##VIDEO ID:D_QFpPHVInE## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e hello good evening welcome to a regular meeting of the East Windsor Regional School District Board of Education 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 of this meeting are being kept by the board secretary and will be made available promptly to any member of the public requesting them from the board secretary at 25A Leen Lane heightstown New Jersey minutes will be provided at cost and in accordance with board policy are there any board members present who believe this meeting to be in violation of the open public meeting act there being none we may proceed in compliance with the fire code of the state of New Jersey I call your attention to the emergency exits for this room which are located in the front and back sides and back please stand for the pledge of allegian we'll move on to item C having read the materials received I move the agenda to be approved as submitted second any questions hold the board please M Drake yes Miss Lans yes Miss Murphy yes Miss boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss Patel yes Miss Kalia yes Miss laruso yes I D be it resolv that the East Windsor Regional School District May hold two closed sessions at this meeting these closed sessions concern personnel and HIV report of October 28th 2024 minutes of these closed sessions will be made available to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists second any questions hold the board please Miss Drake yes Miss Lance yes Miss Murphy yes Miss Bolan yes Mr weeks yes Miss Patel yes Miss Kia yes Miss laruso yes um we'll now move on to the student representative report good evening everyone we are so glad to be here and we'll now be providing updates on the student body we're extremely excited to say that our spirit week was incredibly memorable and something we will will remember with joy for a long time to come on Friday while freshman sophomores and juniors were taking to PSAT the senior class dressed up for the annual class picture it was amazing to reflect on her senior year with our classmates and take this amazing picture in the bleachers the pep rally went really well with lipsing dances and fun games including the tug of 4 later that night we all reminisced under the football lights watching her final homecoming game and attending her final homecoming dance on Saturday moving on one of our favorite student council events on under way this Wednesday on October 30th which is the haunted hallways event every year we host a fun trick-or-treat experience to the hallways of HS here student L organizations and clubs plus the class councils will transform their designated classroom door with spooky decorations and offer candy to all who pass by this is a community favorite so please make sure to save the date for this Wednesday from 4: to 6: p.m. to join in on this exciting event no pre-registration is required but we do ask that all kids be accompanied by an adult for safety again make sure to mark your calendars you won't want to miss the Halloween fun Stephanie Burman Memorial 5K run occurred on Sunday October 20th this event honored the memory of Stephanie Burman and also supported a great cause proceeds will benefit the after prom committee ensuring a memorable and safe event for our students a little update on Athletics this week finalizes most of our fall Sports to close out the season many of our fall teams are hosting their celebratory Banquets enjoying a meal to commemorate all of their hard work and talent they've cultivated this year now that fall sports are over that does mean we head on to our winter season so if you are interested in signing up for a winter sport registration is now open so parents and students please make sure to register if you are interested the week of respect which occurred two weeks ago aims to foster a culture of unity and understanding among heighton high school students we were incredibly happy to see our school embrace the spirit days with great school spirit some of which included a teacher student swap day and a sports day we look forward to Future Spirit weeks we' now like to provide a small update on HHS fall drama this year's production is a musical called she kills monsters and our very talented drama students have been preparing around four days every week the actual play will be taking place on November 21st through November 24th so make sure to come out and support them additionally this Friday they are hosting a Halloween Cabaret in cafeteria M from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. for the price of $5 students are welcome to attend and enjoy a night of theatrical performances to celebrate the spooky season the first marking period ends on November 15th parent teacher conferences are on the 13th and signups for high on high school parents will open up on Monday this concludes the end of our report thank you so much for listening to our report and we look forward to meeting you at the next meeting thank you so much that was great does anybody have any questions then we'll move on to a presentation okay good evening everyone uh each year all school districts in the state of New Jersey have a requirement to report Statewide assessment data uh to the local Boards of Education in the community within 60 days of receipt uh of that data so part of the presentation uh includes obviously the njs laa DM uh those results for ELA mathematics and science part of that U presentation also includes or should include uh aggregated and disaggregated data uh some comparative analysis but also some intervention strategies to support student uh achievement so with that said I'm going to turn things over to our assistant superintendent for curriculum assessment instruction Miss Andy small she along with members of our curriculum department will provide that information to me Miss small if you as a mark share that we're going to be sharing some of the mandatory um data reporting that the state requires and we're going to try and break up into a couple parts so those of you who who have already looked at this don't panic it is not going to be 15 hours like the slides represent um there going to be some slides I'm going to go in through in depth there are some slides that are really for your uh viewing so that as I go through a couple of them you'll be able to know what you're looking at in the other slides um so we will break it up into our njsla Ela Math Science and dlm and then the supervisor are going to talk a little bit about we so every year we talk about that here's the data now what they're going to tell you what the now what is what is happening what we're seeing and how we are working through the data that is here so that's um where we're looking at on this so just as a reminder with the njsla it is broken into everything except the science so the science is broken into four performance levels the math and Ela are broken into five so this is just a reminder that levels one and two are below level level three is approaching and levels four and five are meeting or exceeding expectations so that when we speak about the levels you'll understand what we're referring to so the first slide we have is our English language arts and this is grades 3 through n which are testic tested areas for ELA when we break through this what one of the things that we haven't spoken about before that I wanted to bring up this year was the scale score and how that impacts whether our students are seeing the success so the scale score of 750 would indicate that a student is meting 750 or higher is either meeting or exceeding expectations so as you would look through the grade levels what you will see here is that grades six seven and nine as a collective group are meeting or exceeding expectations and some of the other other s are either far below or just below um expectations one of the areas that we have seen a need that we're a little concerned about is in grade three where we're going to see there are fewer students in grade three that right now are meeting or exceeding expectations versus those who are at a level one or two which are showing that they are below expectations I also then the next slide wanted to break it down into our economically disadvantaged versus our non-economically disadvantaged because this is going to help show us where there's a wide divide in here so if you look at the top top portion of the slide the economically disadvantaged what I want to call to your attention is column three where you're and you're going to see a slight difference in percentage of economic disadvantage from Ela to the math because not all students um take the ELA if you are a multilingual learner who is coming for the first year in District you do not take Ela so you will see a little bit of a difference in percentages between this and the math slide but what I want to callot to your attention is if you notice from grade three through nine we are anywhere from 36 to 41% economically disadvantaged with last year with the students who took this assessment and what you will notice in the n in the economic disadvantage is none of our grade levels have met expectations um there what you will see is grade nine was closest and we have more economically disadvantaged students that are meeting or exceeding expectations than we do those who are below expectations so that's a nice sign to be looking at when we go to our bottom portion of that slide we notice a big difference in there and we see that in grades four five six 7 and nine those average scale scores are meeting or exceeding expectations so again that's something positive for us we have to find a way now to bring these two groups together when we look at English language arts with the district versus the state though the last slide showed that we have some things happening here we're going to see in grades three four five and eight we are still significantly below the state in those areas um grade six is statistically even grade seven is a little bit above and grade N is a little bit below the state our next slide we want to go into well how has these Windsor um been doing over the last three years and this is I put the last three years because it's since it's post pandemic so as we look through this what I want to go through concentrating on is if you look at grades at grade three which is where our concern was from a couple slides prior you're going to see that 3 four in that second to the last column 3.4% more students fell into that level one and two and almost 3% fewer students fell into levels four and five that's where there's a big concern whereas if you go to grade six though it looks like that negative 11.9 is bad that's really positive it means there let it's 11.9% fewer students in those levels one and two and we brought them over to the 18% um have more have um gotten into the meeting or exceeding expectations and you'll see the same thing with slide nine I'm sorry with grade nine so in grade six seven and nine you're seeing that we are making some growth even if the prior slide said we're still below the state we're seeing some uh nice impact impact on here then I wanted to do the three-year review um between Us in the state because we say okay where are we now but where have we been and where are we working so if you look in the first slide is 2022 the next portion in blue was 2023 I apologize I have 2023 on the green one that should say 2024 on that you what you will notice is if you look again at grade nine you will see that we went from eight percentage points below the state to 4% to now at two and a half% below the state so we are moving in the right direction in grade nine when you're looking at grades four and five you're going to see a downward slide um US versus the state so it's something one of those areas that we're going to be working in and Kevin's going to address some of that when he comes up here this is the slide that usually confuses people but what I want to I want to bring you down to that very last box that says 55.5 which is in pink and I want to bring you and all of those pinks that start up at two uh 2018 in grade three those students at grade three who are our current 10th graders they were 54.4% of those students were meeting or exceeding expectations in grade three you're going to see they dropped off a little bit um throughout the pandemic and that split between 2019 2022 is where we did not do State Testing because of the pandemic you will see that 55.5% of those same students are one again meeting or exceeding expectations so the colors are going to talk about students from grade level to grade level in there and that's how you'd work uh through looking at that one so the next few slides are going to talk about each of the individual grade levels I'm going to go into Ela three uh demographics in depth and then the others you'll be able to look at when you have a moment so if you look at the third column where it says average scale score you're going to notice that the state as a whole was a 741 which is below where the meeting or exceeding expectation is you're going to go through and see if you continue down that line that our Asian population in grade three was above that um me that meter exceeds expectation at a 752 and if you go to the far right which is the number of students that are scoring a four or above you're going to see our Asian population and our multi-racial um population are the only two that really are well above where the state was those that I have in a deeper red which sometimes is a little bit harder to see means we're falling far behind the state there those that are just in that uh peach neutral color were statistically close to the state or within five points one thing I want to bring uh your attention to is similar to like the third slide is our non-economic disadvantage versus our economically disadvantaged there is still that major Gap you're going to see in multiple slides there's more than a 30 point gap between those two populations in there and then if you I'm just going to go through is a grade four five six 7 eight so you're going to see all of these are going to have similar um pieces in there that you can look through as you will and if you have anything you want me to go back to I'll be more than happy to go to that so I'm not sure what SL number this is I apologize but I'm one of the one that says talk the M the map of mathematics so I'm going to go into the math portion of this and when you come into the math portion of this we're going to see very similar to what the ELA that the second column is the average scale score what you will notice here is there is only one group that meets or exceed or exceeds expectation which is the algebra 2 group and just as reminder those are our double accelerated students in grade nine and it's only those students who have taken that test if you look to the far right column you will see grades 6 7 8 and Algebra 1 similarly to what we saw in third grade ELA there are fewer students meeting or exceeding expectations than there are below expectations and that's a concern coming to our next slide is are economically disadvantaged versus our non you're going to see again a wide gap between both no economically disadvantaged holistic grade um met or exceed it with the exception of Algebra 2 and you are going to see with our non-economically disadvantaged grades 34 and Downer 2 had an average scale score that was at a 750 or above if we look at math the district versus the state you will see universally that with the exception of that Algebra 2 that we are still behind in the state what I will call your to your attention is grades five six and Algebra 1 are relatively close with the state they're within five points so there's some promise that's happening that we're seeing there when we come to our next slide where we're looking at it over the years what are we seeing are we seeing declines are we seeing increases one of the things that I want to call to your attention is on grade five we are it appears that we are losing um two and a half% of our students back into the levels one and two which is below expectation and in grade eight seems like we are losing more ground even though it's a negative 0.5 that's still knowing how low our percentages going further is a little bit more concerning there as well you will look in geometry and algebra one you're going to see some promise that we have increased by 15 and 11 percentage points there and grade six has increased by almost 12 percentage points there as well when we compare the district to the state over three years you're going to see some negative growth so and I know that's an oxymoron in there but in grad 5 and8 but you're going to see some progression that looks like a nice way of us moving forward in grade 6 seven and out for one this next slide math over the years is students are what we consider apples versus apples and as we go through looking at this we're going to you're going to see the same thing that we have a concern once we come up to 7th grade those Asis are there because some of our students go into our Advanced program so not in the njsla 7 and8 but one of the things that I looked at on the next slide is well how many students are there and as we go through looking at this back from 1920 uh prior to the pandemic till now in the middle school and the middle school automatically um tells the high school what's going to happen there because if they're not accelerating the middle school they wouldn't be accelerated in high school we went in 1920 from 48% of our eighth graders is taken either Algebra 1 and geometry to down to 33% that is up from last year but we're not being consistent so one of the things that we are looking at is what are the expectations we can provide so that our students are getting the background so that they can continue to advance because we know our students have the ability to do it we just have to give them the tools to be able to be successful in this math grade three very similarly to demographics that you're going to see here and what one of the things that you will see consistently here not only with the economically disadvantage versus the non-economically is our Hispanic population overall is below in every test that we have given thus far we have to find a way to be able to make sure that we can um build bridge that Gap there and the rest of these slides will be all of the math that you're going through um for each of the demographics each of those will be there if I come over to the algebra 2 if I draw your attention where you see some blanks anywhere where there are fewer than 10 students we don't put any information because it could be um it could be too signified of what who the student is so when you only see like the number of students we're not including any of their U scores in there so that's why you will see them blank you want me to pause for questions you want me to continue and then you can ask at the end okay what does swd stand for students with disabilities okay okay so now we're going to go into signs and I'm going to feel like a broken record to what I said last year on here so forgive me we're going to go to njsla science 5 the state passing rate was below 28% I'm not sure what I compare to everything can tell you all of the numbers that are here but if we're above them at 30% that's great that we're above the state but 30% of our students meet and expectations for a level just doesn't help me out on that one so I struggle with this because though we're above the state I'm not really sure what the state's looking at being happy with a 27% sorry for that sarcasm but that's just a matter of I'm struggle it's an eighth grade the state is at 18.8% passing so I'm not really sure how to compare us to that in um so I can just tell you the numbers and stuff that are in here when I come to grade 11 I have even more concerns not that because the state is at 28% but if you notice I have two additional columns in here that I did not have in five and eight if you look at the percentage of students with valid scores 50 less than 55% % of our students took this assessment so with 45% not testing it makes it very hard for me to be able to come to the board and say only 19% of our students are meeting the state expectations so I don't know how to compare it other than say here's what was given to us and I can give this to you if that makes sense to you so that's the extent of where I'm going to go with science for this one then our next one is the dynamic learning maps and just as a recall for you um the dynamic learning Maps which we consider the dlm is the alternate assess assessment that is for our special ed students and if you look through the boxes that are here you're going to see um some of the questions that must be addressed before a child is able to say or for us to be able to say that a child will take the dlm and the three questions are does a student have the disability that significantly impacts intellectual functioning will the students significant intellectual disability impact post School outcomes and does a student use substantially adapted materials and individualized methods to access information if those are true then our students would take the dlm if you recall our students are graded on the dlm as emerging approaching at Target or advanced in English and this is districtwide where you're going to see this so in English there are 36 students districtwide who took this assessment 14% % were emerging 36 approaching 44 at Target and 6% Advanced with the math dlm again 36 students took this 33% emerging 25% approaching 28% at Target and 14% advanced in science there were only 14 students because again it would only be at those grade levels that science is given and we were at 7% emerging 43% approaching 43% at Target and 7% advanced good you yet I did not Mark so it's Mark you want to just talk through that I don't want to misspeak on that one I'll just say that based on students being eligible for the dlm U the fact that they are eligible for special education services by Design the state's indicating that it should be a relatively small percentage of your overall student body that will be eligible typically around % of the student population and the supervisor just going to come and they're going to so just nobody panics we're about two minutes talking to them talking to you about what is happening in those it's good to see everybody Kevin why supervisor 35 um asy said one of the things that we were able to do is look at our end of the year assessment Data before the nsla meaning our STAR testing our eii writing pieces and start working with um our building administr ation to design some classes to help meet some of these needs so we assessed uh the rising third graders before the end of the year and developed uh in both school to tier one from phonic to reading classes to help support some of that foundational literacy in a block of time that's not inclusive of our Ela block we also have a couple tier 2 pullouts for our interventions from phonics to reading these are students who we assessed using a Dibbles assessment that were over a year and a half behind the grade level expectations so we want to make sure that we're supporting them we also developed a focused learning opportunity in math to provide some high impact tutoring with our partner Pho tutoring as well as a new intervention called do the math to make sure that our students have automaticity fluency and so forth uh our Advanced student one of the things that we started seeing even in this data is that some of our highest performing students start uh trailing off a little bit so we included a shared inquiry as early as second grade to make sure that students are used to citing evidence and reading through our uh grade level expected uh texts so in fourth grade we have a new intervention that we're doing during our plbb block which again is not time taken from the literacy block called voyagers um we also have our fourth grade uh regrouped math class where our support is built into the class so they have uh extended time in math with two teachers in the room um in fourth grade with for our enrichment programming we relooked at our enrichment reading program and both in fourth and fifth grade we're using a program called DBQ so that students are used to looking at document based taking part in uh conversations having debates and things of this nature to make sure that they're engaged and participatory at high levels uh we also have we thought about our enrichment math program where we use something called teach to one but we also wanted to make sure that we had a focus on what students were going to be expected to do in that sixth grade advanced math class so that we're prepar preping our students for not only uh high levels of math but the rigor that's faced that they'll be facing once they get to the middle school and Beyond hello everyone in addition to all the resources that Kevin has mentioned we have for all of our Learners in the 35 World in bilingual education Reading Explorers for all we levels where we teach reading through all content areas we have the team toolkits for ESL we have the right track program for reading our savis books and our TCI our savis math and our TCI science books are available in Spanish and in English for the students and in order to support the students in bridging they have an opportunity to work in either language all of our teachers in the bilingual ASL program have been trained in scop which is the sheltered instruction operational protocol and they use these strategies to teach our students our struggling Learners who are very often those students who have the least amount of English language skills are taught explicit phonics instruction and vocabulary development again we have scap strategies and we have some of our students targeted to receive the Orton Gillingham Services one of our ESL teachers has also now been trained in Orton Gillingham to be able to provide those services to the students in the third grade our onlevel Learners continue to receive vocabulary development and reading comprehension the teachers again incorporate different scop strategies to be able to support that and they have access to all the grade level materials our Advanced Learners are our level five students they are students in the general education classrooms they work with grade level resources and they are challenged to express themselves with the same level of flu Y and accuracy as the monolingual students in the classrooms our professional development opportunities that are coming up for our teachers on the 19th of November and the 17th of December teachers are going to receive the bilingual ASL teachers are going to receive PDS for teaching using the science of reading to teach multilingual Learners and there will also be an a professional development in December for General educ education teachers to help them modify assessments for the multilingual Learners that are in their classrooms good evening um the first slide that's up kind of shares the overview for the first quarter of supports for ELA in the middle school and we did attach all of them to the appendix but just to kind of highlight so you can kind of follow where we're going um in each of the quarters we focused on Three core areas that we seemed to get results with last year when the assessments came in this year um Sandy shared that in her overview where we had pockets of growth so we aligned those practices those trainings and those resources more intentionally into each of the quarters and the three areas were the small group guided reading we put a strong focus on tier one tier 2 and tier three on comprehension in tier three we also continue to embed rewards which is a multi- slabic decoding program that increases automaticity and fluency and our students who come up from the previous grade and do not have those skills um that is in our sixth and seventh grade and this year we reintroduced in eighth grade a comprehensive program we also looked at craft support in writing so one of the things that came back with all the state data were the evidence tables which tell us specifically which skills needed to be zoned in on at each grade level and with each cluster so we embedded those in craft support and did a lot more intentional curriculum writing this summer to ensure that students across all levels um continue to grow if there was growth and get that support of small group instruction in the writing block very similar to what we do in reading and we outlined in those Maps a couple of the ways that we're doing that for you um finally we integrated a number of AI tools into the teacher training and the support for students we we got out kind of ahead of this as early as January this year and had some adapters who started using those as interventions and they were coming back and we aggregated the data on the students they were working with um those came back very strong so we train we did a lot of Staff training this summer we continue to bring that through this year and that includes three major platforms so I shared those with you in those overviews um the other areas we I want to just kind of focus in on for a moment is the during the day versus the after school every year we come up and we explain to you the supports and a big one is after school support um we put a lot of time into that and energy but over the last couple years we have just not had the attendance there and I think it's competing with sports it's competing with other interests of the students after school so we looked strongly at our inclass options during the school day and I'm sharing with you here a couple of ways that we're doing that that includes tiered small group in both literacy and writing it includes looking at our writing workshops and allowing students greater time to engage in reflective writing and smaller time bound writing that kind of supports them with with some of the skills gaps we saw on those evidence tables um we also infused our comprehensive literacy model this year and if you think back to what Sandy said about the eighth grade that was our one area in the middle school where we saw a significant drop so bringing that program back we're excited that is a two teacher model at a each grade level so that is um the whole period this year in all three grade levels so we're hoping both the small class size there the intensive instruction and the specific resources in those three areas will support um greater growth in the in our eth grade students as well um our eighth grade students are now our ninth grade students so we B those same supports into the foundational literacy course up here and we utilized the curriculum to kind of embed elements that we saw those students needed before they even came up to the high school so while this says grade 6 to8 supports some of those go up to the high school because um the kids are up here and then finally I also want to mention that in looking at the tier one and two um we brought in PowerUp and Lexia which are programs they are digital platforms but they have a very strong inperson component um that goes into our smaller literacy blocks there are offscreen lessons and there is onscreen practice the teachers teach and the computer gives them extra practice so more to come on that we'll see how that goes this year but that is a program that we've had success with in our comprehensive and we're kind of tearing that out particularly in our sixth grade thank you good evening um okay so similar to uh some of the information that Mary Griffin presented um I'm going to talk about 6 through n math uh so focusing in first on the tier 2 and tier three interventions that supplement our programs I'll talk about some of our advancement opportunities and then I'll talk about some of the changes um that we've implemented over through the summer and into this year um that are happening day-to-day in the classroom with our students and teachers so for our interventions um the first thing that we did is we added a tier 2 comprehensive uh course 3 class so we have always had a comprehensive sixth grade math uh we've always had a comprehensive seventh grade math and we added in that really important comprehensive eighth grade math class because we know that is an area where our students are struggling so providing two teachers in the classroom identifying students that can benefit from um not only that the extra attention that they can get from having two teachers but some additional resources that we're exploring um and trying with those students to see if we can help um move the needle in those cases in addition to uh the that we also have our tier three interventions in the form of our after school Title One programs um we run uh three phases both at the middle school and the high school targeting different students targeting um different needs in the first phase we're really looking to get those students that could use a leg up at the start of the school year uh similar in the middle school for for our seventh and eighth grade students as focusing primarily on our ninth grade students at the high school um so looking at the this data uh and identifying students that really maybe we need to take back a little bit or give a little bit more Focus one-onone support phase two we focus more on those students that are sort of in the middle um they're not quite meeting expectations and we hope that by providing them a little bit more targeted help um we can kind of get them over over the hump and then our third phase is in the spring and that's where we look for those students that have been somewhat inconsistent over the year we look for opportunities to bring them in after school uh make sure they have a little bit more uh one-on-one or a few onone support from a teacher uh just to kind of hold them focused on math instruction and math learning so that when we send them into the summer um either a we can encourage them to come in for some of our summer programs or we can at least minimize that summer slump that some of our students experience most uh many students experience um for advancement I know Miss small talked a little bit about the fact that some of our advancing math students numbers are dwindling I didn't phrase that right the number of advanced math students are dwindling not our advanced math students numbers are dwindling anyway um so we have always offered opportunities for students um who are demonstrating ready Readiness to have access to Advanced coursework um we try and be as fluid as possible so it's not where they start their sixth grade year with us that's kind of going to determine the progression for their next however many years they are with us um if they show up in sixth grade ready for an advanced track um they can continue to move forward on that um in that program um but we also offer them the opportunity to try more advanced cour workk in seventh grade and eighth grade uh because of that in the high school we have our ninth grade students arriving in Algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 coursework at the high school um while we don't have those opportunities to kind of jump up in terms of the program of math they learning we do give them opportunities to um level up into honors classes and AP classes to okay so to talk as quickly as I can because I think I overuse my time um some of the things that we've done that are more focused specifically on the work that we're doing with with those students in the classroom um the state released new math standards and so over the course of the summer many teachers on our math teaching teams uh showed up to write curriculum to align it with the new standards and in that process they talked about existing programs rearranging um how they delivered instruction and modifying some of the strategies that they were using for assessment and instructional delivery uh at the middle school we hired two additional teachers that allowed us to restructure our teams um minimize class sizes in math course 1 2 and three um and because we don't have teachers that are teaching extra classes uh we have more opportunities for teachers to participate in common planning um in the middle school math program one of our supplementary resource is Alex it is a partially AI driven uh math tool that supplements our core resource it can be used inside the classroom and outside the classroom students traditionally have used it to kind of go where they want to go or where they need more help this year we're targeting a little bit more of a focused application on how teachers are using Alex um in the classroom to make sure that our students are receiving stronger foundational support um we are meeting with each teacher in the Middle School to talk about their data from last year uh we are making sure that they understand where those opportunities for growth are for the students that they have this year um continuing Focus goals from last year uh in terms of using data meeting with students conferencing oneon-one and allowing students to create goals for themselves based on their math practices um and we are integrating a bunch of new um engagement uh strategies within our math classes including vertical whiteboards to increase collaboration and student time talking about math and participating in academic math discourse making sure that all of our students in all of our um academic levels or grade level courses have access to tiered activities so those struggling Learners have the the the work that they need but our students that maybe um potentially uh ready for advanced coursework are giving opportunities to show that they have Readiness there um supplementing our core Resources with some njsla style resources to make sure that students aren't going into the test and taking those typ typ of questions for the first time there um and working on building more Project based work into our math courses so it's not all um algorithmic learning and assessment that students have opportunities to do applied math skills across all courses thank you I'm going to talk about special education uh 6 to9 tonight one of the major focuses this year is literacy um one thing that I've implemented into 6 to 12 is the reading across the curriculum um this is something that we feel is necessary to try and bridge the gap for our special education students um one of the programs that we incorporated this year is called new newella um and we have this program now in science and social studies and it differentiates articles for students based on their reading levels um and it's a push to kind of get kids to read across the curriculum in all of their classes um this year I worked with the reading specialist to hold professional developments uh the professional developments are based on the star Focus skills for our students and we want to make sure that we're honing in on all of the skills that our students are lacking and make sure that we put emphasis on that to try and help them succeed uh so I know that that somebody I think uh Renee talked about the oron Gillingham program at the elementary school that is something that is in the reading programs at the elementary school and that is a training that we held for our sixth grade lldd and MD teachers to try and transition the fifth grade students into sixth grade with the same type of reading program um they're also they're also receiving training um every other month with the reading specialist to continue to reinforce the skills that the students uh will need during that program um I know that Mary had talked about the rewards reading program in um the classrooms at the middle school we also use the rewards reading program in our OCR sixth and seventh grade classes um just to kind of hone in on those basic foundational literacy skills and then uh this year we have our College and Career Readiness Mentor program that started nth and 10th grade students um it's twofold this year we have mentors and advisers and then we also have small group um support settings that are happening after school for our students Ela and math and then we have our advisor program where students are paired with an advisor or a mentor and they meet with them to kind of talk about you know where their where they need support in school what's going on with their grades um what kind of you know other supports do they feel that they need and then um also we are offering uh PD throughout the school year on specific reading and writing strategies as well good evening so I'm here to talk about support for multilangual Learners um we focus a lot for all Learners through the scop strategies that we've been teaching we've taught all and trained all of our ESL teachers along with our shelter teachers um with that we have been focusing on strategies that they can Implement in the classroom um differentiating of reading uh Based on data so we've been very intentional at looking at access star and some of the Lexia data that we've collected to create action plans for guiding instruction we've differentiated tasks based on topic and theme but we're ensuring that our teachers are expanding on questioning and task Expectations by promoting student discussions so we want the students voice heard in the classroom and they're doing a really good job of getting our students up and moving and away from the computer to use the language um we've increased Station activities uh this summer uh station PD was a big essential PD of ours and we worked on showing the teachers how to use um our resources and differentiate instruction to create the stations and this supports struggling on level and advanced Learners through the programs um to support struggling Learners we've we had a sixth graders summer enrichment program we use um Continental Press they have um a teams program that uh teaches vocabulary across content to prepare the students for potential vocabulary they were going to see Rising into the sixth grade we purchase Lexia English so we do use Lexia in our sheltered instruction English instruction but we took it a step further and purchased Lexia English for ESL classes the Lexi English is to support our students with speaking which is one of um the areas where across the board their struggling in Access um we also are participating in the CCR programs at um Melvin hrps and the high school uh these are for students who have been struggling um on some of the assessments uh and have been in District for two or less years we've focused on the small group instruction we've purchased materials from Continental Press again to help with the vocabulary and um some of the reading strategies across content and that's what we're going to be implementing there and similar to Mary Griffin and some of our my other colleagues we are using and providing we've provided PD on AI support on how to differentiate and how to help our onlevel Learners and doing by doing so we've used defit um we've taught them how to meaningfully create lessons using it um and brisk as well as um magic AI for creating rubrics so I know we threw a whole lot at you in this one setting but we actually were only about 40 minutes even though we threw a lot of things at youed so you're going to notice in the rest of the presentation there are many more slides um the slides that we just went through earlier was basically going through third fourth fifth sixth grade Etc um those slides Down Below in the appendix we'll have G&R 3 pl3 so it'll be more of a breakdown so it'll be additional information for you um any questions you have for us now if you need to sit on it and come back to us that's fine as well hi Sandy thank you so much it was very thorough so thank you to your staff for that um and very easy to understand I do have uh two different questions um my one question is is I know um and I and maybe not in recent years but I remember that the eighth grade like their math scores were low um but then when they were talking about um nth grade we have algebra one and geometry uh the students going in so is that not a majority of the students is that like just some of them but some of them are still low are we not um is the I'm so sorry for Ping off is the number of the eighth graders with the the load scores are they getting better um how is that looking right so good question so one of the things Jean so I'm GNA focus on the algebra one for a moment what we will what we've noticed is algebra one in the Middle School um if you remember about two years ago we were really on a downward swing the algebra 1 scores in the Middle School have risen dramatically so if you actually pull up the algebra one um actually it's a good point for me to give me a second I can get to it the algebra one you're going to say in the middle school is significantly higher than so if you if you can look up on the screen you might not I don't know what slide number it is if you look through here you're going to see that the state is at 39.5% as a district we're 37% but in our Middle School we're in 86% um so but that's where you'll see is then the reason that the district score is lower is we only have 138 students in the middle school that were taken out for one versus 281 in the high school so when our students are taken out of one in the high school they are either on level or below level students so those expectations for that Algebra 1 means we have to do a lot of bridging in order to get those algebra one skills up in the high school and we have to do a much better job of that in our Middle School we have done a much better job with that algebra one because at one point we were down to 50% in our Middle School being successful so we are we have um bridged that Gap if you will and then the same thing that you will notice sorry that right if you notice the geometry the geometry for the state is a 49% as a district we're at a 36% but the middle school is the 78% 78% seems like it's a good score I'd say these are a double accelerated students we should be much higher than that 78% in there and I know that's me being very idealistic but that's what we have historically been able to see so you're right I didn't talk through that one but you're 100% right that that um we have bridged that a little bit awesome thank you for those details and just one more question I remember um also a few years ago um uh the teachers talked about like the lesson plans were a little heavy um so when we add when not when we but when these things are added onto their lesson plan now because I think they mentioned that this this um like the PD and stuff was added during the summertime um are you guys I guess checking with the the teachers to make sure that it's not a heavier load or too much of a heavy load CU remember in years past they were saying that the lesson plan like learning this new like the new kind of lesson plan and stuff was just difficult for them if if I can think back through what you were talking about it's probably when we changed the lesson plan template and I haven't heard much if anything in the last couple years of the lesson plan template I think the teachers have become accustomed to that so I wasn't sure if you were talking about the template or if you're were talking about what's in their lesson plans um so most of when we write curriculum the lesson plans can be pretty much like mapped out through our curriculum documents and teachers have to go to and find out the students in their class how they have to modify and stuff like that so I don't know if that's answering what you it uh partially but does this um add more to it I guess is what I'm asking um I would say doesn't add more to it it's going to be more of a differentiated approach we may have to put additional like you can't just keep adding things if you have 56 minutes you have 56 minutes you may have to adjust how you're doing it and sometimes the way you go through doing that is some of the supervisor talked about doing station work in small groups and those are some things that can appear to be a little bit more time consuming to create but it's what our students are going to need instead of doing a one size fits all so but I can't say and the supervisor with tell me others I can't say that I've it's at least come to me that it teachers have said that it's a heavier lift for them I haven't heard that yet but doesn't mean it hasn't happened I hasn't come to me yet okay thank you so much yeah hi Sandy thank you for the information was very detailed and a lot of it um again I want to pick you back to the slide number eight out of 82 which is the ELA MH uh where you have saying we made strides in 6 seven and n and we are having issue with 34 fifth eighth graders uh it's like eight of 82 it would be the right here English language arts yes yes okay so as you see the numbers are going up and down which is I understand but now we are having issues they're making the minum expectation gr seven and N now we're using the same approach same uh process of learning and resources why we are not able to tackle the 34 fth aers what is so different what is because demographic itself is about the same so we're using the same approach then why we're not meeting the target for the remaining and that's a lot of Gap that's four gr four graded versus three grades right so good question and I'm going tell you some of this and because I really want to just tell everybody the whole story if I if you really want to break this down we're going to have to break this down because this is everything I presented to you was total population so in order to be able to answer your question um properly I would have to break this slide down for you which can easily be done into our total pop General Ed multilingual Learners and uh special ed for us to be able to break down and say where are the some of these issues happening and that's one of the things I think when we go through talking about our when the update for a star um presentation that's where I can do that I didn't want to break everything down because I think it was long enough to go through doing this so to answer your questions sometimes what we're seeing is that sometimes some of our subgroups are those areas that we're seeing concerns which is some of the things that the supervisors are trying to address and what we saw if nothing was clearer tonight was we are we have to do a much better do job with our economically disadvantaged they're almost 50% of our population and we've got to find ways to be able to meet their needs and we have haven't done that right now so if there was any area that I would say we have to find ways to address some of those needs in there um but I'm not going to say to you that um in sixth seventh and Ninth Grade that we're doing it with those groups and the others were not it could be the um subgroups that I just spoke about that could be where the percentages change because our percentage of special ed and multilingual Learners is not the same universally throughout so that's why it could just be look a little bit different on that this is just a holistic thing that's making sense so what other resources or other I guess application you'll be looking into to make this because we have to get to some part because they're not going to be able to get into those classes in high school and so forth so what are we doing with these are early grade levels we're talking about which is three four and five the big problem here what are you doing and what other resources do you need to get to where we need to be so that's one of the reasons why I had the supervisors talk about what they did this summer and what they introduced this year to be a once they see this data what did we introduce this year to see if we can fill some of those gaps and a couple of the supervisor said you we've added this this and this because when we tried in some Pockets last year it worked now it's time to to try in Bigger Pockets so I would say to you if if part of your question is what do we need from you as a board I'd say to you guys have given us everything we need we now are going to try and say we tried it things in small Pockets now we have to see if it works in the larger group in there and that's what the super Rises when they were presenting to you came up and said here's what we tried last year here's what we're trying now so they're going through working and one of the things that we do as a curriculum department is we're going to try we come back and see what's working we do walkthroughs we go through so part of our thing that we looked was let's inst let's teach let's go in and Coach let's inspect let's retach let's inspect and then let's evaluate so that we're given every support we can so I'd love to say but by next month all of this is corrected I won't stand up here and say that to you what I will say to you is we will have an idea before January what our programs are working and what programs we got to find something else for because some things are going to work for some groups and some things will not work with other groups so I'll tell you there's the work in progress with the supervisor has brought up but it's not a one and done there thank you s I had a a question um in the appendix is there or is it in the I see the info for grades three four and five I don't see craps so the only thing that is in the appendix the additional uh supports did you are you asking B so if there were any supports like some of the supervisors had pages of supports which we did not want to have to present so they gave you snippet and they put the additional in the appendix so not every uh grade level so Middle School is in there you do have some Middle School Ela in there no even in the appendix in the appendix you should have um three five e um Ela and 68 Ela in there do you have the latest one up there that's on there that you should have in the appendix you should have um both I'm going to hold slowly in there so those these are they nope no oh those are all oh no so for six seven and eight because they're AR two schools so 345 has these demographics two schools 6 and then these are in okay I'm sorry talk about the support y yep no so is there a break so with the geometry it's or algebra one it's easy to say who's the in the advanced classes and how they're doing I guess my question is are we seeing students in the advanced classes in general so like the compact SCH or high school who you talking I guess both Middle School and High School are they outperforming or are some of those students in those classes not doing well on the test because they shouldn't be in those classes I know we said there was a push to get more students in there my question is does the data show that the students that are there are correctly there or should they be so not two things so when we talk about there's a push we're talk we're not saying that we're going to put students in any advanced class that's not ready what we're talking about is and one of the things that Jody I'm gonna one of the things jod and I have been talking about is that one of the things that we have to do is to make sure in our course one course course two and course three that we are providing some supports for our students who are above level but not quite at those advanced classes yet so that the following year that they can get into the advanced classes what we don't want to do is be able to put all kids on the same level and then they never have the opportunity to be able to advance so when we talk about the push about moving our kids is be able to give them the supports they need to have those skills so that they are ready to go to the Advance um have do we see some students in our Advanced levels that sometimes in our seventh grade we typically have 98% of our students are passing our algebra one and that's exactly where we should be in our high school unless they're in the honors program and some of even our honors alible one students are not as successful we're that's still that work in progress that Jody's working through with the teachers in the high school because just like we have some of those gaps in our Middle School we have them in the high school because those are our students that are struggling where you're going to see our out of or two they're outperforming because they're double accelerated students in there so we would never put students in that aren't ready but we need to provide more opportunities to make sure that additional students are ready as they have in the past in the district so then what we're seeing then for for those honored students is that they're performing like meets or exceeds generally um for algebra in seventh grade yes geometry I'm going to tell you geometry in e8th grade we were not where we should have been for geometry in the eth grade if I can put that back up it was still high though it was the 78 you thought it should be higher it should be higher right but are we seeing so for instance Algebra 1 honors students because those classes do move quicker right are we seeing those students meet and exceed or are we seeing so that's that's what I just Shar with you our honors out our honors every one students are only in ninth grade right so are not advanc so our honor students for the most part are meeting or exceeding but they all are not not doing that yet and then I know we said that the star scores usually predict these have we given any more thought to sharing those star scores with parents so that parents can help support their students throughout the year instead of just getting this report at the end you know now we have it for last year but if I knew my child star scores in January were not where they should be maybe as a parent I would say oh you know what you need to go to that after school program or you need additional support right now parents don't see those star scores right so um just we had talked uh I guess a couple months ago ago when you had brought this up we said like teachers are always willing to share all of that in there the uh idea with Renaissance sharing those things out there's a lot of information that unless parents we educate parents as to what they are parents are not going to understand them so we've talked a lot about how do we go through getting this in there a couple of the supervisors really reached out to Renaissance to look at some of their reports that's I'm not going to tell you that it's never going to happen there's a pro process that we're trying to go through to see how can we get this into the hands of parents so that they can understand it rather than just see something and be in a panic when they see their child is at a 3.1 reading level and perhaps it doesn't mean they're in a 3.1 reading level and vice versa that their child's in third grade and it says that their child has um a 10.7 IRL and they think oh my child's a genius my child doesn't have to take another assessment and they're not understanding what that truly means so we we're trying to put together something that we think that would be workable for our parents in there yeah that that would be great because I mean just like the parents get this report there's no more details in the report and I know we used to get the star scores so I think more information is helpful um and even though the teachers can share it a parent doesn't know to go ask or what those scores would help show s I'll have more questions after I digest all this but can you just I know just students with disabilities s swd can you define who is in that group specifically because I know the um DM students are not I'm buting so I'm just busting just try so I can call him up if you want no students anybody who has an IEP so really anything in our Genesis that will be that our students have an IEP then I it's going to be sound really that you actually answer your own question those students who have IEPs that do not take the dlm would be considered in that uh students with disabilities report in the St the state reporting okay thanks so then a followup and this might be um for Kevin or David so in the grades three to five supports is there any um weight given to anyone who have have missed identification in grades K through 2 and they might be struggling because they actually might have a learning disability or or need an IEP and we just haven't discovered that yet I know that's a topic kind of adjacent to this information yeah I'm not sure how to answer like how are we determining these students who might not be meeting grade level expectations is it just because they're missing supports and they would be able to do that or can a certain percentage of them or any of them might possibly qualify for an IEP and they just were missed earlier on for whatever reason for the purpose of of this report it would be those students who who have an IEP when taking that assess so it wouldn't be included in this data no not included but perhaps some of the supports we're talking about say on slide 44 might not actually help a student who may have a un unidentified learning disability as I know some students might pass through the third fourth fifth grade without being recognized of that yeah I think initially if we have students that are that are underperforming I'll just say that based on grade level standards then we do um have a Cadre of supports and interventions that we'll put in place based on some of the assessment tools that we're using uh and that will be pre um child study T referral if we believe we've exhausted some of those inter ventions and we feel as though there may be a need to refer that student to the chelse team for additional information that would be the case all right I think I asked this last year maybe the year before um so I've been here that's why I brought all the supervisors up you I was ready for you um so I think uh for six years now I've kind of heard the same story of like scores are down um every now and then maybe there's a positive somewhere in there um so I think I asked this last year where it's obvious so much work is getting done to try to help it at what point though is it like a macro approach of like what are we doing in the education field um looking back to like you know where when I was here it was I think just a different experience I think that's just the world changes but is there anything that maybe worked you know back in the day in this District that will maybe introduce so I don't know at what point is it like a a micro versus a macro look at education so hen so one of the things that we started last year because we realized that 50% of our population are multilinguals or former multilinguals so in the macro approach we really tried to bring in the scop approach like what can we do to be able to help our teachers be able to meet the needs of all Learners and what we learn through that is that the side approach is great for our multilingual learners but it is also just as effective at to our Advanced Learners and struggling Learners who aren't multilingual so that's one of the things that we had to go through looking at um some of the things that you know we try to keep on keep throwing spaghetti at the wall it might happen it might happen and some of those approaches that we used in the past and those like I'll even use myself something that worked for me in this District 20 years ago trying to put it now it's a whole different set of G like these things that have our Pros are also our con that we are competing with this at every given moment in our classroom that if you're not in an entertainment world right now the students really are not listening so it's really like trying to teach our teachers how to be able to meet the needs of our kids that are sitting in front of them right now and that's an everchanging world that we're in so um though in some ways like I'm a purist at heart I'd love to say what we did 20 years ago worked we can do now but realistically it doesn't so it's really trying those things step at a time because our population is changing the pandemic has done aot lot one of our supervisors said to me today am I allowed to say that maybe the pandemic I'm like no the pandemic we're three years removed at this point it's time for us to be able to turn and say Here's Where We Are here's what we've seen through the pandemic here's our growth that we're seeing here's what we have to do to be able to see more growth so it's I know it's not um a specific answer for you but that's where we are at this point I appreciate that thank you even just hearing um you know taking out the phone and like oh we have to be entertainment like I I wish we could change I guess it's Society like why is school entertainment it's school you should be learning you know so but I guess how I know we don't have the answers right now of how to switch that in the minds of society but I wish thank you Sandy and um your team and all the supervisors um PA can we put this on Old business for the next meeting we'll move on to superintendent report okay good evening again I would like to thank Sandy and the supervisors tonight for providing a pretty comprehensive uh update regarding our state assessment data and some of those interventions we put in place few a few updates for tonight i' like to call to the board's attention uh one of our policies for first read tonight policy 2365 acceptable use of generative AI or artificial intelligence obviously this is something that um we you know we have to face in society which I think has good use uh some constructive use and we believe it can support in the educational process so uh what we have on on the agenda tonight is an initial policy that um we believe will represent some guidelines as it relates to um leveraging what we think the benefits are of uh AI tools uh within a school setting this policy was developed um really to focus on student expectations regarding the use of AI so I do want to take a moment to thank members of our we have an AI policy um kind of guideline policy team that we put together to kind of work through a few different things one we looked at some guidance that we received from Strauss ese which is really kind of pulling together some best practices that are occurring nationally um and the policy kind of reflected some suggested components of that policy but really the members of the team really put the the pieces together and did some due diligence to ensure that we thought it was meaningful as it relates to having something established within the district so um just to kind of provide an overview and from a from a higher level the policy focuses on obviously who the plan applies to uh when AI may be permitted and to what extent with within an educational space uh the responsibilities of our staff members as it relates to kind of guiding and shepherding that process the approval process regarding AI tools um an annual notification process in terms of kind of you know just notifying families uh students and staff regarding um what that process should look like for any given year uh obviously um some ways in which you should not use uh Ai and the related consequences that may come along with that and obviously a process in place to kind of review continuously review uh the implementation of that that that plan some good news tonight just want to give a quick uh shout out to the Melvin H crebs football program I've mentioned this at prior meetings just to refresh our Collective memories this is the first year uh that we've had a middle school football program in the school district we're the only Middle School in Mera County that has a middle school football team so we've been playing teams from middlex County primarily and um and be beating them down by the way now no so we've actually um you know first year you're not quite sure one we wanted to make sure we had a level of participation we had approximately 40 students who who uh have consistently uh been a part of the team which is great to see obviously it's only our seventh and eighth grade students who participate um I will say that at the conclusion of the Season we we've uh um proudly had an undefeated season so it's been a a a very proud moment for for the school uh for me I'm just focused on the fact that we can develop programs um that can kind of support our young people provide opportunities for them to be a part of a team have a sense of discipline a sense of camaraderie uh and it's nice to also win but but winning is really not the most important thing I just want to you know have a few thank yous in terms of folks who I think were instrumental in ensuring that we were able to launch this program this year starting with our athletic department obviously our coaches um the creps administrative team and I see the board for supporting uh this new opportunity for our middle schoolers hey this week uh in some places we call this Halloween week so just as a reminder we are going to have parades scheduled for each of our elementary schools on Thursday uh October 31st so this information has already been shared with with our uh families but as a reminder uh periel Drew School Gra and Rogers will have their parades at uh approximately 9:45 uh walks to see black and eff M Night their parades will begin at approximately 145 and I should preface this by saying this is weather permitting uh I haven't even checked the weather for Thursday any check it's going to be warm warm there you go there you go so weather permitting uh the parades will commence at this time of the year um members of the community or asked this kind of Statewide to um kind of highlight um recognize celebrate uh individuals that will be potentially recognized for the governor educator of the year uh recognition so I will say attention all East Winds Regional School District Community uh you know do you know a classroom teacher or Educational Services professional who's dedicated inspiring and making a difference and if so uh this is the opportunity to nominate them for the governance educator of the Year program I believe that all families at this point and our our staff should have received uh communication I know principles push it out we push that our weekly update it's on our website so um if you believe that you have someone in mind uh this is a great opportunity to it doesn't cost a thing just to complete that form uh show that level of appreciation and we're asking that folks submit that complete that form by November 15th 2024 update on the heightstown high school security vestigal uh so this has been an interesting project um you know I would have uh anticipated that this project would have been completed by now but it has not been so we've had some bumps in the road uh but I'm pleased to announce that there were a few things that we were looking to push through so we did begin the process by we're converting an office we're going to put an exterior um paneling uh with with a window slash door component uh and we're kind of reconfiguring the interior of the the two office spaces that we're converting so we did begin that process in the summer in terms of kind of clearing that space out um but we hit a few bumps in a row regarding permits in particular so our our our contractors were raring to go but they had some redate that they needed to wait for so I'm pleased to announce that the permits uh have been received and we have a green light to continue with that process I believe our contractors will be uh in tomorrow second shift completing that work U so I'm excited about that hopefully that progress will be U somewhat expeditious and efficient as we move forward so at our next meeting I like to share an update regarding where we are um because obviously our goal is to try to get that completed as soon as possible um for the high school Community just as a reminder in closing uh the week of November 4th our schools will be closed with students that will also include uh the kid care program and uh with that that concludes my report thank you does anyone have any questions hi I have a question the question is on uh October 23rd uh Timothy Shoemaker was at the high school do we have any updates on that and how that went and if we were able to get a recording no recording uh Timothy was not permitting recording so it may have had a uh very uh entrepreneurial young adult recording it with their cell phone but no no but no Timothy did not permit recording um we did include an update in a weekly update regarding Timothy being here I I would only have anecdotal feedback in terms of you know how that was received I don't know if Mr Vincent would like to share any high school student perspective regarding that presentation of Mr point to your from a middle school perspective but but sure sure if you have something to offer and um were there a lot of parents like how was the turnout so we at the high school we had it by grade level so you know students um kind of saw at by grade level it was well received he definitely is a little bit of a showman he comes with a full light show so it's very interactive uh his message was pretty powerful um I think the kids were pretty receptive to it it's it's a tough topic for students to hear because of everything that's surrounding it um he spoke very honest uh he kind of tailored it a little bit to each grade so the feedback that I heard from the students were like they didn't really want to hear it in the beginning but they were pretty reflective we saw him right before covid and one of the things after he came we definitely saw a change in attitude so I think it would be interesting to talk to some students after it sets in a little bit um and then he did present that in the evening um you know the parent piece was very similar here towards parents a little bit differently though so but I thought it was um it was a good message it's nice I think having our students hear a message from somebody other than myself and the assistant principles so I think it's nice to hear somebody with a really good reputation um and it was pretty powerful he's high energy okay but do we have a good turnout with the parents like was it crowded was it was it a low turnout no it was not a very good turnout for the parents no okay well how did the um the Middle School go because I see in the newsletter we they talked about it cuz that was on um Friday October 25th they did it right after us so I they want to talk about Middle School the newsletter is very detailed I love it right you have to put you on the spot I know you're pinch hitting tonight with Mrs fetta so anything to share regarding the Middle School presentation if it echoes Mr Vincent that that that would suffice if you have something Illuminating on that okay all right okay thank you I have a question about the football team um thinking back to when we approve it I I wish this was for flag football to be honest um just CU you know injuries and um as a health editor that's what I've been thinking about since um so I'm wondering if we have tracked um any concussion or other injury reports in the Middle School um I just hate to think that we're having injuries introducing them even younger than just High School um so is that something that we're tracking um and if so how many injuries were there this year I I don't know I me get that for you I don't I haven't been usually if we have a significant injury like we probably have more um ligament bone related injuries to be quite honest with you but I can definitely you know follow up with the athletic trainer regarding any concussion related injuries thank you all right just a follow up on that does the middle schoolers do the concussion training thing whatever it is before and the that test yes they do are there any other questions um if not we'll move on to comments first opportunity for board member comments before we begin I just want to um make the announcement um for those that do not know um today we did receive a resignation of our board member Karen Suter um effective immediately she's resigning her spot I don't want to speak on behalf of the board but I will say that um um want I want to thank Karen for her time and dedication and service to the district and community and we wish her the best um so are there any board members have any comments I talk about board retreat really quick okay so as as of today I've only received two emails with topics regarding interest and dates um with this new resignation of Karen unfortunately and or impending additional new board members um I'd like to propose that we kick the new year off with a board retreat facilitated by Maryann fredman um it's um we would also need a list of topics so if you can send those to me by the end of this week list of topics that you would be interested in covering um and then I'll compile what we have and we could par it down from there um additionally I know Nicole and I we've been knocking this around it is best practice to complete a board self- evaluation prior to retreat not necessary to do one at all um but in terms of best practice njsba said that would be um the best route to go um Nicole and I will review njsba self evaluation to determine if it meets our needs because we've had some discussion that it's not exactly attuned to what our needs as a district might be we might mod modify that a little bit so we'll talk about K having that completed before the end of the year so that we could hopefully do this board retreat in January with our impending board members um since we definitely will have those come January just my thoughts any other comments I just have one comment I really hope um that people are reading the newsletters both from the school and from the district they're so informational and actually on the newslet um the most recent one it mentioned that the high school student sang at Rowan University on October 16th which I thought was really awesome that was all thank you I also wanted to um congratulate the high school boy soccer team they did they are advancing I don't know all the correct terms and titles and groupings but um I did see on Instagram that they are advancing to States and I think it's the first time in a while so I just want to wish the coaches congratulate the coaches and the kids and um wish them luck um if there's no other board member comments we'll move on to public comment first opportunity for public comment is there anyone from the public who wishes to speak if there's none then we will move on to Executive session um we shouldn't be that long and then we'll be back to V I know we say that every time but we really shouldn't um and then we'll be back e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e 4 second session um um where are we it no old business item seven old business so we have committee meetings and then um B was the curriculum committee discussion from April 22nd 2024 so Tina with that you had circulated the minutes to everyone correct yes Paula you still had some outstanding comments and if anyone else after Paula feel free so it is for the math the three tracks for algebra in 8th grade and algebra and geometry in Middle School the 12th year and I guess that's what the elective is for the fourth year you can also take AP stats correct and then there was a comment that hold on one second just to note Sandy shook her head yes then for the social studies it says that in 10th Grade A push is one of the only times AP course courses can take the place of the main subject course but I actually don't know this in English is AP English or AP Lit and AP Lang allowed to replace 11th grade ELA and 12th grade ELA yes so the it's in 10th Grade it's the only 10th grade social studies AP class that you can take AP US oh so just in for the 10th grade and then for the graduation requirements the ELA math and social studies so APS count towards it but in science there was that change this year where students who took bio so students who took Advanced science in eth grade so they took bio and no so they took they took the test and they were able to then go into bio freshman year this year now they the program studies changed to say that those students have to take both chemistry and physics so it's a p practice that we have used for almost 15 years and this goes back to when we first instituted it was about making sure that our high school students were getting the full experience of the Sciences especially because it is an advanced program that these students are getting into um so it being the advance they would have taken Earth and physical in eth grade biology in n9th grade and then physics and chemistry or chemistry and physics whichever they choose the order for uh sophomore and junior year but we're forcing and the question is physics because not all students and first of all the policy that was approved in March 2023 says environmental science is an option in the three years it doesn't say you have to take chemistry and physics it says for to graduate it's chemistry physics or environmental science for a second year and then a third year of just any lab-based science so if you are not an advanced advanced science student in you would be taking Earth in physical freshman year biology sophomore year and either physics or chem junior year that is what the traditional pathway is it's for the advanced which is in question and this is what we even said to the board prior this is your District if you choose to change those requirements you have the ability to do so well all I can do is stand up here and tell you that best practice that colleges are offer are asking is to be able to have the full realm of Sciences which is life Earth and physical so but that's I'm I can only give you my professional way and looking as as colleges go you as a board can change however you want to do that so the board in March 2023 approved that it is you can I you take when you're in advanced you can take bio then chem physics or environmental science and chem physics envir or any other lab based inquiry that that's what the lab the the board approved in March it just says environmental science and it's a lab based which the AP courses so the only environmental science we have is an AP environmental we do not have and we do not have environmental for a gened population of students so so the AP environmental science wouldn't qualify for the New Jersey standards graduation it's lab based I'm not saying it wouldn't re it would not require that I'm saying to you you've asked me what our practice has been I'm telling you what our practice is that's that's the only thing I can go through is explaining what our practice is from there if as a board you choose and I know Mark had said there was a concern about that policy yes so we're in the process of taking a look at that because right now there appears to be a slight discrepancy regarding the policy that's posted and a policy that was approved in March so there'll be Clarity on that before the next meeting um because I think there was part of the language was environmental science if I'm not mistaken um so I think this is really a conversation for those students who were taking Humanities at the eighth grade level and then transitioning to the high school uh I think wanting to opt for an AP Bio in place of something along the way so um you know I think if if that practice which appears to be a long-standing practice is something that the board would like to revisit we we we should do that you know that was um that's something that still stands there's a rationale behind that in terms of trying to provide a Comprehensive Science um overview once we clean up the discrepancy regarding the language and the policy as well because the policy language should reflect our practice right that's really that's where we need to have that consistency but in terms of kind of the Genesis in terms of where that came from that did perceive me and it's not like we have this intensive discussion about it uh since I've been here but since it's surfaced I think it's an appropriate time to one let's get clarification on that policy language that was approved on on March 23rd but also compare that to our actual practice to ensure this consistency and if there is not then I do think it's an opportunity for us to determine how the board would like to move forward as it relates to that particular Pro and so my concern and feedback that I've gotten from other parents is yes if you're going into a stem field in college they would want to stay bio chem physics if you're an advanced student and you go decide to go into political science major in college or you decide to go major in English you're never going to have to take AP Physics in college and unless we're shooting for one of those highly elite elite colleges taking physics is not going to move the needle for you graduating so we're forcing students to take physics when they don't need it so if you look at the national counseling the National Association for counseling which is for College counseling they are the reason that the district went through those three years and again I have to stress the idea is for advanced science students so if you are an advanced science student if you're not if you're Advanced then the three branches would be bio Earth and physical if you're not Advanced you don't have to take all of them you would be taking your earth physical semester te your bio and then your choice of Earth and or chemistry and physics it's the advanced students that you're you're that you're in question with so all I can say is that was the rationale behind it um and I can tell you the national um Association for College counseling is the one where it came from and I think we just need to look there's the advanced stem track and then there is the advanced non-step track so we shouldn't be forc it like you so that well but the eighth grade are never forced to take the advanced science that is an option an optional test to take understood but just like when you go into math when in sixth grade you go into math and you take pre-algebra most parents and students do not realize that when you jump into that that means when you're a junior in high school you have to take you're taking calculus so they don't realize that and I think the same thing is coming true with the science students oh I'll take this test I'll I'll go ahead and they're not realizing because no one's told them and the program of studies never said it until this past year that you now have to take AP Physics I mean physics not so you bring a good point up years ago for the advance we always send a letter home to the parents explaining the track that their child would be make would be taking I have to look in to see whether or not the Middle School still sends that letter because that gives them the trajectory as to what's what exactly what you just said the pre algebra in sixth grade is going to take you through calculus and then multivariable as a junior as a senior and then the same thing would happen so I can check to see whether or not those letters still go out because that's a valid point to be able to make sure the parents understand what they're signing their child up for so that I guess the next steps Mark is we're going to look at the policy that was approved in March of 2023 right we have a policy consultant um who kind of takes the the policies that were approved she cleans them up and she uploads them so I haven't had the opportunity to meet with her um to determine what what occurred there but there seems to be some kind of glitch so once I I'll do that this week and by our next meeting I'll have Clarity regarding if what I believe to be true the policy that was approved by the board on March 23rd that's in board dos that that should be the policy verbatim that should and the majority of it is the same but for some reason there's a slight discrepancy so I want to get that cleaned up uh and then we can we can kind of proceed from there yeah and then just with that policy too the for the graduation it says 120 right no fewer than it's just a weird it says no fewer than 120 minimum 130 just so so so a couple of things that that St estimate template policy template for graduation requirements is is a mandated policy based on the department of education's requirements it also stipulates that school districts can exceed th those requirements credits being one of those examples so Heist toown High School I believe has 130 credit requirement the state only requires 120 so we've exceeded that uh districts are permitted to do so so the so the kind of the wording on there is giving you the the default wording is the the minimum requirements there are a few instances in PE World Language where we exceed the state's requirements regarding graduation got all right thank you are there any other questions if not we'll move on um second opportunity for board member comments are there any board members who have anything to share I can give an update on the policy meeting we had this evening um we've been performing a systematic review of policies that were proved by stme as being either stale dated or a need of review um and tonight we went through eight policies um you want me to read them out so we did uh policy 0 67 public participation in board meetings 0168 uh recording board meetings uh 2110 philosophy at oh no we didn't do that one um 0171 duties of a board president and DP um 0132 executive Authority 0141 board member number and term 0146 board member Authority and 0152 board officers um we reviewed um recommended updates by St asme and we're kicking them back for updating to cycle through for reading um policies 1140 and 1523 are on the agenda tonight for second read policy 1530 uh was just approved last board meeting um so we're we're making good progress going through and getting some of the older F old the policies refresh did I miss anything I'll just add the policies of Michael listed tonight were some policies that we identified via the audit that Strauss esate had suggested that we update when we actually read the policy language we didn't really see anything that was a concern to us about needing to update the policy so we reached out to stes me to say hey you've indicated that these or so policies we need to take a look at them we've done that we're not seeing where the the language is dated they came back with some revised versions of those policies we review those tonight some of those policies we identified the the board already two of them on or on the agenda tonight and one was approved at the last meeting so there's there's a couple of different things happening we've got the policy audit that we're working through parallel to that we have policy alerts that we get about three to four times a year which are based on they're not necessarily all mandated they're just uh revision um recommendations some are mandated policies some are just suggested up updates regarding revisions to statutes regulations so that's happening we have a person I talked about a policy consultant at hering she works on those pretty consistently and that's kind of happening alongside us uh looking at the policy ERS some so some of the policies we're identifying as we're going through the audit they're already being reviewed so we're kind of blending andem merging the two of those those things together that's great thank you does anybody have any questions about that I just have one question um my what is the difference with the policy um for the President and Vice President roles versus the policy about the board of officers are they not one and the same I need to take a look again just to see what the Nuance was I remember can I get back to you sure it's just I I haven't see the poliy I can share it I thought that the officers okay is really focused on the process for electing the officers at the reorganization meeting the vi the President and Vice President roles are are outlining the responsibilities or the duties of the president and vice president okay thank you Michael told me that earlier I just I just remember are there any other comments um yes I have one um so let's see Jean Michael and I attended the njsba workshop last week and I just wanted to make everyone aware um that the presentations will be posted in our app but if you go to the njsba website review the agenda and if there's anything that pops out to you you might be interested in um I can take some time and download those presentations it doesn't give you the full experience of being there but it can give you some highlights of what those topics covered um I just don't want to download all of them it takes a lot of time and space on my hard drive so but if there's anything that pops out just let me know and I can do that and pass them along to you anyone else so are we on second opportunity for comments or still oh okay um just some followup questions then so Mark I think you said that the course guides are the same thing as the the sylli we cleared it up but oh so um so now I thought they were the same but I was just wondering when those course guys or syi whatever we're calling will be uploaded for parents to see so so a couple things so so we do have the course soli there is a policy for course guides that the the so the course guide so it is some some of this is semantics so we have a course guide policy which from my interpretation and I'm getting clarification from Strauss SME that just reflects the curriculum that supports an improved course uh so the course sylli which is just a microcosm of of the courses that have been approved the curriculum that's been approved those are uploaded if we did not update the curriculum we did not need to change the sylli that's there if we did update the curriculum we're in the process uh of updating those that are reflected on the website so this is a this is an ongoing running update so some are so if we have a new curriculum updated course either either a new a new curriculum brand new which is a rarity but or or revised updated curriculum the updated version should be posted okay got it and then are we trying anything with the software yes so we were looking to take some of our business course work to to migrate that policy policy curriculum over to uh the software to to see where we are you have an update on that okay but those are the courses we're selecting for that so we'll provide an update in short order regarding that and then just I know this was old business last time but I didn't ask the security audit does the board want to give any thought to redoing one so that last one was in 2018 and so much in the landscape has changed since 2018 just in general anyone any thoughts on redoing that it's been a few years I have no problem relooking at it but I would defer to Mark if you think it's necessary I don't know what the cost and the resources is involved but the safety of our students is Paramount and our staff well there is a um security committee isn't there and it's it's at hoc so so a couple things I mean the the audit that was completed in 2018 that does seem like a few years ago I was I was a younger man at that point right before I came so that was pretty comprehensive and the district did um Implement uh a number of the recommendations there I will say is that we are pretty um kind of tuned into the school security recommendation landscape so uh I'm not saying that we know everything but I I will say that um all of myself in particular are I think we're I think we we stay AB breast of those situations both from the doe who provides constant updates even though a lot of our updates at this point have become more threat assessment related as it relates to um being concerned about our students uh and potential concerns that may emanate from from where they are but in terms of hardening perimeters of schools and creating enhanced surveillance I do believe that we are um I think we're in I think we're in a really good place the one thing that we're looking to do is to is to invest in um an emergency notification system within schools which with within each of our buildings which is more automated uh it's a digital platform we're piloting it right now at the high school on a smaller scale but what it will eventually look like is um in terms of whether it's announcing a particular drill uh communicating that both from an auditory but also visual standpoint it's all automated it's triggered by using a phone uh these are pre-recorded messages it's a whole uh system that comes along they pretty pricey but I think that will be our natural next step in terms of creating consistency across every school in term and also creating a level of ease in terms of activating that system um so that's that's one thing that we are actually dipping our toe into now we went to visit uh some schools in uing who had a bond referendum to invest in that system within their schools um I'm not against engaging in another audit to some degree I think it may be healthy to um before doing that maybe presenting to the board where we are as it relates to school security kind of providing kind of a timeline update and also some things that may not have even been on the audit that we've actually implemented independently just to provide kind of a a sense of where we are as a district I think we did it a few years ago but I think it it may not be a bad idea just to revisit that um you know I know we part of the conversation we had you know it's some unfortunate you know you engage in some learning based on some unfortunate circumstances I know that a recent incident nationally it created some conversation regarding you know um notification via ID badges and so forth so from a technology standpoint that may be be a reason one of the reasons for us to take a look at where we are as it relates to communication and some of the efficiencies that can come along with that but one thing we are definitely looking at right now which which would have a relationship is this emergency notification system which is app oriented and there were some components there that create ease with communication for staff and families and students as well so um we definitely can kind of share some of the information with the board to get a sense of what we're thinking about moving forward because it will take some investment of resources Mark do you think we can get a presentation like that before the end of the year or is that too much um maybe December time frame do you want to you want you want a present like that an end of the year present yeah we can arrange that I expect it's a good present sure I think we can do that um yeah I don't see why not I mean if not shortly thereafter reorg would also would be I think a great opportunity so yeah I definitely think we can do that and just just my 2 cents on course guides that's a mandated policy so again I think it is I agree with you it's aext but it can confusing because it's a mandated policy so I guess I don't know what they were thinking because curriculum is curriculum syllabus is syllabus and that's I I always read the course guides as the curriculum but then there was some you know some meanings it was said it it the words just got shared like for everything so I think that's the confusion a little I was confused too when I first started and I just kind of well all right course kides is there but it doesn't mean we have our curriculum we have our syab and could we even though it's mandated could we change the policy to say curriculum instead of course SK since that's the terms that we use well there's another policy uh policy 2200 which is curriculum content which adds another layer of potential confusion and that's more so based on um it's related I mean it's definitely related but it's also it's more so based on when you are developing coursework and providing a Continuum across grade levels areas that we're required to cover based on state mandates I could just say from a stand standpoint so that can also create some confusion because it also references the board having list of courses for the year the course guide policy is based on statute based on the fact that any course that's approved that needs to be approved by the board then needs to have with it um just say a set of procedures plans in order for that course to to um come to life as it were and have some outcomes and objectives to students so course guides are definitely anchored from a man you know mandated policy standpoint because it is a requ requirement for schools I think you're right as we kind of fast forward into creating conveniences and reference tools one could argue that when we say we need to have guides whether they're parent guides right on the website I think sometimes we're kind of um using some of those terms synonymously right so um that's where we are so so the practice that we've engaged in is that any curriculum that supports an approved course requires board approval uh any uh amendment to that curricul requires board approval right but once those um I I'll say once that curriculum has been approved we then just have a microcosm of that and have a quick reference tool for students and families that we refer to as as Sol can we find out if we can just put aka curriculum in this course guide document so five 10 years from now they're not having the same discussion right now I'm actually in the process of getting clarification on specific yeah curriculum content and course guides yes but but but from my research they are synonymous like how we talk about curriculum course curriculum or content curriculum um that's that's what a course guides reflect then perhaps let's add it to our onboarding topic of discussion curriculum is curriculum course guides curriculum syllabus is syllabus just just making it easier going forward so there's not so much confusion it pops up every once in a while thanks I had a question U Mark um for the security um I guess company are we looking out to get like different variation of you know system programs like any different type of beads to see what is feasible it is going to be very expensive and I'm just trying to find out you know one school might be using one system the other school might be doing is there something we have a bench idea of like looking and see what is the best approach for our district and cost wise as a how effective it is for us so um so to answer your question the goal would be to have consistency across all buildings um you know the challenge would be making that a reality simultaneously right because there's a finite amount of resources to make that happen we also want to be conscientious that we don't create the perception that one school has this state-ofthe-art communication uh process and infrastructure and and the other five don't right so I think that one we are in the process of determining just because we have a small footprint here at the high school just to get a feel for it and get a sense of you know is it something that we would like to grow that footprint um but that is the ultimate goal would be to try to mass-produce that across schools so therefore we we we would feel comfortable knowing that any emergency notification system that we have in place if we're talking about automating it it would it would be the same in any school whether it's the MK versus the high school that is the goal all right I do have a question though um Mark when um if you're able to BU by the end of the year to have the information about the security um audit or something like that are we able to get updated information um I think it was last meeting or the meeting before we had a presentation on security and like a threat assessment and they talked about like um you know what was found in the different schools are we able to get like an update on numbers because the numbers we received was last school year um being that we're you know the end of the school year will be done the first um trimester or the first second semester for um some of the schools are we able to get like updated numbers yes so we're required to provide that update twice a year but the way the Cycles um the way the Cycles run you are getting we're reporting the information because there's a there's a period of time for example reporting period two runs from January through June the school districts have until August to submit the information into the system and then you have until I think it's through um the end of this year to report we reported at the last meeting so uh we're currently in the first reporting cycle for this year that will conclude at the end of December and then we have until we have between we just say the spring we typically we look for an April report to report out on this fall let just say fallwinter in terms of that information that is required to be put into the student safety data system system so yes you'll get that but you'll get it in the new year and that'll be a reporting on reporting period one for this school year which runs from September through December because if we were to do it in December it wouldn't be it wouldn't be accurate we would be reporting information that has not fully been inputed into the system that's the only reason why okay so I'd be I'd almost be doing it and coming back again with an addendum so there's a there's a period of time that'll allow school districts to make sure that that information is in the system and then you have an opportunity to report you have to report it so we definitely report it but you'll get a report for this fall and just say the spring of 2025 thank you for the detailed explanation are there any other board member [Music] comments not we'll move on second opportunity for public comment is there anyone from the public who wishes to speak there being none we'll move on to item nine recommended policies for first reading a policy 2365 accept acceptable use of generative artificial intelligence AI second any questions um I had a couple um based on what we talked about earlier and what's in here um what type and when will our teachers receive PD on putting those tools and guidelines and rules in place for our students like they need PD on how to do that that's my question so the first question is they've been receiving PD on AI on On Tools uh obviously once the policy's approved we will then engage in some consistent um one communication regarding just some procedures um that we can kind of lean on policy to drive that so you know right now we're kind of in the the what I consider to be kind of the early adaptive phase which we appreciate right where folks like to get out there and and want to experiment however we do need to make sure that folks aren't getting too far ahead of things uh and we want to make sure there there's some some parameters in place so yeah so once the policy is approved we definitely will engage in that a pretty consistent manner but to be honest with you professional development has been here already I mean I think we we heard it tonight in our presentation so um you know we we will continue to do that but this will be just some clarification because it's kind of two sides of the coin where we we want to make sure that we're leveraging The Innovation and it's supporting the educational process not replacing it right but we also want to make sure that our teachers um are feeling a sense of efficacy in terms of what tools and where they are in terms of feeling a sense of comfort and um you know that's way that that's where the PD comes into place but I think it's also important that people feel a sense of getting there in their own speed to some degree so they're not feeling a sense of intimidation and discomfort but I think part of the concern for teachers in particular and I think it's also important for students I'm not really talking secondary primarily at this point is I I think it's important for folks to know the the the kind of Rules of Engagement as it were right what's appropriate what's acceptable how we're going to do it in our classroom so this this will anchor that and and from that we can you know focus on some Innovation knowing what those parameters are that sounds great thank you um of course I'm I'm glad they're already learning too um based on those Rules of Engagement I know it mentions we'll be adding these to the student code of conduct um in the past I have noticed and it's probably because of age appropriateness that some of the School Code of Conduct the language is different but I'm assuming like the each Elementary Middle School and High School they'll all align seamlessly so the student gets doesn't get to a new school and says oh the rules are different now or I don't understand that they kind of progressively move with them yeah we always want to make sure that things are developmentally appropriate so right now and that that that will you know I anticipate that will change to some degree you know when we think about students at the elementary level obviously there's a lot more teacher control over what students are are engaged in and exposed to and that you know obviously changes as students develop and mature when they into the middle school but in particular the high school so you know the uh code of conduct component will be reflective of that you know at this point thankfully we're not we're not concerned about a first grader using AI to to get something done well not yet so I think that you know I think that that's not a huge concern for us right now and if you would asked most of our kindergarten first and second grade teachers they may not be thinking about from a student standpoint how to leverage AI to to to to to a certain degree but we recognize you know at that level the teacher may be leveraging AI tools more so to support their students but as we go through the Continuum we recognize that that ownership is more student oriented as to get into those those higher grades so yes the there's a Baseline set of parameters but obviously how we address that will be based on the maturity level and and and and where students are developmentally something you just said made a little light bulb go off too so are we looking to do any um parent caregiver education on AI because we have been using some of it for years now like math facts and the flesh all those little games that the kids are playing on their computer is is some type of AI but maybe parents and caregivers aren't aware of what that actually looks like I think that's a great idea I think we're all using it right to some capacity but I do believe that the the technology is evolving so rapidly that uh I think it will be helpful for families to one have a heightened level of awareness but also um have that awareness be leveraged as a tool in your household so you can support your child um you know with their educational Journey but also be aware of what they're using in classrooms I think that's a great great point Point thanks I just have some questions on it um when we do the curriculum for next year or the syllabus or whatever we want to call it can we add in or should we think about adding in if when AI can be used and so forth and so this gets approved when it says that the they're going we're going to go through a period of figuring out which AI tools we can the students can use right well um right now we are as the adults we're in the process of looking to vet and determine what we think is most appropriate so look and once again th this whole process for the most part will be based on some level of um assuming best intentions right because the technology is such that I'd be I'd be irresponsible to sit here tonight to say that we have uh We've we've got it cornered and we would have a complete awareness of every tool that's out there and what folks are using but however this this at least enables us to be able to lean on something in a more tangible manner to say hey like this is this is what we've agreed to right and this is the process we're looking to adhere to so one of the issues that that um we're very conscientious of is is the is um I'll call it security right right I'm just so we can talk about academic Integrity but I'll just talk about security we want to make sure that you know AI tools that we believe may have value from an educational standpoint do not create a liability as it relates to securing information within our school district so we are looking to implement a process where we're starting obviously with the folks who are close to the classroom or supporting the classroom namely a department supervisor building administrator being able to um one be aware of what the teacher's looking to use initially vet that and then bring into the fold um whether it's the assistant superintendent for curriculum but also our technology coordinator Ray nesi Who currently bets our software we have a a software vetting tool that determines the level of um potential vulnerability that it may bring to the district so that's the process that we're looking to put in place to say we're not going to say like these are the four things we're using and you can't use anything else we are going to say these are the four things that we have approved and if there's something else that emerges that you think has value bring that to us and we will engage in vetting that in a somewhat efficient but thorough manner to determine if it's appropriate and if we find like one tool is going to be a security issue is there a way to block it on go guardian or something um and then number seven b actually f g h i and J seem to be repeated of the of a b c d and a like just different words but the same like f and D are F and B are saying the same thing that one's exact it f and b f and B G and C H and D and J and E they seem to be repeated um I did notice that earlier myself I forgot B and F I agree and like G says misinformation using AI to create and spread false information but C is kind of the same thing yeah C just differentiates it with hi it's a little bit of a difference but we could probably look to incorporate that but C is specifically tagging hi and I think we reference hi again it just seems to be repetition there I I I agree with you on B and F in particular so I'll take a look at that and if there's anything we need to streamline we'll do that before second read and then the verification so if a if a teacher believes that a student used AI incorrectly um one of the things that we have here is the staff member may use PL plagiarism detection tools um which are not 100% accurate at all why that's why it says may it's it's a not it's not a one it's not a one it's not a one prong approach I think if you see in here um the first thing before that so A just talks about if the the teacher suspects it right uh the first thing they'll do is review this students assignment the signs of unauthorized a II use and and we want to make sure that this goes back to teachers knowing this student students so we want to make sure that if you have a situation like that we're expecting that our teachers will go back and lean on what they believe represents that student's voice that's probably the first thing that's going to trigger a suspicion anyway but making sure that you lean on what you believe that student's voice to be in their style but also then V talks about engaging that student in in a discussion so we we were deliberate in not wanting to make it you know you suspect a concern go immediately to this AI detection tool that may be faulty in itself right so we're just putting that in there as as a as a bu to say that may be something they have a tool can we can we add something that says this cannot be the only method I can see not all teachers but I could see you know teachers just putting it into the AI detection tool I know there's some that are even you know like I know when when you're in college turn it in is turned on and they just rely on that but I think what we can do is add words like also mean also use right right yep and then just and this is oh no two more so we mentioned policy 2361 and 5701 so for the policy committees they haven't been updated in a while I think one was in 2013 and one was 2004 can we add something in those policies about AI or just look at them I mean I think 2361 spoke about the worldwide web which is still in effect www I I reviewed that one Paula and I think I did say something about we haven't gotten to it yet but I remember doing that one and laughing at all the different things that were no longer applicable and then this is just nit piggy but the on the top they all say page one of six and but I think it's great that we're going to start teaching students how to use AI correctly it's where it's going um Mark I I sent over to you um presentation that was part of one of the sessions I took um about a successful implementation of AI tools and the dialogue that um I think it Morris Township had um but there's really cool ideas in there about you have like a stoplight system okay like a red yellow green when it's appropriate to use and they that kind of thing where it's just it's through the entire District every scenario to us consistent language from kindergarten all the way through um just to give everybody like a shared vernacular including parents and so they know this is a red light we can't use AI at all on yellow light we have to disclose it but we can use whatever we want you know and green light I forget the complete parameter but it's yeah what we're looking to promote obviously is um what we what we want to discourage is a an environment where students are feeling like they have to hide things and and not be transparent about this usage but we also want to make sure the teachers feel a sense of empowerment as it relates to having some level of autonom when they're bringing that into the classroom and having a shared sense of how we're looking to engage in that process so uh I think as we begin this is kind of like the foundational aspect of where we are I think that that shared language and that shared Approach at least by levels in particular I think some of these things are easy to look at across a K12 Continuum some of them they'll be slightly nuanced because obviously students will be more independent as an 11th grade student at the high school versus the kindergarten so um yeah I appreciate you sharing that Mark with that teacher autonomy would that be something the teachers would have to vet the program with tech before using it yeah so when I say autonomy once we've approved the tool gotcha in terms of you know uses that we believe support the educational uh experience yes but all all tools need to First be uh approved any other questions pull the board M Dr yes Miss lens yes Miss Murphy yes Miss boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss Patel yes Miss Kia yes Miss Luso yes and 10 please mandated policies for second reading a policy 1140 educational equity policies and affirmative action program B policy 1523 comprehensive Equity plan good any questions hold the board please M Drake yes Miss Lans yes Miss Murphy yes M proli yes Mr weeks yes Miss Patel yes Miss Kia yes Miss Luso yes item 11 motion to approve routine items by exception having read the materials received I move that the board approve the routine agenda items as submitted a staffing for October 28th 2024 B Hib report from October 14th 2024 C board member resignation D approve travel and related expenses virtual and in person e technology recycling batch number 52 I'm sorry I've been told to refresh sorry about that thank you I will start over from the beginning disregard everything I said okay 11 motion to approve routine items by exception having read the materials received I move that the board approve the routine agenda items as submitted a staffing October 28th 2024 B HIV report from October 14th 2024 C approv travel and related expenses virtual and in person D technology recycling batch number 52 e approve new field trip sites for upcoming trips F Professional Services for students g board minutes of October 14 2024 H executive session board minutes from October 14th 2024 I professional service contract Edwards engineering J approved food service management contract and K Bill list of October 28th 2024 second any questions I uh I do have a question about Jay well two questions um what does it mean loss in guarantee pardon me so so usually there's two points that um boards appoint as when we uh renew a contract the first one is the management fee which is usually a flat cents per meal fee that the the company would get the second point that is negotiated is a uh loss a guaranteed loss I mean sorry a guaranteed profit so what each company is required to do is basically give us a pro fora of how they see the yearo expected income expected uh expenses and at the end they guarantee a certain profit level and if they don't hit that profit level there they have to make make up the difference so if you know the guaranteed profits 200,000 at the end of the year on the p&l the the the profits 150,000 they would owe the difference so then when um so then when the two that are bidding the two companies that are bidding uh have money there in the red and one does not so that means that they they're expecting a loss and that's how much going to owe the district yeah so the way I laid out the analysis because there is a difference in that management fee and a difference in the the guaranteed so I tried to give it you know some kind of reasonableness to that you can compare apples to apples so basically we had three um companies who submitted bids um one company um guaranteed 200,000 the the another company guaranteed 150,000 the third company actually as part of their standard bidding procedure does not offer guarantees at all which is why you see the management fee is lesser than the other two so what I tried to do is you know based on the number of meals that we served last year to kind of give you a sense of what that's worth and I think what you can tell is that the difference in the rates does not make up for the that the loss in the guarantee okay and then one more question um with the grading system how did who comes up with the grading like the numbers so I reviewed the I reviewed the um the rfps and I grade them so what we're required to do is actually come up with a matrix and we have to actually get that approved by the Department of Agriculture so you have to actually have to come up with that rubric if you will with the different categories how you're going to grade it and what percentage the whole basis of the competitive RFP process you have to go through it's not just a cost alone analysis so it's not like when we do a construction process it's a low bid so this is what they would say cost and other factors considering so you take in consideration their ability to you know to to provide um the technical aspect and also the managerial aspect of um what is required okay thank you just a followup to that so the profit so the district gets a profit from selling the food wait so what we do what happens is that there there is we can turn a couple mics off again a little back thank you um so what happens is that that the state wants you not to necessarily run it like a profit making organization uh but they don't want it to be running out a loss they don't want the general fund to be supporting the operations of uh the cafeteria so we've had a very good history where we've turned in about $250,000 a year in profit as a matter of course uh and what that has led to over the past couple years you know you've approved the bids we've take that money and we turn it back around into the program so if there is a profit we just can't take it and move it over to the general fund and buy widgets with it we have to reinvest it back into the program either in uh in equipment and I think what we'll be talking about very shortly because we spent about $1.7 million and CH Wells has done such a great job for us that we've invested about $1.7 million in equipment over the past couple of years so we're pretty much caught up we've had about six companies that came through to review our facilities and everyone came away bragging about how great everything looked and I had to remind them all we you invested a lot of money so thanks for that uh information um so the another thing that we can do which we'll be talking about is how we can take that fund balance if you want to reinvest it back into the quality of the food we produce so we'll be having that conversation shortly and is that if I'm remembering back from the budget we can only have a certain amount of dollars in there yes so you can only have they they look at um how much cash you have on hand and basically it's 3 months to take your total expenditures for a year and basically figure out how much you need for 3 months worth of expenditures and that's the limit that you can have in cash and it's it's been common for us for a long time to have that actually you know we've had too much and that's a common finding in a lot of school districts not just us thank you um I a question on you said quality of food aren't we getting the top quality already sure but there's always things that we can do to kind so be careful how I say this we charge $3 a meal right um and with that I mean not that we make a lot of money but there there's a small level of profit peral we just have very hungry kids who come in and they eat a lot that's what I tell people that's that's really the key to our you know financial success so what we can do is we can actually start looking at some other products that normally we don't sell what we put on there so just for example one of the things I was talking to Chartwells about was let's have a Stak day like that's not something that we've done in the past so when you have excess money what the state will say is what I just said to improve the quality of food and I will just tell you it's recorded so it's not on the download really what that means is selling meals at a loss you would have to put you know you know invest in the product and that the the cost of the food is going to be greater than what you're selling it for and that's how you work down your fund balance they never say it that way but that's exactly what they mean thank you Paul yeah no problem those were some good breadcrumbs Paul that means excellent questions everyone are there any other excellent questions hold the board please miss Drake yes Miss Lance yes Miss Murphy yes but abstain from 11 a line [Music] 25 thank you Miss boli yes Mr weeks yes Miss Patel yes Miss col yes yes Miss laruso yes um there's no need for a second exact session motion to adjourn