Testing. Okay. So, while we're waiting to get started here and everyone's signing on, BoardDocs has been down all day. Still down. So, we currently put a manual agenda together, which I emailed you. So, if
you go to your email, go to the top, you'll see a digital copy of the agenda for tonight. Not everything is there, but you know, the big stuff's on there. We made about 15 copies and left it by the door for the public. So, while we're getting ready, if you
just want to see if you can get to your PDF. As I did comment earlier, there is some confidential information in that PDF, so please be careful with it. >> Good evening, everyone. Welcome to this special scheduled meeting of the East Windsor Regional School District Board
of Ed. Um, written advance notice of this meeting was provided at least 48 hours ago. Such notice provided the time, date, and location of this meeting and included the agenda to the extent it was known at the time. Notice of this meeting has been given in
accordance with law. Minutes are being kept by the board's secretary and will be made available promptly to the public to any public requesting them from the board secretary at 25A Leshin Lane, Hightstown, New Jersey. Minutes will be provided at cost in
accordance with board policy. Um. What about the emergency exits? Okay. Okay. Um, I'd like to call your attention to the emergency exits with the which is in accordance to law, which is located behind the audience and to
our left and right. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Okay. Item C. Having read the materials received, I move the agenda be approved as submitted. Second. Please poll the board. Ms. Trigg. Yes.
Mr. LaRusso. Yes. Mr. Laverty. Yes. Ms. Patel. Yes. Mr. Weeks. Yes. Ms. Lands. Yes. Item D. Be it resolved that this meeting uh, will have one executive session
regarding personnel HIB report of 42726 and the EWEA negotiation update. Second. Please poll the board. Ms. Trigg. Yes. Mr. LaRusso. Yes. Mr. Laverty. Yes. Ms. Patel. Yes. Mr. Weeks. Yes. Ms.
Lands. Yes. We will now move on to our student representative report. Good evening. Unfortunately, Danny is not here with me tonight, but I can say for the both of us, we are happy to be back for tonight tonight's report.
Last Friday, the junior class held had their prom where they were able to get dressed up and dance and have fun after their hard hard work all year. We hope that all the whole junior class had fun. Senior Arnon Fishman won his third
consecutive MCT championship, meaning he won the boy single tournament for the last 3 years, which is an amazing accomplishment and shows his con- consistent performance. Senior Eric Wiley set a new school
record at the at the Hightstown versus Steiner game. He surpassed 200 career points and set a new record for Hightstown of 132 career goals. Congratulations and good luck with the rest of your season. Senior Elqueg achieved 100 goals the
other day as well. Congratulations. At the at the end of May, we will be having our one-act plays. These plays are complete completely student run. The students write, cast, and produce their these plays, so good luck to all students involved. This Friday is National Decision Day for
the class of 2026. Throughout the Throughout the day, students will be called down to take pictures and share their plans for next year. May 4th starts AP testing. These tests will allow for students to potentially earn college credits in the subjects they are taking. Good luck to all the
test takers. Team Mercury had a very strong end to their season with an impressive performance at the World Choir Qualifiers and dominating this season by being placed in top in the top 25 in the tri-state area. They had an amazing year with the team having an amazing um
having amazing performances. And the team being widely recognized for their perfor- programming abilities and amazing team efforts. Congratulations to the team and to Mr. Gregory. On April 17th, the Adelante Club had their Latino Culture Cultural
Celebration Show where the students performed cultural dances and music to celebrate their culture. It was an amazing turnout for the club. Great job to all the students involved. And lastly, recently the East Windsor Regional School District received their
20 received the 2026 Best Community Music Education Award. This is the seventh consecutive year the district has received this award. Congratulations. This concludes the end of my report. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Does anyone have any questions? Okay, we'll now move on to item three, our 2026-2027 budget public hearing. And I'll turn it over to Mr. Todd. Thank you, Ms. Lands. Uh, my comments will be really brief. Tonight's purpose
of tonight's meeting and really this section is to receive public input. So, I'll just update the board from where we left this off when we approved our budget towards the end of March. Since then, we submitted all the required documentation to the county office
and we did receive county approval. Uh, there've been no changes to the program or staffing since uh, Mr. Daniels and I presented to the board uh, in March. Interestingly enough, you know, obviously from all the um
school districts that we've seen with financial trouble over the past couple months, I can say that the county had a little more in-depth review process this time than in previous years. So, I think whatever's happening in the public realm is resonating with the department and
it's kind of marching out to the county offices to scrub the budgets of the districts a little more uh, than they have previously. Uh, one of the interesting comments that we received uh, in in our county meetings with the school business administrators in the county office is
that the department is very aware that there's been a market increase in the number of districts that are now below the 2% fund balance they're required to have, not required, but the max that they're allowed to have, and that number is growing. So, that is obviously
causing them some concern because obviously the the finances are drying up for the school districts and that they believe that's going to put more school districts at risk. Uh, over the past couple days, you know, the BAs have been um communicating, finalizing with each other
uh, where we've been as far as tax levy increases. And if you remember, we reported back in March, we were very favorably towards the lower end of the spectrum. That is still the case. Uh, just to update you on some figures, Ewing, Lawrence, and Princeton are about
4.33, so we're coming in slightly above that. We're about 4.5% levy increase. So, we are, you know, less than 2/10 of a percent from being the lowest in the county. So, I think when you look, we're one of the few districts that actually lost money and
to be there without a reduction in staffing and and programs, I think speaks a lot to the budget that our administrative team put together this year. Uh, after us, it it ramps up pretty quickly. West Windsor's at 4.7%. Hopewell Valley at 5.3.
Our neighbors next door in Robbinsville at 5.57 and a little head-scratcher to me, but our colleagues in Hamilton who received $8 million additional in state aid, unlike us, uh, to increase their tax increase to 6.3%. So, I think when you look at us in the
landscape of other public schools in the county, I think we in considering that we lost aid where everyone received increases, I think, you know, you would look at this pretty favorably. I think, as we all know, we said last time that what's really driving this,
everyone is really high on the percentage of health benefit increases, anywhere from 18 to 20% across the board. There There are no exceptions to that. And that really is the driver of the tax increases this year. So, after these comments, we'll open up
take public input. After that, later on in the meeting, we'll have a vote. If the budget is approved, next steps, I go and I have to submit the what's called the A4F, which is the certification of taxes. I have to send that over to the borough and the township. They'll sign off on that. We'll send it down to the
county office. We'll let the county know and then the 2026-27 cycle is complete. We'll be training in the next few weeks on our new financial system and somewhere mid to late May, we'll be opening the 26-27 budget for purchasing.
So, that's all I have for comments. We can open to the public and any comments the board may have since the last time we spoke. If any members of the public would like to speak or have any questions, please approach the podium now.
Related to the budget. Okay, >> [laughter] >> thank you. Okay, so there being none, we'll move along on the agenda. Uh to item number four and we will begin our strategic plan update presentation
and I'll turn that over to Mr. Daniels. Thank you. Woah. I don't like how that sounds. Okay, let me try it again. All right, so good evening everyone. Um I'll just kind of set the stage here. So, during the 23-24 school year, the
district and board went through the process of strategic planning um to identify areas of focus and goal areas with the community. We engaged in several um I guess we'll call them listening sessions, but also feedback sessions with uh any anywhere ranging from about
35 to 50 um stakeholders within the community during those sessions. From that uh experience, uh the board adopted We partnered with New Jersey School Boards Association. Uh the board adopted four five goal areas uh and a five-year strategic
strategic plan, excuse me, stemming from 2024 through 2029. Um so, uh we've got some goal areas, goal statements. We have uh objectives connected to each of those goal areas, but really uh some intentionality in
terms of some actions that are addressing uh each of those goal areas. Tonight, uh we will provide an update uh regarding year two uh of our strategic plan and highlight um several actions that the district has engaged in um to
move towards uh addressing those five goal areas. So, uh just to kind of refresh our collective memories, I have the goal areas here. Obviously, goal one, student centered learning. Goal two, staffing. Goal three, community engagement. Goal four,
facilities and finance. And goal five, culture and climate. So, we have several members of the administrative team tonight just to highlight uh each of these areas and uh at the conclusion of the presentation, obviously, we'll we'll address any questions uh the board may have. So, with that said, I'm going to call up
uh Sandy Small, assistant superintendent for curriculum and assessment. Uh we're going to begin by highlighting one one area one area of focus that's pretty um important, I'll say, in terms of a multi-system uh multi-tiered system of supports. Um
obviously, the goal statement is here uh for goal number one, to increase the academic achievement of all students through rigorous instruction as defined by increased collaboration, real-world application, increased engagement, and active inquiry. This will be measured by
utilizing multimodal assessment and challenging each student to perform. Small? So, as Mark said, we're going to be talking a little bit tonight about our tiered system of supports and some of these supports we've had in place within the district for many years. What we
have done through this presentation is to put them all together with intentionality so that as we are performing the duties that are to support all of the students in our district, that we are looking at our students who need little support to
those students who need um many more supports to be able to be successful. And a lot of what we're going to talk about comes with professional development to our teachers so that we can make sure that this is done with intentionality. And you'll notice that
word is going to be used over and over again. It's something that we've talked about within the SIOP model. All of that will be incorporated so that what we learned in SIOP over the last few years are some of the things that are going to be put in place with our tiered system of supports.
So, I'm just going to go very briefly be And so, some of the slides you can look at on your own, but the supervisors will come up and talk in detail in K what is happening in K2, 3-5, and 6-8. We have not put the high school on here because currently the high school has
honors, academic, and standard. We are going to be moving into the high school with some additional tiered supports within our academic level because that range is from students who are not in standard to those who did not quite meet the honors in order to be able to meet
their needs more appropriately. So, within the state, and I'm going to just keep on saying tiered systems of supports because once you start getting into multi-tiered systems, it's a tongue twister. So, we're going to go from tier one, which are going to be universal supports, which are provided to all
students. Tier two, which is targeted supports that are provided to some students, and these students receive tier one as well as tier two. And then, few very few students will receive tier three supports, which will be tier one,
tier two, as well as tier three. We're going to move into what we are doing in our K2 world and then continue with our 3-5 and 6-8. Good evening. So, Sandy mentioned the three tiers, and those are going to be universal across
all of our grade bands. And when we're talking about tier one, uh this is our core instruction that's happening in the classroom. Typically, uh statistics would show this instruction uh allows about 80% of our students to
flourish. When I did the math in K2, we're actually a little bit above that. It's a little bit more than 80% when I look at in terms of who's receiving which supports, so that's certainly positive news. Um but we we are talking about our whole group instruction in
this particular tier. So, in K2, our world is very much focused on literacy, so my conversation with you tonight is about literacy. And we have a range of instructional um components that are allowing students to to engage in learning across all of the facets
related to literacy. They're listed for you on the slide from interactive read aloud, uh where we're diving into um really enjoying and comprehending text, shared reading experiences where we're focusing students' attention on print, reading and writing mini lessons to
build their specific skills in those two areas, as well as our phonics and phonemic awareness instruction. When we shift to our tier two supports, this is about 15% of our student population in K2, um and we are talking about small group
instruction. So, the the components that we have in place in K2 provide opportunities within our normal structures to allow for those small group instruction moments. So, all of our students are involved in small
group, but the difference is for our students who are identified as needing a little bit more, those structures are in place to allow what's happening in those groups to change based on need. So, this is where we have uh teachers providing
within a guided reading setting all students involved in guided reading, but more particularly for a student who might be having trouble with fluency, we're putting in supports to to help them bolster their fluency. Or specific strategies that are helping with decoding challenges or comprehension
challenges, depending on exactly what a particular child's area of need is. We also in our um practice have opportunities for one-on-one conferring, where again teachers are able to target
specific needs and and remediate areas of concern or deficit for a student. Which then moves us into our tier three instruction, which is considered our most intensive interventions. This is
usually about 5% of our population, so it's a much smaller number of students. Uh and this is more formally identified. What I described in tier one and Tier three is occurring in K2 as a pull-out situation, where an additional
teacher is instructing students. So, these would be our specialized programs, our our basic skills programs, our academic support, our ASI program, where we're using very explicit systematic to help remediate areas for students.
These will range from phonics skills um to writing skills to using decodable readers to bolster that that phonics within text. Uh and these are interventions that are happening five days a week for about 30 minutes for students. Um and it's important to note
when we're talking about tiered systems, um this is not necessarily or this is not us thinking about a pathway to special education. We are talking about placing supports and interventions for students to avoid that situation. Our goal would
be that we're providing the right amount of intervention that we can then hopefully get students back into that tier one that is um our general or typical instructional components for students. Uh students might move along
this continuum of supports depending on what their need is. It's not necessarily I go directly from tier one into tier two, and I'm headed to tier three. Hopefully, we can intervene and correct some of the concerns we're seeing so that students are involved in that tier one instruction.
It's good to see everybody. Uh Kevin Weiss, I'm the supervisor of grades three through five. Um on this slide, you'll see that we have both tier one and tier two listed for general education students. Tier one is what we provide every student every day using core instructional resources like
envision and math, mentor texts from school wide fundamentals, and so on. Our benchmark is 80% based on multiple measures. If our core instruction is working 80% or more of our students as measured by data points including STAR math, STAR reading, and DIBELS,
shouldn't a student should need any more than what we can provide them in a tier one. But, if they do need more, we've designed a schedule that allows for that. We've designed our tier two support to support say the 15% of students who aren't making typical growth through small groups and in some
instances push-in support planned for three to four times a week for 20 to 30 minutes. It should be noted that students receiving any level of support aren't getting a different curriculum. They're getting more access to the same one. Critically, this model works for everyone in the room. While some
students receive targeted support to close gaps, students who are ahead of the pacing have enrichment opportunities built directly into that rotational time. The goal is for students to get what they need and move. Intervention is not meant to be a permanent placement. Our new grade our updated grade three
five schedule was designed to support exactly that. Tier two and tier three happen in addition to core instruction, not instead of it. So, on this slide is our tier three, uh which we run in grades three through five for our general education students.
These are targeted supports for roughly approximately 5% of our general education students with the most significant gaps. The scheduling piece is important here. In our updated grade grades three through five schedule, we built in a WIN block, which stands for what I need. While other students are engaged in
rotational time and tier two interventions within their classroom, tier three students are receiving intensive intervention four to five times a week without missing any core instructional time. In literacy, we use UFLI, a structured systematic program
targeting the foundational skills students need to become fluent readers. In math, we use Do the Math, a focused intervention program targeting the foundational numeracy concepts students need to access grade level content. The NJ mandate for K through through three
works in our favor here. It allows us to screen and progress monitor multiple times across the school year, so we weren't aren't waiting until June to find out if an intervention is working or not. We use DIBELS eighth edition to pinpoint exactly where the breakdown is,
whether it's phonemic awareness, decoding, or fluency, so the intervention is targeted, not generic. These students are not missing their core ELA or math block to receive the support. They're getting more. That is our design. Good evening.
I'm going to start with tier one, the universal intervention at the middle school level for ELA. So, it is a very flexible model. In in tier one, students receive the general instruction, plus they get the flexibility of support
where they need it, and that might be a short intervention in a short burst, it might be a longer intervention. It can occur during the core lessons where every student in the room is getting the core standards and skills at grade
level. It might include the supports Sandy began with, SIOP supports, um frames for writing. It might include organizers, it might include additional conferencing time with the teacher, or additional supports or scaffolds built
into a reading text or novel. Um at the level one intervention, we continue to focus on both heterogeneous instruction where students are mixed-ability grouped at the middle level for social learning with their
peers at all levels, and then we push in the homogeneous support in the form of book clubs or in guided reading at that level. So, students might be pulled in a group to get targeted skill support, but then
in the next unit or task, they might be back in a more heterogeneous model. Um this occurs as well with the writing. We are a workshop model. There are always opportunities for craft support in small group. We work in those small group lessons both
heterogeneously, peer to peer support, teacher support for all levels of students, but this is also the time where students can get targeted skill support in their reading. That might be mechanics, that might be craft or structure, and they go back then into
the heterogeneous group as they work through their their original pieces. At the tier one, we also have compacting for our students who come to us with high readiness and are looking to extend those skills, but are still learning at
the middle school level what strong readers are inclined to do and what strong writing looks like. At the tier two, this is more intentional and includes both reading support through guided reading, program
support, as well as intentional writing support. We use progress monitoring tools at all levels, but here at the level tier two, teachers will look at critical data measures quite often to see how the students are progressing through their
reading, and they can pivot when students are showing high readiness. Again, it is flexible, but it is intentional and tends to be longer in duration. Um students will work on targeted skills and then bring that back into novels. They continue to have
heterogeneous opportunities to learn from peer mentors and from discussion with peers at all levels. However, at the tier two level, we are also looking at the middle school level to cross that bridge from comprehension constructors
up to analysis, and that can be quite a challenge for students as they come into middle school. Um so, that is something that we pull them for, we assess them for, we we let them know how they're doing. Conferencing in writing is a big part of
this. All of our students conference at tier one, tier two, and tier three levels. However, the conferencing at level two at our tier two level also supports them in building executive function, being able to come ready to that conference, looking at what they
need support with, being able to advocate for their own support, and also being able to showcase where they've taken feedback and applied that through their own work. So, giving them those tools, we hope supports them in moving more back into
that universal class structure. Finally, we have our tier three support, which is an intensive intervention. Um we mentioned um in previous levels that there are targeted interventions that will work within the class groups.
That's our tier one and tier two in middle school. At tier three level, this supplants going into a general class. It is still following the standards in the class. If the um all students are exposed to grade level standards, but at the tier through
there's two I'm sorry, at the tier three there's two big supports. The first is we go to a lower teacher-student ratio. We have two teachers in the class every day for 50 minutes. In the sixth grade, that's 50% of the class cuz they have
two hours, and they vacillate between both the writing support and the reading support each week. So, the students get both for 50 minutes a day in the sixth grade, and seventh and eighth grade, it is every day in both their reading and their
writing as well. The second thing we have in the tier three intervention is a specific resource. We use the Rewards program at level six and seven. That is an automaticity, fluency, and
multi-syllabic decoding program targeted specifically for secondary and middle school level learners. So, they are getting those phonics skills that they need, they are getting them in small group every day, and it is a portion of their lesson, it is not their whole
program. After 20 days, they exit that program. In sixth grade, that's closer to 30 days, and then they go out and they apply those skills in their reading doing what good readers do. Um in both our tier two and tier three interventions this year, we have
included the Lexia program, which [snorts] includes our Core 5 for our sixth grade and includes our a Power Up for sixth through eighth. And just to be clear, that is an that is a program that is designed to give them practice
online. It does not teach online. They still have targeted skills lessons aligned to what they are practicing online. So, it does have a digital component that tends to motivate the students cuz it is gamified a little bit and they tend to enjoy it. Um some of
the teams um compete for for points, but the lessons themselves are targeted and within the guided reading block. Um students conference with their teachers on both their reading goals and at the level tier support, again, we focus on
that conferencing to make sure that the students are not only developing goals, but they're tracking those goals and making sure that they're moving forward in them or requesting help when they are not. >> [snorts] >> At grade level eight, we do not have rewards, but the mantra is use your
strategies. That they have been learning these strategies in either their sixth or seventh grade work and now they are using them in their core novels, in their core lessons, and hopefully as they go into high school, the skills they learn become covert. We're not
actively counting out our syllables or tapping out our syllables, but that's something that students are doing as they decode larger words within their texts as they cross over to high school, making them more fluent readers, reading with prosody, reading with speed, and
being able to go into high school feeling strong as readers. Um and then finally, we are looking at moving forward at a couple of other components of these using this the first year, bringing it out to more teacher training as Sandy
had mentioned at the beginning. Thank you. Good evening. Uh Jody Foster, 6 through 12 math and science. There we go. Um so, I'm going to speak to the interventions at 6-8 math.
Uh as you've seen, there is a kind of common interpretation of the tier one, tier two, and tier three instructional strategies. I'm going to speak specifically to what you would see in a math classroom um in 6 through 8. I
think one of the the key differences for 6 through 8 math is that we do have leveled classes starting in sixth grade. From double accelerated to accelerated um recognizing that the tier one supports listed on this first slide
should be visible regardless of what math class your student is in. So, that could include double advanced, uh advanced, that could include your uh grade level courses, your sheltered courses, um and so on. So, some of the the
supports that you could see in any 6 through 8 math classroom include heterogeneous or homogeneous grouping depending on the task. The student The teachers will deploy this with intentionality using student data to make sure that students have the
appropriate environment in which to work or the appropriate support that they might need. Um stations-based practices allow the teachers to target certain groups of students um using tiered resources where students have choice in terms of the problems
that they solve. They're all targeting the same skill, but students can either choose mild, medium, or spicy problems or the teacher can identify which range of problems the student should be working on. Uh formative assessment in addition to standardized data allow
teachers to modify and adapt planning as needed. Teachers and students um engage in smart goal setting and conferencing. That is on a quarterly basis um as well as post start testing so that teachers
and students can talk about growth and target specific individualized areas for growth um on a uh regular basis. Um error analysis would be a problem-solving a collaborative problem-solving tool or an independent problem-solving tool
um using NJSLS style questioning and strategies, spiral review to make sure that students are seeing concepts multiple times across the year, particularly standards-based uh skills and practices, um anchor charts to
support student growth um as they move and build uh fluency and then removing those scaffolds as needed. When we're talking about tier two supports, uh we are generally talking about those grade level courses,
although any of these supports could show up in any of those classrooms as well. Um generally, we are talking about using student data, some of the data I talked about before from frequent formative assessment as well as STAR and JSL A, uh our supplemental um learning
tool ALEX, um as well as the teachers' common assessment scores. Interventions for targeted two uh sorry, interventions for tier two students are more targeted. Teachers are more likely to access one-on-one or small group work with
those students that they identified using these multiple uh multiple metrics. Um in this case, you might see instead of just stations-based practices, differentiated stations. You might see homogeneous grouping as well as heterogeneous grouping depending on what
the tasks are. Um we have a push-in model to support those teachers um in supporting those students in their classroom that they've identified for tier two uh tier two support. Um um um um um and fluency is something that
those uh additional structures within the classroom environment will allow teachers to target cuz a lot of times it's that foundational skill and fluency that prevents the student from moving forward at a pace that would align uh with the expectation for the majority of
students in the classroom. In terms of our tier three model, that is our comprehensive program. These are students that are identified based on multiple metrics. Um they are not just students that fail to find success uh in terms of coursework and grades.
There are multiple metrics that are used to identify students prior to the beginning of the year for our comprehensive program. This is a consistent two-teacher model that allows both teachers to pull students with more frequency, to uh use formative assessment to identify
adaptations and modifications to instruction more fluidly. Um and those that student data is reviewed with frequency at least quarterly. The goal is to get those students back into a regular grade level classroom. Um if needed, the tier two
supports are there for them, but again, the end goal is to build up their foundational skills so that they can move through uh the programs and continue to learn and grow over the course of the year. I think it's important to note that tier two and tier
three interventions still align with the same curriculum. You will generally see students in our comprehensive tier three programs moving through the curriculum at a similar pace. The two-teacher model allows for the students to get a little
bit more one-on-one support and again, more opportunities to spiral back through concepts and work on developing fluency. Thank you. >> [snorts] >> Before we transition to go to board Before we transition to go to board members, you received in your email your
inboxes shortly the presentation. So, go to staffing. Um Sam Fella Seddon, assistant superintendent for human resources, will provide an update uh regarding this area. So, as you can see, the goal statement here talks about uh the district's uh pursuit of being able to
recruit and retain staff who reflect the rich background of our student population. Good evening. It's my pleasure to discuss staffing with you this evening and our efforts uh to reach the goal. Uh so, first and foremost, job fairs. We're actually just coming on the end of
the heels of job fair season. It typically starts around February, runs February, March, April. Uh we just attended our last one uh week ago. We've diversified the locations with which we are trying to recruit the best and brightest and talented staff to join us.
So, NJ School Jobs is virtual as is uh the NJ Stride. Uh last year we attended three NJ School Jobs and there's over a thousand uh attendees at each of those. We only attended two this year and we added in William Paterson and Kean
Ocean. Uh so, what we do is after we attend, uh the administrative staff, supervisors, building-based administrators, they attend and we vary who goes so that we can recruit in the positions that we're looking for. Uh but then what we do is when I receive a
hiring packet, the administrator identifies where, if it was one of these locations, that they found that candidate so that we can track which of those job fairs are yielding the best candidates. Uh so, for example, last year we did attend uh Rutgers, chose not
to attend it cuz this year because it wasn't education specific, um but instead, like I said, replaced it. TCNJ, uh Rider, and Rowan, and Kean uh tend to be solid for us, so we've kept them in the rotation. Um so, that's
about the job fairs. Student teachers. So, we uh have partnered with several different uh universities and colleges. And uh this year alone, we hosted 31 student teachers or practicum students. A student teacher is going to be with us for a semester while they do their
student teaching work as opposed to a practicum student who could be in their freshman year, perhaps sophomore year, and they need to do observations. They might come a few times a week. They might need to attend six classes, something like that. But, the student teacher is usually with us for the duration of their semester.
Um just within the last year, I want to highlight that we hired uh special educators, a physics teacher, and a bilingual teacher that student taught with us. Uh so, that's wonderful. They're coming here. They're having a fantastic experience in our schools
working with our children. They already know our population. They desire and want to come work with our population of students. And so, we're thrilled when our student teachers want to come back and apply uh to come back and work with us and wind up being the candidate
chosen. Um so, that's exciting. Those four over the last year. Educational assistant pathway programs. The state, because of um the um sort of dip in applicants over the past several years, has created pathway programs for
educational assistants. And I do want to highlight that over the past several years, we've uh hired six of our educational assistants that are already here, again, working with our student population. They love our schools. They believe in our community. So, it or we
hired two in 2022, one in 24, one in 25, and two in 26. Um and just interesting and of note, um all of these educational assistants seem to be going to special education, which means they love the population that they
are currently working with. Um so, that's really exciting as well. And then we do have one uh educational assistant this semester who's doing student teaching with us um while working through um her actual role and job, and that's a
partnership with TCNJ through the pathways program. Um so, lots of innovative ways to try to hire and recruit uh quality teachers that want to come work with our students. Just some statistics over our hiring
practices for the past 2 years. In 24-25, we hired 54 certificated staff members, 67 non-certificated staff members. In 25-26, 47 certificated and 42 non-certificated.
If you look on the right side, uh interestingly enough, you'll be able to see that uh in 24-25, we had approximately 10 pre-K through five staff receiving tenure, and approximately 10 in 6-12. And then if
you look to this year, it was 15 and 15. So, we made that jump from 20 staff members to 30 staff members. And if you look at the total hires on the left-hand side, I think that that retention and our ability to really hire the best staff to work with our students, it
shows in how we are reaching a point where we say uh we want to offer tenure to these staff members. And then uh the last portion that I want to review is our professional development. And and the goal is to align it with our vision and our mission. And so, this very closely
connects to goal number five, which is culture and climate. Uh as you know, we did an equity audit not too long ago. Uh and through that equity audit, we partnered with a company TISO, which is teacher educators and scholars organization. Through our work with TISO, they came to
staff meetings to work directly with our staff in the buildings on culturally responsive teaching. And there were five areas that they focused on. One of those five areas was restorative practices. Our equity team, which I know Mr. Roe
will touch on a little bit later, um our equity team, when we met for our summits the past two summers, an area of focus that came out of those conversations and discussions with the staff members in the building was both culturally responsive teaching and restorative
practices. So, the district uh decided to partner with IIRP, which is a restorative practices company. Um they came in and actually Nikki uh has been working with all of our cohorts. Um the first training was in September. It was
both administrators as well as staff members across all six uh buildings. We then had a second cohort. It was all staff members within buildings. So, uh there were no administrators at that one. And then we already have plans in
place for a third cohort. The feedback after the training, when we're surveying the staff, is that they feel that more staff members need to receive the direct training from our consultant at IIRP. Uh in addition, in uh August, we are going
to do a sort of a second phase training uh with the administrative staff. And the focus is really going to be that now we're really focused on restorative practices, what does that look like in classrooms? Uh the other uh professional development that I wanted to highlight,
but I know some of the supervisors will also highlight that, is SIOP. Uh that's not new to us. We've been working uh with the SIOP protocols uh for a few years now, but I did want to highlight that um through central office meetings this year, we also stuck with that
initiative because it takes time to have teachers implement those SIOP strategies into their classrooms. I just have a couple statistics, too, I want to share about PD. So, between June 30th of 2025 and August 31st, so just
the summer months of this past summer, uh the supervisors and administrative team offered 220 activities or offerings to our staff just in 2 months. So, we are really making sure that the staff have the ability to come in and to
attend PD. Um to date, as of today, there are over 15,000 hours of professional development with our staff towards the D20 hours, and there's over 7,000 uh hours towards our 10 hours that we offer in district. Um so, we are
definitely committed to the professional development and continued learning of all of our staff. Okay, to highlight uh goal three, community engagement, I have Dave Roe, who's our director of student services. As you can see here, the goal statement uh reflects the need to develop and
foster lasting district-wide relationships that connect people of diverse backgrounds through every academic stage of life. Excuse me, Mr. Roe. >> Is that better? Okay. I believe the board is aware that for the last couple of years, we've explored the preschool expansion grant and moving towards
universal preschool. Last year, we engaged in comprehensive planning, and we tried to identify one or two classes in each school where we could the down button. Thank you, Kevin. Sorry about that. So, after we engaged in that process, we
realized that what Okay, I can I can click. I can hand I can at least handle that, I think. Um so, one of the areas with obstacle was space. We did not have enough space in the buildings to offer preschool universal preschool to our students this school year.
So, this year, Mr. Daniels and I visited a number of different preschools in the community, both corporate and private, looking at a mixed service delivery model. And that would involve our students being bused to different locations and receiving their education there. Um after we we also attended a
DOE planning session on the preschool expansion grant, and we found out that this year, it's not being funded at 100%. The funding was 40%. So, at an average cost, rounding up to about 20,000, so this is a significant cost for the district. Um
so, that's something to the board and uh Mr. Daniels will have to discuss in the future about additional funding uh to pursue universal preschool. Uh develop and implement summer opportunities to bridge schools and invest in future connections. At every point of contact when students enter
kindergarten, when they go to 3-5, they go to middle school and high school, there's orientation opportunities and opportunities to visit the schools. This is huge for students because when you're walking into a new building, it can be big, it can be scary. But, if you have that past experience of walking through the building, meeting some of the staff, and realizing it's a welcoming
environment, the students are prepared for success. Um we also have the 8-9 at the high school the summer bridge program where the students come in, they meet with staff, they learn about expectations and classes. And this year, we had about 140
students participate in that. Uh the ELL summer enrichment program, again, very well attended, 175 students. And we had 14 students delivering instruction over the summer to make sure that students maintain their skills and enhance them. We have our extended school year program and summer enrichment programs that are
offered Extended School Year for special education students. We offer that to more than a quarter of our special education population where they come in for the month of July to receive instruction, also related services like speech therapy, physical therapy. And we try to make it fun for the kids during
the summer, too. We have different presentations come in. Uh we have a gentleman who brings in different exotic animals, a planetarium. Really gives the kids an opportunity to enjoy their summer but still get that instruction. And then the summer enrichment program served 400 students last year. So, it's
a sizable number of students that are again enhancing their skills and preparing for the next school year. We lend our space to the rise summer camp and the East Windsor Township summer recreation camp. So, that's another opportunity for us to partner with local organizations for the benefit of our students.
Okay, and then developing community resources to immerse students and prepare students for their future interests. We currently partner with Patty. We're doing buddy reading, sports day, STEM, kid care orchestra. With the recreation department, there's bricks for kids, junior chef, chef, and young
Rembrandt. These aren't just programs that are fun for kids, but it also allows students at a very early age to start developing their identity and exploring different options. So, children have the chance to cook, do hands-on activities, things that really can help prepare them for the future when we
scale up those instructional opportunities for students. RISE has been providing SAT and math tutoring to our students. They've been using our facilities. We've been partnering with them to identify students. Recently, we've partnered with WISE UP. WISE UP is a wrap-around comprehensive
college planning organization that helps students write their college admission essays, helps them with the essays, helps them complete the FAFSA. And they came and did a presentation to our students recently. Higher Up, we're now in the third year of partnering with them. That's an organization that identifies local
businesses in the community. Well, we provide students who would benefit from summer opportunities such as paid internships, and they're placed at a variety of sites. Students have been placed at hair salons, graphic designers, law firms. They've really had the full spectrum of occupational experiences to choose from.
The Ram Shack, that's something that we developed for our special education students at the high school. And that's the school store. And so, they sell things such as, you know, sweatpants, school school supplies. And it really gives our students the ability to participate in inventory planning,
customer service relations, basic accounting skills. So, they're getting hands-on activities, job activities while they're still in school. And then we've had a number of different transition services for students. We've had the division of developmental disabilities come in, division of vocational rehabilitation services. And
they talk about post-secondary supports for our students with disabilities. The Best Buddies program, I'm sure you're familiar with that. That's a program that partners special education students with general education students. They go to football games, they go to different activities. They
recently participated in a walk in Hamilton to help raise funds. It's been a really good experience for our students in integrating general ed and special ed. And then recently there was the science symposium. I believe that was held at the high school. And then district-wide community events
to engage and include families in all aspects of school life. All of you receive district communication. You realize every single night is an like we're having a different event. So, this is not an exhaustive list. This is just the highlights of what we've done. But the special education events, in the in the
fall we had the resource fair. So, we had different vendors come in to talk about recreational opportunities for students with disabilities. You know, supports after they leave high school. And then we also do the superintendent's round table in January. And that's where special education
parents and parents with students with 504 plans come in to discuss their concerns with Ms. Daniels and myself. And we've done that now two years in a row. And these are events that are not just one-offs. These are built into our calendar going forward. And then just two weeks ago, we had the
transition fair where we had different organizations come in to talk about how students can access supports once they leave high school at either 18 or 21. Other district events, there's the MLL parent learning nights. There's been three per year. Very well attended, 200
in October, January 80, which you can kind of expect in the in the colder weather. And then May is to be determined, but they're having a nice carnival theme. What's nice about the parent learning nights, it's not only providing parents with resources, but they're eliminating obstacles to participation. So, food is served. So, dinner doesn't have to be an issue.
There are volunteers to help watch kids so that the parents can participate and focus on what's being said. So, I think the district has done a fantastic job of eliminating those obstacles. And then we've had the STEM night, cultural diversity night, back nights, back to school nights. There's the high
school gala, grade level concerts. I I think you're familiar with most of the different events that we've done throughout the year. But again, this is just a sampling. We constantly have something going on. And then finally, ensure district decisions and operations reflect the diversity of the community through a commitment to educational equity,
access, opportunities, and cultural responsiveness. Ms. Small spoke before about the MLL MLL program and SIOP. But it's aligned to WIDA standards, and SIOP has been something that the district has embraced over the past several years. All resources that we share to parents
are provided in multiple languages. So, everything's translated so that there's no obstacles in terms of parents being able to understand the events that we're running, the content we're trying to share with them. The Seal of Biliteracy is offered to eligible students, and that is a um certification by the New Jersey
Department of Education that students are both proficient in English and another language. That signals to future employers that the students have this very special skill set that's going to lend itself well to 21st century careers. Registration support, obviously, we have
over 60 different languages spoken in this district, and there is support available if materials need to be translated at the point of registration. If parents don't have internet access, they can come in, they can do it online. We've really tried to make that as friction-free as possible. And if you've noticed you go into the
front office of our school, we always have bilingual staff there. We have a large Spanish-speaking population in our district, and it's very helpful if there's a concern or a child sick that you go to the building and you can communicate in your native language to discuss your concerns. Care Solace, you're aware of I've shared
that before. That's a guide that's a guide open to 24/7 to address mental health concerns, substance abuse concerns. That's now expanded to offer food services. So, if a family's experiencing food insecurity, they can contact Care Solace and be
connected immediately with food. JFCS has been partnering with DoorDash for eligible families to bring food in times of need. And they'll also now help with medical such as dental and finding a doctor. Our child study teams, our nurses, they
have access to a 24 24-hour language translation line. So, at any point, no matter what the language is, they can call up and they can get a translator on the line. That's even ASL when we're doing video interpretation. And then Ms. Felizzetta spoke about the district equity committee. But we meet
on a regular basis, and a lot of good work has come out of that such as the restorative practices that we spoke about before, and also making sure that cultural celebrations are honored, and that um we're equitable across the district with that. And a lot of these practices are
not they've really become organizational and built in what we do on a regular basis. Not necessarily just aspirational, but what we've baked into our system, which is fantastic for the community. And then I'll turn this over to Paul Todd. Thank you, Mr. Rose. So, as Mr. Todd is
approaching the podium, I'll just go forth facilities and finance. The goal statement discusses creating a safe and secure learning environment while remaining fiscally responsible. Very appropriate tonight with the public budget hearing. Okay, thank you, Mr. Daniels. So, we
have goal 4.1, upgrade edition, educational, athletic, and health facilities to be more energy and cost-efficient. And basically, this all centered around our long-range facilities plan, which we have just
completed very recently. I'm in the process of discussing that long-range facility plan with Mr. Daniels, and soon we'll be bringing that forth to the board. And basically, what a long-range facility plan is a long laundry list of projects which the district would like
to do, may do, may never do. But still, it's a process that you go through in lining up projects. And this is the place to dream big. And some of those things may never come to fruition. Some of those things are very well needed. So, what do I mean by that? So, on there
there'll be an analysis of all our roofs. So, right now we have about $40 million worth of roofing that over the next, say, 10 years probably will need to be looked at. That that would be so under the category
of a very practical facility project. And then as you move along, you heard a lot tonight about early childhood. And we've had a lot of discussions on early childhood, and I'll be talking about that coming up. So, there'll be some recommendations on there for early childhood. So, there's a long range and
a long list of projects on there which may or may never be considered, but we'll be having those conversations coming up very shortly. As of right now, that list is probably somewhere around $200 million. Let me just go back here. Actually, one of the points I wanted to say is go to
the last sentence there. One of the the the objects of this goal was to figure out funding for this. As we've talked about numerous with our budget, you know, our our heyday of facility projects is coming to an end this summer. We have a long list of things.
As we move forward for that list of projects that we really need, if we're going to consider doing any of them, and some of our projects like the renovations over for we're kind of stuck right in the middle now. We will need to consider a referendum to get those projects
completed. Here we go. It seems to be a lot of theme and you know, it runs through a lot of goals, but we're going to talk about it early childhood uh center. Uh so when we started, we uh we enlisted the help of a real estate
agent, actually the same agent that helped us buy Academy Street down in Hightstown, and we looked at all the available property uh in both East Windsor and Hightstown. I don't need to tell anyone, but the area is pretty well built out. And what pieces of parcels of
property are left really are not appropriate for uh a school facility. Either the property is too big, and [snorts] I mean it's 30 to 40 acres when we need maybe about 10. And of those 30 or 40 acres, half of it's wetlands that you never be uh using for construction
for a public building. So you'd be paying a lot of money for some land you'll never use. Or there's other parcels that are probably appropriate, but they're completely wetlands. So as we went through and looked through the different properties in the communities, nothing really came apparent that would
fit our needs. So the next step, okay, what if we do an addition onto our schools? So if you look at a lot of our schools, they're they're neighborhood schools basically. All of our schools are really based in the neighborhood and there really aren't a lot of good opportunities to expand. You know, just
take a look down in Hightstown over at WCB and G&R. You know, to put another addition into those places just you know, it just doesn't make sense. So as we looked at our properties, there's probably two elementary schools that do make a little sense. One over at EMK where we have
some land out back where you can put an addition. And PLD which has a large parcel of land out back. Probably not as well situated as EMK, but still that's possible. And then the third option here which we heard a
little bit and Mr. Daniels talked about is partnering up with private early childhood providers. That's always a option as well. If we can't find a place to build on for new facility or even an addition, that that very well could be an option for us.
The last part was leverage technology to streamline district operations. This is something that we're kind of always moving towards and we have a laundry list of of projects here. Obviously you've heard a lot of us talking about our new financial system that we're bringing in for HR,
payroll, and accounting, which actually gives us a lot of synergy with bringing a lot of programs together in one place. That's going live July 1. We're very excited for that. But just to talk about some of the other things which you know, really centered around our technology and our technology departments.
You've seen uh purchase orders go out for phone systems, uh rewiring of tech systems in the school that's happened over the past couple years and that will continue in the future as we kind of upgrade our internal wiring for the amount of technology that we have.
Uh also we've been installing new and improved emergency alert systems. And uh finally obviously we've been buying new technology for our students with the replacement of Chromebooks and iPads. That is still very much
a center of what we are about. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Daniels for goal number five. Okay, so I'm the closer. Close this thing out this evening, okay? So uh goal five, as you can see the goal statement talks about cultivating an inclusive and
respectful climate for all stakeholders and that inspires and values the diversity of thought and opinion. So um I'm just going to highlight a a few things here in terms of our indicators. So um this slide reflects um 5.1 which talks about fostering a sense of
belonging by increasing the level of participation in extracurricular. So during the the um strategic planning process, this conversation was more of a 6-12 um dynamic in terms of where students are developmentally. And obviously the
30% increase was really based on this five-year plan. So we were kind of incrementally looking to increase that level of participation. And typically we're looking to achieve that through obviously uh a combination of creating more options for students,
uh but also taking um the existing options that we have for students and looking to increase the level of interest and participation for those students. So just some some some quick uh data points. I have band, chorus, and orchestra participation at the elementary, middle, and high school.
And I just did a quick comparison between the 2024-25 school year and our current school year. This is kind of a midpoint check um that we do just in terms of students who poten- you know, may have enrolled initially and then as they kind of get into the grind and the commitment that
comes along with participating in a co-curricular music experience, some of our students kind of may not be as interested. So uh at a checkpoint from year to year, uh we've noticed uh a nice increase in terms of about 10% in terms of student participation. That's across all levels.
Uh just to highlight uh something just to acknowledge, I've talked about it before in terms of the growth of the program. This year we did launch our high school orchestra, which is uh which is positive for us. It's encouraging in terms of looking at that growth over time. So we're pleased with
our level of consistent participation. Um and uh you know, I I'm just going to highlight in my superintendent's report the fact that we were acknowledged again seventh year uh with the uh the communities for music award, which I think is reflective of our participation.
Um transitioning to interscholastic athletics, this is based on fall, winter, spring. Just a comparison um between last year and this current school year. Numbers are somewhat consistent. I'd say there's a slight increase, but uh nothing that's remarkable. What I will say is that for
the past two years um we've introduced new interscholastic athletic opportunities uh at the high school. This is our second year of volleyball. And at the middle school, we concluded our second year with football. So um you know, we're looking at some
other possible options, but you know, this is generally based on the fact of student interest and we would like to make sure we launch a particular option for students. Clubs and activities, um this actually this data is really high school specific just because of the the a few different factors there and I
didn't want to be I wanted to be kind of precise in terms of the numbers of participation. That number reflects students as of December 2025 who was enrolled and signed up for an extracurricular activity at the high school not including athletics. Uh
comparing that to December of uh actually 2024, I'm sorry. December 2024 compared to December 2025. Uh you'll see there's about a 30% increase from year to year, which is which is you know, which is actually quite quite surprising positively. Uh
just in terms of looking at that data, a lot of that was connected to um increased participation in some of our uh arts programming, specifically our plays, musicals. In addition to we had some increased participation in best buddies.
Um so so it's kind of a a few different factors, but this is based on not necessarily creating a vast amount of additional offerings, but definitely increased participation in terms of students who are uh in interested in a certain activity.
One of the things we uh identified in terms of what emerged out of the the strategic planning process was this notion of kind of a shared sense of uh code of conduct in terms of student expectations. I think some of this was related to the the post-COVID uh
transition uh where we definitely experienced um some challenges I think uh in terms of students reacclimating. Sometimes students just acclimating themselves to to a school environment. Um but we wanted to make sure that there was some
consistency, but also kind of a progression from elementary through the high school and an understanding for for both students and staff and families in terms of what that reflected. So um during the 2024 25 school year, um I kind of assigned
this to our assistant principals in in the district as kind of a leadership opportunity to engage in a a review of our current code of student conduct that are attached to our our student handbooks. And just some things we wanted to identify just to make sure that we were kind of engaged in a in an
audit of sorts to ensure that we one had alignment, but two really thought it reflected um what we believe one district policy in entails, but also kind of the spirit of what we want to do in terms of uh developing our our our students. So some
of the areas that we we focused on as I just mentioned was making sure there was that alignment with our district policies and practices. Um also we want to make sure that the consequences connected were developmentally appropriate and logical. And then we also wanted to make sure
that there was some uh element of uh equity and restorative practices being acknowledged and it wasn't just a punitive approach to uh correcting and redirecting uh student choices and decision-making. So our assistant principals engaged in that process. As I said, we met several times
during the 24-25 school year. Uh we convened at our summer administrative retreat, kind of reviewed the process where we were and engaged in those revisions to our handbooks at all levels. 5.3 at the time talked about administering a Panorama survey. So, at
that point in time, and it says twice a year, at that point in time we we actually did partner with Panorama for the survey. This was more of an SEL survey. We we kind of transitioned away from that. We used it for several years. We actually used it last year. The feedback
was informative, but we adopted the New Jersey School Climate Survey. Shared that with the board before. Um which is a partnership between the Department of Education and Rutgers University. And the survey identifies three stakeholder groups. It's for students in grades 3
through 12. Uh obviously there's a survey component for our staff, our educational staff. And there's a family or parent component as well. So, this will be our second year administering. We did administer the survey in the fall. We're poised to administer the spring
uh survey as we speak. So, just some highlights of the feedback that we received. There's about 10 domains for students. Um and it's a it's a relatively quick survey to complete. But there are about 10 domains stemming from, you know, student belonging, uh
staff-student relationships. Um you know, interpersonal relationships. Um prosocial behavior and so forth. Um for families it's more of an engagement staff, you know, a family engagement with schools. Uh for our staff it kind of stems from
um domains related to leadership support within schools, organizational uh support and resources. Uh so, some of the highlights and it's kind of a it's graded kind of on a on a scale where, you know, when it's scored, and it's scored
confidentially, but when it's scored for each of our schools, the feedback generally is like something that's rated in a domain is rated at three or above. Um you're in you're in pretty good shape. It doesn't mean that we can't still look to see how we can improve. So, I will say that generally our
feedback has been very positive across all domains, but there's always areas where we can delve deeper. So, some of the feedback from the fall survey this year that we [clears throat] identified as strengths that were kind of noticeably beyond the three. Uh for students was a sense of physical
safety. That was a consistent piece of feedback that we got from each of our levels, elementary, middle, high school. An area for growth, um which is a little bit of a a thread here for students was just the fact that the domain that talked about negative student interpersonal behaviors. And and
what I mean by that is some of the feedback or some of the questions, you know, they asked students to kind of grade or rate, you know, how do students at times engage in terms of talking to each other, maybe calling each other names. So, some of those things that we would say are it comes along with being
in school, but still something that uh we believe we will continue to place an emphasis on in terms of supporting students to engage in what we think are healthy uh communication and interactions. In terms of staff, in terms of the uh the feedback we received in the fall, uh
one of the areas of strengths was related to supportive staff-student relationships that emerged across uh levels. And and and in terms of an area of need they also identified, you know, the the the need for students to engage with each other in a way that we think is more more respectful. They also
highlighted um the need, I think it came under the organization and resources umbrella, where teachers were uh looking for additional opportunities for them to be able to meet and collaborate together. So, that's something that we would also look to see how we can uh enhance or refine that
that process. For our uh families, um an area of strength that emerged and that was pretty consistent across each level, probably more so elevated at the um elementary level in particular. Two two things. It was a sense of physical
safety and also the academic culture. And in terms of an area of need for our students, they also echoed this notion of of hoping that students could um you know, engage more positively with each other in terms of communication. So, 5.5 talked about cultivating, and
somewhat related to what I just the prior slide, cultivating the development of students' fundamental social emotional skills uh essential for academic uh learning and success in life. So, just SEL. So, just highlight a few things that we do within the school district and uh we
could go well beyond this, but just to give a sense where we have broken the slide into two two categories, a K5 early should I say pre-K5. Um and and the K2 level, this is our second year um of partnering with Franklin Covey for
the Leader in Me, uh which is based on the seven habits. Um this is in this instance it's the seven habits of happy kids, which really core principles focus on responsibility, uh decision-making, you know, teamwork,
balance. Um goal setting definitely is a key component as well. So, this is a school-wide approach that's happening at both Ethel McKnight and also Walter C. Black. This is an initiative that really takes everyone's commitment. And we've
been we were I think we were cautiously optimistic when we adopted the approach, but we definitely see the impact it is having within the school, not only socially, but we're also looking at the academic benefits of adopting some of the approach within the school. What we appreciate thus far is
that, as I said before, all staff members have a piece in this in terms of supporting leadership and also their own leadership within the school. And obviously there's a consistent rhythm in terms of language and practices and ways we celebrate students through assemblies and so forth. So, at
the conclusion of year two, um we we we feel positive about the commitment. We have another year and we'll make a determination what that means beyond that, but um Leader in Me K2 definitely has addressed a several areas under the SEL umbrella and beyond. In addition to that, we have uh monthly
counselor planned SEL um lessons. We also have SEL teams within our school. So, this just highlights a few of those areas that we look to reinforce. And obviously we can go beyond that. I have SEL day here at the end. I believe this year we had PLD had SEL day for the second year uh in a row where they kind
of infused um some opportunities to reinforce some of those approaches. Primarily in the morning invited parents into the school building. Uh so, we'll look to continue to build on that. 6-12, some similar dynamics in terms of what we're looking to reinforce. Uh obviously goal setting, healthy
relationships. Uh at the middle school there's a Cougars mentoring. Uh we have peer leaders at at the at the middle school as well. Uh there's there's there's an SEL team at the middle school who plans periodic lessons for teachers to deliver under the SEL umbrella.
Uh at the high school and also in the middle school, we engage in opportunities for groups, whether it's stress management. Uh here at the high school obviously we have PGC, Peer Group Connection, which serves as that transitional process for our incoming freshmen. And in both schools obviously we have vaping and substance abuse
lessons uh that are organized or sometimes facilitated by our student assistance coordinator. So, that concludes the presentation for tonight just in terms of an update of the five goal areas. I'm going to return to my seat
and then we'll address any questions the board may have. Thank you everyone for your contributions to that presentation. Any board members have any questions regarding to the strategic goal update? Just just need a little clarification
on the goal number one. Thank you Sandy for the presentation regarding the tier one, two, and three. I just had one little thing. I was looking at the numbers from K2, 3 to 5, and 6 to 8 for English.
Um we were doing amazing, 80% 80%, then we dropped to 75% for tier one. And then for the tier two, we went from 15 15 20. We increased the tier two. And tier three we we maintained the same 5%.
Can you just tell me what happened there? And would the high school data be similar to this or it'll be much different? Thank you. >> So, I'm going to stick with um the K8 for a moment. So, within the K8, the norm when you're talking about tier
systems of supports would be an 80 15 5. So, [snorts] in some of our levels we tried to get very granular as to what is the exact number. So, as we go through talking about the exact number, sometimes it's more like an 83, it's a 12, it's a 15. So, these are at that
specific point in time because none of our tiers are that once you're in tier three you live in there for the year. We try to bring students in and out. So, they're all averages. So, it's really that point in time. So, in our middle school, because our strategic plan for
that is a little different than in the K5, because we're going to have more kids that are coming out of ESL into the general public to be able into the general mainstream and only give them supports so that they are going to flourish in there. So, sometimes that's
where some of those numbers increase, especially in the literacy, more in literacy than in math, because we're trying to fill some of those gaps that are in there. So, in the high school, we're going to we'll present some of those numbers. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in our subcommittee in May.
Um but our numbers there are going to be very similar, 80 15 and 5. And in some cases though that five is smaller because our standard levels, we have been very prescriptive as to who can get into standard. And in some cases the
standard may be as many as 8%, which is how much higher than we'd like it to be. So again, these are the flexible numbers based on that point in time, if that answers your Thank you, Sandy. No problem. Are there any other questions related to the presentation? Actually, I had a
question come up. Should I take something back? Microphone. No, no, no. Okay. Um would problems or like learning issues related to language acquisition and you know,
the you know, learning English be factored into what tier they're in or is that a whole separate set of supports? >> So within our special education, our um ESL, which is our sheltered classes in the middle school and high school, and
our gen ed, we use the tiered systems of support. So even within the sheltered, there will be tiered systems within that because there that range is from students who language isn't their first issue to those students who are still struggling within the content. So we still have those systems that are in
there. So when I was just speaking to Gerudy, we have students who have exited the ESL program and are now in the gen ed program and they're going to need some of those supports because language acquisition, even though they've exited,
there's still that time frame that's going to need some of that language skills to be built up. Thank you. Any other questions? Well, actually had more of a comment just because I just wanted to say that the presentation overall felt really good
because I felt like I heard things that sort of about SIOP and about other trainings that now I was hearing about how they were being put into practice and other thing and were other things being built on those concepts. So it it just felt like in a lot of those areas
there were new things happening. Um and so I just was was you know, it was I enjoyed the presentation. Thank you. I just had a quick question um for goal two for the summer PD for the staff
just is there a large I think I feel like summer is really hard I for some of the staff to go to the PD will a large percentage attend the the PD opportunities or are they all in person or is there a remote option? So I can actually speak to that one
because part of the summer PD program is phenomenal. Most of our teachers get their 10 hours during the summer and they're much more relaxed. It's a relaxed time because after school you're exhausted. It's really a tough time for teachers to be able to put their whole heart and soul into it. So our summer
PD, our teachers are here, they're ready they're totally involved in it and they're getting themselves ready for September. So we really have very little attendance issues. There are some levels we have a little bit of attendance issue, but overall we have a really good
strong group of teachers that come to everything in the summer. Oh, that's great. And then just in time >> I'm sorry, Nicole, just And what one of the things we do is we offer some most of the PD multiple times because if you happen to be on vacation, we don't want to say you can't um participate. So we
also have what we call essential PDs, which is part of what this tiered systems of supports will be for this coming summer so that if you are unable to come in this summer within those first two days of school when teachers come back, we make sure that you get at least the nuts and bolts so that you also are ready for the year.
And they are in person, not virtual. Correct. >> Okay, thank you. I just want to but in terms of I know that we've talked about this a lot in curricular committee for this summer for the programs that are offered to the students. I can't think of the two categories. I know there's one
that's more of a supports um programs and then there's the others for kids who may I don't know BT No, not credit recovery for the students that want to say that's it, enrichment. Are we seeing an increase in I know
enrichment that populate that always is a larger number. Are we seeing an increase in the kids who kind of need the supports for some of those programs? I know that sometimes the attendance drops off or people are saying they're going to come and then they don't. So actually the number that uh Dave Rowe
had brought up, 400 students who had attended were those students who were here more than 50% of the time last summer, but that was part of the music program, part of the advancing programs and all of that. What I can say to you is the supervisors had just are just in the midst right now putting letters out to the parents for what we're going to
call supports for the summer and that could be whether it's credit recovery, whether those students are just squeaking out passing, but we want to make sure they have a stronger foundation um as well as for those students who are looking to advance. We have a huge multilingual learning
program that we try to do to be able to fill the gaps in the summer so we don't have that learning loss that happens in the summer. So I can't tell you the numbers that we have for this coming summer, but I believe we started things a little bit earlier this year. So hopefully parents can plan ahead to go through the through with this. One of
the things that we are looking to do, especially in our middle school, is if math and ELA students have struggled with, that is going to be a priority for them to do in the summer so that we are not in the situation that the following year that they are going to struggle for a second or third year in that content
area. Thanks. Any other questions? Okay, we can always put that on old business as well. If something comes up in the future, we can still talk about that. Um we will now move on to item five, our superintendent's report.
I'm not sure about that. All right. So uh good evening again. Uh so a few updates for tonight. Um I'll keep them relatively brief. So we do have the NJSLS uh coming up shortly. New Jersey student learning assessment.
Uh so we have GNR and PLD will begin the process uh May 4th through the 8th. Uh I believe that will be language arts and mathematics. I think for PLD and GNR parents, you probably received the notification today from each building
principal regarding this and I believe our fifth graders will complete the science portion May 11th and 12th. Middle school uh will engage in the process uh May 18th through the 22nd uh for ELA, math, and science for eighth graders.
And the high school will uh engage in the process May 18th selected high school students May 18th through the 20th uh ELA, math, and science for 11th grade students. Just as a follow-up to the governor's educator of the year uh recipients uh
that we celebrated here a few months ago. I'd mentioned before that the uh Mercer County, the school districts in Mercer County will be uh organizing uh in in collaboration with the Department of Education, our county office. We are organizing a celebration for
those individuals at the county level. So these are still the recipients from each school district just having the opportunity to be celebrated. Uh that will occur uh this week um April 30th at the College of New Jersey beginning at noon. So it's an exciting
opportunity. Um I'll be present uh board president will be present. The principals of each school will also be present to celebrate the 12 individuals uh who were recognized this year. So um we we we used to do this years ago.
Um it was kind of uh something that faded for for a host of reasons and then we rekindled it last year uh partnered with the with TCNJ and we think it's something that definitely we want to continue to enhance and um you know, really provide that that level
of uh of recognition to our individuals who support it here in the district. Uh just a quick shout-out. Uh K2 STEM night occurred on April 22nd. That's sponsored by the actually organized by the East Windsor Education Association.
Uh the eighth annual K2 STEM night, the theme was uh rover rumble, space race. So over 150 families uh came out and enjoyed uh some some fun learning, uh snacks, and refreshments. So I definitely appreciate that being a a
nice uh embedded tradition within our school district. Um as uh Sophia uh pointed out during her report tonight, I do want to echo and I mentioned it as well during uh the presentation, just highlighting and just not taking for granted uh that for the
seventh time uh pleased to share that the East Windsor Regional School District has been honored with the Best Communities for Music Education um from the NAMM Foundation for the outstanding support and commitment to music education. So this organization's
been in existence for 27 years. Uh the program continues to spotlight and celebrate school districts and individual schools across the United States uh for their exemplary dedication to music education and their ongoing efforts to ensure equitable access to
music learning as a part of a well-rounded comprehensive education. So, I definitely want to thank the Board of Education and our families for their continued support of the arts. Uh obviously our principals and our visual performing arts supervisor for their leadership and I want to
congratulate uh our dedicated music educators and talented students for their continued commitment. Uh in conclusion tonight, I just want to uh just kind of uh also recognize one of our uh high school students and there'll be more to come on this because I do think I don't want to
take for granted this achievement. Um but one of our um high school seniors, Virag Kopi, I believe it is. He's a 2026 National Merit Scholarship winner. So, that's a very prestigious uh scholarship. Uh there are various
levels of students being um eligible for for that. About 700 students nationally uh receive this award and there's various stages throughout the year. So, this was the first announcement in terms of cohort. Uh he was a part of that. So,
definitely want to congratulate uh Virag for this recognition. There's a a corporate sponsor associated with this. Usually the scholarships range from about 1 to 10,000 uh dollars per year or sometimes there's a single payment scholarship of 2,500 to 5,000 dollars.
So, uh so more to come. I definitely want to celebrate that. It's a very uh difficult uh thing to achieve. Uh often times we have semifinalists, but to have an a national uh merit scholarship winner recipient, uh that is that's definitely a point of pride uh for the
high school and our school district. And with that, that concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Um do any board members have any questions? Okay. Um we'll now move on to our first
opportunity for board member comments. Do any members of the board have any comments? Um just uh wanted to mention um our high school jazz band uh performed remarkably well on Saturday. Uh
got second place and also uh won best section for uh trumpet and saxophone. So, and the weekend before they won first place in Jackson. So, it was really excellent stuff. Fantastic.
Uh any other board member comments? I have two. Um is there at Mark, is there any thought given are we going to get um for high school drop-off, will there be any signs maybe put up in the summer that say you can't go through the little cut
out? Cuz it's been better. I will say, I know I criticized the high school drop-off and maybe a van almost hit me today, but it is better. >> This is a This is a positive. This is a positive comment. >> but there's >> make sure. Yes, because for the most
part there are people that follow the rules and go around. >> is to have signage Just so you don't because in that area. So, Mr. Vincent, any update on the signage, sir? We ordered should be done within That's awesome. See, that's great because everybody
following the rules to go the long way and then you have someone cut through the thing and then they park diagonally and let their kid out and it kind of disrupts. Thank you. No, we we appreciate that. We know it was a transition. A lot of this was prompted by the weather and snow
piles that were like, you know, 10 feet high, but we definitely needed to update the system as best we could. So, we will have signage. I I appreciate it's been great. And then I just had one more just comment. Um I had actually watched the most recent Ram Report and saw the piece
done on the the Ram Shack, the store and I thought it was great that the students in that one particular class that are staffing the store. So, I just wanted to call that out. Thank you. I was just making myself a note to go and watch that. I haven't stayed up to date with the Ram Report.
Any other board member comments? Okay, there being none, it's now our first opportunity for public comment. So, any members of the public who wish to speak, please approach the podium, uh state your name and address and sign in on the clipboard and you each have 3 minutes to speak.
No? Okay, we have no members of the public wishing to speak this evening. So, we will move into item seven, our executive session and will be about 10 15? 10 15 minutes. 15 minutes. Thank you. >> Mhm. >> Okay, welcome back everybody. Um
we're going to pick up here with item number eight, old business, um which is where we have our committee meetings listed. So, our next curricu- our next committee meeting coming up is at our May 11th meeting for curriculum.
And then the one after that is our wellness committee meeting on June 15th. Um in addition to that, I just wanted to mention to the board members present, I meant to send an email and I just ran out of some time. Marcus finished his portion of the
um CSA evaluation and it's now open for the board members to begin their portion. So, all non-conflicted board members can go and do that. I would say we will start you tomorrow. I have to just go in and click something so that you can access it. And then we're going
to ask you to finish that up by May 7th, please. And Mary Ann, our field rep, will compile that so we can come back on May 11th and have that discussion and develop the annual performance report. Um
and that's it for old business. And we will open up for our second opportunity for comments. So, any members of the board have any comments? I just want to update my comment. So, this past weekend was the state championships. So, we got second place in the
um the open section, which is also the more difficult section of competition. Out of um eight competing bands. And then there were five in the other section. So, just
Thanks for context. Update fantastic. So proud of them. So proud of our band members, all all of our students do so well. Um any other board members? No. Any members of the public? Is there now our second opportunity for public
comment? Okay, there being none, we will move on to item number 10. Having read the materials received, I move the board approve the routine agenda items as submitted. Item A staffing for April 27th, 2026.
Item B, HIB report of April 13th, 2026. Item C, approved travel and related expenses. Item D, approval of the 2026 to 2027 budget. And item E, bill list of April 27th, 2026. Second.
Any questions? Poll the board, please. Mr. Ink. Yes. Mr. LaRusso. Yes. Mr. Laverty. Yes. Ms. Patel. Yes. Mr. Weeks. Yes. Ms. Lands. Yes. We have no need for a second executive
session this evening, so that concludes our board member board meeting. Everyone have a great night. Be safe in your travels.