okay calling the meia to order Board of Education September 26th uh at 635 roll call Mr grippo Mr Hopkins Dr Hopkins Excuse Me Miss inosencio Mr Jackson here miss Court here miss Maris here Mr Parker Mr Shaban here and Miss
sing you have a corn great thanks oh I don't know she's probably getting a picture she'll be here any minute and then Dennis told me that he's running just a few minutes lat so he'll be here soon so we we adjourn now I'll do the open public okay open public meetings act can you read that uh Miss Lort oh check this
out in accordance with the thank you in accordance with the open public meetings act uh PL 1975 chapter 231 Sunshine Law copies of the public meeting notice were sent to The Courier News the home News Tribune The Star Ledger the Franklin reporter tap into Franklin Township Franklin Township Clerk manager district schools offices associations PTO presidents and posted on
the district website thanks next time next time we're going to cover it um I'll entertain a motion to adjourn to confidential session for the purpose of discussing confidential matters including Personnel matters minutes of the confid session will be made public when the reason for confidentiality no longer exists moved by Nancy second second seconded by Lori uh so moved so we shall move and come back later okay we are back from confidential session so do we
do another call of aliance okay uh Pledge of Allegiance Erica can you lead us to the flag of the United States of America to the repic it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you so much Mr grippo can you read the mission statement
sure so the mission of the Franklin Township Public Schools Embraces its diversity we Foster excellent educational Innovation and Empower all of our students to to achieve their Highest Potential great thank you so much I'll entertain a motion to adopt the agenda
so moved moved by Bill second second by Erica I I'd like to amend that to wave um the reading of the minutes and um move everything except for P2 motion to amend amend yes can I hear anybody that would like to move that I'll move that to amend so second Dennis thank you so
much wel call Mr grippo yes Dr Hopkins yes Miss noia yes thanks Nancy Mr Jackson yes Miss Lort yes yes yes great and we have our amazing student liaison here miss Vanessa Marino uh
to give us her student representative report this floor is yours my name is Vanessa Marino and I'm one of the student government Boe liazon and here are some of the things going on at FHS the senior class is getting ready for early events of the year including their pre football game event on the 27th and homecoming the student government will be running another candidate for NJ ASC for State office auditions for The Fall production almost main directed by Miss
Martinez and assistant directed by Miss rad began on September 12th bized classes are wearing pink to support breast cancer awareness on Tuesday October 1st and Wednesday October second freshmen will be electing representatives for their class Council the school store is now open and will be hosting a breast cancer awareness fundraiser pre-order a pink Warrior tea for only $10 FBA is
hosting a book drive from now until October 25th and finally Club Rush will be running on September 26th and 27th with clubs looking to attract new members thank you so much and you're always welcome here we will now be recognizing the Franklin Township Warrior education fund and some of our staff and to do that will be Miss
Clark first sorry tonight's first presentation pertains to the Franklin Township Warrior Education Foundation established in 2019 the foundation seeks to support the educators of the district through the award of teacher grants application are sought in the fall and awarded in the winter with most projects completed that spring here are some of the highlights of the awards given to our
Educators by the foundation last year I will be commenting on the projects but it was the staff members who applied for and received the grants who shared the photos and thoughts about their projects if there is anyone here from Claremont Elementary who would like to speak about their project please come to the podium I'll go back you can go hi everyone my
name is Courtney Elm I'm a first grade teacher at Claremont Elementary and last year we created using the Franklin Foundation Grant a class cookbook one of the our biggest keys in celebrating diversity and becoming one uh all of my students submitted a cook a recipe along with their family along with pictures to creating a class cookbook we then printed the cookbooks each of the students got to take one home and we added one to our classroom Library
as well as our school library as well oh your phone all right so now we're going to go back to Courtney do you have a uh uh Italian recipe in there the CES book buddies project was submit submitted by Megan Morris the goal of this project
was to celebrate the partnership between our prek and third grade classes by providing each child with free books our classes worked together numerous times for learning experiences as a culminating activity we invited parents of each class into the building to read with the prek and third grade buddies so they could see firsthand the relationship the kids had formed throughout the year we also received a fast Grant through the ftea which allowed us to host a parent breakfast
and to invite a local author to present to the kids the Claremont Elementary School autism sensory garden Lisa monito Mani of Claremont Elementary School shared photos of of their autism sensory garden where the grant was used to buy gardening supplies staff members created sensory boards for students to explore music and art the students also learned how to
plant seeds and they learned to care for their growing plants we learned about the cookbook now on to Elizabeth Avenue Shaya pona is a teacher at EAS who with the help of the foundation Grant funds and some Franklin High School volunteers saw her students launch rockets at Targets the students were able to explore the engineering design process by testing their rockets and making
adjustments to get them just right this project was featured at the EAS steam night which celebrates science technology engineering art and math Franklin pork School reader of the month Tanya oi sought funds with her Grant application to enhance the Franklin Park reader of the month program each month students were chosen from each Home Room class based upon effort Improvement attitude or best reader each child's picture was taken and
featured on the wall of readers the students were also awarded a bookmark a certificate of achievement a medal and one book of their choice Nicole janito provided information on the Franklin Park stem exploration day where a third grade students worked alongside FHS warriors on the robotics team to design and build a roller coaster for pingpong
balls Susan Spelman Spielman provided information about the sustainable Jersey junior team at McAfee Road school this grant supported our sjj club with their continued effort from last year to plant a garden in our school Courtyard this year we bought garden supplies including shovels rakes towels landscaping fabric watering cans and gardening gloves we used all of these supplies during our planting party this
past May during the planting parties families planted new plants in our Courtyard Garden this G Courtyard space benefits all of our students providing them with an additional outdoor space to meet as a class and to give them a beautiful garden View from their classrooms the garden itself was a great opportunity for students and Guardians to get involved with the beautification of our school grounds and to learn about gardening and here is their fin final
result that same teacher was also involved in the McAfee Road School Battle of the books this grant was used to purchase books for the battle of the books an event that was held for the second year this year past year books were given to student teams participating in the reading competition the school Community benefited from this event as as it encourages students to read for fun students had a great time reading and competing in the trivia battle from Pine
Grove matter Chris Christen Calhoun used her grant money to provide Hands-On opportunities for PGM students at their steam night she says we were able to get kicks to make Vortex cannons the students also used Crayola Model Magic PGM students and their families loved exploring the different stations and creating all night the activities at our stations would not have been possible
without the grant said Miss Cal Calon Franklin Middle School Katherine young is a veteran me member of the restorative practices team at the Hamilton Street campus of Franklin Middle School she uses her grant money from the foundation to purchase talking pieces for each teacher at HSC these small objects signify the speaker in a community building Circle as Miz young says these circles assist in
fostering an environment where students take ownership of their learning we expect to be recognizing the work of our restorative practices team at an upcoming Boe meeting Melissa Langan school counselor at the Hamilton Street campus sort Foundation Grant funds to purchase res ources which enhance their calming cool down space the fidgets posters and other resources contribute to social emotional learning
activities Lizette oris's Lizette oris's big colorful imagination project allowed students to create projects which were brought to life using the color laser printer and cry cut equipment these projects included logo stickers and all about me posters Arisa banam use the foundation Grant
funds to support the HSC anime and manga Club allowing her students to take home incredible projects such as paintings both black and white and color sketches origami art calligraphy writings completed color pages glass paintings Magna novel reading knowledge and a love for learning Japanese Megan Nadu from the Hamilton Street campus used the grant funds
to obtain paint brushes paint and canvas panels for the students in the still life painting projects she says they learned about color theory and applied those skills to create a still life painting the project was very successful most of the students brought their artwork to be framed the remaining few paintings that were left behind were displayed in the cafeteria of HSC Middle School campus zaka Bashi is here today and
she's going to speak about the Franklin High School Global Warrior Project good evening everybody so I'm Zakia Basha and I'm a high school history teacher and the Franklin Foundation Grant made it possible for us to to launch the global Warrior Project and the funds were used to purchase a digital subscription for our students for the New York
Times upfront which is a online magazine designed especially for high school students to stay informed about current issues um the resources um are there's just a wealth of resources it comes with everything from articles to discussion questions critical thinking quizzes and and a lot more and um this is really beneficial for our students in order to uh promote global citizenship in our classrooms we also are in the process
of launching a second phase of the global Warrior Project thanks to the foundation Grant um we are currently working with um Dr Solomon and the history Department in order to um promote global citizenship throughout the whole school um so we're currently um working to see which platforms we can use to not only um make sure that our um students stay informed in the classroom but just as a school as well so um you know we um it's
a it's a work that we hope to keep going um because it's you know uh really important for our students to have you know um these these skills to stand forth thank you so on behalf of all the grant recipients we would like to say thank you to the Franklin Township Warrior Education Foundation uh a few members of the foundation are here today but I would like to invite Miss Charlotte wezner
to come up and say a few words about the foundation and then greet the Board of Education accept a certificate of appreciation for the foundation's generosity thank you Mary for that wonderful presentation putting all that together and thank you for everyone that came out to present for our our grants as well um Board of Education members Dr ravali and all the uh School administrators here thank you for giving us the opportunity uh to present the progress that we've had with the
foundation um present tonight is Ellen Ren um a retired teacher who was awarded a grant under our original program many many years ago um and is now a trustee of the foundation so you can see that the these grants are always giving back um there's several other people I know Lori um fredin is here she's our our secretary so thank you so much for doing that job for us as well um I've had the honor of representing all the members of the foundation um as chair and I thank
all of them for their support Dr ravali Ellen Ren uh Lori um Corey con um Nick Solomon Mary of course thank you so much um ktina Jackson uh Nina Jordan Nancy Lort um uh Linda Derby Eric seagull Dan Mayor John Felix Ed pasas pasnik sorry um and Lee Schneider and many other people who have been helpful with getting this organization going um as
a former assistant superintendent here for 38 years in Franklin um I kind of understand uh how important it is to encourage our teachers to create the new projects to stimulate uh students learning and to stimulate um thinking and by taking the additional time that they had to do do this to create and implement the uh in Innovative uh projects to inspire and supplement the curriculum our fabulous teachers have shown how these grants
will really help our students uh connect and expand their knowledge and thanks to all who came tonight and thank you for highlighting little it Mary for us um to give us a an overview of everything that we've done from the very beginning uh restarting the foundation under Mrs uh Phyllis Bruno she started this uh re well reinitiated it from years ago um it's been my honor to be continued as the uh chair for past couple of years
um I thank you for your support in our fundraising especially the successful golf outings that we've had and we've all been enjoyed being out there and and having a good time uh but your donations have really made an impact a lasting impact on our students and their future lives um we've had the privilege to expand our Awards um in 20 2122 we gave 10 grants out for a total of $4,700 which increased to 14
grants in 2022 23 um giving $6,200 and now this year 20232 24 we have awarded 20 grants uh giving $9,400 um throughout the three years we have total 44 grants and have shared $20,400 with our our students um this has only been possible through the tax donation um the tax deductible donations which you have given us as
as donors and um and supporting us with with all of our our issues um we ask you all to look at the uh website that we have um ftwe f.org um a wonderful website that has our mission our events um the grants um Grant applications and ways to donate um so we value your continued support we salute our wonderful and creative teachers who are putting forth the Franklin students first thank you so
much everybody has to sh take a picture thank you so much are we this this this is different right taking a picture this
time Educational Foundation this is it Mary this one yes
two
good all righty oh that could be a little darker uh if I just
may take a minute I wanted to thank the foundation members I want to thank the teachers for uh doing the extra to put the work in to apply for the grant I want to thank the foundation members uh they give up their time I mean these some are retired Educators others have full-time employment in other places um but everybody comes together for a common cause I think what sometimes folks lose sight of is you know a school
budget is a finite thing and uh much of what we approve every year is already allocated and spoken for leaves very little room in all honesty for creativity amongst the staff but that creativity is what excites kids and is what helps us to connect content to real world application and the foundation and all of our
support groups for that fact you know we have a wonderful booster Association we have a wonderful PTO Association and everybody in their own way supports all the additional costs and additional programming but this one particular group focuses on creativity and and teach creativity and fostering and encouraging teachers to think outside the box and do different kinds of things with their kids that otherwise we wouldn't
be able to do so uh kudos to you folks for giving of your time it's appreciated kudos to everybody who supports the foundation because it's your support that helps to Foster that creativity and the more grants we're able to give out the foundation I should say the more grants the foundation is able to give out um the more teachers will be encouraged to step out of the box and then the better experiences our kids will
have so uh Shameless plug but uh if you're looking to donate money to a cause one of our support groups I'm sure would be more than happy to help you out whether it be boosters PTO and of course the foundation and you can see the fruits of um your work or where your money might be going in some of the wonderful projects that our teachers are doing with our kids so thanks and that's it I
just wanted to say thanks again to the foundation you guys are doing a great job yes thank you Dr the floor recognizes Nancy L cour can I just um it's ft Warrior ef.com and there is a donation page there which is really important to help fund all of these incredible out of thebox um ideas that it's sometimes it's um who's more excited the teachers coming
up with the ideas or the kids that are going to have the opportunity to take advantage of it so um there's one big event a year and that's the golf outing but you feel free to donate any time um throughout the course of the year you know November would be a really great time to donate so but thank you to the teachers that that are so creative it's really appreciated yeah than thank you so much I Echo the statements and I was glad to see my old classmate zakiya
up here doing her thing so and and theer so thank you so much Mary okay tonight's second presentation focuses on celebrating a few of our staff members who were recognized by groups Outside The District in the 2324 school year Dr Wendy BAU was named the New Jersey school counsel Association was named by the New Jersey school counselor Association as the school counselor of the year for Somerset County Dr BAU has been a
counselor in our district for 14 years and has served our FHS students and their families well next as an instructional tech technology coach with Franklin Township Public Schools Ted Samara serves as a resource for our staff members as well as providing assistance to students and their amilies when necessary as a NASA solar system Ambassador Ted samaris has been able to tie together some of his passions technology space learning and working
with people Mr samaris has been with the district for 18 years and was instrumental in coordinating the solar eclipse program for our students last year finally congratulations to FHS teacher Rose Roselle H Gordon on earning the regional computer science teaching Excellence award from the computer science Teachers Association Miss Gordon could not be with us this evening but she has been an educator with the district for 22 years I will make
sure she receives her certificate so she will know that that her accomplishment has made us all proud I'd now like to ask Dr BAU and Mr samaris who are here with us to come up and greet the board and take that photo okay
that's all right
okay next up we have a presentation welcome to the 2023 2024 jump
the gun he's jumping the gun next up we have a presentation by none other than Dr logren our assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction on the njsla student achievement data so uh thank you very much I've recorded a screencast that will be on the website maybe tonight but certainly by tomorrow um as well as the uh PowerPoint that goes with it so we're going to hit play in just a moment we'll dim the lights a little bit and then we'll
take whatever questions we have for discussion welcome to the 2023 2024 student achievement presentation I'm Dan lockran assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction before I show you these slides it's important to notice that this is a snapshot of the data we collect to help guide our Collective and individual decision making and it's important to know that when we make those plans and we uh formulate our targeted differentiation strategies
our staff is working very hard to help our students maximize opportunities I want to first show you our I ready internal assessments our kindergarten students last winter started off um in the mid above and early on grade levels at about 56% and then by
Springtime uh it was 77% with approximately 23% one grade level below which is a pretty good start that pattern holds true for all of our grade levels where you do want to see green getting larger and red getting smaller from from beginning of year to the end and that's what we see in grades 1 through 5 and it's really what we see for all of our students by the end of the year
that they are making not only typical growth but in our case in our district uh virtually every student is making more than typical growth whereas 100% would be you know typical growth approximately a grade level but 1.42 you know 142% means it's almost 1 and 1/2 times that which is great and this slide similar to the last one um by race um indicates whether
a family uh student in a family identifies as Hispanic or Latino so there's our overall scores Yes means that the student does identify as Hispanic or Latino and no means that the student does not identify as Hispanic or Latino in the past 3 years you can see in ela um we've slightly increased our mid or above grade level we've decreased the grade levels below for
our njsla that's our state assessment we have five levels the goal is to be in levels four and five level three means you're close to that but not there yet and levels one and two mean you're a bit farther away from that and we need to work to to help all students EV eventually be in that four and five range so this chart shows our test takers from last spring in English language arts
grade three 4 5 6 7 8 and N each column uh works this way District on the left State percentage on the right so that's District percentage of students who uh in this case in this column are level one this is level two here's level three here is level four here's level five and this column these two columns
on the end represent the combined four and five again the goal District versus state so this is grade three 38.6 compared to the state at 43 about a five point gap this is grade four it's about five point gap this is grade five it's about 2 and 1/2 point gap in grade six we see a significant Gap that's about a 19point gap which I'll speak about in just a moment
this is grade seven which is a slightly smaller Gap but still a large gap about 16% 15 and A2 and this is grade eight where the Gap is smaller still and then this is grade nine where again the Gap is large and even though this is one particular year actually this pattern has held up in recent years um and it's something that concerns us because if you think about grades three four and five students in
their home schools are sort of um you know demonstrating Mastery over time and doing pretty well by the time they're in grade five but when they come to grade six there is that transition to a new school different expectations um and we see a larger Gap there but which has also been true in years is when the sixth graders move to grade seven we typically see some improvement so you know even though again this is in the same year this pattern holds up uh for our seventh
grader so this Gap right here which is 155% actually was larger last year was about 21% um and then the same thing here grade eight it's only 6 point aport compared to what was a larger gap for this group in the previous year right here grade nine again we see a a gap that's large and that's when the students move to grade nine in the high school and so again uh adjustments are being made and
that's something that we're studying this chart just depicts what I just showed you in a different format so if you want to rewatch this or hit pause and again look at that more closely it's the same information presented differently this is presented by different um demographics subgroup special ed special education multilingual Learners economically disadvantaged and this is by race Asian Pacific Islander black or
African-American Hispanic or Latino white two or more races so again these are percentages of levels four and five and so again looking at our total approximately 64% of our students are either proficient or approaching proficiency 36% are not yet proficient compared to recent years um it's a slight uptick this year
compared to last year U approximately about 1.2% uh overall improved compared to last year the year before that so we're doing various um interventions at the K5 level we're looking to take more advantage of our new uh literacy program this was our first year using Benchmark Advance um we're also Now using adalante this year for the first time which is helpful for our bilingual multilingual Learners
um and also many other Benchmark Advan related as well as I ready uh related supports in grades 6 through 12 as I pointed out we're really looking at those Transitions and we're concerned with when a student moves from 5 to six or from 8 to 9 what can we do to help our students um perform you know um in more aligned fashion with their
grade level peers across the state so how are we doing that vertical articulation item analysis and we're targeting skills through intervention so this is our math data again our kindergarten students from the winter to the spring you want to see green getting larger and you do you see that pattern here in grades 1 2 3 four and five you'll also see that
um positive outcome by the springtime uh for all demographic groups in terms of race um even here um 95% of growth and we talked about that with the ELA 100 is the expected percentage um all but one of our groups met that and we're taking a look to see you know if we can determine how we can get um our American Indian or Alaskan native students
to you know be right on par with with all students again this is all of our data for math um this row represents students who identify as Hispanic or Latino and this bar this row represents those who do do not again with math similar to ELA over the past 3 years we've slightly
increased in ela sorry in math on already and now we're going to look at our state assessment for math grades three through high school so when you're talking about math you have grades three 4 5 6 7 8 math Algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 but this information at the bottom of the slide points out that at grade seven uh many students across the state
including ours take uh Algebra 1 and also um geometry in grade eight which is true for us so our geometry scores and our algebra scores actually have seventh and eth graders included with high school students in those scores but also in grade seven and grade eight scores we don't have the students who took those Assessments in those scores so I'll show that over here when you look at level four and five combined here's grade
three it's about 10% cap grade four about 5% here's grade five about 7% similar pattern to ELA and then here's the grade six you know jump where we see a significant Gap so we're studying that trying to improve on that but that's grade six this is grade seven when the students take different assessments that this
number does not include Algebra 1 Test takers in our district this number right here doesn't include geometry and some Algebra 1 Test takers um so it's a much smaller percentage you know there's more students not in that number and then this is algebra 1 all test takers in our district this is geometry
and this is algebra 2 so when you're looking at um different subgroups of of students um demographic subgroups special education students multilingual students economically disadvantaged students these are the percentages of level four and five we're talking about demographic subgroups by race 59% Asian Pacific Islander Etc these are the
percentages here of level four and five so when you combine proficient and approaching efficient it's approximately 55% and not proficient is approximately 45% not proficient yet um again remember that a test 3 through eight plus algebra geometry and Algebra 2 um when you look at our comparison data it's approximately the same uh
slightly slightly below last year uh close to 55% so at grade five we are using different interventions to help maximize apportunity for students those are shown on this slide at grade six one thing that we grade six or 12 one thing that we learned about this year is we do need to incorporate more uh timed classwork activities and
summi of Assessments to support students in building their stamina um apparently that's something that we can uh have a lot of growth in something that we're looking to do more and there are some more interventions listed here as well in science we have this is the state Science assessment we have advanced proficient proficient near proficient and Below proficient levels and so when you take a look here
you see grade five let me zoom in a little bit this is grade five at the district compared to grade five at the state this is grade 8 at the district compared to grade eight at the state this is grade 11 in the district District compared to grade 11 in the state you're looking at the subgroup data special education percentage at levels three and
four multilingual students economically disadvantaged by race and if you were to Total that up it's about uh 54% are proficient or near proficient and about 46 47% not yet proficient um when you look at and we're you know concerned we'd like to have a higher percentage there and we're
working on it we're still overcoming some of the effects of the co instruction that happened when students were learning at home and were not able to you know learn with a Hands-On manipulatives they normally would use in science but we are um glad that it's slightly higher than last year year so um we're up about 5 percentage points and we're hoping to make bigger strides in this current year and in years to come so these are some of the things
that we're using in science um we got some more manipulatives um we have uh more question sets and we're asking our uh teachers to uh give even more targeted feedback to students to help push them to higher levels of achievement our Dynamic learning Maps is a state assessment that's an alternative assessment an alternate assessment for students with the most significant cognitive abilities and the scores of
by emerging approaching at Target and advanced and we do this for ELA math and science so um it's probably easier to zoom in here so we had approximately 78 students take Ela a math assessments and using the dynamic learning maps and these are the percentages of this color light blue is Ela yellow
is math dark blue is science so those are the percentages in each content area that are emerging these are approaching at Target and advanced so they'll use this data in conjunction with the a LS assessment and and the AF LS assessment in order to design um and Implement uh individualized program tracks that are part of every student's IEP
our advanced placement results we always like to look at our enrollment um we've been working hard in in recent years at ensuring that every you know eligible kid every kid who has shown uh that they are strong student and otherwise are in honors classes that uh that we want them in AP and we'd like you know obviously we'd like that percentage of enrollment to be reflective of the typical enrollment in
our in our school we call that proportionality um so um we're not there yet but we're we're getting closer to that so for example 12% of the students at Frankland High School um are identify as Asian but 27. 6% of students in AP are Asian so it's um you know it's it's well represented for sure it's it's even more represented than you would expect right black
students 32% 25% are enrolled in AP and that's a lot you know closer uh to proportionality than we've had um historically Hispanic similarly those numbers are improved where more students are taking p uh who identify as Hispanic or Latino than have in the past and these are multi-racial these are white our score distribution score you
want on AP is a 3 four five so that you can transfer those potentially to colleges one and two it's still good to take an AP test as an experience but you won't be able to use a one or two um so you really want three four five uh approximately 50 55% of our students earn scores of 3 four or five we're working hard to try to improve that as well so we included
and culture climate on this presentation because this is something we've been really focusing on especially this year with NJ sky but in recent years with Panorama and New Jersey sky and culture climate is important to think about because academic achievement is affected by culture climate so are all these other good things like improved attendance graduation bullying and violence inclusion all the above and the survey that our families
took last spring um you know they address all of these topics and some of these are staff only questions some are parent only questions but all of those responses help us get a better sense of culture climate our students exper students experience in school as well as our staff experiences in school and our family's experiences with the school system so if you take a look on this summary chart these four columns
represent um topics where it's a fourpoint scale so a four would be the highest answer a three is a good answer right solid answer anything under a three is you know might be low but here we see student responses that are highest they've told us they experien a you know a healthy sense of physical safety in school same with students in grade 6 or 12 our staff has told
us that they um find the staff and student relationships to be very positive and our parents and caregivers tell us that family support and engagement are very positive and then the areas where those groups told us we need to work on some things students in grades 3 through five told us pro- social student interpersonal behaviors negative behaviors those are things we need to work on um in grades six or 12 things like those behaviors staff
told us that academic culture and classroom practices can improve you know uh different uh behaviors could improve and our families told us that they would like us to concentrate on more supports for social emotional learning so we use this data for a school climate change process where we collect data we analyze it we develop goals we
design and revise goals we Implement and monitor strategies and we have different teams at each school that work on this and including in this New Jersey Sky context and we're glad because we know that will ultimately impact our students experiences in school and those outcomes on not only state assessments but in all you know all the things we do in school so if you have questions about the assessments uh themselves the state assessments
you should look uh at these email addresses here on the leftand column if you have content area specific questions if you click on this link here it'll take you to our content area supervisors and if you have questions about this presentation itself this is my email address please um don't hesitate to email me thank you very much all right thank you Mary I'm not sure if you're in that room we
can someone help me with the lights otherwise what questions can I take well let's go down the the the line so Dr Denis Mr Jackson oh no questions great presentation Dr l thank you Mr grippo so Dan when's the next step with progress monitoring and um you know
so we could keep ratchet up that blue line I mean it's you know we constantly get questions from parents about our student test scores so you've seen some incremental growth but how how are we moving the ball forward thank you that's a great question um one thing I was the first slide and if you remember it it's important to keep in mind that this is a snapshot so this is a a
given test on a given day and it's a snapshot in time so you know you're looking at students in third and fourth and fifth and even as high as 10th grade and you know maybe some in 11th grade but what happens is there is work that's done even after that that there's growth with every year right up until graduation and our graduation rates are robust you know not that they're perfect you know we like 100% right but we're up close to
90 every year and in the end our students do master all of those standards and they do uh meet the graduation requirements so at these given moments in time I think this is what Mr grippo is asking about is how can we do better right at that moment and be right there with grade level peers and and we have a lot of different monitoring processes we first of all have great assessment tools we have great supervisors working with principles and the teachers very closely
to talk about item analysis for example there's a particular question or set of questions that we get reports back on and we can know wow we got a lot of our kids got that question wrong what can we do to make sure on next year's assessment we get that one right and this is something that you know maybe it has to do with how we're teaching something or maybe there's something missing in the curriculum that needs to be added that can help our kids learn
that better so this is the kind of constant reflection that goes on uh we do a beginning year midyear end year I ready assessment we do link it assessments throughout the year in the different grade levels from you know K right through 12 we have different a formative assessments iated with textbooks Etc so there's a lot of progress monitoring um I will say um one thing we are really kind of digging into a bit
more is how we're sharing that information with our families we had a u great focus group um Family Focus Group from the elementary level over the summer um taking a look at some of the feedback data we got last March we were talking about um rigger in the Elementary classrooms and they were pointing out that you know they appreciate all the different kinds of reports that we put through the parent portal but it would be helpful if we had sort of maybe
an easier way to understand it so um our principls uh met with me this week and we were talking about that and one thing we thought is you know maybe a simple little I hate to say this out loud but maybe a little screencast that shows how those I ready reports work so that there's that closer family School partnership to help our kids really dig into certain things so I'm not sure if that answers your question Mr Grio getting there
is there a particular part of that that you want to know more about okay thank you Miss Maris thank you no questions tonight Mr Parker yeah so just really quick are the are the graduation standards are they in line with what what the nlsa the njsla their expectations are so we take a a graduation assessment in the junior year and what happens is um you know
certain percentage of our we did that presentation back in was that July um where if a student passes that in their junior year and they meet their grade level you know they pass their coursework um then they're then they're eligible for graduation students who do not pass that test have an additional opportunity even two opportunities to retake that and if they don't if they're not able to on the test day past
that we have a process where you basically ask very similar questions but you go slower it's not that test pressure where you have to on that day pass it it's a little you know more spread out over days and even weeks if need be but you have to show that you can independently meet those gradu uation standards it's it's called a portfolio appeals process right so we are finding ways to to make sure that they're proficient yes and in whatever that that expectation is
100% missio no questions from me thank you I have a few question I bet you don't have any questions just kidding yeah I have I'm curious um so the I guess I'll just take them in order of the presentation but um I guess the part that concerns me the most is obviously the gap between the fifth grade and sixth grade and then also that Gap into into 9th grade um how you you mentioned something that I didn't know how to
understand it you said this is I think typical and I I or sort of what within the the expectations is it is it that that grade that suffered a lot of learning loss is sort of matriculating and they're they're getting those lower scores or is it that typically when people make that transition or the kids make that transition that's when we see the the lower scores sort of both are true so it is typical this there have been studies on this it was a sort of a big movement even in New Jersey 10 15 years ago that those transitions you know
from one grade level to the next that there is always a struggle and and often kids will be affected by that um however you know we we're really interested in disrupting that as much as we can we don't like that there's a gap in those grade levels you know as we said over time that Gap does come down but we'd like for us to mitigate that as much as possible so different things like we have a new transition program that we started a year or two ago
um Dr Solomon with the high school that we believe we do some more of that kind of thing with the transition from middle to high school but it's really about that that vertical um articulation which is basically a teacher at grade n talking to teachers at grade grade 8 or teacher grade 5 talking to teacher grade six and we're literally sitting and looking at the standards together and looking at these item analyses and figuring out what what what is it that our
kids aren't able to do in this assessment when they were doing so well you know or comparatively well in the previous assessment and we've built those into our um our Monday meeting schedules the past year or so but we're thinking we might need to do more of that than we realized it's kind of like oh this would be great if we could do it we're realizing we need to do more of that so that's a takeaway that our supervisors have so do you have a feel of how that transition was last year and are we
it was just it was very similar right similar yeah I we did and and again you know um so there was a longer version of of the screencast that was created recently we literally could look at those cohorts and and over time what happens and that pattern that you see here even though those are are different kids at the grade level what you saw in those percentages are actually kind of what happens but we don't like the idea of being kind of close to the state average and then going off a cliff in
in the next year even though it does come down in seventh grade and 8ighth grade and 10th grade you know as we go up the grade levels it does get come right in line with the state we just what would we want to you know we want to make sure our kids are really ready for that right six grade assessment so I think our Benchmark for next year should be closing that Gap what whatever that percentage is we're not going to go down to that's what we're trying to do right okay now one other gap that I noticed
that I was curious about is with Ela it seems like we had a much higher proficiency than with math sort of overall and I'm wondering is the what do we attribute to that like relative to state standard so these These are both relative to state so it should be you would expect similar results and in fact we have a High second language population so I I was actually surprised that it was balanced that way well and and I I guess I you know the premise of the question though I want to go back to that is it is uh on the state
average with math scores it is a more challenging subject for kids to master that's true that's true nationally uh and in New Jersey so if you look at the state averages for all those you're right I know you're talking about the gap between us and the state but math math itself is um a tougher test to take if you will um and and interesting that you you talked about language acquisition there could be something with that
but I think it's um it's a we have to keep in mind I know it's not something that before the pandemic we were we had such growth and we were so close to those State averages basically in in all of our different grade levels in math and Ela we were getting closer and then man that that set us back and the kids who were in 10th Grade or nth grade on this chart think about that four years ago they were in fifth grade or if you're
looking at a seventh grader that low number again I know some of them were taking a different test they were in grade three which is the year that you're reading to learn not learning to read right K1 and two is you're learning to read you hit grade three you got to use all that good reading skills to learn which might go back to your question too and those kids were at home on a computer and we were doing our our best and that was a 2 years at a critical time we've talked every time I come here each each year
about accelerated learning and the different differentiation and the targeting I mean we have folks in this room who who literally do this all day long whose job is to look at the data and help the teachers see different patterns different groups and to really help kids individually we don't treat everyone the same just go okay let's all do the same thing even though we have different starting points it's very targeted and the idea is that the boats will
rise together by by being individualized with that targeted instruction so you know um probably be maybe a great conversation that maybe we could talk with some math folks about that question but yeah I do know we have we have um a similar struggle that other districts have with that yeah yeah for sure but you're right it's the Gap that I'm talking mostly about so that shouldn't really like that should be true for all districts and so that Gap we just maybe there's something we're doing on the ELA side or maybe
there that we can learn from or maybe we just need to take a harder look at the the math side to sort of close that Gap one other question is that when you did the the ELA and the math it was sort of by year and then for science it sort of skipped years what's the they assess it grades 5 8 and 11 that's just the way that they do it okay yeah and then for the AP classes um I I saw that you compared it to 21 but do you have a feeling for how it compares to before we sort of implemented the equity plan cuz I know it's it was there's been a
pretty Stark difference is that right yeah we had charts here about four or five years ago where we showed the before and the after it was Stark so we're seeing like smaller adjustments over the years but when we had not been conscious of recruiting it was wildly out of proportion yeah I think it' be helpful to to always have that reminder there um just to to show that sort of progression because you're right now it's sort of 1 or
2% um I think my final question is do do we have a sense for now that we've increased I think I may have asked this last time too but now that we've increased the proportionality to be more in line how those kids are doing respective to cuz I know you break it down by race and other things but I'd be curious to know how many three four and fives are with the Hispanic and black students that are now more into those AP classes it just that they've been introduced to AP classes or are they actually succeeding and that would be one indicator of it and that's
and that's one measure of defining succeeding of course it's just one because there's a grade and there's also the experience and you're you're taking a college experience in high school that's we know from the research the reason why we we worked with equal opportunity schools is if your kids are in honors classes that's that's nice that's good it's a it's a challenging course but if you're not in an AP course where it's really challenging then those are the kids who either don't go to college sometimes or when they go
they really struggle so literally taking an AP course again I can do better by looking at the reports themselves but something like twofold whatever the percentage is you do a lot better at going to school and staying in school just by taking an AP test now if you want to have that you know transfer and count for college credits you need that higher score um that's what we all want I do have that data you know we do we we can look
at that by race but you know honestly our our sort of definition of success is having the kid in the experience taking the course having that rigorous experience yes we want and we do believe over time those test scores will also rise cuz this is still kind of a new recruitment if you will right talking to kids who were maybe they didn't just say oh I want to take AP and say why aren't you taking AP you have an A in an honors Class come take AP and then
yeah that's still categorically different from an honors course it is a tough course fully appreciate everything you said that absolutely makes sense uh if you do have that data I'd like to I'd like to see it that's all I have thank you thank you so much for your reporting all the excellent work no problem no problem anybody else I had an additional question I heard you mention the co uh the pre-co scores have we done an analysis on that to determine if there's been any type of um you know straight line into exactly what some of those issues are uh from the kids from one
um grade to another in terms of what actually they're missing I didn't hear the very last part about that to determine what exactly skills what the skills they are that that are missing and if those skills are the same as it goes down or increases rather the great increase es yeah um as we were saying just prior to the pandemic we had our grade 10 scores right were higher in ela at the time they had grade 10 assessment than the rest of the state and our grade eight
was right there with the state right and our grade six I want to say and five and four were closer than those gaps that we saw in the screencast and then what happened was pandemic and then we saw a lot of different kind of patterns you know it affected kids in different ways and what our supervisors do is they they aggregate that data they disaggregate the data they basically you know here's how all of our kids are doing
you know here's how you know these groups of kids and I'm just saying kids right we teacher has 20 kids in the room and they're looking at how students performed on internal and state assessments and they're putting them in appropriate groups to give them what they need because these five kids missed those couple of Standards if you will and these three kids did well with those standards but not on these other ones and so they'll give them different activities to do so we do
know what they're missing because that's what shows up in those different internal and state assessments right we have more data than you can shake a stick at like we have there's a lot and our what what we try to do is give our our teachers the best kind of um we certainly guide them we give them different ways to maximize um differentiation in small group instruction there might be something that's for all but as soon as we can get them into the thing that they need that's what we try
to do in our classrooms okay any other questions thanks so much do thank you moving on to the superintendent report thank you sir thank thank you Dr logen love your screencast always a hit um start of the 24 school year so I want to take this opportunity to thank the many who were involved in getting our schools
ready for day one 2024 2025 which occurred earlier this month I can't believe that almost the whole month has gone by already um but we're turning to corner and next week will be October hard to believe but day one the start was smooth with the ex ction of the usable Transportation challenges and this year uh obviously brought on even a new challenge and that is a new contract many new contractors um so we have four different vendors who are supplying our busing this
year uh all new routes new drivers so obviously that just added to the challenges so we appreciate the patience of parents uh appreciate the work of the transportation department Mr banano uh Mr freed and the rest of the business department and uh we think we have it almost there uh we have about one or two routes that we're still looking at and working on but uh I think it is smoothing out actually got the all clear
today at 522 which is almost close to what we typically are during the school year at a regular point in the year after we're running very smoothly so we're getting there uh with regard to faculty and staff all the reports I got from principles met with the associations all has been very positive and all have been very happy to get the year Rolling um so we're off to a good start and looking forward to a good October rest of the fall and obviously
into the winter annual backpack Drive I know our board president's going to talk our board vice president board chair tonight we'll talk a little bit more about the annual backpack drive but I also want to make a few comments here uh with the start of every school year comes the need for school supplies I want to take this opportunity to personally thank Miss Anna Washington her support staff and many of our school district administrators who organized the annual backpack drive it was a massive undertaking this year we had lots
of families that showed up all of them parked out here um folks in we had all kinds of we had the food bank here uh we had a lot of other folks here as well um so uh it was really a magnificent event and hundreds of folks got got school supplies to get the year started so I know assembly men Danielson and his staff were also involved they also provided backpack so kudos to all involved International teachers I want
to take this opportunity to welcome our International teachers after a successful pilot year we have been able to on board eight more International teaching candidates raising the total number of international candidates to nine fantastic these are highly qualified experienced teachers that come from other countries um and they we've been able to secure that we've been able to secure to help our staff uh
and build out our bilingual education department and beginning to build out our world languages Department uh and special thanks to our former supervisor of Human Resources Jackie Schneider and our current supervisor of Human Resources Miss Al Devin um they both worked hard to bring the international program to fruition here uh was not an easy hurdle to overcome uh there are lots of regulations at the state level that allows
for the program but not lots of folks who were familiar with those regulations so we actually did a lot of education on our own I say we I mean Colleen and Jackie um and Colleen and Jackie were able to navigate what proved to be a very difficult system with our first candidate who worked in Miss mil school um and we were able to work with that particular candidate in getting her on boarded and getting her
through the certification process because although she was certified and highly qualified in her home country that has to translate to here and you have to get a teaching certificate here for our state in order to teach in our classrooms so they were able to make that happen which paved the pathway for others and now we have a team of nine and they are filling roles in what
has become impossible impossible impossible positions to fill World languages teachers are not available they're not graduating colleges there's just not a pool of candidates and bilingual teachers that pull is even further depleted but we've been able to combat that with this wonderful program and to have nine folks uh we are the Envy of lots of other districts and we're not allowed to share the secrets colen right CU we want to be the
only one who can bring these folks in and work with them so kudos to you guys appreciate it and I know our folks are off to a great start and looking forward to continuing working with them and continuing to grow that program because it's a great experience for those highly qualified teachers and it's a wonderful experience for our kids a wonderful experience so um I'm going to close with some sad news and that is Mr Wilson's retirement uh so Mr Wilson I
just want to take a brief moment to regretfully inform the community that on tonight's agenda Mr Orville Wilson after more than 23 years of service in the Franklin Township School District and near a 50-year career in public education has decided to retire effective January 1st I wish to personally thank Orville for his many years of outstanding service and let him know I was honored to work alongside him for the last decade of his
career we realized finding someone like Mr Wilson who has been such an effective School leader will be a challenge for sure but we pledge to do our best to rise to the challenge with the hopes to be in a good position to name his replacement as soon as possible to Mr son although you might be formally leaving us in December we know you will always be a warrior for Life thanks again for your outstanding service and we look forward to working with you over the next few months to transition in
your replacement and you are not allowed to leave darn it do not accept his resignation just say no days nothing
you made me do this um I I just like to to really say that um this this has been an amazing amazing journey working with the community Franklin Township that is so diverse so interesting um and you know it's as
Dr rali mentioned it's been close to 50 years um but really uh when I look back over it it seems to just kind of like flown by because every day was an exciting Adventure um I am really really honored that I get to kind of close this chapter of my career here at Franklin because Franklin is probably one of the
most unique places in the world I am honored to have worked in a community that has so much care uh for all students not just any pocket but every student in this Community has the opportunity to be the very best because there are people here who care and have worked to provide um opportunities for them to be um greater
than they think so I am I'm honored to have worked here and ended my in my career here I have been fortunate to have worked with um board members principales administrators teachers students Paris um cafeteria maintenance workers and it is it has been a pleasure
and in fact um you know it if it's work I can't not won't say that it isn't but it's been enjoyable work so thank you thank you he good all right great um yeah echoing dr's sentiments that we you know it's
our honor to have had you and that you've created an environment or helped to create an environment that people want to stay here and finish their careers here um and we have another I guess folk later on that elevating through our our ranks as well um just more more sad news though um the day before our students returned to school for the beginning of the of the school year another sens of shooting occurred on a school campus so uh please join me in a moment of silence for those families who are affected by the
tragedy in wer Georgia earlier this month thank you so much for that um the back to school event so the district's preparation for our students return to school once again included an annual backpack drive as Dr Val had mentioned in addition to backpacks and school supplies from our long-standing sponsors including assemblyman Joe Danielson the Franklin Township Police
Department and the teachers and administrative associations this year we were able to include a produce stand from the food bank at our districtwide event and a popup Back to School Clothing table sponsored by kiddma kiddma is a new organization in town I was part of the the formation of it um where they're they're giving food and clothes and and so on to a lot of our students um at the Pine Grove Manor I went to that event the back to school Miss miles principal miles did a fantastic job it was such like a
warm wonderful you and your staff uh environment that I was really happy to be a part of um and so thank you so much for doing that many thanks to our other donors and Community groups who are able to participate in these events and help our student families start the school year off positive these groups are mentioned on the district website but to name a few many thanks to the Community Baptist Church of Somerset Point Community Church and the Shi international corporation thanks to Jessica and
Mary Gand of confection confectionately Yours who collected and donated school supplies and Nick the miglio who delivered them thanks to mujib Muhammad on behalf of MetLife investment management and Donna Grooms of Keller Williams Greater Brunswick in Somerset for their supply of of school spy donations thanks for the financial donation of Dr Cassandra hulc on behalf of the National Society of fi Delta Kappa Epsilon Alpha chapter president Miss marleene Davis bonds thank you
also to those organizations Who provided resources and information at the backpack events including Zu fall Community Food Bank of New Jersey Somerset County Department of Health ikno relief Ruckers New Jersey agriculture experiment station and St Peters Hospital uh and NJ snap so that concludes the vice president's report in this case uh now I'd like to open or have a motion to open up comments from the public 5 minutes per speaker agenda items only
so moved by Nancy seconded by by Mr Parker we are now open just please mention your name and your address uh Benjamin guy 35 p um just want to comment on a couple things that you guys were talking about one is the deficit between the school districts um when the kids transfer so one of the things that we all know in the school in this um town is that we're very large the reason why like I said
a lot of times the kids are having a problem with transitioning is because because it's adaptability to environments so if a little kid is going to a bigger school then it's adaptability of environments and it's not a comfortable environment when you're going to something new and the visits to the school and the parents not being involved in certain public uh public educational activities hurts the environment when the kids are trying to adapt to it so if there's no cultural groups that actually bond in that that hurts the environment of the kids and with the with us getting bigger bigger
bigger maybe every year and more and more population coming in here it's going to get more and more difficult because the language barriers that you're going to deal with so culture-wise if I'm not used going on one side of one side of the tracks as I'll say is that I'm not used to going over there to specific School District or a specific area and there's no welcoming events over there then I'm not going to be adapted to that environment that's just some something that you guys got to get used to that's why it's culturally you got to you got to blend this community a little bit better
by doing more cultural events around here so that it's more adaptive so people trust things because the kids are getting reflective because they don't play on different areas even if you're doing events like in different Parks or doing something around here so that people get used to different cultures and seeing them so that's one of the adaptabilities that as a school of administration you should guys should be adap adapting that even if you're hosting events here just for cultural awareness and getting people used to them is something that you can actually adapt so if you know the transitions happening maybe you do events here to actually get people to adapt and saying hey look these are some of your
Educators that you're going to meet next year and do that as as a welcoming event because the more and more people trust people the more and more they'll adapt to to the to the transition at all as far as culture wise the second portion is that just from an educational standpoint and this is not to neglect the public schools or anything else is that the the standards are getting getting stale um as far as what you're motivating the kids to be so do involving more uh more Global events more CTE learning more
vocational educational opportunities will actually invoke immigrants and other people of other cultures to actually be more involved in school district because remember they're coming from something totally different like my culture is not like I said if I'm a Asian immigrant that's coming here I'm used to certain ways my culture being so it's not if it's not adapted in here and I'm not seeing something that reflects myself I'm not going to adapt to your American culture because because of the educational Bond just because you put a book in front of me doesn't mean I'm going to learn I have to I have to be involved I have to see something else
that's going to give more intrigued as far as education is concerned so that's one one of the other things the other thing is looking at um as we move forward and I and I'm not showing if this is this comes up but as we move forward into more Public Health uh support groups whether or not we're bringing on zo Falls things with the food bank and everything else create more cultural Bonds in those in those uh those mental health spaces and also those social workers and bring those in people in the schools to be your Advocates to change help with the cultural transition that you're doing and I'm I'm not saying that has to
be all on the school district you should also partner with the county to actually make it an advocacy partnership to say that you're having this problem I don't think you guys ever send this report to the county and said hey look we have these problems in schools right we see adaptability we see these young kids getting getting progressively worse in our School District are not being adaptive there's Public Health people all in all the county the county doesn't come to come to Franklin that much we don't go to the county and ask for support we specifically don't ask for in our public school districts or anything else we don't do that we don't put no pressure on her but one of our
largest municipality in the county we don't put pressure on them to help support some of the problems that we have here so we should be doing that we should be doing that more more and more and advocate for that and one thing I've always talked to Dr R and I've talked to or they s my pain in the butt about is that I want I want the school the district to actually have a VTech and a CTE program by itself that we can actually administer and do it ourselves because if we start younger we started the sixth grader we started the seventh grade levels and get them more adaptive we can get these people into like more of trade school opportunities but we but we're starting kind
of late in the game we're competing you're competing against charter schools that that start this stuff early we're losing public schools are losing and there's something that we got to really look at in advance and try to get these kids more motivated because the more motivated the kids is G the more they're going stay in the public schools district the more they're going to be motivated to learn so that's my time for now thank you thank
you good evening everyone my Anderson HJ Court um I wanted to a first off just found out tonight that my high school principal is retired ing Mr Wilson so I was Mr Wilson's second graduating class from Franklin High School so that's going to be a sad moment I will be sending that text message out to the whole 2007 alumni um but with that being
said I just also want to just um let everyone know on the behalf of the president's Council as you know the pto's in this organ um in this District are very very involved in how our students receive support as well as our staff um we did have a as this far felt that it's been a positive start for school um we'll harass you later on in the year um with other things but I want to add on to what the gentleman just said as he was speaking it was a lot of things that were coming to us over at
Franklin Park School you all know we do a lot of sending emails to supervisors and Leadership at the board of education to come out to speak to our parents individually in a more intimate setting we have also seen at Franklin Park that it has been beneficial this this year we have um we've as a as a PTO across each elementary school high school and middle school we've noticed that our numbers have been low for the last couple of years well I can report tonight that the numbers at Franklin Park School have increased
we are now at at least 45 active PTO parent um members as well as 45 active teacher members um and staff members period and that is because of the constant engagement so what I do encourage the board members as well well as supervisors is to continue to partner with the parent teacher organizations so that we can adjust add to what this gentleman said in engaging our parent our families and touching them where they want to be touched intimately
in the buildings allowing them to ask direct questions um if anyone has any questions on how our relationships have been with our past principles and our current principles we at Franklin Park School the PTO board there are always welcome to add that advice on how we communicate with our staff um as well as our principal we have a great partnership over there um so with that being said I'll have stuff for you guys next month after the president's Council meets but we want to just welcome everyone and say thank you for it being
smooth um oh I'm sorry before I leave quick question well never mind it's not on the agenda tonight I'll bring you back next month okay thank so much matis moved by Bill seconded by Dennis uh session is now closed
um we have the the committee in the aison reports but I think given the hour uh we have those posted online if anybody would like to read them and so um we'll just move right on to new business like to move R1 monthly reports M1 minutes of board meetings A1 travel um and related expense reimbursement a to approve School connected organizations which
includes ptos um A3 week of respect October 7th through the 11th A4 Fire Prevention Week um October 6th through the 12th A5 School violence Awareness Week October 21- 25 A6 Hispanic Heritage Month September 15th to October 15th A7 National principal month October 2024 AA a donation um from the
Triple B Foundation to Claremont Elementary School A9 20242 paa budget revision A10 self assessment harassment in intimidation and bullying grades A1 acceptance and submission of the the acers monitoring Grant report a 12 corrective action plan for the findings in the contained in the acers grant monitoring report a13 revised bylaw A14 revised policies a15 revised
policies for reading A6 revised policies or revised regulation adoption a 17 read-option of policy a18 facilities use a19 resolution and supportive particip ation in the US Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools application process by Franklin High School a 20 certification and supportive policy 2270 a21 attorney client fee
contract B1 warrants and payrolls B2 Financial reports B3 contract approval a through S B4 change orders B5 receipt of bids B6 Award of bids um this is for student transportation services B7 budget goals and calendars for 2526 uh B8 transfer capital reserve to capital projects B9 reduce breakfast
pricing B10 deferred compensation C1 District out a district school um students 2024 25 school year C2 field trip destinations there are none at this time C3 field trip applications there are none at this time C4 bioethics special project C5 Aviation flyover at homecoming football game on October 25th C6 Advanced manufacturing memorandum of agreement C7 digital transformation
design Fellowship Grant application P1 salary allocation great so that was a motion to move R1 M1 A1 through a21 B1 through B10 C1 through C7 P1 and P2 can I have a second second by Bill do we do roll call okay roll call please Mr grippo yes Dr yes yes
Mr Jackson M Lort yes yes yes yes okay yeah okay so so pass I'd like to make a motion to move P2 um Personnel report dated today second second by moved by
uh Miss L cour seconded by Mr grippo roll call Mr grippo yes Dr Hopkins yes M yes yes yes yes Mr Porter yes Mr Shaban yes motion carries uh please we'd like to welcome up Miss Jazelle
Perez m gelle is our supervisor of Elementary language arts um and academic interen support hello um thank you very much I stand before you to today very excited and eager um with deep gratitude I've worked in Franklin Township for 20 years as a literacy coach and as a teacher it's not a community where I live but it's a community that I love and so I'm very excited to continue
to support Educators and our students and families as we embark on this new journey in literacy together um I vow in this role to really just Inspire students to love reading and writing but also to ensure that they are receiving their foundational literacy skills that they need to be successful in school and Beyond and so I'm truly honored and I just wanted to thank you I'm excited and I'm I see a great future as we Embark in this journey together thank you thank you so
much Welcome to our new Elementary supervisor of literacy thank you so much thank you we welcomed you to the school and welcome to the town all right so now Dr Dr
Lin did you like to if you're going to say something to her say it to the class you just saw a small sample of um what I've seen really since I've known jelle I guess close to eight years um but what really came across in the interview process she was against a very competitive field but unanimously the committee was blown away by what she had
to offer given the context of what we're trying to do with academic goals setting she is all over it she has been for a long time and we are so excited to know that she's going to be in this position for us so congratulations jelle welcome again um so uh I'd like to I would entertain a motion to open up
to the public for any comments again five minutes per speaker and this is for any topic so montis you had mentioned that maybe you wanted to bring something up uh no pressure moved by m seconded by Erica Miss in aseno no pressure Mon Mon Anderson AJ Court um what I wanted to bring to the board is to review our relationships with the Partnerships of um the daycare centers that we have that are taking over our
the Overflow for a pre- program there is a big divide between families that are going into the daycare centers they're feeling at least some of the centers they're feeling as if they are they don't really have a home um particularly for those that are at Little Genius on 27 um they're feeling that because they are not a part of it they can tell that they're not a part of some of the parents are receiving emails from the daycare center stating oh there's coffee with there's donuts with Dad or events with Mom but because they're not
considered the paid students their kids can't participate in that which then causes for them not to be aware of things that are happening over at their home schools um we at again Franklin Park PTO decided that we wanted to open it up for if you are a parent at little genius and your child home school would be considered Franklin Park School we would like you to join our PTO page so that you can participate in our prek activities um because we do still consider consider these families Warriors of course it has caused it has
put a bad taste in some of their mouths we um unfortunately had a parent disenroll um from the program because of the partic because of this particular incident so I'm just asking that there's an oversight of the relationships that we have with these daycares just in regards to the equity that we're bringing because even though they are contracted they're still representing us as a whole and with all the work that we've put in for the past couple of years um in regards to transparency and community and just blending I think that we really need to talk about what
that looks like with the contractors that we have thank you thank you so much do you want me to sign this again want again okay any other takers moved by Mr grippo seconded by Mr Hopkins Dr Hopkins Dr yes sure
thanks thank and thanks for that feedback that's great I'm certainly going to bring that back to the director of pup Personnel Services and the supervisor of uh Early Childhood programming uh yeah it is a challenge for sure um you know the reason we use private providers is because we don't have the space for the program ourselves we'd love to host a program in our schools and or in a center somewhere we just don't have the kind of space we've grown from I
want to say around a 100 kids back 2015 2016 to near 800 kids um this current school year so that's a lot of growth in a short period of time um fortunately the grant does allow us to use private providers if you run out of space um but you know it comes that a challenge right they're not on our campus they're those students are attending other schools that are
run by other entities um and we're essentially using their property and their program um to fund that portion of or to provide that portion of programming for some students so um yeah it has a challenge but the feedback is great and the idea is great by the way that's a great idea to open the doors at Franklin Park and encourage uh those families to come in and um you know as I'm thinking out loud which always gets me in trouble um but
as I'm thinking out loud hearing you say that you know maybe an opportunity to have an open house of some sort in each of those schools that you know we can work on and I can certainly talk to folks about um but you know getting them ready for what's to come if you're not in the school this year you might be next year and you certainly will be as a kindergartener so uh we certainly will work on that and I'll bring that feedback directly back to Dr sofield and
uh our supervisor of um Early Childhood Dina Feebas and let them know that there's that feeling of isolation and what can we do to address that so appreciate it great thanks um okay so now we will move on to the good of the order uh we'll go in reverse order this time so misso
um Mr Wilson I I don't know how this is going to be a challenge to fill those shoes um in the short period of time that I've been on the board um I've had the pleasure of U being on the Safety and Security committee and I've been just thoroughly impressed um with Mr Wilson and you know you will be missed Mr Parker yeah Mr Wilson um
your resignation has been that that's been denied that's Miss Maris I just want to congratulate you on your upcoming retirement it's well earned we will miss you but if you leave town you're in real trouble cuz we want to know where to find you in case we need some words of wisdom Jazelle welcome I know that you've
been with us but welcome to the new position um we're excited to see you shine and I know you will congratulations Mr GPO oh you not going anywhere cuz you're big part of our community band and you and I been together a long time uh good news Elizabeth Avenue school is going to
have its new Marquee soon they're installing it mid October the sign that's there now when you go down Elizabeth Avenue is a disgrace it was installed by George Washington and you're going to see a new sign thanks to Dr rali but thanks to the PTO I had the pleasure of working with it's going to be great Jazelle you're are you still here
where is she oh okay your enthusiasm is infectious and that's what makes the difference in life Emerson said nothing great is achieved without enthusias it's such a powerful statement and given that I'm very enthusiastic tonight to share the news that the future YMCA
of Franklin Township received a $750,000 grant last night from the state of New Jersey or Tuesday night I'm sorry Tuesday night from the state of New Jersey through a Joseph assemblyman Danielson now what what does this have to do with school what does this have to do with a school board member taking up your time now let me share some ideas the YMCA will provide life saving
swim safety lessons to every one of our students at every kid in Franklin Township I'm very passionate about this I've seen kids drowned recently I just raised money to bury a kid 2 years ago a 3-year-old who walked out of a provider's home and fell into the pool number two our Franklin High School swim team will have a home of its own we'll be able to provide clinics
for athletes families and training the why is the best with training the why uh presents an opportunity that montis was speaking about and that is family gathering it's a PL it'll be a place in town where families come and do things right not just swim it's just not a swim and basketball place there's activities in Hawaii
and number three it provides Safe child care the safest child care in America so it's we're going to be so lucky this is just a what they call a lead donation in fundraising the Y will cost 25 to $35 million it'll take another 5 years to be built but we've been pursuing this for 20 and we have a great staff working
it Dr ravali has championed this idea with the why with myself with many others so we should be very very excited and appreciative to the assemblymen because once you open up the philanthropic gate with that kind of a gift other money will follow so I just want to share that with you because it has to do with our school board and our system here in Franklin thank you thank you Mr the cour um
happy that school started well actually I am I'm sure kids aren't but um it's Christmas for parents so um I'm happy about that and I hope everybody has a great school year and I'm glad to hear that we got off to a good start this year um I already talked to Orville so like slit your tires outside so you go anywhere um and your enthusiasm just
like Bill just said it's infectious and watching Dan be such a proud papa over here he was bursting it was it was priceless so um uh and you're your recommendations montis were like they're really um interesting and insightful so I really appreciate that um and that's it see you later thank you Mr Jackson Orville you will be truly missed
you have indeed made an impact on this District um so we truly appreciate your service um and and and staying here and in doing the work um you truly will be missed Miss Perez um as you can see sitting around you you have a great support system sitting around you and you also have a great support system sitting behind this desk so we're excited about you coming in and and and and doing some amazing things so thank you um third thing uh Franklin football
game I think 6:00 tomorrow big football game I think they're having a tailgate uh sometime around 4: before the game so definitely make sure you come out the team is doing some great things this year um third I want to congratulate uh Mr Fred this Sunday he is getting married oh he may be sitting there looking a little nervous but Sunday he's going to be okay Sunday he's going to be just fine
and the last thing I want to do is just uh it's a quote um if you can't fly then run if you can't run then walk if you can't walk then crawl if you can't sing pick up a Sachs but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward keep moving forward Franklin let's go thank you thanks Dr Hopkins well Miss Perez congratulations on
your new position um hearing great things about you I'm I'm sure you going to continue to fly um over head you know we still got a couple of months with you so I'm not going to say um so long or goodbye right now but one thing um you will always be a um uh
cemented in Franklin heck you got your name in the high school forever so um so yeah you have been a uh a champion in the uh safety uh committee and uh has helped us and has helped shape the safety in the district so I'm going leave it like that um uh we off to a great school year
um a lot of things happening like uh Walter said homecoming is uh uh is upcoming uh the this the the the the seniors itself is is in the midst of applications now for colleges so you know parents um uh check off those deadlines make sure you focus on those deadlines uh to make sure that those applications gets uh uh get in
on time and other than that um let's um let's not wait to make our achievement at the end of the year let's start now at the beginning of the year I yeld back my time VP thank you so much Dr Hopkins yeah he's looking very comfy um I would like to also welcome Miss Jazelle to her new position we're very proud of you and I hope that
Franklin consistently will be a place where where folks want to stay and grow right you know um principal soon to be Dr Miles uh also has grown with us and I I'm sure will continue to grow we have many examples and I hope that that continues to go um Orville s sad to see you go brother um but you've you've done an amazing job uh in this district for many decades and we're very very grateful to you
uh words can't sort of give you the full uh magnitude of what you've done but just take what we can uh as gratitude montis thank you so much for coming um your suggestions are always welcome if you can have all the other PTO folks come and give us all the suggestions we're we're here we're open we'd love to and any engagement you need from us you know as a board to come to the schools or do anything we're happy to do that as well but the engagement for sure is is is something that we love and you know I know Ben left but
his his suggestions are also really great of making a culture where those kids feel more comfortable and that might yield a better sort of academic result that that would be fantastic I wasn't here at the last meeting cuz I was in Egypt I was visiting a lot of my cousins that were refugees from Reza um one thing that I don't want to take for granted is that we have a beautiful school system and we have this teachers um and everything here because in my home area in Gaza there is no school school's been canceled since last year there's been zero
I mean you talk about learning loss it's not just covid there's no school and there's been no school and there will be no school so all of my cousins are sort of suffering through that I come here with a huge sense of gratitude for what we have here and what we can build here um and so super happy about that just wanted to share um yeah that's it thank you so much it's been a long meeting uh we'll close out have a great night everybody out