Okay. Good evening everyone. I'd like to call this meeting to order. This is the North Brunswick Township Board of Education Conference public meeting. Today is Wednesday, April 29th, and we are here at North Brunswick Township Middle School. Could we all please rise for the pledge of
allegiance? >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Mr. Carter
>> here, >> Miss Aeda >> here. >> Miss James >> here. >> Mr. Lori, >> Dr. Patel >> here, >> Mr. Singh >> here, >> Miss Singha, >> Miss Toast >> here, >> and Mr. Wen >> here.
>> We do have a quarum. Thank you. The New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the open public meetings
law, the public notice of this meeting, which included the time, date, and location was distributed by 3 PM on Wednesday, January 28th, 2026, in the following manner. Posted on the bulletin board reserved for announcements in the
board office, 25 Lynwood Place, North Brunswick. Mailed to the Home News Tribune, Starledger, NJ.com, and the clerk of the township of North Brunswick. delivered to the nine dually elected board members. And beginning March 1st, 2026, all future board
meeting notices shall be published on the board's official website, www.nbtschools.org, and be made available through the New Jersey Secretary of State's official website in lie of publication in a newspaper in accordance with PL 2025C.
72. Well, good evening everyone. It's good to see everyone this evening. We're full swing into the spring season and on our road show, which we like to call it. We are at North Brunswick Township Middle School. So, I thank Mr.
Sulliv and his team for having us here this evening in your beautiful building. We are looking forward to your presentation. Before I turn it over to you though, I'll turn it over to Superintendent Zakowski. Thank you, Madam President, and welcome everyone. Thank you for being here,
especially our students after a long day. We look forward to hearing your performance and also we look forward to uh Mr. Slover kind of capturing the state of the school's uh school state of the school. Um but just a side note uh
it was a wonderful performance of the Wizard of Oz and it was the first time since uh four years ago when I uh had left the district and I was able to come in and see a performance and get on stage during the National Junior Honor
Society. So, uh, it's great to be on, uh, this stage after all the hard work, many years and dedication of our board members, our staff, and and really I'm very pleased to see how you, it's one thing building a new school, but to execute what we need to be done, what
needs to be done within the school and for students to learn and prosper. So, I want to thank you and your team, and I certainly look forward to hearing uh, the state of the school, my first time as the superintendent on this brand new stage. So, Mr. Slover, thank you.
>> Yeah. Would you mind if we sat in the uh >> the audience? Perfect. >> Thank you. >> You want to get up first? >> You go first. Okay. Okay, good evening members of the board of education, superintendent Zakowski, assistant,
Dr. Ellis, we welcome you to NBTMS. We are happy to have you here tonight and uh kind of show you what we're all about once again. Um but first, we would like to lead off with our national anthem as performed by a member of the NBTMS chorus, Connor Chan. Connor, would you
come up? Would you please rise for the national anthem? Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hailed at the
twilight last gleaming, whose but stripes and bright stars through the perilous fights lights or the ramp parts we washed were so gallently
streaming. And the rockets red glare, the bonds bursting in air gave proof that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that source spangled banner and wave or the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Thank you, Connor. Just a word about Connor who is How many instruments do you play? How many? Six. Six instruments. He sings. You're a competitive swimmer. You're in our honor society, right? And
I knew I had a friend when he told me his hero was Eddie Van Halen. I'm like, "Yes, finally." So, anyway, thank you again, Connor. And now to entertain you with the Beatles classic Get Back, the NBTMS wind ensemble under the direction of Mr. Chris English.
Just a little solve one math problem. All right. Let's do something new. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
Heat. Heat. Thank you, Mr. English. And now we have a little video for you that was made by our video production class. Uh >> oh. This worked before.
That might be what it is. And here she comes. In the meantime, I'm going to riff. Okay. Uh, the next slide after this is a copy of the district's mission statement. Okay. Now, you all know what that says. We all know what that says. We really didn't feel a need to write our own. I
don't know that we could say anything better than what the board has. Okay? But we do have a philosophy that I share with the staff every year. Okay? And it's very simple and it comes down to just some simple words.
Okay? The first thing is safety. Okay, without a safe school, we've got nothing. All right, that's the first thing. Everyone needs to feel safe and at home in this building. Second is comfortable. All right, that might be an unorthodox word to use to describe a school, but I
firmly believe if you do not feel at least a little bit at home in your school, whether you're a student or a staff member, you can't do your best work. All right, so we want to be safe. We want to be comfortable. Third, we want to be highly productive. I would love if we were all high on a
roll every year, every marking period. That's not realistic. Some kids struggle, but we want to make sure we're moving the needle with as many kids as possible. That to me, that's a highly productive school. Okay? And then the last one is enjoyable. Okay? I don't want anyone to feel like coming to
school or coming to work is a bed of nails. All right? I want people to enjoy themselves while they're here. All right? So, that's my philosophy. safe, comfortable, highly productive, and enjoyable. When we've got that rolling, we've got a good school. Okay. The other thing that's on there is a piece is a
picture of a chessboard. And that's because the other thing I do believe is that running a school is kind of like playing chess in that every day you're trying to move as many pieces, as many spaces as you can. Some days you move several pieces, several spaces. Some
days it feels like you moved one, but you're always trying to move them as many as you can. All right? And I think we all feel that way. Moving on to academics. Um, oh, and one thing I did want to mention because we don't have a picture of it, but when you came in or perhaps
when you leave, you might notice there's some student artwork posted in the hallway out there. All right. Some of that was posted at the district art show just a few weeks ago, but we do have a studio art class for our more advanced art students. They do some exceptional work. So, please check it out on your way out if you didn't see it on your way
in. Okay. How we doing? Okay, you know what? We'll just go back to it. >> Just go back to No, sorry. Just go back to the presentation. >> No problem. My apologies. I will share the video link with Dr. Z's office and then we'll
get that out to you. They did a great job. They really did a neat job interviewing students and staff about, you know, what they like about the school and so forth. So, they did a good job. We will get it to you. The teacher who shared it with me gave access to me, but she's the one who's logged in here for the presentation. So,
>> would you prefer we take a minute and see it? >> Okay. All right. >> All right. We will do that then. >> Sure. And the next screen you want to put your entire name. Yeah.
Heat. As long as we're on record, if you'll indulge me for just a second, I know a few others probably for many years. >> This way I can say, "See, Dad, I got you something." >> Okay, here we go.
>> Do you want me to stay to help me get back? What I love about MBTMS is how the teachers are so supportive and the school is very um organized. >> What I like about MBTMS is the schools, the teachers and all the sports teams
and the education I get. >> I am thankful for MBTMS's teachers and sports. Um, I'm grateful for my wrestling coach cuz he was able to teach me how to do wrestling. >> I love the kids. I love my colleagues. I
love that it's brand new. I love that it's a fun place to work. >> I have fun with kids. I have fun with my colleagues. It's great. >> Um, yeah. I just like the relationships you we get to have with with students. >> Like the kids. I like the teachers. I think it's a great environment. >> Are you going to miss us when we go to
high school? >> I am. I think about that all the time. >> The community. Everybody's really nice. I like that there is a lot of diversity and a lot of different types of classes and electives that students can really
grow here. >> How has your experience been here at MBTMS? >> It's been fun. Learn a lot of things, you know, in and out of class and yeah. >> What's your favorite subject at MBTMS? World history. Teachers help you here at
MBTMS. teachers at MTMS give me the resources I need to to do good. >> What's your favorite part about coaching at MTMS? >> Uh my favorite part about coaching at MMS is just working with all the tremendous athletes that we have here. Um some of our best student athletes are the type that um growing and developing
not only as students but as athletes and just watching that change throughout a season is is truly remarkable and a lot of fun. >> How have you grown at MTLS? Um, I think I've grown so far by friendships, the teachers, um, how everybody helps each other and
we all work together. >> Miss Brown, what's your favorite thing about working? >> I would say my favorite thing about working here is getting to work alongside the teachers that teach me as a kid. >> What we miss about Okay. So, I took us past that already.
Took us past that already. All right. Now, academics is the best place to start. If we talk about NJSLA which is the elephant in the room of of course we know our scores continue to be an issue but there are some things I would like to share with you. Okay. Over the last three years we have seen growth in 12
out of 18 tests. How do we get to 18 tests? We're tested in six areas a year. All right. So six for three years. 12 out of 18 we have seen scores improve. Our greatest losses and I did a lot of I dug through a lot of research to see this. Right. Our biggest losses in four
out of those six tests occurred during the pandemic. Okay, there was one test in particular where we lost 34 points. That's a ton. We are working our way back. Four out of six are now within five percentage points of their pre-COVID numbers. All right. And one of of the six has stayed high all the way
through. All right. So, we're getting there. We're not where we want to be. We have a ways to go. We know it. We're working on it. Okay. Um how are we working on it? Well, as you know, this year we have a PLC reboot going on, which we're working on. Matter of fact, we have an appointment tomorrow regarding that and
getting uh kind of getting back to basics and retooling how our PLC's meet, what they work on, what they talk about, and keeping it focused on student achievement. Uh in this building, we did a lesson planning revision this year um because we we felt that some staff kind of needed a refresher on that and and
specifically targeting um not just what it was they were teaching, but transitions between different phases of a lesson and so on. And that does seem to bear to bore some fruit this year. Um if you've heard the name of Savannah Flakes, she is a fantastic uh consultant
when it comes to different instruction, differentiated instruction. She was here for the second time this year. Uh she did a three-day residency with us last month, which was really, really great. And we're looking to have her back next year. Just today, you might know that we use the Marshall system for our
observations, teacher observations. Kim Marshall, the father of that, was here today to work with our admin team to tighten up and give us a refresher on teacher observations. And you will hear in a little bit how we are we have adopted the SAVIS program or we're piloting the Savas program in ELA and
the Desmos curriculum in math is in its first full year and we're hoping to see some good results from that as well. Also our data teams, okay, which I couldn't fit up there, but we have our data teams which meet uh several times during the year to look at student data and achievement and see what strategies
we can employ to improve achievement. Okay. But over a third of the building is on the honor roll or the high honor roll. All right. So 250 students doing very very well. We just had our honor society inductions last week. I know some of you were here um which is always a great
night. And we always have honoral assemblies where kids receive a certificate so that they do know that we're paying attention to the good work that they're doing. Okay. Attendance and conduct. Right now over the last two years we've had a 31% reduction in disciplinary referrals.
Okay, we've had a 17% drop in suspensions. At this point, chronic absenteeism has dropped over the last two years from 14% to 10.5%. The asterk is because it's April in June. It might be 12. We'll see. You know, people want to take a beach day.
So, we'll see. Um, why counseling, mentoring, restorative practices. Okay, the pouches have been a big help. It's not a perfect answer, but it's a very good answer. I'll say it. I'll put it that way. Okay. We've increased family outreach and I'm not going to lie, we, you know, we created a school schedule,
which I think I told you about last year, that is rather innovative for the middle school level, but it allows us to do a lot. Okay. Um, students who need intervention, for example, in both math and ELA can have both starting in September for almost a whole year uh to
help with their test scores. It allows us to offer two different layers of intervention for kids who need more intense uh remediation than others. It gives us room for mandated courses without us having to impede on other curricula. So the best example is when
the state mandated civics. A lot of districts tried to cram it into social studies which is very difficult to do. We opted not to do that and make it a standalone class and that has really paid off. Um it allows students to pursue more than one music class. That is very important to me. Um my sister
who's now a retired music teacher, she was one of the reasons I became a teacher. Okay. And between she and just knowing our music department and knowing the kids in our music department, I know that in this age where we're talking about social emotional learning, hundreds of kids
find their home in the music department, right? And if there's a kid who is multi-talented like Connor who can play more than one instrument or wants to play an instrument and sing now for the first time in my career, 28 years, they can take band and chorus. We can fit
them both in. All right. um allows for support classes such as our AVID program and our physics fundamentals to give kids a little boost if they're in our physics program and it also provides for some very good highinterest and high-end electives such as data science, our STEM ASUS program,
TV production which you just saw. Uh we have now have an intro to theater course and as I said our advanced arts studio. Okay, some more good news. our uh support person of the year and our teacher of the year, Jeffrey Marachcha on the left, who's our retired police
officer who does a really really great job and Danielle Tamarana who's a seventh grade science teacher and wears many many hats. Uh I don't want to say more than that because I'm going to talk about her next week. So both of them actually and Jeff's here. I don't want him to get a swelled head. So okay, some
other types of recognition. All right, on the top right is a small plastic football. I have dozens of those. All right, they are staff game balls. I give those out at faculty meetings. Okay, I don't pick who gets them. The staff does. Okay, they nominate people and then I draw from a hat. All right, and I
I pick the winner and then I read the rest. Okay, make sure everyone gets their due credit. But at just about every staff meeting, someone gets a game ball, right? And I do see them when I go around classrooms posted, you know, in a mug or something like that. All right. We also have a staff shout out board where they can write messages to each
other congratulating on certain things or um you know, calling out good work that they've done. But for the students, I ordered hundreds of these wristbands on the top left side. Okay? And my goal was, if you remember, if you I'm sure you've been to Disney World, right? And
you know the pins that everybody gets and then you have to trade, right? I wanted something like that. And the pins are too expensive, but the wristbands are cheap. Okay? So, I have several of those and I give them out to kids. For example, all the leads from the play got
a wristband. Okay. Connor, you have one, right? Okay. Uh so you're going to get another one too for honor society. But um you know kids who had a great season in a particular sport, team captain, um we had a county champ in wrestling. Um
whether it be academic things or just leadership in the building, kids get them. I have one kid who's up to four, right? He was just here actually. Um and I what I was hoping for is to see them wearing them and accumulating them, right? And I am starting to see that around the building, which is a really
great thing. Here's a little proof. Okay, that is the tin man, the cowardly lion, and the scarecrow proudly showing their wristbands, by the way. And up on the right, on the right is Bryce. What can you say about Bryce? Uh Bryce is an eighth grader who is running for
mayor already. All right. Uh he's one of those kids. But no, but I do see kids wearing them around the school, and it's a really, really great thing. So, I'm happy about that. Couple things. Our music program, of course, we had our winter concerts. Uh on the bottom right, our strings program took a trip to
Lincoln Center. I chaperon that. Um that was an executive decision because you don't often get to hear the New York Philarmonic for free. So I was not passing that up. And then bottom left, we had several students make our regional uh chorus and band. All right.
And our concerts are in two weeks. All right. Our band concert is the week of the 11th and chorus and strings is the following week. As Dr. as he said, the Wizard of Oz was just here. Oz is still back there actually um uh just uh almost two weeks ago and that those are our
advanced art students who had a field trip to Middle Sex County College to an art fair, a teen art fair where their work was critiqued by professional artists. So, a really really great opportunity. Okay, toy drive. Uh we do some charitable work around here, too. Uh we always do a food
drive around the Super Bowl. All right. And we always do a toy drive around the holidays in conjunction with the police. There's a picture of that. And on the right, one of our greatest things is our our raider ready cafe where I think I sent this to you in one of my weekly highlights where our self-contained classes brew coffee every Tuesday and
sell it to staff for a dollar a cup. It's life built it's life skills for the kids in in in those classes and it's it's a hit and it really kind of makes everybody's day, you know. So, um and I actually Dr. Z bought a cup not too long ago when he was here. So, but yeah.
Okay, with that I'm going to pass it over to the rest of the crew. First up, Dre Alamager, who's our math and science supervisor, who will walk you through what's going on in those departments. You want in here? >> No, I'll hold it. I'm going to put these down on the table. >> Gotcha. >> Good evening, everybody. Uh thank you so
much for having me here this evening. I have two slides to go through some updates with the mathematics program at the middle school and also the science program. I am extremely excited to talk about the ampli amplified desmos math program that is in its inaugural year uh
with full implementation here at the middle school. There's a pretty staggering statistic um for the first bullet that we've completed over 66,000 touch points and data collection points of
measurable growth that we're seeing in the activities that are completed here. and many of them are reaching over 85% as far as exceeding expectations when the work is being submitted for us to
review and reflect on with um our PLC's. And so we are very excited to see uh where this program continues to take us and we are really diving into it. Um I'd also like to say that it's important for
us to have honest conversations. It's important for us to have tough conversations. Um, but many of our conversations ultimately end up with aha moments of, "Wow, now I see where this
is going and how powerful this has been." and the reflection of the staff in acknowledging the amount of growth that has happened with the grit and the perseverance of sticking uh with the
program and doing the work in the classroom with the teachers has just been wonderful to see this year. Building thinking classrooms is a continuum. It's really in simply terms um getting students up and active and uh doing some vertical math, getting them
at boards and groups and solving problems together just to change up the pace every once in a while. As of yesterday, we've completed five competitions here in the math um program. We did the AMC 10 to kick off
this year, the AMC8, the NJML 7 and 8, and yesterday we finished up with the Algebra 1 competition, and all of the students um are receiving results in classrooms as we get them finalized, and they'll also be recognized later this June at our STEM parent evening. Our
amped in algebra with the manufacturing, processing, engineering, and design process. I want to show you um one of the most successful products that we have had and um the run this year is
that they have developed and designed uh new swag for the school. So, if I could just show you a couple of those pieces really quick, I'd really appreciate that. I'm going to go without the mic. That's okay. All right. So, one of the biggest
things is the phrase fear the that a lot of the students have really taken ownership of and they have lots of different color combinations but all of the designs that they have done they've come up with on their own. So they have
worked on the design process and engineering design processing and working with the companies to get the actual cuts on the vinyl to be able to press everything on the machinery that we have in the classrooms from start to
finish. This is 100% student driven. Also with calculating what the the cost would be, the break even when turned profit and this one I love and I am looking forward to probably getting this
one as well. I've ordered the white shirt that I like on the on the hood. Get some of the designs there and then the logo again on the back. So, it's it's starting to go out to staff and we'll be sharing more, but we wanted to
get them some hands-on practice before we scale up even more. So, they're all very excited about this and you can see it on the student faces and they're hyping it up. >> Thank you so much. >> Absolutely.
>> Sounds great. Uh and lastly but not least, we're continuing with data-driven um intervention services. That's a continuum that carries really from the beginning um all the way through to the end of the year and cycling through the stew uh students through the needs that
they have to receive. Um, professionally, we're continuing um with the math coach on a couple of topics that we really um worked on together last year and delivering uh to the to the staff this year to turnkey
productive struggle and the power of mistakes. Productive struggle um is something that goes beyond just math. It's it's it's a transferable skill that learning to recognize that it's okay to feel uncomfortable, that your point A to
your point B and the path in the middle to get there is going to be a little bit different from everyone and just providing that opportunity to allow it to be messy in between. uh the New Jersey tiered system support with the data team. We're really looking at spending some time with the students on
getting them to acknowledge and understand really what their growth and achievement is. So, we will be doing some turnkey presentations to the students as well and learning how to set goals that are long range goals for where they would start the beginning of the school year to where they would
finish the school year. And also continuing with vertical articulation for all of the courses that lend to the middle grades 5 through eight that are shared with rising and where we're sending students with students in this building. And the first promo, STEM
parent academy, June 4th, 3:30m we will be here. For science, as far as our academics, our favorite thing that we focused on this year is writing in the classroom. Anytime that you're working in the sciences and
collecting information, that information has to be learned how to be shared. So through informative tasks and informative writing, we find that we are stretching their ability to communicate the information that they are looking at. And we're also doing um what we
think is great work to let them realize that writing is going to be something that they will have to continue no matter what field of work that they are in. Executive functioning skills is something we started last year, but that we're focusing on again this year with having organized notebooks and making
sure that they're doing the practices that help prepare them for any any role in the future. Hands-on lab experience is something that we want the students to feel that they are able to get out from behind the book or out from behind the screen and do real life science in
the classroom. But with that being said, um the first thing professionally that we focus on every year is making sure that the staff is trained and the students are trained on safety in the classroom with the safety contracts and making sure that we uh take a look at the hazard communications and POS each
year. Writing in the science classroom was a professional development course that we delivered to the staff. Productive struggle in addition to the practice of it was also received by the staff as far as professional development. And as Mr. Slover mentioned um all staff participated with the
differentiated instruction in the sciences with Savannah Flakes this year and the science department's role as far as the tier one intervention plan and making sure that we are supporting the math department with fluency practices. We also do so in interpretation of data.
And second and final plug is that we will be having our STEM parent evening on June 4th at 3:30 p.m. here and we hope to see you. Thanks so much. Coming up next is Dr. Alexis Rich with the supervisor of special services.
Do you want Hi everybody. Um I'm going to talk a little bit about special services at North Brunswick Township Middle School. um we focus on the whole child. And what's really cool as the kids get older is that in addition to their academic uh
growth and interventions and monitoring, we include community- based experiences and we work on building independence and life skills. We really talk with them and focus on functional skills in addition to their academic skills. Um
and this supports their transition as they get older. We focus a lot on social skills instruction, social emotional learning and growth. Additionally, at the middle school, we have um it's newer. It's a multiensory reading
instruction program that's tiered now to better service our students uh with multiensory reading support and we offer flexible programming based on students individualized needs. This year in professional learning for uh the special
services department, we focused on a lot of inclusive practices in the area of behavior, academics, and executive functioning. We've been working closely with uh or I've been working closely with Miss Dwire and Miss Lamagra as we've been working with our new curriculum
for special ed teachers. We continue to provide IEP development uh professional learning and progress monitoring professional learning for them and we focus heavily on executive functioning in our department through the building
and the district thrive initiative. We are very proud that we offer mental health screeners and we use this data to really work with our students. Our counselors are amazing in taking groups and um providing the social emotional
learning support for our kids through our mental health interventions. Additionally, um we pride ourselves on our collaboration. At our level, the kids see a lot of different teachers and we have multiple stakeholders involved
in decision- making for our kids and we really do a nice job of taking a multid-disciplinary approach to individualized program. And finally, uh we love our special education coach who provides support for our special
education teachers in the area of differentiation and co-eing. Thank you so much. And up next is Miss Dwire. Hi, thank you so much for having me here this evening. So, the big update in our
ELA department is that we were recipients of the impact grant. So, this summer, Dr. Zikowski spoke uh to Mrs. Chang and myself about applying for the impact grant which basically affords additional funding to school districts dependent on size to support new ELA
materials that are considered highquality instructional materials as deemed by the state. So we applied and we're very fortunate to be recipients. So we received about $200,000 to support the implementation of new curricular materials for ELA both here at the
middle school and down at Lynwood. So we formed a task force which was representative of central office administration, building administration and teachers across both buildings. And we had a visit from one of the um people who's leading the grant at the New
Jersey Department of Education. She was very highly impressed with the preparation and professionalism of our team, the research that we did prior to even seeing the vendor presentations and she was particularly impressed with our attire which I found kind of funny. We were all very dressed up. She told us
she was going to take pictures and she said not everybody gets dressed up and I was surprised because why would you not get dressed up for pictures with the Department of Education? But um she was very impressed with us. So um 15 to1 so we almost had a unanimous consensus but
we ended up piloting the program called Savis. So in fifth grade it's called my view here and in the sixth grade over at Lynwood it is called my perspectives. So it's largely student centered learning. There's an increase in a student accountability. There is certainly a
heightened sense of rigor in the work that we're asking our students to do. uh more accountable talk and increased engagement in our in student learning. So in two weeks I will reconvene our task force for final feedback to and to make a recommendation to Dr. Zikowski
and the board of education moving forward. But so far the feedback that I've gotten from students and staff alike in the pilot classrooms has been overwhelmingly positive. The students are more engaged in the work they're doing in class. The volume of reading
has increased. um the speed and um effectiveness of their communication and writing has improved. Kind of a sidebar, I've gotten a lot of teachers that have said because of the pace of the curriculum, students are out of their seats less often, like in the hallways
for bathroom usage, which seems like, you know, an an extra benefit, but it's really important that we're keeping them in their seats in class. So, very excited about this initiative and looking forward to the task force meeting in a couple of weeks. To complement that, we're continuing with the writing revolution, which is science
of writing instruction where it's direct instruction, helping students to improve their organization and communication of their writing skills. Um, as Mrs. Lumagra said, it's really important to us that literacy is built across the students school day. So, having common terminology across subject areas has
been really critical for us. So, the writing revolution, you'll see on the social studies sites also, has been an initiative that we've um implemented in both of our departments. Um, we've done a lot of work in our PLC's. Uh, we're very fortunate to have protected time in
our school day calendar where our teachers can meet with their colleagues and collaborate. We're able to analyze data, both data like MAP assessments and NJSLA assessments, but also just the formative assessments we give daytoday so that we can continuously monitor the kind of instruction we're giving and how
we can help both our whole classes and small groups of students. Um, in those situations, we're also able to work on differentiating both the process that students are going through to learn since all of our students kind of learn in unique and different ways and the products that they're producing to show
whether or not they're making progress academically. Um, we've had a little bit of a change in the ELA PLC's because there are days devoted to the teachers who are piloting the new program. Their sorry, their collaboration and then collaboration with the the teachers who
are in the existing curriculum as well. Um, we're continuing to use MEBAM which is an adaptive vocabulary program. Research says that one of the um biggest hindrances to student reading comprehension is their lack of vocabulary. So, this is an adaptive
program. So, it meets students where their vocabulary is at currently. It builds in morphology and then it engages students because there's video clips and podcast clips. There's social media references, things to engage students to make vocabulary instruction more
interesting for them. And then lastly, we've done a lot of work to offer intervention services for our students who struggle. There are tier 2 and tier three intervention services offered here for students who are struggling in language arts. We use a variety of data
points to determine students who need the services and then how we can best support them. It's done in class-like settings and pull out settings. Um so all of those are ways that we're supporting our students who are struggling a little bit in the language arts area. So just a little highlight,
we hosted a spelling bee here. I know we had our spelling bee winners at um a previous board of education meeting. We had um former teacher here, Mr. wares come and speak to students around um coral reefs. We do a lot of climate
change reading and research like across our school day, but that was a project for our seventh grade language arts students. And then we have a crosscurricular literacy night. Um I try to treat ELA and social studies almost as one department um because we have a lot of the same goals and visions. So
that was our literacy night across both departments. A quick update on social studies as well. Um, as I said, we're continuing with our focus on infusing literacy across the school day. Um, in your spare time, if you want to take a peek at the social studies standards and practices,
um, the expectation for social studies is that they're doing a lot of the work that years ago was previously only the responsibility in language arts classes. So, figuring out main ideas of text, citing evidence, developing claims based on their beliefs, um, you know, our
students beliefs. uh a focus for me in our social studies department has always been fostering connections between what history was like and our lives today. We need to build the relevancy for our students that they understand why studying history is important um and drawing connections across you know
different periods of time. Uh additionally we're so fortunate here to have so many diverse perspectives from our students. It's important that history is not just fact memorization but understanding and hearing different perspectives from others. Um that we we might not have the same experiences and
the only way we're going to learn them is by listening to others. So we've done a lot of professional development the last few years in fostering classroom discussion so that students are more willing to talk, more willing to share their ideas, substantiate their ideas with um reasons or evidence. Um, and
then, you know, fostering our students to be open-minded enough that they're hearing perspectives that are different than their own. As I said, writing, um, we are in year two of the roll out of the writing revolution across both departments. It's really helped our students that there's a common language and common expectations of what quality
writing looks like, regardless of the subject that they're in. Um, as Mrs. Lamager said, it doesn't really matter what their future holds, they will have to write and communicate well in writing. Um, and then, um, you know, in the world we're living in today, making sure we're teaching students how to read
with a critical eye, to ask questions of the things that they're reading about to make informed decisions. And we want our students to know that they have a voice both here in district and in their world. So, if they see something that they don't agree with or isn't right, how do they appropriately advocate for
the change that they'd like to see? So, we actually were fortunate enough to have Ruckers visit us again this year, and they hosted a civics fair for us to to kind of continue to inform our students how they can vocalize their ideas and advocate for change when
necessary. The bottom is some of our social study stations at our literacy night. And then we were again fortunate enough to have a representative from um 3G&J, which is survivors, like grandchildren of Holocaust survivors.
So, uh, we read Anne Frank and studied the Holocaust as part of our seventh grade curriculum. So, she came and was able to share the experiences of her grandfather who was a survivor of the Holocaust. That was very impactful for our students, kind of bringing the real life into our classrooms. So, thank you
so much. And I'd like to introduce Mrs. March, the seventh grade dean. Thank you. >> Hi, everyone. Good evening. Uh, Mr. Feltry and I are the dean and the assistant principal of the seventh grade. So we work collaboratively in our
house center. Um a couple things this year we always host a seventh grade parent orientation and a student orientation. Um we get a pretty good turnout for students. We bust them here so that helps. Mr. for Feliz actually he
ran for us a Spanish speaking session as well to kind of help guide those parents of Spanish speaking homes since our population is very large. Some highlights and special initiatives. We are once again running the power
group. This is a combination of seventh and eighth grade students who um it's a select group of students. They are there by invite based off of recommendations from our counselors uh our student assistant counselor as well and then
input from the dean. But basically it's creating or fostering a relationship between the school and the police department. So about once a month the police department comes in and they have different conversations with the kids talk about character education,
leadership development. This year's focus, they've had a guest speaker who typically comes in on these monthly meetings um and picks various topics to work on with the students. So, resilience, self-awareness, and just helping build bridge bridge that gap
between the school and the law enforcement in town. Uh actually just last Friday we hosted our seventh grade social which is basically a combination of board games, card games set up in the aux gym, uh PE
games in the regular gym. We get a DJ. We sell snacks. This year we also invited our amped program to sell slushies there which was a big hit. Um the line to the slushies was out the door and the dance floor was empty but they enjoyed the music in the
background. Um, we will be hosting a seventh grade field day once June hits kind of as a reward for the students just to kind of go outside. We might make it a little competitive this year, but most of the time they opt to just kind of have that free time to hang out
with their friends uh for part of the day. And we had the high school push club come and visit the seventh grade students only. Uh, every year the adviser, Mr. Copic from the high school, he'll reach out and kind of get my
feedback on what do we want the topic to be. So, in the past, we've done a lot of um conflict resolution and building student relationships. This year, we decided based off of our work in our behavioral data team, we decided to kind
of have it function more or focus more on executive functioning skills and talking about, you know, what expectations are when you get to high school. How do you build those small habits so that you're ready when you get to the high school? Um, and yeah, it
seemed to work out well. What happens is the group from the high school, they break up into about groups of two or three. They visit 19 seventh grade classrooms during their life skills and they're the ones actually presenting to the students and then the students have
the opportunity to ask them questions. >> Good evening guys. Um I'm going to highlight two components of the many programs we offer our school. First is the AVID program which are our advancement via individually termination. It's kind of a career and more of a college readiness program
where we take a small cohort of students that focus on um time management organizational skills and what aspects of those will better prepare you for the college and to do that we also visit several colleges. I think this year was
Rutgers, Fairley Dickinson and Drew were the colleges we visited. So that program since its initial inauguration has grown from two kind of cohorts of like 15 students to five cohorts. So it's a very successful program and a lot of
positives. And the nice thing is these are students that aren't, how do I word this? Definitely defined as your typical college ready students. So those it's a very um um a rigorous selection process
where students are recommended by teachers then interviewed by sele staff members. So and those students a lot of times turn into our student leaders here which help support our they were the main focus of our take a child to work day a lot of our pep rally. So a lot of
the students that are in those programs lead success in college and the other aspect of the program I talk about is athletics here. Obviously, as seen on the slideshow from our video club, a lot of students are involved in our many sports teams. We offer 15 sports teams
at the middle school and they're listed there. We offer the typical ones, you know, your baseballs, your foot, the soccer, the basketball, but the ones the big change over the recent years has been the volleyball team, the both the boys and the girls volleyball team. And those have just the amount of kids. I
think we had 70 try out for each of the teams. So, definitely it's a very upand cominging sport. And I think we for the numbers I think we had 440 students sign up for our sports out of the out of the 700. Now it's overlapping the seasons and obviously you know we've had some
very exceptional individual accolades during the years. We had two one uh county champion with wrestling. So we've had definitely a lot of success with our sports. And the positive of the sports is it was very important in my life. And anytime you could bring a positive of
the school to a personal level, usually it translates to a more success in the school. So I obviously am very passionate about the athletics here. Uh next to highlight some of our eighth grade and other school components, I'm going to bring Miss Mayorick and Miss Rafano, our eighth grade admin team. Thank you very much, guys. Appreciate it.
>> How are we switching? Just clicking. >> Okay, great. >> Good evening everybody. My name is Amy Rafeno and this is my right hand, Mrs. U Michelle Marinick or Miss Shellyley as she goes as in the hallways. Uh we're here to just talk a little bit about our eighth grade highlights. We um are very
fortunate for both the North Brunswick Township High School and North Brunswick Township Middle School to collaborate in conjunction with the municipal alliance and work on a leadership and mentorship program. Michelle actually ran it this year where we take 25 female students,
they match up with 25 female students from the high school. They work together, develop connections, they do the same with 25 eighth grade uh males and 25 uh senior male students from the high school. And then uh the third session is when we bring all of them together, 100 of the students, and they
work on these slogans and promotional campaigns for anti- drinking, anti- vaping and things like that. They hold a contest. the winner of uh the campaign, then the the Munipal Alliance makes a banner and they hang in all the schools, which is really a really positive
feedback, especially when the kids go to the other schools and they see their work hanging. We have some of them in the hallway here across from the entrance to the cafeteria. This year, we're very fortunate to work with Mr. Neller at the at the high school. He has an advisory group of of seniors and they're going to come down and visit in
June and speak to our eighth graders just about the rigors of high school strategies, uh tips, uh insider information about how to be successful at the high school and and how to deal with some of the the struggles or the challenges that they may have had as
freshmen there. Okay. Um uh we have our eighth grade dance on the 15th. Tickets are $15 if you're interested. We'll be selling them during lunch. Uh we'll also have a field day where the kids will um just kind of hang out. Uh it's not competitive because the kids just want to chat and then sign yearbooks. So we
try to get the yearbooks out to them in advance so that they can sit around and uh just enjoy each other's company. We like I mentioned we have our our semiformal dance on the 15th. Our we take the kids to Eagle's Landing June 5th which is a Friday. They love it. It's um this year I'm definitely going
on the zip thing that the zip slide or whatever. I think a couple people are are betting against me, but hopefully I'll make it. Uh, class night, as we all know, is June 18th. I I almost fell. Uh, June 18th, four o'clock at the high school. Uh, we're looking forward to
that also. Um, a big big night for everybody. Big afternoon. Uh, schoolwide, we do a couple things. We replicate a couple things between seventh and eighth grade. Uh this year we've been very successful with our counselors pushing in lessons where um they they will go into an elective or a
teacher may ask them to come in and and present a topic about academic integrity or you know competition academically or when we have a substitute in and and we have a little extra time left the counselors can go in and uh rotate and and push in uh some lessons focusing on
some various topics that we feel are important to our uh seventh and eighth graders. We do have our peer tutoring groups that meet during the lunches, lunch A and uh lunch B and lunch C on Wednesdays and Thursdays where we have peers helping um peers. We tend to kids
tend to open up more with their peers about things that they're struggling with academically. Um we have our PBIS is in its full swing. It'll be its first full year uh at the school and we're happy to say that 78 uh plus percent of our teachers
are awarding awarding points every day. Um, some teachers choose to wait until midweek to um, award points twice a week. Sometimes they wait till the end of the week to uh, award all their points, but we're we're very pleased with that 78% on a daily basis. That means they're they're promoting it every
day in the classroom with through referencing posters or just using the language in uh, the delivery of their instruction. Um, expectations. Uh, by expectation meaning are we being respectful, are we being responsible, are we being safe? You can see that
we've exceeded 180,000 points in each category over the period of October through March, which is really really strong numbers. Um, stu and students have made over 1,200 purchases from our PBIS store. Either they're turning their points into participate in activities or
they're buying things, whether it's, you know, wonky pencils or um, Takis. Uh, we we see that they're making over,200 transactions, which is great. and um our final PBIS event. We we try to do a number of events throughout the year. We promote the and participate in the in
the in the um pep rallies, but we also do specific PBIS events, and the next one will be June 16th where kids can turn in their points to either play volleyball, watch a movie, do arts and crafts, do minute to win it games, things like that throughout the whole day, which is really very nice. They
feel very special when they when they get to um participate in um those activities. uh some title one funding events that we've had obviously our parentmies you can see that they they vary by topic I'm I'm happy to point out that we've been
working with NJ for schools for the last year and a half and they've come in in addition to coming in and doing tabletops with our students during the lunch periods they come in and help us facilitate our parentmies uh we we had what I think was a very successful one in February because it
was family fun night and it was really great to see parents with their kids playing which was really kind of it was fun for me and and I think everybody enjoyed that. Obviously, Mrs. Lamager is promoting her her June STEM parent evening and I'll give it a plug too. It
that's always a good time. Uh and then our social emotional learning groups, our afterchool sessions, we run them for anywhere from uh five to eight weeks. Uh this year we had um 25 students commit to the learning groups and that was really great. We went through the five
pillars of SEAL, self-awareness, relationship skills, self-management, decision-making, and social awareness. Our success tutoring, which is the title one funded program after school, it is two days per week for fiveweek session. Um, we're halfway through it, and we did
have we have 17 kids committed to doing that. So, it's nice small group sessions, which is great. Um, we're going to move on to some clubs and activities. This year we have 20 clubs that are um in place exploring and experiencing art, music, robotics,
community service. They're healthy competitions. Uh some of them have to do with nature. Our nature club is a very very popular club and many many more. Uh but we're always looking uh to survey the kids and find out what they're interested in. Our anime club is a very
very popular club uh here. And uh I'm happy to say that we've added the track at track as a club to pilot it and we had like Mr. Felchi says, athletics is very important here at school for some kids and we had over uh 80 people um sit
in on the first meeting and I think we're we're about 36 to 40 kids participating in um our track club which is nice. That meets every every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for about a month about a month and hopefully we'll see that continue next year. Uh we have um
other activities as mentioned our pep rallies, attendance assemblies, the high honor roll and honoral assemblies assemblies and then obviously our peer tutoring that we talked about. Some other things that we've done here at the school. We were um we were priv
privileged to honor the scripts Middle Sex County Spelling Bee Championship for for like I said for our county which was nice. We had two of our students participate in that. So that was that was a nice Saturday uh afternoon event. our inductees to the National Junior
Honor Society, our drama club, I mentioned our NJ for schools affiliation, which is always a very positive uh uh event for our students. And then in addition, we have our we celebrate and promote our week of respect, antiviolence awareness, door
decorating contests, local and county food drives, um NBT youth alliance affiliations. So, we're very much looking at the whole child, getting them involved, not only in academics, but in um other aspects that makes us all uh
strong human beings. On the horizon, we have our spring concert May 12th and 18th, 8th grade awards June 15th. Um upcoming athletic events, and obviously the grand event, class night June 18th at 4 p.m. Doors open at three. But, um
that that's all. But thank you so much for uh your support, your funding, your faces, your presence. It means a lot to us and it means a lot to the kids that see you. So I thank you very much. And now back to Mr. Slover. >> All right, we're almost done.
>> Uh in addition to that, uh one thing we started a couple years, our PTSO started this a couple years ago, and that's a Mother's Day weekend car wash on Saturday. So from 9 to 12 out front. I mean that's a great gift for mom. Um so come by uh for a donation. You get your
car washed and off you go. Bring your clean car home to mom. 9th. I believe it's Saturday the 9th. Okay. All right. So there's the crew. All right. That's our way of saying thank you for all that you do which allows us to do what we do which is what
we love. Okay. Um yes I was on the roof. All right. What's that? >> Well, I was careful. I'll put it that way. So, but any but we had a lot of fun with it. I got to tell you. But anyway, um honestly, you've I think several of
you have heard me say before that, you know, middle school's never been easy. You know, not when I was a kid, right? And when you add the pressures of today, you almost wonder how kids make it and how so many thrive. It's almost a miracle, you know, with with with what's
in the world today. But as always, and I think I've said this every time we've had this meeting, number one, we're not a perfect school, but we're trying, right? And I think you can see that. But then the other thing, and I say this at every orientation, right? If we could all pick an a an age
to go back to, no one would pick 12, right? So when you think about middle school or you hear things about middle school, just remember that about the kids. Okay. I think that's about it. Once again, thank you all for everything. We appreciate your support. Thank you for being here tonight. And uh
hope we didn't keep you too long. I know you have an agenda to get to. So, thank you again. Yeah. >> Madam President, may I? >> Sure. >> First, we want to thank you on behalf of the board, uh, Mrs. your wonderful team. I think you said it
very well about the challenges of middle school. I like to say yesterday's high schools, today's middle school because with the influence of media, social media, electronics, our virtual world, our
children sometimes are forced to be exposed to things that may be in conflict with what we were used to when we were all growing up. But I just want to say u what a wonderful job of the state of the school. Very clear, concise. I know you could have you could
have had this probably another four hours, five hours, right? Just really going into detail. So I really love the highlights, but I do want to thank uh the focus of your presentation was everything was centered around the students. It was very very clear that
they were in the middle and the spokes went out from there. So, uh, educating the whole child has never been more important in the middle school years. And when this was designed by the board, this organizational design, we really wanted to be uplifting to motivate
students to continue their, you know, their pathway when they went to the high school and all the great offerings. And certainly, you've done a wonderful job. We know we have miles to go before we sleep. That's, you know, I think I made that up, so don't tell Robert Frost.
But, um, but the miles to go certainly is a great place to start here. So, we thank you for that. Thank you for your leadership. And I'll certainly ask board members they have any questions or comments because um I just think it was a very, very well done presentation about what's going on here on a daily
basis. >> Anyone from the board? >> Sure. Yes, please. Mr. W, >> I'm just just wearing another hat of mine. Um, you know, your students here are are phenomenal. I have uh quite a number of seventh and eighth grade
volunteers at Buddyball. Um, and they are phenomenal. Um, and we just really it's it's great to see their growth as as people, you know, in terms of how they treat others and and uh even earn, you know, leadership positions within uh
Buddy Ball as well. So really just thank you so much for uh leading these students uh and to as they grow and mature. So thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else? >> Well, go ahead. On behalf of the board,
I just want to say thank you to Mr. Slover, Mr. Feltry, Mr. Fano, and your entire team. Um you know, it's absolutely evident that you all care about the whole child and all of the students that walk through the halls of this beautiful building. Uh, obviously being on the other side of things, um,
you know, being on on the board, um, and going through my schooling in North Brunswick, it's so amazing to see, um, so many of the different things that are now offered to the students of this day and age versus, um, you know, 15 years, 15, 16, 17 years ago. Um, I've shared
this before, but for those of you that don't know, my mom was a uh middle school uh seventh grade uh language arts teacher in East Brunswick for many years. And I always said to her, how how did you do it? How do you do it? Seventh grade. It's, you know, it's like Mr.
Silver said, it's an interesting age obviously. And um she loved it. She loved it. She took so much pride in it. I think I tease her that she, you know, still misses it to this day. She retired after 37 and a half years in East Brunswick and um you know I think that
her care for the students every day when she was teaching them inside outside of the school building was so evident. So to see that in my own home but also through all of you it um definitely means so much especially you know having previous relationships with some of my
my past teachers that are sitting over there. So, thank you so much for having us here and um really appreciate your time tonight. Anyone? All right. Well, we have a couple of things to get to on our agenda. We uh
hopefully won't be too much longer, but we have a couple of items of business to get to. Item number six, we will review our agenda for our Wednesday, May 6, 2026 meeting, which is one week from today over at the board of education office.
Um, so we have been provided a paper copy. We can start on page one. We have a couple of presentations um next uh week, which is obviously exciting.
And then jumping on to page two and three, these are our students that are being honored for the um with winter athletics. Pages four and five, we will have a public hearing on the
final 2026 2027 budget which is listed on pages four and going on to page five. And board members, please feel free to stop me or um you know, ask me to pause if there's any comments or questions on anything.
All right, we can jump to page six and seven where we have our regular board business that we attend to. And then jumping on to page seven, we go down to our consent agenda. And starting with personnel,
personnel goes through pages eight, page nine, page 10, pages 11 and 12. I think the page numbers just need to be edited as well, but that's okay.
>> Yep. That's why we do this. the Nixon White House missing a few. >> So page, if you flip, it says 14 and 11. We'll get that fixed. We continue with personnel.
All right, page uh 12 and 15. >> Yep, no worries. Everything looks and is listed fine. We just have to fix up the page numbers. Pages 16 and 17, we start with curriculum and instruction. And that continues on to page 18
and 19 at the bottom of page 19. Madam President, I just wanted to highlight uh this year's spring conference are very happy that we are North Brunswick will be presenting in two separate conferences. Uh Jen Ashantino and AI as
you know she's our supervisor of technology and Dr. Rich, she was just here. She's also will be going and presenting in a statewide leadership conference that uh hosted by the superintendent association. >> Oh, excellent. Thank you for highlighting that.
And that is on pages 16 and 17. Um, finishing up on page 19, we move to miscellaneous. And then 20 and 21, we get into finance. We can jump to pages 22
and 23. And then we wrap up on pages 24 and 25. And then lastly, uh page 26 where we have our p we have our close session items listed.
And that pretty much wraps up everything. So, that is our agenda, our draft agenda for um May 6th of 2026. At this time, we'll jump to item seven
back on our regular agenda for tonight's meeting. And we'll have a public session on agenda items only. If anyone from the public would like to speak on agenda items only, this is now the time to do so. We just ask that you come to the
podium, state your name, and you'll be given three minutes. >> Seeing and hearing none, can we please have a motion to close the public portion of the meeting? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. Is anyone opposed?
>> This session is closed. >> Thank you. Uh we have a motion this evening. Uh Vice President James, would you take item nine? >> Sure. Happily. I move to approve the following curriculum and instruction items. To approve Michael Kim Marshall,
educational consultant to provide a full day workshop on teacher supervision, coaching, and evaluation on April 29th, 2026, not to exceed $1,600 for which that funding is uh title one grant funded. >> Can we have a second? >> Second.
>> Thank you, Mr. W. I'm going to take roll call on this one. Mr. Carter, >> yes. >> Miss Sepa, >> yes. >> Miss James, >> yes. >> Dr. Patel. >> Yes. >> Mr. Singh, >> yes. >> Miss Toast, >> yes. >> And Mr. Wen, >> yes. >> This is approved. >> Thank you. And at this session, that
this time, excuse me, we'll have a public session on any matter. If anyone from the public would like to address the board on any matter, this is now the time. We just ask that you come up, state your name, and you'll be given three minutes. >> Okay. Seeing and hearing none, can I
please have a >> anything doc? >> Seeing and hearing none, can I have a motion to close the public portion of the meeting? >> So move. >> Second. >> I'm sorry. Who second? >> Jason Carter. >> Thank you, Mr. Carter. I couldn't hear
you. All in favor? >> I. Is anyone opposed? Uh, this session is closed. >> Thank you. At this time, we'll move to go into close session. Whereas section 8 of the open public meetings act chapter 231 PL1975 permits the exclusion of the
public from a meeting in certain circumstances. And whereas this public body is of the opinion that such circumstances presented exist. Now therefore be it resolved by the North Brunswick Township Board of Education that the public shall be excluded from discussion of and action upon the herein
specified subject matters. The general nature of the subject matter to be discussed is as followed. personnel matters. It is anticipated at this time that the above stated subject matter shall be made public at such time as the need for non-disclosure no longer
exists. This resolution shall take effect immediately. Can we just have someone make the motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Is there anyone opposed? Session is closed. Thank you. Head on down to the
Okay. Thank you everyone. >> We are just going to return to open session. Can we please have a motion? >> So move. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Anyone opposed? We're back in session. All right. Thank you everyone and thank
you to NBTMS for having us this evening. We look forward to seeing everyone next week at our regular public meeting back at the board office where we have some uh exciting recognitions. So can we please have a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting?
>> Second. >> All in favor? I want to post. We are