##VIDEO ID:jR6Hc833oLs## you know I'm good good parking wi okay welcome to a meeting of the Board of Education of sumerset hills please be advised that this and all meetings of the board are open to the public and media consistent with the open public meetings act and that advanced notice required therein has been provided this is a meeting of the Board of Education of Somerset Hills at which formal action may be taken the public will have an opportunity to be heard as shown on the agenda roll call please Mr Baker here M Valor here m coer here Mr C gr here miss gills here Mr Joyce Miss Nathans Mrs and Mrs Ry and MRSA here we're going into executive session the open public meetings act authorizes a public body to exclude the public from that portion of a meeting at which specified topics are to be discussed under circumstances where the public consideration of such topics will clearly endanger the public or where the personal privacy or guaranteed right of individuals whose activities or Affairs are to be discussed would clearly be in danger of unwarranted Invasion and the matters about to be presented for discussion clearly meet the circumstances test of such act the Board of Education of Somerset Hills now adjourns its public session to reconvene an executive session for the purpose of discussing the following Personnel student matters contracts negotiations and litigations can I get a motion to go into executed Please Mr Baker and second Miss Cooper thank you Al to of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all impeccable time I'm here okay well then we are going to hand it over for Dr brel for the report of the superintendent so we have our first group of students from the middle school and the high school that are serving as our uh Representatives um representing their classmates and our first group is from um the Middle School to representing the climate and culture team uh we have had uh kickoffs before for our climate and culture team uh to speak to the board here we had one last September and they're back they're doing beautiful work and uh we have aaam and Clara kajo who I met with the other day and they are uh excited to be able to um share with you all uh what is uh new at the middle school so we'll have um Clarissa and AA come on up and uh they can begin ladies good evening my name is am and I'm an AG grade at Bernardsville Middle School this will be my third year as a part of the culture and climate team a group at BMS that is in charge of planning and organizing events at school that are fun for students our first event this year was over the summer when we welcome newcomers at BMS with a breakfast in the cafeteria and followed that with a meeting discussing our plans for the year at the breakfast culture and climate students took turns to discuss different aspects that make DMS the great school it is and to show them around to ensure they aren't completely lost on the first day the breakfast also helps the new students meet some kids at school so they know that they will see some friendly faces in the hallway as for upcoming plans we have many ideas in the works and hope to make this year even better than previous ones by choosing events we know students will love Based on data from prior years one day that was extremely popular among students last year was Pi Day in which the student with the most community service hours as of Pi Day in each grade hide a teacher in the face during their resp Ive lunch periods we hope to have another pday celebration in March this year with some new additions that will make it even better than last year's such as incorporating house points and fundraising some other ideas we had for this year include anything but a backpack day hat days house days kickball tournaments and movie days during the weeks of State Testing we hope that these events will drum up school spirit and motivate students to show their love for BMS we will have our first house day this Thursday September 26th so make sure to remind your students to dress in their houses colors I'm looking forward to the start of another great year I will now turn it over to chissa thank you Maya my name is clariss Casiano I'm in seventh grade I am in Duke house this summer I went to assist the fifth graders set up their lockers I went for 2 days I ear some community service out OBM students in grades 6 through 8 need to earn 10 hours a year fifth graders start off with earning 5 hours community service for the 4 years of being you need to complete 35 hours BMS students can find out opportunities to get um community service but announcements at school in the bulletin board at BMS Mrs Kimmel is in charge of the community service for students at BMS our community service follows the motto of the Travis Manion Foundation which is if not me then him some ways to get community service is by doing the Hub Club talktober rise and shine Breakfast Bag program and positively meet we started our classes off this year by making a new thing called a social contact which is where we make rules for ourselves some of the things on there are what we should be like to teacher how teacher should be like to us how we should treat each other and how we should act when handling conflict some common words are respect kindness listening responsible and calm these contracts are guide on how our students should behave and act in the classrooms thank you and have a good night thank you ladies I um I want to share that I spent some time last spring with the climate and culture team uh as they worked through their uh student handbook and it's probably uh one of the more impressive interactions that I've seen um from kids uh in any District uh when it comes to developing some ownership in in the functionality of their school and to top it off I actually have a signed autograph copy of the handbook from the clim culture team which is pretty cool and it's in my office and I show people all the time so um some great things that are coming out of that team uh at the middle school and our new speaker from the high school is nor Nora jersak and uh she's going to be spending uh the year with you all Nora comes to us from Hillsboro she's been at the high school for two years and she's really immersed herself uh into all things uh for's high and we really are looking forward to learning from her this year thank you hello everybody my name is Nora jerac and I a senior at Bernard's high school and I will be acting as the high school representative for the 2024 and 2025 school year I'm very excited to get to know everybody and work with you all um all right to get started students are very excited to be back in school and start the classes with peers they are especially excited as we anticipate that the track will be done soon they see red if you go and look there are big containers full of red paint so that's what it is and can tell you uh this morning actually everyone looked out the window very excited about it getting painted um as the track is still under construction it is not open to the public yet and gym classes are being held on the grass in the lower Fields however all sports teams are still able to practice on the turf and all home football games have been held on the football field um since school has started there has been a little bit of an issue with the waiting time for lunch line since the school lunch provider is experiencing some stopping issues however Berard staff is well aware and Dr Nigel and Dr brelle are working to get it uh resolved one of our clubs pure leaders is up and running and freshman orientation was very successful I was at it and I have to say the freshman classes here are absolutely wonderful the growth that we've seen from the end of last year before the summer too even them coming back this September they've really matured and they're really looking forward to get involved in extracurriculars activities Sports so that's really great to see um tomorrow back to school night the pure leaders will also be there and they will help parents and Guardians find the classes and make sure that everything runs smoothly and they we are also helping with the pep rally another one of our clubs the Crimson which is our school newspaper is working on putting a new issue out and getting more students involved um we're really excited about that uh Bernard's choir is currently fundraising for their trip to New Orleans so that is super exciting I believe they're selling baked goods um our student council has been working diligently to plan the homecoming dance which is on October 5th at 700 p.m. the theme is masquerade and so people can wear masks we'll see um I can speak for myself and many of my peers when I say that we are very excited about it coming back this year student council has also been working hard hard on planning our pup rally and there will be tons of games activities skits I believe every single fall sport will be performing some kind of um skit so that should be interesting to see um everyone will be wearing red and so we have started to say spread red um the seniors are very busy most if not all are applying early action or rolling and so far we've already had about 10 people commit to schools which is super exciting um as far as Sports go it's been very good season so far it's still early but I will go over the stats football so far is 40 and they are the front leaders in the conference boy soccer is 42 girls soccer is 61 field hockey is 321 uh there was a cross country meet today so far they are undefeated and we've had two students break BHS records at narar which is super exciting um tennis girls tennis is 63 volleyball is 55 5 and there is a County Tennis championship this weekend at pingry and our team will be playing there so very exciting thank you so much thank you Nora uh next item on uh our presentation tonight is the New Jersey student learning assessment presentation from the 2024 results and we have Dr ederton that is here with Miss Bara and Mr pelli and they are going to leave the uh presentation [Music] tonight hello everyone we are back so we are back with this year with this year annual report to the board of the student assessment results of NJ law and another required Statewide assessments assessments took place last [Music] spr for for each subject area Ela Math and Science the data presented will be in will include Ela results from grades 3 to 9 math results from grades 3 to 8 all students that took algebra one course grades 7 through 12 everyone geometry students from grade 8 and n and Algebra 2 from grade n science results will be uh represented by grades uh 5 8 and 11 and those are grade band results we will present analysis within each data set we will talk about multi-year Trends and sub group performance disaggregated and aggregated and we will look at our observations on student learning and also highlight next steps NG SL assessments as you probably know are administering spren and are summative these are federally required the test measure how well students learn grade level material and describe student mastery relative to meeting those grade level standards or course level standards in case of mathematics and they assess both content and subject related practices science practices math practices in La mathematics there are five performance levels for NG's law assessments level one not yet meeting expectations level two partially meting expectations level three approaching expectations four is meting and five is exceeding expectations as you know levels four and five together constitute so passing levels and these passing levels are something that we are going to look at if students pass on the low grade uh on the low grade levels uh with level four and five they consider to be uh on good Pathway to be College and Career ready when they get to high school and they get to graduation in science it's a little bit different scale and this is happened historically level one to 3 and four when 3 and four is similar to math n Ela 4 and5 that will be described as proficient and advanced proficient level again three and four considered to be passive level two is near proficiency limited understanding of the standards and level one is below proficiency this particular State also Fally required as I said before it test grade band knowledge in grade five this upgrades 34 and five in grade eight those are materials from courses in grade 6 7 and 8 and in grade 11 it's High School courses grades 9 10 and 11 um the test is quite complicated Elsa describ student mastery median grade level band but great band level standards and again we talking about content and M multiple practices different practices such as analyzing data uh constructing arguments uh science practices engineering practicing and so on and here's a snapshot of our results this year all together districtwide passing rate for ELA was calculated 71.9% with the state being at 52.2 Ma itics went to 59.9% very close to 60 with the state being at 39.5 and the science was at 40.5 is the state in at 24% passent rate we'll talk in details about all these numbers and at this point I'll ask poliy to talk about Ela results in thank you okay for English language arts our first chart here just to orient you because then many of the slides will look the same from here on out we typically have the grade going down the left side so you see the grades from 3 to 9 and then going across that's usually where we'll have our comparisons whatever we're highlighting for you on each slide so here we've banded um proficiency levels level four and five uh which is proficient which is passing level three which is approaching proficiency then we have the level one and to which is not meing um and alongside our shsd percentages at each of these levels you'll see where the state fell so we really like to hone in really on all of the numbers but our eyes first go to our level fours and fives who how many students in our schools are passing the um njsla uh in ela and something I see when I'm looking at this data that makes me really excited is the way the more time our students are in our schools as they move from third to Fourth to fifth to sixth grade and all the way till 9th we are getting more and more students to proficiency so you know looking at 9th grade when I see 81.3% of the last year's ninth graders pass this exam remember that's inclusive of all of our special populations that we have so we're very excited to see that growth going in their time here we always say like in school counts right time in school will make that difference for us we also like when we're looking at the level one and two section we want to see that number be very very low so when we're seeing the majority of the grades with under 15% that's showing we have a lot of kids maybe in that level three area who can receive the supports that we have in schools whether that be literacy support or a after school math labs and you know bumping them up into that further passing rate and then again you can just see kind of the side by sides of the States you know what what was the state doing compared to where we were on this sheet we broke it out completely we wanted you to see level by level what the um scores were at each of the grade levels again IQ us into grade nine which I made sure to give them the teachers their Kudos as well level one 1.2% that's really exciting for us to see um and then you know we're looking in our other grades we look at our seventh grade cohort where you know our eye is drawn to maybe oh that's that's different from the numbers we see in middle school and we ask ourselves why and I've been tracking since my arrival here in 2021 the group that was sort of who left in Co and where were they when they left and the two that I find most interesting are who left school in kindergarten right because they now missed foundational years in literacy and I'm also curious who left in third grade because they missed a lot of like comprehension work that kind of kicks off next and those are our seventh graders here and our fourth graders and I just kind of track them and I kind of see what kind of effects have we seen in those two groups I can't really explain exactly why but they're who I'm seeing they have this little bit of a dip where we're seeing in their progress which I think comes from you know we started building on the Second Story with them because they missed some of that foundational work to say all that how Co had its effects Olga and I were really interested in digging back back back back to to look at year by year our district proficiency rates and you know we were able to go back until 2015 which is when this type of test came out it was a little different in 15 and 16 it was Park I don't know if any of you remember that and the Panic Park created but look at us now we're doing so great um and then in 2017 201 that when it changed to njsla so just kind of keep that in mind that's why we went this far but we wanted to look at like where where have we been as a district what have we done what kind of growth have we seen what kind of change have we seen and one we notice when looking at our Ela scores when you get up to 2019 on this chart and you see the big dark line that's that's our covid shadow we didn't have any test scores but when we came back when we're looking at Ela we didn't really lose we didn't have a lot of kids kind of fall off in their proficiencies and that's something you know three years later we're looking back at and you know we're okay like we did okay our teachers did great the decisions that were made in District about how we taught virtually when we brought kids back we were able to keep them kind of where they needed to be and then I also like here when we start looking at the very bottom our district passing rates we're still on an upward climb from where we were in 2017 2018 we're still Rising incrementally but we are rising which we are very excited to see as well the other thing I want to point out to you on this slide is our ability now to track cohorts of kids so I keep pointing out my that ninth grade group who got 81% passing when we track them backwards those are our Yellow Boxes on this slide you can see how we've consistently brought more and more students to Proficiency in that grade level c-o which is just interesting to follow along right again we're seeing the longer they're here the more our teachers our supports everything that we have in place is able to help our students [Music] succeed breakdown of this years's and comparison years of our demographics so we have two groupings here we have demographics and we have subgroups just to orient you remember students in the um demographic categories will not overlap that is completely that is our whole picture you won't have any overlap within that those categories but we do also have some areas that we do not report on because of privacy issues it's we don't have enough students it would be too obvious of who we were reporting in about publicly other subgroups keep in mind there might be an overlap you could possibly have a single student who falls into each of these categories so that's just something to keep in mind as you're looking at these numbers we work and we've continued to work very closely um with our Hispanic population and our multilingual Learners we have so many supports that we've put in place as we think about what are their needs and we think often about yes academic needs but also what are some of those wraparound needs that we're seeing if they're possibly falling into another category as well like economically disadvantaged we're excited we have breakfast in schools this year right so we are starting learning with a full belly which is our best place to to start so there's a lot of other things that we're working with um Mr Catelli with miss kuransky you know thinking about these special populations and what might their needs be Beyond just academic programming and academic supports and that leads us kind of into observations about student learning and Next Step uh I had stated shsd grade level cohorts typically exhibit growth as they move across grades and our districtwide performance has remained consistent um if not a little better in comparison to past years um we'd like to continue to work with director of special service the director of of multilingual Ed and also building admin to conduct a deep analysis on some of those subgroups and think about what else can we do for these groups also we have many many internal benchmarks which we also use as another data point for a lot of our students we want to make sure that we're never using a single picture to to kind of cover the whole child so we have um in ela we have reading levels we still use I ready we're using our right rubrics and all of that data gets kind of compiled and pulled together to determine who needs supports and then finally continuing for multilingual Learners the sheltered instruction education we have a lot more teachers going this year so we can continue to be responsive to the kids that we have in front of us and Mathematics hey mathematics I'm very excited to report that growth in mathematics was 34% across all grade level so this is this is a very good percentage increase and we'll look at some particular grades um more carefully than others if you notice all grade levels in the second from the last column have passing rate very close to Six 60 or about this 62 59 59.6 64 60 the only grade that seems lower as you know is grade eight and this is not a TI grade that tested those students um split into algebra one and even some in geometry and only partial uh grade level take grade eight exam so all these numbers at 60 and even some at 70 it's a good improvement from previous years it's a good growth and actually if you look at the state passing rates similar to what Lindsay mention we are very um we very particular at all our support and all our work look at the middle school we do not have the same deep as uh state has State goes down to 40s and 30s on a grade level of six and seven and we don't we keep their grounds and somewhere around grade six we actually over 28% above the state level this are very good results algebra one um showed tremendous grow and we had seven full percentage points increase to 59.2 this is also a very good number and this is full 20% above state level now if you look at the next slide similar to ELA we simply looking at the different levels level one through [Music] five level one students who are far from passing yet we want these numbers to be as small as possible and this again good indicated that all these numbers are single digit just a reminder that in mathematics as opposed to ELA we do test students immediately even if they just walk into our doors a week ago so we do have students who just join us who still learning in language who uh may not have even full year of of instructions grade seven is also becoming now partial grade as some of our students taking algebra one so when you look at the big picture over the years keep in mind that seven is a partial grade and so is eight is a partial grade algebra one though is a cumulative result from grade seven all the way up to grade 12 so now we required to test every student Tak an algebra one geometry is a partial um grade as students only taken it in grade nine and algebra too we have such a small numbers again it's only nine graders that we not allowed to report them but they're doing very well this is again as Miss Bara mentioned we decided this year to look Way Way Back uh from year 2015 2016 at our results and look at the multi-year trend in mathematics it's a little bit even more than in ela this is not exactly comparing apples these apples in the early years there were some noticeable number of refusals test changed a lot between 15 and 16 some of our demographics changed um and some testing grades changed we went from testing students up to grade 11 down to 10 down to 9 so the number is not exactly the same however algebra one was expanded so now we have to test everybody up to great well so you can see I would like you to look at the last line District passing this I think is very interesting different from Ela you can clearly see um shift down after Co the big dark line is the co year so we went from passing rate you can see us climbing from 52 to 55 to 56 and then very noticeable Gap and going down to 53% however happy to report that we actually were able to rise back to preo level and even surpass it this year in fact 59.9% is the highest passing rate we ever have if you look in at algebra one look look at what a huge um jump they did after Co from 49% to 52 to 59 that's really good is to them look at grade six at 64.9 is the highest they ever been and grade seven El going up and also keep in mind that now it's a partial grade well few years before qu it was a whole grade because of our dou foundation again you can see I highlighted some C PS just like L mentioned we're looking at the same students doing better as they go off in the grad not that there this is a demographic [Music] slide so you can see the passing rates by different by different uh demographics and then by different subgroups if interesting on this slide every single demographics every single subgroup actually went up and it's [Music] very relative to uh very similar to what it was um for the whole population so about you can see about 3% about 3% some numbers are smaller so it's difficult to say but in general everything goes up there's one exception with students with disabilities as I missp a little bit so we'll look at that and coming to Observation student learning and next steps again very similar with Ela student performance performed consistent or better in comparison to past years in fact absolute majority of grade levels went up District wise student math scores are exceeding preo level we very happy to report we we're going to collaborate with director of special services director of multilingual education building out to conduct deep analysis of subgroups performance and possible support we do have our internal benchmarks and we continue shelter instruction now going back to um areas previously identify to possible have Improvement and enhancement very happy to report that now we two math support specialist in bille and these are the grades that we want the most concerned with and [Music] the in science we lost a couple of percentage points with still high above the state at late levels three and four at 40.4% in grade five at 30 5.8% in grade 8 at 43.5% in grade 11 you can see the level ones are some much smaller numbers than the state and again this is the test that is difficult to navigate is very different from students usually have in in their classrooms so we know where we need to work forward least look at the deal passing rate in the state and um this is this is something that we aware of that this is difficult difficult at test we're going to work on few things [Music] here so this is our split by level level one level two level three level four again smaller percentages for level four and the total passing rates at 40 35.3 as I mentioned before this is multi-year Trend look we didn't have this uh this test at all um starting um in year 2015 as math and laa this test first appeared in 2019 and results were not available for entire year so in fact many parents never saw this results so we tested students in the spring 2019 and results did not come to school until win of 2020 and we were ready or maybe the spring we were ready to go already away so those are results pre 45 34 38% so if you can see we we really at the same level at this point we did a little bit better a couple of years ago went a little bit down there's a variety of um comments um or observations I can make here well one good thing I I'm not sure about year 2019 but we now have almost 100% rate at which students are taking this test um so last year we were able to change our schedule and we have all the students taking the test there might be some concerns about how serious taking the test and there might be a lot of test fatigue so for high schoolers it will be a year after P exams and for little BS in middle school it's really six seven8 day of testing in the row so this is those are the negatives looking at the results um here's how you see um from demographic and other subgroup perspectives 44% uh for our white students that I'm not sure how to explain this number other than maybe students did not take this test seriously at some point you can see other subgroups did go up hispanic Asian student with disabil students with disability also did not um did not do so well at at this particular test however economical disadvantages is huge increase 19% and English language learn result it did did better a little bit better so here's our thoughts on what we can do what we can do better and where we coming from so we were able in single year improve participation from grade 11 from 75% to over 95% you changed the schedule all students are testing maybe there are some concerns how fast they clicking through the answers but we're pleas got them all there we will collaborate again with our colleagues director of special services director ofal education and building admin to look at student by student results another thing that we're going to do this year we're going to do a little bit more test TR because the test is so so different we need to try to emulate um items better the problem is there's total lack of relas items from state so we um we'll have to do it on our own so a little bit more emulating test and a bit more talking to students to take it seriously another thing that we would like to put in place is diagnostic assessment just like in math and Ela diagnostic assessment would help tremendously again unfortunately for science such diagnostic assessment not necessarily exist so we're looking for the best for the best Solutions here and that concludes our presentation for science are Statewide assessment that students SP last year access testing for MLS students identify as English language Learners gr AG to 12 and then students took soal dlm test again identify students students with disabilities for whom generals State assessments are not developmentally appropriate and for students to R and 11 now these results are highly individualized and will not be publically shared we don't have many students um identified um for taking DM and for Access for M Mr Patel will address some results that we can share thank you Dr Ed so I have one slide kind of as Dr spoke to the way we share the results for Access 2.0 and what they represent is a little bit different than the grade level exams for ELA and math so this is the one topic we're kind of talking about here and focusing on um just as a little bit of a background for what this exam is if a student is identified as a multilingual learner they in March uh in March they take an exam that test their in English listening comprehension speaking abilities in comprehension and writing abilities there's a multi-day exam that tests all four of those areas it's not necessarily an exam that you can study for it is more of a test of your ability to produce or int take language at that time in fact in kindergarten it's actually a one-on-one exam even with little ones they're sitting in books and kind of working them through and assessing everything so you will see those scores in there a student score is on a 1 to six scale so that's the entering to reaching that you see on that slide um the state designates a student eligible to exit services at a 4.5 score so we are not looking to see all sixes to say a student is exited that's the point where we say a ESL program is not necessarily the most beneficial place to help a student continue to grow their English language skills um so that's just a little background on the exam itself what you see below that is is a composite level students get scores in listening speaking reading and writing they are not all the same and we if I look at every single student score we'll see some students that have great speaking skills and then they're developing in their reading and writing skills and all over the place depends on their background a lot of different circumstances composite brings them all together into one score it's easier to report but I always like to caution it's a little bit difficult to use because what they're in individual component scores may be are a you know that tells a much more important story for our use than just kind of reporting out they were a 1.7 a 3.4 we want a little bit more of that picture so what is recorded here is the composits by school so the entering level is level one you see a very high amount in BHS which makes sense we have a newcomer program there for students with interrupted education and we expect students to reenter ing who have no educational background at that level they will be scoring at a one for a while but then I'm happy to see the amount of students at BMS and um Bedwell that we have BMS on that slide twice that's okay that's all right blue yes blue is bed wellll um on the blue there the blue and and darker green BMS I'm glad to see there at the level three composite that they're kind of getting closer to that point where they are exiting but those composits scores make sense to me um but when we break this down and how we use this within the department is looking at what trends do we see by those language domains and when we kind of analyzed that this year and sat and talked with the principles and examined everything the results were interesting in general we saw edwell a strong increase in reading and writing growth but speaking not necessarily increase at that same rate so that's something that we've been talking about and actually the cni team has been talking about and the admin of how we're addressing some of those issues and what supports we're getting staff there um at EMS listening scores were fantastic we saw a large amount of growth in listening um students individual scores in listening um and we saw teachers really taking advantage of a lot of work to support students in their listening growth but writing stood out as an area that we want to get more support for this year that kind of help students in that writing growth um and to take a step back when I I'm speaking about writing I'm talking about an individual students growth um this exam realistically is tracking how did student a over multiple years grow in each domain how have they been growing that's more or less what we're looking at um BHS the domains didn't necessarily stand out the trend that we realistically saw was upper classmen started to see some lower growth you didn't see that same growth as we saw with um the um 9th and 10th graders that makes sense based on the way language acquisition Works um but it is something we're talking about and I'm working with the VHS um adven team too to talk about how are we supporting and getting more resources to make sure that we kind of continue that growth as students go up in grade level um but like I said when we analyze these results we're talking about this with building admin at a district level we're talking about it with teachers and teachers of all content areas that's the shelter instruction training that Lindsay and Olga mentioned as well um that that is support for Content Area Teachers to help students with all of these skills and components um and it's also important to support families with that too families get their students access scores through the mail um but it's like kind of it took me a long time to explain this to everybody right and go through all of this so when we have inperson meetings we always make sure that there's a space where we can pull up your students access scores talk to them about what goals we're setting for them based on what we're seeing there and ways to support it home and that's just basically the last point I want to end on that realistically the goal that we keep setting and keep working on is those family connections are vital that's one of the most important things and research is absolutely there to back the more students and families are connected with what's happening in their school and what what's happening with the goals that are set in the progress their students making we see those you know we see that investment B especially in the ESL World um and I think there two last slides on how everything is sent home for Dr Edon all right good I'm going to pass it back to Dr Edon to close up thank you I really fast I promise the last slid uh the date these are freshly released date for the spring testing for the next testing NG GPA if you remember this is a state required testing for our Juniors will take place in the week of March 10th and cisely will be 11th and the 12th here and at the high school and JLA um testing the one that we just reported will be happening in May from 1st to 22nd 2025 and finally printed copies of individual student reports will be ma home tomorrow everything is ready to go envelops envelopes are ready to be mailed please expected in a couple of days thank you thank [Applause] you while Dr brel is making his way over I would just like to personally thank um this team work every day shoulder to- shoulder I can't thank you enough the work your expertise your dedication to our students um does not go unnoticed as much appreciated so thank you you made all the numbers like excited for us thank you all I um want to take some time to update the board on some items that have taken place since our last meeting uh together um a regular public meeting at at any rate uh we did host a pretty robust new Educators orientation in the end of August 27th through the 29th um and uh in advance of our return on September 5th uh we have 308 staff members uh this year and we had a host of folks uh at all three schools that were able to uh offer an appropriate welcome and orientation for uh there were some board members that were able to be available that day um just to offer a welcoming hello and uh these folks are um a winners in my view of of pretty intense competitions you know for each of these particular openings uh we're thrilled with what the new staff members um bring to The District in not only their experience but their passion and their energy and uh it was a great uh great few days to spend uh with them uh as well and um so I wanted to share that with you our uh high school has a marching band and we've had one for for many years and continue to have one and on August 29th uh they held a preview performance for their 2024 show I was actually able to be there with Mr Baker and that was good fun um and it's called Bruno Mars's 24K jukebox and uh they were able to have a um a preview for us after their um annual band camp and uh they are just doing great work out there uh we have seen an increase in the amount of students that are able to participate in the marching band and um Mr tasler is uh not new to us here uh in the district he's been at the high school for a few years but he's taken over the marching band and um things are going really well um we seen him not only um performing on the field at football games but he also performs in the stands uh and they are also going to participate in a few competitions this year uh at Wayne Hills and um for the annual State marching B Festival uh as well so we're excited for them and we're always looking to grow our programs I think the challenge is at a school of our size here uh with the extracurricular program that we offer is sometimes there's just uh only so much time in the day uh for our youngsters to to chew horn particular activities in so we do offer a host of after school sports and um you know sometimes uh that just kind of limits your pool but um really great stuff um that's going on um in our arts program school year is definitely in full swing uh the HSA over at Bedwell held a passport to Bedwell event so that's your lower left photo and and and a great one at that um they were we're also able to see over at the middle school um newcomer breakfast and setups for students uh the high school had a senior barbecue uh we have been uh hosting or not hosting but we've had uh some HSA and Chef meetings on site um freshman nights and Senior parent nights for our incoming High School folks uh as well as our annual uh open house Arrangement ends tomorrow night um we're currently in the throws of auditing the 2023 24 school year uh so they have been busy working with the business office and me regarding um conducting that audit for the board and uh although the the date that the board um has to certify the audit um seems to shift every year um and stay tuned in in the coming meetings we will have an audit report uh for the board uh regarding our fiscal practices and uh just a uh few weeks ago or a few days ago rather uh there was the elementary school had a family picnic sponsored by the HSA and there's a photo there of a staff band um who seem to pop up at the best times uh we do have upcoming events that are posted in our Friday folders and in our community folders uh as well uh there's always a big leadup uh throughout the summer um to the first day of the first days of school and the first week weeks of school and uh there's been a lot of awesome um sights and sounds inside of our hallways and so those Educators here in the room um know it when I say that there is nothing that replaces the sound of children you know inside of our classrooms and our hallways and um we're seeing curious kids focused kids and certainly Happy Kids uh here in our photos at Bedwell um our Middle School folks have been uh working very very closely particularly in the areaa of climate and culture developing social contracts and um focusing on some Norms uh that we have uh worked with um with the Middle School staff uh on and we have some photographs there from their first days of school uh regarding that uh you did hear an update uh from our student representative uh she did leave out the cross country I noticed so cross country is 2 and two uh but she stole uh of the statistical Thunder here in in a lot of the great things that are happening on our Fields uh on our courts um and in our gymnasiums um and out on our running trails I think that it's important to note that uh the our Athletic program is a function of our extracurricular program uh it's one that the board I know believes very strongly in as recently as last year we added um at least five new clubs and opportunities for students to participate in uh that's important for them um to have Outlets uh outside of the classroom um so it's great to see kids and achievement all around on on all these fields um and cour um we have a cheerleading team now for the first time in a few years at least uh and from what I understand from the youth group uh there is a growing number of cheerleaders at the Youth Level kind of working its way through uh Bedwell and uh the middle school so that's great to see we have 10 cheerleaders um that are doing great work uh for us uh 46 cross country Runners 53 field hockey players 70 football players 58 on our boys soccer team 46 on our girls soccer team 23 girls tennis players and 39 on our volleyball teams so that's great to see some interaction shots here here uh recently the HSA held a um celebration for those that serve as bus drivers and bus AIDS and crossing guards uh in town um and it's held over at Bedwell after their morning runs um and it's my um one of my personal favorite events of the year um anywhere where you can uh celebrate the great work for the for the people the kids are keep safe for the people that keep our kids safe uh and also have a pork R egg and cheese um is good for me um and Mr Co haford agrees with me on that point um but it was a a great event uh the kindergarten kids and the first graders uh all sang um to the drivers and it's um it's definitely one of the cooler things that happens um and you can it's happy as the kids are um as excited as the kids are um I can tell you that the um the the staff that that works on our buses and and the staff that serve as our Crossing yards um really really appreciate it so thanks to the HSA for that um technology is always uh a busy Department this summer we fully trans transitioned over to Genesis we're at the point now where there is a lot of troubleshooting and um kind of working on Solutions with um very um unique particular facets of Genesis but all in all it is um going beautifully uh I do want to point out um a gentleman on our team named Chris Griffith who um is just a a treasure to this district and has done beautiful work uh regarding this transition he's extraordinarily patient and and and very very kind and um he has been um instrumental in in transitioning to a program that we feel is ultimately a better product and lets us uh perform our work um in a much more seamless way uh so the transition uh overall has been um has been strong um we are uh working towards the end of the first marking period uh particularly at the high school uh as it as it relates to grading there's some some unique variables inside of Genesis that are just new uh to the teachers so we're working um working towards that and having a seamless uh grade entry process uh there um all four all of our schools have new visitor Management Systems uh we have instituted a new print management process for all of our de uh desktop computers and upgraded image and software systems uh we are Focus on a district website redesign and we're engaging that work uh with a few vendors in uh October uh we do have a cross-section of folks that not only work in the district but also um our parents in the district that are going to vet out um multiple website platforms to give us feedback on what they think uh Works what they think doesn't work so we can uh get a better sense of how to serve the community you know in that sense um and we are also um upgrading our work ticketing processing programs um as well and um the entire tech department um certainly deserves um some thanks to get us up and running uh to start the school year um so Jeremy our good friend Ricky uh Chris grii Scott Baron who is in uh the photograph Conor Flynn that is overseeing a lot of the website work uh for us as we move forward Brian Machado and Steve Shapiro uh have done some great on September 14th the district was a partner with the local church clergy uh to host a welcome back to school celebration uh for All Families inside of the Somerset Hills Community uh we gathered outside of the Sacred Heart Chapel in Bernardsville and there were approximately 50 families there um lots of food uh fun certainly um families getting together after um you know after the summer months uh we also were able to uh bring on our team from the Transportation Department from our it Department uh and from a variety of folks um around our district in order to ensure that families uh were signed up for uh the services that they needed um and that the transition was a seamless one so we had a team that was uh getting people up and running you know in the area of Genesis we had a team that was crosschecking uh particular bus routes for uh for their kids and uh we also had some connectivity to other community groups uh that serve um a lot of our predominantly Hispanic families and uh it was just it was a a great event uh Michael Catelli is our liaison uh between um sacred art chapel and the other clergy in town uh and in the school district and um this is a decade or this is an event that's been um out and about for about a decade and um you know it started off very small and it's grown and uh we um we were at Kanas for a little bit um we relocated this year uh due to another event but uh always a great day and um we have some great uh Partners here um many many know him as Pastor Dan his name is Daniel fenko uh and he is a big supporter of not just the district but the Somerset Hills the Bernardsville area and uh he's just a um just a terrific supporter um of families and Reverend Beth um from St Bernards uh was was there as well and certainly had a big role in um in coordinating uh this event uh there were a host of uh organizations on hand as well communities in crisis uh were there and uh they actually had some students from the high school that um are going to be subject to a recognition in October from the board uh that are doing some beautiful work at communities in crisis and uh being able to outline uh What U the needs of the community are was a big Focus for communities in crisis there so they used the opportunity to gather uh as much information as possible from those folks uh that were in attendance uh communities in crisis really um have a variety of services that they can provide and I do have a uh meeting coming up with them uh with a team of us here from the district with communities in crisis to kind of further talk about uh some of their services and how um they may be able to um service us uh preschool Advantage was there uh and they are a um uh partner in the area of preschool education uh for parents in the district um uh group of Kola was there uh they are focused on uh supporting our uh Guatemalan families and uh in particular uh those um that um also um support the culture called mom um so that was really great to be able to meet them in person and they will be at a uh curriculum committee meeting um in the distant future here um swe reads GI gifted books um in Spanish and English to our youngest uh Learners and certainly uh the Bernville Police Department had an active presence and uh like I said we had a host of Staff members that were there and uh greeting kids and um and just really making the day special um old news but recently last week uh the board held a special meeting uh whereupon you authorize uh me and Mr Marco to work with your land use attorney to move an application forward to the um planning board for Bernardsville regarding a modification to your property here uh at the high school site uh you may recall Claire Taylor uh spoke at our August board meeting she represented the high school Green Team uh they are um looking to collect 1,000 lb of plastic film by Halloween they're already up to 500 lb uh and they are very active in and around town they partnered with the uh the burrow as well uh so if any of you um at the next board meeting want to bring some plastic film uh we will collect it and uh hand it off to the folks here at the high school who are working uh under Joseph Young Market calendar for the Middle School um is having a car wash and they are going to support funds uh to raise funds for the 8th grade class uh over at the middle school and it will be in front of the administrative offices on October 5th uh starting at 9: uh the board has uh initiated uh along with me a new committee here and um Miss Balor is the chair of that committee it's it's our student services committee um so the the offices and the office of student services overseas a host of different areas special education uh Section 504 um we also that office overlooks um nursing uh we'll also examine uh inter Scholastic Athletics and climate and culture and uh diversity inside of that committee and uh first first uh committee was to kind of focus on the charge here and and develop our focus in philosophy and I know that Miss B will have uh a formal report and I don't want to um really get in the way of that um but uh focusing on the student parent experience um and to be able to um identify ways to enhance um all of the a for all of the areas that I mentioned prior uh be it special education or Athletics or 504 uh or nursing and uh climate and culture um so more to come there uh this is Hispanic Heritage Month and uh we are uh in our uh vess program and and vess initiative which uh Mr Catelli has been uh overseeing and working very closely not only with our community on uh but with the kids uh that we're serving and uh what we did was or what Michael uh did with the students last year was conducted a survey uh of students at the middle school and at the high school to understand um their perspective on things and their kind of position on things and nearly 200 students responded uh 40 of whom 40% of whom were of Hispanic descent um those that were of Hispanic descent that responded uh 70% were from either guatemal or Paraguay um we had respondes from that were of Cuban descent Ecuadorian Ecuadorian descent Puerto Rican descent and who were Spanish um and that was self-identified um by those students uh students were able to draft um what was important to them and and they wrote uh in the story about their families and they wrote about um cooking and they wrote about you know time together and uh there were a lot of references to a particular paraguayan cake that is made with corn and cheese um and um we did learn a lot there um students reported how important it was to share their experiences and have the Avenues to share their experiences outward um they also identified a particular struggle in how to grasp certain aspects of their fam's at um history and their their culture cultures history and so that is now becoming you know an area for us to be cognizant of in our social studies classes and in our uh World Language uh classes as well uh we have plans to further uh educate the district uh in the area of Hispanic heritage uh again our survey responses will highlight programming um and inform programming that illustrates um the cultures that do exist in our communities uh we have a Spanish teacher at Bedwell Mr mironda you may know uh is working to organize the ABCs of Hispanic culture in that vein we're asking families to share um share food recipes ingredients recipes dances and stories uh at Bedwell and and at a middle school night um event on October 4th and uh we're looking forward to that at the high school level uh they've been collaborating with a local historian that was uh funded by the Somerset Hills Education Foundation as zberry Thompson um who is going to present the history of immigration in the Somerset Hills and uh we intend to have that during uh the week of respect so I'm going to invite uh Mr Catelli and put him on the spot a little bit um you know to speak about uh some of the work that's being done with our mom culture and um if you could come on up and talk about that culture and and some of the great Partnerships you've been able to develop so far yeah thank you um I sent this image to Brian today because I just thought it was such a unique image um it is hard to see kind of the text of that book but is a book printed in a indigenous um Central American promly rala language mom um it is actually an oral only language but that group group of caha works with a lot of a um people and different groups on the ground in kind of southern Guatemala um to kind of take that oral only language and kind of do a process called transliterating more or less applying English letters to sounds in a language that might not initially use English letters to produce books um and kind of capture the culture capture some of the Heritage capture their stories um and right now they have two um actually a CD as well that we have a couple copies of um that kind of just bring some awareness to that in the district at the event that we had on the 14th we're so happy to have them there um they raffled books for students everybody could enter to be able to win one um and then we sent them out this week and got them into the hands of different students and that's a picture of one of our elementary school winners um who I think you can see the happiness and pride that he gets to have a book kind of in that language that is used in at home um and actually at the September 14th event there were a lot of good conversations with the families as well because they were saying lot of I what are these books for we can't read this um and they were kind of helping people kind of understand how can you access them how can you kind of take this language that is oral only and like work on kind of reading and sound out and just help help your children understand it help your children value it and grow it as well um that's kind of almost back to what I was talking about before one of the most important things is you know using your first language at home learning to you know speak um and if possible read and kind of use that first language in value that um pays dividends on the work that happens in ESL programs too so we talk a lot about Spanish and we talk a lot about making sure that we're recognizing getting resources in Spanish but really this year we've been kind of making sure that we're advocating and getting more and more and recognizing the unique Guatemalan um culture and community that we have that uses M here um and actually believe we have a translator on the agenda as well right who is um fluent in Spanish mom and English and we're excited to be able to kind of have her available to help with the community to kind of um connect and make sure that we just like opening up more and more to the more and more of the school to families that use that as their first language good yes sir yeah there's a lot to explain about it as Brian said too we're have someone that the curriculum committee perfect uh I met a a great advocate for Mom families um she hails from Morristown and um we met at the event on the 14th uh we invited her to our curriculum committee meeting and we're looking forward to that um and um I'm just kind of hit it off so we're looking forward to partnering uh a bit more um about a calendar year ago I attended a call to action at a local synagogue uh regarding um some anti-semitic um movements and and um activities and how um school districts could um work in concert with clergy and work in concert with uh law enforcement in order to um prepare our youth and inform Our Youth and educate Our Youth and there are a lot of kind of different ways to go about this and uh there were some uh programs that um that we investigated but the administration at the high school and at the middle school felt strongly that they would be able to and they wanted to create a program that um they felt best served um our kids here in Somerset Hills uh so during our week of respect we will be hosting an anti semitism youth Summit uh for our student leaders at the middle school and at the high school uh really in response to the number of um anti-semitic incidents that have um Arisen nationally and Statewide um student leaders will have an opportunity to hear from leaders in the field um as well as work in groups um to to understand how to combat um any incidents of of hatred that they may uh come in contact with or they may be around um we do have speakers uh confirmed from local synagogues uh Educators in the field uh as well as uh the Jewish Community Center Metro West who have been instrumental in uh the research that we've done here and the preparation that we've done in order to um better educate um our youth than what we have been doing um so it's been uh productive for the administration from both of those schools to collaborate uh with students in those schools in the um in a formalized way in a formalized program so um we're looking forward to being able to provide that for our students and looking ahead our policy continues policy committee continues to examine uh its facility use policy which um was approved at the first reading level um they have received feedback um from interested parties with respect to facility use and and I have um conveyed U those pieces of information to the committee and they certainly continue to look at that policy and we do have a committee meeting uh coming up tomorrow um barnville planning board uh we have a facility application forthcoming on a date yet to be determined our facilities and operations committee continues to examine our lower fields to prepare for the spring uh in addition to the development of a long range facilities plan uh student services committee uh we need to schedule a a series of dates um for that work moving forward uh we are preparing uh believe it or not for the 2526 budget uh so that is uh just on the cuss of beginning on the administrative side of things uh we're also planning to uh launch a community initiative around the Strategic plan uh that'll be in the winter um we're also preparing for our trianal uh evaluation from the New Jersey Department of Education uh they have a program that's set forth in statute called the quality single accountability Continuum um that um we will respond to and they will conduct site visits as well and we will need a board member to uh to represent uh the board on that committee and I spoke about it briefly before but we all we are also concluding the audit at uh for the 2324 school and miss frienda that culminates the superintendent report thank you very much Dr brel um Mr grp I believe we have a retire to recognize yes whereas David Brothers has been employed from September 2007 through June 2025 as a teacher and whereas he exemplified commitment and professionalism in his duties and now therefore be it resolved that the somerset Hill School District and Board of Education recognize David brother's retirement effec of July 1st 2025 and extent him congratulations and best wishes for a happy healthy and enjoyable retirement thank you very much and retirement which will not be effective until the close of this school year um and now we will move into public comments for actionable agenda items we very much welcome input from the from the Public Public comments are welcome at this time on any actionable agenda item towards the end of the meeting there is a second public forum on any topic please state your name and address comments are limited to 3 minutes at 3 minutes you will be interrupted and asked to pause to allow any other members of the public would like to speak an opportunity to do so an individual May return to the podium to complete their statement after everyone else has had an opportunity to speak for a total of two times at the podium please understand that our public forums are not structured as question and answer sessions but are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board in instances where the board feels there is a misunderstanding or inaccuracy the board president or superintendent May address the comment in accordance with the New Jersey statute the board will not discuss matters regarding specific Personnel public comments will be limited to 30 minutes a reminder for all parties and attendance to remain respectful and there should be no interaction between the speaker and the audience no members of the audience should interfere with or interrupted speaker comments we thank you in advance for your input and as always Mrs DeMarco will have a timer um that will be set for 3 minutes we encourage speakers to keep track of where they are in that timer so that um they won't be surprised when I unfortunately have to interrupt at that 3 minute Mark to offer opportunities for others so at this time if there is anyone that like to come to the podium for an actionable agenda item okay if not then can I get a motion to close public comments Mr Grand and a second Miss Soro okay thank you then we will move into the approval of the minutes um I'm going to ask for a mo to approve the public input and action executive meeting minutes for August 21st 2024 and special meeting and executive meeting minutes for September 16 2024 can I have a motion please miss gills at a second Mr Baker is there any discussion on the minutes okay please Mrs D gr yes Miss skills yes Mrs Santoro yes Mr Baker yes Miss Balor yes on the 21st and obain on the 16th Miss Cooper yes and this yes Mo okay thank you um then at this time we would like to move into the report of finance committee Mr vaker thank you the finance committee met on September the 11th for about an hour all committee members were in attendance with Dr brel and Mrs DeMarco we had two uh we had three guests um two from our architect Solutions architecture and um one from musco Sports lighting we talked about eight various topics over the hour um the um one item we talked about and it's on the board it's on the agenda for approval we got a donation from C from CW Solutions on the promethian board which is like a white board but a little more fancy um there's one at the library now I saw saw the library got one too I was examining it the other day so I know what it looks like um but it's a it's a donation and we really appreciate that and Dr brochel feels that it's best to go to bedw so you should keep your eyes open there so that's agenda item number 10 um we are also approving uh tonight on the agenda number 18 we talked about about increasing the hourly pay for our resource officers uh in each of the three schools from $40 an hour to 4250 an hour um starting this month and um that impacts you know our budget for the remainder of the Year about $45,000 um we feel that's appropriate to keep up with other school district around us for retention of of the staff and make sure that we can hire new people if we need to next item we talked about was the um installation of of LED lighting for allop shield um I'm not going to go into that because we already had had that presentation but the presentation we saw last Monday was the same one that the that that the committee saw on that day um we also talked about the lower field drainage and and I'm not going to steal Mrs Santoro's Thunder on that but just saying that the number came in higher than we expected and we need to come up with a better plan we can't afford that at the moment um we also next talked about um the track service and and our high school rep talked about the Alla track it looks to me when I walk by tonight it's 2/3 red um and hopefully the weather will get better better of these next few days and we can finish it by probably next week I hope um cuz after it's painted they have to come back and put put the lines on and all the fancy numbers and everything like that so hopefully that'll be finished in the next week or two uh we talked about another item which is also on the fno report on on the tennis courts there's six Tennis Courts at the polar grounds which the school um helped install and we have to maintain them and they're in bad shape and um the cost to upgrade those is also very expensive probably half a million dollars um so we got to figure out a plan for that so we're going to be talking about that these next few months figuring out what we can do especially now that we're going to be talking about the Capital Improvements for the next school year uh we talked about we have a negative lunch balance what does negative lunch balance mean that is from last year um we have about $20,000 of unpaid lunch meals from various STS across all these schools um some of those are uh parents forgetting to upload their accounts on time things like that um some of it is the um the the free and reduced lunch students who get that are buying other things that are not not free or reduced and they don't realize that or the parents don't realize that so we have an education thing to do with with some of our people we also have to go after a lot of parents who forget to upload their accounts to keep their students Fund in the positive um so Mrs DeMarco has been sending out emails to parents to remind them to get their balances straightened out um we'll be talking more about that if that doesn't work we hate to take any drastic measures um um but we can't keep going on on $20,000 per year it's not something that we that we don't budget for it so that has to be rectified and the last item we talked about and it's on agenda number 19 is we're doing a Le purchase purchase of a lot of Tech equipment which is Chromebooks laptops iPads and a server um so that's 3 $36,000 at least purchase and that equipment will be paid for over a period of four to 5 years um and that's my report I'll turn it back to Mrs frienda thank you Mr Baker um so then at this time I'd like to ask for a motion to approve action items number 1 through 22 on the agenda motion Mr Grand and a second Mr Baker and discussion for finance does anybody have anything I have a quick question um are we ever going to get to the point where we we're not going to deny kids lunches if they have a balance R we no no no no no that's that's not um cuz I know you said you don't want to do anything drastic what drastic I mean there you know sometimes you don't you don't get a report card you don't graduate there's a lot of things like that that I mean no I mean know uh that's that's that's standard you can't graduate okay um you knowless everything is up to date so I mean that we' never done that before but that would be some of the things that you could think about I don't know what's the right thing to do I think I think parents once they know and they're reminded they should get their um their house in order you know uh I know lives are don't to think about all that sometimes but you know um but again it's not something that we want to keep spending 30 $40,000 a year on so I don't want his child embarrassed no child the child the child will never be embarrassed when they go to bed no that that will never happen thank you I think there are also some communities that are doing Outreach like I've read about this that you know some communities will come together and get donations to help pay off those balances on behalf of the kids or the and we've had some inquiries to that end but the the challenge is it's sort of like an All or Nothing proposition where we can't just take a fraction of allocate that right so some discussion I I've had some folks that you know from either personally or uh private organization Civic organizations are interested in that um but it's really like a a large number scenario [Music] and I I can't remember if we discussed it specifically um in finance or to what extent when we switch um companies for uh our payment they um is there an automatic renewal that parents can set up or it's like to automatically reload okay it's a part of any kind of education Outreach and whatnot if that is an option you can get you can set up a balance notification for yourself cuz I know I get that so like you can set it up so if your child's balance goes below you pick the number it'll give you a notification I but I don't know if like it can be triggered by the district I don't yeah yeah I I think I could be wrong but I think I had some type of automatic renal previously when I got to but I think the only thing automatic now is the district indications if you're not okay so just maybe watch for few um and I do have another question sorry uh number 20 being the bush laog group Legal Services 27,500 is this in addition to the 80,000 cap that we had on there yes of the 80,000 wasn't a cap it was just a estimate no no um when the Auditors like to see us do board resolutions they want us to to kind of put a not to exceed amount so it was just the arbitrary number that I put in as not to exceed this amount so as you can see there's other vendors here that we went over that not to exceed amount so it's not a cap it's more of a um a placeholder saying so if I do exceed that amount we just approve a little more is there anyone else for finance no okay Miss skills yes Mr santor yes Mr Baker yes M ballor yes Miss Cooper yes Mrs D yes and Mrs BR yes motion carries okay then we are going to move on to the report of facilities and operations Mr santor uh oh I'm sorry [Music] old business is there anyone that has anything for old business for financing no anything for new business for finance now facilities operations Miss s okay um so fno met on September 11th at four life facilities we had the bulk of our meeting was spent on a pres I'm I'm sorry like Finance the bulk of our U meeting was spent on a presentation um with regards to the lighting so from mus and the architect um so that and as you as everybody knows we had a special meeting where that presentation was then given publicly and the board has um voted to move that to the planning board so that is just the high level of that um we did discuss the lower field although I don't have a lot more to report on out on at this point because the um the estimates for the work came back higher than we had originally anticipated and will need to be planned for in our budgeting process either um you know in our capital budget so we are going to continue to gather information on what the um the small sliit process because we didn't have a quote on that process at the time of our meeting we are going to try to get that figure and understand what that would cost um but once we do that and understand what it's going to um how we need to budget for this Administration will make recommendations as to how we're going to approach this and whether it might be in phases or not yeah if I could uh I've had some additional discussions with your engineers at tnm and we you know we talked about the cost issues that that we're experiencing as it relates to the quotes that are coming in uh I did articulate that we're interested in a smaller trench if that costing does come in um we'd happy to hear it we're also discussing other options with uh other vendors uh regarding um things as as long as as wide ranging as grading to um just um preparing the field in advance of the spring season for the baseball so um it's an active kind of a daily active case that um you know we're hoping to have some some clarity on to and I think you know the the committee remains committed to getting this work done um you know I we were hoping for that ideal scenario where we could take care of it in one project and have it done by the spring that does not look like it's going to be the case so you know but we are absolutely committed to getting it um into the condition it needs to be for all of our student athletes um Bob talked about the tennis courts that's another project that more information will be forthcoming because it is a big um it is it has a big price t on it as well so we need to uh um consider options for how we approach that again our Administration is going to take a look at that and um present some solutions to the committee in the upcoming months um we mentioned the lights and we've got an update on the track as we've all heard it's moving along and everybody is excited for it to be finished soon um and then we just briefly reviewed lunch use and uh mashio is very committed to getting our feedback and providing nutritional options that the kids are going to enjoy and we're just looking for the committee to have a look and review of what they've been serving and um give any feedback that you would like to so that was it thank you so much um while there aren't any action items on the agenda this evening um there is one on the addendum so I would like to ask for a motion to move action item number one on the addendum Miss Soro and a second Mr Baker and any discussions regarding facility and operations yeah this is sort of combination maybe new business questions um I think you know we heard our student representative talk about and I've heard this from multiple people the lines at the lunch lines it's the high school cafeteria so I know that a maos is not our you know I know it's difficult for us you know to have too much control on that but I the one I was wondering if there's an update or if there's something we can do we can put that on the agenda for next month or to that now they have made progress in the last uh week I would say regarding Staffing uh they did execute a transfer from another facility here and then they're on boarding an additional person okay um so that's kind of where we are uh paninis are very popular with the kids yeah so the sandwich wines are very long right here yes and that is accurate and uh we're getting to a better place from from a St perspective um they incurred a very late August uh resignation on top of being unable to fill somebody else so um but um in discussions with them they've been open with us about doing transfers to okay good um also maybe this is new business but um I'd love to hear about how the breakfast is going I know it's early um it is early uh we need to do a better job of advertising it uh we're not seeing the numbers that we would have for uh so MIA in my office is uh starting to develop uh some communication to that effect and it's uh going to take uh multiple tiers of folks to really get the word out that we do have that as a possibility um so it's um it's just okay and we can do better is there anybody else for Up and [Music] Up Mrs santor yes Mr Baker yes M Bor yes M Cooper yes Mrs d r yes Miss gills yes and Mrs brenon yes motion carries okay and then um as is our new conduct that I almost skipped over the first time we are going to ask if there are any um items to be included in the future old business for up now or new business for up now no okay then we will move on to the curriculum committee report scoper um the curriculum committee met Tuesday September 10th for 2 and a half hours all committee members attended and we were joined by Dr brel Dr Butler and Miss Bara Dr ederton and Mr Kelli uh we spent most of our meeting discussing the njsla results that Miss Bara and Dr ederton just presented and the access results that Mr Kelli reviewed I'd like to thank them for their detailed presentations tonight and to our committee I just wanted to reiterate a few of the key findings that prompted some of the most extensive discussions in our meeting first we were happy to see a few of the key trends that the administrators reviewed uh the fact that rates of proficiency in English and language ARS increased with the time in District um from 62% to grade in grade three to 81% in Grade 9 was highly encouraging we were also very interested in the cohart court specific Trends over time that Miss Barn have presented in spite of the lack of data in 2020 and 2021 um for example the proficiency rate in grade three in 2018 was 62% versus 65% in grade four in 2019 74% in 2022 in grade 7 80% in grade 8 in 2023 and 81% in grade n um committee did Express concerns about the relatively High rate of students achieving level one or two in grade three which this Bara attributed in part to a deficiency in phonics instruction which has since been addressed with their new phonic curriculum regarding the the njsl a math results we're really happy to see the 3% increase in math Prof proficiency crash the district since last year Dr edon's analysis also clearly demonstrated the significant impact of Co on mathly but also show that The District's math achievement has rebounded um in fact the districtwide math scores are now exceeding preco levels we're also excited to see that the improvements in math proficiency were seen in most subgroups with striking improvements among our economically disadvantaged students from 19.7% Proficiency in 2023 30.4% Proficiency in 2024 Dr ederton indicated the as Dr ederton indicated the njsla science test is relatively new and difficult to interpret but there's definitely room for growth particularly among eighth grade students MLS and students with disabilities notably the proficiency rate increased from 2.1% to 19.5% among economically disadvantage students although you know these Cod cards are different um but uh Dr Edon indicated that she would be collaborating with the director of special uh special services the director of multilanguage learning and building administrators to conduct deep analyses of subgroup performances and support the district will also be implementing changes to assessments as she indicated today that more effectively uh reflect the dimensions and areas of focus of the test for example analyzing and applying data overall while the committee was happy to see improvements of proficiency in math and Ela we recognize the continued growth in science in certain grades subgroups and cont areas one sub group that requires greater focus is students with disabilities which our new student services committee will also be tackling Mr Catelli then reviewed the 2024 access results for multilanguage Learners in grades K through 12 um I go into much detail into his presentation but as the indicated access testing measure students academic English language skills in the areas of listening speaking reading and writing results of access testing indicate that our mlls are demonstrating significant growth in their English language skills and revealed some potential areas for improvement Dr brel then discussed the possibility of bringing capturing kids hearts in for two days of training for staff in at Bedwell in high school in the 2025 2026 school year we'll continue to discuss the scheduling of these days and upcoming meetings on the next items on our agenda were field trips and professional development and school business requests no concerns were raised by the committee regarding any of these requests uh Dr Butler then informs the group that we are continuing the rbcc memorandum of standing for our dual enrollment multivariable calculat course and that Miss Barna and Mr Catelli will be presenting at two upcoming National Council of teachers conferences M uh Miss Barner will be presenting on the language of leadership by sharing effective communication strategies leaders can use to engage subgroups and literacy initiatives while Mr gatelli will be sharing the findings of a pilot study conducted for his dissertation on how educators conceptions of citizenships are shifting in response to growing youth civic participation in digital spaces congratulations to both of these amazing administrators and that concludes my report okay thank you um then at this time I would like to ask for a motion to move action items number one through four on the agenda how okay and the second M Bard and um discussion for curriculum I I do I don't know if this would be an old business or now so throw it down yeah and then we'll figure it out um I think what we've done with the lights and I know it's not in what Dr Butler has I'm sorry Dr Dr Butler all the doctors have done with the light the transparency the engagement of the community um the openness with which it's been approached has been fantastic what I would like to know is uh where are the surve from over 2 years ago for the health curriculum because we never saw those and there were two of them conducted so I'm very interested to see what those surveys yielded in regards to what parents were thinking I can research that and get back to you and I apologize if I didn't it was before your time okay thank you y so what would that be I mean old business or could be a lot of things could be old business bus bu okay I'll put it is there anybody that has anything elseit and we're all sa for ourselves I oh you do okay um is there anybody else that has anything for curriculum are yeah I just want to fin if there's anything else for discussion um I just wanted to highlight from um our meeting Mr pelli spoke about it those um transliterated Mom books that were um an astounding thing to look at um when we talk about you know meeting the needs of our Spanish speaking students to see that transliteration and to see how complex that spoken language is and what it looks like on paper um it it was remarkable um the fact that that work is being undertaken is remarkable um but I think it really drove home for at least me um how complex a situation this is so about extraordinarily helpful for me to see and I just thought the books were beautiful and a wonderful thing for the kids um so I kind of just wanted to well now I thought of something else you said that they WRA I someone said they were raffled those books so not every child got one of those mum books the group that we met at the community day on the 14th had um had a supply but it was limited so not every single um student in District received one um however we are going to be meeting with them um in a few weeks so I'll kind of pick the tires on that do you know like what one book cost I don't um typically you're you're talking about like somewhere between $10 and $20 for a book okay um I they would be more expensive yeah we can we can kind of look at kind of their suppliers too and and you know certainly that would go to a process with committee and and and Dr berler um sweet reads was also and they did also get out books so every child did go home with the book and to Sam's Point I mean the curriculum committee got to see books I'm like valuable for the rest of the board to see them as well true it's something to Y um and just one other I I'm going to say it's current business just because it was reported out on tonight and it is going to happen before our next meeting the combat combating anti-Semitism youth Summit I just um it sounds wonderful I just had a question regarding since it is student leaders participating in it is there going to be a way to Parlay this to the greater student p no I had the same question well there is um and you know and internally we had the same question as well uh we did work very closely with uh experts in the field um folks that that um not only work with youth you know in this area um but serve in in their synagogues Etc and um their their recommendations didn't mirror what our students who have been involved in the planning have requested as well um kind of starting with core groups and cilling out um it's a it's a difficult topic uh even for adults um and there was um there was some concern internally um and I don't disagree that it needs the needle needs to be thread perfectly and um so there's an initiative to um to to start with a large group but a capillary out I do think this would be a good topic for the committee discussion as well yeah you'd be happy too yeah we've done um 3 four months of work you know on it um we be happy to kind of share in more detail um [Music] also thank you I just want to make one comment Nicole you did a great job summarizing kind of the committee um reaction to the presentation and I just wanted to make sure you know that we kind of reiterate um the focus in um particularly our uh students with disabilities and just how critical that is and the commitment you know from the board's perspective in really wanting to focus on that and then also forming this new committee which will Encompass that as well as other areas but I also did want to point out that that I app appreciated in the presentations from the administration this evening um particularly in the area of students with special education to partnering with the building Administration to really you know look to work together to to form support particularly in those areas so just yeah and that that also was a question that was discussed in committee as to um how we you know how we go in addition to Resource room and other Services how we are going to Target and meet the needs of these students based on trends that we're seeing so um that's area Focus um anybody else okay call Mr yesin from mm thank you Mr Banker uh yes obain to miss Bor yes and obain from tuy Miss Cooper um yeah yes and obstain from um to R uh Mrs D yes Miss gills yes abstain from the 2v and Miss yes obain from sh thank you carries okay and even though we touched on it we still are after we vote I'm always going to circle back to see if there is anything else that anyone wants to add see a future agenda for old business or new business you don't want to leave the discussion without making sure everybody's concern NOP okay well then we are going to move on to so the policy and Personnel committee met on September 9th from 4 to about 5:15 um all committee members were in attendance with the um exchange of vations as our alternate in regards to Personnel we discuss the current agenda item short one okay thank you so then um I would like to ask for a motion to move action items number 1 through 18 on the agenda and um action item number 4B on the addendum I'll Instagram okay and a second uh Mr Baker okay and any discussion okay then Mrs S yes Mr Baker yes M Bor yes Miss Cooper yes Mrs D yes skills yes and Mrs BR yes okay and again moving into any additional items to be put on agendas for um reg related to hold or do business when it comes to personnel just a a quick little reminder that Personnel most things related to Personnel have to be discussed in an executive level we can't discuss specific members of Personnel in public however if there are General Personnel Staffing things like that related questions that certainly is something that can be addressed so is there anything that anybody would like to add for old or new business okay then oh we I'm going to get this I swear this is new I'm moving my it's all highlighted here okay um policy please okay so I will touch briefly on um our first readings that we went over on the nth um as was stated previously we did read in our special meeting last week the facility use policy into first reading just a few highlights related to that um so there were some updates to the overarching use of the facility policy as well as we did to insert language for the potential of moving forward with lights um we did pull that language mostly from the board of adjustment resolution which was 7-23 that was signed May 5th of 2008 in regards to the section 6 and7 of their light usage settlement at that point um and Our Hope was that we would be moving towards um lights on until 8:00 p.m. during week nights and the potential for up to 16 um events with flights on till 10 p.m. um we also put in additional language um for future boards and for the community to discuss the fact that um we are not looking to make this a field that is rented out to non-community organizations and used all the time we do want to be very conscious of our neighbors um in the use of the lights and of the impact those events would have on the local community and we are looking to partner in um various ways to look at um anything we can do in terms of not only the lighting um Pats but also um parking and everything else that would impact the neighborhood to try and make it as optimal a situation as we can if we do move forward with installing any lights so that will be moving um to further discussion tomorrow in committee and then eventually into a second reading before we have anything approved um in terms of other policies we talked about 2200 um which was a curriculum content which was reviewed we talked about 3160 which is the physical examination of teachers and staff as well as that regulation um as well as the physical examination of support staff and that regul regulation there were a few minor grammatical changes um and selection determinations that we discussed in that policy we talked about um 5200 which was attendance um 53 37 about service animals 5350 which is student suicide prevention um 8420 emergency and crisis situations in 8461 which is firearm regulations and 84 sorry 8467 um firearms and weapons as well as the regulation for that um 9181 in regards to volunteer coaches um and those were all reviewed without any major changes we also discussed a potential new policy which would be a drone use policy the committee was very much in favor of implementing a drone policy and accepting of a draft that um came to us from a prior policy that was used in Del Ran and we moved that to be formatted for first reading there was um just anecdotally right before the meeting use of a drone at a football game um by the other team if they were operating it and administration did um approach them because the current policy is that there's no drone usage on campus um so that was stopped um and drone usage once a policy is in place would be very much regulated um and being approved by um Administration prior to use um we removed um two policies that were no longer needed so the remote public board meeting during a declared emergency which hopefully will not have any more um and 7231 which was gifts from vendors um then we went on to review the current agenda items um which are mostly the approval of these first readings thank you very much so then I would like to ask for a motion to approve action item number one on the agenda I'll make a motion okay and a second Miss valid and any discussion regarding policy on on the one of volunteer coaches um I remember I don't seeing this but I remember reading one before that about about about compensation or they shouldn't get compensation am I missing something do we have another one or I think that's in a different policy I think it's in the um it's in the booster club policy where they specifically speak to the amount of money that a booster club could allocate to a volunteer do you think you need anything in in this one there's nothing that says you can it just that it's it's I know the word volunteer should mean non compensation but it's you know may be a good idea to make it clear here you know that I thought I read it was I thought it was in there it's definitely in the booster you you I'm just saying since it's the first reading when the group looks at it again if you could just it would make sense that we've got one in the booster club it ought to be the same we can include references to to booster club and kind of connect those two dos okay anybody else all right I'm confused again old business new business well we're going to vote and vot first and then I will raise it okay so if anybody have anything else then I will ask for Mr Baker yes Miss Bard yes Miss Cooper yes Mrs cig yes Miss gills yes Mrs S yes and Mrs friend yes those two okay so now I'm they're they're listed separately on the you know for old business and new business but it's where I would ask now after this roll call if there are anything for future agendas and you can put it out there and we can figure out it it allows for old business and new business um one I like to [Music] for process I know I voted no but I like it I think it's very nice um even though I'm a little confused still but it's okay it is good to hear and on a serious note the board did discuss it at Great length and U I think it's good to hear um and okay so I guess again not sure old new business I would like to uh put this on for I don't think it'll be it could be for the next meeting but maybe the one in October for policy to revisit 5756 specifically the point about keeping parents uninformed um in relation to their children's current status because I know that's not coming from the state that's not a requirement a law statute and I think we're just taking on too much so I would like to add that on for the I think the next meeting is tomorrow so the October one yeah we won't uh have it for tomorrow but I just want to point out to the board and then the committee also that it's not just policy 57- 56 uh it would also be the New Jersey law against discrimination and then guidance from the Department of Education those three documents serve as as the road map uh so you you know in in the event that the committee um elects to take this up it would be something that you would examine all three of those um documents so New Jersey law against discrimination policy 5756 and then um the New Jersey Department of Education guidance so there's there really are three three areas there that um kind of comprise you know this piece and I just want to make that clear and and we can sort of clarify the ask to include all three of them um that would best serve uh the committee's work in the event that they look at okay thank yes anybody else I can I so I'm going to call it old business for one second since it just happened but in because I thought I saw it under uh policy alert number 195 and g3391 81 volunteer coaches and co-curricular activities advisers and assistants number eight volunteer athletic coaches and volunteer co-curricular activity advisers assistants shall receive no Financial renumeration from the board from the board and so I'm sorry community and it is in there it say from the board would mean like from the general fund of like from payroll um so we don't generate a paycheck for a volunteer but right but the booster club policy does memorialize a longstanding practice of providing some financial compensation that comes from sources that the board does not oversee but that policy does limit how much a particular group or person could provide to a volunteer to a volunteer okay and it is formatted weird but it says the board and community in this Poli so so I guess maybe Point Community as a title it say and just BL oh see see how it's so that's so I think Dr is right you can make so we have to tie it together [Music] yeah is there anything else for future agendas no okay then we are going to go into our first ever report of the student services committee Miss valard so the first meeting is September 17th at 6:30 p.m. uh in intendance was Mrs D Mrs Soro M Cooper Mrs fra Dr brel and the director of student services Miss Jamie FY this is is the first meeting of the student services committee where the frameworking goals of the committee were discussed the committee in conjunction with the Administration has identified five major themes that we need to address they include special education climate and culture School counseling matters Athletics and diversity in the era of special education self-study will be conducted that will include a profile of the department inclusive of IEP and 504s there will also be discussion of the status of student Matters from an operation standpoint there will be focused on proactivity and tools to incur encour Ure both student and parent success in the area of climate and culture there will be schoolb based data information collected and analyzed via self-study to inform the needs at each school and to create meaningful and appropriate norms and accountability critical to this work will be to ensure that we are hearing the voices of all students from across our various and diverse communities and levels of Learners students staff Safety and Security will be of Paramount importance work in this area will be directed to ensure holistically positive experience for our students that is inclusive comfortable and Equitable in the area of School counseling School counseling matters a self- study will also be conducted with particular emphasis excuse me on transitional planning on a year-to-year basis from school to school ever postgraduate needs in for all students can I ask you sorry all right I just going to start off in the area of school counsel a self study man study will also be conducted with particular emphasis on transitional planning on a year-to-year basis from school to school and for po postgraduate needs and goals for all students in the area of Athletics a self study of the department will again be undertaken and in so doing student voice will be at Paramount importance we need to understand how they are experiencing our programs and if those programs are best meeting their needs this will be done through broad-reaching data collection with an end goal of ensuring equity and safety for our student athletes finally in the area of diversity we will be aiming to improve connectedness across our student committees communities and all stakeholders with an end goal of a greater degree of understanding acceptance and tolerance these goals and the subsequent work will be refined as we gain a complete Global and granular understanding via the self- studies for each of these areas at our next meeting Miss KY and Dr brel will be presenting um to us a profile of our special education department which will include IEPs as well as f4s and then we and then we discussed a few additional St matters and that really concludes the report okay thank you so there are no items to move for that particular committee um but if there are any points of discussion as it relates to the student services okay and if there is anything for new business or old business for future agendas for that committee nope okay then we will move on to public comments that's right thank you so much um so I am going to move right now that uh we pass our policy that regarding uh conduct of the board meeting and the new policy that we adopted had board announcements preceding public comments so I'm going to open it up for board announcements after reading this and then we will um end with public comments so board announcement the views and opinions that are may be expressed by individual members of the summer SEC Board of Education during board announcements are solely those of the individual board members and do not reflect the views opinions policies regulations and or positions of the Somerset Hills Board of Education and or any other individual members of the board does anybody have anything for board announcements no [Music] I we I thought I saw pork on one of the bags we should actually yeah um let me just pull out my Pap something um we should mention the chef event that's on Saturday uh it's not too late buy tickets so if you're interested just Google Chef that will come up that's how I did it if I can do it anyone can do it um then we are going to move into public comments public comments are welcome at this time on any topic please take your name and address comments are limited to 3 minutes at 3 minutes you'll be interrupted and asked to pause to allow any other members of the public who would like to speak an opportunity to do so an individual May return to the podium to repe their statement after everyone else has had an opportunity to speak for a total of two times in the podium please understand that our public forums are not structured as question and answer sessions but are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board in instances where the board feels there is a misunderstanding or inaccuracy the board president or superintendent May address the comment in accordance with New Jersey statute the board will not discuss matters regarding specific Personnel a reminder for all parties in attendant to remain respectful and that there's that there should be no interaction between the speaker and the audience no members of the audience should interfere with or interrupt the speaker's comment thank you in advance for your input again I will direct you to Mrs DeMarco's timer that is set for 3 minutes and to please um make sure that you're keeping track of that if possible because at 3 minutes I will need to interrupt to allow others to come to the podium so at this time anybody that would like to take [Music] a hello my name is L belaga and I live 431 and B um hi my name is Alison and I'll be speaking on behalf of my mother um my name is l locker and I've been a Burnsville parent since my daughter started her high school back in 2007 even before then I have been a part of Burnsville School System since both my younger sister have graduated Burnsville middle school and Bernville High School never did I imagine myself having to be in front of the Board of Education talking about how today the school system that I have known to love for many years is failing my special need child Anthony I will keep this short to the point in all my years was not one to push back in what the school recommended to be good for any of my children we have always been we've always had a great understanding and it and was not until recently that things have gone down all I asked was for my son to have a better supervision at school VI and a I have tried to find middle ground with the school and never in my life have I met with a director who keeps her foot in the sand one who has told me the reason one who has told me that the reason the middle school no longer had a program for my son is because he was the only one that used the resource room so she's been unwilling to meet me halfway when after three rounds of mediation I have been nothing but been trying to meet her halfway when a student in the high school is at maybe even below a kindergarten level how could you sit there and accept that he does not need any more assistance he has always had a two to one a and now is being asked that there is a 3 to one a my son is not able to come home and answer those dying question every parent wishes to know of his day and how school was one day Anthony was hurt at school and it was not until after we understood some words my son kept trying to tell my husband and I and I we realized what happened my son was hurt and I guess and I had to guess what he kept trying to explain to me after I asked the school 2 days later I did not I did get a response from the school that my son was pushed by someone by accident on the way to lunch I as a mother am I supposed to hand in my child every day to a bigger School such as the high school and expect that everything will be okay for him I am so disappointed at the school as a the mom as a community and as a human being thank you thank you thank you for your [Music] comment Alison laera 10 Steven street so I was I'm up here to support um Anthony Salon he is in seventh grade and he was told that he had to move to the middle school it's not AC mically socially sorry appropriate for him to go from the Middle School to the high school it is not safe nor is it in his best interest there are other issues within the special ed community and I'm really really excited about this new committee and I really really hope that we start to address some of the issues a lot of the issues are common sense St Common Sense solutions for example currently the fifth and seventh grade at the middle school have their literacy inclusion class as the last period so that means that any child that is on any form of ADD medication it has worn off by the end of the day it also means that it is a double period which is very difficult for a neurotypical child to sit through for that long and pay attention let alone if you have some um if you struggle with breathing um an example that I encountered this this year my son Jake is in second grade and is on the Spectrum he goes to the resource room for ELA Jake came home from his first day and had mom weird I'm with all first graders after speaking with other parents I found out that there is a second grade ELA class but for some reason he was put with the first graders along with one other second grade boy however both Jake and this other second grade boy are already reading as a matter of fact Jake did so well last year that we discussed moving him out as resource room but we decide to start with math first and then hopefully get to ELA this year it is not academically or socially appropriate for either second grader that are both reading to be in a class with first graders keep in mind that first graders are learning letter sounds and decoding strategies Jake and the other child are completely reading so when the teacher is teaching to the mean of a class Jake and his other child will be born not growing academically and will start to act out I called school and spoke with his casage manager I was told that this is legal to have students of different grades in the same resource room this is where my frustration lies although it is legal it is not logical or what's in J's best interest when I press further and asked what teachers were consulted about his placement I found out that none were we need to look at the whole student and their potential we should not be checking off boxes and be like oh here we have an empty seat in the first grade ELA so let's put in there rather we should be looking looking at the whole student and what will help them achieve their full potential I would rather that I would rather to answer that it is legal that the questions are where is the child most likely to succeed which classes will the child grow the most academically and socially these childrens are being stunted from the gecko by not being placed in the appropriate class I'm so sorry Miss Le is there anybody else that would like to make a comment at this time good um Quin I'm live on Road in burville um I know that at these meetings we don't usually discuss students can you hear me now okay sorry [Music] better all right we St the timer [Music] it helps to turn it on okay we do a redo great thank you uh tacy Quinn old army Road in Burnville um given what did it just cut out no given what's happening um with this situation we've heard about um I don't want to talk necessarily about specific students but I want to ask are we doing the best by our students and not just in the legal sense but in in the whole picture and I want to speak a little bit more to the whole picture situation here um we saw in the data tonight that we need to do better I'm so happy to hear about the new committee uh but I feel like this is quite urgent um just a little background is my uncle had Down syndrome and he was the heart of our family my older son is named after him so when my younger son Teddy came home from Miss br grade class 5 years ago talking about his new friend Anthony who it turns out had Down syndrome which actually wasn't even clear when he first came and talked about his friend it just it was amazing and we've become wonderful friends and this is the point of inclusive educational experiences it's beneficial to Teddy it's beneficial to Anthony it's beneficial to that whole class so to learn this year in seventh grade that suddenly his friend was at the High school without um a one toone Aid it just was shocking and it brings me here to ask you this question again are we doing the best by our students so please improve this for all of our students it impacts all of us thank you very much is there anybody else that would like to come to the plum you have three minutes um s Habibi eight mly Road Gladstone um on Thursday uh September 12th I was reading my favorite local paper the burnner full news um and I got to page six the obituaries and this particular name just jumped out at me Robert K fard my heart sank as I write about our beloved Mr Bob Mr Bob was a Somerset Hills bus driver for many years he was uh he was so so kind and sweet that he would send a postcard every August um to his kids on his route to meet him at the bus stop on the first day of school my son only had him for a year and a half uh as Mr Bob retired to take care of her family member the families on his route were heartbroken we never uh had a bus driver like Mr Bob again we will never uh he will forever be known as the best bus driver um I sent a text to local families who had the pleasure of knowing Mr Bob and here are some wonderful sentiments that they shared he was such a lovely human being he was a wonderful man and we were so lucky to know him and so were our children having him as a bus driver for so long was extra special he was a true gentleman and that is so true he was truly special we will um we will uh we ran into him in shop right and he congratulated me on being pregnant not me this is someone else my daughter told him before we had a chance to tell the family and he was a true Spirit of our community so rest in peace Mr Bob thank you very much is there anybody else that would like to see the podium [Music] the thing with Services is you're lucky if you've secured them in our school district in our school district it's un unfortunately common to be n assistance initially the process begins with filling filing for an evaluation only wait a month and then receive a rejection by the time you appeal and meet with the district you've lost months of valuable support that the student urgently needs while our schools are so fortunate to have amazing teachers it's crucial to ensure who needs the help are approved for the services last year Jake was in Jen B's resource room for Math and Ela and the growth we saw transformed his educational path he's had the pleasure of working with Miss RC Mr siken Miss R and miss strowman and I'm sure more teachers this year who have really helped him I know of three other children in Jake's resource room that had a very very similar experience the problem is it's getting that approval it is getting the help that they need when I spoke with an attorney the first time um when Jake was initially diagnosed four years ago she told me this does not surprise me about Somerset Hills and that to me is heartbreaking because when we chose this town to move into we part part of the big reason that we moved here was for the schools and unfortunately right now it is not helping a very significant part of our community um I just hope that we can stop G keeping students from accessing these services and I really hope that the most important urgent issue is that we get Anthony out of the high school he needs to be with his friends that he's been with since day one they are his friends they are his peers they look out for him they have a bond they have a relationship and that matters to these kids and it matters not only to Anthony but it also matters to friend thank [Applause] you before we close is there anyone else at this time no okay then I can I get a motion to close public comments please M Cooper and a second Soro thank you um and then I will need a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adj okay and a second Mr grandite and all in favor okay thank you everyone and I just want to say before you go I appreciate you um being patient with the bumps and bruises along the way instituting new um agenda protocol and we appreciate all this evening have a good night