All set. Can everybody please stand for the flag >> salute with the open public meetings act. Adequate notification of this meeting has been provided by advertising in the record and posted notice of this meeting in Burough Hall and the superintendent's office. I hereby call to order the
public meeting of Littleberry Board of Education Thursday, August 21st, 2025 at 7:01 p.m. Can I have a roll call, please? >> Mr. Bernelli, >> Mrs. Bulli, >> here. >> Mr. Fitro, >> Mr. Cananan, Mr. Mey >> here, >> Mr.
>> Here, >> Mr. Borsk here. >> Mel >> here. >> Mr. Brad >> here. >> We have a quorum. >> The result of the Little Ferry Board of Education approves the minutes of the regular public meeting held on July 17, 2025. Do I have a motion? >> Motion.
>> Second. >> Second. >> Right. >> Mr. Bulli. >> Yes. >> Mr. Mey. >> Yes. Here. >> Muzo. >> Yes. Mr. Boris. Absent.
Mrs. Patel. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bradley. >> Yes. >> Great. >> We'll now open it up to Mr. Parapado to provide a superintendent report. >> Going to invite Mr. Dunn to give the access
scores report which typically with we were hoping to get done all one shot this year, but state of New Jersey had other plans. So >> yeah, I'm not going to think next year you'll get all the reports at once. You'll get NSLA and BLM and access once
but governor mandated it but it has got it to uh to the DOS. So if you turn your attention to the board behind you here's report for the access for ELLs. Um so the access test assesses our multilingual learners in grades
kindergarten through grade eight. Uh the acronym stands for assessing comprehension and communication in English state-tostate. So it's a nationally normed assessment. It it focuses on four domains speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Uh and students can score between one and six
with a passing score being 4.5 or higher. Uh so we'll go over uh some close and grows, the data, and then our intervention strategies moving forward. All right, some glows. our passing rate or students above the 4.5 were within 1%
from the two uh 2024 uh scores. It went down slightly but it was within 1%. Um any number below 10 or 10% I I can't report because then you could figure out how many kids and who the kids were. Uh so 16 students exited
in the fall model assessment which is an assessment that we are able to give at the start of the school year. Um so those would be 16 additional students that would have passed. Um we are now at 30% of our staff is trained in sheltered English instruction which trains general
education teachers to be able to provide uh differentiated supports to our multilingual learners. And we are continuing to use our win period, our what I need now period uh and not supplant any in are missing less content
area time. Uh our grow is to uh increase the passing rate. Um as I said, it went down uh by a tick this year, so we want to make it go up next year. Our goal is to train uh 10% more staff by 2026. So
that'll put us at 40% of our staff being ch uh trained. Uh and we want to find more time for collaboration um during weekly team times with the ESL teachers, collaborating with the content area teachers.
Uh so look at the data. So our participation rate is great 100% across the board for both schools and at the district as a whole. So all the students uh who were multilingual learners were able to take the assessment. So this is a breakdown of the four excuse me of the six different
achievement levels and the percentages within each. Um so you can see the majority of our students were in between that two to four range um with with the bulk at that three. So just below that
passing rate overall as a district uh but trending upwards. Um and that's really what we like to look for. Uh I'll go a little bit more into depth on the makeup of the students and who we got this year which attributes to this.
Uh this is a breakdown of the different domains and how we did at each building as well as the district overall. Uh we're consistently strongest in listening. Uh and that is the generally the first domain that students become strongest in. Um they hear English all day in all of their content area
classes. So their comprehension of English orally becomes uh stronger quicker. Uh and you can see that that was our strongest area overall. writing is always the biggest struggle uh for both our multilingual learners and um native language speakers as well. Um and
you can see the scores across there. Uh this is a breakdown of the percentage by subgroups. So again, there's going to be a lot of N's in here because if the that subgroup is a group of 10 or less, uh by law, I'm not allowed to report it. So uh that first column, it'll show the
all the different subgroups. So, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, economically disadvantaged, and special education. Uh, so those first four categories, white, black, Asian, and Hispanic are the breakdown of our multilingual learner population. Uh, and then the the breakdown of of that whole of how many
are economically disadvantaged. So, you can see uh over 50% of our students who are multilingual learners are economically disadvantaged. And then working uh from left from that one all the way to the six, you can see the breakdown of how each of those subgroups performed. Again, uh many of those
subgroups are below the 10 number, so I can't report those. Uh but you can see how our economically disadvantaged students did as well as our Hispanic Latino students. There we go. Uh so a trend in comparative analysis to last year. Um so
overall the district did scores did go down slightly. Um we're still in that two range uh as a overall average is where we've been for the past four years actually. Um although it did take a slight percentage dip at at both schools
in the district overall uh going down by about two ten of a point. Uh the data finding. So this is uh something that's very interesting and something that we've seen trending over the past three years. So, we had 73 multilingual learners in uh 2425.
30% of those multilingual learners were new students to the district. Uh 11 in Washington and 13 in Memorial for 24 overall. Um 30% of those new students to the district started halfway through the year or later. So, that's January or
later with some of the students arriving during the access testing window and being welcomed to school with a test. Uh and of those 73 multilingual learners uh and the excuse me of the new ones 58% of
our new multilingual learners almost 60% were newcomers to the United States. So we are port of entry they are new to the United States. Um so while our our our scores went down a little bit we did have a large influx of students who are new to the country.
Uh so our intervention strategies uh our three product approach uh we want to increase the sheltered English instruction that provides uh better services to all of our MLS in all of their settings. Uh as I said earlier we're currently at 30%. Our goal is 40%
uh by next year. That's run by Melissa as well as some of the other ESL teachers over the summer. So it's not just um the statemandated course which we do through Stockton. It's also supplemented by those teachers providing actual strategies and using the
curriculum that each grade level teaches so that they can make those accommodations modifications. Our K2 phonics is a big uh push this year and one of our district goals is to improve literacy skills across the district. Uh it'll provide 60 minutes of
highintensity instruction for our K2 MLS and it will supplement not supplant. So they'll get that high intensity um phonics instruction to build their overall uh language skills. Uh and then additional resources we piloted off the class um which is a a specific ML
resource that can be used by both ESL teachers and content area teachers uh and we'll be using it in both rise and shine and after school. Um language power is a new um tool that the ESL teachers were using last year. We purchased the second kit for them. Uh we
also purchase decodables for all grades K to three. Um and when we purchase them, it's not just for the content area teachers, we buy them for our ESL uh classes as well. And all the ESL teachers have now been trained in UFly, which is a um science of reading based
curriculum so that they can provide our students with a little bit more. Thank you, Mr. Dun. >> So, we completed June's financial voting on that tonight. Uh we did our first bond payment for the new school on
August 15th. So we completed that. Uh everything's rolled over to 2526 in terms of the budget. We're operating as normal. Uh the auditors will be arriving on Monday to start auditing. So terms of the projects, we replaced the kitchen
floor out in the annex. Uh so we completed that and was actually reinforced. Um bathrooms are almost done and we've completed 50% of the HP. >> Great my report. >> Thank you.
>> Should we go through the committee reports comment agenda please? Pick a block vote on F31 to F-33, DO121 to DO140, 87 to E95, phase 6,4
P5 to DO6. Do I have a motion? >> Second. >> Mr. Belli is absent. Mr. Bulli, >> yes. >> Mr. Fros is absent. >> Mr. Kanan is absent. Mr. Mey, >> yes. >> Mr. Luzo, >> yes.
>> Mr. Boris, >> Mrs. Patel, >> yes. >> Mrs. Bradley, >> yes. >> Resolutions pass. >> Want to open it up to public comment on it? >> Yeah. Hi. Um, Leslie Gotley, 464 Liberty. I know I sent you an email on
this, but there's a kind of a concern with all the construction going on between new school, you've got the project down on Echo Road, which I sent you a memo on, which sounds like it's going into October, and you've got whatever they're doing by the library. You know, that's obviously going to
affect the kids getting to school on time. So, I don't know if, you know, anyone started to think about how they're going to handle it. And you can't give the whole school tardies if they're stuck because of construction. >> So, >> so I'll answer that a little bit.
>> Yeah, of course. >> All right. Um, our project manager for this job in the burrow are in communication. So, so I don't want to speak to how frequently they talk, but they do talk uh quite often about the traffic patterns. uh
especially as this starts to ramp up and road I don't want to call them closures but you know assistance is going to be needed uh that they're not overlapping with what's happening actually potentially both sides uh of Liberty. So
that's first and foremost. Secondly, um unfortunately it's going to be a wait and see approach to see what that traffic pattern does. I know that they've been alternating sides. Uh, I'm hoping because we actually just discussed the transportation for the
buses and getting out of here and getting down to Lake Street and getting out of the parking lot getting down to Richel Park at the Tito to those places how much of a delay that's typically here even on really rainy days it could be flooding pretty quickly. So
when we have those days, Mark is outside and I'm outside. Uh typically a message should be late. Secretaries will then make an announcement in the school that not kids tardy um until we give a like a clear like okay at this point forward
they'll be tardy. Um but yeah, it's it's it's going to be a little messy. It's going to be a little sticky. I'm I'm I have confidence though in the burrow. I do have confidence in our project management team that it's going to be the best it can be. Uh, but I would be remiss if I didn't say, "Yeah, I do have
concerns myself about traffic." >> Okay. Yeah. Because my son even commutes that way to his job. So, >> yeah. Yeah. >> And right now we have to back because the the school traffic's not there. But when I come in in the morning, I'm coming down. I got to go straight up main. I can't be left. So,
>> there's definitely some concerns. >> I think everything that's happening is great for the town, but it's going to be, you know, some trouble. Just wanted to, you know, make sure you're aware of it. >> No, I appreciate that's why I respond. That's why I said thank you because I do take those um and I'm going to try to
put something together. But again, I want to wait until I get a little more guidance from two about what they're anticipating doing. Are they going to delay their start? Because even here, we try to delay our starts until after the kids are in for any kind of like big
equipment or machinery that has to come in. And also one other thing with the since now we're starting is there going to be any concern with the noise from across the street into the class >> some disruptions they're aware um we'll be you know do we we meet bi-weekly so
when they're going to be doing things that are going to be a little bit more noisy it allows us to require teachers to keep their windows closed things of that nature. Um look construction is noisy construction is messy. Um, we do talk about those things at our meetings.
We try to mitigate, but again, like I said, I'd be I'd be lying to you if I said yes. It's going to be noisy. It's going to be disruptions, but >> uh we're going to do our best to keep them. >> Well, I'm looking forward to the day when that that new school is down. >> We all are. We all are. And that's why
we want to keep moving forward, do it responsibly, but um it's exciting, but comes with it some of the things that you brought up. Yep. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Okay.
Do I have a motion to journ?