meeting for a roll call. Mr. Cic, >> Miss >> Mr. >> Mr. Caliber >> here, >> Miss Atinson >> here, >> Mr. Mingler >> and I'm here. Please join in the pledge
of allegiance to the stands nation. >> Thank you for coming out tonight. It's going to look a little different because our business administrator, board secretary is under the weather. So Miss Wingler and I are sharing his responsibil
a little slower tonight. Um, I'd like to thank you all for coming out tonight. I got to attend the Whiting Elementary School concert. Great job was done by all. Tonight is bittersweet for FA and me as it is our last board event meeting. I speak for both of us when I say we truly enjoyed being part of this
team and saying we are disappointed in this election outcome is an understatement. I wish the new board event members the best as you join this team of people and I were blessed to work with these last few years. I hope everyone has a blessed and happy holiday season. what you celebrate. I hope it is a beautiful celebration spent with your
loved ones. I wish you a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year. I leave you with a quote. The author is anonymous. The holiday season is a perfect time to reflect on our blessings and seek out ways to make life better for those around us. Have a good holiday season.
Good evening everybody. Welcome. The holiday season is upon us and festive events have been arranged and enjoyed by many of our students. I do want to shout outs NJC program
Saturdays from area with over 500 students were in attendance and our students actually that event. It was wellun organized and
definitely showed a lot of qualif I'd also like to talk about our annual Kevin. The snow didn't keep our rappers or families from coming together to do great things for our students. I do want to give a special shout out to Kevin
and Mr. Alex because this was a tireless effort by all of them and certainly very happy. We also I do want to highlight though this job sometimes becomes a little
tricky when we have one of the most challenging decisions I have to make as superintendent. Unfortunately, we were not able to have our third show that was on Sunday. I will tell you
that we still need to commend Staples and all those others because regardless there was a lot planning and a lot of effort from all of them and I will also tell you that we were going back and forth back and forth whether or not we should have that
but unfortunately because most of the children that were involved I just couldn't resend for oursel 57 that's right 57 years of our annual gospel course tribute to Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. that will be on Friday at 6:30 at our high school if you've never come sing with such great pride and we are sure to have some great speakers there as well I just want to
and myself administration. I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all beautiful. It's my privilege to express our appreciation for your continued unwavering dedication and as we continue our year looking forward to working
together. So I hope everyone will see you in the Um, now, uh, Senior Master Sergeant Taylor, do you have a report for us? >> Uh, yes. Good evening. Um, I wanted to say thank you to the board for allowing the middle school choir to come out for
Christmas tree and on the third of December. They did a wonderful job. And then I just want to thank the board and for all the support that you guys do. I'm here today to provide you the board
with very important information regarding the important things that we have and this last event that we had and are working on are
the light up the events on December 10th decorating the halls for the holidays everyone did a great job and then our winter spirit week is also this week Monday was sweater Tuesday, Wednesday,
tomorrow is our class colors along with our pep rally and we're celebrating all the winter sports. The seniors are looking forward to all
the new year. I just want to say thank you for allowing me to represent I'm truly honored to be here with all of you and have that has to offer.
Thank you, Jordan. Good job, Mr. Joseph. We're going to start our presentation this evening recognizing students from MTEES. I think I saw Nathan here this evening. Is Nathan McViggy here? Would you please come up? And Liam Jacob.
We're very proud to recognize two outstanding fourth grade students who consistently exemplify the very best of our school and community. Their kind, hardworking, and serve as role models for their peers each and every day. Their positive attitudes and dedication
make our classroom brighter places to learn and grow. Congratulations, boys. Thank you so much. Our next student is representing Ridgeway School and I think she has a fan here. Is Kira here?
Congratulations to Kira. Kira is a dedicated, inspiring student who leads by example through her hard work and positive attitude. She's a valued member of the gifted and talented program and she consistently excels across all subjects and brings the same
determination and focus to her training as a USA gym. Congratulations to Kira. I believe her last name is Cox. Am I right? Congratulations to Kira. Congratulations, Kira.
Give her another round of applause. We're going to continue with Whiting School. Is Hudson here? Congrat. Hi, Hudson. Congratulations. >> Great job, Hudson. So, Hudson is a thoughtful and caring friend to his classmates. Recently, he chose to give
away a prize he so that a classmate could receive it on their birthday. And that is just simply kind. It's an action that truly reflects his kindness and his generosity. And we are incredibly proud of him. Congratulations, Hudson.
Is Martin here? No. Okay, we're still going to talk about Martin. So, congratulations to Martin who represents Regional Day School. He's He's also a true leader with a heart of gold and he's always eager to help his peers and adults. He'll get a favorite toy for his
friends. He will console them if they're sad. His receptive understanding has improved significantly. And we are so proud of Martin. So congratulations to make sure you get the certificate to present to him tomorrow. Okay. Thank you
so much. We'll continue with the middle school. I think I saw Damian. Is Damian out there? Congratulations to Damian. He's a high achieving seventh grade student who consistently demonstrates
academic excellence and leadership. He is an active member of the Eco Explorers Club and participates on the school wrestling team. Beyond that, Damen is also an accomplished football player for the Manchester Hawks and Allstar squad
athlete. Congratulations and best of luck to you and this season, Damian. Our next two athletes are representing our middle school and that would be Audrey and Cole. We're extremely proud to have Cole Reco and Audrey Stat represent our middle
school as our student athletes. Cole and Audrey are both great representation of what it means to be a student athlete. They are eighth grade leaders on our cross country soccer and basketball teams and they work just as hard in the classroom as they do in the athletic
arena. Congratulations to both of you. Are these students here? Mr. Adams, Marissia. Oh, I see them. Okay, come on now. And Megan, I see. So, Marissa and Megan are participating
in the NJMEA All State Treble Chorus. It is a prestigious statewide ensemble of New Jersey's top high school vocalists. Selection is highly competitive and only the most accomplished and dedicated students earn this honor. We're proud to
have the state's best soaring among us here in the Hawk Nest and we offer sincere congratulations to both of them. Congratulations. Our next two students are athletes of the month from the high school and it's Jacob and
Jacob has had an exceptional season for the bowling team leading the Bout Division with a 211 average and a high game of 279 and a high series of 675. His consistency and f have made him a standout performer.
Ayana is a four-year varsity girls wrestler was selected as team captain this year. Her work ethic, dedication, and discipline have set the tone for her program and her leadership has been instrumental and I think she has to probably go back, right? She just won
her match tonight. So, let's congratulate her. Congratulations. Good job, guys. She is going back because tonight is the first round of wrestling matches. I do want to just leave you with it's
just such a highlight to be able to acknowledge and recognize all the wonderful students that we have in our district. And so during this season of giving, let us take time to just slow down and enjoy the simple things. And I think really what we what what I'm
sharing with you is the simple things. A young man gives a present to somebody to celebrate his birthday. Another student is just being kind and thoughtful. Those are the simple things. And if we did more of that, this world would truly continue to be such a wonderful place.
So, I wish you all wonderful holidays. And I'm just going to ask if you would stay, please, because we're going to bring up the MTEF and we're going to highlight all the wonderful things our teachers are doing in order to get some grants. So, I think Mr. Compana is here.
Am I right? Rick. So, there are some teachers here in the audience who actually have put in for grants and we're so grateful for our Manchester Township Education Foundation because they supported our schools with
an enormous amount of money for our teachers to get more instructional supplies in their classrooms. So, I'm going to turn this over to I just want to say that uh when our group got together to review all the many applicants for grants that we're going to present tonight. Um you know
you can read into the applications and see the uh the desire for um the teachers to improve the lives the education of the students also you feel their passion. Um, we have the checks made out for the individual schools that
I'll present. Um, Ridgeway Elementary School, $5,893 in many grants for the teachers. We had teachers from school actually Miss Johnson.
I believe those were put in for grants and RTF is was kind enough to give those recipients the honor of getting those grants fulfilled. So, thank you and thank you to the Ridge teachers that were involved in that. Let's give them a nice round of applause. Manchester, I'm sorry, Regional Day
School $4,384. So Mrs. McCllis is the principal of regional day school and her teachers that participated were Ellie Highland, Maria Marcado, Thomas Rosetti and Dominic.
So thank you. Congratulations to those teachers to give you the Elementary School $3,995 representing Whiting is Mrs. Swift and the teachers there that put in for grants was Mrs. Bar, Miss Hston, Mrs.
Get, Mrs. Paulastro, and Mrs. Gold. So, congratulations to those teachers. Manchester High School 3,791. Representing our high school is Mr. Adams, the principal of the Hawk Nest. And I would like to congratulate because
I think some of the teachers are here. Mrs. Adams, Mr. Mrs. Mino, and Mrs. And congratulations to those teachers from the Hawks Nest.
Last but not least, Manchester Township Elementary School. $5,950. So representing MTES is Mrs. Healey and her teachers that submitted grants was Mrs. Reed, Miss Tumi, Mrs. Mercer, Mrs. Meriel, Mrs. Broman, and Mrs. Henry. So
congratulations to those teachers. I would be remiss if I did not the members to come up at the NC. So, Mrs. Choker, would you mind coming up here for a photo? Mr. Companion, I think you have somebody else in the audience. So, in total, all the mini grants were
$23,983 and that is a lot of money given to our schools. So, we just thank you so much for your efforts and we thank you for supporting all the great things that our teachers are trying to do here in Manchester. So, thank you very much.
>> Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Okay, everybody. If you do need to go home and do homework or if you would like to go to the wrestling match, certainly now we understand that. We wish you all a happy holiday. All the best to the Mc Biggie family. I know you're going to be leaving going to
some warm weather. >> We wish you all the best. Mrs. is going to give her school based corrective action plans for chronic absenteeism. Please give your attention to the screen. So first, thank you for letting us uh
share this information with you. Um as we said, and this is all linked on the agenda, so everyone will have access to this. The state of New Jersey has a rule law where if any school has more than 10% chronic absentism, they to create a
plan that has been in place for many years. Um, this year they have clarified us wanting to also share it a little more officially at board of ed meetings, which is why you're seeing it for the first time now versus us having created them before. Um, you know, chronic
absenteeism is defined by the state as any student who misses 10% or more of school, which in 180 school days, the student misses 18 days, which works out to a month, which does not sound like a lot of days when you spread it out like
that, but for continuity of instruction, that's um where that's defined. So, each school creates a corrective action plan um to improve attendance. And one thing I did uh want to stress is that 10% is
well below the state average. So, when we're getting our performance reports at the end of the year and all the schools are, you have to state average, but even schools who are meeting that are creating these plans because it's above that 10% threshold that they use. And
their purpose for that is they're really stressing that you cannot learn if you are not in school. And so they're very strict about what that percentage is. One thing I can say is where I have access in um the DOE home room, I was
able to look at all the schools in Ocean County and of the 96 schools only six are less than 10%. So this is something that is a concern across the county and as we know across the state and has been
exacerbated a little bit by CO. So um after co the kids have not come back in the same way as previous and that takes a we have to change our thinking a little bit of how we're addressing that situation. So each school has created a
plan. We have um provided each one with slides so we can see that. In addition to the plan we had them provide some highlights for you because they're kind of long. And so one of the things you'll notice is it's broken into three tiers. So tier our general efforts. What are we
doing schoolwide to promote attendance? Tier two is how are we helping our kids who are at risk of becoming chronically absent? That involves a lot of connections with parents and students individually. Sometimes that's counselors, sometimes that's teachers. Um sometimes that's administrators
depending. And then tier three is really where it is the most chronic. A lot of times that will involve outside resources that students might need. support of what is becoming an obstacle to their attendance.
This was just the statuto requirement in case anybody wanted to look up what do schools have to do. The plans need to include how they're identifying the problems and barriers, coming up with recommendations that address those problems and barriers. Um outlining how
they're going to communicate with families um and inform about the importance. Um and you may have noticed that you you are a parent that you've been receiving probably from different communications. Sometimes those are official and have copies of laws in them. Sometimes those
are newsletters that are including importance of attendance. Sometimes even those letters come home with extra communication from um attendance works which is a great organization that really stresses why attendance is so important. Um we look at the protocols.
making sure how parents are informed of absences and then keep just looking at our policies and procedures. One thing to note is that that chronic absentism includes excused absences. So a lot of times when we're like well was it
excused or unexcused and if it is a locally excused absence that or verified sometimes we call it that still counts against as chronic absenteeism because their feeling is that student is not here and they're not learning and how are we helping that student to um get
here. So, one of the things is all of the interventions really are stressing that we're committed to supporting our students and families while still emphasizing that it is important and vital for both academic and social
development for our students to be in um the classroom. So, I'm just going to go through the slides just to give you kind of an overview. I have all of the administrators ready to speak to their specific plans if you have specific questions as well.
>> They should count because those are not state excuse. So even if as a district we say we're not holding it against you, it's not one of those four or five absences that the state says does not count against you. You know those include like bring your child to work and I know that That feels crazy that
when a student is sick and has a doctor's note, the state says that's an absence. But in your child's workday does not count as an absence. And that's we're working within the state's framework. But anything that is not one of those um absences that the state
deems is um an excused absence counts against regardless of how that is. The only excuse are driver's license to work day and only up to three days of holiday. So if you're a kid who's visited more than
that, it's only there. They've also added um because over the years driver's license was not in there. Fate wasn't in there. They've expanded a little from when they originally put that out. Um but now I just lost what I was going to say.
It's going to come back. So, um, but they have expanded a little bit what that was, but it is still very limited um for count. So, here we have the building plans. When you look at the slides, you'll see in the top left corner, that's the link
to their full plan where it's really spelled out over multiple pages. We also put what the school rate is and what the state average is. They do different byum grade. So, they compare the high school against other high schools. They compare
the elementary against other elementary and middle school as well. This year the middle school and the elementary is the same, but in other years it has not been the same. So it just kind of worked out statistically that they came out even. And you can see they have what are some
of those things they're doing in tier one to try to be proactive getting students here. Then we move on to tier two. So now they're having attendance meetings with students. more communication specifically with parents guidance and CST getting involved. Um
they have particular reports they run to keep track of that. Sometimes we're wrapping in an INRS team and then um they have a Google form that they instituted. They started last year looking into this where they have students filling out a
form to talk about what are some of their barriers to attendance to give them a chance to sometimes are more likely to put it in a form than to say it out loud. And so they have provided a way for students to give some feedback as well. And then
tier three involves increased parent meetings out of all the levels. Tier three could also include truency because when a student is absent too much, there can be a truency court version of that. Um and then a high school has a different scenario because they have
credits. And so credit denial is also something we have to look when attendance is involved because you know according to the state if you're chronically absent were you there enough to learn even if you have an A in the class were you there for enough they we
sometimes like to word it to kids like did you have enough seat time for the state to think you were here enough and so they also have ways that they try to let students make up hours uh after school to try to say hey this is how I'm proving that I've gotten
enough education but those hours have to be where you're doing some work. It can't just be you're sitting for that. Um and then continued meetings at certain levels there could be exclusion from
extracurricular activities. We try to hold that to tier three because sometimes extracurriculars are what get you into school, but there comes a point where if you're not here enough, we've got to focus on the academic areas for that. And so this is the high school's
kind of in depth with this one just to show you how they are laid out. Then we have the middle school's plan. So their average and the state average, you can see that's different from the high school where the state average was 17. Um so they're tier one. They have a
problem solving team. They clarify the attendance expectations with students and parents collecting and monitoring student attendance data. They create a positive school culture and we've been finding in all the buildings that's something we're trying to do. The more students feel like they belong and are
connected, the more likely they are to attend. Um they're providing students an opportunity to get breakfast before school because for some students that's something that they may not be getting outside of school. Um and then they boost the daily attendance overall to
just keep creating a culture where attendance is seen as something valued and important. So now we're moving on to tier two. We've got once again a lot of these tiers are going to be similar because the interventions that work are going to work at multiple levels. So
we're sending letters to parents, maintaining a spreadsheet to keep track which we're sharing with counselors and CST members, conferences with students um to discuss that contact with parents, providing resources as needed and
continuing to monitor the rates and on that. And then in tier three, obviously we're still doing all the things in tier two, but then more um specific parent conferences with attendance action plans, working with teachers to remove obstacles preventing
students from returning to school. Um offering students and families alternative education structures. That's obviously a very far along the way intervention. That's why that's very close to the end. Um truency paperwork app
and then um continuing to monitor that attendance. So here we have MTS's their font is very small. So I'm going to read some of those for you but um once again their plan so you can see they are very close to the state average 14.1
the state is 13.2 so um what I can say is I looked at all of the schools between 22 23 and 24 25 just to two years and they are all trending down. This is the one category where we want the number to go down like test scores
and everything. We're always trying to get the numbers up, but um all of the schools are trending down from two years ago. So, the interventions are working. They don't always work as fast as we like them to, but interventions usually don't. They take some time to change culture, move things along, but all of
them are moving. So, you can see they have done um a lot of things. They've included some of the trainings that the teachers have gotten and those are things some of the other buildings have also had like culturally responsive teaching, sensitivity, shelter instruction. So what are the
things to help build a culture where students feel welcome? Um and included they've instituted a mentor program and created friendly competitions among groups not students. Is it actually a bad idea u to recognize perfect attendance? I
know that's something we used to do back in the day. Um, but one that sometimes makes kids who are sick come to school, which we, you know, we don't want because then we have outbreaks of like flu in one classroom. Um, but it also seems to be a little more effective when
you're recognizing groups like this class has good attendance or this grade level, this house or team or whatever. Um, and they also have instituted attendance ambassadors which is something um to try to stress the importance of attendance from
peers. Then we have our tier 2 intervention. So a lot of the same things, meetings with attendance committee, vice principal, principal, letters from the office, um attendance letters sent home from the committee, counselor meetings, and I think the
counselors are key in this. And I do really want to thank the board because we do have a counselor in every school, and I think that is vital to solving this problem. We to have connections like that. So, we um have an attendance
log that they're using there to really try to stay on top of the data. And then they've been stressing CST, connecting with the students with disabilities when there's absences just to make sure there's nothing that is making them feel like they don't want to come to school
to try to solve that. And then tier three, we have more parent meetings, attendance contracts, instruction, more training for teachers, and then obviously um there we have Ridgeway Elementary School. And so I'm going to go a little
faster through the other two elementaryaries just because they do share a lot of information and do a lot of things together. So they are going to have some similar things, but um we're sending out letters for the, you know, three, five, nine, all the days that are
indicated at each grade level. Um the attendance expectations are in the student handbook. We have culturally responsive teaching training, sheltered instruction. Um the PERS involvement that's with the preschool we have occurs. And then the
nurse involvement, I think that is another important piece because some of these are medical situations. So I think that is great. And then um robocalls to the parents. That's something all the schools do. When there's there's an automatic call home so parents know that the absence occurred and so it's not a
surprise when we call that your students seven times because you should have gotten seven mobile calls. Um when we move on to tier two, we have parent meetings, attendance plans, attendance incentives, um parent guardian phone calls, guidance
counselor meeting with students, Cing the special ed students, and then we move on to tier three where you're going to see the same things we have in the other tier. And then um our last school that has an attendance plan is Whiting Elementary
School. So can We also have um attendance officers sending out the letters, school secretary. We have hero program. So here every day ready and on time which was a theme um
attendance expectations and student handbook. We have the same trainings. One thing that's not up there that I know that this is also a big part of back to school night at Whiting School. I was lucky enough to be there this year for theirs and I know that's part of the parent presentation at the beginning. We
have tier two, we have IRS getting involved, guidance, parent meetings. They've instituted a parent postcard to kind of give you an idea of where you are in absences if your student has started that's a little more user friendly than the letters. The letters are very official because they have to
site code and law and things like that policy where the postcard is just learning is important and here's where your student is and where they should be just to keep parents in the loop. We also have some more incentives and attendance plans. And then tier three we
have contracts in truency and mediation. Now regional day is up there. So regional day is actually a receiving school. They do not get their data reported like the other schools do. So they don't have a percentage that were given from
the state. However, you know, Mallis still is prioritizing attendance. So while she won't have a plan, these are the things that they are doing. They also have some different challenges because it is a send receive relationship. So that is something where they have to loop in the school that is
sending when a student is um absent quite a bit. There's also transportation issues that become a problem because some of the students are coming from far distances. Even weather can be an issue at regional day because we may be open but the district may not. So those are
some of the other um aspects there in this because of some of the medical and mental health issues. There is CF CMO involvement sometimes CBP which can happen at all the schools but that's something that
deal with and so we did have her provide some of that even though she doesn't have to have an attendance plan by the state it is still important to us at all of our schools and so we have the slide there as well and then I just linked for you guys some of the important ources.
So, the DOE's student attendance page, in case you're curious, attendance works is a great site. I know a lot of people work in districts. That's something that a lot of districts use. Um, and then some other resources from the state that are
helpful. So, I know that was a lot the meeting before, but um we just want to make sure you have a full understanding. if you guys presentation. Thank you for having us. Before we start, I want to thank Mr.
Monday for your presentation to MTA. generous donations and kudos to the teachers who apply for all those grants. As I'm sure it's a timely process and shout out to Miss 67, I'm sure all the kids love that
elementary school at this time. Are there any res? >> Are there any board mess? Lake winter concert is tomorrow at 6:30. If anybody's interested in attending any other boards,
Mr. Lensson will update us on correspondence and old business at the next meeting. Please move to the agenda section one A through D. Can I get a motion?
>> Any discussion? >> We're going to ask for a roll call. >> Mr. Mor. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mrs. >> Yes.
>> Mr. myself. Yes. Mrs. >> Section two numbers one. Can I get a motion? >> Any discussion? Please. >> Yes. >> Mr.
Mr. >> Mr. Yes, >> Mr. Murphy. >> Yes, Mr. >> Yes. We're going to do 44. Can I get a motion?
Any discussion, please? >> Mr. >> Yes, >> Mr. >> Yes, >> Mr. >> Yes, >> Mr. Mr. Yes, >> Mr.
M. >> Number one, >> Mr. Yes, >> Mr. >> Yes, >> Mr. >> Mrs. >> Yes,
>> Mr. Min. Yes, Mrs. M. >> Yes. Student personnel numbers one and two. Can I get a motion? >> Second. >> Any discussion? Can I get a roll, please? Mr.
>> Minstein, >> yes. >> Mr. Fox, >> yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. Yes. >> Mr. Minim numbers one and two. Can I get a motion? >> Any discussion? Can I get a roll call, please? Mr.
>> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. Yes. >> Mr. Mer. >> Yes. M. >> Yes. Finance numbers 1 through five. Can I
get a motion? >> Discussion. Can we get a roll call, please? >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mrs. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mr. Per. Yes, >> Mr. Atinson. >> Yes, >> Mr. Merin.
>> Mr. Wler. Yes, Mr. >> Yes. At this time, we'd like to invite anybody to the microphone for public comment. I'd like to make a motion to adjourn a meeting. Can I get a second?
>> I just would like to make sure that we thank Mrs. M for their service. On behalf of the board, we did provide beautiful. So, thank you so much for your service. We appreciate you.
Can I get a second? A nice holiday.