Thanks for the pin, Robin. Okay, thank you. Welcome everybody um to the board meeting. Uh Tom, can we have a roll call? Miss Bose here. Mr. Clark, Miss Evans here,
Miss Groger here. Miss Kelly, Dr. King here, Miss Martinez here, Miss Pasculi here, and I see Miss Kelly. So, we've got Miss Kelly. So, you have a quorum. Mr. Vanheis is
absent. Yes. Thank you. Um, okay. Uh, we're going to go into executive session. Um, the Open Public Meeting Act authorizes the board of education to meet in exact session under certain circumstances. Um this
evening we will be discussing specifically matters which if publicly disclosed would constitute an unworn invasion of individual privacy and specifically hib will be discussed. Uh formal action will not be taken this evening. Um executive session is
expected to last approximately 30 minutes. Um can I have a motion to move into executive session? So move second with a motion and a second by Mrs. Groer. Call all in favor. All in favor I I Okay, you are going to exact session and
we will be back at 7 o'clock. everybody and welcome to our board meeting. The New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon. As required under law,
adequate notice of this meeting has been provided via email and or facts to the times, the Lawrence Ledger, the Tronium, the public library, and has been filed with the municipal clerk. This notice was provided prior to the 48 hours required by the open public meetings act. The board reserves the right to
limit public discussion of personnel items and other matters as defined in the law. Do our flag salute. I pledge algiance 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. Welcome everybody. Um, first we'll have our student representative and peer leader report. Hi, I'm Cynthia Perrell and I'll be giving you guys a little bit of a recap
of senior nights that have happened so far and the ones coming up. So, the ones that have passed are girls field hockey and girls tennis. And then the one from this past football game, we got to celebrate over 30 seniors from across different three different departments,
football, cheerleading, and marching band. The ones coming up are tomorrow, we're celebrating girls soccer seniors, and next week on the 16th, we're celebrating boys soccer seniors. We hope you guys can join us. Hi, I'm Danielle Navius. I'm a senior peer leader. Powerpuff is coming up next
month on November 12th. The juniors and seniors have started to sign up and have started to buy their Powerpuff T-shirts. And the class of 2026 is starting to prepare for their second victory. Hi, my name is Adriana Marin and I'm a senior. Uh so LPS for a cause was just
an event that happened October 4th. It was enacted to stand in solidarity and fundra for breast cancer awareness and research. Laps for our cause was an event involving running labs for breast cancer. The event was actually sponsored by numerous companies including Wawa, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, and Capital Health. The event was super successful
raising over $3,000. [Music] [Applause] Hi, my name is Sabine Delarda and I'm a senior peer leader. Homecoming is this Saturday, October 11th. The football game will begin at 12:00 p.m. and the dance at the German American Club will
be given at 700 p.m. This week leading up to Saturday, the school has been engaging in spirit days such as matching Monday, tropical Tuesday, and warrior Wednesday. Thursday will be camo, and Friday is neon. Friday, there will also be a pep rally where each of the fall sports are recognized and we will
participate in activities such as student vers staff games. Hi, my name is Jada Leonardo and I'm in 12th grade and I'm also a part of gospel choir. So I'll be talking about our most recent performance. So the go the LHS Gospel Choir took the stage at the Kirby Arts Center uh for the Lewisville Road
Symposium singing Lift Every Voice and Sing and we sing praises to honor the valuable history of the street. This is the first of many community events and competitions the award-winning choir is planning to partake in. And we hope you show up and show out to our next one. Thank you so much.
Excuse me one second. I was at that at that event and you guys were really spot on. You were really I was so proud of you. Well done. You look fabulous. You look fabulous and you really sounded great. Great. Thank you so much to our student
representative peer leaders. You're free to go. We love having you here, but understand you have other things to do. Thank you. Bye. Okay. Um recognition and acknowledgements. None. Um adoption of the minutes. Uh can
I have a motion to adopt the executive session and regular session minutes from the 910 2025 meeting? So moved. Second. Tom with a motion and a second. Mr. Clark, yes. Miss Evans, yes. Miss Groger, yes.
Miss Kelly, yes. Dr. King, abstain. Miss Martinez, yes. Miss Pasculi, yes. Miss Bose, yes. Motion carried. Thank you. Uh, report to the board. A superintendent report.
Hi. So, October is National Principles Month. I want to just take a minute to recognize our outstanding team of principles and vice principles across our buildings. We're so fortunate and so they're they're so dedicated and compassionate every single day. Um, they come in, they lead, and they work hard
for our children and families. So, thank you. This week we're also celebrating the week of respect as part of National Bullying Prevention Month throughout our schools. You'll see staff and students participating in themed spirit days and activities. Summer underground spirit days. It's super fun. The students
really get involved. But more importantly, they're having conversation. They're learning about kindness, inclusion, and respect, which is really important. That's the hallmark of what we're trying to do this week. It's always wonderful to see our community come together with our shared values around this week. And finally, a
reminder that this coming Monday, October 13th, is a professional development day for staff. Your students will be home for the day. Our schools are closed to students. Our educators will be engaged in a day of learning and collaboration and growth focused towards student success. I also want to note
that on October 29th, we'll be hosting an early childhood advisory council at 5:00 pm at the high school. That is led by our early childhood team. They're looking for community providers, um, community members, those interested in early childhood education to really help
inform what their plan will be and their goals in the coming years. So, hope that our community will come out for that. We have two presentations this evening. The first will be our HIV self- assessment by Dr. Fischer, our director of school counseling and supports, and then followed by our office of instruction
and office of student services teams um with Vanessa McCarthy and Neil Desai. So, I think Dr. Fischer, you're up first for HIV. Thank you. Hi everyone. Good evening. Thank you. Um, so every year, uh, we are required
to present our self assessment scores and to go over our HIP policies and the law, um, that we follow here in our district. Uh, so first, the anti-bullying bill of rights. As you can see, um, it's commonly referred to as the HIP law. it. The purpose of it is to
strengthen our standards as which we prevent, report and investigate all incidents of bullying. Um all of the definitions of bullying are in that description. So any gesture, any written, verbal or physical act or any electronic communication, whether it be a single incident or series of incidents
that is reasonably perceived as being motivated either by an actual or perceived characteristic such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, or a mental, physical, or sensory disability, or by any other distinguishing
characteristic that takes place on school property, at any school sponsored function, on a bus, or off school grounds if it substantially disrupts or interferes with the orderly operation of the school and the rights of other students. So we follow this um you know
we have a process here in our district that will I will review um but part of this law is to complete a self assessment. So we each building will look at their compliance with the hib law and the programming within the building for prevention. Um they will be getting a score a rubric score from 0 to
three on each category. Um the minimum possible score is a 52 and the total possible score on the self- assessment is a 78. So each school must evaluate their performance in eight core areas such as
the HIP programming approaches and other initiatives, our training on the board and approved HIP policy, other staff instruction and training programs. We are required to annually review our HIP procedures, curriculum and instruction on HI and related information and skills, HIP personnel, the school level
HI incident reporting procedures, our HIP investigation procedures and HI reporting. So this is our self- assessment scores. Again, the maximum score is a 78. And as you can see, our schools have been doing consistently well on the self-
assessment. It's also a nice checklist for us as a district to constantly reassess our practices and make sure that we're doing what we need to do to meet the needs of our students and to ensure that we're addressing concerns immediately. So, we do have a strong policy um and we use the Hipster reporting software which
does allow us to do these reports in a timely manner and allows all of the necessary personnel to be able to read the reports and see um you know what is taking place. Um, we do online reporting now. So, our HIP form known as form 338
is available on all of our school websites as well as the district home site and there is a reporting feature for staff and for families um that they just go online and when someone fills out this form, an email is directly sent to the building HI coordinator, myself
and the principal to notify us that someone made a report. Each building has a HIB coordinator. So, it's our anti-bullying specialist. It is a counselor in each building that is they receive a ton of training each year
to ensure that they're up on any policy changes and just to be able to calibrate with their colleagues in other districts to ensure that we're doing the best we can for our students. Um, these are just some of the additional trainings that our staff have gone to. Um, so we've
gone above and beyond and sent people for the specialist certification program. We do have school safety specialists, uh, Dr. Clim, myself, um, and each building have one person. This is a week-long training, um, involving all different types of school safety, and HIP is included in that training.
HIP law update training intervention and for HIPP aggressors and targets. We talk there was a training on school climate team restorative practice and circleke keepers has been new initiatives in our building that tie in with our hip prevention creating a culture for empathy suicide prevention mental health
first aid training the nurtured heart approach and healing centered engagement are just some of the trainings that help us create those positive school climates. So we have a lot of anti-bullying initiatives. This is just a very small list of some of the activities that took
place last year. Um this is actually the week of respect in our schools. So each building has and you can see an example from LIS last week. I made this presentation a few weeks ago. I could have included all of our new every school has theme days and um you know we walked into Eldridge today and everyone
was in their pajamas. Um so you know they were everyone has some fun themes and they do some education programs. So really every student in our district throughout the month of October will have targeted lessons around HIB to help students understand what qualifies in this HIP law and how to you know be a
good friend, be an upstander and to treat each other with kindness. So you can just see there's a ton of programs uh we we take this very seriously in our district and you know it's our goal to create those strong classroom communities and these are just some of the ways we do that.
So thank you. Um we're proud of what we've done in our district and we are continuing to see what we can be doing better, attend more trainings and um help prevent any bullying in our schools. So thank you. Any questions? All right.
Great. Thank you so much, Dr. Fischer. All right, Mr. Desai, your team and company. Good evening. Good evening. Uh so this is our annual assessment presentation and it's done uh in coordination with the office of instructional services and the office of student services and
tonight with me are our amazing supervisor supervisors and directors. We have Mrs. Moren Hayes, Dr. Damen Barrya, Mrs. Sarah Foster, Dr. Mary Pankos, Mrs. Nicole Einhorn, Miss Mrs. Gene Musei, and Dr. Alison Fischer. Great team here.
[Applause] So today's presentation directly connects to our student achievement and equity, diversity, and inclusion goals. However, we know that students achieve greater success when they are ready to learn, feel appreciated, and feel that they belong, which speaks to our
wellness goals. As always, we always start with our graduation rate. Last year, we had um higher number of students than before. um still equivalent graduation rate to about 95% which is similar to what we've had in the past. Uh some of the students um just may require an additional year
or two to graduate uh but most of our students do graduate um and it's again hovers around 95%. Today's presentation um you will re we will review the 2425 scores for NJ NJSLA state assessments in English, math and
science and DM which is our dynamic learning maps an alternative uh assessment for NJSLA. We will also uh review achievement by subgroups and race as well as achievement as measured by our district assessments. So you'll see all of that
here. And to start it off, we're going to start with some I Ready scores. uh with Marine. Thank you. Good evening. So, I Ready is our local assessment in reading and math in grades 1 through eight. So it's a computer
adaptive tool to assess and monitor student growth in key areas of reading such as phological awareness, phonics, vocabulary and comprehension and in math for numbers and operations, algebraic and algebra and algebraic thinking, measurement and data and geometry. Each
student begins the year with a diagnostic assessment which they just took a few weeks ago and progress is carefully monitored throughout the year to ensure every learner is on track for their growth targets. data provides us with information on student proficiency in math and reading by strand for
individual students, but we can also look at data by classrooms, buildings, and the district as a whole. Students are also placed into a personalized pathway for learning based on their diagnostic results. They spend time each week working through their online lessons and practice targeted towards
areas in need that have been identified. So this data is just a small snapshot from I Ready that shows student growth in phonics in the phonics domain specifically from fall to spring last year in first grade. We are looking closely at this growth as we move into
year three of IMSC Orton Gillingham instruction in grades K to2. We are looking for continued growth in reading domains as our students continue to receive explicit instruction and early literacy skills. This data is also from I Ready and shows
student overall growth in reading in grades 1 through six last year from fall to spring. When monitoring student growth in reading using I Ready, both the color-coded proficiency levels and Lexile measures provide a clear actionable picture of progress towards higher reading proficiency. At each
assessment window, the definition of green shifts to match expectations at that point in the year. Moving students from red or yellow into green by year's end is a major district goal as this sign signifies strong progress and readiness for new academic challenges.
Moren, I'm sorry. I have a question that maybe is for both of you, but just this is for last year from fall to spring, correct? But are and I know a lot of our students already took I already diagnostic for this year.
Are the teachers given their spring data like incoming students they have so now they have they have their diagnostic and their spring yes in front of them. Thanks. Good evening everybody. Um and I just came up to to uh say that this is the
Ready data for the math department. Um uh again uh moving moving uh greater uh larger bars in green from the fall to spring is the goal. Um so um again very much
similar goals as um as what Moren said for literacy. This is the uh the math data for I Ready. Good evening. My name is Nicole Einhorn and I am going to talk a little bit about the state testing. So there's two parts to state testing. We have the
NJSLA which will be covered a little bit after I speak. I'm going to be talking to you about the DM which is stands for the D dynamic learning map. Try to say that three times. Um, so the DLM is specifically designed for
students with the most significant intellectual disabilities who cannot participate in general state assessments even with accommodations. Um, in order to click my button, sorry. Oh, I skipped
ahead. All right. So, the NJSLA is an adaptive test this year. um this that we're talking about this uh we're going to give you the data from last year, but for this year it will be um done in May of 2026. Uh grades three through eight
are tested in math. And then 9 through 10th grade, it depends on what math course you're taking. So algebra 1, algebra 2, or geometry. Um and then the ELA is tested 3rd through 9th grade. And science is fifth, 8th, and 11th. And
then the DM also a summitative um evaluation or assessment will be administered over time and that's a the window is April through May of 2026 and the tested grades are K through 12. Okay. So now
we're going back to May. All right. So the DM. So for a student, we to determine if we need to have a student take the DM, we have to fill out uh this sheet, which is the criteria for the state, and we we have to go through and
answer questions and A or B, yes or no. And it sort of leads us to determine if the student needs um the alternative assessment. This year, this is the form that we used for the testing for last year. There will be a new form next year there for
this current school year that will adjust some of the criteria. Um we do have a 1% cap on the number of students who can take the DM. So just some essential elements of the DM specific statements of knowledge and
skills linked to grade level expectations for grades K to 12 and they stand on their own as important learning targets. The teachers then use the targets to guide instruction for students who are identified as
candidates to take the DLM. Um, and then the ELA arts and math grades 3 to 8 and 11 and science grades 5, 8, and 11. So the DML DM rates the targets as either emerging, approaching target, at
target, or advanced. That's how it's scored. So this year um we had 23 students in district take the DM 50% 52% were at
target or advanced um in ELA and 48 for math and then science remember science is only 58 and 11 so there's only eight students in district that took the DM in science that was at 38% were at or advanced out of district
we had 19 students um 5% for ELA, 16% um for math and 20% which again was only five students. Our total number was 42. That is six students more than we had previously take the DM the year before.
Um and you'll see that our in district number actually jumped up a bit. We are servicing more students in district who have higher needs. Um and so these numbers do reflect that. Okay. And that's it for me. Um thank you guys.
So now we're moving on to the state assessment, the New Jersey um student learning assessment. So it categorizes student performance into five distinct levels that indicate how well students meet standards in English language arts and mathematics.
And these can help us understand where students are in their academic progress and what support might be needed. Students scoring at levels three and above are generally considered on track for grade level success. Levels one and two indicate students who may need targeted may need targeted interventions
to support their growth. So, looking at last year's results for reading proficiency across grades, reading and writing proficiency across grades three through six, um, our district's passing averages compare closely with the state averages at most grade levels. Sixth grade students grew
from 46% in fifth grade up to 55% in sixth grade. This is consistent with the growth we have been seeing each year from fifth to sixth grade. While writing continues to be at or below state average at most grade levels, reading continues to be at or above state averages in grades 3 to six. Uh this
year, fourth grade saw the best writing scores on the NJSLA trending just above state averages. We have dissected this data thoroughly and set goals for improvement. Um the district has implemented several things to improve this growth in literacy. Morphology instruction in grades three through six
focuses on teaching students to understand and use word parts such as prefixes, suffixes, and roots to improve vocabulary, decoding, and comprehension. This foundational skill supports both reading and writing development. Uh, we've also implemented the Hawkman method, otherwise known as the writing
revolution in grades K through six, which emphasizes explicit step-by-step writing instruction starting at the sentence level and building towards structured paragraphs and essays. Professional development focuses on equipping teachers with these effective strategies
while administrative walkthroughs monitor classroom implementation through targeted look fors and these sentence building and content integration. regular datadriven meetings uh use assessment results and writing samples to guide instructional
adjustments and interventions. So together these efforts ensure a coherent approach to improving student achievement in language skills across grades three through six. Thank you my um I'm Mary Pankost. I'm here to talk about middle school and the high school scores. So at the middle
school last year, we had a significant increase in our population for both grade seven and grade eight. And despite that increase, our numbers improved from grade six to grade seven to uh 61% where students on average made a gain of about
20% uh as far as passing at four or five. That far outs the state. Grade 8 was able to maintain their gains um for the first time this year. Usually we're a little bit closer to the state average, but this year we we did significantly better at the state with
66% of our students meeting or exceeding the state expectations. Grade nine slipped a little bit from their grade eight gains, but they still stayed above the state average with um 51% of the students meeting or exceeding the state average.
Okay, for the elementary math grades, uh, grade four made some, uh, modest improvements over last year's grade four cohort. Uh, still a little bit below the state average, but a little bit higher than what we did last year. Uh, we saw a major improvement this past year in
grade six. Uh, that 44 and a.5% at level uh, four or five. uh that that cohort improved about 17% over the uh the grade six cohort from last year in terms of passing scores. We're very happy about that. Uh which also means that the last
year's grade 7 cohort uh that that 43.4% also scoring above the state average uh raised their passing rate by nearly the same percentage uh which is also very good news. Um, looking at our fifth grade scores coming in at a little coming in below the state uh average
percentage of students at four or five. Um, I've reviewed some uh performance trend data by math standard uh going back a few years to identify exactly where we need to uh shift our focus instructionally this year in terms of more targeted instruction or perhaps to
come back a little more frequently throughout the school year to hit some of those key areas uh a little more frequently and uh provide some more targeted support in some of those key areas. Okay. So I pick up at seventh grade with the math scores and in sixth and seventh
grade although we start um making two pathways of courses both on grade level and accelerated pathways these are whole grade level scores. So all of sixth grade is encapsulated in that score. All of seventh grade here when we move into eighth grade our scores are separated out by math course which is similar to
how students are taking the test up at the high school. So, you'll see our data shift as our accelerated students at LMS are pulled into their own um assessment scores there. You'll also see indicators of opportunities that we've allowed students who really maybe weren't quite
ready to accelerate, but we wanted to expose them to higher level content a little early and give them the chance for that access in our algebra 1 um score reporting with the 89.5% which dipped just a little bit below where it was at last year. Um, and our math eight
scores continue to underscore the importance of building that strong foundation. So, you heard from Damian how we're looping in some of those foundational concepts in the key primary years. Um, this is going to continue to be something that we're focusing on in all of our math programs because, as you know, our math concepts are sequential.
So, if you don't master it when you're f first exposed to it, it's going to continue to show up in gaps in more advanced concepts. Um, with our middle school and high school algebra scores there, we also combine them. So you can see our algebra scores across 8th and
9th grade where we are above the state at 41.6%. Our geometry scores also increased significantly. I believe last year um they were about 30 and now they're up at 61.6. Our algebra 2 test um we didn't have enough students to report that
data. So I've suppressed that data. Moving into science, you'll see that our proficiency levels move from five levels to four. So we're really looking at the level three and level four students in these scores. Our students are tested at
fifth, 8th, and 11th grade. Last year was the first year that we took um our science concepts and integrated them. So instead of at seventh and eighth grade alternating if they were taking life and physical science, which as you can imagine, whatever science they took in the year they were tested, they usually
tested a little bit better in our score reports. Now we're integrating. So, we're hoping that students are taking those crosscutting concepts across life, physical, and earth science and really applying them into critical thinking ways on their assessment. That also appears in 11th grade where all those
students are taking biology, chemistry, and physical or earth science in their junior year, um they're being tested on three years of content in that 11th grade test. And we're continuing to perform very well considering that it's three years worth of content on that assessment.
And I'm going to finish off with uh some subgroup and race data. Um so this is our English language arts and these are all of our students uh districtwide. Um and uh the race is what the family um checks off when they register their child. So that comes from the families.
So if you notice there's a slight dip in with our um Asian students uh and our multiple um race students, but there's an increase with our black, Hispanic, and white students with respect to English language arts. And then with our subgroups on the right hand side, uh you'll notice a dip with our free and
reduced lunch uh but pretty much either uh consistent or increasing with our other students as well. And now this is our math data. Again, our subgroups are on our lefthand side and then I'm sorry, our race is on our lefthand side and our subgroups are on
our right hand side. A dip with our uh Asian students uh but there is an increase uh with our black and Hispanic multiple race. It's pretty much the same. And then our white students have uh increased just a bit as well. And then our subgroups on our right hand side increase with our free reduced
lunch. section 504 students are consistently the same and um an increase with our other subgroups there. And finally, our science is pretty much uh consistent from one year to the next across our race and
across our subgroups. So, as we move forward, um you know, we have some of our district and schoolwide goals here as well. So our district goal and what we're going to do to help um improve our performance of our students and to make sure that our students who are doing well consistently continue to
do well is first of all focus on data analysis prek12 right across the district. We're focusing on analyzing and disagregating data to inform our initiatives, programs and professional development. It also impacts lesson planning and instruction. And so we're going to go over that with our teachers
uh this year. And then based on that, uh, our teachers are expected to differentiate instructions, pre-K12 to meet the needs of our students. And then underneath that, you'll see some of our, um, school goals that we have. The high school is continuing to work on building
thinking classrooms, which um, focuses on a shift in instructional design, which leads to more active student engagement. Artificial intelligence is one of our goals at the high school as well. And um at the middle school uh in addition to data and differentiation, you're also working on rigor unveiled.
Rigger stands for relationship, instruction, goals, organization, and relevance. Working on that with our with our uh teachers as uh Morin mentioned, writing across all grades K and six with the Hawkman method or the writing revolution. Dr. Barex also mentioned
that we're also looking at our curriculum with respect to mathematics and coming back to some of the things that we believe our students need more support in continue building on classroom communities continue to have family workshops as well. And finally, Dr. Fischer is going to
talk about some of our assessments that are coming up um next year. Two seconds. I'm back. Okay. So, um, as you can see, there's a lot happening in our assessment world. So, on the October 23rd, we will be administering the PSAT
to all of our 10th and 11th grade students, uh, here at the high school. Um, and then a week later, we will be doing the field test for the adaptive NJSLA and the adaptive NJ GPA exam. Um,
so this is a field test that was previously mentioned. Um this state is this is a testing the test assessment. Um we will be administering it essentially in grades 4 to 11. So in um grades 4 to 10, they're going to take the SLA based on last year's exam uh
class. So a 9th grader will be taking the eighth grade ELA and whatever their eighth grade math class was exam. So again, because it's supposed to show that they've already made met proficiency and this is really just their ability to test the test. It gives our students some opportunity to see the
how the layout is of the new program as well. And it allows our teachers to see it as well before we give it again in the spring. We have our access tests for our English language learners that starts in February through March. That is for all students that are ELLL in
grades K to 12. And then in the spring, we will be administering the NJGPAD ad uh adaptive uh exam in March, which is the graduation requirement assessment for our 11th grade students. In May, we will
be administering the adaptive NJSLA um test to students in grades 3 to nine for English and math. Um science in grades 5, 8, and 11. Um, it should be noted that our science is actually going to be using our previous testing software, the Pearson, while the SLA and
the GPA will be administered in our new program, Cambium. And then finally, our advanced placement exams um take place the first two weeks in May. Um the registration period for that has just opened. So, our students are registering for those exams as we
speak and they will take those exams um by each content area um over the first two weeks of May and that is our assessment bonanza plus ready. Plus the I Ready. Exactly. We do our diagnostic um as three times a year. Um
and then at the seventh um through 10th grade levels we also have Star Renaissance for our universal screener. Yep. All [Laughter] right. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you very much, team. Thank you so much. Yeah, do you have a question? Um, I was we could elaborate a little bit more on the professional development links specifically to what we saw from the assessment data. So just your vision of
you know thinking about data analysis but if you could just walk us through like professional development on data analysis will get us what are we expecting to see within the strands because I know you have a lot of amazing plans but
so with respect to data so our first goal is to make sure our our data is inputed correctly into link it which is the system we use right so based on the universal screeners we have based on the NJSLA data that we have and any other assessment data that gets all uploaded into our data warehouse. That's the first goal to make sure we do that
correctly because if we have wrong data then it's the wrong information they're working with. Second goal is that we make make sure that we then disagregate the data based on some of the subgroups we've seen based on classroom data. So teachers will get a classroom profile of their students that they have and how they did last school year, the current
universal screener and what they need to do the next steps. Uh we would also break that data down into Lexiles and quantile levels as well so they can see the growth over time based on those two standards and factors that we have. Um we're also working on school narratives and district narratives so the school as
a whole can see where we are as a group. Um that's one some of the data we have. And then we're also working with teachers uh individually or in small groups to look at their classrooms and see what they can do to improve and not only improve the students that that need to get better and but also continue to excel those students that are doing
really well. We want to make sure we we hit all all of that as well. So, okay, that's exciting. Yeah. Um and I also just want to give everyone kudos. I mean, there are areas that we need to work on, but there's also sustained growth. And if I'm remembering correctly, our middlegrades last year
had some of the highest growth in the county. And so to see some of those averages being maintained, like that's a huge achievement that sometimes gets overlooked. And I was also noticing that our levels one and twos seem
seem reasonable. Like where the students are not meeting expectations, the majority of students not meeting expectations are in that level three, which is something you'd want to see and and has a lot of factors. So I think that's a lot of kudos. I know I would love as we keep moving is to keep looking at cohorts of students to better
understand this data like if if grade levels are are scoring differently from each other. I would always be curious to see how that grade level compared throughout first through fifth. And we talk a lot about this with our multilingual learners like
a score one time spring, you know, a snapshot. And it sounds like sounds like a lot of the data work will lead to this deeper analysis, but I think there are stories to be told of each grade level of how they're doing from year to year. And I'm wondering if that can be part of the conversation.
Agree. And uh like you mentioned before, you know, those uh level three uh approaching students, right? Those are the cohort of students that we also want to focus on, right? They're almost there. What can what can we do? What are the the questions that they did not do well in? What's the curriculum uh standards that they did not do well in?
So, we can break that down and they're going to work on that as well. I do want to thank our team here, you know, our office of instructional services, our office and student services, but addition to all the individuals that you don't see, right? Our principles, assistant principles, directors, teachers, aids, like we are a great group of uh educators here. We're
working hard and uh we know there's some amazing bright spots which you mentioned, but there are also things that we need to improve in and we will get there. So, thank you. Great. Thank you so much, Neil, and everybody else. I do want to say one other thing about that. Um, one of the
things that the board um always thought about when it came to academic achievement was how do we do better? And we did not know that. And we for a long time, and I've been on the board a long time, were told this is how we're going to do better. and this how how we're going to do better and we never really
understood what we were going to do differently and I think last year when uh Robin brought in Mike Zonar and we started to learn about quantiles and lexiles and data um and we're looking at things differently and we're understanding different things as a
board and I appreciate the amount of work that our team has done over the past year to do things in a new way and look at things differently and I I know it is a lot of work. Um it's been a lot of work for the board to understand this. Um as we're not all educators. We
have a few educators on the board, but some of us are not. Four four of us are educators. The rest of us are not. Um and so it it doesn't go unnoticed by the board. Um the amount that we're asking of our teams. Um but we're doing this
because our students deserve this. Our community deserves the very best. And if we don't have the best data to make better decisions, we're not going to achieve it. So, it is a big ask and we appreciate it. Um, I know Neil is very new to our district and I appreciate the
hard work he's done and he's been able to do the things that he's doing because of the rest of our team here. Um, but we're not going to let up on the board because we do see a lot of opportunity um to increase the achievement of our students. Um, and I don't want to fail
them as a board. I know our teachers don't want to fail them. Um, and so we're all going to push together. Um, we ask a lot of you. We as a board are going to do a lot. We're asking a lot of Robin. But I know that we can do it because I've seen some of the incredible
things that we've done when we all work together. Um, and this isn't about looking at what we've done wrong, but it's more about of how do we do it better? And I know it's hard when we see some of the data. It's upsetting and disappointing, but we're going to look
at it as this is just the starting point for us. Um, and next year when we're sitting here, I hope to be able to say, "Wow, what amazing uh gains we have made as a district." Um, and I know that this is the team of people that can do it.
So, thank you again for all of the work. I I do appreciate it, and I know the board does as well. Okay. Okay. Board secretary report. Given the time, I'm going to keep it brief. Uh the uh I'll defer to the finance committee chair's report. Did he
pass that to someone in particular to talk about tonight? Okay. So, I'm going to do that. Just a question that keeps coming up regarding the referendum in terms of when we'll start to see things happen. Um in terms of when you'll start to see things happen from the outside looking at the middle school be sometime
in December, January. You'll see the staging start to happen. Um, I get that question an awful lot. Um, and so that's something if you have any other questions that you'd like answered, we're continuing to meet with the architects to make sure that we plan out the major part of the renovation and
addition, which is the main body of the building. Those meetings are still ongoing and I know we'll hear more about that at our community conversation and things of that nature. If you have any questions, please uh email me or just call. It's easier if you just call myself, pick it up, give it a ring. Um,
I'll pick up for sure and answer the questions you have. Other than that, I'll defer to the the finance chair's report. Great. Thanks, Tom. Um, no board president's report. Um, now we'll do our um ad hoc reports. First, our student
board member report. Okay. Um, good evening. Um, first of all, thank you for letting me speak and share what my fellow students have felt about the first month of the school year. So, I collected a lot of data from students by talking to them. But I
believe it's not only important to understand stuff on a shallow and quantitative level, but kind of understand what it implies for the student body and the individuals within it. For this month, things are still getting organized around the school district and with the student body. So,
I focused mostly on the high school and some parts of the middle school, but as the school year progresses, I plan on talking more to the administration and some of the students at the intermediate and elementary schools and attending some of the Lawrence Middle School
student council meetings and communicating in that sense as well. So, as a whole at Lawrence High School, students are extremely happy with the way that the school is operating and the atmosphere that has been created. Um, yeah. So, that's a pretty good thing. Um, so far, a favorite that I've
heard a lot is they particularly admire the extracurricular opportunities that are given and a lot of people are surprised at how welcoming these student groups are and how easy it is to access them. So there have been many events that the students feel have made them
more able to feel welcomed such as the club fair, fundraisers, how kind of how much school spirit we have during sports and especially the spirit days, the changed grading system that has happened this year at Lawrence High School, um
which for reference inflated summitive grades such as tests and projects and brought down the weightage of homework and classwork um has been a point of contention which both is dependent on the class, the teacher and the individual student. When asked about it,
some students claimed that the emphasis on testing made them work harder, study harder, and focus in class more. And the same emphasis on studying harder for the test at first was brought in with the second chance learning system, which has also been changed this year. On the
other hand, some students found that the new system was discouraging because they feel defined by the few test grades as opposed to having a more holistic performance grade when it comes to their overall grade. And in addition to this, some students felt that decreasing the
weight of homework motivated them to do it less and kind of spend less time at home working on things and just focus more in class. Um, once again, it's important to understand that these are some individual things I've heard, but it is important to understand the needs
of individuals because it impacts the whole student body. And as the first marking period ends next month, I plan on understanding how it works overall and how students feel about this as the school year progresses. The new school AI system, which was mentioned before,
has been identified by some classes as a helpful tool for for studying and helping students accomplish tasks in the classroom, which happens more efficiently and in a more thorough manner. However, I have noticed and based on reports, it's not widely used
by students yet, and some students have claimed not to have utilized it at all yet, which means that we have to integrate it more into the system. And in terms of the cell phone system, which has been more enforced this year, it's actually more wellreceived based off the
reports I've received, and students find it much easier to focus. They understand the content better, and they have gained better interpersonal skills so far this month. Um, freshmen at Lawrence High School have expressed that the transition to high school has been easy, but a little
unexpected. They wish for not only more counseling in the process, but just understanding how things change between the middle school and the high school. And they find that freshman orientation, understanding the clubs, and talking and getting to know upper classmen have been
the best parts of getting acclimated to the new system. This concludes my report for today. Thank you. Thank you. That was wonderful. Yes. Woohoo. Okay. Our first board report. Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you.
Okay. Um, LTEF. Okay. We uh I did attend LTE meeting October 3rd at 8 o'clock in the morning and I reported for both Neil and myself. Um, we both thanked LTE for attending our welcome to the neighborhood uh
family workshop in early September. We discussed New Jersey school board's county meeting which was our own Sarah Foster. Thank you again for doing a presentation on AI. Um, both panelists left us with some answers and a bunch of
questions, which was exciting. And right now, Union County meeting is going on behind me. I'm kind of putting an ear over there, too. It's the students view of AI and the youth, and I can't wait to to listen to it tonight. So, thank you
again, Sarah. Um, deadline for LTE grants was discussed, and it's um I believe tomorrow. It's done already. I'm looking at Neil. and the grant review day is quickly approaching. We're looking forward to um the presentation
of the grants here at our next board of ed meeting. So, please make sure on November 12th you're here to see the submissions and the big unveiling. Um also, if you haven't noticed, there's a 5050 drawing and that's going to happen
this Friday and I'm going to win it. So, just keep putting your money in. Please think about jumping into that. It's a fun event. Um, no, no ethics and violations, especially if I pull. I'm just kidding. Um, if you
haven't already, mark your calendar for November 14th, handbag bingo. A good time will be had by all and a lot of us get involved. So, it's it's a fun night. Um, I also attended Project Graduation, but I'm going to ask if Olga wouldn't
mind giving a brief description of what that was about. Joan Grover and myself attended project graduation um Monday, October 6. It was the first meeting of the month. It was over 20 attendees.
It was uh an introduction of the new chairs. Um they also introduced a new website. They did a orientation for the parents who were in attendance and walk through everything that project graduation entails. They're looking for
volunteers, sponsors, and donations. And the committee is finalizing events and fundraisers, and we'll be shar some of them on the next month's meeting. Thank you. Great. Move on for New Jersey school boards. Okay. On September 13th, I attend
attended the county meeting leadership at West Windsor Plainsboro at the administrative building. We talked about an overview for the whole year's programs for all the counties. Um, mark your calendars November 20th for our county meeting which will be at Trenton
Board of Education Administrative Building. You can attend online or in person. The topic will be finance pressure points, healthc care, state aid. It'll be a round table um addressing key financial challenges.
Again, it's at Trenton um admin building. So, we want to look at rising health care costs, shifts in state aid, um, and strategies how to manage the pressures and maintain our budget stability. On se September 27th, I
attended legislative committee meeting. Didn't have to go into Trenton, it was Zoom. Assemblyman Christopher De Phillips and Assemblyman Al Baras from District 40. Um both legislators stayed online and chatted with us for over an
hour presenting their legislative policies, responding to questions from committee members. Um a few of the conversations were their positions on public education, focusing on improvements that legislation can make for both school funding and the
budgeting process. Highlighted issues on the timings and transparency of the state budget process. um opportunities to repprioritize state funding so that schools have tools to serve state and um students. They
discuss pros and cons of relaxing 2% tax levy and the rising costs of special education and health care for districts. We also talked a little bit about pilot programs and looking for school districts needing to have a little bit of the share of what's going to our
communities. Uh last topic we discussed was the importance of civility in today's political environment and why being respectful and having respectful dialogue is essential for democracy and running a good public meeting. Uh laws that recently have been enacted. I'm
just going to go through those pepper including expanding childhood education public notice reform IEP meeting guidelines labor movement instructions and noteworthy bills moving forward SFR
reform pension reenrollment changes instructional mandates and upcoming issues which we talked about today cell phone use in schools and the effects of social media usage on adolescence and you all are going to Atlantic City
for our workshop. So, please make sure you jump in on some of the legislative and state panel discussions that'll be there. That's my report. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much, Joe. You bet. Uh reconfiguration ad hoc.
We we met a few times, but most recently uh in attendance were Dr. Robin Clim, Jen Baldesari, Pepper Evans, Joanne Groger, Tom Eldridge, Olga Martinez, and myself, Diana Pasculi. And we heard the updates uh that Tom mentioned, and so I
won't repeat those. And we also uh were really focused on uh the meeting next week on October 15th and making sure uh that we're opening as many lines of communication as possible, which a shout out to the district. Um, and so we
really are just hoping that community members attend, uh, and for the folks listening online, uh, that we'll be attending next next week. We know it's a very busy time, but it's the first, um, the first week, the first event of a few throughout this year. We'll be having
community meetings. It's from 7 to 8 and it will be at LMS at the middle school. And so, we're really excited to hear from folks, engage. If you come, uh there will be child care and cookies and uh we're hoping that we have some
conversation with folks that are um in the decision process and and the feel is get information, get facts and data about what's happening within this massive exciting project. and also to to keep building the open lines of communication and feedback loops because
as we go through this process there are lots of changes that will affect our students and educators and community at different times over this uh long project. So uh come on the 15th and tell your friends and that's all we have.
Great. Thank you so much. Review of communications. Nope. Uh, it's our first opportunity for public prior. Oh, still got Oh, yeah. I forgot student services. I'm sorry. I skipped right over it. Student services. I apologize.
It's okay. Uh, student services had met on October 1st. In attendance, we have Vanessa Picariac, Dr. Allison Fischer, and myself, Arendelle Clark. Two items to highlight. Um, one we heard earlier about testing that the PSATs will be
held on October 23rd for sophomores and juniors. During this time, seniors are encouraged to use this time to schedule college visits and or other potential post high school opportunities that um would become available. CPAC, our first
special education parents advancement council meeting was uh recently held on September 30th. Um, for those who don't know, CPAC is a group that providesformational services and discussion for families of physical and developmental needs. In our first meeting, a spokesperson from Capitol
County Children's Collaborative provided a look into the services that they provide and how they can help families. We thank all of those who attended and we uh maintain an open invitation to encourage other families to attend. Child care is provided during these
meetings. The next meeting will be held on October 28th and we'll have a guest speaker Michelle Tange leading a session on behavioral management. My report. Thank you so much Arendelle. Okay. Now we'll do our first opportunity
for public input. Seeing none, uh we have no board discussion or work session items. We'll go to a board discussion and action items. The personnel committee report and personnel action items. Okay. We met October 1st, 8:15 a.m. In
attendance were Dr. Robin Clim, Sean Fry, Kevin Vanheis, Arendelle Clark, Olga Martinez, and myself. We um had a recommendation for a new secretary for student services. We reviewed staff leaves. We um were are interviewing for
several lead positions as well as a secretary to assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction which you'll see is on the agenda. Um we discussed ECV programming staffing and Neil and his team are collaborating with LTE on a highly effective evaluation
model pilot for some of our tenur staff cohorts to explore new professional growth opportunities. This month, we're holding information sessions for assistance seeking substitutes and teacher certifications. No suggested changes were made for new
job description. And on tonight's agenda, you'll find several approvals for EDPs staff member leave replacement, revised job description for secretary to the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, leave
absence, subteers, staff due to back um and staff new staff members due to background clearances, volunteers, um attending for staff training, uh destination coach at ECV, a resignation, student technician, student lifeguards,
winter EDPs, payment for unused sick days, sub nurse, and you'll see a few corrections and revisions on the agenda, too. With all the above, I'd now like to move P1 through P31, please. Second, Tom with a motion, a second from Pepper.
Mr. Clark, yes. Miss Evans, yes. Miss Groger, yes. Miss Kelly, yes. Dr. King, yes. Miss Martinez, yes. Miss Pasculi, yes. Miss Bose. Yes. Motion carried. Thank you. Uh CIAPD report and OIS
student service CIAD meeting was held on September 30th at 8 a.m. in the district's technology center. As this is the second time for us to meet in September. That meeting on September 30th serves as our October
meeting. In attendance were Michelle Bose, Michelle King, Kenzie Kelly, Robin Clim, Vanessa Bartek, Allison Fischer, Mary Pankos, Damen Barry, Exus, Sarah Foster, Nicole Einhorn, Moren Hayes, Gene Musi,
and Neil Neil Desai, and myself. That's why we moved the technology center because there's so many people. We had a lot of items on the agenda. The committee began with the annual school district assessment presentation which you just saw and it was oh it was led by
both the office of instructional services and the office of student services. Additionally, the committee was provided with information about the Orton Gillingham family of instructional programs in Lawrence Township. Miss Hayes provided us with a wealth of information
about the program and its application in Lawrence Township by our educators. In addition, NJSLA adaptive and NJGPA adaptive fall field tests and times were shared with the committee. Uh Joanne
mentioned that so I won't say that one again. Uh next, the committee heard from Mr. Desai who shared information about the commissioner approved uh observation model and we already talked about that. So
um let's see Mr. Dai also shared a staff survey and information from the districtwide opening day and staff professional development day. And while the information from the survey could have been submitted anonymously, the vast
majority of responses were not anonymous and were overwhelmingly positive. We reviewed one committee or one policy. And with that, I would like to move OIS
1 through9 and OSS 1 through3. Second, Tom with a motion and a second from Joanne. Thank you, Mr. Clark. Yes, Miss Evans. Yes, Miss Groger. Yes. Miss Kelly? Yes.
Dr. King? Yes. Miss Martinez? Yes. Miss Pasculi? Yes. Miss Bose? Yes. Motion carried. Thank you. Okay. Now we do. I do. You did. Okay. Uh Pepper, you're up
again. finance committee report. I'm filling in for Kevin tonight. U he sent over extensive uh finance committee reports which a little foreign to me but uh I think you all got them in your email so I'll just stream right through
them. Uh Tom continues to encourage outreach if any member of the board has any questions or concerns or aware of any issues that need to be addressed to reach out to him. The committee reviewed the process for commencing the architectural services for the middle
school referendum project. Uh the next steps are to uh issue notice to proceed for the auditorium. And Tom said we'll know when that happens when there are cars in the loop by LMS, right? Is that that's how we
know when it's some couple weeks thereafter. Okay. All right. Buding goes up. Auditorium construction is expected to start at the beginning of the year. Initial work will include removal of seats and the ceiling. Work will be substantial and invasive.
Structural changes will be made for construction of a new ramp. Project will be exciting to watch as progress is made. So Kevin's not sorry my face is saying it all. Face it in face. Um, we got the budget,
the balance sheet, the check register, and all the things we need to stay accountable. The committee reviewed the process for the annual budget cycle. Uh, Kevin attached a PowerPoint. So, if you have insomnia, um,
and uh, we had a cost effectiveness review. And with that, I would like to move SPM one through nine. Somebody else some second. Thank you. With a second from Oga. I got it.
Thank you. Sure. You're ready? Yep. Mr. Clark, yes. Miss Evans, yes. Miss Kroger, yes. Miss Kelly, yes. Dr. King, yes. Miss Martinez, yes. Miss Pascali, yes. Miss Pose, yes. Motion carried.
Thank you. Um, so next opportunity for public input. Seeing none, uh, new business, Olga, we have a leave replacement for LIS, mentor appointments, clearances, and substitutes.
And with that, I would like to move NB1 to NB6. Second with a motion and a second from Joanne. Tom. Mr. Clark. Yes. Miss Evans? Yes. Miss Kroger? Yes. Miss Kelly? Yes.
Dr. King? Yes. Miss Martinez? Yes. Miss Pascoli? Yes. And Miss Bose? Yes. Motion carried. Thank you. Um, can I have a motion to adjourn? So move. All in favor? I. Thank you everyone for coming and have a
wonderful night.