good evening uh everyone i'm Mr kennedy i'm superintendent of schools i'm just first hoping because I can't see anyone's face that if someone could just put in the chat that they could definitely hear us and see the uh
elementary school redistricting uh if someone could just put that in the chat just so I can make sure everyone can hear thank you perfect i got enough people responding so I first want to thank everyone for coming tonight uh I know there's been a lot of questions
surrounding our plans and uh what we wanted to do is introduce to you tonight um what where we are right now and uh where we plan on going in these next couple of months as we prepare for this uh I do apologize that I had to cancel a
couple weeks ago i I did have a family uh emergency out of the state so I don't usually cancel meetings but it was something I could not avoid so I wanted to make sure that I was here for this meeting to answer any questions so what we're going to start off with is just uh
with a quick slideshow uh hopefully that this answers some of your questions before you have to ask them and then at the end we'll stick around and uh answer any questions that you have we will also be recording this so that we will share
this uh video uh with you in case you do have to get off or if you miss something uh so uh first slide Mr ch well first I just want to introduce everyone uh Mr chang is our uh Swiss Army knife but he's like our director of curriculum
miss Deilio is our principal at Steen miss Kathleen Molina is our elementary uh child supervisor and in charge of the preschool program and then Miss Priscilla Ortiz is the Bixby principal so I just wanted them to be on so you
can get a little uh idea of what they look like if you have not seen them but you will be seeing them in the coming months so a couple of things about redistricting why we're doing it and we're going to get a little deeper into this but we want to improve alignment of
curriculum instruction enhance teacher collaboration and professional development optimize use of resource and facilities and smoother transitions and school community uh I've been in Bota 15 years i've been the superintendent this is I think my seventh year uh one thing
I always hear Bixby does one thing Steam does another uh for the grade levels PTO's anything that you could think of what happens in one school doesn't happen in another uh we want to make sure moving forward didn't um we want to make sure moving forward that does not
happen uh and we're going to go into that next slide please so what when I first got to Bota I was the vice principal 15 years ago and seventh and eighth grade were in the high school um I came from Hudson County
uh I I was not used to that at all but it's always how these uh smaller Bergen towns were these junior senior high school but what I began to notice right away is that our seventh and eighth grade students grew up way too fast and
uh someone in seventh grade knew too much already uh so uh during COVID we had the opportunity to lease the St joe's school uh so at the time Steen and
Bixby were uh already full of many many students and we didn't have a lot of room the high school which is the biggest school had the most room and can absorb the most students so the idea at the time was to take the eighth the seventh grade
out of the high school and the sixth grade out of the elementary schools uh and if you could look in 2020 in our high school which was a 712 building had 529 students in Bixby which was a prek6
had 301 students and steam was prek6 also had 331 students so we had about a total of 1,161 students i did these numbers last month and this was after a
re-registration process that had us lose 50 or 60 students um the high school is at 482 the middle school which is a new building which houses our sixth and seventh grade is at 165 but Bixby and
Steen that lost the grade level actually has more students spixby has 316 and Steen has 342 so we are bursting at the seams my original plan was to make sure that
you My original plan was to take the seventh and eighth grade out of the high school but I cannot push back the sixth grade into the elementary schools right now because there's just zero room to do so so what we're planning on doing right
now is for next year is make Bixby a preK through 2 grade school and Steen will be a third grade through fifth grade school that is our plan the reason for the population explosion are two reasons
I could think of during COVID a lot of people uh the housing market rose and a lot of people moved into BOD a lot of those houses did not have uh children because those children have already graduated but now with families moving
into those houses we have more students also our universal pre free prek we've been a destination for a lot of families because we are offering free full day prek for ages three and four so we've had more parents looking to come into
our district as well next slide please so this is going to be Mr chang first go up Mr chang you're up yes so uh one of the first main reasons why we're doing this is uh to improve alignment of curriculum and instruction
so as Mr kennedy has said there's always been kind of like a Bixby kid a Stain Kid a little bit of rivalry here but there are natural discrepancies between the schools um right now our schools are divided out by geography so depending on
where you live that's your assigned school and um right now it is uneven and traditionally we have had about two classes per grade so we might have two uh fourth grade classes at Bixby two
great two fourth grade classes at Steen and just the way it works um with n with instruction there are some gaps um and academic discrepancies so we're trying to close that um another reason is that schools
when they instead of a prek through fifth grade if it's focused on upper elementary and lower elementary um the schools can specialize and they can really target those specific grades um educational activities and
events so assemblies field trips um any types of activities they can focus strictly on the on their target um grade levels it's oftentimes difficult for principles or teachers to meet the needs
of the entire school when they have a you know an 11 12 year old um or 10year-old and then also a three and four year old at the same uh assembly so when you have a smaller uh band of
students you can target activities that are age appropriate um and as as I said earlier with the targeting of a low a smaller band of students you can do interesting things you have more flexibility uh with
the daily schedule you can build in different types of breaks uh and it's the same thing for the older kids uh you can build in different types of structuring within the schedule for older students as well uh in general redistricting leads to smaller more
balanced classrooms because as I said before um right now the way that we assign students is by your geography like which street do you live on and where's your house um and sometimes that
leads to more kids in one school and less kids in another school but they're in the same grade um we've had issues where we've had classes in one school where there might be you know 16 17 kids
and then in another in the other school but the same grade we might have 23 24 sometimes even 25 kids and it becomes um you know an is it becomes an issue with uh size and space but if we have all of the students
together in the same school we can evenly balance it out very quickly um and that's just better for everybody it does off offer the possibility too later on to have more uh
departmentalization or or semi-ep departmentalization what that really means is if there are only two fourth grade teachers or two third grade teachers that's all you can really work with two classes um but when you have four teachers
um in one grade there's more flexibility in how you who teaches what between the the teachers so that's something um we we don't plan on doing immediately but it does leave that leave that open as a possibility uh another major reason is
enhanced um teacher collaboration and professional development so it is uh planning for professional development and training of our teachers is way more tricky when you have teachers split between two different
schools um anytime you have you know uh split split teachers that are teaching among the same grade it becomes very difficult so putting all your same grade level teachers together actually helps
with training um it allows the entire grade of teachers to collaborate whereas uh you know in the past even beuh especially before we had virtual uh meetings it was you know maybe there were times when you know the
the second grade teachers might have seen the second grade teachers in the other school once a year maybe um just the way that their work schedules are other meetings but when they're all together um not only can you schedule in
uh grade level meetings but there are informal ways that teachers often collaborate whether or not that's at lunch or before school or after school they just there's more communication when people are close to
you um efficient use of resources so when teachers come together and they're telling each other what they're doing in their classrooms it it is a more efficient way when you know there's more teachers
together what that really means is when um teachers were split they would really only share with their partner but now that they're all together one person can share amongst four or five teachers that are all together so it's a more
efficient way of of sharing resources um and improve support staff as well so you know right now a guidance counselor might have to um be ready to support students or your social workers might be a might have to support
students from a three-year-old all the way up until a 10 11 year old all within the same hour possibly but when we have um support staff that knows that they're only going to be working with pre-K through second they can focus on early childhood and then obviously third
through fifth have different issues they're more mature but they are not mature um as opposed to the you know preschoolers who are you know just learn to socialize and their problems are different than fifth grade problems so that kind of support structure uh having
a more narrowed narrow and focused um um kind of content area is is important and then of course administrators can just focus on a narrower band instead of having to meet
the needs of prek through fifth grade uh and we touched upon this a little bit but obviously the optimized use of resources and facilities so um one thing is obviously facilities curriculum
materials these are things that we we deal with all the time so for example if we order all of the math stuff we have to order all of prek through fifth grade for one building and then again for the other building the same exact stuff um
oftentimes we have to get it shipped in one place and then we have to manually divide things out and then bring them over to the other school now all of this first grade you know all your ele um early elementary stuff will go to one building all your upper elementary will go to another
building we don't have to figure out splits we don't have to move things back and forth um it makes things much easier uh again specialized spaces so you know in our schools right
now we have desks for preschoolers for f kindergarters first graders but there are different desks for your fourth and fifth graders we have toilets that are meant for little kids and we have toilets meant for fourth and fifth graders um there's furniture that's
involved in gym there's things in gym that can that only really work for little kids and they're only things that work for older kids but we have to double everything for each school so if a school only has prek through 2nd they
can order things just for that age and then um they can order things just for the older kids so it's just a more efficient and optimized way of resourcing as well um smoother transitions in school
community so um if you think about it there will be double the amount of students per grade per school so right now we might have let's say 40 first graders in one school and 40 40 uh 40
first graders in another school but once we bring everyone together there would be 80 when you have more of the same students in that grade there are more social opportunities you will have more kids the same age as you so there's a
better possibility of more friends uh teams age appropriate clubs and groups um and also you know the transition aspect of it it is it's probably a better uh condition or learning
environment when you have uh younger kids with younger kids and older kids with older kids not three-year-olds with with fifth graders it's similar to what Mr kennedy was saying when you had your seventh grader with a 17 18 year old kid
um sometimes you know their maturity levels are at different places um again you can create more events and activities that are tailored to the age group so if you wanted to do something for first and second grade or
kindergarten it's probably appropriate for everyone in the school as opposed to you know keeping another group out like fifth graders fourth graders and third graders you don't have to figure something out for two different types of groups um and from like a PTO standpoint
if you really think about it you have more possibilities of volunteers because uh there are more of the same age group altogether so there will be more of first graders parents more second grade
parents more kindergarten parents um so the the PTO can probably plan for more age appropriate events by school um it just makes a little bit easier uh and there are also some challenges i think um Mr kenny are you
going to are you going to address this yes you could put them all up and I'll get to them one by one sure and then Sam just look at the chat and maybe you can ask some questions as I go through this but um you know we're a small district
so uh you know some of our neighboring schools have you know you know buildings with you know a thousand middle school students in it um so let's just talk about some of the challenges and I know these are some of
the bigger questions that um the community is out here for so we we definitely recognize that next year uh we will have to have different start and end times at each school uh right now at the high school and the middle
school uh we would stay with the same 8:15 to 240 uh Steen which would be our older students would be 820 to 245 so those two are those three buildings that's their current times now uh we've
never had any complaints or concerns uh with getting students to the middle school high school or ste uh at these times now Bixby would be 10 minutes later uh to give time for parents that
have multiple uh elementary students uh so 8:30 to 2:55 so we feel like this will be plenty of time to get people across town if that has to be um we also have early drop off our
buildings are open 30 minutes every day for breakfast that students are allowed to come into the building and eat breakfast that happens uh and I don't think enough parents take that uh opportunity to drop their students off
early and they can have breakfast so traffic and drop off so people complain about traffic all the time um so 100% I recognize traffic is a problem that's why we're looking to do a shuttle
from one elementary to the other so we would have a pickup at Bixby let's say and these are rough times at 8:00 and from Bixby that bus would go right to Steen to drop off at uh 8:10 and then there'd be a pickup at Steen for
students that have to go to Bixby at 8:10 to get there at 8:20 so those times are not precise right now and we will work on those times because we would have to do some test run but I I plan on we've already worked on it we have the bus we have bus
drivers uh we would like to do that and and that also helps with the the um that also helps with the uh traffic in the morning so that'll be something
that will be helpful uh uniform so again we've opened up a school before i opened up that middle school where people were worried about uniforms uh the plan would be that you can use your Bixby and Steam shirts right now any new shirt would be
a new color that would be the same for both Bixby and Steam i I do feel bad there are there is a grade I think first grade right now will be a grade that will move between schools both years uh which would be a lot for them so there will be growing pains to this obviously
like anything else things will come up and we will address them as they come up and fix it there i think I I like to think that we're going to have a great plan but until we implement that plan there will be somewhat something that's going to happen that we're going to have to uh reshuffle the deck and make it
work uh I don't see any major problems but these are things that I think are are going to help us be successful right away uh we will be doing building tours opening up the building for parents to come and see and we talked about already with my admin team doing class swaps
where one day we will take the second graders from uh I mean the the second graders from Steam uh Bixby and then show them what Steam looks like in third grade uh and we we started working on that like it will be a uh field trip as
we get to the later months of the school year where the students are going to go to the new buildings and see what they look like meet the people meet their teachers um damn is there anything else or the next thing is just questions uh yeah just questions so I know Sam I
know there's been questions in the chat and I know Sam you started answering them uh yes I'm answering a couple let me see if there's anything here that I think um maybe you want to answer um um you know I think let me just you
talked a little bit about traffic traffic is a is a question um preschools like Trinity and and Bogart their times i don't know if Kathleen you want to did we uh determine it's still 8:30
yes all of preschool is 8:30 to 2:30 i think only the high school and the and steam have electric signs i don't the middle school there's not a sign that's connected to the middle school and we have talked about getting Bixby assigned but again the PTO's raised money that's
not something that we budgeted for so that is uh you know we we are trying to do that but the high school and ste are on major roads that people drive by every day so it's moreformational uh what does what does
the population for each building look like after redistricting i would say similar uh to what it is now like at the end of the day we're taking 150 kids from one building and moving it to the other we're moving three grade levels at the end of the day which is about 50 to
60 kids per class now each class is different so you know for example someone asked before about um the discrepancy between elementary schools or or uh is that a teacher problem if
one class has 25 students and the other class has 14 to 15 kids the students with 14 and 15 uh the class with 14 to 15 kids are is always going to do a little bit better because they're getting more personalized individual attention where with 25 students it gets
a little bit tougher that's why we're hoping when we put kids into the same building that you can narrow that out to 20s and make it even for everybody prek we don't offer it to I'm sorry prek is a special grant that we have and that that's not funded through the district
so I I don't know uh I can't speak to before care because that's different we will have so who will be in charge of putting kids on the bus we will have staff members out there that we're going to be responsible for that uh at each building sending and
receiving uh we've talked to uh a couple of districts already we're going to see that in action where they offer courtesy busing building to building so that'll be something that we are definitely looking at and we are already spoken to a few districts that do it but I want to
see it in action but we will have to have teachers outside that'll be responsible for getting the kids on the bus and then when they get there getting them off the bus right into the building is there a plan to move the eighth grade out of the high school if my numbers come down
100% yeah we talked to the police department will additions signage traffic controllers or safety personnel be added to handle potential congestion we are working with the police department we did do a traffic study i'm sure we could put it on the website uh you know they they gave a few examples
of asking more kids to walk to school is what they said at the end of the day but we could definitely share that requirements for bus pickup so what's going to end up happening next and what we when we have spoken to other district is we're going to be sending out a form to see who would be even
interested in busing um that'll be the first step for figuring out how to handle um the busing and then those parents will be specifically uh another meeting will be set for them and then there will be more precise information
given out at that time do we have a say in this you did part of the referendum was redistricting question number one throughout the process that if you are voting on number one you are voting on redistricting um that was something that was put out
everywhere every meeting we had it stated it very clearly that this is part of the referendum and for us to do this the shuttle will be free um no nothing to do with the federal
education department again we've been planning on this redistricting for a few years and when we passed the referendum that was part of it afterare will still be in the same schools um there will be afterare in in steam there'll be
afterare in uh uh bo uh in in Bixby bogart I don't have a say over Bogart so I I I still imagine it'll have early drop off we're looking to see about after school if a shuttle bus is needed if we have enough students that need to go
back and forth yes that will require parents picking up from there uh so we will definitely be looking at that so again I need the data first on how many people need to go to school and from school i imagine a lot of our younger kids stay at afterare if they have to
stay at afterare so drop off we can figure out how we're going to do that if your child is currently at Bogart are they able to stay there versus being reassigned to Bixby the only students being reassigned to Bixby
are our current preK students in Steam so that means anyone that's in a Steam prek three this year would be in Bixby prek next year how will students be assigned to
individual class and teachers our principles will be meeting with their teachers we've started the process teachers are already know if they're moving they also uh know who they're teaching with so the what we're going to do is get those teachers into a room and
start talking about uh getting these kids into classes like we do everywhere would system be in place to give us metrics that will be on uh if the plan is actually working yes i mean our principles will be responsible for that they set submit uh again this might take
two or three years to see testing wise like that's where the data where I'm going to have hard data on it uh but I'll know uh I'll know in October and November if uh it's working uh from the the community's
reaction has this been proven elsewhere other districts have been very successful doing it a lot of districts try to do it uh but haven't been uh fortunate to be able to do it that's why part of the referendum was adding those bathrooms to Bixby because for the
younger grades we needed to have bathrooms uh installed in the classroom after school programs at Bixby how can we start applying i believe that'll open up after this school year if you are on the Bixby side and you want to get to the Steam side
so how can you determine which students will be able to take the shuttle bus so what I'm saying to parents is you say you can get your kid to Steam and you can't get him to Bixby well I'll get them to Bixby from Steam so your job will be get them to to Steam like you
normally would uh and there'll be precise uh directions on how to do that um but if you're there your kid will be going on the bus and and again uh we're going to have a lot more information on the busing but I did want to ease some
questions today uh that yes we do plan on offering that shuttle bus for kindergarten students uh yes I believe we do have car seats available we do that now uh 10 minutes of staggered time is not realistic to move through traffic right
now so again I can only tell you that the buildings are opened a half an hour before the start of school so the problem is is that everyone likes to come the last three minutes so that's why there is traffic a lot of days uh the shuttle bus i have electric school
bus now so technically no it's not going to be costing us more money and we have our own bus drivers in district so they're getting paid already because if they're not on the bus doing bus runs they are working elsewhere so that won't
drop too much uh drop off at Bixby yes we we continue to work with the police department so that more information will be coming out about that but yes busing at uh Bixby can be a little harrowing uh we will have specific We have talked to
the town about making one-way streets around Bixby for a smoother uh drop off and pickup situation uh but once we have more information on that we will get that to you i think I answered the maintenance and the busing again we run buses every day
in Bagota uh we'll just be running a bigger bus now i I don't imagine the square mile town of us going back and forth and dropping out kids i'm hoping that will ease congestion in the morning because if I can get 50 to 30 to 50 kids
out of cars and onto that bus that's going to make drop off a little bit easier uh teachers and Bixby uh that uh that I'll leave to the principles to share i don't want to say right now like I can't tell you exactly what teachers are moving where teachers were given uh
a not a choice but their preference and then we did according we placed them accordingly there will be OT and PT and anything that's in their IEP those students will still get what they get we will give you the exact new times of
when they can enter the building but uh in the past it's always been 30 minutes before the start of the school day uh we have a teacher uh or someone on duty covering the lunch program in the morning can we have a safe patrol for
walking path from Bixby side to Steen and vice versa i mean I don't know if I can put little kids out on the street but not around the school but definitely around the school yes I for students that would change but we we do have some changes uh
all the time we have kids going from Steam to Bixby because of an IEP uh we have kids that change IEPs and go back to Steam um that is something that we will be monitoring our self-contained classes I I think by
by regulation have to be a certain number so we will always try to keep them small uh busing will not be for prek students just for kindergarten and up yeah I guess I'm not going to answer any specific questions about a specific
family question for your family i rather have that conversation offline i don't think anyone agreed to explain like this i I I mean we have videos explaining exactly why we were doing it um this was all part of the
referendum yes we'll figure out the staggered times for delayed openings and things like that like we'll have very specific detailed when you go to that school about what times will be for each school sam just put up the drop off times up
people are asking about that if this is a chance it doesn't work we go to return to how it how it is now i mean I am not the type of person that says it's my way or no way i would like to give this a a a good try uh
academically we feel it's good socially it's good for the students um some people made up their mind that this is not going to work before we even did it so before I I I say I will never go back I I would never say that uh I will definitely be giving this a couple of
years this is something that um we think is the best for our students at the end of the day that's the decisions that we are left up to and we feel that our students are going to get the best out of this for them and for our families
moving up um for steeen students will be a mandatory parent guardian pickup it would be the same pickup it is now by grade level right uh elementaryaries what time are they allowed to leave walk home from school fifth grade fourth fourth and fifth grade can walk so it's
the same now as it is uh it will be the same allowed to leave will the uniform change yes we will make a new uniform shirt that will be eligible for both schools so if you buy it one year you could wear it the next year how many classes per grade and what
would be the typical class size again that that's really a fluid question uh we try never to go over 25 um and again uh we did this whole big redistricting thing and we a lot of students left but
uh the housing market has been hot in Bagota a lot of people are moving in we've had some new apartments um we haven't gotten a uh a million students from there but we have gotten some so um we could definitely find out what other districts are doing this i'm sorry
I don't have that information but I I do know of some districts that um that definitely do this so we get that information to you again I don't have control over the streets but we are working with the town to try to make that
uh make that work are there any negative use cases for elementary red district in New Jersey that you could share not that I'm aware of uh shuttle bus yes i think what what's going to happen next is um we
will be sending out a survey to the parents to ask if you would be interested in a shuttle bus from school to school for drop off and pickup uh so when we would do that many complaints about the odor of
marijuana and steam playgrounds i've never received a complaint about that again um during the day I I I've been there i mean Miss Deongilio has that been something that during the day you hear i mean after school
um you know that would have to be a police matter uh but from my understanding it's legal and the police are not really arresting students so but if it's if it's on our watch definitely during the school day or after school we
the kids are told to leave any consideration of kids that have school friends not having classes together or interacting uh well they will always have chance to interact during lunch and things like that and recess so uh that will still happen
i was trying to look at some of these questions I have not answered yes so the the lunchroom situation at Bixby we are build that is that that project is starting this summer we are building a bigger gym in Bixby so that the lunch program and any
programs that we have Bixby gym is is going to be much bigger uh hopefully uh by October next year i don't think there will be a combination PTO i think there will be a Bixby PTO and a Steam PTO kindergarten classes have
instruction aid per classroom I believe based off the number of students yes if it's needed I mean we I can't make River Road safe i mean I don't have that ability i I can only voice concerns to the police uh to the PD
department crossing guards will walk with the town can we vote on this in the near future that that referendum vote is passed so here's what I would say um I know I I think I did my best to try to answer as
many questions i mean there you fired a bunch of them which was great i appreciate it um so what will happen next is I if you feel like you would like to have further conversations you could definitely reach
out to me uh you can send me an email i'm fine uh meeting with parents or even a quick phone call to answer any other questions that you have um I'm sorry a couple more just came in middle school does not have a shuttle
bus option no not right now specials will be moving similar to now hopefully only between Bixby and Steam i guess that is your opinion if you felt I again I I we've spoke about this many times redistricting was always
part of this plan um I I I you if you I would love for you to come in and I could go back and look at all the literature that was sent out videos that were posted this is something that has been uh spoken about uh since the referendum and the vote so if you feel
you missed it I'll be honest with you I'm shocked how many people don't even realize we had a referendum vote um I sent out text messages phone calls emails um so I can only speak from where
I'm sitting and I do my best to try to get information out to the parents i'm sometimes accused saying that we send out too much information and that parents are not even reading some of it sometimes so again if you feel that this was done in secret I come sit down with
me and I will show you all the information that we have that I sent out purposely videos that were shared we had town hall meetings i went to PTO I went to every PTO meeting and discussed this and I remember going to Bixby PTO and they brought up a good
point and that point I was like that's a good point i didn't think about that and I went to every PTO meeting to discuss redistricting before the referendum vote which I'm 100% sure I did because getting the high the eighth graders out
of the high school was something I always wanted to do for this town but with our population explosion I'm not able to do that at this time i'm hoping I'm hoping that uh our our population increase slows
down but with free prek with these uh homes opening up this is part of uh you know you know you'd be surprised how many people were catching and kicking out of district that are giving us fake information about living here
the point brought up to me at the Bixby PTO oh I have to think for a second because I remember even saying that's an excellent question that is something we didn't think about i have to really think about this because now I think we're going about four years ago but I remember clearly
sitting there and saying that's a great point and that's something I didn't think of so again this will be a change um this will be something um that they'll have some growing pains but at the end of the day we feel this is going to be what is best for our
students um and we hope everyone has an open mind to get this starting so we can definitely um have further conversations you can always call the board office you can always email me my email is very simple d kennedybagot
boe.com you see my emails obviously you've got these links so feel free to reach out to me and sit down with me and have a conversation um and uh if anyone has anything else please reach out to me but I want to
thank everyone for coming here tonight and um have a great night is that