##VIDEO ID:uUT16-SbLuE## we're going to call the meeting to order the New Jersey open public meetings wall was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the Frankford Township Board of Education has caused advanced notice of this meeting and general agenda to be submitted for publishing in the official newspapers as well as district and municipal offices on May 17th 2024 this meeting may be recorded for subsequent public broadcast please rise for the flag I pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all roll call Mandy joust is here Caitlyn freedo here Kathleen Adam Jamie arand absent Chris Dexter here Charlene M Chelsea soul is absent John tiger here Jessie vaugh here okay put this far down on the agenda because there's not much to say about that stuff um Mrs Sadowski are you giving the student council update we wait should we wait a few minutes for we can if you I could read to go back to it okay so that brings us to uh Mr Newman's section intendent and principal yeah so we're off uh to a great start here in the new year um snow day update we still have only used break which is great we're holding steady uh so as of right now I guess our last day is scheduled for June 19th so hopefully no more snow and then um but my my other thing is uh January School Board recognition month so I'd like to read a few words about members here yeah yeah talk to us Mr all right so they should stand up so the New Jersey school boards Association has declared January 2025 to be school board recognition month the time when all residents can acknowledge the contributions made by our local school board members and the Frankfurt Township Board of Education is one of 581 local school boards in New Jersey which sets policies and overseas operations for public school districts and the Frankford Township Board of Education Embraces the goal of high quality education for all New Jersey public school students and New Jersey local school boards help determine the educational goals for approximately 1.4 million children in Pre kindergarten through 12th grade and New Jersey's 5,000 local school board members who receive no compensation for their services act as advocates for public school students as a work with administrators teachers and parents for the betterment of public education and school boards strive to provide the resources necessary to meet the needs of all students including those with special needs and Boards of Education provide accountability to the public they communicate the needs of the school district to the public and they convey the school administrators The public's expert expectations for the schools and New Jersey can take pride in its schools which rank among the nation's best in key achievement indicators now therefore it be resolved that the Frankford Township Board of Education does hereby recognize the services of local school board members throughout New Jersey As We join committees Statewide in observing January 2025 a school board recognition month and be it further resolved that the FR Frankfurt Township Board of Education urges all New Jersey citizens to work with their local Boards of education and public school staffs towards advancement of our children's education and I thought it would be nice to uh present each board member with a certificate for all their hard work so me too gets I only have wow thank you Mr ch am you're welcome just thank very much you're welcome there you go there you go thank you for everything thank you and that's [Applause] that was funny sweet you're entire and I'm done okay did you have an update Mr Sylvester we did have one did you get us a certificate or that memo we all know who our favorite um we did have one case of harassment intimidation and bullying in this month uh it was case number 24 25-3 uh that piece was unfounded um that's all I have to report great that brings us to the public comment section of I know you're all gonna get ice cream cake next night we did you see our meeting is on St Patrick's Day yeah may I won say it in public anybody want to sign up nobody going once going twice today great right so that brings us to our monthly activities and in February we have the kindergarten sing on the 5th the New Jersey State Police are going to um provide an assembly on ice safety grades 3 through 8 on the 6th um marking period two grades will be on Concourse on the 6th PTA meeting on the 11th schools closed on the 17th for President's Day our next Board of bed meeting is February 24th and then the seventh and eighth graders will enjoy their Winter Dance on the 28th policy and curriculum Dr mey I believe you have a yeah Dave and I are gonna share today great all right um [Music] so I thought you had it already all right sweet now I just C yep you got it all right so one book one Community you saw in the bullet do bulletin that registrations are due one book one Community if you're not familiar is the um all the regions it's High Point monu Sussex wfia and ourselves our Librarians get together we find a common book it's hard to choose one book we have multiple books to try to get all age groups involved um our Librarians uh bring it into the into their classrooms all across um all of the uh districts read it in the classrooms promote it in the classrooms and then we culminate with the young authors's conference young author's conference is Saturday March 8th here at fford school um registrations are on the bulletin but if you need more I can certainly get her copies for you I just wanted to update you that that was on its way coincides with um lover reading is that a Spirit Week usually love of reading week is a spirit week one coming up don't worry February good yes don't worry we'll make it easy we try our hardest to make it as easy as possible yeah and if you don't have it at home don't we're Frankford Guard we're good all right so we just wanted to up youate you we're halfway through the year you know that we are on a dip for curriculum and uh or for our test scores so just wanted to update you on the progress that we're doing uh we're continuing to show growth at our updated score we're up a point so a point counts so we are growing within six months um of our qac review so go us and hopefully will be more than one point Come test scores in May so we are doing our um we're doing our part here and kids are working hard teachers are working hard um just some new graphs that were shared with me from a uh a curriculum uh colleague of mine um and what's really really nice to see the growth that we're having over time so of course orange was our dip in 21 it was the first year back after Co but we are on a steady climb to where we were in the past it's just taking some time to get there um so we will certainly get there but we are on a steady climb up in back to where we were preco time cool back one what is that orange to the left that's the state the state oh the state average all right nice so we're growing we're growing and then this is just our uh local comparison of the three uh k38 sending districts that we have here in the county so you can see how we're growing um as far as a region is concerned and where we're at so that's good news all right and these uh scores that you're looking at are level four and five so it's our students who are U meeting expectations or exceeding expectations in one combined cohort and this hits our qac right so like Sussex wage was going down so that affects their qac yep all of us there everybody in the county who was in qac last year there were seven of us and all seven of us are on a dip for test so all right so we're continuing to do this I um created some heat maps of the New Jersey SLA data to review with all of our uh English and math teachers in grades 3 through eight we're taking those heat maps and we're looking at the places where we scored um in a three and below and we're really identifying ways to uh what are we doing in our classrooms that we're not meeting the standards in there so we're really talking about very specific standards with inside of the njsla data we're looking at um njsla released prompts that we have and infusing those in the classroom sometimes a test question doesn't look the same as it does on a test worksheet or something that you're doing in class so we're making sure that the language that we're using in our classrooms and the prompts that we're giving to our students are something that they can still have access to because sometimes what happens on in a test is they get a question that looks different and they don't know how to access it so at this point we give them those changed questions that look a little bit different and they go ah of course we know how to do this so hopefully with this we'll show some um growth over time we're meeting weekly I'm meeting with teams weekly um to work on this sort of thing doing the performance expectations performance expectations are the rubric of expectation for math English and science so it'll tell you exactly what you need to do to perform at a level so we're bringing that back into the classroom making sure that's nearing our standards based report card as well as what were expected for grades at the middle school end right we should have the same expectations um sharing sample products we're looking at Benchmark data from ourl and MIM Maxs making sure that our students are on track we started our RTI after schooling after school tutoring which is in addition to our period 10 after school tutoring and I already mentioned that we're looking at the PD I've done some PD with multiple grade levels and I have high month of February's books professional development for staff I'm not sure I have time to breathe after PD but I love that sort of stuff so um if the RTI after school is that driven by a teacher asking or letting the parent know they feel they need more help or the parent asks for if you qualify for RTI services in grades two three and four we invite those students to our after school RTI tutoring just because the number of student the number of teachers that we have to do that and the funding comes from Title One is small so we limit it to our group oh so the next portion of this presentation is our chronic absenteeism corrective action plan um chronic absenteeism is when a student is absent for more than 10% of the year which is a collective 18 days um the state then deems this student chronically absent and then if more than 10% of our student body is deemed chronically absent the state requires a corrective action plan and that is what we are presenting here tonight is our corrective action plan because we are just over that 10% bubble um to give you an idea hold on 10% of our students were out 18 days last year yes 50 kids yeah it's actually 10.1 um so in 2022 23 we actually were at 10.5% of our student population was chronically absent again meaning more than 18 days um and I want something that is important to note here is this is excused and unexcused the state does not delineate between excused or unexcused if you're absent you're absent so obviously there are instances when which we have to discuss all right there's medical issues there's family issues whatever it may be and we understand that because we are obviously working here in the community the state doesn't see that in terms of numbers right so they are just you're absent um so like I said in 22 23 we had an average of about 10.5 the next year 23 24 we are at 10.1 um and I must say comparatively across our County and really across the state 10.1 is not bad it's it's it's really good um coming from uh a district or really yeah a district that would have seen numbers in the 30s and the 40s um 10.1 is like wow we're doing something right um but that 0.1 makes us have to do this plan yes that 01 makes us have to do this plan and that's important to note too is even just following with what we've been doing postco we are seeing a dramatic decrease in our students who are chronically absent um and if we just were to do nothing outside of this corrective action plan or what we had been doing in the past the trend would show that we would be below this corrective action plan come next year do do you look at from year to year to the same students is there are there trends like that yeah we'll get there sorry it's all right um so a part of this corrective action plan was a survey we had to survey our community to see what they felt or how they felt about School attendance um some sample questions that we asked do you think attending school regularly is important for your child helps or hurts your child from going to school do you receive information from school regarding attendance if so what that survey was sent out to the community and we had 139 replies um this was representative was a little low but uh this is representative of families from all grade levels thankfully um who were represented and responding households ranged from one student to multi- student families uh the summary of these survey results the question of do you think school is important 94% of our student body thought that yes school was extremely important we are going to work on getting that 6% to understand that yes coming to school is important and it is valuable but that is part of our corrective action plan uh what helps you get your child to school buses teachers friends activities that was all pretty Comm what makes it hard to get your school sick experience schedule waking up I'm sure we're all aware of that those were the commonalities we saw with those questions and then School communication about attendance 97% of our family State we effectively communicate when a student is absent 6% of families State they do not need to communicate as their students attend regularly 14% of families are unsure of who or how to contact or communicate within regards to absences or difficulties and that is n the number that we really kind of focus on when we looked at this corrective action plan for 14% to us of people saying yeah I don't know who to call or what to call or how to call is something that maybe we can improve upon um 80% of our families know who to contact and how in regards to absence and difficulties again that is a number we feel we can improve upon all our families should know that they should be able to reach out to either office my office Mr Newman's office the guidance counselors that if they are having difficulties getting their child to school those are outreaches that they can have um um so some of those Reflections we do a great job communicating the importance of school if 94% of our community agrees uh we have a great staff and a diversity of activities that draw our students into the building um I think that's incredible uh kids aren't having fun they're not going to want to come to school so I think we really do and like I said sitting at 10.1 collectively around the community we're doing a great job and that's a testament to what our staff brings to the table every day and allowing those kids to have some fun um where we can improve is our communication about to families about who or how to contact if they are experiencing difficulties like I said that number was a little like H I wonder if maybe they didn't understand the question because it seems a little low but if they're saying that it's something we need to improve upon does that just mean when you call and say my child will be absent today she's that's why there might be a little uh question delineation um that could be that it could be that's what it was meant to be I think there were some instances of parents saying well I'm having a really hard time getting Johnny to school because Johnny might be dealing with something social emotionally who do I talk to about that and if that's the instance that was again a great piece of information because now we need to get that message out hey if you know your kid's just having some social emotional issues trying to get to school let us know here's who how you can let us know so we can help you overcome that obstacle um so we did calculate over these last two years um students to monitor so students from 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024 we have 30 students who we are currently monitoring K to8 based on Trends from the previous two years as of now we currently have 17 out of 482 students who are approaching the chronically absent Mark which is about 3.5% of our student body again pretty good numbers for the middle of January um that is and how I calculated that was I went through all of the attendance data for all of our students and anybody who had nine or more absences excused or unexcused fell into that quoti of their trending towards being chronically absent and again sitting at 17 out of 482 it's pretty good that's 3.6 um sitting on that Trend if we were to continue to Trend we'd have 7 2% of our student body chronically absent for the year which would again put us below this this cap these are just the students we are monitoring there's no identifying information um inventory of of current strategies so what we are doing now and again like I said what we continue to do we use the attendance line attendance is taken in the morning Home Room by 8:40 we then cross reference that information with the attendance line and call home if the student is absent and not accounted for at five absences excused or unexcused a letter is mailed home then at 10: then at 15 and so on at 15 notification of treny is discussed per state law um after this a meeting will be held or can be held that includes Administration CST the guidance counselor and the family to discuss attendance issues and how we can work together to successfully attend school we put together quote unquote attendance contracts if you will where we sit down with families and say hey you know what can we do how can we mitigate whether it's stress whether it's social emotional whether it's mental health whether it's issues within the building how can we work out a system so that everybody wins that we get the student in the building and that this student can succeed and slowly grow over time to coming back full-time um if the plan is not followed treny charges can and will be filed if if it continues the discussion of R of retention is had for our student handbook and our code of conduct all that um areas we are currently working on and have been in the past that have been successful we are always working to did I go ahead yep um we are always working towards hold on no yeah always working to reduce our percentage uh developing clearer forms of communication in accountability um that's essentially what these say right uh areas of improvement reduce the number of students who are chronically absent to under 10% develop a clearer way of communication a more efficient manner of identifying better systems of accountability those are things that we have been doing in the past and will continue to do as they show that they are trending or getting our numbers to Trend down um some other things in which we are working towards and have been in the past that we deem successful monitoring absentee is a monthly to identify students um we meet with grade levels to discuss students in danger and how to communicate these dangers with these families um this happens in our grade level team meetings um I can't say I've ever been in a team meeting where a student wasn't absent for two days and the staff members aren't saying hey Johnny hasn't been in here two days can you give a call home I'll call home typically the conversation is yeah he's got the flu that just destroyed our seventh grade um so I made a lot of those phone calls um but we TR try to keep some form of open lines of communication and I think kind of that community outreach has really helped keep those numbers in check some things and new areas that we are working on and hope to improve that Community feedback I think was extremely helpful we're going to be working on ways to better communicate if your child is struggling for an area outside of sickness Mount heal social emotional whatever it may be we need to do a better job communicating who they can count uh reach out to and how we can be of service to help them get back in the building um family based attendance meetings to bring in all stakeholders to ensure accountability um I think those are crucial there's something that worked in my previous district and I've uh have set them up last year in my brief time here um and it really did help uh bringing everybody in getting everybody on the same page and making sure we were working through this together um and then stud student accountability mentors um this is something new that Dr mey brought in that I think was a tremendous idea uh we're going to have trusted staff members that will lend messages of support to students struggling to attend school um just kind of that accountability person they have them social media influencers have them all the time right you have a workout partner hey did you get to the gym today did you do this today kind of setting that up within the school a trusted staff member somebody the student likes that somebody TR somebody the student trust just to send out an email um maybe maybe they do the phone call home just to kind of give them that vote of confidence hey I'm here for you we need to see you in the school let's work together so that we can get everybody in here um and those are strategies that we are working towards addressing our chronic absenteeism problem last but not least for me our biannual Hib report so July to December of 20 24 25 what have you the number of Investigations we have completed since that time is two the number of cases found two and our toal trainings completed so far as one that's all I got n thank you job okay so then we have um Mr lard do you want to give us an update on the audit the sewer project and the L rig the lri local Recreation that's the uh just going in order the AIT we received the audit report uh this past week which I forwarded to all board members on Friday uh there were no findings of recommendations another clean audit um just in summary um most exciting report to read uh we have $90,000 going towards excess Surplus uh our fund balances are I should say our Reserve balances are 397 wait correct page 466 765 which is capital reserve which we used about 80% of that towards the roof project we're using another bit towards the sewer project maintenance Reserve was 153,000 and our regular Surplus is $250,000 but as I said no findings of recommendations so there's a resolution on there to approve it soes anyone have any questions on the audit or the process or that stuff how much was in the maintenance Reserve maintenance Reserve was again 153 506 uh sewer project so we have a meeting scheduled for February 7th uh Mayors will be there we have the engineer from Branchville is going to be there as well as the engineer from kleinfelder and uh the MUA uh this will be our first real meeting to kind of discuss the logistics right now the only thing that's up in the air is I'm trying to uh nailed down the contract details that kleinfelder said to us so they initially sent us a proposal we approved it sent it to them and then literally at the beginning of last week they sent me the terms and conditions which had a lot of limitations on uh their liability side which neither the insurance broker nor the attorney felt were very good like they not that there this is just a feasibility study so it's not likely a lot of issues to up but this turns into a bigger project they were limiting their liability to $50,000 which would quickly get wiped out if something did happen so we're still working on that language that's the only thing that's up in the air uh and I hope to have that resolved by tomorrow or Wednesday if I can so um that is the update but otherwise everything's moving forward um fingers cross it go smoothly uh long range I'm sorry not long range local Recreation Improvement Grant so we're applying for $70,000 to uh regrade uh the baseball the ball fields um not necessarily the soccer field because we're looking at that's probably going to get torn up a little bit when we do the sewer project so that's going to get minimally updated but the baseball and softball fields will get some regrading to help with drainage most specifically the softball field by the lower by the shed uh cuz that one gets uh all of the runoff from the roof drains and everything hits that area plus way back in the day that used to actually be a pond so trying to fix the SES and make sure the water flows better so anyhow uh fingers crossed we received $70,000 last year that paid for all the new fencing for the back stops as well as the player benches so hopefully it goes well again this year and we're already looking forward to next year if we get improve this time around as well um so this is an annual grant that we as long as are offering it will be apply this is the same 70,000 we use for the back stop right yes yes correctly so annually I don't know how many years they've been approving it but this is our second time applying and you have to use it that year you have you have to for this specific project but they give you about I think two years to actually get all the work done for the grant so specific project yeah correct so last year we tried to I wanted to have the basketball hoops and all of that replaced but so you can apply for up to 100,000 but it seems like the sweet spot that they mostly approve is around the 70 to $75,000 range unless you've got a really good project and you've got seems to the bigger awards are usually given when you have a lot more matching funds going into it as well right so they give you a larger chunk at least that's what it's looked like looking at reviewing compl applications uh Department of Community Affairs not sure where forget theal partially that is my update yes I just want to commend uh Mr lard and the business office for no recommendations on the audit that's huge um so well done keep up the good work um could you print him a certificate don't let the suspense bill must in his office Mr Sylvester Dr mey thank you for your reports and your hard work um you know into those presentations all all great stuff and no I think it's imperative that you know we can continue on the right track and continue to move forward positively great um so next is Personnel but that do we need to is Danny here she didn't come would you like to give her a report sure so we have on the docket four student council um we held our first parents night out on December 9th for grades Ked to it went very well we had about 40 students um and the student council members did crafts and had some fun with the younger students they were like oh at the end they were like oh my gosh they're exhausting yeah the winter pep rally was on December 16th the bombers cheer team did a number of fantastic cheers stunts and dances and really motivated the audience the bombers wrestling team girls and boys basketball team and their coaches were celebrated Buford showed up to further motivate the crowd Mr Sylvester was our MC and did a fabulous job Mr Aron played the music the energy in the gym was contagious and the rally was successful upcoming events to celebrate the 100th day of school we will work in conjunction with the weekend bag program to collect 100 items um over 100 items for their 100th day of hygiene collection fundraiser Flyers will be going out this week to each student in the School labeling the items needed examples toothbrushes toothpaste bar soap deodorant shampoo conditioner um and then each grade has a different item that they can bring in the theme is to purchase the items listed on the flyer by spending no more than $1 or 100 pennies for each item um there will be ex this will be extra exciting because the school who collects the most items will receive a traveling trophy the name of the school is engraved on the trophy and the winning School keeps the trophy until the next year's 100 day fundraiser this activity will begin very soon the Winter Dance is septe uh February 28 on a Friday night for grades seven and eight they chose the theme Winter Wonderland um and it will be decorated in blue white and silver we have a movie night that we're putting together for K to 2 we're going to ask the teachers to ask the children like what they would like and then we'll have them vote on what they would like to see um we have activity nights for third and fourth and fifth and sixth and we're bringing back class night for five six and seven and eight oh for the spring and they were also talking about possibly hosting a father daugh dance because pep does the younger grades so they wanted one to maybe five and six um so that's what we're talking about also and that's it that's all we have right now good thank you thank you movie night sounds good lot of good uh can I just actually publicly say thank you to the student council madowski and Tory Vance uh if you guys saw project self-sufficiency wrote the town and the community a tremendous letter thanking them for their stock the stucking stuff St stocking um we were there susex County Allstar and that was a tremendous job the student council did was that her DSP Pro that's awesome in conjunction with the student council so and mski did a great job thank you [Applause] very and we're going into ex motion we almost at 20 35 okay so the following items are matters of routine business and will be voted on by one motion um resolve that the Frankfurt Township Board of Education accept the recommendation of the superintendent of schools to approve the above identified regular agenda items number 20251 27-03 through 202 51 27-3 Char yes motion motion second Oh I thought we were just blanketing your motion second Charlene molar yes Donn tiger yes Jesse Vaughn yes Chris Dexter yes he ad yes Kaitlyn fro yes Mandy J yes motion to open public comment second anyone have a comment from the public Last Chance CL wait I do I actually do have something to say you guys were were going over the thing with the absente and you had prek up there if prek isn't required from the state because that seems to be your highest numbers of absentees why should that affect your average it doesn't so that 10.5 is is only coming from K to 8 so if I so you had them up there but that wasn't included information y Just for information so it says average for K to8 10.5 average for prek to 8 was 12 okay so and then yeah it's just there for to get what the state looks at and then our whole school as a as a whole kindergarten isn't even mandated right it's not mandated but still counts PRK doesn't count in our chronic motion to close public all up there okay so now we're at other items in good of the order our next Board of bed meeting will be February 24th um board members you have to do your Ann annual School ethics disclosure so emails were sent out today and and for ease purpose I sent you last year saw copy paste will help should it only take you about five minutes uh more they get it done sooner phone calls I have to do in May or April so and then just one thing um if you don't have an eighth grader and you want to shop R the e8th grade dance it's on May 31st and you can get in touch with the PTA to just make sure that you're on the list if you have a little bit of time spun last year um or volunteer year significant other violation um anything else guys anyone else no motion to close second we adjourned