provided in written notice forwarded to the Union County Hawk to Star Ledger the Township Clerk of Scotch Plains and the Bor Clerk of Fanwood and the annual notice of regularly sched meetings as adopted April 25th 2024 I'll will now pass over to our student board rep Mac for any updates so I have a shorter report today um but today sgaa hosted the new student orientation today at the high school uh I was there and I helped run the event and it went really smoothly we had mainly freshmen come to the high school for the first time it's exciting they get to see their schedules and tour the building for for the first time um and the event went really well also fall athletic preseason have begun and games have started we have our first home football game this Thursday at the high school so make sure to come out and support and that's all I have for today great thanks ma okay instructional updates I believe we have the NJ graduation proficiency assessment results we have a host of presenters yes slides behind we will move out of the way so good evening everyone um you know I I often sort of get asked that question of you know why do you work 12 months what do you do in the summer the schools are in session and um there's a whole lot that goes on behind the scenes during the summer and one of those is really sort of digging into um student s data such as the NJ GPA and um so this is the first in two parts of um the state assessment um report from 2023 2024 so tonight I'll be presenting results from the New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment for the NJ GPA for the class of 2025 which includes our very young student representative first let's provide some some context the njpa was first administered to 11th grade students in March of 2022 it aligns to the states Algebra 1 geometry and 10th grade ELA standards for the class of 2025 this assessment is just one pathway for meeting graduation requirements and students are scored either quote graduation ready or quote not yet graduation right so we'll start with um our English language arts results so based on the assessment results close to 92% of our new seniors earned a graduation ready score compared to the state average of 81.6% when we include students who passed through other measures or or were exempt that number Rises to 98% this means only 2% of our students are currently not yet graduation ready in ela so think of a 98% as the district getting an a um in ela right so looking at demographic uh breakdown we see very performance across different groups for instance um in the group that's that's known as uh two or more races you'll see that the change from 2023 to 2024 is an increase of 15 15 percentage points um while our Asian student group saw a 99.4% decrease which will certainly be looking at those results um and and trying to determine if this is a trend and and what our needs are around that so to talk about what the data suggests I'd like to invite our supervisor of English language artarts K 6 through 12 Dr Liz McKenna to share her analysis with us thanks Dr McGary I would also like to point out that a 8% is actually so obviously when we're thinking about celebrations here we should celebrate the fact that 98% of our seniors are graduation ready as dictated by the state um the first thing that we want to celebrate is that tremendous number the second thing that we think is notable to celebrate is when we dive more deeply into specifically how we performed on individual State Standards so the state provides us with evidence statements that says here are the exact standards that were tested here's how many students received questions on that standard and here's how the students did in all standards in which more than two students were tested we scored at least 10 percentage points above the state average which is absolutely something to I in particular took a look at our nonfiction reading because that's something that we as a department have been specifically focusing on and there we performed almost twice as high as the state standard so we really are celebrating the fact that we made some curricular changes and those curricular changes are bearing fruit we do want to take a look at some next steps and some wonderings one of the questions I always have is that six% of students who didn't get graduation ready on the test but did through another pathway and another pathway could include an IP exemption or it could include an SAT a PSAT an A and often it's really one of that latter category rather than the former category so I want to take a look at those students in P in particular to think about what was their attitude towards the test was this just a bad test day for them were they absent the day before did they forget it was the test that day unfortunately when we're able to look at just one class's data we really are able to dig that deeply into specific students which will also help us to take a look at those subgroups that Dr McGary was talking about so in places where we Rose we want to see what did we do differently this year that might be helpful for us to take a look at in the future and then in places where our students did not perform as well as they have historically we want to say okay is this a case of that's this group of students or is there something that we could or did do differently to get those outcomes another thing I took a look at um again going deeply into the standards was one of our Reading literature standards uh around analyzing character and themes we performed not as well above the state and that feels like the bread and butter of an English teacher so one of the I think benefits of this year's assessment is going to be that the New Jersey student learning standards for ELA have been updated and they're more specific so hopefully in next year's assessment we'll get a more specific break down of where it is exactly that students might need a little bit of extra support um but we are extremely proud of the performance of the students this year um and every year so moving on to mathematics um in mathematics 80.9% of our students are rising seniors are graduation ready compared to just 54.7% across the state of New Jersey including other measures and exemptions is as Dr McKenna was talking about 96.5% of our students have met the requirements leaving just 3.5% not yet graduation ready our demographic uh breakdown in math shows some significant improvements for example our black or African-American students and students of two or more races both saw increases of 19 percentage points over the class of 2024 the students that just left us for college however we also see areas needing attention such as a 5.7% decrease for our Hispanic or Latino students to talk about what um to talk about what the mathematics data suggests I'd like to invite our supervisor of mathematics 6312 mat to share some deeper analysis with us hi everyone um we didn't quite get that A+ but we're at an a I think maybe an A+ round it up but I think that is a uh a really good Mark having 96.5% of our students meet that graduation requirement um that's fantastic uh especially when you consider it in terms of the the entire State um some of the strengths that I've noticed um looking at the data is our students are really good at uh function similarity and right triangles which are all the foundations for higher level math classes such as trigonom calculus things that they would be taking in their postsecondary educational career um students also were very good at questions that dealt with skills Concepts and procedures so for example if a question asked um it had a right triangle and asked the students to find the missing side they could easily use an algorithm like the Pythagorean theorem to find that missing side um some of the areas that I kind of would like to focus this year on is is uh having students look at reasoning and modeling in the classroom and to do that through open-ended problems so almost like that same example that I just gave having a context for students to kind of understand the problem so think of it as like you're an architect and you're building the roof of a house and the long leg has to be one inch longer than the shortest leg and the hypothenuse has to be 2 in longer than the shortest leg what are some possible answers a question like that allows all students to kind of provide some information they can take some guesses they can think about it and then you can have those discussions more organically I think that would really help in those areas of reasoning and modeling in our in our classroom and so one of the things I'm thinking for this upcoming year is working with teachers to kind of have those contextual problems that allow all students to kind of access the mathematics to have those strong discussions in the classroom um the other thing that I was also looking at was uh even though we had a really big uh gain with our black and African-American students that still was only 51% of the students were meting the graduation so I'd like to see that those gains kind of continue with our subgroups um I really strongly feel that having those open-ended you know those low floor high ceiling problems in the classroom classroom will really benefit students I look at that as a way that we can have have all students access to math rather than just students think I'm not a math student I'm not going to do well on this test I want them to all kind of persevere and work through those problems so that's something that for this year an actionable you know action I guess for our department is going so to conclude um while we're proud of our students overall performance we recognize that always for improvement as as both of our supervisors talked about um and we're committed to addressing the areas we've identified ensuring all of our students are well prepared for graduation and Beyond so thank you for your attention and for your interest in these results and thanks to folks like Matt for foring through the your last state CL are there any question myself or my colleagues former ma teering any questions for the instructional update from anyone well thank you all for the data it was great to to see that we are making some progress in a lot of key areas so thank you okay we are going to move to our first public comment section in accordance with Scotch plan Family Public School bylaw 0164 0165 the meeting will be open for 15 minutes for public comment maximum 3 minutes per speaker speakers addressing superintendent items business functions and other board business will be heard first if time remains speakers May address other matters speakers please State your full name and the town in which you reside please note board choose public comment as an opportunity to listen to Citizen concerns but not to debate issues or enter into a question and answer session or a cross-examination between the public and the individual members be aware not all issues brought before the board will be resolved that evening boards May respond to public comment by seeking additional information or by delegating the authority to investigate the issue to the superintendent or his or her designate so if anybody has a public comment please please step forward no okay seeing no one then I will close the first public comment section and we will now move over to letters to the board six emails were received and sent to the appropriate administrator do we have any committee reports no committee reports great we will move move over to superintendent okay thank you so number one is for the board to approve the additional esy 2024 2025 school year out of District placements two is to approve the hibs from June 20th 2024 three is to approve the field trips request for 2425 four is to affirm submission of the 2425 annual statement of of assurance for the comprehensive Equity plan for 2019 to through 2022 um for five the board to authorize the submission of the request to eliminate a Elementary special ed program that is no longer needed six is to approve the 24 through 2027 language instruction educational program it's a three-year plan seven is to approve the annual code of conduct that has been reviewed viewed under the direction of Dr reimus with the administrative team eight is to approve the revision of the 2425 board meeting schedule thank you Dr Mass do we have a motion so move Dr Kowski do we have a second bar any comments or questions I have one question sure were um there any um am what were the changes to the student code of conduct or sure the first change was just the addition of um language regarding restorative justice switch it on yep just push it up thank you am I on now good um the first was the addition of language regarding restorative justice in the overall um student code of conduct the beginning part is a district statement um so the administrative team felt it was important to outline um restorative justice practices that that we believe should um be more explicitly stated at the high school there were um additional changes regarding um updating language regarding um the use of ID cards the use of cell phones um those were two um that were were updated there was just language consistency um that that they changed just to to make it clearer um for the high school at the middle schools there were no changes in the content of it the administrators felt it was important to alphabetize the list of infractions to make it more userfriendly um so that was the only major change and at the elementary level there were no changes and for the cell phones and the ID cards are like the cell phones that's related to our policies our current policies or it's related to our policy IES um regarding use of cell phones and it's also in regard to some some future pieces that we're trying to instill as a district as far as responsible use of Technology okay thank you any other questions all those in favor I opposed motion carries Dr Mass Personnel I'd like the board to approve the recommendations for personnel that we discussed this evening in exec and I would like to move that the board approve the following board official Christopher Jones to be the appointed affirmative action officer for Employment Practices do we have a motion so move Dr Kowski do we have a second second Miss Williams any comments questions Mr Jones please call the rooll Miss Barb Miss Bower yes Miss Brody yes Miss arani yes Miss Williams yes Miss Winkler yes Dr Kowski yes Mr Murray yes motion carries business functions Mr Jones y um I did forgot to mention my opening about the enrollments we didn't have the enrollment we have a 30 30 or 40 students that are still in the enrollment process so we don't have um the final numbers um but preliminary number shows us up you about 10 or so and I just want to say we I did look at the uh Orchard Park development um and the majority of the larger units haven't opened yet we have one opening in October um another one opening in January and then a third building that uh they don't have a time frame on we expect 50 students out of there 50 to 60 um and for the units that still need to be open that represents about 43 of those so um we to come on that as the year goes as that opens um terms of the agenda items uh staff training related Services special ed book disposals a transportation agreement with another school district um some Professional Services the educ the special ed settlement agreement uh Ida approving and accepting Ida funds W on the last meeting because they didn't have the numbers out yet uh approving our non-public uh participating schools uh custodial Supply so this we're we're switching vendors um our previous vendor was uh bought out by a larger company um and we found another supplier with some employees from there who started up and they're giving us a fairly uh significant discount 10 to 15% on these items so uh they are also State contract uh and that leads to the next uh number 10 which is the join us joining the mammoth uh Ocean County Educational Services Commission no cost but they are part of that uh Co-op and it'll open up more companies we can purchase from as well uh 11 is the public vote 12 um is a standard um maximum amount for evaluation cost for special education 13 is the reading recovery program for teachers 14 is me being a purchasing agent should have been on the last meeting um and then the standard uh drills Financial reports dispersement listings and payment of our bills do we have a motion to approve the business items on the agenda do we have a second do we have comments questions for Mr Jones I have a question explain like for example in 13 that um does that mean our teachers go to a different District toce development is that typical like is that programing recover it's very specific to the reading recovery program and there are certain training sites that they they attend yeah I have a question also the number four R B transportation agreement y that is for a student who uh wait that's let me make sure I got this right yeah go there they go there right this this teacher the person the student goes there and they do the transportation I know that I know they do the transportation it might be for actually no I think it's for a school down there that they also transport their students to so by but jumping on with them we get a cheaper price okay thank you 13,000 is is extremely cheap we pay parents more than that um and most of our routes are 70 80,000 yeah any other questions from Mr Jones all those in favor I opposed motion carries we'll move over to board policies do hold on have push the slide that up is it on yeah she turned around okay so uh for tonight I am I'd like to move that the board uh approve second and final reading for policy 8500 Food Service um we discussed this back in June that we were looking at making some changes based on uh some students being in AAR on their on their lunch uh lunch accounts so I made the motion do we have a second second any comments or questions all those in favor opposed moot carries uh minutes do we have a motion to approve the June 20th and July 16th minutes so moved M Winkler do we have a second second Miss barf any comments or questions on that all those in favor I opposed motion carries uh new board business we have a motion to approve um an exchange student so so anybody second second do we have any comments or questions on this great great I think it's cool that this was a student who actually was hosted by this family in the district last year so that's exciting allers in favor I opposed motion carries other board business Le on reports do we have have any Le on reports uh I wanted to just uh give everyone a reminder um that on September 18th so it's the morning of the day we have our next board meeting um is the first Garden State Coalition of schools meeting and it's very nearby in New Providence at the Morris Morris Union jointure um and uh there'll be a guest Moren Brogan who's program director of the traumatic loss Coalition which is part of ruer university and uh so it should be a great program uh she's speaking on Middle School mental health and suicide prevention so uh I'm sure you'll get reminders in your email but just wanted to highlight it so you mark your calendar thank you miss barer any other reports seeing none uh any request to attend workshops seeing none we have a few motions uh resolutions rather Latino and Hispanic Heritage Month resolution uh arts and education resolution Suicide Prevention month resolution do we have motions to approve so move Miss wickler second Miss Williams any comments or questions all those in favor opposed motion carries we will now move to the second and final public comment in accordance with Scotts Lan Family Public School bylaw 0164 0165 the meeting will be open for 15 minutes for public comments maximum 3 minutes per speaker speakers addressing superintendent items business functions and other board business will be heard first and if time remains speakers May address other matters speaker please state your name and the town in which you reside please not boards use the public comment period as an opportunity to listen to Citizen concern but not to debate issues or enter into a question and answer session or a cross-examination between the public and individual members beware the not all issues brought before the board meeting will be resolved that evening boards May respond to public comment by seeking additional information or by delegating authority to investigate the issue to the superintendent or his or designate I will now open the second and final public comment section here you go thank you John Denning Scotch Plains I'd like to speak on the upcoming referendum uh first I would encourage anyone that hears this message to vote no on the referendum we are in a school and things that are important in schools are first to do your homework and this board has not thoroughly examined Alternatives they have simply presented one solution and claimed as our only solution there is no credible Alternatives analysis associated with this work second the dreaded show your work the district has been collecting information they claim to put out a public information page which is intended to get people to vote yes however they have not put on that page a great deal of information that they do have access to and that would be useful for allowing intelligent people to make an informed decision now I have gathered some of that information through an open public records act I'd be happy to share it with anyone my name is John Denning One n like in gardening in Denning you can reach out to me on Facebook and I will share it with you but we've been told we're on the edge of a demographic Cliff but in the last 10 years the high school population according to your demographic report has gone down 32 students the middle school has gone up a whopping six students 1 through fourth has gone up 76 students where the real change in the district has come is in the prek and K program which has gone up 146 students why is that you can see it in the demographics Port when we switch from halfday kindergarten to full day kindergarten the enrollment jumped not only did it jump it continued to jump jump so we cut the available number of classrooms for them in half because now they need a full day classroom and we've expanded the number the district only added six classrooms that was wholly inadequate simply to convert from half day to whole day much less address the increase in population in that plus the tuition-based prek program that is where the growth is occurring that is where the problem is this referendum is about undoing past poor planning and I urge people not to continue to do poor planning but to do proper planning as we go forward this state is very ill conceived we are in a period of extremely high inflation extremely high prices extremely high interest rates those are a bad combination for borrowing money there's also the issue of what this does to our community which has been downplayed the demographic report estimates that 30% of our elementary children will have to switch schools that is probably the floor okay the redistricting has to be approved by the state you know that the state is going to have other interests in this than simply most efficiently packing kids into the school you may have to add busing Roots I know there's a claim that we won't but you may have to that's the reality of it you may be shipping kids all over the town and you're disrupting onethird of the elementary school population minimum minimum so I encourage everyone that hears this to vote no let's take the time let's plan it properly and let's hold the referendum on a date that's convenient for people not from 2:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. where people who are working can't make it let's hold it at a time where everyone can come and have their voice heard and those that want it can vote for it but they're also voting to shave $10,000 off their property value that's what average will happen when you have to pay that much more taxes versus the mortgage rate that is what's gonna happen that's the reality over a minute now if you could just wrap up your thoughts please sir yeah I know uh Mr Murray is the presiding officer he has asked me and I will respond to him you have no authority to interrupt me here and this is not the first time you done more authority to continue to speak sir you're actually if you look at the rules I I do but I'm going to stop because you do not have any interest in hearing what I have to say okay Mr Denning my record much for your comments you're welcome does anyone else have a public comment no seeing no one I will close the second and final public comment speaking section upcoming meetings um September 18th is our regular public meeting at 8:00 P.M here and good of the order does anybody have anything for the good order Dr cool kowsky welcome back everybody I'm happy to see everyone glad to be back I love the new location in the high school media center and I look forward to seeing everybody at Thursday's first football game I am going to be there tomorrow thank you I would just like to give a shout out I think from all of us to the staff for all that goes on in the summer I know people think not much goes on in the summer but uh a lot a lot a lot of hiring curriculum work um planning Transportation just so many things are happening in the summer and so kudos to what's uh from all of us for what's unseen but been happening thank you m b other go to the order I just want to wish everybody a good remainder of year summer for those that have not already started and good luck to all the students and staff we're looking forward to another another good year it's another safe year and that's all I had a question we already have another um Rising Junior um board rep identified corre is that correct not yet oh okay I was that that's in process we do that in the month of September okay that's my question oh and just to say what I always say you know in a week we a half everyone be careful to drop off it gets a little crazy out there so just be safe and have a great start to the new school year anyone else do we have a motion to adjourn so move Dr kosi second from Miss Winkler all those in favor oppos we are adjourned thank you