Can everybody please stand for the flag salute? I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic stands nation. In accordance with the open public
meetings act, adequate notification that this meeting has been provided by advertising in the record and posting notice of this meeting in Burough Hall and the superintendent's office. I hereby call to order the public meeting of the Little Ferry Board of Education, Thursday, September 18, 2025 at 7:04
p.m. Can I have a roll call, please? Mr. Bernelli, Mr. Here, here. Mr. Here, Mr. Neely, Mr. Luzo. Morris here. M here. Mley
here. Miss Dis resolved that the Little Fairy Board of Education approves the minutes of the regular public meeting held on August 21st, 2025. Do I have a motion? Motion. Second. Second. Absent.
Yes. None. Yes. is absent. Mr. Luzo is absent. Mr. Boret, yes. Yes. Mr. Bradley, yes. Mr. Gomez, we now open up to Mr. Parado
to provide his superintendent report. Um, I just want to real quick before we get to our representative report. Uh, thank the teachers and staff, administration, uh, Mr. Als, his crew, uh, for just a great start to the school
year. Um, things have started off. you know, my message this year was positivity. Um, I think that's been embraced so far throughout. So, just wanted to say thank you to really everyone board included. Uh, two quick
updates. Um, the re-registration process for Park High School is all but complete. So far to date, it has resulted in I call 14 findings. Uh so 14 students that have
are no longer on ball for a myriad of different reasons. It doesn't mean that they were doing anything wrong. It just means that um from start to finish it was so it was very successful. I really want to thank Alex Hum and Lyanna
for for their support and their help throughout their process along with anybody that was called upon to help. Um the athletics typing sidebar was discussed tonight in executive session. So there is hope resolution added
tonight the agenda that will be read before they take a vote. And our next board meeting was scheduled for October 16th. Has been moved to October 30th. That'll be advertised in all that good stuff, but it will be October 30th.
So before I get to Mr. Dunn at the NJSLA BLM report, the status, I'm not ready for the full name yet. I was being coached, but I'm not ready. I'm a little nervous. So with that being said, welcome. It's it's
going to be a pleasure to have you this year. I think Mr. Reynolds and team made a really really great decision. And with that, you have the floor. I would like to thank our administration. That's why I want All of these
nice work I ordered your name tag. All right. Uh Mr. Dun Uh thank you all. Good evening. Uh so tonight I'll be doing the NGSLA and DM uh results presentation. Um so the DM is the dynamic learning
map. It is given to our students who um are given an alternate assessment to measure their aptitude in the New Jersey student learning standards. smaller group of students who have been specifically identified uh based upon uh their special needs. The NJSLA or New
Jersey student learning assessment is given to all students in grades three through eight in ELA, math and science in grades five through eight. Uh and it is based on the New Jersey student learning standards. Uh so first up is our DM data. Uh it is a smaller subgroup
overall. So there are 11 total students including our out of district students who took the placement uh took the assessment. Um therefore um any groups that are less than 10 and once you start to uh disagregate the data I I I cannot
report it. Um so I can just give some overall findings without really naming anyone. Uh first I want to thank Emily Nicholson did an awesome job um administering the DM to all of our here. uh it was a lot to manage. She was very
efficient, very effective, set up an awesome schedule to make sure that it met our students needs and allowed them to have access to it. Uh and overall the students did really well. We saw improvement from last year. I can't borrow details, but I can generally speak that they did all improve and
that's really a testament uh to Miss All right. NGSLA or student learning assessment. Um so it breaks down into um five areas of of scoring. So from level one to level five uh did not meet, partially
meets, approached, met, and then exceeded. Um that's for the ELA and math. For science, there are four levels. Um did not meet, partially met, met, and exceeded. Uh so it's and then it's broken down by suburbs.
All right. So start off with celebrations. So wet went really well. Uh our grade five science had a 68% overall increase from 20% passing last year to 33% passing this year. Uh our overall science numbers returned to
their precoid numbers. So uh we returned to our scores from 2019. That's a testament to the science team and all of the teachers as it is more than just a science assessment. There's a lot of reading in there. uh grade uh six math scores that cohort from fifth grade to
sixth grade had a a 72% increase in their overall score uh from 2024. uh great ABLA again Miss Sun had the highest scores uh postcoid that's a testament to all the work of that eighth grade team especially Miss Sun and then our our
bubble boost which is an intervention that we do uh we saw was the most effective for our students who were truly on the bubble scoring that 740 to 749 which is just below the passing number of 750. So, uh, well over 50% of those students who received that
intervention went on to test. Um, a little, uh, aside on our new students. Uh, so we average about 90 to 110 new students every year. Uh, and it's been that way for the, uh, five years that I've been here. Uh, we are on
we are beyond on track to that. We're at uh, 48 49. It new every day. So we are receiving a lot of new students. Uh so last year 52 new students in watch school 44 in Memorial School. Of those 18 were multilingual learners. Uh that
was actually below our average from last year. We're close to 40. But on average we are about 20 to 25 multilingual learners per year. Eight in Washington school, 10 in Memorial. The time of year 18 of those 96 new students uh came to us midyear or later. uh some of them are
rolling in uh just weeks before we took the assessment uh and still have to take that assessment. All right, so how did we do? Uh so this chart shows all the levels uh going from uh top to bottom we have
science, math and ELA and you can see from left to right we have 2019 obviously the COVID gap in 2020 2021 and then our performance uh in 2022 to this year. So starting the bottom going up science you can see that we were at 23%
uh pre-COVID in 2019 and today or this year rather as a district we return to that level at 23%. So a very nice increase you can see that trending up. Uh math uh took a small dip um comparatively from last year 2% down but we were still are you know almost on
that upward trajectory. Uh we did implement three new math curriculums last year across K2 35 and 68. Um, so that has something to do with it a little bit. Uh, and we're really excited for where we're going next year. Uh, or
this year rather with with mathematics. Uh, ELA went up went up by 2% uh, up to 53% so above that 50% mark. Uh, so overall the district would be uh, an overall improvement as measured by the state because of our improvement in
science and it's a push between ELA and math. All right, ELA. So, this is a comparison of Little Ferry to the state of New Jersey. So, Little Ferry is your yellow line and the state of New Jersey averages are your green
line. So, you can see across um majority of the grade levels we are either at or above the state of New Jersey and their overall performance uh at each grade level. I'll break down the grade levels a bit more. Uh but this just gives you a little bit of a measure of how we're comparing. Um you know, grade three and
grade eight are always the most challenging. Uh grade three is our first time taking this assessment. It's big home assessment. Uh so we were right on track with where the state of New Jersey uh fell and we were just below uh in eighth grade. That's one of the more challenging years. At that point the students are already into high school,
accepted into high school uh and are not as engaged. Uh this is a breakdown by grade level. So, uh, from left to right, grade three to grade eight. Uh, and from bottom to top, you'll have your level one in red, level two in orange, level three in
yellow, in green is your level four passing, and level five is exceeded. Uh, so you can see those scores going across. Uh, we did really nice. We, you know, we're averaging in the high 40s uh to mid50s
uh across the district. All right, this is an apples to orange comparison. I call it that because it's comparing year to year, grade level versus grade level. Uh so this is not each cohort, but how each one is done year to year. So from left to right again, grade three through grade eight
color coded by the year with that gap for the co years there. Um so in grade three, there was an overall 1% increase in ELA. Grade four went down 4%. Grade five up one, grade six up three, grade seven up eight, uh, or excuse me, grade
seven up eight, and grade eight up 6%. You can just see the trajectory over the past couple of weeks. Apples to apples is cohort to cohort. So, grade three, it's their first year taking the assessment, so there's no comparison for them. Uh, next you can see grade four, who had a nice increase
of 11%. Uh, grade five took a small dip. Uh, down five percent overall in comparison. Uh, grade six has made steady progress throughout their um, time taking the assessment, growing each year, up 6% this past year. Uh, grade
seven took another little bit of a slide uh, going into uh, their final year in eighth grade. And then eighth grade took a dip from the previous year. Um, which when you compare eighth grades to eighth grades is typical. Uh and as you could tell from the previous slide, we were still on par with the state of New
Jersey. Uh it's just a matter of that uh motivation piece for those eighth graders. All right, math results. Uh this is our comparison to the state of New Jersey. Littleberry being yellow, the state being green. Uh again, grade three through uh starting on your left, algebra being all the way out the right.
Um so you can see that we're a bit below in some, a bit above in others, and then well above in algebra. Um so we are you know, it's kind of scattered across as you as you look across uh just a touch below the state or just at the state and
in the algebra case well above the state level. This is a breakdown of the scores uh per grade as well as algebra. same uh five scales, red being a one, orange being a two, yellow being a three, green being a four, which is passing score, and blue
being a five exceeding score. Um, so the averages are in uh generally in the 30s to 40s uh in our math with algebra being our good outlier at 80%. apples to orange in comparison. So you
can see each grade level versus the previous year grade levels. Um so some some decreases and some very large increases in there. Um grade three has always been in the 40s for the past couple of years. Um grade four had a had a decrease last year overall. Grade five
had a really big jump compared to the previous year. Um grade six took a little bit of a dip. Uh grade seven going up 2%, eight up 6%. um and you know hovering near that state average in algebra taking uh uh a little bit of a dip as well. Um one one of the bits of
feedback we did get from uh QAC uh from the county education specialists were that we should enroll more students into our algebra courses so that more students have the opportunity to take higher level math classes. So that's something we have taken into consideration uh for this year. Uh, and
they actually said that, you know, while I was very proud of that 100 number last year, um, they said it shouldn't be that high, that you should be challenging more students, word for word. Word for word. Uh, this is apples to apples, cohort versus cohorts, the left to right. Uh,
on the left, uh, grade three, it's their first time taking the testim assessment. All the way to the right, algebra, it's their only time taking the algebra assessment. Um, but in the middle, you can see, um, how they did. So, we did, uh, that cohort in grade four. um did have a drop. Grade five progressing up a
little bit. Grade six made really made some great strides last year from where they were the previous year. Uh a small drop in grade seven uh and a small drop in grade eight. It's double asterisk there because uh a quarter of the classes in algebra. So it it it skews
those numbers. All right. Science. So two grade levels take it for us. Grades five and grade eight. This is a comparison of Little Ferry to the state of New Jersey. So, grade five, uh, we outperformed the state of New Jersey by nearly 3%. Uh, grade eight was just
below the state of New Jersey, um, by about four and a half%. Uh, these are our overall scores over the past six years, uh, 2019 to 2025 with the COVID gaps in there. And you can see we
have returned to our prepandemic levels. Uh which is one of the few districts that has been able to do that. Uh this is a breakdown of level one through level four for science with red being uh a one, orange two, green a three which is passing and uh blue being
a four which is so you can see our scores across both grade five and grade eight. All right. So what do we do with the data? what are our next steps? Um, so data analysis. So all the teachers got a a lovely blast email from me which they
get a lot of um to set up time for a uh data chat starting next week. So we're going to use not only the NGSLA data but our local data through I Ready Acadians uh early screeners at the younger ages uh and Delta Math to really pinpoint uh where our students are and where they
can go as well as some reflection on how our students did the year before. Uh something new that we are doing a slow and effective roll out is edge climber. So right now we're using data walls um which are big Excel Excel or Google sheets um that display all the data.
They're a little bit cumbersome to to see. That's why I'm not showing them to you. I break them down into graphs and charts for you all. Uh but educate will do a lot of that leg work uh saving us a lot of time. So we're excited for that. uh kid to phonics we started a double dose uh providing interventionists with
the opportunity to be either in the grade level or uh you know supplementing services twice giving our students a bit more in those foundational uh years K to two we're going to continue with the bubble boost but hyperfocusing on those students who are just below uh that
benchmark of that 740 to 749 uh and we hope to continue our rise and shine uh morning club uh meeting every morning focusing on math as soon as that title fund uh comes through. Uh we're also continuing our win period. Uh that's a what I need now. It supplements and does
not supplant instructional time. So that's when students are pulled for their ESL services when they're able to be pulled for intervention uh as well as gifted and talented so they're not missing any instruction. That's been a really uh successful time. Uh and I really got to give kudos to our middle
school uh staff who you know in a non-graded slightly unstructured period have really taken it you know by the reins um to maximize what that period is uh and optimize the opportunities for our students.
Uh some other next steps um we've released our portrait of our 90 which is kind peer noble classmate inquisitive learner goal oriented student hardworking scholar and thoughtful schoolmate which will drive our uh not only our students of month starting uh
which you'll see next month as well as initiatives every day um just to build that positive proactive school uh community and culture. Uh we're doing a reframing behavior PLC which really focuses on being uh proactive in how we
manage student behaviors and challenges based on their our perspectives, awareness, uh relationships and actions with students. Uh we also have a a reading and writing uh literacy initiative uh deer time which some of you may remember from when you were a student or when your kids were students.
It's drop everything and read. Uh, and it really allows our students device free and in an actual novel as opposed to um reading on a phone device or Chromebook. Uh and then in the middle school they're doing a monthly reading projects just to increase those
opportunities. Really impress. Yes. Did they take it in fifth and then eth um see a dip in the age right from is it cumulative from what the kids learn from fifth to like I Oh yes. So the fifth grade assessment is
on the content they've learned from third, fourth, and fifth grade. The eighth grade assessment is on what they've learned from sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. So this assessment and um thank you. And then the algebra I do appre I do appreciate what DACA has
recommended to you know students learning algebra or that learning all about it's it's an interesting recommendation present in eighth grade and putting them in
theory Um now kids that they might not pass the algebra but they would have passed without but in my opinion the state wanted they didn't like the high percentage of people passed
which was 1958. So having the number down put more kids there. So, I don't think their intentions are as well, but yes, it'll be a great opportunity for our students to take it
out of the course and hopefully do well. It'll be a good opportunity. Yeah, we've increased those numbers this year. And how many did we have previously? Last year there was 15. This year there's one double.
Yeah. about the science content based or is it just maybe our our programs not align to what testing is? I'm just curious. I don't think it's that our programs aren't aligned. I think that
I mean not that they're not aligned, but maybe I'm just curious why why why such a change. Yeah, I mean I think it's I think a lot of it is motivation. Um, you know, fifth grade is still still like your teacher, you still like school, you're still very
engaged. Eighth grade, you get a little bit of senioritis. They take the assessment in May. We did take it early um on in the year. So, we did see some improvement. We took it as one of our first assessments. Uh, it's a challenging two-day assessment. Uh,
total of, you know, two four 45 minute sections. Uh, you know, this year we've invested a lot and I got to thank Miss Miss Jo, Miss Keto Lago Mino performance uh and Miss Gatlo. They've really invested in looking at the released
items from NSLA and infusing them. They started to do that last year about mid year and this year they're doing it not only throughout the win time but throughout the year. Uh, and we hope that that muscle memory, if you will, of them having more time practicing those problems will benefit them. It's a
little bit of a struggle because there's only so many released items. So, uh, Miss Jo went and looked at the New York regions as well as other state assessments around that we can, uh, you know, keep our kids on their toes, on their game, and, you know, really start
to challenge to get them ready to take a rigorous assessment. The science assessment, uh, will be the same. There's no Jake that welcome. Thank you very much. Thank you. Nice job. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. and Mr. John and Mitch. Um, got to show them up a little bit. Um, all right. Well, now we'll come to Mr. Gomez for the board secretary report. Good evening everyone. So we closed July
and August of the financial reports. Uh this year we actually closed 2425 year in late July. U you know it's credit to my staff that usually does not happen. So right now
we're all caught up. We are ahead of what the statute requires to do. So in August we had a visit from our auditors and we completed the field work for the general fund. They'll be coming back to do the grants. The reason they have to come back is those grants don't close to
September 30th. So we got them in we got them out earlier than ever. Uh in terms of the projects we completed all of the major projects we're doing this summer except for two unit ventilators that we're waiting on some parts that should
be done hopefully tomorrow. Um, we did some paving. We did two new bathrooms. I don't know if anybody's visited them. Nice. Uh, and other projects that, you know, small projects. Uh, for food service, we don't have a big update, but
to give you an idea, so all students carry over their status have been reduced for 30 days from the beginning of the year. But we've already updated 373 of those records. The total free and reduced right now, which
includes the carryover, is 469. So I'll have a more extensive report once we close out. So we've been processing a lot quicker than any other year. That's all I have. Thank you so much.
Supernition. Thank you. I don't think there's transportation there. Was there no meeting, but the transportation as far as going work well? Nothing to report on. Great. Thank you. Um, and then as far as the
expansion committee goes, um, I don't know if anybody has their head around construction across the street. I know I do it every other day or so. Uh, there's this massive pile of dirt which is very exciting. Um, construction has sort of resumed. Um, the retaining wall is up.
Um, so that's sort of going to be that little um, separation between, you know, the the homes and the uh, yeah, and the the school itself. Um I believe we're waiting on a permit right now from DCA to continue the construction underneath
the building. Um so we're waiting on that but um progress we're making great progress and um so far we are still on target. Anything to add? No. Great. Um Mr. divorce for the court
911 cere. totally and I just have eighth graders there really nice so intense speakers funday starts at one o'clock over at um
parks All right. And then Mr. Fos for the Richmond Park, please. Yeah, Rich Park. Thank you. Rich Park had a meeting yesterday. Um, first meeting the school year. Um, Dr. M.
presentation, did a lot of talking about the school and all the new changes. School is high school is actually making a lot of nice changes year over year and over the last couple years. the cafe they have there and makes changes into
the infrastructure school fixing a lot of things. It's really turning out to be a really nice place to go. I think anybody who's interested should it's really um new eighth graders that are now high school. We talked about um
working working more closely again with regional glass rather um getting the eighth graders to go over there and visit and um just trying to be more of between us quite a bit like
that right so it's exciting excited to see we're building that relationship due to that point we do have a line goal Great. Thank you for NJSBA. Uh the SBA will have a meeting.
Great. Thank you. We'll now open it up to public comment on agenda items only. All right. We have an agenda tonight. The agenda uh is to the sidebar agreement with the LFBA. It's be resolved upon the recommendation superintendent of
schools. The court approves following cybar agreement with the little education association LFA for the 2022 2027 contract. The change of ciphers to the following scores from
2682 to 3282 in 20256 and from 2799 2779 to 3401 in 2627 school year um for the following sports which are baseball, soccer and softball.
Um this was just an oversight I think we didn't have these student sports recommended to the board leadership. So there's more voting on that. All right. We'll now take a block vote
on F-34 to F-36, DO 141 to DO15, P96 to B104, FA7, C15 and 16, and PO7. Uh, do I have a motion? Second. Second.
Mr. Yes. Mr. F. Yes. Mr. Yes. Muso. Mr. Boris. Yes. Mrs. Patel. Yes. Yes. All resolutions pass. Now move up to public comment on
non-aggenda items. I have a motion to second. Second