order Mr Gibbs you please read the statement of compliance in compliance with the open public meetings ACT public law 1975 chapter 3 excuse me 231 notice of this meeting has been properly advertised in the Daily Record and Suburban Trends its agenda has been posted at the appropriate locations and the copy has been filed with the Panic Township Clerk thank you we please call the RO Mr Bloomer here Mr cesy here misss Dempsey here Mrs Esposito here Mr G is absent Mr mcweeny here Mr Pompeo here Mr senic here and Mrs Shen here we have a corar thank you 11 please stand for the flag salute e all right good evening uh Welcome to our April 15th Workshop meeting tonight the board will honor Sophia ketcher for becoming the first ever female NJ champion in pths history and not that that's not great but additionally I want to remind everyone that Sophia followed up her championship by placing fourth in the state tournament in Atlantic City and I always known Panic to be a town that takes great pride in its wrestling programs and the achievements of its wrestlers and I know that what Sophia you and your teammates are doing especially with regard to female wrestling is just establishing something in panic that I think is going to go on for years to years to come and you're sitting a very high bar so congratulations and well done and tonight I have a very short report um the last thing I want to do is just wish the members of our community that celebrate a very happy Passover next week that's it and I'll pass it over to Dr poris all right thank you Mr Sanic uh like my report's quite long compared to yours uh hope everyone enjoyed spring break and that the first week back last week went well uh sometimes that transition back can be a tough one but we've had plenty of activities going on to keep us focused and occupied here's a brief certainly not comprehensive overview of some of the events from my calendar uh last week Mr Riner who was our school security specialist Mr Lucas and officer Juliano and I observed the Mount Olive reunification drill at Roxbury high school we met with administrators security officials and law enforcement agents from the county and state learned about their process and we're also able to engage in a good deal of Q&A um I have quite a few notes that I'm able to share and I was told that I was the only person who was actually writing notes during the session and I take no shame in that I take notes uh the veterans wall committee met last week and is making tremendous progress in our design plans and process of narrowing down the logistics we're fortunate to have people with tremendous knowledge and energy who are going to make this idea reality and the group is already so impressed though not surprised with the generosity of donations both monetary and in kind last week I met with coach beond and and Mr cipa to review plans for the sign that will be unveiled on December 19 19 as we continue with the gym naming process we really want to make that night a true event and honor the legacy of Coach Kell appropriately I'm really excited that we have a good balance of um board involvement atic Department involvement administrative involvement and Community involvement as we really want to make this something special um this week and next I'll be meeting with the principes individually to review Staffing in their buildings in order to identify needs and Target the balance between efficiency and Effectiveness that'll be ongoing for next week in advance of of our staffing meeting which is May 13th on April 17th I will attend the Mars County educator Association friends of Education dinner which is a wonderful evening which contributors to education throughout the county are honored for their dedication to education and Community exciting news will be meeting later this week with the registar and Elementary School principls continue our work with kindergarten placement as we prepare to greet the class of 2037 in September yep that year sounds made up another important meeting will take place on April 19th when Mrs milder and I will join Township leaders and police representatives in an event hosted by the town Health officer and in which we will discuss how we can collaborate with lawmakers to combat the growing issue of vaping among young people and finally two really great events to share are the Hillview 60th anniversary celebration which is going to take place on April 24th um Sophia might remember the 50th which was from her year when she was in kindergarten when I was her first year principal at that school um and then the pths spring musical is going to take place the next night at least starts on Thursday the 25th another performance Friday and then a matina on Saturday the 27th and just kind of a funny note we're talking about the wrestling I've received a crash course in wrestling um over the past I guess few months courtesy of Mr Sanic very much inspired by um the work of our wrestling team and Sophia specifically and I enjoy telling people that it is rare that you get a phone call from the board president around like 6:30 in the morning on a Saturday telling you okay she's going on in like three hours so you got to be ready okay got it um but it's been it's been really exciting um getting a chance to feel the energy of somebody who's very passionate about wrestling but also throughout the community and I'm so glad that Mr CIP is gonna be is here to be able to introduce uh Sophia and coach pagia and then get a chance to do a little recognition so that concludes my report I think I could probably just uh bounce it over to Mr salapa Brian how much weight did you cut for uh for the I used to actually be thin none I just didn't eat though so thank you to the board of education and Dr poris for allowing me to recognize an outstanding student athlete from the winter season Sophia clutch is the definition of a Trailblazer when it comes to female wrestling as a sophomore her resume includes wins and dual meets for the boys team tournament wins and an njsiaa State place winner tonight I'd like to call up coach Jay laaga to speak about Sophia and the impact she has had on the wrestling team at pths thank you Bor for having me here tonight um for uh celebrating Sophia one of panic's wrestlers who just happens to be a female uh thank you coach for inviting me here I appreciate it um I'm G to read this so I don't mess it up Sophia's desire to improve and meet her potential is unmatched she's one of the most coachable athletes I ever had the pleasure to coach she possesses every quality a coach could ask for confidence passion dedication an ability to take Direction commitment intelligence humility these traits are not only traits that assist an athlete they are traits that she will carry on throughout life these attributes make her a great person and that has nothing to do with gender it has more to do with her values and how her parents are raising her wrestling is a difficult sport Sophia's success is well earned I'd like 10 more wrestlers like Sophia in my wrestling room any coach coaching any sport would that being said I would like to provide you with some of her accomplishments she is panic's first female wrestler in school history Sophia has gone two straight years without missing a practice and that includes 6: a.m. morning lifts summer dual meets and wrestling camp she's placed in the following tournaments this year wrestling at 120 pounds she played second in the Bloomfield tournament she played sixth in the Elizabeth tournament she was first place in the NJ tournament making her the first female in banic history to win a girls tournament she then plays second in the regions and finally Sophia plays fourth in the girl state tournament making her yet again the first girl in panic history to place in the states also tying the highest Place finish in school history District this next part I'm going to wing so when it comes to tournaments there's brackets and um Sophia was in a tough weight class uh the girl at 126 was returning state champ and Sophia wanted to wrestle 120 it wasn't an option to go up she wanted to stay at 120 what we didn't realize is that a lot of the other girls were avoiding that 126 girl so they came down to Sophia's weight class every tournament that Sophia wrestled in there were 26 girls in the bracket so sporadically there could be eight girls in a bracket every tournament Sophia wrestled in it was jam-packed she was the underdog we came out of nowhere this season we were low seated no one knew who we were it was pronounced pinok uh her name was was mispronounced 20 times every tournament but that didn't bother Sophia it didn't scare her she jumped into the tournament mind ready focused and ready to go uh the seed means nothing it's what you do on the mat she outperformed in every tournament she wrestled in she finished the season competing against girls with 20 wins and seven losses every girl that she lost to placed in the state tournament competing against boys Sophia had six wins and five losses with an overall record of 26 wins and 12 losses now if any of you went down to Atlantic City in the state tournament um you know girls wrestling is somewhat new when it comes to the boys there's a lot of history in there and a lot of teams um have robes and uh they pass this robe down to down uh down to the wrestlers that place in the state well we have a robe from 1971 and I'm like this is going to be good we're gonna bring that robe down and we're superstitious me and Coach posie so we don't want to jinx anything soia has no idea we have The Robe so we're running the tournament Sophia is not anxious at all the Stadium's huge doesn't blinking eye she's going out there she's performing like it's at our home gym she revenged losses down at the state tournaments girls that beat her during the season she beat in the state tournament and then it came down to uh the third and fourth match and she finished fourth in the state so I pull out this robe uh it's a little Dusty hasn't been on the podium in a long time and uh she looks at it and she goes that's nice I go this is going to be cool hose was with me coach Michelle was with me so we put the robe on her and we're looking around there's no other girls wearing a robe and I'm like this is awesome the whole state the parade of Champions we had coaches coming up to us we had girls going up to Sophia that's a cool robe where'd you get that robe the coaches were like I haven't seen that robe since the 70s so we brought it back Sophia's goal was to get down to Atlantic City she accomplished that goal she surpassed it by placing by getting on the podium uh she's only a sophomore she has two more years to go the next goal is being on top of that mountain and being the first state champ in panic history boy or girl it doesn't matter she's a wrestler for panic high school and I like to say great job Sophia we are so proud of you e e Sophia how many PE how many girls are you going to recruit for next year okay keep trying thank you very much app time and thank all of you that that that was wonderful and I think to to Mr Ci's point I think your recruiting may not be for next year maybe for five years maybe eight years 10 years you know Community was paying pretty close attention um I will say too that the robe is actually older than I am um so that make it so that we have to put that in the budget to pick up a new robe at some point but that that that's that's pretty incredible congratulations okay uh Mr gids do you have a report yes good evening the county and state approved the school district's 2024 2025 school budget a budget presentation will be given at the April 29th regular board meeting and the board will be approved proving the budget on Wednesday March 20th the new carpet inst was installed in the auditorium that was completed the new oven for the high school kitchen was installed on March 27th and on Tuesday April 2nd there was a final walkthrough for the EIP mechanical for hbac system which was completed the media center beams were replaced on Thursday April 4th and the final completion of the Cosmetic work will be done on was done on Wednesday April 10th on March 22nd the school district received a letter of acceptance from the state to the revised long-range facility plans additions in accordance to the 20124 2025 budget this is just a reminder for those who have not completed their financial disclosure statements to let me know if you have any questions or difficulties in submitting your statements uh we were in the process of setting up the October 2024 New Jersey school board's Workshop early registration so we'll need to know how many board members will be attending this year the dates are Monday October 21st to Thursday October 24th and finally the ninth town meeting that will be held on Tuesday April 30th 2024 has been cancelled and the new meeting is scheduled for Wednesday May 8th starting at 7 pm located at the high school auditorium the town meeting will be uh a Zone excuse me Zoning Board of adjustment meeting regular to approve the one school Global's new facility that will be located across the street from the high school thank you thank you uh now I'll open the meeting up to public comment on agenda items only member of the public may speak for a maximum period of five minutes by the clock during this portion of the meeting and you can speak on any agenda item only during your five minutes if a member of the public raises a question please direct a question to the board president and state your name and sign in before you begin uh John Nan uh Pompton Plains I'm here representing the high school music parents I just want to uh put on record uh under the workshop item CIS the out of state uh field trip for band camp we're still final in the cost uh for that activity so if there's any changes to that number we'll notify the staff to adjust that before the business meeting I also like to remind uh the board anyone watching parents interested students that uh band camp is mandatory for the marching band and so the music parents offer financial assistance to to any families that have need to to to afford uh band camp to be in the band thank you yeah I'll just put it out there too once you guys have a sense of the number because you're meeting Wednesday um if you have anybody Mr striper Mr hazer reach out to me I'll make sure that it's uh amended for the agenda and then moving forward if it has to get adjusted we can always do that too okay thank you that'll move us into our business items Mr cesi will you please move PMC I would like to move PMC 27-24 through PMC 226 d24 second any question or discussion Mr Gibbs please call the roll Mr Bloomer yes Mr cesi yes M Dempsey yes Mr gon is absent Mr mcen yes Mr Pompeo yes Mrs shanton yes m M Esposito yes and Mr senic yes motion carries thank you next up is CIS Mr mcweeny would you please move CIS yes I'd like to move CIS 8424 through CIS 86-24 second any question discussion Mr Gibbs please call the rooll Mr Bloomer yes Mr cesi yes M Dempsey yes Mr gon is absent Mr mcweeny yes Mr Pompeo yes Mrs shinton yes m M Esposito yes and Mr senic yes motion carries okay next up is FFA Mr Bloomer would you please move FFA yes I like to move FFA 12824 through FFA 132-2 24 second any question discussion yeah I just have one question on FSA 12824 the shared services agreement for the Landscaping so I know they put um Mr bur put a pretty detailed response in there about the increases it looks like it's about 3% each year for a five-year contract so we're comfortable with that increase that looks like something manageable for us and reasonable' incre they an increased in yeah it's been a while since they even pumped us up yeah yeah yeah and I can say too I had a pretty good conversation with Township manager about this and um he he was explaining um without completely disaggregating cost but where they were seeing an increase in labor they were seeing an increase in supplies they were seeing an increase in fuel and and unfortunately a lot of the that we well fortunately the rates that we' had been paying for the last 10 years were based on much much lower costs right thank you anybody else Mr Gibbs please call a roll Mr Bloomer yes Mr cesi yes M Dempsey yes Mr gon is absent Mr mcweeney yes Mr Pompeo yes Miss chanton yes Mrs Esposito yes and Mr senic yes motion carries thank you uh that brings us into our Workshop portion of the meeting and first up is PMC with three discussion items school calendars uh a staffing update and the school performance reports that were just released based on the testing from last year right thank you Mr Sanic um as far as school calendar updates we actually have uh three different calendars in backup right now one is for the current school year there is one date that's being adjusted uh the 2425 is in there there are no adjustments there but Mrs a wanted to show off for formatting abilities true story and then the 2526 is in is in there as we've updated one date since we last spoke about that one so the first one I'll speak about is the school calendar for this school year today is April 15th so I am comfortable saying that we will most likely not have snow that will cause the cancellation of school moving forward um and so we are able to assign a snow day date um the day that works best with the existing calendar is Tuesday May 28th that is the day after Memorial Day so if you're worried about getting stuck in traffic coming back from the shore or other points you get you get a little Grace day there um for the last few years we've put it to a vote for the seniors and unfortunately we didn't have flexibility with the days um the only other possibility was Monday June 10th and I feel like that would have been an affront to their sensibilities to ask them to choose between a random Monday in June and the day after Memorial Day so I made an executive decision um and that day will be a snow day if there is something between now and then that requires closing of school we would take that day back but enjoy May 28th it's yours can I just ask out of curiosity why Tuesday and not Friday uh Friday we had a couple things that were already in the calendar including um hate to say some some testing dates that's one of our last days if we have kids who Miss AP testing that is our last day we can get them in there um I would have preferred to be honest that Friday um and we could have chanced it but I wasn't willing to take that risk the 28th was the cleanest one only problem is 28th and I'll talk to M Mr senic more about it is we do have a board meeting scheduled that night um I have a feeling that I will have nine people very angry with me uh if we still have it that night so we'll see what we can do 10 people and then uh for the calendar for 2526 the uh we had had conversation about whether it was worth it to come back for one day Friday June uh January 2nd 2026 and then that would be the first day back after a break and then of course you have the weekend um we we're working with the association in um getting a little flexibility with an earlier day in the calendar to be able to use for professional development day as opposed to a Flatout day off so we will be able to grant that Friday January 2nd 2026 so for the 2526 school year calendar we will have a very long um winter break which I think will be well received and hopefully get all the germs out of the buildings uh for school year 2526 so the the first day of the winter recess uh school year will begin uh staff will have professional development days on June 2 sorry June September 2nd and September 3rd 2025 the first day for kids it's going to be Thursday the 4th 4th of September and the last day of school that year in other words pths graduation will be June 18th so um as far as calendars go it's it's my dream because Labor Day is pretty early and it gives me a lot more flexibility and I I will I will say it again I will take one day in September over to two days in June it's much more productive to teach in the fall than it is in in mayor I don't any questions about school calendar is uh next one there's uh not much report on on the Staffing update um we we're in good shape with Staffing as we go into the end of the school year we do have some leaves leave requests that are being honored that um we're working this staff and the good thing is we do have um a candidate pool of people coming out of U universities who can pick up a job for the last 20 25 days of the school year which is good because that's kind of an audition for them um we've been posting positions with uh deadlines for when applicants should get their submissions in which I was told by a candidate not every District does I don't understand why you would do that I don't like a type of just open-endedness but another thing that we're looking to update when we when we do post is to include salary ranges um for the positions that we post we have not begun this practice yet I would be surprised if if there's not a law about this implemented within the next couple years saying that you have to post the salary range but I think that that's good practice especially considering that our salary guide is publicly available I I like the fact that if you want to see what is the what do the salary guide look like at Panic you just have to go to our web page and it's right there um I also when I'm interviewing people I will share with them the contract um as a either as a PDF or as an open source so that um they can take a look at it and and come to me with questions but I like that level of transparency and I think it speaks to our level of confidence about what we have and what we're able to provide for potential employees any questions there and I understand the job fair uh down in Basking Ridge went well on that that that was the Thursday Spring Bridge uh both both Miss Abrams and Dr shardan went to that um they said they had some interested applicants pic seem to be generating some positive conversation we we'll see if it produces any results and then the last item um is a much more involved one uh the school performs reports were were just released and as Mr senic alluded to it these are um these largely focus on state testing data that's taken from the results that we that we received back in June July those were the preliminary results those aren't shared with the public um we used those for some internal planning purposes the the more public scores were released back in September we reported on them uh back in October at Cedar Crest was actually was a really I thought it was a great meeting and a really good presentation I I enjoyed it um what we're seeing for these school performance reports is that they're integrating um a few more data sources for the high school you see sat PSAT and AP uh involvement as well as Career and Technical education which is sounds like it's a very broad term it's actually very specialized which frustrates me the kids in Allied Health Academy that doesn't count as career in technical education not sure what it should count at if it doesn't count as that nevertheless we also see uh attendance factored in um and the data gets broken out a little bit more and and compared to other other groups uh throughout the state so I had each of the principles prepare a report and they were limited to one page each um only one of the principles exceeded one page and was actually openly defiant about that in a way that made me proud of them uh but I wanted them to look at three questions what went right what do we need to address and what steps have been taken and are being taken to address these challenges because it's one thing to have have the data in front of you it's a whole other thing to put it to use and um I was a teacher during the beginning of what I'll call the data Revolution when we used to get packets upon packets of student learning data and we didn't know what to do with it and so it's really important that we're using this consciously and knowingly and certainly intentionally so I'll just give a quick overview um and just give you some insights about some of the things that we learned um from the North Boulevard report we we were actually looking very uh very closely at some things we haven't normally looked at such as um the importance of gender in some of the student performance this has never been something that we've looked at but we actually saw a deficiency or a deficiency um a discrepancy between female performance and male performance in the fifth grade and something that was very noticeable where the ELA passing rate for females was 87% for the males was 51% so that that was that definitely caught our attention so we need to be able to implement strategies to help reach the boys and make sure that they are like uh as likely if not more likely to to demonstrate proficiency and excellence on the assessments and the assessments again are not a Beall end all but they do provide um a strong data source about that snapshot of where students are at that point in time um we we were quite pleased with North Boulevard with the fourth graders meeting our exceeding expectations in ela we had 41% exceed expectations that is a very high rate um we also found that students met the standard for ELA growth and proficiency both schoolwide and among students with disabilities and that's a really important factor amongst the students with disabilities um historically that is a group and this is across the state um that has not done particularly well in standardized tasks uh Mrs dagger explained it very well in her breakdown of the Hillview score reports um when she was looking at the fact that we have students who are performing um one or two grades below their grade level hence the need for IEPs and more targeted instruction but they're getting the same assessment as all of their peers and it's really it's not a fair playing field we do have accommodations and mod ifications but generally it's very difficult for um some of our students to be able to perform on this test something I do like that the state gives us though is it's not just a boiler plate either you passed or you didn't we get the pass the passing rates but we also get growth measurements and the growth measurements look at um if a passing score is 750 and I got a 680 last year and I got a 735 this year well I didn't pass but I showed significant growth particularly um when compared to peers who are in that same level you when you see the growth numbers too it's really hard to um imagine this but that that growth number that's given for a school at a specific grade level is one student and that's the median students so if I have 51 students in the fourth grade at North Boulevard that median score is student 26 so it's the one that they they translate all the data into um a growth measurement it's between zero and 100 and that student that middle student um is the score that we get so it sounds crazy to say wait you're going to take a whole grade level down to one kid if you're really not you're looking at well there's an equal number above and an equal number below um sometimes it can give you flawed data um I've given the example sometimes with averages it's difficult because if you have two Hunters one misses a deer by a foot to the right the other misses a deer by a foot to the left by averages they both hit the bullseye by reality they're going home hungry so we try to make sure that we look at multiple data sources and also parse out what what's the story that's being told um something else in the North Boulevard report too is um that Dr Shirley addressed is that chronic absentee chronic absenteeism as a whole um is something that we really need to address because we're seeing um increasing numbers there particularly among our special education population quite simply you need to be there in order to learn something else that we realized from North Boulevard too is they only have two classes for every grade level where at sjg and Hillview it varies to one year three the other and that gives you less of a margin for error if you have a group that's struggling a little bit it's going to be Amplified because you don't have as many kids um to give you a wider a wider sample range and that's a consequence of having all of our prek at North Boulevard which is a function of just the reality that we have facilities wise but when you have six prek classes it limits how many kindergartens you can bring in each year which is why we see a lower K to5 population there um but some some things that we're doing to address the challenges and you're going to hear some of this as being redundant is that uh we have teachers who are attending the conquer math um which is right in town for for Math training they're very positive about it we're continuing that relationship into next year and likely the year Beyond teachers are also continuing the training with the ready math program something that I'm really happy about too is the teachers have been given released njsla math questions so that they can craft assessment questions that model that type of questioning um it's really important you don't want kids to see a question format for the first time when they're taking the standardized test you want it to be as familiar as possible so that when they when they sit for the test in April or May probably May um they're not seeing that question thinking wait what are they asking me they're so familiar with it they're like oh done this before and it becomes almost um almost second nature hopefully they don't snap that loudly sorry about that um something that they're doing for the English language arts is um investing in what we call High interest non-fiction titles um with um with Buddy books which means that two or more of the books are purchased so that um kids can um share the books that so they can read at the same time or they can swap them amongst their friends but we are looking for high interest non-fiction titles to appeal to more uh our boys who aren't we feel reading quite enough just yet um we're also working very closely with the science supervisor to plan and teach lessons uh to help improve our fifth grade science scores um and we're being more aggressive in getting the word out about student absenteeism because it's it's a significant issue it's a prevailing theme throughout the reports I got from all five schools um and it's something that is consistent with what you're seeing in workplaces across America um but it doesn't make it any easier to manage we we need the kids here and we need to continue placing a value on literally being here and being present for the learning yeah there was two things that you mentioned Dr poris one the uh the median stth growth percentile which when I looked into that I was happy to see that we were in the range of growth for every area so that makes me excited because last year uh like you had mentioned we reported these scores in October we saw growth from the previous year to this October for last October um and I'm looking forward to seeing the scores come out next year because based on what we're seeing I anticipate seeing growth between last year and this upcoming year the second thing is that um we had uh notified the public and we had also brought up in that presentation back in October the number number of grade levels that were going to conquer math and we had reported then in that presentation grade one grade four grade five grade six grade seven grade eight and algebra one and I was happy to hear from uh Dr Sheridan how well that had gone and that um the grades that weren't going to conquer math two and three were going to be subject to the high impact tutoring which was going to be the were funded by a uh a Federal grant so I'm just happy to see growth I'm happy to see uh you and your team using the district resources very well to address whatever needs that there may be and um I thought that was evident in what I saw in this in the performance reports and and I'll try to be a little more efficient as I talk about the other schools too I realized I talked about North Boulevard a lot um and something I'm that I'm really enthusiastic about with all of these but I can most specifically Point North Boulevard is Dr Scher is really hungry to see Improvement and see growth and um she's she's not pleased with where they are right now which is good you should never be pleased with where you are um and I explained to her too that she'd been on the job for about three three and a half months when these students were tested so what I'm expecting is that we're going to make incremental gains um throughout the years at that school as well as Beyond and she's already um delivering math support because that's really her area of expertise I know she set something up to where she's some of her higher achieving math students ask for a math club well we don't we don't have a math club so she's she's do yeah she's doing one to help engage students who were really really interested uh the the next school is is Hillview um and came through very well particularly with um our student efficiency rates in grades four and five um the the data there for the passing rates was was very high um we're also pleased with the growth rates which well exceeded standards compared to the state we generally don't compare ourselves much to the state that's the data that we have in here we used to get the breakdown by District Factor group we don't get that anymore and we used to get um data broken down compared to schools that were in our um school performance report they used to have comparison schools and they stopped doing that as well um I'd like to take the information from those previous um comparison schools and find their data and and still point out comparisons which is something when I was a principal I used to do that and it was it was a great very rewarding exercise um we're also looking at um our our general our special education numbers at Hillview and we had uh 50% of our special education students meeting an exceeding standards or expectations which may not sound like a lot but it's a really it's a really strong achievement um and what I really like too is we're seeing growth um some of our students who are in the lld program um who are going to struggle with with the standardized test formatting are working very hard and and demonstrating growth so that's something that we're we're very proud of and something that Mrs Stager made a reference to and I think it's important is this teachers having a very high understanding of the academic standards the academic standards are essentially descriptions of skills that we want students to have in math as well as um language arts I mean there's some with technology but it's it's really important that teachers know what these are because those should be the objectives of the lessons those should be the objectives of the unit plans um for areas of improvement um she disaggregates certain areas that we need to focus on for math fractions modeling and reasoning are all really important um and she also talked about uh where we need to see um the ability to help students who make that sh that transition from grade two to three the grade three academic standards are much more intense than grade two so we do see students sometimes having almost like a degree of um sticker shock when they when they first get used to the academic rigor of third grade something that she's proposing and I support it is doing more vertical articulations so that the K to2 teachers can talk with the grade three four five teachers and be able to talk about what what do we need what what are what are you seeing from the kids you're getting what do you need to see more of what don't you need to see so that's something I think is is really good and she also addressed to the The Chronic absenteeism as a huge issue um we realize sometimes students will be out because they're ill or they have chronic condition we understand that um but when you when you lose a student for a week or 10 days because they're traveling um it's it's tough to reconcile that because uh we're not going to interfere with family's plans but our our our mission is to make sure the kids are educated and that seat time is so important for the educational process um and then strategies she she wants to really address the absentee rates and there's some strategies Mr riner's put into place sjg that he's going to share with where I Shar with both Mrs Stager and Dr Shiri um she's looking to continue getting teacher feedback in regards of student achievement and structure of the curriculum what do we need to refine something I like about the way our curriculum is now set up and shared with the teachers is that they can now make recommendations for curricular changes right on the document um and so when we enter the revision process it's going to be a much more fluid design um the T she her exact words targeted pz PD has been well received by the teachers and then we're going to continue to provide interventions and support for struggling students and uh we're working on refining our inrs process which is very much involved D in addressing specific student needs any questions from right and then um for sjg Mr Riner was able to fit it on one page but he made the font size 10 so I thought I was going to I I I I tweaked the wording and I was able to make the font size 11 so I can actually read it but I was I admired I thought he was pretty clever but I was also pretty annoyed um but he he's very proud of so many things going on at sjg and he talked about um just the student growth level which exceeds the standard it's going very well he talked about how the grade level team meetings are are have been a particular source of assistance and they've integrated special education and ESL which is English as a second language um to support the teachers as they support students uh the special education population um met or exceeded standards in ela a 41% passing rate that is quite good and then the ESL uh group passed it at 53.8% and let let that scnc in that that was for English language arts and these are students who are learning English as a second language we now use the term English language Learners or multilanguage Learners um but that's that's pretty powerful um that same group our ESL students performed incredibly well in math 84.6 of them met or exceeded expectations we are Beyond proud about that and I don't want to um if anybody wants to discredit that and say well it's math there's no language there there's a lot of language almost all the ma that they see on the assessments is now constructed as word problems there's very little that's computational um and he did address the fact that the chronic absenteeism has decreased from 7% to 3.9% and so we're finding that if if you're sending out letters letting know hey you've been out for five days you've been out for eight days you've been out for 12 days it could be pretty irritating getting those letters and that's part of the mission of it and um by really emphasizing and trumpeting the importance of being in school um you want kids to feel like hey it's important that that you're here and you want them to feel like we value that you're here and that's there was a study that was done a few years ago it was from Ohio State and they did a study on schools in which principles greeted students in the hallway and how that impacted student learning outcomes and it demonstrated Improvement because principal's telling the kids I value you and I value that you're here that's really important um M but Mr Riner also wanted to look at uh things that they can improve on in in fifth grade um they they weren't happy with their passing rate for math so now they're looking at the timing of instruction so there are certain targeted skills you know are going to show up on the state test you want to make sure that they're taught in advance of when the testing window actually opens up um he also wants to Target special education math he felt like the passing rate there was was too low for the expectations that they hold so that's something that they're going to focus on as well including place value spiraling skills um and finding strategies that work best for for individual students um and then when he was talking about um special ed said the growth there has been strong um they've met the goals through the confidence interval but they want to see increases in growth and they're going to they're going to go they're going to look to help every student demonstrate growth that exceeds what they believe that they can do um and then as far as strategies conduct data meetings more frequently to create monitor targeted plans for students I've been in on a couple of these meetings it's really great when a teacher sitting with the principal or a teacher team is sitting with the principal and they're looking at growth data for individual students and talking about strategies that are working and trying to come up with ways to see even better results and outcomes uh the principal supervisors are going to conduct more walkthroughs and focus feedback based on grade level discussions which is a great recursive effect if you're visible too you're going to get greater buying from the um staff you're also going to get greater buying from the teachers um from from the students and then then um he also addressed the targeted PD in language arts and math um and also they're going to look at having the math and language specialist focus on some of the writing skills which was part of what that position was originally designed to be about 12 15 years ago and we've since moved it to being exclusively with math but so some really great things coming out of sjg as well any questions there before I move on to PV you know I just want to say again the I know what your job but the the amount of effort that you put into this and that your staff is putting into this and going through and using this data that's available to them to really try and differentiate the instruction which is something I learned from being on the board of B what that even means um is I'm impressed and I'm thankful and I can't wait to see the outcome and I I really think I should get all the credit um I think that's important no kiding I mean this is and and I'm so I I really appreciate you're saying that but yeah this is definitely the work of of teachers who are so focused on helping their kids and and I use the word hungry before and I feel like that's what they are like all right we we we're past Co we're past other things what we what are we going to do to keep demonstrating improvement and the fun thing about data is when you look at data as not a gotcha but we got you back kind of thing it's supportive for students and it's supportive for staff members and when you see your kids demonstrating growth you can't help but feel really good about it so I I was so happy too because I gave the principles um almost a week on the nose that they had to turn this over and I wanted them to feel uncomfortable about what they had to generate here because not everything in the reports is particularly good a lot of it's great but not all of it is and some of it's good but could be better and I wanted them to confront that and they worked with the supervisors they worked with the directors they worked with each other and um I'm I'm really excited about because they they gave some really specific things and I joke with you guys about how I love geeking out on data and I really do and so to see that I'm working with like-minded individuals is really exciting and the benefit isn't just that we can look and say oh we went from 23 to 32% in this metric okay but that you can see like that's connected to kids and and and and hard work from teachers so it really matters and and so much of it too is the support that they're getting from home and and this that none of this exists in a vacuum so it really is it's it's a huge team effort again I should get all the credit but I think you know I'll divvy some of it up Dr pis I I have a question as they're going through and and bring together and I agree with um Mr siic it's great um I know that we've brought in several new technology platforms for lack of a better term over the last few years are we looking at this data and looking at that data and seeing if it aligns and if it's telling us the same story is it not telling us the same story like is some have we sort of done that overlay yet or is that sort of step two and and sort of how are we using that to sort of help further this it's a great question and there's really a multi-layered response to that and it's almost like there's a sort of yes as the answer um we we have been looking at the data you uh the data behind the usage of the technology platforms and some of that a lot of that's for for budgeting purposes because we don't want to invest in something if one teacher is using it and it's redundant with something that 13 teachers are using so we we'll look to combine those but something I remember we talked about a couple years back when we started using the I ready we saw if students were using I ready at a higher proficiency level didn't matter how they were doing as long as they were doing it th that same class had a higher rate of achievement on the njsla so what I want to look at is when we get the scores for this year and we'll get the preliminary data right around the time when we dismiss and then we'll have July to really dig into it but I am really interested in that and um our new it supervisor Matt Shay um has been really great about finding um different capabilities behind some of the technology resources that we have and it's great because he'll he'll explain something to Dr Sheridan and me we find ourselves nodding our heads politely and being like I I don't completely get it but then he'll break it down even more for us so um I real I could have given a very short answer but I'm not good at that we we see the effectiveness of what we're using and we want to be able to quantify and point to things and say what our dad is telling us is that there's a causality you use this you get this outcome um some of it might be correlational but um we're going to dive into that more with the the new data that we get this year so come well actually in about a month's time the kids are going to be testing and they're turning that data over pretty quick for us you're welcome old I thought I was thought I was fired up when the wrestling coach was talking I'm getting really fired up absolutely this is my Mao man moment so uh for PV um one of the things that we're really I'm happy about is we outperform the state and all in um Ela and math in every grade level which is great we don't have other comparisons so we can't make those yet but I'd like to get some more of that data as it's released for other school districts um something that that can fly Under The Radars are Algebra 1 outperformed state average by 61% um that's a massive number and we're not alone um generally our students who've tested very well we'll take the algebra assessment in eth grade um and that does hurt our eighth our eight grade eight njsla math score but then our algebra one among eth graders tends to be good here it's really good um our proficiency did increase um our growth didn't match that but our proficiency is definitely up we're seeing Ela growth continuing um and we have a very high percentage of students in both grades seven and eight um exceeding expectations they're at 39% and that's that five score that's the highest level you can get um and Mr shasi used the exact terminology about what we need to address he wants to see vertical articulation from the fifth to the sixth grade it's a little hard to coordinate that from a logistics perspective because we have three different schools that we need to bring together with PV but just because it's difficult doesn't mean we won't do it we just got to find a way to roll coverage so this way we can get maybe all of our fifth grade teachers together with the sixth grade team um we'll pay the price and Subs but it it it'll be worth it because they'll have an opportunity to really meet and and discuss and talk about the specific student learning needs that they need to be addressing um we want to make sure that the the markting period grades are aligned to actual student performance you don't want to see a kid who's getting all A's but then can't perform well on on a standardized assessment um and likewise you don't want to see a kid getting crushed on grades and do really well on the standardized assessment because you want to see some degree of consistency there do want have multiple measures so you don't they don't need to be identical but you do want to see those aligned so you want to be mindful of inflation or excessively high standards there um we're going to continue to focus our alignment and assessment models with the state learning standards use terminology which I love the unpacking of standards in each grade level you really do want to unpack them slowly so that you can understand what each standard really means standards are largely unchanged since the roll out of the common core standards back 2013 but um there's an awful lot there and we want to make sure that teachers understand the depth of of the language um we're going to look to cut out anything that doesn't really matter my note to myself is it's almost like cutting the fat from some of the instructional design that we have in place want to make sure that we're we become more effective at developing um instructional groupings Benchmark data really helps with that um you want to have data-driven instructional practice so that I know if I'm breaking students up into smaller groups I can do so either heterogeneously or homogeneously um and then just as they've made incredible strides with um code of conduct concerns from last year to this year they really want to Target attendance for that as well um and um we want to look at the impact of Staff attendance on student performance staff attendance on student attendance and student attendance on student performance um the last of those is probably the most the most relevant um both he both Mr shasi Miss ringing are very excited about implement or instituting home rooms next year um I'll admit they caught me off guard I didn't think anybody would be excited about home rooms but they they feel like they can do some really great things with that short little period of time um they want to have something of punctual Panthers um Awards so if a classroom has 100% in Home Room on time in present there could be certain type of award there yeah I like that one a lot um you want to do monthly themes and creating visuals for students to see statistics about the breakdown of attendance to try to really build that up instead of making it a negative statement of don't be absent no why we make a positive statements hey you're here that's great so keep focusing on again uh getting them in and we want to communicate with with parents about the importance of this and it can't just be you send something out in an obligatory message in early September saying make sure the kids are here it's really important keep reinforcing that message because the truth is this is a much different world from the world of 2019 um and we're seeing it in every workplace in America and throughout the world and there's not as much of an emphasis on being on site being in the place but we want but for schools it's really really important so we're gonna going to really stress that as you can probably tell from across the schools um we think that the um change the proposed change to schedule is going to allow us to um use our instructional minutes a lot more precisely and a lot more efficiently um which will enhance student engagement as well as student Focus which has a great ripple effect uh to student behavior um we want to use a a reinforcement block at the end of the day that we've never had before at the middle school level students can to be required to go to these reinforcement periods they can be assigned where to go we're looking that as an opportunity for teachers to focus on um the example I gave today in the HSA president's meeting if I had to do now as my students were exiting um period five math I can look at the data and break them into groups okay these guys have mastered the concept these guys have a good idea of the concept these guys need help well you've got kids coming in for the reinforcement block the kids who really need help how are you going to help them are you going to take two of the kids from the the high achieving group to be peer tutors for it are you going to help that group yourself teachers going to have options about how to work with these smaller groups and we're very excited about that we want to make sure that that reinforcement block doesn't feel like a study hall um for those of us who went to high school in the 80s or 90s um you'll know that study hall wasn't always a particularly productive environment we want to make sure that these are productive and focused um he also included in there vertical alignment and they're also looking to implement an Ela a book club unit um in every English class it's great readers Workshop model and he again talked about the um professional development through conquer math that's the one that's been it it showed up on all of these U which tells me it's working really well and then finally the high school um Mr hazer focused on coming out of the gate you focused on algebra improvements of students um meeting or exceeding expectations and algebra jumped from 22.4 to 45% that is a huge increase in the number of students demonstrating proficiency we pretty much doubled it um we're only going to continue to grow from that and then in Geometry we saw an increase from 63.8% passing to 80.4 which is also really really strong and um or overall math proficiency rate um went up from 37% to 56.1% we've really been focusing a lot on math this year so we're we're anticipating that we're going to see um even better rates of growth when I report out in this data and October and then probably later in the year uh for next school year uh grade nine language arts spored really well on the State Testing um and Mr Haz was also very happy the number of students uh meeting or exceeding expectations in language arts went up from the target score which is 26.4 we saw 34.6 of our kids meeting are exceeding expectations and language arts and then um something that he pointed out I'm glad he dug this deep into the report we have 53 and a half% of our students in grades 11 and 12 enrolled in dual enrollment courses and a dual enrollment course allows you to earn college credits while you're taking High School classes it is a phenomenal thing um what he didn't include in here I think is really good too is over half of the kids in our school are taking AP classes uh and the passing rate on the AP tests I think was 71.4% um I have it in the in the larger report and then uh another just really small detail there too is uh the state average for students with IEPs taking at least one AP class is 4.5% pths average is over 20% that tells me that we're focused not only on making sure that students are achieving at a high level and passing the test but that more students have that opportunity to take AP courses and that's a huge Equity matter and it's incredibly important I did most of my dissertation about this um I'm I'm very very proud of that he didn't he didn't include the part about the U AP enrollment but I'm excited to talk about it um what do we need to address uh well we we need to increase our number of students who are meeting the Target in mathematics for our students with disabilities um he want he wants to see us what where we've remained consistent Ela performance ela's English language arts which is the most important content area um he wants to see an increase in that in terms of students meeting or exceeding expectations um something he included in there that that that almost hurt me was that the number of 10th and 11th grade students taking the PSAT was 73% which I I I I hard I have a hard time reconciling that that should be 100% um the PSAT is a phenomenal assessment whether you're taking the SAT is almost immaterial it's a really good assessment it gives you great learning data um this is something we really focused on when I came here as a teacher back in 2007 but we need to get the sophomore is taking that test um and it is a consequence-free environment you could get completely crushed on the test and doesn't matter um we just want to see where are you right now so that we can Target supports for you the junior year one there's a little more skin in the game could qualify for National Merit Scholarship money and it is leading into the first time you'll take the SAT for real yep have you have you looked at when that start excuse me when that started to decline was it all at once did you we seen a a few percentage Point dip each year-over-year you know I I I don't I don't know um and that's that's a great one we can look at is see the um participation level through the years we are going to make it so that sophomores and juniors can take the tests for free um so that that that can't be a factor that's inhibiting whether they take it we have the in school PSAT so it can't be oh I gotta come here on a Saturday I'm busy it's fall I'm playing football I'm playing soccer I'm Band Whatever might be so we want to make sure that all of them are taking it and working to the best of their abilities um I guess the working of the best with abilities is almost secondary um get them in there get them in their seat they'll take it seriously how can we find out why like why somebody chose not to we could survey the kid we survey him like a stressfree way just to say just listen no judgment I would think it has to do with sports some of it has to do with sports sports always been here I I I wouldn't be surprised um I'll be honest when I came here I started in this District as a teacher in 2007 and when I saw the 2006 PSAT data I think we had two or three sophomores take the PSAT I was like what and I came here from Northern Highlands in Bergen County um and we had almost 100% of sophomores taken the PSAT like it was just that was the culture you did that so we may have lost traction during covid and we have to regain it um and I don't want to I don't want to commit death by testing so I understand there has to be a limit to how much testing the kids do but this one's really really important and I think we need to reinforce that and really build that up um and then he he brought up this the state Science assessment which unfortunately the kids don't take terribly seriously but we want to make sure that they understand your names on it take it seriously perform to the best of your abilities and he he mentioned again chronic absenteeism which is below State average well below State average but still continues to impact student performance um and then in terms of strategies to build on strengths said continue our practice classroom walkthroughs for the focus on questioning and assessment practices in math point out that I'm turning the page on a one-page document um focus standards based writing instruction at uh at the grade nine level which I think is fantastic especially if we have standards aligned rubrics which helps students see that these are the things you need to be able to do as a young writer or as any kind of writer um we are as we discussed we're looking to modify the schedule um which will allow for more support time for students who need supplemental instruction and Ela and math as well as potentially other areas um he also included more of the vertical articulation which is where people in grades nine talk to people are teaching in grade 10 as well as teachers in grade eight you want to see that where they feel like they're connected um and then he also included something about offering sat and PSAT boot camps in October and March I'll take it one step further if you do one in August it's a great way to reach kids when they're coming back I know a lot of kids will hear that like oh way to wrap up the summer but um I used that I used to do that I used to offer sat courses last week in August and and it was a great way to help kids get get ready for what they're going to see whether PSAT or SAT but um overall my summary is that we have um a culture in this District of focusing on student achievement and really relentlessly supporting them for that um we need to address the absentee issue to be sure and we will do that in a positive and meaningful way and um I'm I'm I'm pleased with the outcomes here but certainly not content with them nor do I think anybody should be content with where they are there's always room for growth and we will achieve it that was a great report thank you anybody have any further questions on that you repeat that you want me to give the full four I just realized I talked for 40 minutes sorry about that I mean it's a very important topic and I'm sure that when uh the parents see the reports on the website they they're looking for some insight onto them so you gave them that so it's very good job okay next up is a CIS and we have two items for discussion APR s or Grant update and the curriculum writing process and uh Dr Sheridan gave me some prepared comments for this which will keep me well under the 40 minute Point um as far as the um the ARP Esser update uh as a result of the pandemic the federal government allocated money through a series of Grants three of them that were designed to address uh student learning gaps resulting from the pandemic with these funds we were able to host three summer learning acmis unfortunately those monies have now ended and as a result we will not be able to host summer learning Academy this year um hopefully this something we can reinstitute but we can't do it this year um we appreciate staff who taught during those sessions and we're pleased to provide additional support to those students who participated I'll put it out there too we also appreciate the kids who showed up and the parents who made sure that they showed up because I can imagine getting a teenager out of the house in July to go to school for math support probably is not the easiest thing in the world um and then from Dr Sheridan we will continue to look for ways to address learning gaps for all our students R targeted instructional practices and other potential grant opportunities such as the learning acceleration Grant SL learning acceleration program high impact tutoring grant for our grades three to four students and the reason it's grades three to four is that's what the state gave us the money for um we're finding that that that group that was in kindergarten uh when Co really blew up um that's the group that's struggling the most and so I'm glad that the state is is is channeling money to support kids who really really need the help any questions about that first item hey Dr poris uh the The Learning Academy is that's different than the uh extended school year program that that still is running yeah yeah the extended school year program is actually I um IEP or I well idea mandated but it's through the IP so we'll continue to have that that runs for I think 20 school days and that that's started July generally it's done by by the time August rolls around but that one's still in place yeah if we eliminated that I'd be in big trouble and rightly so and then there's also a note about the curriculum writing process um we want to take the opportunity to explain the curriculum writing and approval process involving the development approval and publication of curriculum um first we identify the guides that need revision or creation generally this is on a five-year cycle um sometimes you'll get a standards update that forces you to alter your trajectory or alter your plans um we very much appreciate those unfunded mandates from the state it's irony we we really don't but um we we we make sure that we're in compliance with with whatever rolls out but we do have a plan in place for when to review and revise and the second thing is we we seek out writers we do this through soliciting them through emails through the staff updates and also there's a hard copy posted in each school on that second part is actually part of the collective bargaining agreement first part is just really good practice the wrers are then approved during an action meeting I think we've got a handful of them coming up at the second meeting in April um along with the agreed amount generally depending on the complexity of the writing if it's a simple revision you might see three days um if it's a little more involved you might see six and then the actual creation could be anywhere from five to 10 days um and something I will say I think that Dr Sharon's done a nice job with is she she's expanded the amount of time that she's giving people to write the curriculum um which I think helps to get more people interested in doing it sometimes I I used to write curriculum you would be given five days to write it and it would take you 80 hours but you did it because it needed to get done and you wanted it done well um then fourth when the when the guide is submitted to the director of curriculum instruction it will be reviewed once satisfied the director will Download a pdf of the course for board approve Board review something that's not stated there too but it's also in the proc supervisors are reviewing it as they go so they make sure it's a good copy before it goes to the director then five once satisfied the board will notify the director and the guide will appear on the agenda for final approval subsequent publication to the district curriculum blueprint page publication will most often be during the summer for the upcoming school year and only in very unusual circumstances will a curriculum be published during the school year and replace the one currently used you try to avoid that because it looks like you're changing the rules after the game is started thank you I appreciate that any question on uh CIS all right moving on to FFA four discussion items two rfps one for the district attorney and the other for the auditor and then live streaming and the uh reconditioning of the baseball and softball field the uh RFP for the school district's attorney uh went out on March 28th and this evening before the board meeting the board interviewed four um law firms um and a decis decision will be made and approved at the um the uh May 13th board meeting excuse me the April 29th board meeting the RFP for the school's auditor that was advertised and the we're expecting to have the proposals back by April 18th and that will be put on the May 13th board meeting for approval there was two topics that I um asked Gordon about earlier the week um I was approach and told that we were live streaming the outdoor uh Sports I mean other than the turf field the uh ball fields um turns out that we are not but that there is actually a student who um has his own channel and has cover some of the home game two home softball games um and will do as many as he could in his uh in his time and um in terms of the ball field reconditioning that originally was going be scheduled like right when school was ending but now because of weather conditions it has to start in September which doesn't ma matter there's no full Sports on there anyway and um the it helps the sod take and all that so that'll be I'm excited to have the ball fields redone and that'll start in September okay any questions on that so I'm sorry are we looking to live stream the sports or it was just somebody with a student was doing it just to do do it yeah I I just asked because I want to know if it was part of our original agreement if we're paying more and he said I G advised that we're not um we're not entering into any agreement just it's just a student that's doing it which is pretty cool yeah it's really nice yeah the student he did a whole bunch of hockey games in the in the winter season too he's really good it it was a lot of fun listening to him I'll put it out there that he'll be at Montclair State next year so he's not going terribly far um so if if there is interest in live streaming a few of the generally not live streamed events um perhaps an agreement can be reached I'm not going to look to my left because this is not in the budget and I know Mr Gibbs is probably gonna be quite irritated with me but just something to consider what was the name of the channel again yeah tjk sorry tjk Network yes awesome that he does that yeah okay next item is policy we have no discussion items but we do have uh a slew of policies that'll be up for second reading and adoption next month if anyone wants to discuss them yeah these were uh these all came to a previous workshop and then we did first reading so unless there's something new that has come up I think they've been discussed to the extent they're necessary to discuss these were pretty compliance heavy all right moving on board effectiv this committee um so two items to discuss Tim is not here so I'll take it um so the goal of the board one of our stated goals is to achieve Carol lson Master board certification we've we've received our board certification now we are endeavoring to achieve Master board certification which means that within the next two years after you receive board certification you have to take 10 more credits 10 more hours of uh board training as a team along with the superintendent to uh receive that certification so what I've done is and I sent this out to uh the board is to lay out a schedule of which meetings going forward uh that we will receive this training at and one aspect of this that's difficult to uh to plan is we need to have training given to us by the ngba so we need to have Charlene Peterson come to one of our meetings and since she covers a wide area she's highly in demand so that being stated uh the next meeting 4:29 we will have board training uh the meeting on 528 we will have board training the meeting on 610 we will have have board training and the meeting on we will have our summer Retreat on 812 and then we'll have another our last board training session will be 9:16 and this will put us from where we are now to where we'll be in September at 11 credits so we will be able to get what would we' be able to accomplish in two years done in one year and the main reason why I want to do this this year is because um I want this board as it is right now to achieve that certification um I think that this board's worked very hard and started the process of the first certification and I think it's only right that this board finishes it as a whole and uh I know that Miss Dempsey you're not going to be running for reelection and I do not want somebody else to sit in the picture to receive the certification that you should receive so we are going to finish this this year because that's that's the right thing to do and it's the proper thing to do and you certainly have earned it and you deserve it um so the reason why I bring this up is because I want to make sure that everyone can mark their calendars because there is a certain amount of board members that need to be present for the training for the training to count um so again wanted to put it out there plan and I wanted everyone to be aware of what dates we're going to need schu what dates we have training on and we can talk about what we'll train on at those meetings but this is the plan so if anyone has any questions on it or comments I'd be the only comment I'm going to have is 528 we now off is that a meeting can we still meet we we could still meet that night yes we could meet I mean yeah we can meet I just want to make sure you know I don't want to speak for everybody but for all away are you going to be home by 7 o'clock on Tuesday night I'm saying if you were going away you're going away for the weekend you you know yeah I'm fine with that I just want to make sure that we can have a meeting even though school's close yeah no we we can still and besides I'm gonna tell my wife I'm going to work that day anyway so I'll be here anybody else all right so the second point of me passing out the schedule and I know you guys are just thrilled to hear me talk about this um is to plan the CSA evaluation process as well as to plan the board self- evaluation process so the schedule that the committee laid out opens the CSA evaluation process in May and it's tied to board meetings but it doesn't necessarily have to be tied to board meetings so the process will open up after Dr poris submits his uh evidence of the growth and his evidence to his progress towards his goals once he submits that which he will do by may we will then open up the CSA evaluation chief School administrator evaluation to each one of you guys as we do every year and then we'll expect that back from you by June then in June we will meet to have a conference and summarize what we think is our action plan or our recommendations to Dr poris um and then we will present that to him once that's completed at the end of June we will then open up the board educ the board self evaluation that we did last year once again and we will complete that in July but before our summer retreat in August so that we can then discuss it and the portion of uh that evaluation in that uh Retreat will be towards our goals and how we're doing towards the goals that we set at the beginning of the year so anybody have any questions on that I I do uh more of a more of a old business new business but not year that year statement um last year we talked about putting together some sort of board rubric for doing the CSA um evaluation I would really like for us to do that before we actually sit down to fill it out so we're really talking apples to apples not apples to oranges amongst ourselves if we could maybe set you know time aside at a workshop meeting prior to that yeah that's a good point and I think we could probably have Charlene Peterson provide training on how to do that certification right and maybe we can talk to her about that and then we could develop it before we start so absolutely great thank you you might anybody else okay uh that brings us to our next opportunity for public comment uh at this portion of the meeting uh members of the public can speak for a maximum period of five minutes about any topic that they wish and if a member does raise a question please direct it to the board president and state your name and sign in before you begin good evening my name is Janelle Macwan 32 William Street Panic first I'd like to congratulate Sophia kutcha she's in my daughter's class and I've known her since kindergarten so kudos to Sophia clutcher um the other thing is directed to yes the board president but more or less to Dr poris about something that I brought up several times about the homework free weekend that has implemented in the town that I work in um I truly thought it would have started back in March last month and it still hasn't um so I'm wondering where we are with that with stigma free and that homework free weekend and then I would like to address the board to please come out and see the um musical Beauty and the Beast my daughter is in the show I'm not gonna say who she is in the show but please come out to come see Beauty and the Beast thank you I will say Miss be I am planning to go to see Beauty and the Beast I do not know who your daughter is but I'm sure I'll be floored by her performance and it'll be great all right I will uh John asan uh high school music parents um our Winter Guard performed in uh barnegate uh this past weekend they took first place and um had their highest score of the Season by 10 points so hopefully they can carry that into their championships uh this Sunday in Trenton indoor percussion um persevered through a tough season all new student leadership new staff leadership and congratulations to them on a on a great season uh Mr strier took his concert band uh class to perform in the New Jersey state concert band festival at hanova Park High School um and he was extremely proud to share at our our parents meeting um it was the first gold rating by a group uh from this school in history and he was especially proud because his is a an open concert band class where a lot of the other groups ensembles performing are from these Regional Schools with four music teachers and audition wind orchestras and you know all all types of competitive group so he was really proud of his kids uh there um Beauty and the Beast Tech rehearsals begin tomorrow in this room so this is more to the Menace in the back of the room but we're just looking for minimal manipulation to the lighting uh sound system setup and things like that um until the shows are complete and I'm sure Mr Schultz knows all that but i' just like to put that on record as well well uh because they'll be working for five six hours a night until the end of the show uh Dr poris already announced the show dates um I did have a question about the the fields being redone um come the fall I just wanted to know which Fields those were on the on the property here uh just to pass that along to the the marching van staff they do do a lot of their drill prce practices out there so if they if we have to set them up somewhere else we'll paint lines somewhere else and then uh there was a question at the end of the or comment at the end of the the last meeting uh regarding marching band alumni parents uh searching out um donations from from that contingent and we have uh a very strong uh support from our alumni parents many of [Music] them I guess you could say inherited sort of like an administrative fee somewhere in their time here and they've just continued to pay that I mean some of the names I don't even recognize that's how long that they've just been you know giving back uh to to the to the program and then a lot of parents also donate starter money for our big fundraisers like the home show our tricky treay things of that nature just to to get the ball rolling so parents aren't pulling money out of their pockets to to get the fundraisers rolling type of thing okay because we pay for all the programs and right all their things they're doing anyway but right thanks how much are the tickets for Beauty and the Beast students for adults okay and do you have can you pre-order them or you at the door they're on our store they're at your store yeah they're on our on my store okay thank you yeah just answer your question about the field it's just going to be the baseball field and the softball field like no they're they're regrading the baseball and the softball field to provide proper drainage they're not doing the Outfield right that's that's because you guys are in the Outfield field they March in the Outfield where the field hockey and soccer sometimes practice right okay all right than thank you can I just have a quick question followup sorry I apologize when it says that you have a maintenance Reserve account for panic Valley um School the Middle School my question is what is that money going towards at the middle school as far as maintenance that covers all aspects of Maintenance in the school including boilers Windows whatever the school may need and that's approved every year around November through What's called the M1 form and that's approved by the state and um it's required you it's required maintenance okay right uh so just a Qui quick response I I shared the congratulations sopia pretty interesting her daughter whose name I'm not allowed to say out loud um was part of my first kindergarten class at at Hillview so there's a lot of meeting there they're currently sophomores um as far as the question directed to me about the homework weekend yep we're looking to do one I am not going to tell you the date yet because I have to tell the staff first um when I first rolled it out three of the schools were completely indifferent to the idea we're like do it anytime but that's the elementaries um for the high school I'm Not Gon we can't do one between now and the aps unless we have it almost like a cast system where kids who taking APS have homework and kids who don't not have homework and I to me that seems a touch counterintuitive so um we're going to clear the APS and then um we do have a weekend in place I just want to make sure the staff is aware of it before I announced to the public it's bad practice to tell the public first and then staff second which I've learned these things as most things are learned the hard way yep um and then certainly agree with the encouragement to see buting the Beast and I believe it's a s o'clock performance on Thursday 7 o'clock on Friday three o'clock on Saturday excellent and I like I looked over to both you for affirmation and I got it that's good um and then as far as the the performances um happy to hear the kids are doing great I mean the winter the Winter Guard going to barnegate and then to Trenton I hope I hope they're uh they're getting mileage credit for that because that's some some pretty far drives but that's it's really fantastic um I love hearing about um how we're performing in these State competitions I feel like um anybody who really likes the movie hooers kind of feels like we're the Hickory of the marching band world and small school that just keeps achieving at a at a really large level um one thing just a quick update about the lights um Don Harrison from our maintenance department was working up on the lights today um with Mr Arnold Mr Arnold was at ground level Mr Harrison was up there um but getting direction about about the lights so um point I understand they put about 90 minutes in and feel really confident that everything's lined up and should be in really good place as far as field reconditioning Mr senic answered it much better than I would have so I'm happy that he answered um and I'm glad to hear that the alumni parents feel that connection as well um that speaks volumes about your program When people's kids graduate out and they still feel compelled to be a part of it means it it really resonates deeply with them I'm not surprised but I just wanted to reinforce I think that's great okay moving on to unfinished business any board member have any unfinished business so I have just in like casual conversations discovered that people who are not as embedded in the school start time issue as those of us at this table are still not entirely aware that of the details of what's happening in September and the potential schedule changes that you were actually speaking about tonight with the reinforcement block at the middle school so I was just curious what our communication plan is like on a very large scale beyond the I know we've done a lot of informative sessions and we've talked about it at these meetings a lot but for the audience that is not paying attention to those things when and how are we getting that out yeah and um we're we're working on refining the final uh pieces of the high school schedule we're trying to ensure that we have something that um honors the existing collective bargaining agreement um and also provides the best possible learning experiences for our kids um I've actually created I I I would think I think about 14 different schedules that that fall under that umbrella in varying degrees but um timeline that we're looking at because we really do have to get it out there is um probably within the next two weeks um schedule a um parent University and that would be something with a staggered time so we do a 6:30 um PV schedule parent University and then a 7 o'clock for the high school the high school one will probably take about an hour it sounds like I'm making a dig at Mr hazler for talking long but I'm not the high school one is much more involved PV one is a little more straightforward and a little simple the high school one involves actually moving the start time back by by 36 minutes um we're also going to have podcasts to accompany that because I I've I've heard that I am the latest sensation in the podcasting world that's not that that's not really true but we find that that is an effective way to be able to communicate the message out we'll do one for the for the middle school and for the high school so where we are with the the high school schedule probably I'd say about 97 98% of the way done um and I want to get it presented so if it does change I I think we'll present it with the caveat of subject to minor tweaks Minor Adjustments but the Integrity of it is is in place but yeah we we'll make sure we get the word out um if anybody's tuning in um we're going to start the high school later next year which is no like I'm not even kidding though so and I appreciate all of that for the details but even just like in the email that goes out every week starting it with don't forget school will be starting at 8:05 in September or whatever time honestly like I the top of my head I was like wait I don't know what the time is like one sentence to the people who will only read eight sentences so they know because the I mean we know the attendance of parent universities is low I think your podcast is is broadcasting phenomenally around the world world but just for those who aren't watching like yeah well as I made a reference in my most recent one from Friday I think I have tens and tens of followers so yeah yeah yeah so you know neck and day just so the other 1500 families are aware anybody else any UNF finished business I got one thing um I should probably should have said it under the uh board effess committee item but um we are working on uh the board updates and the board uh progress updates that we want to see from Dr poris so I did take the information that I solicited from all of you I give it to Dr poris and uh Dr poris is working on putting that into a schedule format that we can then bring back to all of us and we could comment on so expect to see that in the next couple of months that's it any new business board member announcements I'll share I went to um pts National Honor Society ceremony it was amazing um congratulations to all those students and their you know their high achievement um but it was a beautiful ceremony really enjoyed it um that's it I was uh wanted to share that I was graciously invited uh on March 28th to speak to the Allied Health seniors uh not for being a board ofed member but before my uh day job uh in the medical device industry um I focused on medical devices that are used actually we did it here in this room a Hands-On presentation on medical devices that are used in the cardiac cathop space uh and in spite of it being the last day prior to spring break the seniors were very engaged uh had lots of great questions some of them funny some of them very serious um and I did it to two different groups and I have to compliment both groups because the second group was about five minutes before the pep rally uh and I was shocked that they asked even one question uh to my very boring presentation but I I wanted to thank the students for their engagement and the teachers uh for setting it up and giving me the time and I P that's in uh this could have been unfinished business but uh I met with the few reps from pomptonian during the HSA president meeting that we had this morning we we meet monthly and they had asked if they meet with the HSA to get a sense for how things are going talk about what they're doing and also try to get ideas for how they can Dr up more interest in the Food Service it a very very positive experience um we're really trying to help them partner with the home school associations for ongoing two-way communication I know complaints should get directed to Mr Gibbs rightly so but um in terms of ideas I really want to see a really fluid exchange of ideas between parents um as well as the Food Service they're very receptive to it and I did let them know that we're going to use the same survey that we used earlier in this year um when we had a different organization here and use the same exact questions to to get a sense for how the community feels about uh food service right now just two other quick things um for anybody who celebrates today is Patriots Day so if you lived in Massachusetts or Maine you wouldn't be in school today had the day off um but I made sure where my my blue and yellow for the Boston Marathon of course the Red Sox lost but that's just details details um and then for anybody was wondering about my my finger injury from the PB Hoops game um I I got it taped up I was doing okay um I'm supposed to rest it which I didn't do but um it was all worth it because the staff won um against the PV students in the basketball game so I suffered for my art but it was worth it and hopefully you got a higher advantage in that one but so I I have a couple uh announcements first I listened to your I listen to your latest podcast with the students reviewing 1984 um I should say I I watched it I didn't listen to it that one was very interesting to watch as opposed to listen to because you could see the engagement and I was it was probably one of the best ones um because it involved the students but they were very insightful I was I was very impressed so I thought that was a really good one um on 324 I intended the eagle scout ceremony for Jacob gock in Nathaniel cyfield uh Jacob installed the informational kiosk at the bench at the Panic historical rail station and Nathaniel refurbished the grounds in front of PB around the panther ceremony was great I know you guys all remember we honored them previously at a board meeting but I told them again how proud We were of them and I urged them to be a continued example to others so again congratulations to both Jacob and to Nathaniel on 43 I attended another Master Class given by the njs on board leadership and this was the fourth of five classes I attended the topic for this class was Ai and how districts are starting to plan to adopt policy to guide its use so I figur that'd be something we can talk about in the future um and once the meeting materials are put out I'll give them to everyone so they could start to uh look over them overall it's a very interesting series there's one more to go in uh May uh last on 411 I attended the veterans wall committee I'm part of that committee with Mr Bloomer uh at that meeting we discussed uh subcontractor Scopes now that we're starting to get donations and the progress of the donations um we started to talk about how we can allocate those donations to certain Scopes to make sure that we get a complete project and I have to say the generosity of the quic once again is unmatched and the uh the amount of donations and the things that we're getting from people is just really impressive so thank you for that just want to acknow well first I want to say that we are ahead of the ball on the AI policy thing because we put that into policy I believe it was last summer so who knows to us um April is autism acceptance month and I know some of the schools were doing different activities around that so I just wanted to show appreciation to staff members and students who are participating in those um and also the New Jersey State Board of Education had passed a resolution recognizing April as school library month in New Jersey so thank you to all of our school media Specialists and Librarians who are keeping great books in the hands of our kids and doing amazing other things beyond that like teaching them how to use AI effectively and all sorts of technology and information literacy skills all right uh we do have a reason to go into executive session tonight we will discuss student matters no action will be taken we will journ from there our next meeting is April 29th at the high school and that meeting will feature a presentation on our budget for the next school year as well as training for the board Master certification I spoke about earlier uh is there a motion to go into executive session motion is there a second second all in favor I any opposed good night everyone