##VIDEO ID:fforglv36P0## that loud enough okay good evening it is Tuesday October 15 2024 and I'd like to welcome you all to the South Brunswick Board of Education meeting and to call the meeting to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay okay read the um like to read the statement of advanced notice the New Jersey open public meeting Act of njsa 10-46 also known as the Sunshine Law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon the primary purpose is for board members to discuss and vote on board business in accordance with the provisions of this act the board secretary has caused a notice of this meeting 48 hours prior including date time location to be posted in the South brunic public library in the board office filed with a Township Clerk and communicated to the home News Tribune and Star Ledger it is also posted on the district website Mr pki may I please have roll call Miss Julie Ferrara Miss Laura Hernandez here miss DEA carthik here miss Alicia Khan here Mr rajer Krishna yes Mr Mike Mitchell present Mr Barry nathon here Dr Smith rage here Mrs Lisa Rogers present we have a quum thank you Mr palowski may I have a motion in a second to approve the meeting agenda for this evening I have a motion by Mr herandez Mr Mitchell second all in favor any Nays um agenda has been approved next order of business is the minutes board minutes Mr pki drafted the minutes sent the draft of the minutes from the September 26 2024 they were posted on the board portal are there any changes from any board member hearing none we will approve or the minutes are written and and are approved as stand next is the report of the superintendent sura to I'm gonna say it wait a minute to aa oh I'm sorry what did I do what did oh I no reports to the student superintendent I have it Su student representative did I say superintendent I'm sorry congratulations on the promotion okay let's try that again reported this the student representative sumra tutia thank you good evening everyone so starting off with some School news our where team heel spin the wheel event was a success students had the opportunity to engage in fun activities and answer questions about prostate and ovarian cancer awareness the class of 2024 had a great time at our annual senior sunrise on October 2nd where blue bagels and Senior shirts were distributed our neon glow game was on October 10th and student council sold all of their blankets as well as $200 worth of merchandise also on October 10th we held the Hall of Fame event at our High School our Hall of Fame induction ceremony took place on October 10th at South Brunswick High School we congratulated terolyn B bernon she was on the bowling team Nancy McDonald who played tennis and volleyball Valerie Harman who played field hockey basketball and softball John vato played football and track and field mohamd senu who played football track and field and basketball Marica lipac she was on the gymnastics team Danielle padovano who's on the basketball volleyball and track and field team and Morgan Murray who's on the cross country and indoor and outdoor track student council attended the fall conference on October 8th for the New Jersey Association of student councils at TCNJ the state officers were introduced as well as the state charity this year our our council is eligible to run someone to be on the NJ State student council interested stuco members will attend an interest meeting at the conference and and interested student stucco members attended an interest meeting at the conference and there was an interview process to select who our Council will R will run elections take place in January next week is our first Spirit Week for this year Monday is Adam Sandler day Tuesday is stunt double day Wednesday is wear pink Thursday is class color day and Friday is black and gold Glam day next Friday the 25th is our homecoming game our theme for this year is Hollywood each grade is assigned a movie based on their class color class of 27 is Tangled class of 2026 is Spider-Man and class of 2025 is frozen make sure to show up and wear black and gold Glam moving on to Athletics girls volleyball hosted an incredible pink out game dedicated to sporting breast cancer awareness with a fantastic turnout they raised over $700 all of which will be donated during IR L to the American Cancer Society our sbhs girls soccer program participated in the third annual soccer for a cause Festival in matachin on September 28th the purpose of this event is to bring together girl soccer teams throughout our GMC's in a fun and competitive atmosphere to give back to the community out of 11 other programs our program ended up donating the most money to the foundation and were honored with a plaque that will reside at sbhs until next year's Festival that's all I have for you tonight thank you everyone and enjoy the rest of your evening very good thank you so much appreciate the update did you say the homecoming game is Friday yes next Friday this Friday next Friday oh next Friday Friday the 25th the 25th thank you I appreciate that all right thank you so much for your update okay the next uh on the agenda is report of the president just a couple things um just on behalf of the Board of Education would like to congratulate all of the Hall of Fame winners um significant achievement and we wish you all well um I know that a couple of the board members were there and um appreciate everything that the District administration did to make that a special celebration so again thank you and again congratulations on behalf of the board um just a reminder to the board members New Jersey school boards is next week and we will be attending Tuesday 10:22 to Thursday 10:24 we look forward to seeing you there you each got a um document and envelope from Miss Murphy regarding the um expense reimbursement so please uh don't forget to take that home with you this evening and submit that after the meeting and that's it so moving on uh next is the report of the superintendent not the student representative Mr feder all right welcome everyone uh few a few quick announcements then we have a few other people that will make some announcements um uh we had anti have anti-violence awareness week begins um in the third Monday in October each year school school just observed this week by providing age appropriate instruction to discuss methods for keeping schools safe so this is something all the schools engage with um I'm Bobby you talking about Ed Foundation or you know are you talking about Thursday okay I'm gonna not talk about Thursday then Bobby let you talk about Thursday um last last meeting uh we had a discussion and uh I shared the idea of having a Safety Council uh We've since met in operations and we're going to foro having a district Safety Council what we are going to do is get provide the community a full survey a very wide birth survey to find out where people stand on certain Matters from there we'll take the survey we'll analyze the survey we'll report back out on the findings as well as share uh where Things fall under safety based upon the findings and the and the survey results so we're going to be very transparent about what we do but it's not going to include a group of people getting together to talk about safety bunch of reasons why we feel this is the best way to go keep things um keep safety at the Forefront of the district without having the committee but letting the whole town and staff have an opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions and feelings about safety in the schools so that's where we're going to go I want to make that announcement because I made a different announcement last week last meeting and I want to clear that up um now in in the back corner over here we have a few people that showed up just randomly tonight thank you and um October is National principl month now they're not all principles there we have assistant principles principal supervisors and I'd like to just thank everyone thank to principes and and everyone you guys do a killer job it's awesome thank you uh now another announcement something that we've been talking about for a while um today at 4 o'clock uh we had a meeting with CJ our director of Athletics Elaine our soon to be interim director of Athletics you all know her from when she was the director of athlex Brian Redfield our um supervisor of bills and grounds David and myself and we talked about the topic of cricket so Cricket is a a desired thing to add to our school and we right now are in the final development stages of adding Cricket to be a club in South Brunswick starting this year during the cricket season around March April through June so that is happening at the high school level uh there's some things we're working out still there is a location Brian um are our direct build and grounds um figured out how to what we need to do on our side we also had an expert working with us to give us the information we need to do its right and the beauty of this is the cost of getting the field ready getting the uniform forms getting the materials for the kids is is literally under $5,000 so it's affordable there will be pay to play like every other thing that we do and um it will basically be a self-funding club for our kids uh at the first event where uh was an interest event there were almost 50 students that showed up for the first interest event we do expect the club will be able to handle 50 students and uh at the high school level um we did this similarly with girls flag football last year and this year will be our second season so we're going to have our own Cricket field we're not going to need to use anyone else's field uh we will be able to host games uh against other schools there are other schools with cricket teams not many but enough that we can have a little kind of season and also have students have intramural who are not on the like you know like any other sport we have a team of 16 and then probably another 34 students who play as backup team and and have their own teams as well so we're excited uh a lot of good good efforts by a lot of people and um I'll keep you posted but we're we're still in the development stages but it looks like everything's a go for this year around March April so good stuff good stuff for our kids all right and so another uh notification in collaboration with Ruckers University's disability awareness month our student services department is hosting a panel discussion on what parents and students can do to best prepare for the transition from secondary schooling to University uh Services um that's a really important part yes so this event will be at South Brunswick High School on October 24th at 6 PM I believe it's a Thursday that was today yes itday is a Thursday um additional information will be sent home uh in the district news that murf puts out and um good stuff so again good stuff uh we're keep moving forward tonight we do have a presentation Suzanne and I will give on student achievement and District goals but before that I am going to call our first guest speaker tonight it is Mrs Bobby Bender from the Education Foundation and there she goes goes where's she going Bobby you can stay she's coming back I hope I got your attention thank you for allowing me a few minutes to talk to you about some great events that the Education Foundation is sponsoring that are quickly approaching on Sunday November 3rd at the high school we will host a 5K and 1 mile fun walk and run registration is open so please visit our website at Foundation sb.org or eb.org here are some easy facts that you can remember 8:00 a.m. is check-in and registration 9:00 a.m. is the start of the one mile walk and run which will be a course around the high school 10:00 a.m. is when the 5 K Begins the course winds through the neighborhood across from the high school off of Stouts Lane there is one water stop along the course there will be Awards to top male and female 5K participants the age breakdowns can be found on our website have I mentioned it's eb.org the race will be professionally scored by Elite racing system using chip timing so the race results can be posted immediately Runners Walkers baby strollers and wheelchairs are welcome or not next thing on our agenda is this Thursday night October 17th will be our annual taste for education at 6 pm at Pier's this year we're honoring Katherine Oliver for her service to the South brunic schools PTO you can still get your tickets online for $35 if you would like to pay at the door the cost is $40 we have some great restaurants so check out our website I've mentioned that EDF foundation sb.org for the full list we have as usual some great prizes please all attendees must be 21 years or older thank you very much and I hope to see everyone at both of our events thanks Bobby our next speaker is going to be one of our School principles from Greenbrook um and uh jod has been a force in the dyslexia awareness work that our district does and uh Jody Judy was willing to come up here and say a few words about that if you're seeing everyone in red um that is the reason and uh I'm I'm a little afraid of jod so I wore red um as well and uh jod if you don't mind sharing some information about this month thank you um my name is Jody Mahoney and along with being the principal Greenbrook I co-chair the sbsd dyslexia committee with Lorie Fagan Allison deash Sherry sassine Jack Medina and a huge host of representatives at every building in the district October is dyslexia awareness month since 2014 when New Jersey passed three laws related to dyslexia South Brunswick has been proudly dedicated to being a dyslexia friendly District by learning about and supporting this learning difference in all of our prek to 12 schools this month and next month we are completing facilitating the 2-hour mandated dyslexia training for all K to3 teachers reading Specialists special education teachers learning consultants and instructional support teachers in addition South Brunswick is proud to cast our training net to include all K to5 staff and selected middle and high school staff as well this is one example that demonstrates our commitment to supporting students with this learning difference did you know that one in five people may have indicators of Dyslexia or that 40% of entrepreneurs are dyslexic today Educators across South Brunswick are wearing red to bring attention to the one in five statistic did you know that dyslexia runs in families often it is undiagnosed because dyslexia mask intelligence and intelligence mask dyslexia however it's much more common than you may think those who are dyslexic may experience difficulty with learning letters and their sounds decoding words reading comprehension written expression grammar mechanics spelling and Rapid word retrieval they may also have trouble rhyming or remembering names early intervention can greatly increase success for these students strengths for these students include verbal communication Visual Arts computer science design drama Electronics mathematics mechanics music Sports you name it these are your big thinkers if dyslexia runs in your family or you have concerns about dyslexia and your child reach out to your child's teacher or any administrator thanks for allowing us to bring awareness to dyslexia this month thank you my last part I'm going to go to the podium for this one superintendent all right um so the last part of today is we have um three guests with us tonight outside of uh all of our the remainder of our guests um during the last year you've if you've been watching board meetings you've seen me do about 300 uh Communications and presentations on budget and um for the last six years the districts have been um challenged by the S2 funding formula and you've heard me say all this before so um I forget when it was but I think it was maybe in June I think I received a call uh from Roy Fryman and um wanted to share some some good news um so apparently when they do the budget I don't know I don't know how the sausage is made on this I don't need to know but the bill did pass as we know and the board acted upon the bill and we were able to save the district this year the three people Andrew wicker is not here but uh his chief of staff Kaye leor is here um Michelle drulis and Roy Fryman assembly men assembly woman um fought for this district and all the other districts in this mode but not only that after that was over we got another gift so on top of the bill um I know I know these three legislators and and their their chief of staffs and their whole staffs worked to help out districts as much as they possibly could and um so tonight uh I I got to to know these people well over the last year and a pleasure that I did and um true true champions for schools and yes our school was a beneficiary but true champions for schools um next next week during school boards I'm doing a presentation for board members on the 2% cap and what what that means for school district and um it's it's going to put every District into a place where if something else is not done um every district will be in this boat at some point and um so I thank you I thank you all very much so we just want to I'm going to call you up one by one if we if we could um Kaylee if you can come up for senator's wicker and just take this it's it's not quite worth as much as you did but it's a beautiful thing K thanks so much and assemblywoman drulis if we can have you come up um again champions for this District thank you so really very much appreciated now now Roy's gonna get a special shout out on this one so the reason is is um another call I received D was there's a point where the um assembly and the Senate get a chance to vote on bills they vote and there's a process to do I I I was never part of this before and the process is they all go to their location and in their location there's buttons one is a yes button one's a no button and when it comes to vote on the bill a bill is presented there's discussion if there's discussion and then there is an opportunity for each person to vote well when this particular bill came up the bill that we've all benefited by um I got to press the button to vote I got to press Roy's button so that's a very interesting way to put it and it was it was a pretty cool moment and uh and what happens is this green and red I think green and red come up and green is good and uh there's a lot of green so so that was really good so um because of what I did when I press that button we passed the bill that that was that's that's a story I'm going to stick with Roy don't don't um so I like to invite uh San Roy Fryman [Applause] up than you so now there's one more part as I was mentioning after the bill was passed don't again don't know how this all happened and how it works but Roy did give me a call and explained that Scott uh we were able to get you some more money so thank you thank you thank you and can we show this if you can't read it $485,000 and what I'd like to ask is if the board could please come out come up to the front so we can get all get a picture together everyone board administr come up to the front yeah you're you're in you're in now you're the superintendent come on up here and if we can bring you guys out we're all going to go front okay come on you kids are benefiting [Applause] very nice can't forget his I'm taking it home thank you sorry he gave me the real one I just want to say just a a a quick word because I'm not sure Scott is presenting this entirely um correctly because he is leaving out the fact that um the work that he has done um upon behalf of the students here and the school um and how an incredible Advocate coming to the committee meetings coming to um testify make pleading the case of not on a couple of occasions not only how much that this formula has to change um how much it's it needed to change this particular year but also going forward um so it is we heard that message um we are introducing legislation others are working on legislation we we know that it's flawed we know the math is flawed so the only thing I can really think of is that those who actually created the math on the formula were not educated in New Jersey public schools because they don't know how to calculate math um because it otherwise we wouldn't be living with what we're living with um so I we want to say the assembly woman and I want to thank you um and for your advocacy um because that's why we're able to do what we're doing here so we we applaud you spam SP and that concludes my report good thank you so much I just before you leave um I do want to just say thank you um to your staff uh Kaylee um I wasn't as involved but um the emails were flying around and uh you did an outstanding job as well as please extend our thanks to Tai and Sarah um for their effort in working with the district it is truly truly appreciated and thank you again for everything you've done and we look forward to a different a different formula thank you take care no she said don't don't I'm going to no don't so along with Scott who worked diligently she's telling me don't don't don't Lisa worked her butt off on this Lisa Works side by side testifying go to committee meetings getting uh the community together and I can tell you as a president of the board that's not always something the president does it's not the extent as to what a lot of presidents get involved with but Lisa did and I I didn't want that to go unrecognized that um along with Scott who really amazes me sometimes but I didn't really want to tell him that um Lisa really really stepped up to the plate so as the vice president of this board and on behalf of the rest of the board we thank you Lisa I appreciate it thank you it's a team effort team effort now that was wonderful thank you Scott um appreciate it I have just quick question I don't know if you can answer this now um the the cricket which where is it going to be located the field did they decide it's on uh one of the softball fields right now oh one in softball field high school though thank you I was just curious where it was going to we have we have an extra field yeah so no one's losing any space yeah we're able we have good field space so that's great that's great I was just curious because I'm I'm going to try and make one of those games because I don't know how what Cricket is about but I'm going to learn thank you very much okay uh next is um presentation Mr feder again on the way up and Miss lbour for the presentation on the district goals and the assessment results thank you so good evening thank you Lisa I want to First acknowledge our leadership team as we've heard mentioned in this meeting they are here tonight because they also believe in our students and are interested in what these results mean for us as a school system so I thank them for joining us many of them sitting here this evening either serve as um content experts and or our test administrators so we'll talk a little bit about that as we go through this evening's presentation for our viewers at home I think it's important to acknowledge that the board education committee met in advance of this meeting and had a chance and opportunity to preview these slides and ask questions along the way in addition the full board received this slides show in advance with a summary document about the assessment results annually were required as part of our qac performance to report out on our spring student assessment results and so that's what we are doing here this evening many of the slides you will see are designed with some of those requirements in mind this quick slide shows you all of the standardized assessments that happen here in South Brunswick and in the state of New Jersey and what we will be reporting out on the exception is the NJ GPA which is our graduation assessment we reported out on that in August as we had our results at that time so when we receive our information I think it's important to note that there are some analytic challenges that come with standardized data I think important to note is that it is one single data point taken during one period of year during the school year it is difficult to use that one measure to really Garner what a student is able or not able to do so philosophically in our district we use that as one of multiple measures when we talk about a student's profile another thing to note is that the state scores are not always provided on the same timeline that we receive District results so today when we compare ourselves and some of those assessments to the state it is because we do have that data and on the slides that we don't yet have that I will point that out for all of you uh the other thing I wanted to say is it's also difficult for South Brunswick to compare itself to the state of New Jersey because we are curious about how we perform up against our peers of same Community demographics and same school sizes that information isn't available as well and finally the Special Education data in terms of its validity one would question um students who are needing additional support being held to their grade level standard when we are well aware that they're not there yet and so that is one of the challenges we face when we look at the data produced by some of our special education learners the first test that we'll talk about is the access for elll it is our English language Learners um take note that this is referred to as multi- language Learners as we move forward I'd like to thank Thomas Decker who is our supervisor of our ml program and our world language program Tom along with our multilanguage learner teachers are responsible for the educational program for those students but also for administering the assessment I I think important to note this assessment is administered between February and March of the school year it is an online assessment a little bit of writing is part of that as well it measures a student's English language ability in listening Reading Writing and speaking this next slide is giving you a historical context of the number of students currently enrolled in that program but also provide you a two-year lookback um I think you would like to know that you can see we have had an increase over time and we also have seen that the large numbers of students are in the elementary program um so I think that's important to see how we are continuing to increase those numbers across all grade levels this slide shows you um it was produced by linkit linkit is our data warehouse and one of our um online assessment platforms but what I want to highlight here is that we often get the question of how long it may take a student when they arrive to exit the elll program and so I will say that one of the trends that um has been identified is that over time we've seen an increase in initial year students that are arriving with no English if we put that student on an initial year level level one the prediction is that it can take upwards of that fifth year before they show Proficiency in the English language and so you can see if they arrive with a level two knowledge of understanding it's a little bit quicker and if they come in with more of the English language um they reach proficiency quicker I think important to know about our multilanguage Learners is it depends on the age at which they enter our country it also is dependent on what their native language may be and whether or not they're they're coming to our country from a country where English was also part of the educational experience so these are many different variables for our multilanguage Learners the next slides are going to walk you through some of their achievement on those assessments I referenced so there is a scale here entering emerging developing expanding bridging and reaching when a student is bridging or reaching they have exited or are eligible to exit the program and somewhere within that expanding band The expanding band is a 4.0 to a 4.9 scale 4.5 is when students are considered eligible to exit um we've seen a 27% increase in the number of students since the 2020 2021 school year and this is showing us their overall score so remember I said there were four different content areas it's Composites of all of that and this is their performance and to just show you at the elementary remember that was where the largest numbers of students are you can see the percentage in each of those bands keeping in mind entering is that level one and um the the bridging is there at the other end of that the 5 to 5.9 and the the numbers are in the middle of that pie chart to show you so we have a large number of our students in that developing band and then this slide shows you 612 and you will see that we combined 612 because we are restricted in the numbers that we can publicly report out we need to protect that number if it's so small and so that's why you see 612 here and again you can see that we have almost 30% entering in those bands and then we see um the expanding again um about 30% where some of them are on that that track to exit the program we also are required to report out not only on the overall score but by race and in a little while you'll see specific programs um on this particular slide you will see the bar graph up top and if you are someone that is really curious about the numbers on the bottom you will see the categories and you will see the percentage as well as the number so that you get a an idea of the sample size group of those students many of the slides tonight will follow this exact model just giving you a minute to take a peek you can see the percentages of students that are in that again expanding but you can also see the range of the three race groups of Asian Hispanic and white you will notice that black is not listed on here again because the number was too small to publicly report this slide shows our students in terms of their program involvement so so yes we know they're part of our MLL program that's denoted by the elll but you can also see of those elll students or ml students how many of them are economically disadvantaged meaning they qualify for free or reduced lunch benefits and how many of those students also have a special education classification so this chart the reason I chose to highlight this one is if you look at the 2223 school year which is on the left and you look at the chart on the right we are comparing the same students to themselves in terms of growth so you can see um out of the 2011 that were with us in the 2223 school year and those with us in the 2324 school year you you can see that we have more students that are reaching that expanding or bridging moving through that um program to demonstrate proficiency so another assessment administered to a small group of students is the D Dynamic learning map assessment or dlm the dlm is managed and administered by our special education department Department the supervisors there work with our special education teachers to train and support them as they administer this assessment important to note that this is for our most significant cognitive disabilities in fact it's about 1% or less and if you had more than that you would have to go to the state for a waiver it is the alternative to the njsla for those students that are not able to participate in that test because of their abilities some key features of it is this assessment is standard-based it's aligned with the njsla it is the alternative it is flexible and individual to meet the needs of that particular student it is Technology based and it focuses on the Essential Elements and so I think important to note is that within our student services department they are working to align the grade level standards to the IEP goals for our special education students I'm just going to report out they are assessed in English language arts mathematics and science as well science is only for students in grades 5 8 or 11 and you can see the results here emerging approaching the target at the Target and advanced um annually we have about 50 students that participate if we're going to look back to this year and um last year and then this year okay we're going to switch gears and talk a little bit about our high school students um and this is the SAT and we'll talk a little bit about AP testing um I'd like to thank Jeff ran who is our academ memic assistant principal at the high school he has oversight of the standardized testing there he serves as the school test coordinator in addition he has support from his supervisors there counselors and teachers in administering these assessments um so let's go on I think you are all familiar with the SAT and I just want to acclimate you to what this slide shows us it looks at the class of 22 23 and 24 so you have three graduating classes it is the best of their Administration remember a senior has an opportunity in their junior year their senior year so any of those test administrations we have that score represented here their highest we also have the New Jersey corresponding classes and we have the national remember this is an assessment that is a national assessment so we have an opportunity to see how we measure up against other other students across the country and so you can see the average score in the First Column the second one is our English and writing and reading um at the far right is your math um South Brunswick scores um did go down in the the one year there you can see from um I'm looking at 1258 to 1249 um the national had an increase and the state had a decrease those are just some moments um of what we might capture from this information here the next few slides I'll focus on our advanced placement participation and and the test results um we did have fewer students as you can see here 10,000 um 1,38 in the 23y year uh to 997 I would say we are also seeing some decreasing in our enrollment there as well um but proud to say that we have maintained 50% of our Juniors or seniors participating in at least one and you can see how many assessments were administered we have a very rich offering of advanced placement courses here in South Brunswick the next few slides will look um very similar uh We've chosen to display some of the most frequently taken assessments um which you'll see denoted example up top statistics 255 students in the 23 school year 240 students in the 2024 school year that is one of the areas where we have over time adjusted that um prere for that course um and then next to the number is the percent passing so I'll give you a minute to just take a look at that I guess another important thing um for those of you that have been following our um Story related to opening up opportunity and access for students um we had lowered our prere um for more student access in the English language and comp and we have also um taken away prere in the micro and macro economics to afford more students opportunities for those more rigorous courses um and with those shifts and with the numbers we still continue to have an 89% overall pass rate for all of our exams passing is a three4 or five on that um assessment this slide shows you again participation and we broke it into some of those subject or core areas you see the math and computer science and then science just that side by side comparison the environmental science down at the bottom shows an increase in the number of students taking that and also an increase in our percent um passing and that is also true of physics take a look at 174 to 213 a 90% to a 95% pass rate few more of our courses again this really just illustrates how many opportunities our students have for that advanced placement programming a new slide that um Mr rman was able to create for us is this one which I think is just interesting to kind of show some of the success we have here in South Brunswick so two years worth of data 23 and 24 again and I want to share that an AP scholar has the qualifications of they scored a three or higher on three or more exams so of those 153 students they took three or more exams and scored a three or higher and the AP scholar With Honor they need to have an average score of 3. to five on all of their AP exams that they have taken and three or higher on four or more exams and you can imagine that the distinction category is saved for um students that have an average score of 3.5 three or higher five or more AP exams and so you can see that the average score of those Scholars in the two-year comparison and I think important to to note and celebrate that once again for the 2024 school year South brunic K school has made the AP honor role with silver status so the New Jersey student learning assessment results that we'll segue into next are for our English language arts performance there is um reading and writing that accompanies this response to literature um I'd like to thank um there's a person behind the curtain that's instrumental and that is Michael Moore out of my office and he helps us to make sure that the data that is put into the system is ready for us to assess our kids in addition Jamie Bower our director of Special Projects serves as the district test coordinator and in in that role she is moving for the entire month of the test admin Administration but also months in advance of that and so she trains all of the school coordinators she supports them she monitors she makes sure that the test is being administered with Fidelity and when there is an issue she makes sure that she addresses that and works with the state on how to resolve any problems that come up um in addition she works with our child study teams to make sure that all accommodations for students in our special education program get what they need to be most successful on a standardized measure like this so this is just to show you the participation we're required to show you how many students participated in the test this graphic breaks down grades 3 through n and then all grades those are the grades that are tested in English language arts and just on the far right shows you the difference it shows you a little bit about how that enrollment has shifted over time I will also note here that if you are a multilanguage learner like I spoke about earlier if you arrive new to the country after July one in the year before this test Administration and are enrolled in an in an ml program you are exempt from taking the ELA test because you are taking the access for L's test so again this um graphic here shows you our three grade levels at the elementary um this assessment is measured on not meeting in the red partially meeting in the orange that yellow is approaching that standard or proficiency and the two shades of green are meeting and exceeding those expectations and so you can see that in grade three 54% of our students that's that first time they take a standardized test you can see in grade four it was 66% and you can see in grade five 68% meeting or exceeding so I just want to point out something when you look at these tests when I when I look at these results I I I'm not impressed I'm going to be honest with you 68% kids passing exceeding or meeting in fifth grade that's a problem it sounds like it's a problem right where are the other 32% how do we have 32% of our kids not able to basically pass a basic level test now what we don't have have is we don't have how other districts that are like us scored so I did a little investigating because my concern for this is is this something South Brunswick is doing or not doing or is there something else going on sure enough in speaking with a district that is generally decently um significantly higher performing than our district uh it doesn't look much different so in other words the test has to be a consideration into what these scores represent across the board so because again 68% passing and in third grade 54% exceeding or meeting all the rest of the kids are approaching that that sounds like things are not going well and you you heard Suzanne talk in the very beginning about this is one one metric it's one thing the problem with standardized tests at least in our state is we don't have enough information about what this means we need to know more are they doing number one are they doing an item analysis are they looking and saying okay just imagine how the state looks right so if we're at 68% pass rate in fifth grade I bet the state's below 40% pass rate in the same grade if they have a test that shows that 40% of your state is not passing the test what are they doing with this test are they analyzing question by question to see which questions were not answered correctly do they then look at the question and say is the question a reliable and valid question or was it worded in a way that would confuse students maybe they are I'm not saying they're not I'm just saying I don't know what they're doing we don't know enough to somehow say that we're doing extremely well or not in comparison to districts like us we're right there yes also these numbers also include all of our special ed students and all of our ESL multi- Learners took the test correct which which is the vast majority correct of our special ed unless they they unless they take the test before which is the DM which is much it's a small group okay and and unless you're a newcomer as an ml you're taking tests and again our special ed population in our district is uh slightly under 11% the state average is slightly over 14% um so again I look at these tests and I get like H what what what what are we doing and then you have to realize I'm not sure how to use these to make those determinations so we really don't put all of our stock in these results with that said of course like higher scores but is that feasible especially with the point that Laura just made if you have special education students and Suzanne pointed this out special education students are generally where's Lori Lor are you here Elementary special education is about two years behind it's kind of the program and they're classified as a result of a disability that keeps them about two years behind or more well those students are taking a test and then being asked to score on grade level exactly how why would you expect that to be the case so for all those reasons we have to present this information but really the I came standing up here is to make this point and I'll let Suzanne finish but it's really to say the results of the results I'm not I'm not completely saying they're worthless results they're not we can look at individual kids and see what IND kids are doing there's a lot of value by school and all of that but in the aggregate without information about every other District at least there used to be something called District Factor group where you'd get all the districts that are I's or gh's or J's that's gone we don't have any of that information the state's not providing it so just keep that in your minds as you go through this and um with that said we score you know pretty strongly in the state of New Jersey and yet that's what you're seeing is like strong for the state of New Jersey on these same tests that they give every year so you thank you and this follows that Trend when you look at our students in 678 it is the same um setup same story uh sixth grade 79% grade seven 80% and grade 8 68% we do have a few slides coming up that will show you the State numbers actually here is our grade nine remember grade nine Ela is the last time they are formally assessed on the njsla it is our 11th graders who take that graduation proficiency test so the students have um one year off I want to orient you to this because this is a lot of um percentages up here but I want to share what's here and this this presentation board you already have it but we will make this available for the public to look at a little bit closer um but what we have here is the njsla ELA 2-year comparison South Brunswick to the state of New Jersey um the ones with the lighter yellow column represents the 2024 test Administration the ones that are in that lighter yellow are South Brunswick and to the right of that yellow is the state for that very same time and where I'm going to focus us is actually on the next slide because the next slide will show us um those students the percentages that met were exceeded but to orient you you will see this again in the area of mathematics when we get to that part of the presentation so to Scott's point you can see in that very first row grade three in 2024 while 54% of our South Brunswick students were meeting or exceeding the state was 43% and then you can follow that down so if you look at grade seven 80% of our seventh graders were meeting 53% of the state and of course I'm not rounding exactly but you can you can see those there again for the njsla ELA we need to report out publicly on our race um you will see here that our number of black was a large enough sample of grades 3 through n that we could report out on that so that is an additional subgroup you're seeing here and as Scott was talking I think important to note is certainly the percentages that you see in those subgroups that are larger than that 10% is an area where we want to know a little more and so with the linkit platform when we run these reports we actually as um a leadership team have the ability to click that in the platform and immediately get the list of the names of who those students students are uh so that we can then overlay local measures and how they're performing within that classroom environment so that we may support those students again we have to report by program so this will show you if if a student is listed there as ell this does not include a student who arrived for the first time to our country who was exempt these are students who are actively enrolled in the elll program or the ml program for longer than that first year and so you can see how those students performed of those subgroups so next we're going to move on to mathematics uh in mathematics it's grades three through eight are our grade level math we also assess um Algebra 1 at the middle school algebra 1 at the high school geom ometry at the middle geometry at the high school and Algebra 2 so I want to just note that the N size in grade eight here you start to see a smaller sample size when you think our cohorts are about 500 600 students you can see that this is lower because this is where we start to bring out our students who are taking algebra one and then this shows you and we have it on the same slide again we see the number of students in grade 8 grade level Math versus middle school algebra 1 high school algebra 1 middle school geometry high school geometry and Algebra 2 the one thing I want to just highlight here is this little asterisk that you see the high school math decrease you can see between the 23 and the 24 school year a big change CH 700 students assessed to 238 what I need to explain here is that there is a federal requirement that students test for their first time when they're in high school and so in that 2023 year the guidance wasn't explicitly clear in fact it was confusing and in Jamie working with our uh contact at the NJ dooe we realized that we only needed to test test if it was their first time so if a student was in eth grade and I took the algebra 1 one would think they have met the requirement but in fact they have to sit as a high school student for one of those standardized assessments and so that's how um those numbers came to be this is our Elementary performance and again important to know all students and I think another important thing to clarify here is that if you are a multilanguage learner who arrives after July 1 you are tested in mathematics you are exempt from the um Ela but you test in mathematics if you arrive in February and this test is in May you're testing in grade level standards in a language that you may not yet be proficient and you can see grade three four and five just around that 65% um proficiency or exceeding and then when we switch here this gives you a look at how the middle school did and this is grade level math and your grade eight um shows you that these are the students who math may not always come easy to write these these are our grade level students after we've taken out students who are ready for that Algebra 1 program these will be the students that next year when they sit as freshman for the algebra 1 at the high school level you will see their scores denoted there and I think important to note is that as we as a supervisor group of the content area looks at this information we're looking at the big picture we're looking for Trends we're looking at our curriculum we're looking at our pacing we're looking at our standards we're looking at our resources that is one way that we use this big data set in making some decisions at the district level this is our middle school algebra 1 performance six and seven is combined because our n in the grade six was so small that it was one of those protected that we can't report out separately so we combined them and you can see our grade A algebra our our students that are performing at or above grade level with their mathematic capacity um 81% of them met or exceeded that expectation we shift to our high school Mathematics Algebra 1 Algebra 2 and the geometry just keep in mind that Algebra 2 and geometry were not all students they were likely students taking it as they were entering grade nine with maybe some newcomers that needed to test because they weren't here during their ninth grade year they might have tested in their math in in um 10th grade or 11th grade the next few slides give you that same comparison this chart should look familiar now we're going to advance to this one so that we can see the far right are levels four and five meeting and exceeding those expectations in comparison to the state of New Jersey our grade seven down there 55% of our district were meeting are exceeding in comparison to the state which was 37% and as Scott said you know the Curiosity of how we measure up against those like districts is really important for us um so we've actually asked link it if there's any data within their system that might help us do some of that comparison um to just get a better understanding of our um current status in relation uh when the state of New Jersey releases performance reports on all of the schools you can look as a as a community member as a parent as a staff member at how other schools are doing but you don't get it presented in a way like this again this is now looking at the upper level maths and again that grade eight showing that number of proficiency students so if you want to just look at high school algebra one real quick middle slide high school algebra 1 if you look at us we have a 19% pass rate of the four and five but the state outperforms us by 39.5% anyone want to take a guess as to why find it difficult ma difficulty later we open the door for more students to take it earlier so our percentage of high school algebra 1 students is going to be significantly lower in number and probably in their math skills than the state because not every school district pushes the math Algebra 1 into the middle school level so that's why that looks like an anomaly on that should with the middle school algebra one which U which exceeds the state average by a very wide margin right it's more like it's companion numbers we have to interpret it it's very difficult to use the data the same follows when you go to high school geometry for the same same exact reason high school geometry the state we have a lot of kids who take I think it was 160 students a partner where are you is that about right 160 students 160 students who take geometry before high school if you put those same students into High School those are your strongest math students they're not considered in those numbers when you look at the other numbers we have almost no students in Algebra 2 in the middle school we have a few given in the year but that's more realistic to what you see um so that that number on this particular page is probably the most realistic number in comparison would be the algebra 2 number um to show the difference between the state and South Brunswick yes yes and if there are students with IEPs I as well just shows you all math so any of the math assessments grade three math all the way up to that High School battery of Assessments this is all students and we can see our breakdown Again by our race these were the ones with the number that was large enough for us to report out and here we are with our subgroups um the by program I think it's also important to note that if you have a student who is economically disadvantaged they are represented in that row if that same student is a multi- language learner they're also represented in that row so if you are in multiple categories your score shows in multiple places you're represented in each of those areas so the njsla science as I mentioned earlier when I was talking about the dlm is administered to students in grade five 8 and 11 it is kind of like that Capstone of each level's programming um these are the numbers that participated in those two years these are our results the scale is a little different here you can see uh red is below proficiency it's a 4. scale below proficiency near proficiency green the lime green is proficient and advanced is that uh darker green and I will share that on this slide you see that in grade five 48% um were proficient or Advanced proficient I did some uh research and found what's not on this slide is that the state of New Jersey was 29% for grade five in comparison to our 48 for grade 8 40% for South Brunswick and New Jersey was 21% and grade 11 was 46% and great and for the state of New Jersey it was 28% so just to put some context the state was somewhere in those 20s almost 30% and we were between that 40 and 50% of our performance here this breaks it down by our race and again by program you will see that the MLS are not represented here because that sample size was too small to report out publicly so throughout the presentation we've alluded to some of the things we do with the information that we get and how we might use that as a system but the next few slides show us a little more detail so in regard to our programs and strategies used certainly when we have students that we see in the red as you see here that are not meeting those standards we look to individualize their program in some way and Target instruction to meet their unique needs sometimes when we have a group of students with a similar need we will cluster those students together to provide some support as I mentioned our supervisors look at this information um to review our programs that are being offered to look for our alignment and to check our pacing um in addition with teacher support um some of those trends that are found are then turned into professional development when we work with our staff on some of those early release days or days that we are closed like those upcoming days in November um in addition at the elementary level this year um we have dedicated instructional coaches that are working with classroom teachers teachers um model lessons in the environments looking at student work samples together um so that is one of the ways uh we are addressing and supporting our teaching staff and then this just showcases some of the many programs that we are utilizing in our system and some of the best practice in terms of strategies um I'll continue to promote that full day preschool 30% of our entering kindergarten students this year were part of our program so they were so they had that jump start so that is really exciting um we have implemented foundations in our kindergarten first and second grade classes um which is a phonics based program to support early literacy and I what I would like to share about that is we are also piloting that not piloting we've implemented it to our third grade students students in our Title One school so that is a purposeful decision and it has been for the last two years where our Title One schools have come first with the implementation and resources of that phonic program um but like I said it is rolled out to all K2 in this current school year um few years back the board supported a redesign of our special ed program where we have our um resource center classes in in certain locations in Sister schools model um one grade level for that content instead of multi-grade um implementation or delivery we have a readyto rise summer program um which has evolved for the past three years really focusing on students who are entering uh grade one and two that need some additional support our elementary intervention not our elementary well we have an elementary intervention team but our Middle School instructional support or intervention team um through some of that funding was able to continue so each of our middle schools has six interventionists that support students um pushing into those environments and pulling out each middle school has six three in ela and three in math high school has been working diligently on credit recovery for students they ran a summer program and they support students during the school year and for the multilanguage learner students there there are Trad uh transitional courses um to support those Learners and on the right hand side I think the most important I'd like to just highlight is while it is about that academic performance progress and growth it is also about the social emotional well-being of our students so in our elementary schools we use a screening tool called the Desa and in our middle School this year we have um brought in wayfinder which is a curriculum for our middle school students in that area so addressing not only academic but the social emotional needs of our students so that brings us to our district goals of which there are three to focus our work in this upcoming school year and we're going to share those with you now um many of the headings will be familiar to you board and to the public so the first being safe the first being Safety and Security and in the superintendent report you heard him speak uh Scott referenced that um we will be sending a survey out to our stakeholders um we will be analyzing those results and Reporting back out and the second part of that goal is an audit of our student codes of conduct so to our parents watching at home um and mannually you're asked to acknowledge receipt of the student code of conduct that really is our expected behaviors of our students here in our different levels and in addition it shares the consequences um or remedial steps that we will take when a student needs some extra time and learning some of those routines and procedures so we'll be doing an audit of that and I think important also to note is that um the integrity violations um recognizing that uh a trend has been an uptick um mostly in our secondary level but um it's not it's not that far off from our elementary some of our upper elementaries as well and so it's the appropriate use of AI artificial intelligence it is cell phones um good bad distracting um and social media so that will be another part part of the work related to this goal the next goal is the fiscal responsibility goal and so that will while in the short term we know that um we're in an okay place for this school year that is um continued efforts are needed in that area so the first part of this is we've talked about this before we'll be rolling out in the next couple of weeks a plan to study the elementary school configuration as you know right now we are a K5 district with prechool sprinkled into some of the k5s as well as um the Dayton Deans building representing all preschool the study and this is an important distinction the study does not mean a change could mean a change the study means to evaluate our current system and ask the big question is what we're doing the best we could be doing for kids period That's the first question the fiscal side of that of course plays a factor because if you don't have the money you can't do the best things for kids if you can't afford to do them but at the end of the day that's going to be rolling out shortly you'll hear more about that the community will hear more about that and um we'll be we'll be broaching this as the year goes on the advocacy um as you heard I didn't share but Kaylee from Senator wier's office did share I did receive a bill a draft Bill about 3 weeks ago the draft Bill focuses on a change to the actual formula adjustments to the formula uh we had a meeting about that bill we made recommendations we did invite Kaylee to come because she's been working hard on this um we had the education Law Center we had um njasa we have people that really know the the formula well and uh we made a series of recommendations to a draft bill by Senator gopal out of Mammoth County and Kaylee shared with me tonight that that bill bill will hopefully be dropping by the end of November now that's good timing because that means something if something's going to happen it could happen actually in time if you remember last year it did not happen in time and anything that was going to happen took forever the important distinction about this particular Bill versus the last bill this bill has nothing to do with taxes this bill is about the formula not about taxing so if the formula gets fixed that would be the best of all world right is if the formula is predictable like for years and you guys might forget this maybe the people have been here long enough for years the state aid did not change it was 24 million-ish dollars for like forever and then s the 2018 came in with the S2 implementation and kabi right so this bill is designed with guard rails to not allow that kind of damage to occur where it will land no one knows but that's what's going on we'll be part of that advocacy as well um and of course we're going to continue have to adopt balanced budget that's kind of a basic you know thing that we do so and then the final goal is disproportionality and so you know I'm hopeful that as you looked at the data that was shared tonight you did see red in some of the subgroups related to race you saw red in some of the programs the multilanguage Learners our special education population so our work can't stop in that area and so we will continue to work with those specific subgroups on what we're doing to help them meet the standard and those benchmarks um in addition um we will be implementing you see there it's a comprehensive coordinated early intervening Services plan I know that's a lot so cceis the premise of that is that if you've been following some conversations and our story you know that South Brunswick was cited for some of our disproportionality meaning that you were maybe 300 times more likely if you were a student um of a specific race to be classified um you um if you are a student of a particular subgroup you might be 200 times more likely to be suspended by being removed from the school day out of school suspension if you are a specific race you might be more likely to receive a particular classification in special education and so we are very aware of those as a district um and are working to to lessen that um so that we don't have disproportionality and so we have a plan that we needed to submit to the state Raphael Morales partnered with me he um helped to create that plan um and one of the things included in that plan is rebranding our intervention and referral services which is a way that we support students and teachers within our system so there is a lot of work happening in that area this year um and for those of you that are really versed in multi-tiered systems of supports it has to do with the tiers of intervention and how we support students and so there is a tier one which happens in our classroom settings through the work of our curriculum and best instructional practices and you continue through those tiers depending on what your needs are and so a tier two might be more intense in the type of intervention you receive and you may be pulled out for periods of time in that subject area where you need help um and a tier three is is even more um targeted um for a specific amount of time progress monitored consistently to see if you are responding to that intervention and if you are not then we make an adjustment and so those are the types of interventions that happen all the time in our settings and so we will be looking at those tiers um and how we are using those to support our students and finally um Universal screeners are really important to this work um it is that Baseline look uh of how a student is doing and being able to identify students that may be in need or at risk of additional interventions or services and so that is part of the work that's under this disproportionality goal so once again um many of these slides were were done with the help of linkit um um so we are grateful for that resource that we have in in District to allow us to really go deep with data and we are excited to have that resource um that concludes our presentation I know that many of you had emailed me questions and had them answered and we had that one Forum but I'm sure tonight might have sparked a few more so if there are any questions this side I have a comment yep comment can I go Dr Raj uh so just uh the presentation was very detailed and um it gave a bird ey view of U um student achievement um one thing that caught my eye is the pattern even though individual points of data might not make sense in themselves but the pattern wherever um data was available the district was um outperforming the state um and uh that speaks uh to me that speaks volume especially because we are operating in a um you know budgetary constrained um environment for a long time it's been the budget has been a problem for years now and despite that the pattern is that we've been consistently outperforming the state in many of those metrics that was presented today uh so we hear a lot of insinuations um uh you know in the public um so I you know I really urge everybody to go through this presentation and um keep this thought in mind that all this has been happening in an environment where uh you know budget has always been a challenge thank you just a just one thing that occurred to me as I was listening um the standard State standardized test um you all know where I feel about that when was the test actually given May in May so the students had an extra month month and a half of learning yes there was there was a time when the njsla started as early as March but it is as March that's where I was going not May so here we are giving a test in March for a subject that has not been completed for but now it's May but now it's May yes 2025 no this year 2024 correct so 202 so when we look at those numbers and 2023 Lisa and your 2024 were both may administrations so we had covered the majority that cover May okay so that yeah that covered the majority but in the past it was park with now this is just park with lipstick on yeah okay the one thing that I want to um I know you guys are really aware of this um but coming from someone who's experienced it it's the stigma of being when that intervention takes place and the child is being taken out of the class either for gifted and talented or for an intervention um I I know that the teachers are very very aware of of that and I just want to um acknowledge that it's extremely important because a child that is being pulled out either gifted or talented or um not gifted or talented in needs intervention sometimes carries that stigma um within the classroom um outside of the classroom so I just urge everyone to be aware of that um so the child is not impacted um either way actually um so that's just a point on that and um the other thing that I'm concerned about is AI um and I know you have it up there and and I think a lot of it has to do and I don't I don't I don't know if there's an answer to this that you guys are the experts but one of the concerns that I have is that there's so much pressure on kids today to do well from their families that the family environment needs to understand that AI is not the answer I don't know how we get that crossed because I don't want kids to feel that that's what they need to depend on to P class to please parents so I don't I don't know what to do there I don't know not that I know what to do but I don't know what the answer is other than trying to get the community to understand that it's important for kids to learn and it's not just about a test and it's not just about an exam and it's not just about an essay to try to get that essay perfect so I just asked the administration to consider how can we um communicate to parents um how Pro to properly use Ai and I'll just put that out there I think it's just an important reminder for all of us about how we harness the possibilities with AI but proceed with caution with how we put parameters and and and limits on that and how that is a responsibility of not us only as Educators right but what the the parents responsibility is and how we can help educate all on how we can best use this tool right that's continuing to advance at rap at a rapid Pace right it's technology is so far ahead of us um it's a great tool to find the right word but just somehow to get that across any any other questions or comments I just want to jump on what you said we're also looking as a board to look at our cell phone usage and all that is coming up so that's all going to be yeah we're we're on top of that Miss Cari you had a comment yeah I just had a a question on the last slide that you had uh shown on disproportionality uh I think you were uh you were alluding to some statistics that uh sort of point to some subgroups that are more likely to be uh either categorized in in um certain other categories it was just curious to understand that that study is there a study that you're referring to for that for that sta itics or what is that data did I misunderstand that so the state of New Jersey in looking at South Brunswick's data cited us for disproportionality in the information they have on us as a system so you know that we're accountable to the state for reporting all kinds of information so when they looked at that and they analyzed our results that's how they identified Us in the specific areas that I mentioned for theity work that's where those that information came from and they share that data with you the basis of the study that on which they are citing citing us correct they give us a report where they give us the percentages and the areas that we need to focus on I see okay m r yeah I just have two two comments um I've heard recently that some districts are considering a ban on cell phones during school hours and I think I think we've talked about that a little bit here I just wondered what you think as educator there's a lot of Educators in this room right now what you think about where we are with that as a district so we are going to be doing exactly what we wrote which is having h a strong look at cell phone usage this year okay so we're not going to give an answer to that yet but we're going to have an answer for that uh before the year's out did you have up there that's up there I didn't see okay good yep there it is yeah we also just talked about didn't I just ask you that as far as like we as a board are going to be looking at policy and stuff right that was brought up and the district will be studying it the board will be looking at policy and eventually we'll have a direction and an answer on if we're looking to do anything more than we currently do or not yeah all right this I know this is probably uh an impossibility but uh for many uh concerning the disproportionality um it would be great if we had vouchers for students with uh more challenges to get extra uh tutoring in facilities that are available throughout the town and have like a voucher system that would be available for their if it's feasible I don't know if it is feasible but just a consideration I don't know thank you any other comments no thank you very much Mr feder thank you very much Miss L borne appreciate the presentation um will this be up on the website I meant to ask you I'm sorry it will be so though for those that are interested in reviewing it a little bit more it will be up on the district website if you have any questions feel free to send them to Administration thank you thank you very much okay moving on uh board committee and liaison report so starting with the curriculum committee any update you just saw it but you had you had a meeting so can't we we did not meet since we went over this that was the last time we met when uh Suzanne and Dave um Scott went over all these and half the audience was in our meeting very good thank you um any update from the finance committee there is no update Madam president uh next meeting is coming up right like in two weeks I think possibly possibly two weeks okay I had it down on my calendar I wanted to check um you confirm please huh I will oh okay it's in two weeks right I think well you'll get it out to us okay never mind yeah uh policy committee any update the policy committee met prior to the board meeting on September 12th and in attendance were myself Diva caric David palowski B elyn mmon and Kimberly Malloy white we mostly went over any questions and comments regarding policies which were adopted at the last board meeting but we also discussed policy regarding Ai and also uh research regarding cell phone use in schools great thank you very much and business operations any update yes I do uh we met uh did you give last week October 7th s and uh we had a meeting that was supposed to be scheduled earlier and then uh we wanted to make sure that all our members attended uh I was in attendance Roger uh Mike Mitchell uh our board president Scott was there David was there uh Brian Redfield was there and uh Jim uh Conover was there uh uh it was basically about our district security or the whole thing was about our district security and a report from uh Jim Conover who for the public Jim Conover is uh head of our security and he's the former Chief of Police of East brunic if you didn't know that uh and uh he provided a really uh thorough uh presentation about security where we are now uh and the uh how we look for the future uh uh Mr peder uh joined in uh we discussed what uh Scott brought up earlier about uh keeping it uh within the operations committee and uh like Mr feder said uh uh we decided at this point to keep it within the operations committee because there's a lot of sensitive uh topics that are discussed and we're going to uh Scott's going to uh with the Jim uh Conover and the committee uh construct a survey for for uh parents to uh and then will be able to take a look at that and uh see where we're going from there uh it was extremely informative and uh we I I think once we get a better feel from the uh study that we can help the board uh formally uh a uh plan for for security going forward you know because it is you know unfortunately in this day and age it's a very important subject and uh we need to make sure that we continue to have a handle on it like we do great thank you very much any questions for the chairs of the Committees no moving on to Liaison reports any liaison update Mr Nathanson uh I brought it up last time but I wanted to uh continue with it a little bit to uh because our assembly people were here uh and uh uh Scott brought it up a little bit but the assemblywoman julus with assemblywoman cats has a a comp companion build to to Senator gopal as far as getting uh the uh ball rolling on uh a new formula it's sitting in committee right now so there is some that like like Scott said there's movement on a lot of that stuff right now and uh both of them were really uh especially uh uh simman priman he was really passionate about a lot of subjects that are near and dear to our hearts as far as money is concerned and they they brought up uh consolidation and you know C goal hit on it but uh there are some a lot of drawbacks to consolidation too which uh some districts that already have tried it were members there because we had for the first time in a while we were uh every so often we get together in Trenton this was live in Trenton and was like almost every District was there so we got to hear from some of the districts that within the last couple years have Consolidated and stuff and they also have uh got involved in uh Township deals with some of these new projects where they give them tax deals and stuff and ends up uh basically saying it nicely screw the uh school districts because they don't get the benefit of the full amount of money going to the taxes so there was a lot of things and uh the assemblyman was really uh responsive and saying that you know he's working on a lot of that stuff right now so the the reason I brought it up again because and Lisa and I have gone to a lot of them uh uh on Wednesday is a legislative uh session in uh Atlantic City uh Seno pal is back this year last year he wasn't there because he was running in a contested district and he stayed in his home District he's going to be there uh the majority of the leader is back again she uh she's back and the two uh Republicans that are normally there uh Senator scallion and I forget the assemblyman's name uh so it's usually a very good uh uh session and it's well attended and you get your questions in and uh if you don't get your questions and you just follow Lisa straight up what why she's asking the questions after the session so you know uh it's an important session if you don't go to anything else that's a good session that's the one you should go to besides besides Scott's session on S corre correct besides Scott thank you thank you anybody else any other com okay Wednesday Wednesday is the legislative session Wednesday is the leg I think it's in the morning thank you Scott session no I know I don't know yet um thank you any questions for Barry Mr Nathanson any other updates on liaison reports go ahead Mr Mitchell yes um we know that many of our schools had their bat school nights so compliments to all of you obviously I couldn't be to all of them but um specifically to the ones I was able to attend um at Dayton principal plumber and um principal capes and her illustrious administrative staff at South um you did a wonderful job I appreciate you um and uh the parents were just enormous in numbers especially at South there were parking all over lawn and everything I mean it it was just a big deal and so I'm really happy about our community our education community and how we take education seriously and um I'm quite sure um I wasn't there I don't know who went to high schools but I'm quite sure theirs was just as intense um because typically at the high school level parental involvement lessons but I don't know if that's true here I've been to too many programs um at the high school level where um High School H work you got you better get there early that's all I have to say but you know kudos to all of you and the job you've done to the teachers to um every student um some of the students showed up some of the students helped out and I know for for a facted South it showed up and it helped out so thank you so much and continue to do what you do and happy principal month thank you that's my very good and I just have two things I had an opportunity to visit masio at the high school cafeteria and I gotta tell you I've got pictures I'll send them out to the team um they have done a phenomenal job so Mr peski and Mr feder thank you uh for opening that RFP um please pass on our thanks to them um I have heard nothing but great things coming from um actually I happened to talked to one of the staff members we were just chatting during the ninth grade lunch but I happened to see the nth grade lunch and they did a beautiful job so thanks to mashos also to miss plumber thank you I also went to the Deans um preschool back to school night and I got a chance to sit in on one of the classes and I got to tell you if if our preschoolers are going to be amazing um as soon as you walk in it's bright it's cheery it's so bright that the first thing you do is smile so if there's ever an open house for our preschool I would recommend everybody attend um what I found fascinating was tools of the mind uh the curriculum um if you have a chance any parent interested go online check out tools of the mind it is a fascinating curriculum and um I learned a lot and I look forward to seeing um what our preschoolers are going to deliver and thank you again to the staff there they did a great job and thank you to everyone that hosted back to school nights on behalf of the board every single principal vice principal staff member thank you um for your work and your effort um to produce a phenomenal back to school night at every school thank you anybody else I just want to know from the elementary teacher uh principles how's your F question I know I don't expect your answer ansers because I just and I I know the high school is amazing and the middle schools are amazing you can if you want to have an opportunity you can go see it um it's very good it's the it's same as high school all right moving on uh public comments All right you just want to say something oh I'm sorry I thought you were GNA say something okay I know I'm trying uh the Board of Education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest complete copies of policy 0167 which covering this portion of the meeting are available to the public at the auditorium entrance online or by contacting the board office to permit the fair and orderly expression of comments we ask that participants be recognized by the presiding officer and preface comments by announcing his or her name place of residence and group affiliation if appropriate and also complete the signning sheet please print legibly or we may be unable to document your name forther permanent record each statement B each statement made by a participant shall be limited to three minutes no participant may speak more than once on the same topic Mr P will indicate when you have 15 minutes remaining all statements should be directed to the presiding officer no participant May address or question board members is our plan to listen to each of the public each member of the public once all questions and comments from all members of the public are made the Board of Education May respond or respond via email in the most timely and efficient manner available all questions and comments will be noted Mr palowski do we have anybody that registered for public comments one no we do not is there anybody in the audience that would like to make a public comment on the agenda items only seeing none we will close that portion of the public comment moving on Old business we do not have any old business at this time nor do we have any new business at this time next will be the order of business will be the consent to General review by Mr palowski Mr palowski please so tonight's agenda is pretty quick we have a bills list a unified Champion schools Grant uh we are doing a bunch of um statement of assurances uh assuring the state that we uh went through the process cess of each of those motions item 1 through for 1 14 through 18 we have a travel related reimbursement expenses uh we're approving student field trips I'd like to get a real quick uh Mrs Rogers uh a motion in a second to approve a South Brunswick High School computer science club uh trip to New Providence for November 19th is before the next board meeting if I could get a motion have a motion for Mr Mitchell motion Dr Raj second all in favor any Nays I'll add that to the list approved we have a displaced student tuition contracts and some out of District placement approvals we have some contract uh for transportation a few sidebars and your personnel that's your consent agenda any questions for Mr palowski none may have a motion in a second for consent agenda of October 15th I'll move it Mr Nathanson move Miss Dr Raj second all in favor roll call darn it roll call please sorry I caught myself roll call please Mr Mrs Julie farar accept Mrs Laura Hernandez yes M Deepa carthi yes Mr Alicia Khan yes Mr Mike Mitchell yes Mr Roger Krishna yes Mr Barry Nathanson yes Dr Smith araj yes Mrs Lisa Rogers pres uh yes motion carries thank you consent agenda has been approved thank you so much next is the public comment second opportunity for public comments of any type this is the second opportunity for the public to comment on any matter Mr praski do we have any members of the public who pre-registered no are there any members of the audience that would like to make a public comment on any matter seeing none that will close the second opportunity for public comments please note our next scheduled Board of edication meeting is set for November 21 I may I have a motion in a second to adjourn motion motion by Miss Hernandez second please who's seconding I can't see oh miss con second Sorry Miss Condit all in favor hi any Nays thank you South Brunswick have a great evening [Applause]