Okay, good afternoon everybody. Um, notice is hereby given that in accordance with the open public meetings act chapter 231, the laws of 1975, notice that this meeting has been sent to all school offices, officially designated newspapers filed with the township clerk
and posted in the board of education office 48 hours in advance of this meeting. Roll call, please. Certainly. Mrs. Auror, here. Mrs. Austin, here. Mrs. Burkowitz, here. Mrs. Pinterelli here. Mrs. Sande here. Mr. White here.
Mr. Rosini, I'm here. Flag salute. Do we have a flag somewhere? Well, that's it. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all. Okay. Um, good enough. Um so with regard to my report um all I just a couple of things. First is it seems that the school year has uh gotten
off very nicely from everything that I hear and that everything I've seen um which is terrific. Um and I mean it continues to go on nicely. the um happy to be back in our newly renovated board
of ed um meeting meeting room as well as the meeting room for a lot of other functions. It looks great. We have a nice beautiful screen. So, that's terrific too. Um and u I don't have anything else to add
other than um hope everybody uh stayed dry yesterday. It was a good day um to be inside. Um, that's it and we'll move on to the committee reports, buildings and grounds. Mr. White, I have nothing for this evening. Thank you.
Communications and policies. Mrs. Burkowitz. Hi. Good evening. Yes, we just had a meeting prior to this meeting and the committee reviewed a bunch of uh policies and regulations. Um, mostly just housekeeping. Is that better? Sorry. Mostly just
housekeeping. um some it uh items minor revisions um mostly adding just responsibilities of onto the wording of some of the uh uh policies and then I'm also happy to announce that um we are abolishing
recordkeeping for healthcare for CO 19. So that policy has been abolished. Um and then in addition we reviewed um and got got some updates regarding the communications. We um have a new website which will be launching soon and I would
like to thank Mr. Ogara and his crew for the tremendous hard work that has been put into that. Um, we also are going to be launching a new district app, which will be a great way for all of our school community to stay up todate with
newsletters and information, important dates and so forth like that. Um, and as everyone has also seen, our principles have um all have new eblasts uh templates as well that have been started last year which have been amazing. And then lastly, I do want to share each
school also has um Instagram pages and you to make sure you follow your school's Instagram page. The handles for each one is the school's name. So, for example, Woodside um Riverbell Schools. So, check out the Instagram pages because they are amazing as well. So,
that's all I've got. Terrific. Thank you. Um Mrs. Sande, curriculum and technology. Um no updates this evening. Mrs. Pinterelli, finance. Nothing for tonight. Um, I have nothing to add for
negotiations. Mrs. Asuror, personnel, nothing to report tonight. Okay, terrific. Thank you. Please take note of the committee meeting schedule. And now I'm going to move on to the public comments on agenda items only. I will uh advise the public of the following. The Riverdale Board of
Education is committed to encouraging the citizens of Riverville and employees of the Riverale School District to speak directly to board trustees. In order to facilitate this communication, residents and employees are requested one to sign in before speaking, two to maintain an appropriate sense to decorum and three
to limit their remarks to no more than five minutes. The board will also take under advisement the written comments and opinions of non-residents that are submitted to the board secretary, being mindful of its responsibility to maintain the orderly conduct of meetings. The board retains the right to rule on such matters as the speaker's
right to address the board as well as the appropriateness of the subject being presented. The board's decision in such matters is final. Um, the board also reminds all members of the public that while it subscribes without reservation to the principle of keeping the community informed by policy and law, it cannot allow public discussion of
personnel matters, nor can trustees comment on any current or pending litigation. If a matter concerning an employee of the Riverville public schools is of interest or concern to a resident, the matter should refer should be referred to the responsible building principal or the superintendent of schools by telephone, letter, or email.
Now, this is regard to agenda items only, public comments. The same rule will apply later on when we speak on general items. Um, when that comes up at the end of the meeting, um, I'm not going to reread this. So, um, I'm going to open the meeting uh to the public on
agenda items only at uh 7:06. Is there anyone who'd like to make a comment on something on the agenda? Okay, seeing nobody who wants to make a comment on something on the agenda, I'm going to close this at 7:06 and move on to Mrs. Senor's report, the
superintendent's report. Okay, thank you very much. Good evening, everybody. Uh, the first thing I want to do is I want to thank the staff for helping us prepare for CUAC. Uh, public schools are monitored every three years in several areas including instruction and programming, fiscal management,
governance, operations, and personnel. It's a lengthy undertaking. It requires uh document collection from all departments, all of the schools, and I am very proud to report that we have been designated as a high-erforming district, and the resolution for that is
on tonight's agenda for the board to approve. Furthermore, tonight is our district assessment report that is presented by our supervisor of curriculum, Kim Dowling. Those of you who have tuned in to our presentations in previous years may know that we truly do look forward
to presenting this. Um, the state does require school districts to present their NJSL results every year. However, we do take this as an opportunity to go above what is required. We present a much larger picture on how our students are performing, not just on the NJSLA
mandated uh test, but we also compare results to several internal assessments that we use as well. We typically look at a three-year window so that we can get a better understanding of how our students are doing. We also look for trends so that we can set instructional
goals and be really intentional about the professional development that we offer. However, this year we always add a little extra and so we did have we have some areas that we're looking at a four-year uh snapshot which I will leave
to Miss Dowling later on to be able to share with you. And um Kim really, you know, she really is amazing at how she takes our data and she analyzes it and she sets these instructional goals. She ensures that the professional development and that the teacher support
is lined up perfectly so that it is doing the intended impact that we want for our students. And so her work along with the collaboration of our administrative team and thank you some of them are able to be with us tonight. I appreciate you guys being here. And then of course along with our teachers
who also have the tough job of then implementing all of that every day in their classrooms. um that is really what gives us the results that we get and um really makes us proud, at least makes me very proud to to be the superintendent
here. And as always, it would not be um a district assessment report if Miss Don did not have some surprises up her sleeve for you tonight in her presentation. So, I will turn it over to her at this time. Thank you very much and good evening. I
am very excited about this evening. My bubble was just burst a little bit though when Mr. Kirkby was talking about Park Ridge and some walkup songs. So maybe next year I will have to do that and I'll have to have a walk up song for next year and you can help me choose it.
Uh no, in all seriousness I am very excited to share our data today. We title this the power of data because that's really what this presentation is about. It's not about just the numbers and how our students have performed. It's about what we do with it and not just myself but our consultants and
really our teachers for implementation and it is um a really exciting time. We're going to talk about the real data. We're going to talk about the areas to celebrate and we're going to talk about the areas that's not always uh you know sunshine and rainbows and where we're going to focus on for this year because
that's what you have to do and ask those uh questions when you're looking at data. Last spring was uh or 2025 marked the fifth administration of NJSLI ELA math and science and all of our students in grades 3 through 8 took ELA and math and
our students in grade five and 8 took the science assessment. So that's what we're going to be perform uh per that's what we are going to be talking about tonight. We begin with our vision. Our vision here in Rivervale is not just about looking at one piece of data. one piece
of data, the NJSLA is one tiny snip of your students um NJSLA or educational profile. We look at NJSLA here. We also look at Ames web and link it and in-class assessments and informal,
excuse me, informal and formal assessments. We take the whole picture of every single child so we can individualize instruction and personalize learning. We have spent the last three years really spending a lot of time on PD with our staff in this
designating appropriate times during the day for DDI periods in grades K through 8 and really allowing time for our teachers to discuss with their colleagues as to what might be best about the curriculum. We've had consultants come in. We've had new
standards in every content area that you can imagine and new ones coming soon uh from the state because they they always like to change things every five years. But we've been doing the hard work. Um we also like uh pride ourselves on allowing our students to show us that they know things that they their
knowledge base in diverse ways. It's not just standardized assessments. It's not just in-class assessments. We allow presentations and portfolios and labs uh because we recognize that not all students perform great on assessments and that they might need to be able to
show that their knowledge in different ways. So, we're going to talk a little bit about that today. Some of the other ways that we allow our students to do that is through link benchmarks, our progress monitoring tools, which we implemented a few years ago. Dibbles literacy screener. um our families of
our students in grades K through three did receive information on this this year. Um actually in August, a little bit before that, we found out that the state had um a new mandate out that all students in grades K through three uh would be assessed using a universal
literacy screener that the state has approved. So, we are going to be using dibbles and our students in those grades are going to be um having that assessments implemented in three times in the fall, the winter and the spring and parents will be receiving hard copies of those reports after their
their kids take that. The first one is um going to be happening in the next couple of weeks. We are still using our big ideas benchmarks, TC reading assessments, exit tickets, tests, quizzes, exams, labs, plays, and performance-based
assessments. The NGSLA performance levels have not changed. There's still levels one through five. Um, level one meet being not yet meeting grade level expectations all the way through level five, which is exceeding expectations. What we would like to see our students be is on the
right hand column in green um which is either level four meeting or level five of exceeding. Okay, these are our 2025 outcomes for mathematics. You'll see in grades three all the way through algebra 1. You'll
notice that we are consistently and significantly above the state. We still remain above the state. And on this slide is where you really get to see those numbers and trends and and analysis. I'm going to stand up here just so you can see. We look at data
across grade levels and we also look at data with those cohort of kids and longitudinally because we want to see how they're performing over the last few years for that those spe those specific students. A couple of areas that we've spent a lot of time and if you remember from last year's district assessment
report specifically in mathematics we've spent a lot of time with our teachers in the middle school with supporting them looking at the curriculum what has changed what we need to spend more time on very targeted and specific PD around standards that we've identified as areas
for growth which we'll talk about a little bit later but you'll notice those students coming in in grade four they were 76 six. Grade five, we did see that dip, but grade six, we went back up. And you'll be able to see across that grade
level also the increase from 2023 to 2025 from 59 all the way to 70. This is an incredible increase um from professional development on our staff and we are very proud of them. Also look at grade seven. Another area that we focus on not only on the grade level
which is a curricular for me. I look at that and that's curricularly but also for that cohort of students from last year 64% to this year 73% of students met or exceeded expectations. Again, grade 8 and algebra 1 is tough
because we have half of our students taking algebra 1, the other half taking um the grade 8 assessment. But when you average the two out, we're about 71% which is a 10% increase from last year from 61%. So, a lot of growth happening
um in the areas that we spent a lot of time last year um in our classrooms with our consultants and with our teachers. To be very honest, I was a little bit nervous about seeing the ELA scores this year. Not because I was worried that they were not going to be good. I knew
that they were, but our students did so well in the NJSLA, the spring assessment of 2024. I was worried how much growth can you possibly have when your scores are so high. Um and our students did it again. We are significantly um above the state
as you can see um in all of our grade levels. But the two areas that I really want to highlight here are grade six and grade seven. Look at the exceeding expectations. half of our kids are exceeding
expectations in those two grade levels um for ELA. That's incredible numbers to have half of the population being exceeding. Um so that's an area that we are um incredibly proud of as well. We also want to show you the three-year
analysis, the trend analysis for ELA. Again, I was a little bit like how can we can how can we grow so much? Our numbers are so high. But we we've we've seen growth or around statistically equal. We like consider one two percentage points statistically equal here. But we did see growth going from
grade three to grade four. 77 to 83 about the same here. 88 to 84. Um you know there's really nowhere else to go here but very high scores uh for our grade four students. But look at this.
grade five to grade six 75% to 87%. That is a incredibly large increase of students meeting and exceeding. Um our students from six to six to 7 maintained 85% and we did go up a little bit from
um 7 to 8 this year about one percentage point about statistically equal. But look at the grade level. The grade level went from 71% to 81%. Now, I do want you to understand that this is our teachers working with our students. We had teachers reach out to my office at the
end of last year saying, "Can we please come in?" Over the summer, we they implemented new ELA curriculum. Last year, they said, "Some things worked and some things didn't. We have to change a few things. Can we please come in? Can we review some things? Can we change up the curriculum? Can we move when we
teach things in some of our resources that we use?" Because they want kids to succeed. It's not about teaching to the test. It's about teaching standards and our kids are meeting and exceeding them and we're incredibly proud of where our numbers are. The next few slides, if you'll remember
from the last presentations, our subgroup analysis. I'm not going to go through each one of these slides individually for you. Um, but if you would like to read them, um, you can at your leisure. This will be up on the website tomorrow. Um, so you can go
through all of them. They are by content and by grade level. And then there's two slides for district level and they just uh they go through all of our subgroups and how they performed on each assessment. Science.
Science is the one assessment where we get next to nothing from the state. Um I thought maybe this year would be the year that we would get a little bit more but uh unfortunately fortunately we have not. Um but we're still hoping that maybe next year will be the year that
the state gives us a little bit um that we can use for this assessment. The areas tested has not changed um as it has in the past. Earth and space, life and physical and the science and engineering practices for the NJSLS and science as
well. The performance levels are a little bit different in science than they are for ELA and math. There's not five performance levels, there's four. um and they range from below proficient to advanced proficiency, but levels three and four um are considered proficient. So level three is
proficient, level four is that advanced. So that's where we really like to see um our students, our students in grade five, we're at 51.3%. Um and that might you might look at that and say, "Wow, that's not that's not super high." Um but the state's average
is 30. So, we're actually doing pretty well compared to the state, but we're not we're not complacent there. We're still um implementing lots of different strategies with our staff to try to increase these scores, not even having anything from from the state, but we're
looking at the standards and saying, how can we teach these standards better? We're not looking at we don't get evidence reports um from NJSLA, but we are looking at our link analysis and our in-class assessments to see how we can um improve instruction in these areas. But it looks like we're doing we're
doing pretty well um compared to this state. Same with grade 8. Um we're at 37% which is about where we typically are against the 19% of the state. Um where we're talking you know 1500 or so
kids. So we are 18 percentage points above that state above the state. We're still um infusing our spiraled curriculum at the middle school. So last year was for grade six. This year we're implementing grade seven and next year
we're going to be um implementing in grade eight. That spiraled curriculum, we're hoping our students seeing those spiral standards, it'll help with retention um and hopefully we will see uh increase in not only scores but also on mastery of standards.
These this is a trend analysis. So you see we're we are increasing um continuously increasing in grade five um and in grade 8. We did see a little bit a dip of a dip this year but again we are spiraling. So we would expect to see that um when you see when you implement
a new curriculum. Okay. This year on opening day, we changed things up a little bit and Melissa did an interactive uh presentation with the staff and this was one of the slides uh taken directly from that presentation because we wanted to
see how many of our staff members knew or could guess the increase of our scores over the last few years. So the first question was what was the growth since year 2122 in ELA? the four-year analysis. Does anybody who
was not on the curriculum and technology committee want to take a wild guess what you think it might be? Oh, come on. Someone I know you were there. Somebody at the meeting.
All right. All right. All right. You're all very quiet tonight. Very quiet. Okay. 14 percentage points since 2021, right after a pandemic. So after a pandemic, our students have increased and not only increased but increased
substantially over over our entire district. So progress not per not perfection. That's what we always say, little bits of progress. And Miss Dling, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I did go back and confirm for the county the
average was 3% in ELA and we're at 14% and the county uh average for math is 5%. Okay. And we were at six from 2021 coming off of a pandemic. This was one of the other questions we
had in the presentation. I mean somebody answer what percentage of growth did our middle school only middle school only hold see in math since 202122 school year there are no wrong answers here. Okay,
take a guess. All right, thank you. Art Art says 11. Anyone else? All right, let's say 37%. See, you would have been right if you said it. 37% since 2021 over four years.
And you'll see our charts over here. These are what we get from linkit. And when they send us our five-year navigator analysis, 37% increase from grades six, seven, and eight in math since 2021.
That is targeted and intentional PD on standards that we have identified. Not my just myself, our consultants and most importantly our staff. We are getting them excited about data. I promise that they are. A few years ago
when we started talking about data and how to use it, I would get eye rolls and oh god. But now when we meet with the staff and we meet with the grade levels, they want to tear it apart. They're excited, which really excites me because I, you know, you know, I love that. But
they want to go through it. They want to see not only the good, but they also want to see where we can all be better because that's the goal, right? The goal is to always be better than we were the day before, the month before, the year before. So, these are the areas that we are excited about that we are celebrating as
a district. um our ELA 85 87 81 and those 49% of students um exceeding those are incredible numbers um and we're hoping uh that we will be able to see numbers like that next year and we'll explain why we're not sure about that in
a little bit. Data is just numbers unless you ask questions about it and questions to reflect them. So we ask questions all the time but not only us, our staff is asking questions. They're looking at the evidence reports. They're looking at PD. They're creating PLC's together. They're
look um doing tiered supports in their classrooms with DDI. Our principles are helping them. They're giving them this time to do that in at their faculty meetings and during team time. We are using the science reports, the little bit that we actually get um to create DP
PD on linkit. New meridian is something that we have used in the past which has questions about NJSLA and I'll talk a little bit about that um later on as to why that might be changing and we're infusing language into instruction um and assessments. Not only are we
spiraling the curriculum, but teachers are spiraling regular content in their classrooms. I was in a classroom recently with a teacher who for their do now was spiraled from the beginning of the year even though we're only in October. And that teacher was saying for the do now they do spiraled questions
for the entire year. So the students are continuously looking at what they've already learned to help with retention. Um things that we've been talking about. We're still departmentalized in science in grades four and five as well. The DM is an assessment um where some of
our special education students uh do take this assessment. And again this is advanced all the way to emerging levels. We had some students take this. We had 11 total students take the DLM in grades 3 through 8 in the spring, but due to
FERPA protections, we did not have 10 or more students on a grade level take this assessment. So, we will not be reporting out on scores. Similarly, uh we did do this in uh present out on this in August. If you were listening to our August meeting, um
we did have students take the WEDA assessment for our ESL learners. And that assessment runs from six to reaching to one um all the way down to one for emerging. And we consider students who get a score of 4.5 or greater. We consider them for exiting
the program. But again, we only had six total students complete this assessment. So we will not be reporting out on these scores as well because of FURPA protections. Okay, this is the fun stuff. The goal, we talked about this last year that
student success is always our goal. It remains our goal. It's everyone's goal. We all have the same goal in this room or else we wouldn't be in education and we wouldn't be here talking about it. Student success is the goal. We talked about developing a plan.
We said we have to analyze data. We have to really tear it apart. We need to ask questions about it. We need to say why did this happen? Why did my students do so well on this standard but not on the other st not on this standard when I know I taught it 45 times? We went over
this. Why are my why did my students not perform well on it? And we provided support. We made sure that our teachers didn't feel like we're giving this to you. we're giving you something and we're not going to support you. We're going to leave you and hang you out to drive for you to figure it
out on your own. That is not how we roll here. Uh we continue to invest time when we implement a new a new curriculum, a new resource, we go through it. We talk about what how we should start it because really that's the these are the
questions and that's the most important piece when we're in our classrooms. How are we going to use the tools? How are we going to use our practices, our new technology? We don't want to make them feel like they're on their own. We supported them in the classrooms with
Shelley and with Meredith Alvo, our two literacy and math consultants. We progress monitored and we reflected. We reflected on what worked and what didn't. And we acted. So, this is what we talked about in the district
assessment report last year. We showed you these reports last year as well. This is an example of an evidence report. This blue line here is the state and the green dots are Riverbell students and on the bottom you're going
to see horizontally you'll see that these are all the different standards that the students were assessed on on the NJSLA. Okay, so this is one example of what we use when we analyze data when we get this report from N the NJSLA assessments for our students. We say,
"Okay, let me look at this standard here." But I don't just look at standards where we're on grade on the with the state on par with the state or below. I also look at standards where we're close because I want to see, okay, did we have a issue with this standard over the past couple of years? Is this
just one year? Let me look at the questions. So then we look at trends and we identify standards. There's a method to my madness. Standards that are in green are standards that we have either fallen on the state or below the state
for three years. So these are the identifying trends and this is what I mean by targeted PDA and targeted and intentional instruction because this was a standard that we had trouble with over the past few years.
Then we look at link it and we say okay is this just a standard that our students are having trouble with on NJSLA maybe it's how it's being asked but if our kids had trouble on link at C and NJSLA
and the last three years then to me that's a curriculum issue that's how we're teaching it when we're teaching it what resources are we using so that's how we choose which standards we're going to start with That's what we did last year. So, this is an evidence
report from spring 2024 on a fourth grade assessment for ELA. This standard RIIT 4.4 is the structure overall um structure of a text. Is it chronological? Is it comparison? Is it cause and effect? This
is a standard that we haven't met for the last three years. When I say met, meaning we haven't been above the state for three years on this standard. It used to be RARI 4.5 but when we redid the standards when the state came out with new standards now it is um RIT 4.4.
We spent a lot of time talking about this standard last year in our grade four articulations and with targeted intervention. That's where we are this year on that standard. This is what's exciting when we can see that our work and our efforts are paying
off. This is why we're relentless when we look at the data. We want to see things like this. This is what I get excited about because this doesn't lie. Data doesn't lie. This what we have done is working. Doesn't work every time and then we change things but this is
working. This is similar uh these are two standards that we looked at for the grade 8 assessment uh from 2024. Anything close on with the state or anything close with the state. And these are the two standards. This the first
one was a board goal. We've had so much trouble with this standard that we made it a goal to say we are going to work on theme because for whatever reason our kids are having trouble and ask our teachers we teach it over and over and
over again but for whatever reason there was a disconnect in what we were how we were teaching it and how the questions were being asked on the assessment. So our grade 8 teachers, we talked about this. We worked with this with our consultants. We gave more information. We looked at the questions from New
Meridian and we said, "Oh my god, there two or more texts. We're looking at this. This is not how I ask it." So we were committed to growth here and look at those standards this year. So you can't argue with this kind of
increase. Um, I'm incredibly incredibly proud of our staff um for for this type of increase, but again, it's not about teaching the to the test. This is teaching standards. Our standard mastery has grown. Um, so we're proud of that.
Also, I make these crazy charts in the beginning of every year when I look at the standards from NJSLA and link it and I compare the two and see which standards are correlated and which are not. And in the um fall of 2024,
these were the standards that were identified as green standards. And if you'll remember, the green standards were standards that we've had trouble with for three years. These standards and all of these standards, guess what?
They are no longer in the green. It's pretty amazing. We set attainable goals. We our our staff has prevent uh attended professional development. We try strategies in our class in our classroom. Sometimes they work and if they don't work, we talk about it. What worked? Why didn't it work? What can we
do better? And we always strive to be better. That's the goal. Growth is the goal. We did talk a little bit about uh what we are going to be doing moving forward with math. This year is year one of the new math standards and math curriculum implementation and our staff is going to
be working with Meredith Alvaro again with that. Uh she'll be doing a lot of coaching cycles in in the classrooms and also doing PD outside. We're going to continue DDI periods with push-in support. Thank you to our principles um
who have helped me tremendously with that. Um the same with ELA. Our consultants will be working in the classrooms. We are um implementing in vocabulary and HD word this year for our word study program. We were noticing that with what we were using with Wordly
Wise and Megaw, we weren't really seeing a transfer to reading and writing. Um and we've been looking at that over the past few years. So this year we're trying something new that some local districts have been using and have been having some success with. So we're trying that this year. We're using Reflex and Fracks for math and of course
Dipples. Um, as I spoke to this earlier in the presentation. All right, I got some big news. Maybe not for you. You know it already, but we got big news. NJSLA is changing.
Surprise, surprise. Thank you. Thank you. It's changing because the state likes to torture us. No, I'm just kidding. Actually, I don't love the NJSLA, so I'm actually hoping that this is for the good. We'll see. Um
I have to be optimistic. But yes, it is changing. Coming soon NJS SLA adaptive. But the best part is this. They're changing ELA and math, which we actually get information from, but they're not
changing science. So science is remaining the same, which is the one area I was hoping they were going to change. But ELA and math are now going to be adaptive assessments in the spring. We have to field test and we're going to
be field testing this at the end of the this month. The field test is three units. Reading is 60 minutes. Math is 60 minutes. Writing is 120 minutes. Tom and I are going to be training the
staff on this once we figure it out at the end of the month. Um, and we're going to be doing this, I believe, the October 28th, 29th, and 30th. Um, we're going to be doing the field test. Parents will not be receiving scores. We will not be receiving scores. We were
told they're just field testing the questions to see what types of questions they're going to be asking the students in the spring. So, what does this mean for the spring assessment? I don't know. I have no idea. We haven't gotten any information from the state.
We're hoping uh to get information soon uh or sooner rather than later. We didn't find out that Cambium was going to um host the new assessment and it wasn't a Pearson based assessment anymore till the end of August. So, we're just as much in the dark as as
you almost we have a little bit more information, but not much. So, as soon as we know something, we will we will let uh the public know. But what we do know is this. Blockbuster verse Netflix. You're probably like, "What is she talking about?" But
Blockbuster made a $50 million mistake. So, what we know is you need to adapt. Blockbuster refused to adapt. Now, I love Blockbuster. I'll be the first to admit I miss it. I loved going and looking at, you know, looking for the new releases and running and trying to fight people for the new the new ones
that was out. There's only one copy of it. But Blockbuster didn't want to adopt. They didn't want to allow streaming. They didn't want to bring it to your home. They said to Netflix, "There's no way that the public will
want this that just in their homes. They want they like going to the store. They like picking. They like choosing their candy. They like choosing their popcorn." They highly underestimated how lazy people can be. And they made the $50 million mistake when Netflix offered Blockbuster to buy them out. And
Blockbuster said, "No, we're not doing that." Blockbuster didn't realize that it was time-conuming visiting stores and that nobody liked late fees or having to get VCR and DVD players. And Netflix was like, "You know what? We have instant
access at home. We are available on any smart device and we only have subscription fees once a month." They adapted to what is new and what people wanted. Just like Netflix adopted, so did we.
And we're going to continue. Netflix started small. Remember those red bins outside of Shopright and 7-Eleven and then they you you could um get them mailed to your house. We started small, too. We purchased Linkit as only our data warehouse. We just wanted to see our data. We didn't purchase the
benchmarks at first. It was just to look at it. Netflix shifted to online streaming as technology improved. We shifted to linkit benchmarks. Once we realized that Renaissance wasn't giving us the data that we wanted, we made that shift for our students. Netflix built
infrastructure. We built state-of-the-art facilities to help our help our teachers and our students. Netflix used data analytics and sorry, analytics to understand viewing. We provided PD on data to make instructional decisions and we continue
to do that. Netflix created original content to personalize offerings. We personalize instruction through implementing DDI periods. Netflix uses AI to personalize recommendations. We use AI also. We just had a whole PD day yesterday on AI where Google came and
presented to our entire staff. We use it to differentiate. Netflix continuously adapts to audience demands. We adapt too. And this is the most important thing that you can be in education is being able to adapt and be flexible. We purchase new educational
resources to enhance instruction. We adapt to student needs. We evolve our curriculum not only for standards, but what we know is best for our kids. So, we were following Netflix's footsteps without even knowing it. We adapt.
And the work has begun. On the left, you're going to see a picture of Meredith. All right, Kelly, you're here. Uh, did you even know I took that picture? I was behind them. Um Barrett Favo has already worked started working with our third grade teachers um on the
new assessment. So what she did was is the state actually since she has been here has um come out with some practice assessments. But before that she took a a really deep dive into states that are using Cambium assessments and have already use this these types of questions. So our staff um was able to
see this and see the types of questions that their students are going to see. And with that third grade, we talked a lot about um the standards that our kids had trouble with this year. And just just so you have a little bit of an idea about how our teachers are using this.
One of the teachers in that room, I'm observing her um soon actually. And she had an observation that she wanted me to do and she called me after and she said, "You know what? I'm changing it. I want to do it on one of those standards." So that's what our teachers are doing. that
I want to see I want your feedback on what I'm doing to see what we need to do more of and that's what we're going to be doing on the on top over here we had Dibbles training for our literacy screener and then we had um trainers from Google come in and talk about um
feedback they talked about ethics in AI and different AI tools with our staff we talked about this already future trends and next steps DDI periods are going to be continuing new ELA and math curricula curriculum math implemented this year dibbles in vocabulary fracks
and reflex still um continuing our tiered supports uh special education and targeted PD and targeted and intentional PD across the board depending upon standards because it's not about the tests it's about the standards and continuing with AI last
year I showed you this slide and I asked you what everyone on this slide had in common do you remember what the answer I'm really putting you on the spot. Anyone remember? Come on, give it a try hard.
I said last year that what they had in common was they all had a coach. They all have a coach. Even professionals who multi multi-million dollars make multi-million dollars have coaches. And this year I'm saying yes, they have coaches because they're not
complacent in being good. They strive to be great. And that's what we strive here. We strive to be great. And I had to put in my the Scataboo and Dart on the lower left corner because I am a Giants fan and I'm loving them and I'm
hoping that they're going to give us a little bit of hope. So I had to throw them in there as well. Giants are adapting as well. Fingers crossed. Um, and our goal is to be great and why we've said this. This
is why this is why we're relentless in our efforts. We are so lucky that we have a board that's supportive and allows us to purchase the materials and our consultants, our our team, our administrative team, they don't typically argue with me when I say, "I
need I need your staff on this day. I'm so sorry. I did that to to Steve and Chris today." and I said, "I really need to pull off for Dibbles training," but they were like, "Don't worry about it. We got it. We'll make it work." Um, they really are. The team is phenomenal. I'm
so lucky. Um, Melissa and I really nerd out on this, but the the the staff does, too. Um, and I could can't thank them enough. Um, they have new thrown at them every year, and this year there's a lot of new, and they have not complained
once, and they're just ready to go. Um, so we're very fortunate um that we have the educators that we do here here in Riverville and um I'm fortunate that you support uh my office and and the staff. So, thank you. And we're all here for
the same reasons for our kids. This quote spoke to me from Robert Mian. As teachers, we must adjust to the everchanging mandates and they are ever changing. I mean, at the drop of a dime, but still hold the unchanging principles
that every child can and will succeed. So, how we adapt and what we do changes, but the goal never changes. The goal is to be great for our kids and to and for progress and to be better than we were last year, and we're meeting those goals. And we're going to continue to
work hard. Um, and I'm excited for the year even though it's a lot of new. Um, I'm excited for the new. Are there any questions? No questions. I don't have any questions. I just wanted to applaud Mrs. Signory, Mrs.
Dowling, all the administrators and teachers and the um students for your hard work and your dedication. And um it's amazing to see how well um the children are doing. And notice I didn't say surprising because everything
we do here at Riverville is um done with such intentionality. And so um thank you. I just wanted to say thank you. This was wonderful. Um very entertaining. I like the bonjovi. Same. That's why I put him in.
Um so thank you very much and um you know congratulations. This is one wonderful news. Thank you. Thank you, Patrice. Well said. Thank you. Okay. Thanks again, Mrs. Darling. Always
appreciate it. Very much. Always fun uh working with you. Walk up. Yes. Apparently, we need a walk-in introduction song. So, you're on the spot now, Mr. Kirby. You got to pick it out.
Thank you. Anything else? None. Can't beat that. Nope. Nope. Of course. Of course you can. Actually, all right. We should all just leave. Pull pull a George Castanza. Okay. Good night, everybody. Um, I will move on then to Mrs. Epilito's report, board secretar's
report. Okay. I will make this very, very quick. Just as a heads up, our annual audit is going to be starting in November. We don't have an actual date, but our annual audit, they have contacted us and it will be starting in November. And
just for the board, for those of you that are attending next week's convention, there's a packet in the left side of your books that has everything that you will need. The board will be staying at resorts, the Hard Rock, the
Sheridan, and Oceans sold out within minutes. So, we'll be staying at resorts, which is next door to the Hard Rock. And if you have any questions before you go next week, please reach out to my office. You all have my cell
phone number. So, just as a matter of an FYI, please remind anyone that you may need to contact that the cell service down there is not the best. So, just be prepared. I say that because it sometimes takes a while to get even
texts. Otherwise, that is all I have to report. Safe travels and we'll see you down there next week. Okay, terrific. Thank you. Um so we'll move on to general resolutions resolutions um G1 through
G15. May I have a motion, please? I'll make a motion. Second, please. second and discussion questions. I would just like to point out um G15 where um in addition to the great testing results we have also high
performing in QAC with 100% in many areas. So um kudos to the district for that as well. just keeps getting better. Now we should go. Um any anything else? No.
Okay. Roll call vote, please. Certainly. Mrs. Assur, yes. Mrs. Austin, yes. Mrs. Burkowitz, yes. Mrs. Pinterelli, yes. Mrs. Sande, yes. Mr. White, yes. Mr. Rosini, yes. Moving on to business resolutions B1 through B11.
Um, will somebody move it, please? I'll move it. Okay. And second, [Applause] discussion, questions, comments. Anything?
Nope. Okay. Roll call vote, please. Certainly. Mr. White, yes. Mrs. Sande, yes. But I'll abstain from B10. Certainly. Mrs. Pinterelli? Yes. Mrs. Burkowitz? Yes. Mrs. Austin? Yes. Mrs. Assor? Yes. Mr. Rossini?
Yes. And moving on to personnel resolutions P1 through P7. Could somebody please move it? I'll move it. Second, please. I'll second. Okay. Anything from anyone?
Nope. Okay. Roll call vote, please. Certainly. Mrs. Austin, yes. Mrs. Sande, yes. Mrs. Burkowitz, yes. Mrs. Pinterelli. Yes. Mrs. Assor, yes. Mr. White, yes. Mr. Osini, yes.
Okay. Um, now I'm going to move on to public comments on general items. The same rules apply as with regard to agenda items only. Um, I'm going to open it to the public at approximately 7:51. Does anybody want to
make any comments on general items? anything? Nope. See nobody. I'm going to close it at 7:51. Uh, old business. New business. Any business? No. Okay. I know we're
going into closed. Um, motion to go into close session, please. I'll make a motion. Second. Second. Okay. All right. Um, we are going to go into close session. Thank you everybody for coming. Uh,
thank you Mrs. Dowling for a terrific presentation and such good news. Um, and uh, thank you everybody else for coming too. Um, we're going to go into close session and we're not going to come back out. No further action will be taken. Okay.