##VIDEO ID:Ix2SBOAnOmY## welcome back I'm like both happy and sad I can't believe the summer is already over it went by in like 3.2 seconds um it's so great to see so many of our wonderful administrators um and parents in the audience uh I'll get right into it because we do have a very long agenda um so I'm calling the meeting to order pursuant to the open Public's meeting ACT public notice of this meeting has been given by the board secretary in the following manner one post in written notice on the official bulletin board at the Vorhees Township Public Schools administrative building on July 8th 2024 sending written notice to The Courier Post on July 8th 2024 filing written notice with the clerk of Vorhees Township on July 8th 2024 and posting on the Vorhees Township website on July 8th 2024 please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which stands one nation under God indivisible andice board secretary will you call the [Music] rule Mr Bryce Miss Kover here Mr Rosen here Mr Rosner here Mrs Rudder here Mrs Stewart here Mrs stuper miss verie here Mrs Watson here there will be no executive session tonight can I get a motion to approve the minutes of the June 10th 2024 regular board meeting both the regular session and executive session so moved second that was me thank you online voting is open the motion unanimously passes can I get a motion to approve the minutes of the June 18th 2024 special board meeting both regular and executive session so moved second online voting is open the motion unanimously passes uh I have nothing prepared I just wanted to say welcome back um the board unequivocally supports all of Iowa our wonderful administrators and teachers and we look forward to all of you having an incredible year um we hope that you know that you can call on us to support the students and all your new um ideas and Innovation and we're really excited to see um what how we progress this year and all the wonderful student achievements so best of luck we will be by your side the entire time and we hope that everyone has a fantastic year the fire drills and safety drills are shown on the attachment harassment intimidation bullying report um is also included there's also a suspension report attached we have one Oprah request that is currently uh in progress um board secretary report thank you U I'd like to report on the summer projects um Mr mathys and his staff have been very busy in the summer as they usually are at the end of the school year um I think in the letter from Dr hacket she listed the following summer projects that have been completed U continue replacing carpets with tile across the district install new furniture reception counters mail slot counters and flooring for the main offices conference rooms and principal's offices at Signal Hill and oage replace HVAC units in bwing 12 classrooms at VMS replace sections of concrete and papers in front of the Raymond J brosol junor performing Art Center main entrance and CER entrance expand the main entrance oh sorry this one's still ongoing um so I'm going to tell you the ongoing projects um continue replacing doors and windows that's scheduled to to happen and expand the main entrance vestibule at VMS is ongoing it won't be finished for the start of school but hopefully soon thereafter um Mr matthysse has prepared a report that's at each of your uh seats that lists all the summer projects that took place so it's more detailed than that list that I provided um in addition to these projects there was um we were required to do lead in drinking water testing periodically and this is the year that all districts have to do it um ours passed so that's really great news and we will post that on our website um the other testing that we we did is indoor air quality testing we do it in every classroom at all the schools and all the classrooms are clear they all passed as well um in this in this pamphlet that they put together it lists like I said the various projects that are done there's been lots of painting parking lot restriping uh you'll notice on our Administration um maintenance it's a septic system pump out we'll talk about that in a few minutes um here we have had to pump pump out septic system eight times in the last fiscal year so I'll address that in a few minutes um overall go through all of these projects but you can take a look at them those they're quite extensive um the other update is on the early childhood development center uh today we had our bi-weekly construction meeting so we go out there every other week to meet with our Architects and weatherbe which is the construction company and various administrators it's really coming along nicely so I'm just going to kind of like let you know that on our website we have a link that is really up to date we have to report into the state um I think that's twice a month as to the status of the project so there's pictures there and there's updates there but the whole thing is moving along nicely so we're very excited about that and our new uh principal was out there today too so she got to see it for the first time Miss Lewis um the third item in my section is called reverse bids for iPads and uh what we've what we do is when iPads have reached the end of their life here we put out a bid to sell them and anytime you're going to sell school property that's valued over a certain threshold which is $6,600 you're you need to put out a bid to sell it and so it's called reverse bid because you're not looking for the lowest bid you're looking for the highest bid so um Bruce Taylor assembles all them with his staff and or or I guess they wipe them clean they get them all ready for sale and then he gives us what the lowest bid should be so we gave a threshold of $140,000 uh we had several people bid on it and the highest bid was $157,200 so that's really great that it's a lot higher than we expected and the amazing thing is it's the same company that bought from us two years ago so uh again it's competitive bid it's sealed bid and it was very successful so those should be taken out of here before the end of the week um one of the items on our agenda is the sanitary sewer bid award it's items 18.9 18.10 1811 um we had bid opening we had the bid opening on August 8th uh the money comes from our capital reserve it was budgeted at $250,000 and it's actually been in our budget for three budget Cycles because it's been a long process trying to get this thing accomplished we've had two different architectural firms working on it and then the one that we have right now with the engineers designed it they had to get approval from the New Jersey D um and also the County municip Municipal Authority so it went through a lot of steps to get where it is and how it's designed we went out to bid and the bids came in a lot higher than our budget was um it's and then we got an explanation from our architect to find out why it came out higher and so his whole re he gave us a nice synopsis which was Shar with the board um but it's it's the plan that the D and the M the county municipality Municipal yeah the MUA it's EAS say mua approved so we did look at other options just to make sure we covered all our bases um and one option we thought of why can't we just replace the septic system and our architect said you really can't do that because if you can hook up to a sewer system nearby you're supposed to do that um we reached out to our engineer to say is there anything else there's a pump system which you would have to like install a certain pump tie it into your generator and it kind of like pumps the sewage out rather than it going from a um downhill thing like it's deeper I don't know the right word for it but the way it's designed you don't need any equipment to do it it just does it on its own um it is something that's necessary because whenever we have large groups like today or we have kids come here for certain programs or we have County meetings our septic fills up and it's not a pleasant time because it is kind of bubbly and gurgly and splashy you know so we we need to get it fixed yeah that's I'm really telling you why we need it fixed it's true I'm sorry it is true so um but in order to do that because we take money out of capital reserve to do this we're not allowed to withdraw capital reserve without County approval so these items are on our agenda requesting to remove $400,000 from capital reserve pending County approval from the county executive superintendent and also um awarding the bid for $613,000 pending County approval of the the same person and withdrawing the lowest bid which was in the 400s because they had a mathematical error and they asked to have it withdrawn so that's where we are with it but again we can award it but it is pending appr approval from the county and which we have not received so it was submitted to them and we have not heard back yet so rather than wait until the end of September to put it on uh we decided to put it on now pending because if we get approval from them to withdraw the 400,000 we'd like to get started with the project because before the weather turns now where this where this starts is the where we would hook up to the Sewer is by the um assisted living home down that way so that's where it ends and then it would just come up you know up in the front on of all those places to here in front of our building so that's the connection that we have to do we have heard too from the township that sometimes over time we might get money back because we're the ones laying that pipeline to get to here uh so hopefully we would get some money back in the future but that is what is on the agenda thank you thank you thank you superintendent report good evening everyone I hope everyone had a fantastic summer you all look great our administrators our teachers and our parents and community members here I'm delighted to extend a warm welcome to each and every one of you as we embark on the Journey of the 2425 school year a year filled with filled with boundless opportunities and exciting possibilities our theme for this school year will remain the same as it was last year building Pathways to success empowering students through positive connections and this theme emphasizes the CR crucial link between positive relationship ships and achieving favorable outcomes we have worked diligently this summer to prepare for this school year and I just want to share a few of our highlights we have revised the current English language arts and mathematical curriculum guides for grades K through 8 to incorporate the updated 2003 standards this was mandated by the NJ dooe just recently we were told that we can delay the implementation of the new mathematics standards until September 2025 however we have decided to implement both mathematics and English language arts this year that therefore there are any issues or concerns we can make revisions this coming summer so we will Implement both um starting in September of 2024 we wrote the curriculum for a financial literacy course at the middle school which will cover Financial Health financial landscape and money management and that um course is on the agenda tonight for um board consideration we initiated curriculum mapping for the Middle School SP program to align with our current comprehensive Elementary program and this um middle school program is scheduled to begin in the 2526 school year we prepared for the implementation of our Reading Wonders language arts literacy program for grades 3 to5 and we we implemented grades kada2 last year a district code of conduct committee was established this summer comprising of Staff members from all of our schools along with some administrators the committee focused on revising the chart of student discipline in policy 5600 I'm sorry regulation 5600 to ensure consistency and how consequences are issued across K2 35 and 68 as well as among students I will be submitting the recommendations to the policy Committee in September and the next step for this committee is we're going to get back together again and develop some schoolwide Behavior incentives and proactive measures to address our students our district will be pil a when what I need period for our grade 2 students this period is designated is a designated time when teachers were personalized instruction to address address the unique needs of each child so in grade two for this period which will occur 30 minutes three times a week the students will change teachers for second grade there'll be a teacher that will work on the students who need um enrichment so maybe some um um projects and things like that the other another teacher will work on students who need a lot of support and help them with their support so that we want to get every student to engage in the grade level standards but at their own pace so this will happen 30 minutes three times a week and our second grade will switch teachers during that time we will look at the data every marking period and then make the changes to the student um um to the teacher each time as we look at the data I am pleased to inform you that we are recommending staff this evening to fill the majority of our current vacancies we have already hired a principal is here tonight for our middle school and a preschool instructional coach for our vhe early childhood development center in addition we are recommending the hiring of the following another preschool intervention and referral specialist two social workers a preschool instructional coach a preschool nurse 12 of 19 teachers so we need a total of 19 teachers 12 are on the agenda tonight four more are pending their criminal clearance which leaves us three vacancies and we're going to hold off on those um three assignments probably until another month or so we also have on the agenda tonight 10 of 19 instructional Associates and five more are pending criminal clearance leaving us with four vacancies so we've done a lot of hiring this summer for our um preschool building we're also have on the agenda tonight the recommendation of Miss Christine Calabria who is our current Vorhees Middle School principal as our new ceer cordinator and that is on the agenda for the board to consider we have three presentations tonight very brief um first we're going to bring up uh Miss Donley um who's our supervisor special projects she's going to just give a brief overview of our annual report is something that we do each year and we summarize the year and this report is available for the community after Miss Donley we'll have um Dr alagria I Believe Miss Miss Ross Dr alagria is our director of special services and Miss Ross is our supervisor special services and they will provide their annual report um and then finally Julie Lions who's a new administrator here with us she's the director of Early Childhood uh K to5 literacy and ESL each year we must present an an annual access for L's report and she will provide that information just as a note Mr M mcoz will present the New Jersey student learning assessment spring 2024 results in September at the September board meeting we do not have all of the information from the NJ doe to present this evening so he will present the njsla data um at the September board meeting so we'll begin with Miss Donley and followed by Dr alagria Miss Ross and then miss Lions good evening everyone um I am presenting the district annual report every year the district puts together a report that summarizes the previous school year so this is the 2324 report it's 78 pages so I'm not going to share with you all 78 Pages um however it will be posted on the district website tomorrow but basically every Department every school every administrator um provides a summary of the year um for whatever their special area is and then each school does it as well um and at the end we've recognized our retirees the staff members that had their 25 years of service for that school year so it's a lengthy report um everyone does pitch in I just put it all together and kind of organize it so it will be posted tomorrow it's under the district tab that you can find all of our reports so that's basically Bally it that's the cover page try to get some shots of different kids um all different ages for you so thank you good evening everyone um I am Dr alria the director of special services and this is Miss Ross the supervisor of special services um thank you for having us to talk about special education in our district the last time we were here we were talking about the sport program at the middle school and so now we're talking about our department in review so we're going to go through a couple things oops all right so 2023 and 2024 in review we have done a lot of work in special education this year and so we'd like to talk about some of those things one of the biggest things was a special education handbook which Miss Ross certainly helped to put together and facilitate this is something that is provided to the child study team we provide this to uh District employees as well it will be on our portion of the website soon but it really does break down all of our different special education programs that we have in the district all of our offerings and all the good things that are happening in special education so this handbook is available um for everyone to review we've also improved our family engagement we've been working with CPAC which is a special education parent advisory group I believe we had a member come one of the previous board meetings to kind of talk about our partnership with them and through this group we've worked really to find out what some of the needs are that are prevalent throughout the district we've talked a lot about the roles and responsibilities of the child study team we've also done a meeting where we talked about transition so transitioning from prek to K transitioning from fifth to sixth grade so our goal really is to try to bring as many parents as possible to these meetings so that we are able to kind of get in front of them and give them this information that um is certainly something that they've been asking for and that would benefit them as they try to support their children you can jump in whenever and then Spire training um Spire is a research-based intervention uh program for reading and so we've really made sure that all the majority of all of our resource from teachers um with the exception of some new teachers have been trained in this program this is something that is used in our resource room this is something we're seeing a lot of growth with our students in terms of reading and so it's really something that um we're proud of we also did this during our esy program so our students were able to continue with their Spire training or I'm excuse their Spire instruction and also be able to uh track their progress through esy and also the school year so that's something that we really invested a lot of time in last year and it's something that we're continuing with this upcoming year go ahead so also just to piggyback on that we are trying to focus on those um goals district-wide goals of building positive relationships so as we're looking at what positive relationships will influence and impact our students we're trying to build those relationships with our families and amongst our teachers so if you notice with the Spire training we really did create a focus group and the teachers were really collaborating and training monthly meeting with each other and trying to work out any kinks any difficulties they were having with that program and um we did have an inclusion coach coming this year where she was coming and doing oncampus visits every quarter um observing the teachers working with the teachers during their prep periods we're getting coverage for them and from there we created another Focus Group of just our in-class support teachers and um from there we're really trying to create that collaborative bond with them moving forward so we're going to just really focus on our own strengths and look at our own teachers and use them to really train and work with each other and share all the great things that they're doing so um that's been going really well we did a star training for autism and our preschool disabled classes as well and we're going to continue to work on that we're also bringing into that program an accessible learning literacy so it's like a reading program designed specifically for students who are autistic um so we're hoping that goes well um we did also work on deescalation and behavior management so our bcbas we do have safety care training available in the district but a big component of that is this deescalation so we trained a lot of our special teachers like our um music teachers Librarians all of that a lot of our a IAS just to make sure that that we are using property escalation techniques and behavior management we partnered with the Vorhees rotary Breakfast Club and did an Art Exhibit unfortunately there was a fire the day before the exhibit so we never came to fruition but we do have pictures of it as it was displayed before the fire and then um we did the district autism spirit week if you wanted to Y so as a district we did a districtwide autism spirit week which was one week in April and every school had the same um spirit activities for that week and really it was we got a lot of good feedback we did bubbles we did different colors um we had some little trinkets that we gave to some teachers really just trying to bring awareness and understanding and acceptance we also provided a little activity just to kind of link it to back to the mission of bringing that uh acceptance and awareness to to autism okay so we're going to talk a little bit about the special education annual report it is important to note that the information that we receive is for fiscal year 22 so it's a little bit behind so some of this um some of the data has been already worked on and talking about it making improvements and some of this um our data is is pretty good as is so when we're looking at uh school age least restrictive environment we have met the target when it comes to how how often our students are in least restrictive environment and AD joural education classroom over 80% less than 40% and then also looking at our separate programs in school so we've met the Target on all of those um historically as a district our least restrictive environment numbers have always been pretty good that's something that we're going to continue to work on because we know it's a strength and continue to increase our opportunities for inclusion across the district here's when we're looking at our preschool LR so again this is from the 22 school year so this was prior to us having um full uh preschool having the inclusion the expansion of preschool so we looked at we look at the and we met the Target in regular education programs but where we did not meet the Target and we're off was the separate setting and so that is some of our PSD classes so as we continue as a district to have more inclusive classrooms and preschool opportunities that number um should show that we're meeting and exceeding the state Target prior to um moving to preschool expansion our preschool programs were primarily for children with disabilities and so that is why this target is an area that continues to need Improvement because this is before the expansion when we didn't have those opportunities where we have as many inclusion classes for our preschool students to go into okay this is the other area that our district is continuing to work on so child in child find indicator number 11 we are off by 4.65% this is our compliance so this along with the Early Childhood transition which is off by 7% these are two areas from again the 22 2122 school year here that continue to need some support So as we look at these numbers and we try to drill down and talk to case managers and try to figure out what's going on one thing that we've noticed with the preschool is a lot of times our families are coming in and they're really not sure that they want to give consent for programs so that's causing us to kind of um be out of compliance when we're trying to work and work with families but we have put some additional parameters in place we do have a dedicated preschool case manager so this person is also a social worker and has been working with families to increase this this compliance so I see as we continue to get these annual reports I don't foresee this to be continue to be an issue but it is something that the district did not meet the Target on in the 2122 school year so looking at our numbers um we are pretty consistent with our special education numbers uh this year we have about 400 students who are receiving special education services at this point we have about 24 pending referrals we have 157 students receiving speech only services and only three pending referrals so the numbers in the parentheses are where we were um the in the 2223 enrollment or I'm sorry 23 24 enrollment yes last year's enrollment so those numbers are pretty consistent with where we are right now all right we talk about child study team so our child study team consists of as many of you know um each team has a school social worker a learning consultant and a school psychologist their role goals are to support teachers administrators the instructional Associates we do classroom observations um on their case load they also go and consult with the teachers if they have any concerns whether it's academically behaviorally or even if there's something going on in the home we can help in any way we write reports we do child stud team evaluations we conduct and hold IEP meetings and we write IEPs which are individualized education plans designed to create um academic behavioral um and kind of social goals a child may need based upon what their um skills are our school psychologists and our school social workers provide school-based counseling and also social skills many of them hold lunch buddy groups and really try to bring in and help any child who struggling to make connections and build a positive connection with someone our related services are our speech therapists our occupational therapists our physical therapists our bcbas and they are there to um provide therapy and consult with the teachers we do have an indirect week of service for related therapies or related um services so during that week they offer say Hey you know I have this time free I can do a lesson on visualizing verbalizing and a speech teacher or speech therapist might come in and do like a quick 30 minute lesson modeling some techniques and sharing their skills with the teacher and the students um yeah we all do evaluation so whether it's a learning evaluation a psychological um IQ test um our BCB do functional Behavior assessments yeah run the whole gamut and here's the list of our current case managers so each team has like I said three case managers we do have two School psychologists at the middle school we found that um it just was a higher need to have two psychologists there instead of the one social worker okay so looking forward to our next steps and how we're going to continue to move the department forward um one thing that we've talked about last year was our win mental health Grant which is a little different than the win uh that Dr Hackett had talked about the what I need period so the win mental health Grant is um The Wellness inter agency Network mental health grant that we received through um Camden County Ed Services Commission and Twin Oaks so this grant provides us and I will talk about that in just a moment but it does provide us with some in-house mental health clinicians to support our students we will continue with our behavioral support and really being intensive and intentional in our instructional associate assignments we've created and we continue to improve upon our adult support protocols and also having onboarding for our new instructional Associates who are coming in to support our students just to make sure they have some level of support when they're getting this assignment in September we will also be providing districtwide um support around behavior management classroom supports and some strategies for teachers so this will be at every single School within the district we've created that time during the faculty meetings we're also continue to work and improve on our training opportunities program expansions and supports we're going to continue with our work on fostering parent engagement we really look forward to working with the CPAC which is a the parent group that we we spoke about before we meet with them monthly after they have their meeting we then meet and debrief and go over some trends that are within the district and really talk about anything that needs to be adjusted or tweaked throughout the department also continuing with our districtwide compliance on New Jersey special education timelines which were those indicators 11 and 12 and really putting some parameters in place for that and some additional supports for our case managers professional development for teachers and staff again working on inclusion interventions IEP writing and we're really working on districtwide education and acceptance ini initiatives for inclusive practices so not just the autism spirit week one of our other initiatives or one of the other things brought for through our department was care Solace um so just looking at this chart here we see within the 23 24 school year there were 59 cases four thou over 4,000 Communications 38 appointments and 68 Anonymous searches so this care Solus is available for anyone who's in the Vorhees community so that is our teachers that's our students here that is people who live in Vorhees it really is available for anyone and what car Solus is is kind of that in between when you need support whether it's mental health support whether it's um um like it could be drugs it could be substance abuse anything they really help to support you in terms of finding um a clinician who can support you counseling um anything like that so this is for students who might be in crisis this is for families who need that support and also again staff members so we see a lot of those Communications that come through some of them are Anonymous and some of them are warm handoffs which are created by District staff members here to really support families and the wellness inter agency Network again this is the grant that we received through the camon county Ed Services Commission in Twin Oaks they help to provide School clearances in school support and professional development so through this grant when we have students who are in crisis and need to have a mental health clearance we are able to get them streamlined through the process where we don't have to send them to the emergency room which can be very traumatic and um you know just not effective for students so we are very grateful to have this opportunity to make sure that we're able to streamline our clearances get students cleared get them support and back in school which is our ultimate plan uh through this grant also so the supports currently are at Osage Elementary School and bores middle school so we have a clinician house in both of those those program both of those schools excuse me for one day a week there is some overlap right now because they do have additional Staffing so it benefits us that we have two staff members at o Ag and two staff members of Vorhees Middle School when we look at the crisis referrals we notice that those were the schools that had the highest crisis referrals and so that is where those services are we are thankful as a district because everyone else who got the wi Grant um out of everyone else there's only three districts that receive more than one day of support so we are thankful that we do have two days of support through these licensed mental health clinicians that have been very helpful in supporting students and also staff members in ter to work with some of our students so our program options include in-class support which is just a teacher special education teacher within the general education setting we do have both teachers listed on the roster we encourage them to plan lessons collaboratively and we have worked very hard to try to really get them to have schedules where their preps are aligned and they can really be there for the bulk of the day and there's even time for the special ed teacher to come back and reinforce and do some supplementary instruction as needed um there were focusing on small group instruction we're providing accommodations modifications and again our teacher supports are that IC focus group where we're really trying to get a collaborative positive group within our own amongst our own staff and then um we will be available to check in so we are going to regularly be popping in and communicating with the teachers and trying to meet with them at least monthly or bonly depending on what their availability is our resource room is differentiated instruction so in this case we do align with the Gen Ed standards but we do differentiate it and at times it's going to be modified um as needing based on the students needs um we do provide WonderWorks which is the intervention piece of of our wonders and we have Spire which is an intense decoding reading program and again we have a lead teacher for this program we did the WonderWorks training and they're going to continue to work their collaborative Spire focus group as well this year we have two different self-contained programs at the elementary level one is the learning language disabled program again it's differentiate instruction more closely aligned with the standards or the curriculum that is used in our resource rooms program we use WonderWorks fire Edmar visualizing and verbalizing we use touchmath a lot of manipulatives um a lot of WonderWorks Handwriting Without Tears we do have check-ins with Administration our bcbas work closely with this program and all of our related their um our therapists our speech OT PT are always Consulting in that program our autism self-contained program um as we've spoken about this several times it's individualized we do have strong behavioral supports we have functional routines we focus on we do use a star curriculum but many times our students do kind of reach that level three of the star curriculum at that point we do bring in our wonders our gened math programs we really do many of our students have excellent skills at academically so um we really make sure we're focusing on everything we can for them um again our supports are administrative check-ins our star training our bcba consultation we have a pyramid an outside company which focuses on augmentive communication techniques and they do consult on a monthly basis so this is the picture of what our Art Exhibit it look like before the fire um and it was a beautiful really really beautiful experience so we did have one student who's wonderful at playing piano so he was signed up and ready to go and play piano consideration of the event and um we did recently have a breakfast with the Rotary Club in August and we're planning to do this again for next year and I think we're going to extend it to other members of the community they want to outreach so it was a really nice opportunity to collaborate with them okay and we're going to end with just some pictures from our buddy day 2024 this was our second annual buddy day um time and we really had a great time so what our buddy day is is that culminating activity with all of our buddy classes from uh the elementary and then also at the middle school and our children just come out they have a great time so these are children from our self-contained classes and their buddy classes it really is a great opportunity for them to just have a good time together interact together families come their siblings come so these are just some pictures just showcasing uh the great time that they had um and even this day we had over 150 people who came through so we're really excited about this and just looking forward to it continuing to grow there's just a couple pictures of the activities and the miniature pony that Dr Hackett is feeding so it's just it was a great time um so that is um that's all the staff members we have a lot of Staff who volunteers to come out and support um they really believe in this mission of inclusivity and really pushing um what we're trying to work on with the Buddy day so this is all of the staff members and some of their kids and we've had a staff memb parent who comes so it really is a great opportunity for people to just uh come together and so we appreciate all of the support that we've received we've had board members come it really has been a great experience so we thank you for that many of our um contracted employees are rbts so they they actually are volunteering their time they're so committed to the program and our students that they come and they volunteer their time that day to set it up so it was great okay thank you very much thank you good evening everyone I'm Julie Lions director of early childhood and K5 literacy and ESL and so thank you for letting me present tonight the access for L's test results from the 23 24 school year oops am I doing something wrong down uh there we go thank you okay well first let's talk about what access for L's is it is a suite of Assessments that are that's measuring students English language proficiency and they are tested in grades K through 8 across four domains Reading Writing speaking and listening and as you can see there are different assessments based on grade level and also on students specific needs as you can see in the bullet points below and as we continue with this presentation even though the assessment is called access for L's English language Learners in New Jersey they made a shift in 2023 they wanted to be a little bit more asset-based not a deficit model so the term that we use with our students now is multilingual Learners MLS so the test is called access for L's but we call the students MLS so just so that you know we're basically talking about the same thing but we in New Jersey call the students ml's now when the students take the access assessment they receive proficiency levels they range on a scale of one to six and it's across those four domains Reading Writing speaking and listening and they also receive an overall Prof proficiency level um I'm not going to read all of them to you but just to show you that it begins with this entering level one these are students who are just beginning to acquire the English language they have very limited ability to communicate and understand and they often are going going to require substantial support and ESL servicing as they progress and they get to levels two emerging level three developing and then once they get over here to level four this is an important level and we'll talk more about this in an upcoming slide but this is the level um the expanding level where students are preparing to exit from the program it's a good thing when they're exiting because it means that they don't need those intensive ESL Services anymore and this happens in level four so this is the level where students are becoming more proficient they can handle most academic tasks with less support they understand more complex language and they can participate in discussions with greater ease they still may make some occasional errors and require some assistance if the content is very challenging and then we don't see as many of five and level six um scores but once again once they get to level four they might be exiting so we may not see students taking access who are going to scort those levels only because they probably already shown that they are eligible to exit the program but these levels help us as Educators to identify the specific needs of our MLS and then tailor our instruction accordingly as we begin to talk about the proficiency levels there's just a few considerations to keep in mind the first is that the score is given as a whole number then there's um a decimal point and a number after the decimal the whole number is what we just looked at the the level one to six what comes after that decimal point is showing on the Continuum how far the student has progressed within that level so for example if you have a student who scored a 3.7 obviously they're above a 3.5 so they are considered to be over halfway towards achieving proficiency level four whereas a student with a 3.2 is a little bit lower along that progression and when the parents receive the individual student report we call that the ISR um those went out this summer that describes what a student at each level can typically do so they know for each domain what their child can be expected to do at that level also the proficiency level scores cannot be compared across grade level so even if you have for example a second grader with a 4.0 in listening and then you have an eighth grader with a 4.0 in listening that's not the same thing because their test is based on grade level content so they are being that eighth grader is being presented with increasingly complex tasks and information the expectations are higher so even though that child had a 4.0 like second grader you're not really comparing the same exact thing even though they're on what looks to be the same level so that's just something important to keep in mind as well okay these are just some dates that the district needs to adhere to um prior to the test making sure that we have everything submitted in time and then the testing window this year R from February 1 or 5th until March 29th and then there are some tasks um little cleanup things on the back end that we need to do as far as returning materials and then receiving the scores from the assessment which come in towards the end of the school year and then the actual hard copies we get over the summer and then we pass them along to families okay now on to the data all right so I don't know if I did something with the slide there sorry about that all right thank you um so this is going to show you students overall proficiency levels K to8 that took access for L's and this shows you their performance over the past three test administrations so you can see that our number of MLS reflected at the bottom have grown so we had 92 students in 21 22 up to 106 students and now this past year 112 students and then I would like to draw your attention to that level four expanding because once again this is where our students are preparing for exit that number has also increased and then looking a little bit more closely at 2324 I wanted to present some subgroup analysis for you so that you can see how our students faired this way um it is important to note that we do need to suppress data if a subgroup has less than 10 students because that might be considered personally identifiable information that we're sharing so we don't share that so the subgroups that we can share with you are presented here we have um our Hispanic Asian white subgroups we have students with IEPs there's 16 of them um we have 33 students that are considered lowincome and 15 students that were chronically absent this year and considering all of that information the past three years plus our subgroup data here's a brief summary of some of that information so first of all um one thing that's important to remember even though we're looking at three years of data just remembering that each testing group may have a slightly different composition each year because we do have students exiting because they've reached that that level where they can exit um and we also have students that move in and out of the district so it's not always the obviously not the same testing group of students um first of all over the past three years that percentage of students scoring at level four has increased so um 16% of our students tested in 2122 were to level four that went up to 28% and then 32% this past school year when students are at a level four once they hit a level 4.5 that is the cut score by um that was designated by the state of New Jersey and at that point when a student scores a 4.5 or higher they're eligible for exit there's still other measures that we look at um and make that final determination but when students are at that 4.5 there's a good chance that they're ready to exit so when you look a little bit more closely we had 36 students that scored at the level four and it was a pretty even split 19 of them scored between the 4.0 and 4.4 range so not able to exit just yet but they're on their way and then the other 17 students are most likely going to be eligible to exit because they scor between a 4.5 and a 4.9 and then looking a little bit more closely because we did have 31 students at level one or two um the good news of this is that the students have not been with with us that long so we have time to work with them 16 of those 31 students are in kindergarten or first grade so there're some of our youngest Learners that were scoring at those lower levels and then our remaining 15 students in grades 2 to8 they've only been in the US for three years or less so they haven't even been in our school district as a student because they just came to the United States um as far as our subgroup data the majority of students in all of our subgroups except chronically absent were scoring in that level three to four range um once again this goes back to the importance of regular attendance and making sure that there's that continuity of the ESL Services because then when we look at the sub that particular subgroup and we look at the percentag of students in that subgroup scoring at a level one or two that was the highest percent 53% of our chronically absent subgroup was scoring at a level one or two and once again we know they weren't with us that long either in the US or in school with us but still that's something we want to keep an eye on so now looking at all those results thinking about what can we do to intervene what can we continue doing that we have been doing and then what do we need to initiate so first of all we're going to continue to conduct ongoing data analysis with the ESL team and what's nice since last school year we now have a teacher an ESL teacher dedicated to each building so when we have those data analysis meetings and when we have those ESL team meetings every school is represented the teachers really know their students and can really speak and advocate for them we will continue collaboration between classroom teachers and ESL teachers to support students language needs we know that's something that's ongoing we want to initiate quarterly collaboration between our ESL team and the building principles just to make sure that we're keeping an eye on that chronic absenteeism that I noted in the previous slide and then we are going to be providing annual mandatory training for teaching staff and administrators that we did begin already this school year um so that they can better understand the access test and also how to better meet the needs of their MLS and then finally we are going to be providing sheltered English instruction also sometimes called SEI for our ESL staff it's basically a model that's helping the teachers to deliver languager grade level content area instruction in English that the students can understand that's going to allow them to work on their English proficiency and at the same time access um academic content at their grade level so that's a training that um we were just able to confirm this afternoon fortunately that that is offered for free so that's something that we will be able to send our ESL staff to um take that training and then finally we have a lot of interventions already in place that we can capitalize on to meet the needs of our MLS as well including the wi per period that was mentioned for grade two using that tiered RTI process basic skills Services there's a morning program for grades two and three also that daily differentiated small group instruction that the classroom teachers are offering to our students and then the daily ESL services that our wonderful ESL teachers deliver every day so um final slide I'm saying it in English but here are many of our languages that are reflected in our very diverse Township so I'd like to thank you for your attention and I'm finished unless you had any other questions for me any board members have questions no thank you all for your great reports we very thorough and hopeful okay um choman Miss bran Mrs bran Stewart could you provide a policy committee report certainly good evening the policy committee met for over an hour on August 21st Dr Hackett Mr moscowitz and board members Julie Kover Moren Rudder Julian birdie and I were present for first read the committee reviewed and recommends for board approval the following revised policies and regulations policy 0141 board member number and Term Policy 01 64.2 request for information by board members policy 2200 curriculum content policy 2440 summer school policy and regulation 3160 and policy and regulation 4160 physical examination regulation 5200 attendance policy 5337 service animals policy 5350 student suicide prevention regulation 7510 use of school facilities policy 8420 emergency and crisis situations policy and regulation 8467 firearms and weapons and policy 9181 volunteer athletic coaches and co-curricular activity advisor assistance the committee reviewed nothing for second read and we also discuss policy 01641 conduct of board members during public meetings and policy 2365 acceptable use of generative artificial intelligence we will next meet in September thank you thank you audience participation anyone wishing to address the board please approach the side table on the right and write your name and address on the login sheet while the board is limited in its ability to respond to the public on matters involving personnal litigation negotiations and attorney client privilege the board will now hear comments from the public relating to items on the agenda for this board meeting comments are limited to three minutes the board will not take action this evening you will be notified at some later time by letter electronic mail telephone or in the context of a later board meeting of any action the board does take uh good evening my name is Eric simin um all my questions right now are related to the um to the Sewer Main and septic um this used to be a school building I'm assuming there probably was more humans here then than there was now and I know we have been trying to get this done for three years I remember I don't remember why we didn't do it over the last three years so I would love a reminder um but uh I guess my question is we have a capacity issue or do the toilets not work and if we do have a capacity issue was it a good idea to add an additional private bathroom for Dr hacket um if you can't flush a toilet now having more flushes isn't going to help and what is the amount that's going to be left in the capital reserve after we drain it how much is normally in there what percentage of our overall budget is the capital reserves um I think that'll do it thank you very much I just wanted to add something that in the motion it lists what our balance in in capital reserve is and it and it also lists how the it's the motion probably 18.9 where it says we're going to with we would like to withdraw 400,000 it says what the capital reserve balance was before and after that withdrawal good evening uh once again thank you for your um dedication and participation I'm going to go quick because I know I'm limited um I didn't see the name of the Middle School principal that we were going to hire on the agenda um I was going through that I wasn't sure if that was like this one or the next one um I wasn't sure what the new hires would be doing for preschool before the building's done so I'm sure we already have things for them um the board committee report is fantastic it gives a direction what to talk about um policy 3B um the one question I was going to ask is if we could get examples or relate to me on the AI it say specifically wanted to be addressed to staff also just to see what that direction was going to be um policy 3 c16 4.1 I was reviewing another District's policy on that I wasn't sure if that was really directing that a board member would then just come to the audience to speak or if it would stay up there um other notes the cell phones um a lot of districts are doing my daughter starting Eastern Eastern starting a policy this year that when you enter the classroom that the uh cell phones will be placed somewhere I'm not sure what we're looking at I would just as a teacher not want to be responsible for kids phones but I do think it's something that a lot of districts of this year particular are starting to address the AI I I'm sorry the social media I think is something we really do need to look especially what happened at greater Valley School in Pennsylvania which made national headlines of students coming up with fake accounts in the names of teachers that um could have destroyed careers um and the regulation 5200 student attendance um I noticed on there we came up with a day of 45 days for promotion retention I wasn't sure how that would affect students who enroll and unenrolling and reenroll how that how the 45 days would be calculated um I did want to compliment the young man from oage um who won the third grade geography bill in Austria I think you believe he got six gold medals it was in the uh the VOR Sun um trab I believe was his name so I was super excited when I was home open it on my paper so thank you very much and I appreciate your time thank you comments from the board I I have a quick comment um I just want to thank Miss Haley for the explanation and back ground on the sewer project and why the allocation we were provided in the initially passed budget is needing to be revised um however been reading through our board materials it seems clear to me personally um that the district did not allocate that $250 $250,000 in a vacuum that this was based on guidance and expertise from two Engineers my concern is what due diligence or current engineer did when confirming to us that this allocation was adequate and why they were so drastically underestimated the scope and complications of this project I understand that the list provided by the engineer as to what was unanticipated but what's unanswered for me as is as to why these issues were unanticipated um my personal opinion is that this project seems like it does need to move forward um but I'm concerned we were misadvised potentially on this project to begin with um and I'd like a little bit more information on that well I understand that not everything can be known or anticipated in complicated construction projects such as these I'd like to know what if any assurances we've gotten from our engineer to assure us that future projects will be more fully scoped and complications such as these more accurately anticipated and accounted for so that we can make more informed comprehensive budgeting decisions have they owned this have they assured us in any way thank you seeing no other comments moving to policy can I get a motion to approve the items under policy so moved second [Music] online voting is open the motion unanimously passes I get a motion to approve the items under curriculum so moved second motion unanimously passes can I get a motion to approve all of the items under personnel so moved second online voting is open motion unanimously passes I get a motion under transport for the items under transportation so moved second online voting is open motion unanimously passes can I get a motion to approve all of the items under buildings and grounds so moved second online voting is open motion unanimously passes I get a motion to approve all of the items under Finance so moved second online voting is open motion unanimously passes public comment anyone wishing to address the board please approach the side table on the right and write your name and address on the login sheet while the board is limited in its ability to respond to the public on matters involving Personnel litigation negotiations and attorney client privilege the board will now hear comments from the public comments are limited to three minutes the board will not take action this evening you will be notified at some later time by letter electronic mail telephone or in the context of a later board meeting of any action the board does take good evening Dr hacket board members Vorhees administrators staff and Community for those who do not know me my name is Melissa ilano and I am entering my 16th year teaching in the district I speak tonight on behalf of the vtea as well as staff members from the Vorhees Middle School recognizing our principal Miss Chris Calabria as she transitions from building principal to District C coordinator although we are thankful and happy we will continue to see her and work with her every day we are also sad to see her go as head of our building Miss Calabria you have truly dedicated your life to Vorhees School District from being a student here to then a teacher and eventually an administrator you have always exemplified strength and passion in everything you do you've LED our building through some of the most difficult times that any principal has ever had to endure you did it while always considering all perspectives you've always taken into consideration every single staff member who works in the building making the best decision for all which as we know can be nearly impossible your unwavering attempt to make all students feel represented safe seen and heard has been remarkable you've taught your staff that students go through more than we know and sometimes more than we can imagine which has created a staff culture of empathy compassion and resilience you've always encouraged us to speak up and let our voices be heard if we become passionate about some new initiative in the world of Education you support us in implementing it into the building while also being our biggest cheerleader thank you for always reminding us what it means to be an educator with with your inspiring quotes and videos and songs you play for us at our meetings your open door policy which I'm sure can be exhausting has proven to show how willing you are to drop everything to handle business lend support or sometimes just sit and talk that is true leadership most importantly thank you for allowing your staff to put Family First whenever needed thank you for your continued dedication to serving the community of Wares thank you [Laughter] [Applause] you good evening everyone respected board members thank thank you for giving me this opportunity to present myself my name is Dr GMA ther and I'm the current president of PFA at Middle School Vorhees middle school pafa plays a pivotal role in Bridging the Gap between home and school to ensure that our children receives the best support possible both academically and socially it is a collaborative group of parents teachers and School staff who volunteer their invaluable time to create a positive and supportive School environment that will promote children's success and well-being our mission is to enhance the educational experience of our students by fostering strong relationships between parents and the school and we do this by hosting various fun events providing teachers with resources they need to enhance their classrooms and organized fundraisers we have had a great great past year and I'm looking forward for another spectacular one I've been privileged to speak to many dedicated and motivated parents who are becoming part of PFA this year I encourage and request our teachers to become members and join us to help our vision we have membership information available on Facebook and you can reach out to me or any of our members last but not the least I would like to recognize my team don Ben Dominique Daniel who's actually present here Valerie Pena Britney van skyver without all of these women PFA would not have been possible I want to thank them for their unwavering support and I want to thank you all and have a pleasant night thank you docents I want to leave I approach to give you a copy of some documents I'd like to leave with you uh those documents are the first one on top um is a campaign ad that was on the internet just happened to see it uh it's from members of the board uh incumbents and one additional member but uh in 2022 when I was running for school board I went took that same photo and video and uh Miss Watson had the attorney for the board send me a cease and desist letter to my house I shouldn't enter uh enter the grounds of the school it was off hours after school I'm not really looking to go on school grounds for any other reason but you misdirected funds and Authority against a civilian a member of the community me and you didn't do it for yourselves I understand you're incumber members but not all four in the picture are so just keep in mind what's good for some should be good for all thank you comments from the board I want to Echo um Miss iano's comment thank you so much for such a beautiful speech um and Miss clava I I'm personally a little afraid that like my kid is joining VMS and you decided to I was like wait a minute he's not that bad um but I there I know many many many many many people who love and adore you um when you say your name um people have the most fond memories of so many different things your participation your support your advocacy see um your leadership and I I'm very very sorry that I don't get to personally experience it but I'm so happy that we get to keep you in the district in um this wonderful capacity and I can't wait to see what you do for CER so thank you for all that you have done thank you for what you will be doing for us um we are very lucky to to still keep you for as long as we can possibly have you um so thank you thank you thank you any other board comments there's no executive session um the next meeting date will be regular meeting September 25th 2024 at 7M in the admin building can I get a motion to adjourn the meeting so moved second all in favor I I thank you very much thank you