Miss Carasola, >> Mr. Cohen >> here, >> Mr. Corey >> here, >> Mr. Hayward >> here, >> Miss Pearlis >> here, >> Miss Stevenson >> here, >> Miss Calves >> here, >> Dr. Robinson >> here. >> We have a quorum.
>> Excellent. Um, all right. >> Okay. All right. Um, Mr. Mr. Cory, can I have uh the flag, please? >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. And Mr. Cohen, if you're able to please do the mission statement. The Glenarch School District, founded on principle of education in partnership with a supportive community, provides an
exceptional education to all students to cultivate resilience, responsible, and engage global citizens. >> Thank you. All right. All right. So, today, November 10th, thank you so much for everyone that is here tonight. Um, I'll have Mr. Canelis, are you able to
introduce our first presenter who's not far into us? Hi, Paul. >> Thank you, Dr. Robinson. Uh, yes, we tonight we have with us, uh, Mr. Paul Lurch from Lurch, Vincy, and Bliss LLP. They are the district's auditor. They have conducted an audit of our fiscal
year 2425. And Mr. Lurch is here to report to the board um how we did, Mr. Lurch. >> Thank you. Um, and um, yes, as James just said, um, and this actually is my
first presentation of the fiscal year. You guys always seem to be first out of the box, which is nice. Um, we're always looking for, quite honestly, we're always looking for clients that say, "Hey, come on in. You know, we're ready for you early." And inevitably what happens is is that, you know, there's it's like the bell curve, right? There's
there's a group. Everyone wants to go in the middle. Nobody wants to go first and nobody wants to go last. Um so listen we we're here to present um positive things again um you know as part of the audit process here uh we have an unmodified opinions on the
financial statements as well as the single audit. So in layman's terms it means that there are no exceptions or qualifications anything that we need to specifically uh report on the financial statements as well as the single audit. Um there were no significant
deficiencies, no material non-compliance uh or illegal acts. Uh as a matter of fact, when you look at the AMR, the the smaller of the two reports, the management report, there are no audit findings. So if you go to that very last page, you can see where we would
summarize the list of comments or recommendations. There are no recommendations in this particular audit. Uh and hence that's why we have clean opinions and no significant deficiencies as I indicated. Um we the the district itself it itself was subject to a single audit federal
and state single audit. That simply means that once you expend more than $750,000 in either federal or state program funds. Uh it triggers an additional audit. Um they it's it's identified, believe it or not, as a single audit um from the federal government, which just
basically means that we need to pick specific grant programs that are considered large programs. uh type A programs. Uh then we do specific compliance testing on those programs and those compliance supplements come from the state of New Jersey as well as OMB. Um and then we test for those two
things. So um state expenditures, you you had exceeded over $18 million worth of state expenditures from state aid. Uh we did test certain grants. uh you are considered a low a low-risk audit which basically means that over the previous
two years we did test as part of a single audit and we had no deficiencies. So when you have that category they're they're considering you a low-risisk audit t which just means we have to we have to test fewer expenditures to to meet the criteria um of testing 20% of
your total expenditures. On the federal side we had expended $1.4 $4 million of expenditures. Again, a low-risk audit because of the previous two years and no exceptions noted. Um the the program that we tested on the federal side was the ARPA essa, the
preschool expansion a program. Uh and that's part of the project that you're building or were building during the 2425 school year. Um some of the key uh pronouncements and I won't get into all of them, but there was one new key pronouncement. We had a
Gazsby 96 which was basically three years ago was talking about subscription type IT items and we had a new pronouncement this year 101 which is compensated absences. Just generally what that means is is that um the Gazsby
decided that um if individuals that that work for the district are starting to acrue an accumulation of a payout towards a sick or or vacation time, we have to now account for that dollar value as it's acrewing as opposed to whether or not you meet that criteria
that happens to be set in specific contracts. Um a small wrinkle, not really a major change. Um, total federal funding, we talk about it every year, kind of we're winding down on on the COVID and ARPA money, but the district did receive over $1.9 million
over that period of time. And that's just a point of reference for you as a as a board member. Um, what I'll talk about now is just a little bit about fund balance. Okay? And I think that's probably more important. Um and and before I get into the general
fund fund balance, just talk a little bit about the capital project fund, which is the the fund that accumulates all the major projects of the district. Um this year the balance is winding down 6.6 million left at the end of 25. There
was a new project for roughly $4 million that the board enacted in the 2425 school year. Um certainly some of that capital project money of the unspent programs are being transferred out. Last year 500,000 went into debt service. There's another 500,000 going in in the
current fiscal year budget. Um so as you don't spend those funds, they can go back to help taxpayers is what you're doing. Um food service fund which handles of course the the lunch program uh in the district sales of roughly $670,000
and we had a small loss. It's really intended to run as a nonprofit. Last year there was a small profit. The year before was a break even. Um so you're running it very much as as a as a break even program. Um community school uh is a little bit different. Uh net position
uh or profit went up $140,000 from the year before. Uh and total equity is $1.3 million. And that runs for the summer program um for the community. And I will talk just briefly about fund balance in the general fund. General fund is the op obviously the operating
fund that handles the majority of your transactions um and the uh daily operations of the district itself. The district ended the year with a total fund balance of 10 million14,000
slightly down from the year before. Um but what I'm going to do is I'm just going to kind of go through a progression here and this is kind of how we do it. um when we go through the the analysis with the business administrator I think it it makes sense for the board members to kind of get just a a just a
brief understanding as to what happens. So in general fund we we end the year with a total surplus balance and then we look and see what particular areas or or or buckets those funds are attributable to. So we have the the the final component
is really the um unreserved uh unassigned fund balance and that is basically 2% of your expenditures. So every single year we go through and calculate your expenditures. There are modifications you're allowed to retain 2%
used to be 4% for a period of time. When COVID came about and when you go way back 20 some odd years 25 years it was 6% and change. Um those numbers have come down. So you're allowed to retain basically uh without going through some of the exceptions 2% of your expenditures. It's
roughly 1.5 million. So if you look at this year's report compared to last year's report, it's really unchanged. So that's your rainy day amount of money that can be um um retained. So for the board members, I'm actually on on page 71
that I'm just kind of going through the bottom of exhibit C1. So that's the maximum amount that you can retain. After we go through the progression, if there's money left over um that isn't isn't designated for a particular reserve, it'll go into excess
surplus. So that's the last piece of the progression. So we start up from the bottom. We're we're limited to 2% and that's my 1.5 million. Then is reserve for incumbrances roughly $390,000. simply means that there's goods and
services that were ordered by the district, but we didn't spend the money and we didn't receive the goods by the end of June. It means we're reserving those funds because they're going to roll into next year's budget. Then I'm going to come up to unemployment. Unemployment is unchanged for the year before. It's money that's been set aside
over over years uh specifically for the purpose of paying for unemployment claims as they come through. Um again, unchanged at that point. And then we get into the various reserves. Uh, next one is emergency reserves. 209,000 unchanged from the year before.
As as the name indicates, it's really intended for emerging purposes. Um, it used to be very difficult to get out. Uh, it's a little easier now because now you can use it for security type purposes. Um, but again, that number is really unchanged. $200,000
and that money you can you can put in by board resolution or budget during the year, but it was unchanged. So nothing happened. No money was put in and none of the the the funds were were uh withdrawn. Maintenance reserve is the next item which is 525,000.
That is money that's set aside to maintain the facilities. So we operate the facilities in our operating fund and then we have the ability to set money aside to maintain those facilities and that's in your maintenance fund. Um that that number
changed from two 200,000 last year. We ended with 625 in total. Um part of the money came in through the district budget. Part of it came in through a resolution that the board members enact in June of every year. You allow certain amount of money
to be put into the maintenance reserve as well as the capital reserve. And that's what you're doing here. So we ended the year with $625,000 in the maintenance reserve. And you're limited by that amount. You're limited to to roughly $2 million based upon a a
calculation. So we're nowhere near that that dollar value. And the last item is capital reserve. When it comes to the reserves and and as the as the maintenance reserve is intended to maintain pay for the maintenance of the facilities, capital reserve is to improve and build new
facilities and other type of improvements. Um, generally you're limited to your long range facility plan as to the maximum amount that you can retain in that capital reserve, which is somewhere in the vicinity of $18 million. So, you're nowhere close. Um,
the board ended the year in the capital reserve of 3.7 million, started the year at 5 million. And what happened is is that monies were deposited through the budget. Monies were deposited through the resolution. At the end of the year,
we had returned some unexpended monies from previous years for specific projects that came back to to to Capital Reserve. If so, if we're going to fund it with that, we're not going to use all those proceeds. It comes back. Um, so basically 5 million, we we we created
another 2.8 million um through basically what I just indicated to you. And then the board did withdrew or withdrew $4.2 million for improvements. And that's for the um the latest project that you're doing. So um and that's that's basically what the uh
the capital reserve is is intended to be used for. So as you go through those total progression, you you end a year with $10 million. We know we can maximize. We can only retain$ 1.5 million. We have all these other reserves. What's left? Whatever's
left becomes excess surplus. So this year the excess surplus after we went through that progression was $1.3 million. So that simply means when you develop next year's budget which is going to be uh 26 27 you'll be starting out with $1.3 million which is going to
be balancing the budget. The year that we're in this year it's 1.4 million. So when I presented the audit last year the excess surplus was 1.4 million from the year before which now you're utilizing to balance the budget. It's the minimum amount you have to use.
Um, and unless anyone has any specific questions, I don't really have anything else to add. >> Sure. >> Thank you. That was a great uh overview. The maintenance reserve it is um is that
most schools have a maintenance reserve or is that unique to do you see that mo you do a lot of audits? >> I do. I do and most have them. >> Most have them. Almost everyone has a capital reserve if you can, right? Unless unless you you're in a situation, a financial situation that you can't afford to do that because you've got
other issues, right? But almost every school has capital reserve monies that they're using for facilities. And then maintenance reserves very very uh uh popular as well. It's used all the time. Uh emergency reserve is really one of those that's probably not that common in schools. Um it was utilized in the
beginning when we were looking ways to to keep more than the 2% surplus in cash. Um and that was one of the ways you were able to do it but it was very difficult to get out. So um yeah maintenance reserve absolutely. Yeah.
>> Any other questions? Go ahead. Just following uh this um you you see a lot of towns and and you see the the problematic ones and successful ones and uh based on um other town number things that you see are we in line or we
trending correctly with the reserves is there anything that you see as a concern? Is there anything that we need to think about? U >> well I I think that you know a couple of couple of ways to answer that question. Um, from a from a financial perspective, you're always you're only limited to the
your maximum 2%, right? So, you want to have that and then you really want to generate surplus after that and create as much as you can into these reserves. It's much easier to build projects and do improvements through the maintenance reserve as opposed to going to the voters and asking for debt approval. Uh,
so that's why a lot of schools are doing that. Um, you know, one of the things that you you have to be careful of and I Jim James and I spoke about this is is the excess surplus. When we start relying on this excess surplus, it becomes a crutch, right? I know it's been reduced by $100,000 and
you know, and I know I know James has a plan and you want to be able to get to the point where it's a reoccurring number and it's not a crutch anymore. Um, because ideally you'd like to be able to put as much as you can into the capital reserves. Um, as far as how you compare to other school districts, I
think, um, I think what I would focus on if I was a board member, I would look at the fact that we have no audit comments. I would look at the fact that we have a clean opinion and I think that really comes down to again as to who you have in leadership, right? Uh, it always comes down to that. It's it's it's a
people game at the end. Uh, and I think that, you know, it certainly, you know, the job that James has done over the past I guess is it two years now? Two. Yeah, two years. um you know it's just been been terrific when you consider you know the complexity this is not a small
little K to8 operation right um where we have two schools and it's simple um and real no you know really no major problems um but and then coming off of the heels of Michael as well and Michael ran a very good ship as well because he was here for such a long period of time
um so I think that's key and that's how I would measure other schools right financially where are you, you know, are you running deficits? Are you having a state takeover? And I know we I don't need to editorialize, but we all read the paper with Monontlair, right? You
know, those are the kind of problems you don't want to have, you know. Um, and I know that I feel very confident because we do a thorough audit. Um, so, you know, we're we're always looking under every rock if we can. And, um, but again, I think it's it's just indicative
of of the leadership you have. So, >> thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Thank you so much, Mr. Lurch. That was um fantastic as always. So, thank you. >> We appreciate being here. Thank you for having us. So,
>> yeah. And thank you, James, for putting us into this into a a a good um financial position because I mean, we're looking at many other schools um you know, monthly that are falling into financial ruin and it's really important
to us. So, thank you um for for maintaining this district in good fiscal control. >> Have a nice holiday, everyone. >> Thank you. >> Dr. Robinson, I I would be remiss in in
in stating the obvious that it's obviously not a one-man show. Um and the uh business office as a team uh is really uh where the credit is due. Um and uh without them uh the transition
from Mr. Render Connect would not have been possible. >> Thank you and thank them. >> All right. Um >> All right. On to our next presentation. This is the NJSLA test results presentation that is required every
year. Uh the state is uh has a list of requirements for our CUSAC accreditation. All that one of those is is presenting this data to the board. So, I have the pleasure of kicking it off and then we'll bring up a variety of people to kind of talk through more specifics about it. Let me get to it
here. Okay. So, first of all, um districts are required, as I said, to report the test results to the board of education. Um some of the data you'll see will have gaps or dots or something. That's when if I have a subgroup that's fewer than 10 children. Uh it's for privacy
purposes. We can't report on that. And the other thing is that we have to present the participant participation rate for each test and school. So you'll see all of that what was tested. So same as what's been tested the last several years, English
language arts grades three through nine, math grades 3 through eight, and then also algebra 1, geometry, and algebra 2, but only students that are in the ninth grade or less, a lower grade. So any sophomore, junior is not included in this um in this data. Science is tested
in grades 5, 8, and 11. And then we also test WEDA, which is the test that we give for our multil- language learner students. And the DM test, which is for special education students. So who was tested, I think, is an important piece to to think about. Um
these were the grades from last year. And and the reason I have it kind of offset here on this chart here is because of the next slide. And that is to think about who these kids were during COVID. Right? So this year's or last year's third grade children were in
kindergarten that first year back 2122 when it was a hybrid education year. So the fourth graders were a year behind that. And just kind of keeping in in context who who these children are and and what their education progress has been that what what it was like. What was it like to be a kindergartener during a hybrid education
or a first grader if you stayed at home or or something like that. So let's keep in mind that it feels like it's a long time ago in some ways but for a lot of these kids their foundational years were during that time. So so let's just keep that in mind about who who are these children.
So um we will look at I said we had to talk about participation rates. So you can see between 97 and 100% of our students in each of these grades participate. Um, as you recall many years ago when the test was the park test, there were the state exhibited a
lot of optouts and test refusals. So the state makes sure that we report that so that you all know the data you're looking at is representative of the whole district, not just a few. And and we have very high participation rates here and always have. And here it is uh for that was for language arts. This is
for math again 96 through 100%. And here we have for science 99 and 100%. the the presentation we'll be talking about a lot of numbers up there uh what percentage of students etc etc and what
we're really talking about are the students that are um meeting expectations or above and so I don't know why they call it different ways but they do math and language arts there are five levels of performance we label level four as met expectations and level
five as exceeded in science not sure why they have four levels of performance and they call them proficient and advanced proficient, but that's what we're looking at. So, when we say x% of students, we're either talking about threes and fours for science or fours and fives for language arts. Just so you
know, kind of our shorthand. And so, we're going to get started with language arts and we're going to hear from uh supervisors Sher Craples and Nicole Hers. So, Miss Hersh and I are going to be sort of handing it back and forth as we talk
about elementary stuff and then um middle high school stuff um and districtwide versus sort of the more focused pieces. So, taking a look at this, this is our third through 9th grade. This is all of our students who tested NJSLA for ELA. Um and these are our kids who are meeting or exceeding
expectations. So, those are our level four and five students um across the board. So you see our the red the red columns are the state, the blue columns are us. Across the board, we're exceeding the state in percentages of students earning fours and fives this year by an average of 27%. Um which is a
nice strong lead over the state. Um we've got a high of 31% in fifth grade and by 30% or more in fifth, sixth, and eighth grades. Our eighth graders performed particularly well this year. Um 88% of the students in that grade met or exceeded expectations, which is a
number we're really proud of. um our overall path tracks with the states, but we're naturally going to have greater variability yeartoyear because of our much smaller sample size, right? So, we're looking at grades of about 200 students. It just means that the year-to-year um changes are going to
look a lot bigger than they look at the state level because of the fact that one student is going to constitute just a much greater percentage than at the state level. Um so, you can see at the state like grades three and nine are the the low points for the state. That's where we're lower as well. Year-over-year, you're going to see
greater variability in grades three and nine for us than you will at the state level because we're just talking about a much smaller number of students. >> Sherry, let me know for just a second. Two things I forgot to say. >> The one is um the sample size is really important, especially when we start talking about elementary schools. We
could be talking about 40 kids, right? So, a couple kids changing performance level can have pretty pretty large effects on our graphs up here. And the second thing I meant to say is we do a lot of these comparisons against the state because that's the data we have right now and because that's what QAC
requires we do. I know that people want us to present uh how do we compare to other districts similar to us. We don't have that data until the springtime. So uh this is the data that we have because the state provides it. Um and we we will look at that other data when we can but tonight's not the night.
>> Yeah. And so this we're looking at just us. We're looking at Glenrock over the years. And you can see the two columns furthest on the left, the blue and the red. Those are precoid. And then everything else is postcoid. So what you can see is at the elementary level, we're pretty consistently following the trends of the state. Fourth and fifth grade have essentially returned to
pre-COVID scores. So you can see that in fourth and fifth grade, we're returning to our precoid levels at scores. Um, and our third graders, they've remained relatively consistent over the last two years. We're not quite back at those pre-COVID scores yet, but they're growing and they've stayed consistent over the last two years.
And then this is the same chart but for grades six through nine. So the first look at something like this is just comparing against pre-COVID. So sixth grade has returned to pre-COVID scores. Eighth grade is exceeding our pre-COVID scores which is really nice to see. Um 9th grade dipped from last year. It's
still higher than our initial return from COVID. It's continuing an overall upward trend. And I'm going to speak a little bit more to the nth grade scores in just a minute. Um, but the most important way of looking at this data is really to look at student cohorts. So the light blue column of ELA 9, they are
represented by the yellow in ELA 8, orange in ELA 7, and green in ELA 6, right? That's tracking a group of kids over over years. And so I want to just take a minute to talk about each of those cohorts and how those cohorts of students have grown. So the sixth
graders, their past performance isn't represented on this chart because in past years they were in elementary school. Um but that this year's scores have eliminated what we were seeing a sort of dip in sixth grade scores. This group eliminated that dip. Um their performance has consistently grown and then remained steady from fifth grade to
sixth. So in third grade 30 uh excuse me 69% of them met or exceeded standards which grew to 79% in fourth grade, 85% in fifth in fifth grade and then held steady at 86% in sixth grade this year. So, that's a group that's shown a nice upward path. They're holding steady. They're doing really well. Seventh
grade, their cohort dipped a little bit last year. Um, 87% of them met or exceeded in fifth grade. It dropped to 74 in sixth grade, but they've bounced back. They're back up at 82.2% of students meeting or exceeding. So, again, when we track students over the course of time, what we want to see is that the kids are growing. Um, eighth
grade, this group has seen consistent year-over-year grow growth. um in in sixth grade, 65% of them met or exceeded, 75% in seventh, and this year, 88% of them in eighth grade. So, they're showing a nice upward trend. Um 9th grade, this group is just a little bit
more of a mixed bag. So, 71% of them met or exceeded expectations as nth graders. They performed better than that in seventh and eighth grade um at 84 and 83% respectively, but their sixth grade performance was lower at about 68% meeting or exceeding. So, this group like their performance over time has not
been even. It's been a little bit funny. they jumped up, they popped back down. Um, their ninth grade scores are not as low as their sixth grade scores, but it's important to remember that their sixth grade scores was the return from COVID year, right? So, this group just their their testing trajectory is a
little bit different than other groups. Um, I want to point out that when we look at that nth grade graph, it looks like performance has dropped drastically in the nth grade. It's a it's a 20 point difference from last year, but when we look at just those kids, right, it's only it's a loss
of 13%. Which isn't nothing, but it's not 20% either, right? So, when we're looking at this type of data, we definitely want to look at the grades and how they're performing over time, but we also really want to focus on the kids. It makes more sense to my mind to track kids over time rather than nth
grade, which is a capsule, right? Nth grade holds them for a year, but then they move on to 10th. Um, so that's what we're looking at there. Now I'm going to turn it over to Nicole. Um so when we look at these graphs like Mr. Vaness said um one thing to keep in mind is that relatively small sample
size. So a change in one or two students at the elementary level can make a huge impact on a building's performance because there's so few students in each grade level at each building. Um so as an administrative team as teachers like we expect that variability in each
building scores year after year. Um it's more helpful for us to look at our district performance and that is relatively stable. Um when we look at our third grade performance compared to the state's performance we more or less follow the trend of the state with scores for third grade for third graders
statewide not yet returning to pre-COVID levels. And as Mr. Vanessa said earlier last year's cohort of third graders were in kindergarten during COVID. Um again with grade four um we see the district following the
trend of the state and once again we expect that variability in buildings because of the small sample size. When we look at grade five ELA scores although there's some variation on the school level at the district level performance is pretty consistent and we remain at pre-COVID levels in fourth and
fifth grade. Looking at the overall scores gives us one picture of our performance. Um, but there are also other indicators that we can use to measure our success. One such measure is looking at our district's performance compared to the state on the standards that were assessed at each
grade level. When we conduct this analysis, we can see that Glenrock Elementary students outperformed the state on all standards assessed in both reading and writing. This indicates that we take a comprehensive approach to our literacy instruction and that our curriculum is welldeveloped in reading
and writing and aligns with the expectations of the state. Our elementary students exceeded the state percentage of students scoring fours and fives by at least 26% with a high of 31.4% in grade 5. Our fifth graders writing performance was particularly
noteworthy with the district outperforming the state by about 20 percentage points in written expression, writing knowledge, and literary analysis. We'll now take a look at some of the strategies that we've put into place to help our students in literacy. Um, this
year we're continuing our roll out of our K to5 phonics program. We implemented Sunday last school year for grades K to three. Um this school year we implemented the program in grades four and five. We provided training to all fourth and fifth grade teachers this August and we also included all new
classroom teachers in this training as well. Um based on the feedback what that we received from our fourth and fifth grade teachers after the August training. We um they had some concerns about like the nuances of the program for fourth and fifth graders um and like
the complexities of morphology. So, we actually brought the trainer back in October to help address some of those concerns and provide additional support for our fourth and fifth grade teachers. Um, at the elementary level, we've been working on promoting consistent and unified practices across the district.
When we have consistent systems and shared expectations across our four buildings, it benefits everyone. Our teachers know what's expected and can support one another more easily. Our students experience continuity as they move from one grade or to another grade or building to building. And as a
district, we're better able to measure our growth, identify where students need support, and celebrate our successes collectively. With that in mind, we've been working on unifying our approaches. Recognizing that all of our buildings have their unique strengths, but when our core practices are consistent, it gives us a stronger foundation to build
on. Um, we've had professional development for our K3 staff on reviewing expectations for Sunday now that they're in the year two of implementation. We've also had a large number of staff new to teaching fourth grade this year. Um, so we are building in district-wide fourth grade meetings
regularly. Um, as well as providing the fourth grade teachers with regular opportunities to work with their building based intervention coach. We've also had targeted professional development on strategies for supporting supporting multilingual learners the last two years and we'll continue that work this year.
We also have expanded our use of dibbles this year to all students in grades K to three to meet the requirements of the new New Jersey literacy bill. We've used Dibbles as our early literacy screener for many years now and all that's really changed is we've expanded its use to meet the requirements of this new bill.
This just gives us some additional information about all of our students in grades K to three. Our coaches are offering coaching cycles based on analyzing the Dibbles data to inform their instruction. And we're continuing to enhance our MTSS practices districtwide. Two summers ago, we made
improvements to the INRS process at the elementary level to promote unified practices. We updated the action plan and referral forms. And this summer, the elementary team made revisions based on the feedback we received after the first year of implementing these changes. We continue to offer BSI reading and
continue to refine the win period at the elementary level. So, back to six to nine. Um, well, I can see it, you can't. Um, so in six through nine, uh, students continue to outperform the state on all standards assessed in both reading and writing
across middle school and high school. To Miss Hersh's point, we've we're looking at a well-rounded comprehensive curriculum with a good balance of skills in reading, both informational and literature and writing, which includes literary analysis, research, simulation, and narrative writing tasks. Um, we also
continue to exceed the state on fours and fives earned in the in the sixth through nine band particularly. It's at 27% a high of 31% in eighth grade. And then in sixth and eighth grade, we're exceeding by 30% or more. Um, the number of sixth graders this year earning a score of meeting or exceeding increased by 12%. So you can think of that as
roughly one class section, right? Like if we're thinking about the the percentage as it relates to a whole class, excuse me, an actual population of students, it's about a class section of kids who who have now moved up to meeting or exceeding. Um and similarly, sixth through ninth graders showed strengths in writing. They outperformed the state by at least 20% on all
criteria and tasks. We are doing some things to to work for work with our students who we want to see improve, right? Um so when we're talking about scores tonight, to Mr. Vaness's point, we're talking about those one through fives, but the way
that the reports the way that data comes home to families, and you've all seen these, the score is reported 1 to5, but also that 650 to 850, right? And when we look at the 650 to 850 numbers, we can capture a little bit more on a granular level what's going on with kids than we can with just the four five because the
bands aren't even. Um, but one of the things that we noticed is that our kids who were losing ground from fifth to sixth grade were our highest achievers. Our kids who were performing super tippy top fifth grade, those were our kids whose scores were contracting the most when they came to sixth grade. And so we wanted to make sure that we addressed
our our kids in that band. So, we want to make sure that we're using strategies that are addressing those high achievers to continue to challenge them and to help them grow. So, to that end, we've purchased new books for sixth grade, both curricular texts and independent reading texts that are sitting at that higher reading level that's going to
really help challenge kids, give them rich text to work with um and to give every kid in the classroom a chance to sort of stand on their tippy toes for a text. Another thing that we've done in sixth grade is we've implemented a a vocabulary program called Mem. And what's really nice about me is that it's
guided by AI. Um, and it develops individualized vocabulary lists for every student. And so a student takes a sort of placement exercise at the beginning. It develops a list for them. And then they're brought through a series of exercises that are personalized to them, a learning path that is personalized to them. So that
kids are getting again vocabulary instruction explicitly that's really tailored to right where they are, which means that we're going to meet all of our kids across the spectrum. um it's personalized and so it's really going to reach our kids who are kind of on the tails. Um we're also working on redesigning units and lessons to
incorporate specific standards and skills that are identified for areas of growth. So we do get reports sort of on a more granular level standard by standard and where we're seeing that we have areas for growth, we're we're targeting those directly in different units and lessons. Another thing that we're doing this year is we're
facilitating twice monthly planning meetings for reading and writing teachers in the sixth grade specifically with a focus on realigning writing units and reading units with a goal of increasing the number of published writing pieces. We want to make sure that our kids are writing more voluminously. Um we've also created an
interdisciplinary PLC across the sixth grade. So it encompasses sixth grade social studies, reading, writing, and special education teachers. What we're doing for those folks is we're providing quarterly professional development that's devoted to organizing, excuse me, to aligning practices and expectations around reading um non-fiction and
informational texts specifically so that that is shared language across all of their classes um and talking about reading and writing strategies that work in our reading and writing classrooms, also in our social studies classroom so that for kids language and expectations are aligned all the way across sixth
grade. We're also working on redesigning benchmark assessments to be modeled after NJSLA parentheses A. Right? We've got that new one coming up. Um the assessments in grades six through nine. Um so in addition to regular planning meetings, what we've also implemented this year are benchmark data meetings.
So I'm sitting down with my teacher teams and reviewing their benchmark data from the benchmark assessments that they're already giving quarterly. and we're talking about where we're seeing strengths and weaknesses, how we can make sure that these assessments are preparing our kids for NJSLA a NJGPA a
um whatever that ends up looking like. Um but really making sure that we're targeting the needs that we're seeing. And that's it for ELA. Um next up we've got Miss Dela Fortuna who's gonna come talk about math and Miss Hershey's gonna stay to talk about math.
>> Thank you. >> Hello. Good evening. Uh, thank you for having us tonight. I'm excited to be reporting on our math scores. So, when we look at our testing data, one key point to highlight is that our math 8 performance, while that percentage of students meeting or
exceeding expectation expectations in math 8 are close to the state average, it's important to remember that we have far fewer students that sit for the math 8 assessment compared to other state tests in our district. So since that's a smaller testing group, that can influence our overall percentages and
make the comparison less direct. Even so, our trend closely mirrors the state performance pattern and overall we continue to outperform the state in the percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations across all tested areas. This reflects a strong alignment
between our curriculum and our state standards, as well as the ongoing commitment of our teachers to support student growth and achievement over time. So, as we look at our performance trends in grade three through five, we see a very positive picture. Um, for the 25 uh
2025 school year, both grade four and five showed an increase in percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations on the state test. This upward trend reflects a strong instructional practices and continued focus on both foundational and critical thinking skills as our students move
through the elementary grades. Overall, our grades three through five continue to demonstrate high levels of achievement, showing consistency and growth across the grade levels. This is a strong indicator that our early math programs are effectively preparing students for success as they progress
through our curriculum and grades. When we look at our middle school and high school performance, there are a number of encouraging trends to highlight. Specifically, we see an increase in percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations across grades six, seven, eight, and geometry.
This consistent growth across multiple grade levels shows that our instructional focus and curriculum alignment are making a real impact. It's also worth noting that in algebra 2, only 14 students sat for the state assessment this year. Um, this is a relatively small testing group made up
of accelerated grade nine students. As Mr. Savannah said we only test through grade nine. Um so these are algebra 1, geometry, algebra 2 are mixed grade level courses. Um even with so algebra 1 specifically is a standout area for us.
This has been really a focus for us over the past couple of years showing steady improvement from previous years. Um in fact the 2325 results th those three years um represent the highest percentage of students meeting or exceeding state standards since 2018.
And so we're very proud of our algebra 1 students and uh teachers. In the terms of state testing preparation for algebra 1, we did have a mixed grade level of grade um nine and uh middle school um which also may include some accelerated grade seven
students. For geometry, we had about 90 grade nine students at GRHS along with some accelerated grade eight students at GRMS. The distribution reflects our approach to providing accelerated learning opportunities at a variety of levels while maintaining rigorous
instruction for all students. Overall, I'm very proud of the consistent upward trend in our math performance. These results highlight a strong commitment of our math staff to teaching the state standards with rigor ensuring our students long-term success as they advance through the mathematics
sequence. Um, now I'm going to turn it over to Miss Hersh. >> Thank you. Um so just like we saw in the ELA data, we can expect that variability in each building because of that relatively small sample size within a given given
building. Um as a district, our scores in grade three continue to follow this trends of the state. Similarly, in grade four, we're we've been fairly consistent over the years. Um we do see an increase in percentage of students meeting or exceeding in
grade four and we've returned to precoid levels or actually exceeding pre-covid levels in grade four. Um we also see central school in particular has had a significant increase in the percentage of students meeting or exceeding over the last two years. Again for fifth grade as a district
we're fairly consistent over the years and we continue to see that increase in percentage of students meeting or exceeding this year. And we again are back to precoid levels for fifth grade. Just like for literacy in math, we have the ability to analyze our performance
by standard. When we do that analysis, we see that we've outperformed the state on all standards assessed in math for elementary students. It's important to note that this includes both our content standards and the more challenging modeling and reasoning questions that
often involve multiple steps and higher order thinking. We continue to exceed the state at the elementary level with the percentages of fours and fives earned this year by an average of 37.2% for elementary with a high of 41.3% in
grade 5. We saw an increase for fourth and fifth graders meeting or exceeding specifically in grade four which saw a 4% increase. To continue to strengthen our math instruction and help our students think deeply about math, we're implementing
the following. Um, first, it's important to note that the new state standards for math went into effect this year. Um, but we didn't just make changes this year. We began our work as early as three years ago to prepare for these changes. We strengthened our existing K to2 math
routines to support these changes, building them out two years ago and reviewing them with the staff at the start of each school year. The math committee and Miss Dela Fortuna also analyzed our curriculum two summers ago to align with the new standards, building in supports or additional
lessons where needed. Um, as we continue to talk about consistent assess consistent practices districtwide, one of the conversations we've been having is around consistent assessment practices and scoring practices in elementary math. The math committee will be doing work this year to support these
practices. Our math curriculum prioritizes effective research-based strategies that promote mathematical thinking, reasoning, and content, and also encourages opportunities for small groupoup learning. We continue to not only use
our NJSLA data and our unit testing data, but also our day-to-day formative assessments to drive instruction, promoting our MTSS and tier 1 and tier 2 supports. We offer BSI math and continue to look at ways we can strengthen and support our BSI math program. We also
continue to work on implementing and refining the win period in the elementary classrooms. Finally, we offer professional development in math to teachers including PD offered at our October professional development day on building thinking classrooms. We also did a
unified practices workshop on the October PD day to promote alignment and consistency across the district with math assessment practices. Our buildings are offering building based math PLC's and many district teachers, coaches, and myself got to attend a workshop with Dr.
Jennifer Lamp, which promoted mathematical reasoning routines and improving small groupoup instruction in math. The teachers and coaches who attended these sessions are turnkeying the information to other staff members, and we're building a culture where all we're all viewing ourselves as learners
who are growing together. Thank you, Miss Hirs. Um, some some notable achievements in secondary mathematics. Um, we are seeing an increased number of students meeting or exceeding on the state test. In grade six, we saw nearly a 4% increase of percentage of students meeting or
exceeding in state standards. Grade seven, we showed even greater progress with an increase of almost 8%. Um, while our math 8 scores also had a significant gains of 9% increase of percentage of students meeting or exceeding. Um in geometry students also demonstrated
notable improvement um with approximately a 6% increase in percentage of students meeting or exceeding on state standard. Um this continued improvement at high school level um is really important to note that our foundational skills and problem solving happening in the middle school
supporting students as they progress through the math sequence. Overall, these results reflect a collective effort from students, teachers, and administration and demonstrate our strategies for targeted instruction, data driven driven decision-making, and student engagement are having a
measurable impact. Over the past five years, one of my primary goals has been to review and refine math curriculum to ensure both vertical and horizontal alignment across the grade levels. This year, we've made it all the way to calculus. In this summer, we achieved full curriculum
alignment between grade six through calculus, ensuring all courses are coherent, connected, and clearly aligned to the state standards. Along with this, we've updated all corresponding curriculum documents, providing teachers with clear guidance and resources to support effective instruction. Um, we
continue the imple implementation of standards aligned benchmark assessments which allow us to accurately measure student progress throughout the school year. These assessments give teachers timely data to in adjust instruction and support student learning. Another key
focus has been collaborative planning meetings with the teachers and myself. During these sessions, we discuss best practices, analyze student achievement data, and support the implementation of the state standards. This collaboration ensures that students are meeting grade level mathematics expectations, and help
maintain consistency across our classrooms. Together with the support and commitment and collaboration of our math teachers, these efforts strengthen both instruction and student outcomes, keeping our math program rigorous, cohesive, and focused on growth.
Um, one of our new intervention strategies for this school year is um we're implementing tier 2 intervention sessions for eligible students in grades six to eight. These student these sessions are designed to provide targeted supports to students who need additional assistance to meet grade
level expectations. Planning for these interventions began in the spring with strategies carefully developed based on student data to ensure support is individualized and effective. Students progress will be closely monitored through the quarterly data
tracking with their current teachers, allowing us to adjust interventions as needed to maximize student growth. math teachers and I are collaborating to identify eligible students based on clear criteria which include state testing performance and current
mathematics course performance and provide ongoing targeted interventions throughout the year ensuring a coordinated consistent uh approach. So we began implementation of the program in quarter 1 with a single grade seven group which was largely successful. Building on that, um we'll
have small groupoup interventions now running across all grade levels six to eight in quarter 2 specifically to support students who are not yet meeting grade level expectations. Overall, this has been in the works and I'll give you a little bit about the timeline. So, in the summer, we started
researching different models, finalizing the structure and teacher assignments, providing the staff overview, distributing referral checklists, and aligning interventions with the New Jersey state learning standards focus areas. September, we started to complete referral checklists and finalize the
roster for um grade seven um and notify those families. For October through June, we had a quarter one session run with grade seven. Um grades six and seven and eight will all start in quarter 2. It's going to be two sessions per rotation during lunch. Um small
groupoup instruction using curriculum support materials, teacher created resources, and NJSLA resources. Um, we're going to have ongoing collaborations and adjustments between those myself and my math teachers. Um, we're going to be doing quarter mon
corner quarterly monitoring um to assess the eligibility each quarter and families will be notified if their students are eligible for the math uh intervention session. Um, come June, we'll kind of evaluate the outcomes and refine implementation for the next school year. This approach ensures that
students who need extra support to reach grade level expectations receive targeted datadriven instruction in a flexible responsive structure. You'll see a lot of the same professional learning as Miss Hirs um had noted. Um we have been working together for a number of years. So I
think we have philosophically aligned. Um and so as far as our professional learning, you'll see very similar um ideas and philosophies. So, our mathematics department continues to focus on aligning practices through a combination of job job embedded
professional learning, curriculum development, and external workshops. These efforts ensure that instruction is both rigorous and responsive to student needs. At the 6 to 12 level, we're continuing reviewing co course scope and sequence to make certain that both instructional and assessment practices
are fully aligned with state standards. This ongoing process helps us maintain consistency and high expectations across all grade levels. For the 2526 school year, many of our teachers are attending many of our math teachers are attending a variety of workshops with a focus on
small groupoup instruction which allows for teachers to differentiate learning and provide targeted support. Uh tier one interventions ensuring that all students receive the foundational instruction they need. and then also engaging students in productive struggle, helping students develop critical thinking and problem solving
skills. Some of our ongoing initiative from the past five years include implementation of building thinking classroom strategies to encourage deeper mathematical reasoning. At the high school, we've been focusing really on effective root work strategies to enhance collaboration and learning
outcomes in the classroom. Um in the previous two years we've also and going to be continuing this year a partnership with the null's teacher initiative which continues to provide professional development and support effective teaching instru uh teaching practices. Um additionally the math department
participates in an annual book study um where teachers meet regularly during our department meetings to unpack the strategies from the selected book and apply them to the classroom fostering continued growth and reflection. Um together these initiative reflect our commitment to improving instruction,
promoting student engagement, and supporting teachers in implementing researchbased practices. Um I'm now going to turn it over to Miss O'Hagen and Miss Hirs for science. >> Thank you. >> Good evening.
We are pleased to share the 2025 NJSLA data with you. Um, what stands out most clearly in this data is Glenrock's amazing in science. We are excelling. All right. What did I do?
Um, in this slide, we don't have as much data as math or ELA does. There's what seems to be much less to talk about with it because we only have testing in grade five, grade 8, grade 11. And the data that the state gives back to us the reports we get only are based on um this
the basic disciplines earth and space science life science physical science and then the science practices which are sense making critiquing and investigating. So we don't get like a breakdown of each of those things. Um years ago when this test first started we used to get a breakdown of standards and we could really pick apart where we
needed to um improve upon or what we needed to enrich and we don't get it as much. We don't get anything beyond that. So what we do have is we have grade five, eight, and 11. And you can see that we outperform the state in all three grade levels. Um we outperform the state in every tested grade. We
outperform the state in um also by wide margins in the three disciplines of science and the three science practices. Um let's see. We are also seeing strong evidence um in slides such as this that our curricular decisions are working.
Our high school students demonstrate proficiency in earth and space science. Um, which you can't see in this breakdown, but that's a big point because we don't have a standalone standalone course in the high school for earth and space science. So, those standards were integrated into our other science courses to make sure that students see the progression of
standards as they go through high school. Um, our middle school program is not differentiated by discipline. It's spiraled, which means that they experience all three disciplines of science every year that they're in science class. Um, I joined the district in January of this year and it's been a
genuine joy to see open sed being taught being used in the middle school. This is the second year that they're implementing it and they're doing it with fidelity. Um, so next year's eighth grade scores, I'm very confident that they're going to be amazing because that will be the first cohort had sixth,
seventh, and eighth grade with open sed. Um, so I can't wait to talk to you then. But, um, what else I want to say here? I'm sorry. Uh so if we compare these results that you see with previous academic years, again, we can't go we can't see what our
students did like in seventh grade and sixth grade, but we can see some relative stability with this. Um while we don't have that yearly data you can that you see in ELA math, we do have enough to see it. Um the consistency here is what matters. Um, the students aren't just performing well one year.
They're building those learning progressions that we're going to see when they get into high school. Um, again, at the elementary level, there is variation um at the school level. At the district though, our performance has been trending upward. um
a small sample size can significantly alter the data, but we're also looking closely at the trends and patterns we see here. Um so, for example, many buildings showed a dip in 2024. Um but then this year's scores returned to higher than they were previously. Um elementary science is really laying a
nice groundwork um for inquiry and the scientific reasoning that students will build on in middle school and beyond. and our science program at the elementary school really aligns beautifully with what the students will experience when they enter sixth grade and start the open sed program.
Um across all grade levels we're exceeding the state by a substantial margin including in fifth grade where our students s surpass 70%. Um we also see this in grades eight and 11 they're outperforming the state by 24.8% 8% and
26.5% respectively. Our percentages here indicate strong mastery in investigating, sensemaking and critiquing. All of which are science and engineering practices and none of which involve just like memorizing things in a wrote way. Um, our students are proving
that they can do science, not just answer questions about science. Um so our intervention strategies for science um based on the data we have and what we see in our classrooms and um anecdotal evidence from the teachers. Our middle school teachers are in their second year of using open sed um and
again this is a spiral curriculum. It uh lends itself very well to being ready for that test in eighth grade where they're going to experience all three domains of science. Um it leads to students students through a progression through the science practices. Um, one thing that we are integrating this year
is the practice items from the NJDOE. They've released practice items for every standard for every grade and teachers can use those in their classroom so that students can interact with the practice items. So, it's kind of like doing a PSAT in class. They can see what the test is going to look like, especially tests that they only see
every few years. Um, when they sit down for it, um, there are multiple tabs they have to open. They're looking at multiple data sets to answer questions to follow the prompts. So, it's important that they at least see that. So, even in non-esting years, teachers are using the released practice items to help students um really get familiar
with the format. We just want to eliminate that as something that might be affecting scores. Um um elementary school teachers are implementing inspire science curriculum to foster those inquiry skills. Um our department is focusing on MTSS
strategies. We're using our benchmark data. We are also doing benchmark assessments each quarter. I meet with the teachers and we talk about where the students are at um and what we're going to do as far as what strategies we can use in the classroom for students that might be struggling or need a little bit of enrichment. They might not be
struggling, they just need a challenge. Um science practices um tend to shift our results like if we if we focus on these science practice, so maybe we can shift our results a little bit more into that level four and level three because again we don't have level five. Um,
and uh, in closing, 2025 science results affirm what we've hope to see, that we're very strong in science, that we are exceeding the state. Um, this year I was honored to serve on a writing committee with Mike Hines, the science coordinator of one of one of 20 selected, and we got to make some
decisions and review the state science standards and see what changes we were going to make. There are going to be some changes, but very minor. And I'm very proud of Glenrock for having open sed. I know I keep focusing on the middle school curriculum. It's just it just sets them up so well for their
future in high school and for taking AP and advanced courses if they want to or exploring different careers. So I I can't tell you how excited I was to see that when I first came here. Um that's definitely the most exciting part. I want to thank you for your support of science education in the district. I'm proud of our students. I'm very grateful
to our teachers and I'm very excited to see about where we're headed. That's it. Thank you. Hi everyone. Um, so I'm here to talk about some of our smaller subgroups. So in terms of language arts in grades
four, six, and eight, 50% or more of students met or exceeded expectations. I also just want to note that in terms of special education test scores, uh what the data and the charts tonight do not necessarily show um it doesn't take into
consideration individual student growth from year to year and Miss Crarapels had um so eloquently described earlier in her presentation. So what we do internally is that we take a look at the individual test scores and we look at student growth individually from year to year. Um the other thing that it does
not take into account for students um it only accounts for accommodations, not the modifications that they perhaps may receive on a day-to-day basis in the assessments and activities that they see in their classrooms. Um the other important thing to note also is that no
different as discussed before, Glenrock itself is a very small sample size and then we're taking out an even smaller sample size from what is already very small. Um, so Glenrock compared to the state. While this data is not necessarily included in tonight's
presentation with the graphs, Glenrock students with IEPs consistently outperform state averages in every tested area in ELA, often by more than double the statewide percentage of students uh, meeting or exceeding expectations.
So me for mathematics over half are meeting or exceeding expectations in grades three three through five. Again comparatively speaking to the state across all math grade levels Glenrock students are consistently outperforming their peers statewide in the percentage
of meeting or exceeding expectations. Particularly in grades three through five. They have shown strong results often doubling or even tripling the state percentages. So in science in grade five, just around one-third of students are proficient or
advanced proficient. Again, comparatively speaking to their to the state peers, Glenrock students are outperforming their peers in every science grade level, often resulting in either four or f five times higher than the state averages. So overall in all
areas and subject matters the students in Glenrock are outperforming their state average peers. So more collectively some interventions that we will continue to work on. Um we are developing prof professional development opportunities for our
teachers that are targeted based upon the data for their individual students. We are going to further collaborate between special education and general education teachers. Of course, that overall review of data and continuing to work with multi-tered systems of supports and then of course responsive
teaching practices. So in terms of our multil- language learners, uh they participate in the WEDA testing. So this test is given um across all grades um in reading, writing, listening and speaking. The
exit criteria is a 4.5 or higher. So because of our small sample size, we are not able to report on that. Although I will say since the beginning of the school year, we've already had students exit out based on other alternative assessments.
Similarly, we offer the dynamic learning maps assessment. These are for our students who are unable uh to take our NJGPA or NJSLA assessments. It's just simply not appropriate for them. We will be offering that same assessment moving into this spring and due to the small
sample size that data is not able to be displayed tonight um for privacy reasons. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you. And then just the last thing on on the slide here, the the resources for the the Department of Education where where the assessment
information is found and also where the school performance reports are found. The performance reports aren't published, like I said, until the springtime. Um, so you can look now for last year's, but uh all of this information that we just spoke about today is not there yet. Um, likewise, other districts are are not posted there
yet. >> So um, thank you very much, Mr. Vaness. Thank you so much. on to all of our supervisors and um administrators here uh to to give us this wonderful presentation. Um thank you for the hard
work as well as uh the numerous amount of questions that you fielded the last week while um many of us were on vacation. So thank you. >> All right. And any questions or Yes. >> mine is more of a logist logistical question. the the students who go out of
district because they have special needs, are their scores are included >> in are and the reason I asked that is I remember when I was working in a school and we'd get the scores of the kids that lived in our school neighborhood,
>> but they were out of district. >> They're tied to us. >> They're tied to us, right? That's why Okay, thank you. The answer is the outofd district students that are Glenrack residents. We have their scores included. >> So those are all factored into there as well even though they don't go to school here. Okay. Thank you.
>> I just think it's important that people know that. >> Yeah. Thank you, >> Mr. Cohen. >> Yeah. So, thanks so very much for the presentation. It's it's great that we're diving into the data. What's even better is that we're not just looking at the great results, but also looking at opportunities and and options to
improvement. So, uh, I really appreciate that, especially in the middle school. I I see firsthand the change from elementary school to to middle school. And so, the fact that we're putting emphasis in that, uh, is something great to see. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Thank you.
>> Yes, Mr. Corey. >> Just to call out two things that I think helped uh to understand the presentation. One was I really appreciated you um the crosscut of the data. This is a lot of data, a lot of bar charts, and to be able to guide us through reading the cohorts throughout
that was that that's not what the data is presenting, but you but that narrative helped kind of see a different story. So, you know, looking forward to how that story is following the students throughout their their student career here. Um, and then also the the other comment that stood out to me is uh
identifying ways to help exceptional students in this. If we're seeing students that are growing and then their their their growth rate stops accelerating, that's a second derivative. U so we I've really appreciated seeing that response to that and seeing how that you can identify
that if it was sixth grade and then that might be able to follow the students on later and then continue to accelerate a path. So appreciate all this work. >> Absolutely. Um, I'll also say, um, when it came to even the math presentation and looking at some of the like the
intervention program, the BSI, I thought that that was also, you know, like a phenomenal, um, situation where we're able to work with those students that um, you know, may not be meeting the standard. And so, I'm looking forward to how that program uh, develops over time
and have full confidence. Thank you. Thank you for the whole team and what you did today. Um, really encouraged. All right, thanks. >> Great. Our next presentation, I believe, will be a little bit shorter, gentlemen. I hope it will be a lot
shorter. Um, is about artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence integration. We've talked about this some in the past and we wanted to bring these gentlemen up to talk about the good work that we've been doing um and the the work we're looking forward to doing. So, gentlemen, take it away. >> Uh, good evening. Thank you for having
us here tonight to talk about uh artificial intelligence and how we're integrating it um into our classes. So I'm going to start off um November 2022 chatbt the end of the month comes out and education as we know
it changes just like a lot of things that came out. Google came out was a massive change the calculator a massive change. So the pace of AI development since the introduction of chatebt has really been a center of a national
conversation around what do we do with AI in schools and how do we deal with it. One of the things I'd like to talk about very quickly is we were ahead of the curve. In September of 2022 we actually launched a AI and machine
learning eighth grade elective in computers for our students. So even before chat GPT which really brought AI to the forefront came out we actually had a course available to our students. Now I'll date myself here if anyone
remembers Clippy from Word. Very basic AI. AI has been around. It's nothing that is new. If you do texting on your phone and there's word prediction. It's AI. These are all things that have been around. It just came to a forefront when
chat tpt came out. There's been programs like chat tpt around for years. They just were not as easily accessible. So these emerging technologies, we're kind of trying to change the tires on our car as we're driving at 100 miles an hour
down the highway to keep up with what's going on. So, as teachers try to figure out what they're doing in the classroom, as administrators try to figure out what the teachers are doing, as teachers try to figure out what the kids are doing, we've got to look at all of these different pieces and come up with a plan
of how we can integrate AI, which is in my opinion excellent resource as long as it's used ethically. When it's used ethically, ethically and responsibly, it is a great resource for our students. So, Mr. Mr. Morelli and I have been working uh for the last few years
actually on a lot with AI and we'll talk more about that as we go through the presentation tonight. >> Thank you again for having us. Um so I'm going to speak just briefly about how we've been approaching this as an administration for the last few years. Um really there's two questions that I
think have guided us as we've tried to navigate this and I think Paul said it well. We're we're changing the tire while we're driving the car. Um, I think we're on the fifth iteration of chat GBPT right now since November of 2022. Um, and that's just going to keep
happening more and more. Um, not to mention that there are all we're talking about chat GBT, there are so many other large language models that are out there. So on top of that, another thing that we'll speak about is for every freely accessible large language model or genai model that a student can
access, there are, I don't know, dozens of edtech companies that are trying to sell us different products that we might be able to use. And part of what we've been working on really, I'd say since the summer is trying to figure out which would best serve our students needs so that we're not just spending a lot of money on something because it's flashy,
but really something that's going to be beneficial to our teachers and our students. And it's really been guided by these two questions. The first of all is how can teachers ethically use AI in terms of their or I'm sorry, use their instruction to teach students about the
ethical use of AI. And we'll talk a little bit more about what that looks like a little bit later on, but just for example, is there a way that something like Gemini or TAGBT can help as almost like a personalized tutor that a kid is accessing with explicit instruction and
direction? Um, the other thing that comes along with it is the assessments and academic integrity. I don't have to tell anybody in this room that cheating has been going on for a really long time, basically since the beginning of school, right? Um, if if there is any sort of instance that you've ever heard
of of a parent helping a child with homework or a college advisor that has been editing essay or a tutor helping a kid with an SAT, there is an external resource that's been helping students to get through their um, you know, their different projects that they're working
on. None of that is considered cheating necessarily, right? These are resources that kids are learning how to access. Now they have this tool that they've never seen before. And I will say personally as somebody that is in a certification program right now and Overbreak was working on a 30 some odd
page um action research project, I understand the appeal to when you have a major big deadline and a lot to do. why a tool like that would be appealing if you were looking to cut um corners and if you're a sixth or seventh grade kid who doesn't really understand the
implications of this yet and and the other skills that you're still trying to develop that is incumbent upon us to teach them that ethical use and to then also redesign our assessments accordingly so that students are learning I'm sorry teachers are able to measure what students are learning and what they know and are able to do. We'll
go more into that, but I think it's just important if you walk away with nothing else this evening, that's really where we're starting from. And as we continue to navigate how our school district can best serve our students, it's really through those questions. Um, another thing that jump. >> Yeah.
>> Um, just two things very quickly. One, um, when we say chatbt, it's like saying Kleenex. You know, there's a lot of different AI resources out there. We're using chatbt kind of as just because it's the most popular when it came out. The other point is building upon what
Mr. Morelli said just about looking at assessments. We find that a lot of students when they use AI, it's taking the path of least resistance. So when I have two tests, a project, and I've got to write an essay, the easiest thing to
do is to drop the essay into an AI large language model and have it return something to me. Because we do we have students who are taking how many AP classes was our validictorian last year? 18 >> I think I think 18. >> Our validictorian last year had 18 AP
courses. So think about that stress level that our students are under when they're taking all of these highlevel courses. So what we want to do is also look at and it's one of the things we've done with workload planning and schooly look at how we can space out what the students are doing and also looking at
the assessments of what we're giving them. So, it's not just how to use AI like typing on a keyboard. We're trying to teach them skill sets, not how to use a specific model of AI or a specific tool. It's teaching them skills, mainly
critical thinking and questioning. So, I just wanted to put that in there to build up what Mr. Mori said. >> Thank you. Um, so what you have up on this next slide is outdated because, um, we gave this slide to Mr. Mr. Vanest a couple of weeks ago and while we were on
break there was a New Jersey Department of Education broadcast that gave us an update on the information literacy standards. So the timeline's up there. I'm not going to read it to you because you all know how to read. But this idea of no public date for publication or implementation, there is now a public date for um implementation and that's
going to be next I'm sorry September of 2027. So, we have some time on this, but essentially, just to give you some context, the state um two years ago passed a law that said that there has to be information literacy standards developed and taught grades kindergarten
through 12 in all New Jersey public schools. We've been doing the work that we've been talking about already this evening, but we've been a little bit hesitant to make major curricular revisions knowing that these standards are coming. Doing curriculum revision is really timeintensive, resource
intensive, moneyintensive work for the administration and the teachers involved. It's asking teachers to come in over the summer and give up their time. Um it requires weeks and weeks of of prep um during the spring all summer and then continue revision during the
school year. Um so what we'll talk about is how we've been supporting teachers, but the actual curriculum revisions haven't happened yet because we've been waiting for these standards. We didn't want to do something and then have to then go back and change it again when the standards came down. Essentially, what's going to happen though is that
one of the the strands of the standards is career readiness, life literacies, and key skills. And they're going to add a whole new strand in um that's going to be on information literacy. Um I'm going to be very honest with you, there is so much in this right now. We as an
administrative team have not had time to unpack this because the state just published it on Tuesday for discussion on Wednesday. Um, and the implementation won't be until September of 2027. But I think it's all the more important that the work of the the supervisors is going to have to be making sure that they are
leading their departments to work with their teachers on how do these specific standards which are content agnostic and skill skill-based, how are they going to best fit the different disciplines? because the way that you're teaching about AI and information literacy and mathematics is going to be very different than what you're doing in
social studies. So, um it's something that our plan and the state is asking that it is infused K12. We want to drill down and figure out how can these meet the interdisciplinary connections in each subject um once we um can really
dig into the standards. Um but ultimately um the other thing that we uh have realized is that there's more stuff on some of the educational technology the actual AI learning type stuff like the actual
content about what AI is and what it does is very very minimal. It's much more how do you learn how to navigate and um critically ask questions and assess the information that's in front of you. So that's what we're going to be focusing on. Um, I'm going to turn it over to Mr.
Cusack. He's going to talk a little bit about where we currently have um AI in our curriculum as it currently stands before we put these um these new standards in. >> If you actually look at the uh NJSLS, the New Jersey student learning
standards, there's actually only two standards in all of the standards that reference AI. So all of our standards that we have right now were either adopted in 2023 or 2020. Uh so they're prior to the release
of all of these AI models. Even though Chad GPT came out in November of 2022, the 2023 standards were written, formalized, agreed upon, and sent to the districts prior to that. They were just needed to
be implemented by 2023. So, a lot of the standards do not or a lot of the areas do not have anything about AI in them. Um, as I said earlier, our creativity in the digital world class that we started in 2022, also our intro to coding class
at middle school. Um, they both cover AI. They give a foundational idea of what it is, how it works. Last year, we started our sixth grade seminar. All sixth graders have to take it. It's a quarterly course. And one of the things that they talk about is the ethical use
of AI. That's one of the units that they do. Um, in high school, our computer science courses all cover AI in some aspect. And we do have future plans for looking at AI cyber security, AI networking, and offering some other
courses. We're actually offering we're proposing to offer AI cyber security and AI business uh AP business b business principles next year. Um, this is to say courses that have a large part of AI in
their curriculum. That doesn't mean that it's not talked about in other courses. I oversee TV media. I know that they talk about fake news, how you can use AI to make Will Smith look like he's eating pasta.
There's so many different things out there that you can do with AI. They talk about it in social studies and ELA. I'll let Mr. Morelli talk about that a little bit later, but it's talked about in our classes. When can it be used by students? When can it not be used by
students? Teachers have to give the students express permission to use it for assignments. So, they talk about the ethical use of it and what they're able to do. So although it's not in all of our courses as part of the curriculum because teaching AI to teach
AI isn't really beneficial for the students. Teaching the students critical thinking and questioning skills is what we want to be doing because that's the benefit of AI. What can I gain by asking a question? How do I then take the
results that I get from that question and ask a better question and get more information and then build upon what I'm trying to do? The amount of things that students can do with AI, personal tutoring, instant feedback on their own
writing. We did a great workshop last year for teachers where we had them put one of their lessons into AI and asked it to give them feedback on their lessons. They can do the same thing with students. Have the students ask AI a
question. Let it generate an answer for them. Then as a class work in groups to evaluate the response. How well did AI respond? I know when chat GPT first came out, it was great at citing sources. it
made them up, but it gave you cited sources about what you were learning about. So, teaching them that they need to understand that it's not all perfect. You can't just put something into AI, expect it to spit something out, and go,
"This is all 100% correct." It struggles with math. It's gotten better, but it struggles with math. So, there's a lot that goes into learning about AI. Um, instructionally, how do our teachers
use it? We've had Turn It In in this district for at least a decade. Turn It In now has its academic integrity for AI detection. AI detection. It works sometimes,
sometimes it doesn't. There's great AI detection out there that you can pay for. And if you take two pieces of writing and put them into two different AI detectors, one's going to tell you that it's 100% AI and the other one's going to take the same piece and tell
you that it's 100% human generated. So the best way, and we always say this to teachers, when they think that the students might have cheated and they've used AI detection, have a conversation with the student.
you know they're writing. If you sit down with someone and you ask them about what they wrote and uh well um well I I think that that means you know that they didn't write it. But if they can sit down and have a strong conversation with
you about what they did, it's a great way to be able to see what your students are actually doing. Um I'm going to jump down to the bottom one and then I'll hand it over to Mr. Mr. about the ethical use teacher support. So what can we do with it?
Generate questions. I know when I was in the classroom and you had to create sample questions, you had to sit there, you had to write them out, you had to have the solutions. AI can do that for you. With the elementarymentaries, planning in a win period, what can I do for that higher level achieving student that we were talking about earlier? We
don't want to worry about only the middle or only the bottom. We want to worry about everybody. So we want the students on both ends and in the middle to be given opportunities to be challenged and advanced. Um adjusting Lexile levels. So if you have students who have IEPs and their reading level is
not on grade level, you can take text, put it in, adjust the Lexile level. Providing accommodations to students. All of our students in district have access to Google read and write. Um oh it's by Everway now. They renamed it because it got changed. Grammarly.
There's so many others. We have a student who's using Otter AI. If you've ever used Otter AI, it's a great program. It records, summarizes, gives you action steps on what you need to do. So, it's ways that we can help students. Um, Miss Crarapel
spoke earlier about what they're doing in sixth grade with the interactive vocabulary list. We have a French teacher who's using Brisk, which is a great AI resource that pops up right on a Google doc where the students can use. So our teachers are going out there and
finding resources, coming back to their supervisors, asking questions about it, and then we're helping them to move forward with it. So I'm going to turn it over. >> So just really briefly in terms of how teachers are using it as well, they're using it as a teaching tool. So, just to
use chatbt as an example, in social studies classrooms, you might or an English classroom, you might have a teacher um have the student put a prompt into a a prompt into chatbt and then have them work together in groups to analyze the analysis, to analyze the
strength of the evidence, to look at the historical accuracy, um to look at and source the sources themselves. Um, and then that way they're not just teaching argument construction and reinforcing skills that they would have been teaching anyway, but they're also showing them what are the benefits and drawbacks of using AI. The other thing
that I think is important is that there I don't need to remind you that there is a board policy that says every teacher needs to make a decision about whether or not there is AI allowed in any instruction. Our middle and high school student handbook says it is not allowed
unless given explicit permission. So now in my my role as assistant principal um it's come across my desk a couple of times and I will say that every time it's happened so far this year the the teachers have approached it by
having a conversation with the students first and the the punishment is that the kid just has to redo the assignment because the main issue is that we we don't know what you know and are able to do if you didn't do the assignment, right? If you just popped an essay prompt into Gemini and it spit it back
out, we don't know how much you know. And that conversation has gone a really long way. The parent conversations that I've had to have um as a follow-up have all been very productive and the students recognize that it's the teachers trying to make sure that they've done their jobs and that they
they can accurately assess where the students are at. So, it's not just being introduced in like a a gotcha sort of way. Teachers are being proactive about it as well. Um Mr. Cusack's going to speak briefly about a couple of the um other instructional tools that we have
specifically been using. So last year as part of a grant we piloted between fifth and ninth grade uh KIGO for those of you we talked about Conigo last year. What it does is allows you to use Khan Academy but it gives you
under their paid side a tutor. So the students have access 247 to uh con MIGO who is the little icon in the corner and they can click on it and ask it questions. The great thing about it is it won't give you the answers. It'll talk
to you about how to go through the steps and what to do. Um all of those chats are recorded. They're monitored by the teachers. If the students do something it's inappropriate, it's flagged and the teachers can see it. So we piloted that fifth through 9th grade. I'll talk a
little bit more about that later on. Um, we did it in math, ELA. Those are the two major areas that we approached it. Um, JTB and Gemini and other AIs that we're using. As Mr. Morelli said, students are allowed to use it if they're given express consent by the
teacher, but it's a great way to generate ideas and draft content. It's a great way to take something that you've done and ask it for feedback. It's a great way to practice your critical thinking skills. The ability to think
critically and to ask good questions. Anyone can type a question into chat GPT or Gemini. It's going to spit something out. But what do you do with that information? How do you then build upon your thinking? Because if you look back and you ask the students to generate
something in AI and ask it a question, take that, analyze it, ask it better questions, dive deeper, and then you ask the students to actually turn in their whole chat with GPT with chat GBT or Gemini. It will show you their thinking,
what they read, what questions they asked, how they then revised their ideas, and where they were able to go with their thinking. So the big thing we want to do is develop those questioning skills, teach them to verify sources. One of the big
things that we have to look at with AI is it's from a large language model that's built on everything in the internet. What biases are there? How is that information that's being used on the internet? Because it takes everything on the internet,
not just great vetted sources. It takes everything on the internet. So teaching those students to vet their sources and look at what they're doing to really read deeper into it. >> I turn it back over to Mr. Mor.
>> Um so another thing that I think is important to emphasize is that we've we've been spending a lot of time in thinking about how to provide teachers with um support on this. Um there have been a series of um workshops that we've offered. As we mentioned earlier,
ChatGBT dropped in November of 2022. We actually offered a workshop during the March 2023 uh professional development day to any interested middle and high school faculty that wanted to think more about what AI looks like in their classroom, especially around um not just um effective instructional strategies,
but how it interfaces with academic integrity. Um we also brought in a consulting firm um Kiker Learning that had done um professional development as well as uh the supervisor team worked together to do professional development
um in September and October of 2023. Um at that point um you know it really sort of pivoted more to ongoing conversations happening at faculty meetings and department meetings. Um and we worked together as an administrative team in the summer of 2024 to revise the student handbook. Um, but I I do think what what
is important to emphasize is that there is nobody in this district that is an expert on this. There are very few people I think that can actually claim to be experts on this in the state of New Jersey. So, we may read sometimes online that X district is doing something or Y district is doing something else. I can tell you from the
professional organizations that I'm involved with, everybody is trying to figure this out at the same time and everybody's trying to, again, to use the analogy, build the plane while we're flying it. So, um, we'll talk a little bit more about the suggestions and the direction that we would like to take, but it's going to take considerable
resources and and time to help our faculty feel comfortable and to continue to um to feel like they are confidently using something that is ever changing and that for most of us um is so far removed from our generation in terms of
being digital natives that um the students are definitely five or six or 17 steps ahead. So, >> yep. >> Um, so evaluation and assessment of effectiveness of what we're using. The
most effective tool we have is our conversations with our teachers. They're in the classrooms. They're working with the students. They see what the students are doing on a daily basis. They're the ones who come to us and say, "I'd like to try this. A student showed me how I can do this." They're the ones who are
saying students are doing this. How can I as a teacher adjust my teaching practice or my assessments? So those conversations, it's authentic feedback. It's boots on the ground in the classroom. As Mr. Morelli said, it's an
everchanging landscape. Every day something changes with AI and none of us are experts. Uh we had the con MIGO pilot. We did dropin sessions um pretty much every other week where teachers could come talk about
what was working, talk about was what wasn't working, what they liked about it, what they didn't like about it. Based on their direct feedback, the decision was made not to purchase the program at that time because it wasn't giving us the return on investment for what we would have had to pay for. Um, I
know my department meetings and I know all of my fellow supervisors at the department meetings, it's always a conversation of what's going on in the classrooms and talking about AI. I know that the middle school, high school professional learning communities uh will focus on AI generation, some of
them in the 2526 school year. So, we're always talking about it with the teachers. Obviously, when the teachers want to use something, we do vet it. I know I had a teacher who asked me to use something. I met with the representative from the company online. We did a zoom.
We talked about it. What could happen, what couldn't happen, what information it gives out. And through that discussion, a decision was made on whether or not to use the product. >> Academic integrity. >> Um, we've already spoken about this and I I know that um that it is getting
late. So, I will just say again like what this comes down to is that the teachers have to give explicit permission. The one thing that I will just um to piggyback on something that Mr. Cusack said um we have been actively exploring other options with regard to um these edtech um AI platforms. Just as
an example um Miss Crarapels before spoke about the uh program that they're using for vocabulary in the middle school. The real benefit to that besides the onetoone personalized learning is the backend that you as a teacher can see to be able to analyze the data that
you're getting on your students. all of the programs that we're looking at are have some sort of function like that available. And basically, if that's not included in the package or if it's something that is not, you know, if it's still being beta tested and wouldn't be available, we've taken it off our list
because we we're trying not to make sure that we're spending money or asking teachers to use something that's really just like a shiny new toy and really instead going to give them helpful information for their instruction and assessment. Um, with that, one thing that we also have, um,
>> would you like to Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Kac. I don't want to >> steal my slides. >> Um, so what we're doing and what we've talked about is starting in a AI task force for middle school high school. It's going to be six to eight. We've already actually reached out um faculty members, both buildings across the
departments. Um, we're going to have them look at what we've been doing, asking them what they've been doing. getting all this information together so we can make a good decision on what we want to do moving forward. As Mr. Morelli said, we've been meeting with
companies about what programs we can use. There's Power Buddy through Schooly, there's School AI, um gosh, there's Brisk, there's two other ones that we've looked at. Um, the other thing that we're looking at besides whether or not
they have that backend information is when you enter information into chat GPT, it becomes part of the large language model. When you do it in all these other programs that we're looking at for schools, our data doesn't go into their
large language model. So any information that we have doesn't become part of that large language model. And we need the students to understand that because when they type something into chat GPT, it's now out there. So if they're putting any personal information in
there, it becomes part of that large language model. So we're looking at security, confidentiality, and all these things as well when we do this. So what we want to do is through the task force be ready to make a decision for the to pilot hopefully in the spring and then
for the 2526 school year have something in place that is a single place we can go to for all of our AI needs because we have teachers going out building sources on this site having the kids go here looking at vocabulary over here so it's
starting to have us log into a lot of different places we want to bring that all into one central hub and we're going ask the AI task force to help us with that to give us the teacher input. So it's not just top down saying this is what we're going to do. We're getting
the teacher and stakeholder input. Um, and so really just to wrap up like I think what it comes down to is that you know we want to partner with the board with regard to the direction of how how much we dive into this because there this could be a full throttle
professional development initiative, but we have a lot of other things that we need to think about like that NJSLA presentation that you just heard and you know to be completely honest a couple of years ago um our March PD day is a collaboration with the GREA. We had
members of GRE leaderships tell us there are other things that teachers want to focus on besides AI because we've been spending so much time on it at the beginning of that school year and we want to make sure that we're being supportive and listening to those teachers as well. So, um there's a lot that we can be doing and there's a lot
for us to explore. Um I think that the reality is we all and I put myself first in this have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. um and that you know the the the changing nature of um what's happening at the college level, the changing nature of what's happening
in the workplace um doesn't necessarily align or flow directly to what you're going to do at a K12 level. And so we we just have to figure out what what would be best for Glenrock moving forward. >> And that's it. Thank you. >> All right. Well, >> thank you very much.
>> Thank you. Thank you. Oh, okay. Um, so thank you so much for um that presentation, a very thorough presentation. I think I mean you've laid it out pretty clearly um as to what we can expect in the the near-term future as well as like the ongoing challenges
of you know essentially pinning a tail on a moving donkey. Um and so I I look forward to um everything that you're going to do. And I would also ask um do you think that the board policy on AI is at all like creating a limitation for
you or is it it's in alignment? Okay. >> Not at all. I think what what is in board policy right now is very open and has given us a ton of leeway. So we we feel we have felt very comfortable just moving in the direction of um you know following the information that we have
available to us. Um I think keeping it probably the thing that I think is strongest about the policy right now is that teachers will not be told or um the district will not make a statement at any point that we won't be using AI. That is in there and I think it's really
important that we are embracing it. So >> all right thank you Mr. Cohen, >> one thing I I did meet the guy that invented Clippy and he was not very proud of it, but uh he did invent also the red line under spelling mistake and he was very proud of that part. But uh
in another manner um yeah it's I see in I know from college kids that they're struggling with trying to understand like what's right or wrong with AI and how to use it. I know in my workspace people are you know trying to figure out what's the right and and and there's positive and negative and and there's good ways to use it and wrong ways. So
it's great that we're actually thinking about it from from the school level from the elementary to high school and and just preparing them for you know next level and next steps of life. So that's great. >> Thank you so much. All right. So, it is 8:52 and we have uh
some patient children and parents and we'll open up our first of two public uh comments periods. Um please state your name and address and you have Yes, go for it. Is the um microphone on? I want to make
sure. >> My name is Penny Unger and I live at 247 Grammarly Place. Good evening and I am here to represent fall 2025 girls on the run team. Each season we choose a community impact project to try to bring positive change to our community. This
season we all agreed that one change that is needed in our school is that the middle school should have a playground. My name is Alisia and I live at 27 Buckingham Place. While my team and I are currently in grades 3 to 5 at
Central Coleman in Hamilton, one day we will all attend Glenrock Middle School. We also have siblings there currently and they say that Reese's can be boring. While some students, mostly boys, may bring a ball to throw around, others are left with only the choice between
walking the track or standing in place. Even big kids need fun ways to get their energy out, and kids behave better after they get the chance to do so. For this reason, adding a playground could even make some misbehavior in the classroom go away.
My name is Aurelia and I live at 96 Storbury Avenue. For recess to truly give your brain a break from learning, it should feel free and filled with possibilities. A playground adds a fun way for kids to get active if and
decompress. Finally, students spend a lot of time at school, so it's important they have things to look forward for that feel fun. 100% of our particip participants that we surveyed agreed that playgrounds are fun and fun
matters. My name is Camila and I live on 38 Radburn Road. Our team has done our research and found the compan supercomi3 playground that can support 17 adult
bodies at one time cost $25,200. We researched the fitness playground because we have heard that middle school students don't have PE every semester. We also thought it was important that this playground work for high school students too.
My name is Ally Murdoch and I live on 50 Ronnie Street. It could be used for screen during PE by sports teams and get extra screening outside. We also think that the younger kids would use this playground when
their siblings have sporting events at the high school. Adults who exercise on the track could use it to do pull-ups, too. In this way, a single playground would benefit a lot of people. My name is Selena Ponte. I live I live
at 360 Highwood Avenue. I would like to thank you for listening to our proposal. We would like to know when we can meet our discuss our ideas forward.
We we are willing to do more research and help uh fund fund raise fundraising if it can make a Glenrock Middle School playground a reality. Thank you for your
time and con consideration. >> All right. [Applause] All right. Thank you girls. Um we will
be in touch. Thank you. All right. All right. All right. That was nice. Um, anybody else for um public comments? Uh, preferably on on board action items for our first set.
All right. If not, seeing no other public comments, we'll close at 8:57. All right. For personnel, can we um get a motion to discuss P1 through P3? All right. Liz, seconded by Karen.
Liz second Liz seconded by Karen. All right. So um discussion um I'll I'll start by saying uh that I am honored and thrilled to um have you as our acting
superintendent. Um I look forward to uh you thriving in this role. Um and I'm really appreciative of of everything. So thank you. Um, anybody else? Yes, Mr. Cohen. >> Yeah, it feels that we were in a storm
and now uh we have somebody to guide us to a little bit of a calm waters. So, again, thank thanks so much and we appreciate it. Um, I said it before, I said it again. Uh, while uh we agree on some things, but we don't agree other things. Uh, you always been
professional, respectful, and enjoyment to work with. So, thank you very much. I echo those comments and uh thank you for for stepping up and and for serving us and I'm looking forward to this new chapter for the board.
All right. All right. If you could please call a roll. >> Mr. Cohen. >> Yes. >> Mr. Corey. >> Yes. >> Mr. Hayward. >> Yes. >> Miss Prolanis. >> Yes.
Miss Stevenson, >> yes. >> Miss Calves, >> yes. >> Dr. Robinson, >> yes. >> Motion passes. >> Congratulations. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you. Um, just wanted to say a couple words and and first is is thank
you to this board. Um, Mr. Cohen, I think going through a storm is a good good uh metaphor for for what this board has been through lately and I want to thank you for the hard work that you have done to get through that storm. I know it hasn't been easy and it's been more than some of you have bargained for when you joined the board probably. So,
um I just want to thank you for that and your continued service to the schools and the community. Um I also want to thank you for putting your trust in me. Um, you know, I'm here to here to do good things for this district and and working together with all of you is is how we will get that done. So, I'm
looking forward to that. I want to congratulate Miss Parlamas and Dr. Buchi Vender and Mr. Tang for their for their elections uh victories this week, last week. Um, I look forward to working with all three of of you as well. And um, you know, just to kind of sum up, I'm I'm
looking forward to the work here. I know there's a lot um some some real goals that I have are are better communication, more cooperation within the district and administration and board and community. Um I I seek to have more community engagement. Um you heard from our our supervisors today and they
are fantastic and and we shouldn't be keeping them secret, right? They should be working with lots of people so that they can hear hear the good news that that we're doing. Um and and also just thinking about what are what are our bigger goals here, right? There's been conversation about test scores today and rankings last time and and those are
important things, but they're not the only things that define us as a district. And so I'm looking forward to more conversation about about what does that mean? You know, Glenro schools are excellent, but we're always looking forward to get better, getting better. And what do we all envision that to to look like is is what we're going to be talking about moving forward and and
really um just keeping on the the tradition of excellence that we have here. >> All right. Wonderful. Thank you. Looking forward to it. looking forward to reestablishing um you know uh the communication patterns that you're also um comfortable with and figuring that
out, figuring out the rhythm with the community. So, it's just kind of like a reset period. Um and we're all learning each other, a new team um new uh newly elected members coming in as well. Um so looking forward to it. All right, so
thank you on to our general items. Um so policy um in terms of is there anything >> I have nothing to add on this and haven't been part of the conversations with these. This is one of those that I
need to get my feet under me a little bit more. >> Okay. All right. No problem. Um so with with regards to like even the sun the student sun protection I think I know we've with with this and our legal services um we've been on like first
read for for a little bit here. Um, I think before we even go to finalizing anything with student protection, one thing I would just ask just to close the loop is just what the the staff and administration have to say
about it. >> I'll work with Dr. Daniel who supervises the nursing staff and get recommendations for you. Um, if we can, we'll get it on the agenda next. Otherwise, we'll do it in December. >> Sounds wonderful. >> I don't think we're applying a lot of sunscreen between now and December. I think it's safe to say okay >> especially after today's weather abrupt
weather change uh um and and uh with legal services um I think we last decided that um the method of communication between us and our lawyer wouldn't change um that it would either
be primarily through um the board president or through um yourself and or um and Mr. Canelis has direct uh contact. Um other than that nothing changed and we would adopt um the stress
sme recommendations. Any questions or did you have something? >> So just to give everybody the update uh the policy committee met and we reviewed the mandatory uh policies that uh were missing based on the NJSBA review. Um
some policies requires the business office uh input, some policies requires vaness um updates. So we'll collect all the information and then we'll review and then present it. One policy about the um school nutrition. Uh we want to
collect information from other boards from other towns in New Jersey to see how they address that policy and how they implemented it. So, uh, we'll compile a list of, um, policies that seem relevant and we send it to everybody to review. >> All right. Thank you very much. Um, oh,
were you going to say something? Oh, okay. Um, one thing I wanted to ask about that um after uh our NJSBA conference was I know so I understand like straight will have a set of policies and then um the NJSBA has also
a set of policies. Is there I know that the policy numbers and all of that are different and are the things that were identified for from the NJSBA policies like >> yeah we we managed to match about I think everything except from one and so
that one we should ask the star but explanation >> uh but other than that we there there's like correlations and you can find the the numbers and uh however some of the policies seemed out of date in terms of estimates and we had the latest version.
So, we need clarification from them and probably from the SBA to clarify. Maybe they have a better version or more updated version. But, Ed, I don't know if you have >> um Yeah, they they're basically competitors of each other. So, they
don't number one, they don't match in the numbering, which sometimes makes it difficult. The other is uh they can interpret uh laws and requirements differently. So the one we saw that was different uh Strauss as may believe was not a mandatory and NJSBA did believe it
was mandatory. So we'll investigate it. We'll get the answer and get back to everyone. But other than that, we're in very good shape, I think. But we did learn from the audit is we're doing very well. >> Excellent. Thank you. All right. Um so
no new items on governance. Um, INP the co-op. >> You know, it's been a long meeting when the business administrator is speaking about instruction and program. Um, we uh just just a real quick update. The girls
hockey co-op has been progressing. Uh, we issued a um a revised contract to Ridgewood for their execution. Uh the co-op has been approved by the NJSIA
AA. So I think we are moving uh on track to have an action item on the 24th uh for the board to uh ratify the agreement and to move forward with the co-op. All right.
Any questions, comments, anything? All right. Thank you. Um during we have special services. I know one thing that um I could mention it now or liaison but um Stephanie submitted to me was there's
a uh seminar called preparing students with disabilities for college success. Glenrox CPAC presents the transition from high school is challenging for any high school student. For students with disabilities it also presents a disability service system that is very different from the one they knew in high
school. But with the proper pres um preparation students can enjoy success. uh author and university learning disabilities consultant Elizabeth Hamlet um who's the author of uh a book about uh seven steps to success, a pathway for
students with disabilities, explains the difference in the prevailing laws, what that means for how students access accommodations and shares some commonly approved accommodations with a Q&A. Um so this presentation is Wednesday, um November 12th. It's this Wednesday from
7:00 to 8:00 p.m. It's on Zoom. um and uh she wanted to share that. So that's wonderful. Thank you. Um management and community nothing. All right. Fiscal managements.
Thank you Dr. Robinson. So as part of uh the uh fiscal goals that we have uh this year was to look at our health insurance uh policy that we have and our
participation in the state plan. Um so this will be our formal report out on that. So we had requested the claims report for the period of July 2023 through June of 25. um we receive those uh reports from the
state. They are not very detailed. Uh they really just give you a summary of premiums collected and claims paid. They don't really give you insight into um the type of claims, the length of
claims, the severity of the claims. Uh it's really very vanilla. Um, and they also give you a even more vanilla extract on uh prescription drugs. So they don't give you an idea of what type
of prescription drugs or what have you. So it it's very generic information. Um, and that's the best that we can get from the state. That's what everybody would get when they request such information from the state. So, we received those and and we immediately uh submitted that
information to our benefits broker, Brown and Brown. Uh Brown and Brown did their analysis on the uh reports and they came to a claims rate of 129%.
And and what that translates to is that for every dollar of premium that's collected, the insurance company is paying out a $129. Obviously, that's not a sustainable uh situation for the insurance company and
thus we see the various uh and large uh increases in our health health insurance coverages. I think this year it's in excess of 30%. So in order the the the
underwriters are looking for a targeted claims rate of about 85% which allows for about a 15% profit margin for them. um the environment with 129% claims rate in order to
possibly leave the state plan for a plan that was equal to or greater than the current plans which we are required to do under our collective bargaining agreements. there will be no interest in us. Um
to corroborate that assessment from Brown and Brown, while we were down at workshop, I spoke with several um other insurance brokers and kind of explained to them our claims rate and
what we were looking at. and they too agreed that we were not an attractive uh district to leave um the the state plan. And and so what's happened is is that all of the districts with favorable
claims rates have left the state plan, leaving the state plan with all of the rest of us. Uh I like to call it the plan of last resort. Um and and really that is kind of where we will be. Um
there just aren't any options based on those claim rates for us to go out. Um, and you know, the the the only possibility that that that could pot that would be out there would be an insurance company who would give us a
teaser rate and then would just absolutely annihilate us um in the subsequent years, which would then just push us back into the uh into the state plan. So, I think it's been generally accepted by the state and the
legislature that there is a problem with the state insurance fun. I think the municipal fund is bankrupt uh and the educators is following. So I think the the the best pattern for us is
unfortunately to hold uh hold our position in the state plan and do what we can to mitigate our losses. Uh so October 31st marked the end of open enrollment for 2026.
uh prior to that. So for uh insurance year 2025, we had 65% of our uh insured souls under the educators plan or the new chapter 44 and 35% on the legacy
plans, the old direct 10 and direct 15. As of the end of open enrollment, we are now have only 13% of our uh uh insured souls in the legacy plans and 87% in the
educators plan. So what does that mean? Well, we know that the rates for 2026 are up up increasing above 30%. That is creating a $364,000
deficit for us in fiscal year 2526 that we'll have to um cover. Uh essentially we have a plan towards that primarily due to some uh very uh aggressive hiring over the
summer that led to some favorable breakage that will enable us to cover that cost. So, we're not worried there. Where we are worried is is that when I was on the call with Brown and Brown, I I made what I thought was a joke saying
that you were going to tell me in January that for insurance year 27, you'd increase it that your thoughts are it'll increase another 30%. And you said, "Well, yeah, I do think it'll increase another 30%." So, if we then combine the TW the 26
insurance year, 30% increase with a potential 30% increase in the 27 year, you could potentially be looking at a $2.6 million increase in the 2627 budget
above the 20 uh five 2526 budget. So, the numbers are large. we have to and and and what that means is is that our cap adjustment right is going to be fairly large which means that the tax increase is going to be fairly large.
Just looking at that at 30,000 ft the math is the math right. So that is really where we are. Um we will continue to monitor the situation. Hopefully some guidance will come out um
that will provide some insight into the 27 calendar year. Um the reason why I keep mentioning the the 26 27 is that we're on a fiscal year that runs from June from July to June. The insurance
fund runs on a calendar year January through December. So in any given year you have half at one rate and half at the other rate. Uh which is why we have that 300 and change issue this year right current fiscal year and the back end of that is in the following plus
whatever the increase is in the 27 rates. So, that's kind of where we are and that's going to be the the the the first bullet point of of our our budget meetings that hopefully will start uh later this month as as being an you know
a given that we and a problem that we just have to solve for and and we will um we will receive some relief visav uh adjustment but there is going to be a portion of that that we're going to have to cover out of our own operations. So
that's the story on health insurance. Any questions? >> Lots of uh questions, but Oh my goodness. Um well, thank you for that very thorough report. I think, you know, ever since that first major bump that we had some years ago, every year
we're kind of all waiting with baited breath to see, you know, what the following year is going to bring. and having those conversations earlier and earlier to try and find ways to prepare um I think is going to be important. I mean as we know our budget is is is in
education is very like razor thin right you we already have you know between the salaries and benefits and things like that um we're always at or very close to our 2% cap as it is. So, um I think
annually everyone, you know, we all go right to, you know, like what is the the in increase going to be and um it's it's always it's always a point of contention and and uncomfortable. So, thank you so much for bringing this up earlier um for
bringing this um information to our attention and figuring out how we can move forward with the budget committee and seeing what we can do creatively. >> And we'll continue conversations. Um I speak with our our benefits uh advisor
quite frequently. So if something were to develop or someone was to somehow get out uh or someone was looking for a partner or what have you um that could always be an option so we could keep our fingers crossed we'll keep in contact
with them but for now I would assume that we would just be with the state plan. >> All right. And would it also be fair to say that I mean this is this is an issue in our district but perhaps in many other districts it's even compounded exponentially.
>> This is going to be an issue throughout the state for any district that is in the state plan. If you're not in the state plan it could be it could have varying impact, right? could have no impact because you did a two-year deal
last year on a private plan and you're not up for uh uh you know renegotiation and you and you were somehow able to negotiate a flat rate. Uh or it could be that, you know, schools that are leaving, you know, I I I heard of of a
district locally who was, I believe, at a 76% uh claims rate who actually had like a modest 7 8% increase in their cost. So, it it's going to impact districts differently, but it will impact every
district in the state plan the exact same way. >> Yeah. Thank you. Any other uh questions, comments? >> Yes. >> Thanks for highlighting the fact that this is there's two different years that we're we're budgeting and uh so it's
really important that you're looking forward to 2027 dragging into 2028. These are this is an art and form to figure out how we have to budget for this every single year. So December 31st is just halfway through our our forecasting. So, um, you're
articulating that really well, even though it's such a complicated mess of of guesswork. Um, I'm just doing some math on the on the back here, and it looks like we might even be competitive as these state rates go up in the open market. Who knows where that'll be, but
um, this is well outside of our pay grade. It's really important that the state takes some effort to address this because it's a program that um has is not within our control to be able to to manage this. So, we're doing our best though right here. Thanks.
>> Thank you. All right. And AFLA. >> Sure. Um, this is an initiative that I just wanted to make sure that the board was supportive before I tried to pursue it any further. um
is AFLAC coverage for our employees and and it allow employees to purchase at their own cost, no cost to the district, uh supplemental dental, supplemental visions, uh short-term disability, which I'll come back to, uh hospital
confinement indemnity insurance, as well as accident coverage. Um, the reason why I say to come back to the short-term disability, so currently all of our nonaligned employees do not have short-term disability coverage. There there's not
an avenue for them to acquire it. So, this would in fact allow folks uh to purchase on their own a short-term disability plan, which I think is real important for them and a good thing for our people and for for morale. Um and so
with the board's um approval um I would like to further look into this with uh with a anticipated launch uh for the 2627 uh fiscal year. And again I I'll add it
it's it's no cost to the district. the only involvement the district has is um withholding the contribution that is required of the employee and then forwarding that on to AFLAC.
So um if if you wouldn't mind doing this not a resolution but do I have the board's uh approval to continue to look into this? >> Just we don't have any other no credentials short-term disability. We don't have anything like that here.
>> Only for C certificated individuals. >> Okay. >> Not non-aligned. >> Okay. >> Do not have that option. >> Okay. I personally have AFLAC for disability and for all those other things that that you said. So >> yeah, it'll also help on the vision too
since we don't have a vision policy. This would supplement what's covered in the state plans medical uh coverage. So there are a number I mean there's also cancer insurance. There's a there's a ton of things that we could could offer. We'll look and see um potentially what
is uh of interest to to to the uh employee base and then offer it. Um I will say that just because we offer it doesn't mean they'll get it. Uh you do have to have minimum participation rates in order for the program to to carry on,
but we'll do the best that we can. So, I we will continue to work with the broker and try to um get that rolling for us. >> So, straw poll. Yay. >> All right. >> Yes. Just a straw pull. >> Oh, great. Thank you so much.
>> No problem. All right. Um also on to new business for the PSA proposal. >> Yes. So pursuant to goal number two um was uh a review of the district
buildings and the creation of a priority uh plan of action along with budgets. Uh so I reached out to our architects of record PSA um and they have provided us with a proposal. The proposal is for
three thou $37,500 to do the review of all five buildings. Um, and an an additional $3,000 to uh do the major amendment to our long range facility plan. Um, which we would have
auto automatically had to do anyhow because it's on a five-year cycle and this is our fifth year. So, we would have had to do that anyhow. So we can and and really from a holistic perspective, this is the way to do the
the the appropriate way to do a long range plan is to have a building's assessment and then use that as the basis for the long range facility plan and then monitor as you move along and as your needs may may or may not change.
Uh so if uh that will be that proposal will be on the 24th for the board's approval. All right. Fantastic. Any uh questions? >> All right.
Actionable items. Uh so can I get a motion to discuss B1 through B2? All right, Ed. Seconded by Christine questions, comments. I know we kind of
already touched on this already. Anything? All right. >> If you I could give a little bit of an explanation on CMP and M1 if that's were wanted by the board. >> Sure. I mean, we'll I'll take it. >> Sure. So, the CMP, which is our
comprehensive maintenance plan and M1, they're really um they're budgeting tools, which is why they're due uh the November 15th of of each year. Um and what they do is is they establish minimums based upon the square footage of your buildings of what you need to
spend on maintenance. Uh we far expend those me those minimums. Um and the other uh function that it plays is it establishes the maximum maintenance reserve that you can have. Um and we are
certainly well within that range as well. Um and then the thing to remember it's it's these are maintenance items only. It's not new items. So for instance uh we're looking at doing that phase one of the RTU uh project. That's
not maintenance. That's a capital uh expenditure. Maintenance is, you know, changing filters, changing uh a motor on a uh an RTU, uh things of that nature. And and and the other thing to keep in
mind is is that our maintenance reserve, and I believe Miss Perlamus had a question earlier about our philosophy on the maintenance reserve. The maintenance reserve is really the emergency fund. It's almost like the second emergency fund. Um, and and the
district never had one until up until about two years ago where we established it by our budget contribution and now we enhance it when we do our June allocations of excess surplus. So that's where where we've been kind of putting money and it serves two purposes. uh
when something, you know, goes unexpectedly, uh we could easily have a a pump system go and it be a $100,000 item. This is where obviously we would go for those funds. And it could also help fill budget holes as well when when times get
tough. Uh so for instance, this year we're using $100,000 to finance our painting uh phase two. Uh so it's a give and a take, but the hope is that we're appropriately budgeting in our
maintenance accounts and not relying on the reserve. So So that's kind of been our approach. Um and it's it's it's going to be it's on tonight as opposed to the 24th because it's due on the 15th. So I need a motion in order a certified motion in order to submit it.
So that's why it is on there tonight. Thank you. Any questions? All right. If you're able to call roll, please. >> Mr. Cohen, >> yes. >> Mr. Corey, >> yes. >> Mr. Hayward, >> yes. >> Miss Parlamis, >> yes. >> Miss Stevenson,
>> yes. >> Miss Calves, >> yes. >> Dr. Robinson, >> yes. >> Motion passes. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um, so did you have something? Did you raise your hand? I'm sorry. Okay. Um so nothing in operations
um liaison I gave the CPAC already and then we will move on to public comments. >> Okay before go ahead. >> So just two things. One um I know the girls on the run uh had to go to sleep but uh hopefully they'll see the
recording and so it's always great that the students are advocating on their behalf. So uh thank you. uh as a parent to two middle graders uh I completely agree with everything they said and all their uh logical explanations. So hopefully uh we will talk about it in
the future. So that's one thing and the second thing I just wanted to also congratulate Christine, Angela and Z uh for the win and joining the board. Um it's I'm excited to work together and looking forward to it. >> All right. Agreed. Thank you.
All right. So, at 9:28, we'll be opening our second of two public comment sessions. Please state your name and your address, and you'll have three minutes. >> Roy Clipper, 142 WZO Terrace. Good evening members of the board, administrators, and community members. I
want to begin by recognizing the presentation tonight on the NJSLA results. It was a thoughtful and well-prepared overview of how the district dedicates time and resources to improving general education programming. It clearly show it clearly shows that
when district identifies a need, it knows how to respond strategically and effectively. However, the presentation that followed regarding how the district plans to improve special education program directly contradicts the actions this administration has recently taken, particularly the hiring of a new board
attorney known statewide for fighting parents and blocking students from receiving the very services that would allow them to make progress and eventually meet the expectations of their same age peers. The hire also raises serious concerns about the direction of our department of special
services. If the district's stated goal is to strengthen special education and help students grow, then bringing in legal council whose reputation is built on opposing those efforts sends the exact opposite message. We also know that our district already spent significantly more per pupil on attorney
fees than comparable districts. Those funds would be far better spent on children who actually need support, not defending against parents who are simply advocating for their kids. Our own family has experienced this pattern firsthand. Being denied 504 plan, then denied evaluations to identify a
disability and then denied appropriate services. Unless we retain an attorney, that should never be the gateway to getting help in a public school system. We've also been told incorrectly that by code parents must go through INRS before
seeking an IEP. This is not a New Jersey law. It's a tactic that delays services and deters families from experiencing or excuse me, from exercising their rights. And this isn't just happening to us. Those in charge and employed in the district are guilty of doing this, not only to our
family, but to many families in Glenrock. Many of these families have reached out to me personally, recounting their needs to hire attorneys or even remove their children from the district altogether. With this information in hand, how are we supposed to entrust a district that is not on our
team and truly to help our kids? Our district is capable of great things. The NJSLA presentation proved that. But those same skills, datadriven practices, and resources must be applied to supporting all students, not just those in general education. A true measure of
progress is not how hard a district fights parents. It's how well it helps every child reach their potential. Um, I only have about 16 seconds left, so I'll tell you. Uh, I'll be back at the next meeting to further continue this. I
thank you all for hearing me out. I especially thank this board for doing the difficult task of removing the old superintendent, but we need to do better and it's got to start from the top down. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. If there are no other members of the
public, um we'll close our second public comments at 9:32 p.m. All right. Can I get a motion to adjourn the meeting? All right. Ed, seconded by Karen.
And if we're able to call roll or all those in favor. All right. Any opposed? All right. Thank you everyone. Thank you.