##VIDEO ID:Pt5tPWN4O1w## tonight is December 11th 2024 uh welcome to the orale public school uh Board of Ed meeting um Sunshine Law statement oh actually can we uh Mr Del greo lead us in a flag salute pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republ nation liy and justice for all thank you our Sunshine Law statement all requirements of the open public meeting act has been met for this meeting of the Board of Education of the buau of ordell notice of this meeting was filed with the record and town news and all persons requesting such not notice um Miss noran would you like to read a Miss statement certainly the orell public school district is dedicated to the ongoing pursuit of educational Excellence through comprehensive Innovative curriculum and instruction the district is committed to providing opportunities for social emotional and academic Discovery to Foster curiosity courage and character our goal is to prepare our students to become lifelong Learners who are self-directed resilient productive responsible citizens thank you uh roll call on the roll Mr Mrs aasta will not be here tonight Mr Del Greco here Mrs Downey here Mrs noran here Mr nutland here Mrs Walker and Mr Walsh will not be here tonight Mr Darion here Mrs Nichols will not be here tonight okay thank you uh this next section is uh open to the public for agenda items only so if anyone would like to speak regarding anything on our agenda this evening uh Now's the Time okay having seen none I'll close the public and uh next section is our board president's remarks our board president Miss Watson Nichols is not here this evening um I'm substituting as vice president so uh top of the order today is recognition of student performance uh tonight the Board of Ed is pleased to recognize uh the members of the audience tonight who have performed exemplary performance on the New Jersey SLA which is a student learning assessments uh we have two categories Ela which is English um literate literacy arts and science and we have a couple of uh individuals who I'm sorry math and math and we have some who who have both Ela and math so with that um I'd like to call up each individual student and hand them we have certificates of uh recognition and when I hand you your certificate we would like you to stand here on the side and then when everyone has come up we'll take some photographs so the first set of individuals who have exemplary performance for e La is Zoe [Applause] an thank you uh Christa [Applause] Chelly congratulations you want to shake CH Jason [Applause] Chong congratulations Kyle [Applause] Crow Amelia d [Applause] congratulations Evelyn Ang [Applause] congratulations MF Francisco congratulations Quinn Irving [Applause] congratulations Dylan [Applause] Katz congratulations Laya [Applause] Kim congratulations thank you Jillian Klein okay Max Lou Alina [Applause] Oak congratulations Luke Pauli palasis not here Nora [Applause] rosin congratulations Isabella [Applause] Ryan congratulations and now for science we have Andrew I'm sorry for math why have science here for math we have Andrew [Applause] farell Andrew Lou [Applause] okay here we go for science Jaylen [Applause] Sharif now these individuals have exemplary performance for both Ela and math Rachel [Applause] Deng congratulations swick [Applause] Kumar oh congratulations and Bradley Strom I'm sorry Brady strong oh I recognize you hey BR congratulations sure's our come on up okay because I know that Mr Daren is probably going to let you all go home after this I wanted to take a moment to tell you how proud I am of all of you um you all have so many strengths and we are so proud of your academic achievement sometimes we're so worried about students and did they pass a test that we forget to acknowledge the students that are doing so very well but you have a really important job you have a gift you're a good reader a good writer a good mathematician your job or a scientist Jaylen your job is to continue to find ways to use it even when you have a lot of other things going on in your life you have a gift make sure you use your gift okay congratulations and I think Mr Daren is probably going to tell you you can go home now [Applause] okay our board president wanted to make sure that she herself signed the certificates because she valued this a lot and didn't want to stamp so we are taking them back and we will make sure you all get actually signed certificate we'd like to thank everybody who came tonight um it's very very impressive not one single question was answered incorrectly on all of these scores and uh as soon as we have them signed by hand with our board president will be sending them out to you so uh with that I'd like to thank you very much and congratulations on your achievements thank [Applause] you yeah I've never parents where they stay little very Clos oh yeah yeah yeah I I have no problem we can can push that forward I've never had anyone say you know what yeah sit here with my son and daughter cuz that's jacked up all the way no ever if it's not jacked up all the way that you can't hear anything it's like it's a balancing act it's really okay okay where did our superintendent go I have no idea where are oh she's uh there she is walking them out I don't know who these people are that's what okay so uh I'll continue with my uh president's remarks I think we're ready the next item I'd like to recognize is our outgoing Board of Ed member um Elena is not here tonight but Elena Costa has been with us from 2022 to 2024 so I'd like to recognize the ordell Board of Education presents Elena aasta and grateful recognition for your service and dedication to the children of Oracle orell uh board member nice little plaque so um you know I never got a plaque but you know it's nice I was away for one time for one year one year one year so they knew you were coming back but you know unfortunately Elena is not here so we'll just give that also to her um can I also say I I gave a form uh actually recognition from the state legislature um at the last B and County meeting they also recognized outgoing board members and there's a um oh there's oh from Elena there it is for Elena very nice so that goes with the plaque okay well that includes uh my remarks uh superintendent the majority of my presentation today will be an update on the njsla scores compared to our district Factor group however I did not want to forget all the other exciting things that are going on at Orel public I know Mr nutlin and Miss Downey were both at our Coral concert last night um I adore the coral concert we do have our instrumental concert tomorrow night if you um need to to hear a resounding R rendition of Hot Cross Buns this is the place to be tomorrow night and next week we will also have our winter song fest in our Personnel addendum today you will see that we are hiring a new fourth grade teacher who will begin this Friday she is actually in the audience today so we welcome Miss moam to orell public school um and with that I'm going to go to the podium so I can see the slot oh okay now it's on okay so we know that in October yeah okay so we know that in October I presented a score update about our njsla scores for spring 2024 and at that point we can only compare our data to State data so last week which happens every December the New Jersey State Board of Education actually meets and as soon as they meet on this little back end of the New Jersey Department of Education website a very large spreadsheet pops up with the scores for every single school every single Subs group subgroup within that school for the entire state of New Jersey so so what I have done is which I've done every year probably the past 10 years is looked at that data so the majority in your packets on Friday you received two different sets of data one is a comparison of how did orell Public School do compared to these 21 districts these districts are the districts in Bergen County that are considered to be the most similar to orell public school because of wealth socio economic status they are our DFG Group which is an i DFG level DFG across the state of New Jersey is ranked from a to J in your packet you also received a county overview of how did orell Public School do compared to the other 67 uh districts in the county so right here we're going to look at how did our third fourth fifth and sixth graders last year so our current fourth fifth sixth and seventh graders do compare to those 21 districts in mathematics and language arts and what you're going to notice is as we move up in the grades our performance gets stronger compared to our um comparable districts however do remember that those are different groups of students in a few slides I will show you how students the same group of students did in third grade compared to their peers and then again in fourth grade compared to their peers now one of the slides I've added this year is a comparison of scale score so this previous slide compared our Performance Based on the number of students who passed each njsla test so third grade math fifth grade science Etc however in the paper last week they showed the scores by scale score what is the average scale score so that got me thinking if the state was choosing to show the data that way it might be good for us to look data and see if it showed anything different so this is a look at how did each of those cohorts of students do compare to the students in the other 21 uh Bergen County DFG districts based on scale score again you'll see that Improvement uh we rank higher in language arts than we do in math which is something we've talked a lot about as a district and our performance increases as students go up in the grades because those were on two separate slides I wanted to let you look and also let me look as I was mining through the data at is there anything that stands out when you compare percent passing performance to scale score performance again those F those let's pick a good one there those fourth graders who were in language arts so the second row down in percent passing they are tenth of the 21 in districts however when you go to scale score they are fourth so I was looking for things like that just to see if I could figure out why was it was there was there a reason for it did it tell us anything else about our students our teaching our district and here's one of some of the exciting things I saw so in sixth grade math part of the reason that scale score is so high is because we have a larger group of students who are scoring at the highest level and as someone who really cares deeply to ensure that all students are being asked and being pushed to grow not just students who need to meet the passing level but students who are passing that need to move to exceeding expectations this is something I love to see so in sixth grade last year in the Bergen County I the average number of students that was exceeding was 19.6% at orell Public School it was 33 7% That's why that scale score was so much higher because we may not have had as many students pass but we actually had more students that exceeded and then when I started to look at Ela I saw an interesting trend for us and I'm going to guess for the entire state so last year when our current fifth graders were were in fourth grade 43.6 of them scored the highest level of five they exceeded expectations the year before that same group of students only 9.6 of them scored exceeding expectations now that would be even more exciting if the state or the bur County ey didn't also show increase but if you look at it and you compare it well 9.6 we were five points below the buron county eye as third graders now we're Five Points above so we are showing high levels of growth moving students to exceeding expectations um moving from third to fourth grade language arts as I stated previously when we were looking at that data we were looking at a group of students now we're going to look at the same group of students so the class of 2024 they are currently in seventh grade some of them just sat in our audience in mathematics they were sixth out of 21 districts in sixth grade in fifth grade they were eighth out of 21 districts and in fourth grade they were ninth so we see them improving compared to their peer group and that's what I'm always looking for we are always going going to have some groups of students that are very high achieving and we're going to have some stud groups that struggle what we should not see is one year a group of students be 21 and that same group of students the next year be two because that means there's an issue in our curriculum or in our teaching okay so I like to see Positive Growth moving from left to right but I also um like to see kind of consistent we we really don't want to see large discrepancies and we'll do the same thing for language arts so those current fifth graders are someone we talked a lot about when they were in third grade that we were concerned about them and we are still looking at them very carefully but they are showing growth compared to their peer group so those are the same group of students they were 13th of the 21 when they were in third grade in fourth grade they are 10th of the 21 what we will hope is that as fifth graders and then at sixth graders they will continue to make gains and I do always all that that data was our total student data so that included General Ed and special ed however I do like to specifically also look at students with disabilities to make sure there are no areas that we want to focus more on specifically in our resource room programs our inclass support programs so when I look at that right now one of the areas that I will be talking to our director of curriculum and our director of special services about is sixth grade math there's a really big junk between fifth and sixth grade math and I'm not sure our special education students are getting everything they need to access that curriculum so we know that in sixth grade right now because we are fully departmentalized we have 53 minutes of math that's much less than when they were in fifth grade is that schedule impacting our special education students and is there some way that we can give them an extra boost of math somewhere else so when we took talk about notable achievements and next steps I mean clearly this room and and I know for many of you as board members you looked at me and you said wait we have students who have perfect 850 scores I I take it for granted but it is a pretty high number especially for language arts 19 students um scor 8 850 40% of all students assessed scored a level five or exceeding expectations across grades three through six in mathematics you don't see as high numbers but compared to the county overall those numbers are quite high and because as much as some students are just going to come to ell public school and they can sit in a room and they are going to score five no matter what um we know we've got good teaching going on when we see students growing so this chart right here which looks like a lot so only I forgot my pointer so I'm going to ask you to look at the bottom purple where it says Ela all grades okay if you look across there were 323 students tested okay and this is not going to consider third grade it's just going to be fourth fifth and sixth grade 332 students 35 of them went down a level 192 of them stayed a at the same level they scored the year previously 105 of them moved up at least one achievement level on the njsla so that's 21% 21% of students in grades four five or six so right here 21% of student actually that's the net change um 105 of 332 students moved up a level now that may mean they moved from partially meeting expectations to approaching they may have moved from approaching expectations to meeting they may have moved from meeting to exceeding but they showed positive gains and when we look at that in math 59 so 18% of students and then what linkit does this is one of the reports that comes out of linkit it shows us the net difference so um when you compare the number that moved up the 105 minus the moved down the 35 that gives us a net difference of 70 students linky just likes to throw a little more data in there to make them feel like they're they're giving us our money's worth and I've done the same thing and and for those of you that have met with me over the past few weeks we've looked a lot at linkit data reports but we can never look at all of them because there's just so many but this is one that I like to look at a lot again because growth shows that our curriculum and our teaching and our interventions are working so what this one does in particular it looks at all the students who in 2023 were in the approaching category so they were in a three and it says how did they do so there were 19 students who in 2023 were in the approaching category one of them went down to partially meeting seven of them stayed at approaching in fourth grade nine of them moved to a meeting and two of them moved from ex to exceeding so they moved up two levels in one year that's some really good teaching we know that's happening and then we start to look at trends like were they all in one class was there a certain intervention they received and so we've done that for third to fourth grade fourth to fifth grade fifth to sixth grade and all students we do the same thing in math and we have that for every achievement band so these students here they were partially meeting in 2023 and we do the exact same thing so 14 students overall were partially meeting in 2023 in 2024 one student went down one student stayed the same eight students moved up one level four students moved up two levels so again it's just a nice way for us to not just look at achievement and this is where the student is but is the student growing or is the student um showing learning loss so in terms of what are we doing as we continue to move forward I feel like I say this at every board meeting recently um we are implementing a new math program in grades four through five um our data clearly shows that we have higher language arts performance than math performance we are implementing happy numbers in grades K through three and legends of learning in grades four through six and we hope that these new resources will provide our teachers with an increased toolbox and will also give us data to see what is it that students need to uh additional intervention or additional reteaching or extension to learn more what we've been working on a lot most recently is I would say two years ago we worked a lot on our tier three interventions the students who were in the B 5% of each course of each grade level and what did they need and right now we're really working on our tier two interventions what has to happen in the classroom to move every student up in their specific area where they need to grow and again I really believe that there are so many wonderful things that happen in this building every single day and that's why I like to look at data because data sends me on a trip and it lets me say is there someone here that's doing something that's making higher levels of growth than someone else and what can we learn from them what are they doing how can they teach us as I said to the students before they have a gift every single person has a gift when we learn to share our gifts with with each other that creates a systemic organization that grows together and with that do you have any questions for for me today Mr W no thank you thank you next on our agenda is our business administrator report Mr R yes I just wanted to report that the audit field work on site is over they now have taken uh all the work back whatever they needed to their offices and they will be sharing it with the partner so we should be getting the final audit shortly uh I just wanted to say that the roof our new roof sections have held up we finally were able to see with all this rain because we didn't have any rain wanted to see to make sure that we didn't have any leaks and I'm pleased to tell you that we didn't have any leaks uh that concludes my report thank you uh next we have minutes we have November 20th is a review of minutes and tonight we're approving October 30th do I have a motion to approve minutes for October 30th so moved second do I have a second second thank you Mr Rell on the rooll Mr Del Greco obain Mrs Downey yes Mrs noran yes Mr nutland yes Mr Daran yes thank you uh next on our agenda are administrative and committee reports uh for administrative items A1 uh Mr nutland would you like to introduce that uh A1 is the HIV report for uh November 2024 um I I move to accept the um that HIV report okay I have a second second it okay Mr arel on the role Mr Del Greco yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs noran yes Mr nutlin yes Mr Darian yes next item buildings and grounds that's me uh we have not had a meeting since our last uh board meeting um I know we were talking about having one before the end of the year but time's running out so we're waiting for tomorrow oh really the ro oh okay we're going to consider that it being G meeting no but we want his data for that meeting oh oh oh oh okay I get you so yeah we're waiting on some uh a consultant who's going to come look at the building he's coming tomorrow so based on his uh his report that'll be uh you know a major item we're going to discuss so we're going to wait on a board meeting until after that so um we'll see next available will have a meeting uh curriculum Miss noran uh yes you noticed that there are minutes that are included in um your packet this week um that review all the things that we went over including um things like our digital platforms where we are with linkit uh we talked about um implications of a longer lunch which was requested um reviewed school rankings we went over our report cards and discussed what curricular changes with language arts are possible to benefit students so if you have any questions on anything there please let us know um but that's what we did at our last meeting thank you finance and Technology Mr Casa is not here uh Mr Del Greco I'd like to introduce D1 through D6 any any questions I'll second it oh I'm Sor yeah it needs to be seconded before I'll the second first thank you okay all right now any questions or comments none Mr iell roll call on the rooll Mr Del Greco yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs noran yes Mr nutland yes Mr Dar yes uh delegate report Mr Walsh is not here tonight we'll SK that Personnel um Miss Walker is also not here um who's else is in person I guess Miss noran right yeah I'm on Personnel um so I move to accept based on the recommendation of the superintendent board accepts and approves Personnel committee report of December 11th thank you do I have a second second all right you're getting a lot of work tonight yeah m all right Mr Rell roll call on the role Mr Del Greco yes Mrs Downey yes Mrs noran yes Mr nutland yes Mr Darien yes policy Mr Del Greco we did not have a policy meeting but we were trying to have one before the board meeting tonight unfortunately we did not have a quorum for that so we will be schedule one between now and end of year okay uh public relations I have nothing no report okay all right uh open to the public any members of the public would like to speak Now's the Time just uh come up to the mic state your name and um you have plenty of time I won't take too much sure Eric Modell I'm from Riveredge I'm a member of the historic commission there I lived in ell for about 15 years in the Garden Apartments before I moved back to River Edge to raise a family and as I mentioned I'm part of the historic commission I'm on the board at the Bergen County Historical Society and on the side uh actually my second career I started writing stories about uh local history it's called Journeys into and I've done a River Edge in ell there explorations of the offbeat off the beaten path overlooked and forgotten and uh tapping into the history my parents moved into River Edge in 1951 and in River Edge history is considered Newbridge Landing in the van stuen house and uh there's a building at the Cherry Hill School of Newbridge Center and I'm told the kids don't know what Newbridge is about so uh in my work there I came to appreciate that my mom passed away moved in 1951 and it was my job to clean up the house and it was history there um you know I'm I was a collector I didn't want to throw anything away and understanding that each picture had a story to it and I want I started telling the stories of it there's a longer story but I'm giving the local aspect one thing led to another and uh I introduced myself to the superintendent at the Cherry Hill School a couple of years ago she was a fellow soccer mom and uh unfortunately she had to resign for health reasons but I imparted the idea that there should be a local history component we on the River Edge historic commission have an intern from Riverdale a high school student from the history Club who attends helps us with social media gives us a youthful sound so we're not just old folks talking about old history and uh I wanted to cultivate that idea that we all have stories to share my parents stories my stories now I'm an Oldtimer you know so but bringing those stories together and uh I visited again the Riveredge Board of Education I visited last month that the riverdell Board of Education this whole idea of History isn't just something dry and from the top down but we're all part of the community and we all have stories put those stories together it part becomes part of a smart Community narrative where at the very least it's used for internal purposes I've done stories about local Legacy businesses I call them in River Edge such as the River Edge Diner or the ideal service center that goes back to 1946 that they're vital parts of the community so in any event I've been spreading the word about this idea that uh we're storytellers and if we these together it's a community effort uh we've done locally and I hope I brought this up with me this is a QR code project that we started on street signs in River Edge the woman who suggested it's turning 100 years old in February and she had the idea to say we should do some history about VOR Avenue or bogur who they are people don't know and a couple of other folks who had technical experience said look you know why don't we put QR stickers on on the poles there so if people are strolling they can just scan and get an idea about it we're hoping to expand this we have an eye now towards 2026 will be the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution and uh van stuben has New Bridge Landing saying River you should step up to the plate because all these other historic sites are doing these activities and I was sort of the person to say okay I'll I'll talk to the local folks in any event it raised my Consciousness to the IDE IDE that history wasn't just at New Bridge Landing but it's within the community too you have these old homes having lived in orell I love I love riveridge but I love orell also and the vibe is different in both towns as you understand but there's a common history witnessed just at the very least with the high schools but as I'm proposing this in River Edge I wanted to be mindful of the fact that the community is not just River Edge but it's River Edge and orell especially when we're talking about schools so a couple of weeks ago I visited the historic commission here in orell I uced myself and they had laid out pictures because they're doing one of those brown cover books about the history of orell and it was fascinating because as I said each picture has a story to it and here were 100 pictures so St any point here were a 100 stories you know hagglers and you know up and down the old Grand Union and uh I have a picture and we did an exhibit and I don't have it with me right here but we did an exhibit in River Edge about the post-war period from 1946 to 1964 as having laid the foundation for what we know as modern day rivered from schools to houses of worship and so many aspects and there were pictures one of the pictures that we and it wasn't a River Edge picture it was actually an orell picture of the 165 bus stopping in idell and 1950s version and was fascinating you know and people loved it in any event as I approached the folks in River Edge about this local history component and these other projects no the woman who suggested this did this book years ago she was the first woman Freeholder in Bergen County uh she was the first woman council person remember Ridge but she did this book about Newbridge Landing it's supposed to be a children's book but it's fascinating for adults too but and she read it to some school children but it's just sort of sitting in the libraries and we said as part of her 100th birthday present why don't we see if we can have her read the story we managed to tape it and she's old and she gets very tired but she would do five minutes a day and we just completed that so as she celebrates her birthday we have two birthday presents for her so but in any event as I'm doing that in River Edge I'm here to introduce myself and hopefully we can have such positivity with idell as I'm talking I got a positive response from the folks at riverdell I got a positive response from the elementary school from the Board of Education River Edge I didn't want to do it without sensitivity to you and to the historic folks here in orell too so for better for worse you know who I am and I'm hoping that we can coll together just on this idea of a smart Community narrative the stories of idell and River Edge but also mindful of the fact that as 2026 approaches communities are going to be talking about taking inventory taking stock of who they are the sense of place what makes orell different from New Milford River Edge and Westwood and celebrating that and sharing it with folks here and then translating it so you can communicate to others your pride of what makes Oro such a great place so thank you for the time and uh know there's no ask right now maybe at some point we can collaborate but you know seasons greetings to everybody thank you thank you all right thanks a lot appreciate it I find that interesting you know we always talk about history and you know we immediately Dive Right into US history and uh well you know it starts with the pilgrims and you know Massachusetts and but nobody ever talks about New Jersey the role that New Jersey played in shaping this country right so I mean I I saw the series on John Adams and it was just interesting how New Jersey felt at the time um and what the other colonies were thinking at the time when you know those uh Rebels up in Boston were throwing tea in the in the harbor but it wasn't really over tea was over taxes and smuggling of untaxed tea but but the point is is the 13 colonies were all not seeing things the same way and and New Jersey was always under represented you know know at the the founding fathers so it's interesting and then I also read that uh actually this area was considered the Wild Wild West uh anything west of the hack River was Uncharted Territory so at some point this was as far west as as the Europeans went you know obviously that was 16 something but um but we never get a taste of that and so it is kind of interesting if we can you know throw that into the curriculum you know I know we talk about the lenapi this area was called delord it wasn't rivered yeah and that included I think parts of New Milford yeah when they went into the breaking up of all the bur yeah so I thought that's interesting and we do have a historical committee I think he's on the committee not a commission that's a big difference but um um yeah I I think it's a great idea so anyway cool um next i' like to close to the public anybody nobody okay I close to the public sure I just want to as we are congratulating people tonight just want to congratulate think Miss hook for getting educator of the year for ordell so just want to congratulate her publicly on that thank you uh any other old or new business I would like to wish um the families of vorell who are celebrating Hanukkah happy Hanukkah uh those that are celebrating Christmas a very merry merry Christmas thank you Happy New Year yeah the year's gone by already just like goes by quick any other older new business any uh reason to go to a close session Jamie okay so we'd like to have a quick close session meeting tonight so we're going to talk about student issues anyone like to make a motion to session I'll second second thank you uh we will not be taking any action we're just discussing and then afterwards we're just going to close the meeting thank you uh