All right, it's 7 pm. We're going to begin this regular meeting of the Rutherford Board of Education, September 29th, 2025. We're going to ask everyone who can to please stand, face the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I'll ask Mr. Whitford to please take role. Miss Posian present. Mrs. Cole present.
Mr. Ki present. Mr. Healey here. Mrs. Jones present. Mr. Mone here. Dr. Rsine here. Mr. Spayberry. Dr. Ali here. Missurio here. Thank you.
All right. The New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provisions of this act, the Rutherford Board of Education has caused notice of
this meeting to be published by having the date, time, and place posted on the bulletin board outside the Burough Clerk's office, mailed to the Herald, South Bergenite, and the Record newspapers, and filed with the Burough Clerk. Hard copies of the agenda are available in the meeting room and the agenda is posted electronically on
Friday before the meeting date on the district's website at www.rotherfordschools.org. Subsequent to the meeting, a video of the meeting will be updated uh uploaded to the district's website www.rotherfordschools.org. The video link can be found by opening
the board of education link and clicking on public meetings and then videos. So board members, in your packets, there are regular minutes to approve from the regular meeting September 8th, 2025. Are there any questions or comments on
those? Hearing none, then I'll ask Mr. Whitford to please enter those. Uh, so we are going to start the meeting with our report of the student representative. Over to you, Sarah. Good evening. So we are almost a month into the school year and it has been
going really well so far. For the most part, everyone's acclimated to their new classes and many RHS clubs have started having their first meetings. Um, we will also be having our first ever club fair this October where students will be walk will be able to walk around to see all
the clubs being offered. Um, current members and advisers will be making poster boards showcasing the club's purpose and explaining why um, ways that the students can contribute this year. This event will be especially helpful to the underclassmen who are looking for opportunities to get involved in our
school but aren't quite sure where to start. Fall sports are now in full swing and all of our teams have been doing very well. The football team is now 4-0 after winning the home game this past Friday. The RHS cheerleaders also won grand champion in a recent competition.
They competed against 10 other teams and were named the best overall. Additionally, one of the freshman members of our cheer team won best running tumbling at the competition. The football team will be home again this Saturday for our homecoming game. This is also senior day for the football
players, cheerleaders, and members of the marching band. The annual homecoming parade will be happening before the game, which students are definitely looking forward to. Um, pep club members will be selling spirit wear such as necklaces and stickers this week during lunch to make sure everyone's ready for
Saturday. The homecoming dance is also this Friday night, which is always a great time. The freshman class officers and student council representatives were elected. The new reps have officially become members of the student council home room, and we're looking forward to
having some new faces to help make this a great year. Many RHS students have signed up to work the polls on election day this November. These students will be completing training this Thursday to prepare and this will be many students second year participating as it was a
success during both the November and June elections last year. The future teachers club is planning a Halloween movie night for the elementary um students to attend. There will be some fun crafts and activities as well as a short movie for the kids to enjoy and
the club members will be volunteering to help make the night a success. from some of the other schools. The kindergarten center is excited to welcome the RHS class of 2038. Um they have been having a great start to the year so far and participated in high fives to hometown
heroes where they invited some of the first responders to the K center to learn about their roles and acknowledge their services in the community. Lincoln school students also honored first responders on 911 by wearing red, white, and blue and placing American flags
outside the school. And finally, Washington School has started off the year with some student leadership opportunities. The third graders had a chance to teach the new first graders their school song at an assembly. And the third graders have also taken on the pledge of allegiance and morning
announcements each day. And that's all I have for tonight. So, thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Questions or comments from board members? was jokes. I just add to it that Sarah looked wonderful at the base baseball football game the other night in her red, white,
and blue outfit. I mean, that that was quite a uh tribute to Paul. Thank you. Was that in the dog pound? Yes. Got it. Yes. Um Mr. Mone, yeah. I just wanted to comment on your report. I appreciate the
comprehensiveness of it and I really value how you touch on what's happening not just at RHS, but at all the schools. Thank you. Good job. Thank you, Mr. Hilly. I just want to comment about uh the fall teams and every all the
success. It's amazing. Um and uh the Friday night football game was amazing beating that team. That was a great game. Thank you. That was Sally Labbera's son that scored the three-point kick. Awesome. Any other comments? And I think
that Graham Jordan and the high school football team, they are up for athlete and team of the week. So if you go online, you can vote for them. Oh yes. NJ.com through the That's through the record. NJ north Jersey.com.
Yeah. And um homecoming is going to be later, right? The game is at three. Yeah. Because of SATs, correct? Ah, that's why it was moved. Yeah. And the parade will be like kicking off around 2 o'clock, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, board of ed members, if you
want to walk in the parade, we're going to meet by the the field at the high school. Right here. Right over here. 1:45. And then, uh, we'll kick off at 2 and wearing the board shirts. Uh, weather should be appropriate for
short sleeves. So, if you have them, put them on. I think board of education shirts make sense. We've done that other years. Sweet. All right, let's do it. Okay, good. Uh, thank you. We always appreciate your board reports. Um, you can feel free to stay if you'd like. And
if you have other commitments, we understand. Um, thank you. Have a good evening. You, too. All right. So, we are going to move on to a special presentation of our board attorneys. And we have, I believe, V uh hopefully I get the names correct,
Victoria Lira and Stacy Cherry of Forgetty. uh Hara Lepier and Cherry as we know Rod Hara uh has retired and uh so I will let Mr. Hurley do the introduction. Well, you've been introduced, right?
But uh yes, as um certainly the board is aware, but the community may or may not be. Um Mr. Har of Har and Fogerty was our attorney for pretty close to 40 years and uh and we're very delighted to be staying with the firm and uh I thought it'd be nice to have both
attorneys Vic and Stacy come down to uh just say a few words, introduce himself to the board. So it's yours the floor is yours. So thank you very much. It's a pleasure to meet all of you. Um yeah, so Rod started if you I'm sorry if you want to use the
micros and the TV will pick you up. Yeah. Thank you so much. So, unless unless your first advice to me is plausible deniability, right? Sometimes lawyers will say that. That's true. Um, yeah, Rod and Steve formed uh this law firm 41 years ago. Um, they
used to be, as some of you may know, like right up the street um in Rutherford, which is where their first or not their first offices, but some of their offices were um before moving to Fairlon. So, um we're excited to continue representing the board. It's been great. I know that I saw your business administrator today um as I was
giving a presentation to the New Jersey or the Bergen County uh Association of School Business Officials to give a legal update. Um and so and Stacy is here as well, my partner. Um we both do all the various work that you need. Stacy focuses a little bit more than I
do on special ed because she loves special ed. Um but we all do the full gamut. The only thing that Stacy doesn't do is any of the construction stuff. Um, I don't do the construction myself, but I represent school districts involving construction disputes. Um, all of the amateur construction that I do usually
ends up poorly, um, and taking twice as much time. So, anyway, um, we're certainly happy to be here. And speaking of Rod Hara, um, if any of you want to know whether or not he's enjoying his retirement, that's a picture of him with his one of his grandsons. So, he
absolutely is, uh, on the beach. And so, uh, we love that for him. and um and he still keeps in touch once in a while. He visited the office last week which is pretty nice. Anything for you? I just wanted to say that we really appreciate being here continuing our long-term uh standing relationship with
the board and looking forward to continuing to represent you. Obviously, if you have any questions or concerns, we're here to support you. Please reach out at any time. Um and we met with both the superintendent, director of special services, um who I've known even
previous to to stepping in here. So, um, really looking forward to working with the district and to you guys as well, right? And and I I do want to say that, you know, when we met in in the end of August with Rod and the three of us met and I spoke about, well, you know, we
don't really have to call the attorney all that much and I think u you started officially September 1st and I believe September 2nd. I did have to send you an email and uh and and I do want to say that the uh reply was prompt and and
really efficient and right to the point. So, we're off to a good start. Hope, you know, it's one of those things you want to have a good relationship, but you hope you don't have much of a relationship because that means there's issues. Uh but I was very pleased with that. So, we're off to a good start and and um you know, as as Stacy said, we've
we've uh crossed paths before um and she's worked with Michelle before. So, uh, I think, you know, I think it's going to be, uh, a different sweater, but just as comfortable of a sweater as what we had, uh, with with Mr. Har. So, welcome and thank you. Yeah. Just want to say welcome and we look
forward to speaking with you as little as possible. Yeah, that's that's fairly typical, Miss Jones. I just like to share uh with our new attorneys. I was on the board in 1985 and in 1986 we decided that we needed a
new lawyer verse in school board law and we thought we had picked the lawyer that we wanted and in walked rod harrower into this very room all 120 pounds of them I don't think he was any more than 30 you know and he took the last year's
teachers contract and he just tore it apart where the board made so many errors the president who was Rusty Knight at the time And I had nothing to do with that. Right. Let's make sure that's that's on the record. I was teaching English upstairs. Yeah. What I'm saying was that we Well, not
me, but Rusty Knight figured he got it. This is the best we could do and so forth, and he just showed the board where we could have saved money and done a better job. There was no other discussion. He was hired that night. So, and he served us very well.
That's great. Well, and you know what? He's he and Steve Fogerty have been our role models as we've been attorneys. I've been with the firm for almost 23 years now. Stacy about 13 13 and a half. Um so yeah, we've always tried to model our careers after theirs, right? And uh it's great to hear those stories.
I get to hear a lot of those stories now. It's pretty great. Is is there just curious is there a lead person that the district speaks with? You can always call me if I'm not available. Call Stacy. I mean we're almost one of the two of us are almost always available except for last week we
had to give presentations together a couple of days. So those were the days where it was a little bit hard to get us but otherwise yeah feel free to reach out to me or Stacy. Either one is fine. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much for having us stop by and say hello. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Have a great rest of your board meeting and and you're also welcome to stay for
the remainder of the board meeting if you like. But if you have homework to do other things you have to attend too. We understand we you might be surprised we do have some additional work that we have to do. Not not surprised. All right. Thank you for coming. Means a lot. Uh all right. So we're going to move on
now to the report of the superintendent where we have two special presentations. Um and we are going to start with something that is near and dear to a lot of us. The Rutherford Education Foundation. I want to acknowledge Mrs. Kathleen Bradlau who's here the vice
president of the RAF. And the Rutherford Education Foundation supports uh a number of grants that teachers in the district apply for to really enhance the academic, athletic, extracurricular experience of all the students in the district. And I think this is the year
where they're going to hit the $1 million mark. Wow. Of how much fundraising they've done. So, uh, super exciting. So, I believe the format of this evening is we want to recognize and acknowledge all of the grants that are approved and uh I've got
some certificates for those and uh Mr. Hurley's going to call the names off of the various grants. Yep. Yep. Yeah, that's fine. So, um maybe Mr. Ryan, is he back there? If you want to just help Dr. Dr. Lotti because uh we have a lot of folks who couldn't make
it. But I do want to call all of the of the grants so that uh people um who are either here or watch it on video get the idea of the number of grants. Uh the RAF last year um awarded $79,781
in grants. Uh it was 30 grants and um again we thank uh Miss Brazlo and and um Maggie McIll and all the members of the RAF. also thank uh the community that you know goes out and buys the tickets to various events and takes part in
various fundraisers and um to help the RAF uh in that regard and also the faculty and staff because we do several fundraisers a year to help uh come up with prizes and the like for some of these fundraising events. So, it really
is a a tremendous community um program and I think uh Kathleen I don't know I don't want to be wrong that we're getting close to a million dollars right over 134,000 so far. Isn't that wonderful million that's that's um sometime I feel like
Jerry Lewis all of a sudden I'm on like a telephone here. Um you have to be a certain age to know what I'm talking about. Uh but yeah, that's a remarkable feat in what, how many years now? 20 22 22 years and we're going to be hitting the million-dollar mark. So, thank you.
Um so, the grants and I the certificates I'd like to just go through them at the high school. Um McKenzie leads high from math calculators. Uh Jamie Pardiello and Jessica Peron for the hero and cool kids program. Nicole Elely for Rubik's Cube
Club. uh Sue Smith for a empowering students for interactive language learning um program. Uh Julie Wazali uh for Cora's microscope project in science. Uh here to get her award um which was a a nice award to enhance the
festival of the arts in high school, Stephanie Castellano. So Stephanie, come on up. Also uh from from the high school, Danielle Moore had two uh a chemistry club grant and also women in STEM program that the RAF has
funded for a number of years. Uh Steve Dunn at the high school uh some improvements to the health and wellness aka wait room uh at the high school. Uh Nicole Bowen and Stephanie Curtis. Read across Rutherford Day and you know Read Across Rutherford Day and the Heroes and
Cool Kids. Caesar programs that also, you know, reach out to the elementary and the middle schools. Uh so they're an encompassing um program. Matt Vicaro, the um who is from Permp but also directs uh co-directs the high school plays a theater lighting project here at
the high school. Uh Jackie Kak at the high school for a um a one gel electro fuoresus system in science. I was an English teacher, so I'm not sure what that means. uh and Dave Frasier uh for uh to replace the ice machine. So, it'll
be quieter when we go to executive session now. Uh that that the board actually put that grant in, but we asked David to do it. U and those are the high school grants. Um from Union School, Erica, I believe you're here, Gibbons. Um and she did a microscope project for
uh the middle school. Uh you're going to hear us talk later in the report of student achievement a little bit about um upping upgrading the science program and you see there's several grants here
for science. Uh Megan Collins uh also you're here Megan uh for a reading independent reading club of reading through independent reading and Lauren Fuches for whiteboard desks at the U Union School as well. So, those
are the Union School uh grants. Also, I'm sorry, also at Union School, Bill Huffingstein and Tara Motoa uh for 3D printers. At Lincoln School, Liz Fright Tag for um a social skills program in the special ed classroom. At Washington
School, Lori Catalano uh for a book club um chap chapter chats it's called. Uh Anthony Mela, u physical education uh for um upgrading the recess, some things for including a screen to um around the
fence to help with balls and stuff going over at Washington School and uh Washington School Jessica Saxon, a um collaborative digital display system for the um for the gym and the multi-purpose
room and um Hala Pod Podasic and Natalia San Pedro. for musical chairs, flexible seating in elementary students. Those uh Oh, I'm sorry. And Megan Mloud uh for classroom dividers in the ABA room and
uh Gina Ballisteri for uh innovative tools for enhanced learning. So those were Washington school at Peron School. Uh here is Joan MRI for relaxation and creativity at the coloring club.
She put that grant in. Also, Joan, stay up there. You and Matt Ficaro for improving facts with extra math. So, there's two grants uh that Joan put in. Tara Phelp uh at Peron um for March Madness brand games and social emotional
learning event. Uh Rebecca Machri, come on up. Uh digital arts teacher for uh digital cameras. and um Matt Ficaro who is at Peront as I said also does plays there uh stage wing curtains at the uh stage in Peront and
also at Peront uh Brienne Dacy and Caitlyn Jeffers for the PBSIS incentive program. So you can see a wide range of grants covering um curriculum co-curricular uh social emotional learning special education uh so many
different facets of the school. So we again we appreciate all that the RAF has done uh to help us uh with with this fundraiser. So thank you all. I'll play the role of Dr. Alotti before I move on to my report of student achievement which you may or may not
want to hear but if the teachers have some homework uh you want to go on to you can uh take care of that. And I'm going to ask um Mr. Ryan to come up and join me for the um this presentation.
First he's taking a picture for the newsletter. So Mr. Ryan wears many hats. included in the uh packet. Um well, Mr. Ryan has this long title we've talked about before, but part of his responsibilities is to be the uh
district-wide uh test director and uh along with that responsibility uh he goes through the um uh large amount of of data that we get from the uh state
and uh also the template from the state that is part of the requirements for uh the testing program. do this report of student achievement and he puts it together. So, I thought I'd have him join tonight to um walk through some of it in your packet. Uh you all received a
copy of it. Um this will be on the website either tomorrow or no later than Wednesday. Um the individual student scores were mailed out on Friday. So depending on the mail uh could have
arrived at home Saturday, today or you know certainly within the next day or two and uh as I said we are required under a code to report u to the public and to the board on the poor student
achievement. As I've said in the past um we've made some um gains in some areas. We've stayed uh flat in some areas which is not a bad thing. Uh there's a couple areas of concern that we're going to address, but I'll let uh Mr. Ryan walk you through. Uh you know, we'll refer to
certain page numbers if you're interested in looking or you could just listen to the report. Um and I'll have start off by walk you through. Ch. Sure. Good evening. Thank you for having me tonight. So this is basically the NJSLA is a standardsbased summit of assessment that we use to gauge student
understanding of the standards um from the state. What we started to do last year is put our um notable achievements first, kind of highlighting what we uh as a district are doing very well. Um during QAC, they really like the fact that we put it first. They appreciated
the fact that we were, you know, going going positive. Uh which we have to do and really accredit ourselves. Like Mr. Hurley said, we have some highs, we have some flatness, and we have some lows, which we're addressing, which we'll discuss tonight. Um our average at Lincoln Washington School is 18% above
uh the state on the ELA exam and met or exceeded. At Perpont School grades four through six we took the average is 22.5 over met and exceeds uh the state average. Union school in ELA is 23% over
the state average um for meet and exceed. And then at RHS grade nine ELA is 18%. So we're very proud of that. um ELA program doing very well. We'll discuss a couple of dips later on in the evening with ELA what we're doing for it, but for the most part uh very strong
results. Our math program, as you know, we went to Envision Math last year, and I think we saw some positive results from that. We also restructured the sequence of courses, which um we talked about a lot last year, and we're now seeing it come through uh with what we've been testing.
Lincoln and Washington again 18.7 above the state average and meets and exceed for math for grade three. Peron school is 25.3% um average uh meets and exceeds for grades four through six in math. Union school is 38.4%
um exceeds in uh math for grades seventh and 8th. The math 8 test we scored 19% above the state average and this is the first time our students took this test. So very proud of that. And if you look at our grade seven uh math scores, 38%
above the uh state average in meets and exceeds and our algebra 1, 57.6 above state average in meets or exceeds. So we're, you know, very proud of the scores that we've having so far. If I can just interject one thing, the math
um averages K um grade three through eight uh you know are well above I mean 57% above is a significant 30% above and you know it's probably too early to um talk about the envision and the impact
it had but it clearly has had an impact. I hear from teachers and I hear from students, you know, and you know, anytime you change something, right, there's usually some people that just push back against change. It's been pretty much universal with the teachers. Um, and the results, I think, are
beginning to show that. So, we're very pleased with that. Good. So, in science in grades 5, 8, and 11, and I know this has been discussed every year, Mr. Mr. Hurley goes into great detail saying how the state scores um that we don't know. We don't get the standards. We don't get
the reports back. So, we're kind of flying uh blind in some areas. But, we did uh show some growth this year with um science. We're 15.5 above the state average in science for grade five. That's proficient in advanced
proficient. Um our students 46.6 scored proficient advanced proficient grade uh five. grade eight science 16.2 higher than the state average and uh 35.2% were proficient in advanced proficient. So we're looking at that we see these as
gains for uh what we've been trying to tackle again without the composite of standards that we don't we don't really know what they're testing. We know the categories uh some of which earth science, life science, physical science, investigating practices, sensemaking and critiquing practices. These are all the
categories but we don't have the standards. we don't get the results back such as that. Something that we added this year for the first time were areas of concerns. These are areas that are we we found as highlights and we're are actionable areas that we are now acting on to
improve the scores. Um so we added that this year our algebra 8 students at the high school scored 28% algebra one. What's that? Algebra one. Excuse me. Algebra one. Algebra 1 students at the high school uh scored uh
20% lower than the state average um in meets or exceeds. So this is a major area concern for us as well as um our geometry scores were 18% lower than the state average. So Mr. Morano and Miss
Schmeing are working together to create an action plan to address this and everything's on the table. We're looking at it as like FDR and the New Deal. like look at everything um PD teacher placement um with standards trying to investigate standard analysis putting together data teams working on PLC
meetings just trying everything we can possible to raise those scores those aren't aren't aren't those classes that are generally taught at Union no so what happened with the new sequence at Union school we have it's it's it's
kind of like an honors track so the the students who took that we had 61 students students at Union School take algebra 1. The rest of the students took algebra 8. So, as they go up, those students last year taking algebra 1 again who didn't pass or or whatever. 67
students at the high school taking algebra uh one this past year, right? The majority of the students next year will be taking algebra 1 because of the sequence change that we put in place last year. Right. So the kids who took the algebra one test at the high school to your
point some of them they were taking it last year for the second time. Right. Okay. Um and the geometry those are a larger group of kids. The kids who did well in algebra 1 in grade 8 were taking
geometry. So I mean these scores really are not acceptable. Um and um you know there's no way to really put a positive on it. Um the the comment that uh Mr. Ryan just made. They're not working on an action plan.
The action plan's done. I have a copy of it already. Uh because I didn't really want time. Neither did Mr. Morano. Want time to work on it. Um and as you said, everything is um on the table. um you know we're we're looking at and you know
I understand math gets harder gets a little more challenging um high school kids um you know when they changed the testing uh 10 years ago maybe maybe 15 I don't remember exactly where the gradu used to
take the test in grade 11 and that was your graduation test now this test is taken in grade nine or 10 you take a separate test for your graduation test so I can get it where a high school kid might say like, you know, what's the motivation? But so we're a little above
state. Okay, that that that argument could fly, but not to be below. Okay, it's unacceptable. So the areas that we're looking at in the action plan are uh a deeper dive into data review uh of of re once again an examination of of of
curriculum alignment, looking at kind of a gap analysis of where we want to be and where we are. um targeted instruction, test taking strategies, uh professional development, uh for staff, um looking at the test taking environment, uh looking at family
and student engagement, uh maybe, you know, to to deal with that comment I just made about the motivation of the student. How can we maybe get them to be more motivated? Now, in language arts, the scores were were good, but they were a little dip from what we had in the
past. So, uh Mr. verses despite the fact that we're doing fine is created a a similar action plan. Okay. Um so you know again I I look at uh tremendous to
close to tremendous uh scores till we get to that one area. The comment about the science I just want to make that point. I've talked to you about this before. It's a different test company is a different test. um we we get data um
the data we share with you and and with the public which is what we're told that we have to share um is the tip of the iceberg and just to give you you've seen me hold this up before uh for every there's a graph where the uh green is
your above state the blue is the state right and on back and and it's every standard the question that was asked and on the back it breaks breaks down what the standard is. So you could take a look and you can say well how come on this standard we were below how come on
this and then you could go dig into curriculum or we don't get any of that with science. So they just say here's your score and that's it. And if you look at the data that you know were sent to you want to really go into it you'll see that state score state averages are
very low in science too. Um, so whether it's an issue with the test, whether it's an issue, I'm not sure what it is, but it just strikes me as odd that every kid in the state does considerably worse in science than they do in language, arts, and math.
So, Mr. We only can deal with what we have. So, what does the state say about the science that they're not giving you the standards? What is their for next for for I mean the new test? Yeah. Well, we'll get to that at the end. We um they haven't said we don't really know a lot about the new test
that's coming out. Um in fact the field test that we have to do in what 3 weeks, four weeks. Uh we Mr. Ryan's been to two different training sessions but they've been trained in virtually nothing because they keep saying we're waiting for more information to come out. So um
I want to talk briefly at the end about we may get a shorter report next year because we won't have a lot of comparative uh data to share but we'll talk about that a little bit at the end but science is the only one that's changing. No no everything's changing everything's changing. So we'll get into that as and it's a
totally different concept. Um so speaking of that we also uh Mr. Schmiding put together an action plan for science too because the high school grade 11 uh was 06 below the state. So like right there. So they did show gains from last year, but still working on
getting it above the state is our goal. Um slide eight, we have a series of um basically comparison graphs um between 2024 and 2025. This part I like to see because you can see the growth. You can see how we're changing, how much better, you know, if we improved or if we dis
didn't improve, scores go down. Um it's always fun. Last year we had a big dip in uh grade 4 both ELA and math. This year they saw gains of like 12.9% gains in ELA. And you can see that across the board if you go across the levels from
level one 2024 to level 5 20 excuse me level one 2025. You can see an increase. But you can also see the growth. Um, if you go down to grade five ELA and kind of go across, you can see that in level one, which mean those same students, uh,
2% decrease, which is what we want. In the one, two, and three, you want a decrease. Four, five, you want an increase. In level two to level two, the last two years went down 4%. Uh, level three from last year to this year went down
13% and then we saw growth in four and five. That's where you get the 12.9. So again a pocket where we went down it was addressed for Miss Carryon and her she has a data team that they assemble and they look at the standards they look at the bubble students so they did a really good job. Same thing on this you can see
in ELA 9 there was a dip. Uh we went down even though we're we're still 18% above the state we went down 23% uh than what we were last year. So that's what Mr. Ursi he put together a uh comprehensive action plan to address that as well. And the thing I want to
remind you, I say this every year, you know, the the test is supposed to be about student growth, but the reports are given by grade levels. So you say, well, we didn't do as well in grade seven this year than last year. It's a whole different group of kids, right?
So, you know, when you look at the charts that you have, if you want to look at them, if you go across, you go grade level, but if you kind of follow down, right, you could see, hey, last year the kids went up or they went down as they went forward. Okay. So, so it's
so, you know, they don't really give you the individual growth. You have to kind of look for it, but that's what we try to look at. Yeah. And same thing, like I said, for math, grade four, they went up 13 points. And if you can look at the growth, um, it's there. So, the work they really pulled off and um we're
expecting the same for ELA 9. Again, this was a one-year anomaly. We looked at we rectified it through the data analysis, through doing things and it was rectified. Uh grade nine, we're looking at the same thing. You also have comparisons um for science
on grade 10. Uh if you look at uh three and four, which is uh proficient, advanced proficient, we're up we're up eight points uh in grade five. We're up um six points in grade eight. and we're up 2.6 grade uh points, excuse me, grade 11. So, we did see growth in science um
despite the fact it looks like low numbers um in those grades for the most part. Uh like we said before in five and eight we went up. So, we also have um by compliance we have to state how many students what percentage of students took the test. So, we compare that year after year. If
you look at that um and again we're pretty compliant. Some teacher, some parents do sign off refu refusals for their uh students not to, but we don't have as much as that as we did back in the park days. Again, it's not they can't opt out. It's legally they cannot opt out. That's the language. So, we
don't have opt outs. We have refusals. So, that's the terminology that we use. Um, but you'll see it's pretty much 100% this past year with the exception of the the math, right? And you explained that before because so with with grade eight like we talked
about before uh twothirds took the uh grade 8 math one/3 took the algebra that's why you see the numbers at like 63 68 same thing with geometry it's kind of split oneird took algebra 1 2/3 took geometry and algebra is 68 because third of the
eighth graders and a third of the ninth graders right and this year last year we had in math uh excuse me science 100% across across the board. So that was pretty good. So then you go to another section that compares 24 and 25 and then you also
compare the state in there. So you then delve deeper in the growth comparison, but then you can also compare it by state. And again, levels one through three you want to see go down and levels four and five you want to see go up. And we had that trajectory for ELA.
And then we get into the ELA interventions. What our supervisors do, they do a deep dive into those analysis. What Mr. Hurley held up was a uh performance level summary which basically has where we are the standards. We also have um content
standards rosters where we have every student who took the test and the standards that they didn't fail on and the standards that they weren't proficient in. So we can then go see those standards and teach those standards for those students. So they give us a plethora of data that we can use. So Mr. or at least we put that
together and put together a bunch of interventions for each grade level. The teachers follow those and then work on that to improve for next year. The same for math and then you could see with the math scores again 20 the year 24 25 then compared to the state again we're
looking for scores in one through three going down scores four through five going up and we saw that except for as we discussed before algebra 1 and geometry saw that trend. Good. So on the interventions, you know, the the action plan, we we get these we
get raw scores in July. July and um so we start working on the interventions based on those raw scores. We don't get the official report until early September. And the scores that come to us in July
are embargoed in terms of sharing them with parents or the public or the board or any they're embargoed. Um, so these interventions are what we are have to put in to be compliant and they may very well stay but like I said the action plan everything's off the table.
You know I as my blood pressure went up for that one grade level score I made the analogy that if I get if I'm taking blood pressure medication and it and it doesn't go down then I don't keep taking the same medication. Right? So if we're
doing interventions and the scores aren't getting better, well, we have to look at the interventions. So it could very well be that they do their dive and they say, "Hey, this isn't the problem. These are still the ones to do, but everything's on the table."
But we have to check the box with the state, too. We have to say that tonight we're presenting interventions, right? And they're fine. They're things that we have used for years, but we might want to add, we might want to subtract. We might want to get something new. Yeah. This year we're kind of blowing it up, but we were commented on our
interventions during QAC. They did appreciate the they really like our intervention, use it kind of as a model for the county. So they were impressed by that and Miss Schmidt went through and put together the math strategies for each grade level. And again with these action plans kind of takes over from these strategies, but this is also
compliant as Mr. Hurley said. Yeah, we did get very good remarks on you know this we've been using this format for years and and the u people from CQAC really liked it and they I know is the state m but you know the state doesn't say you have to use you know they suggest things and they like the
transparency of the report that we're using in just about every template they give us. Yep. And then it has the state comparison of the science as well that we went through and tal talked about previously and then the science strategies. Now the science strategies are more difficult to do because we don't have the standards
attached. So um but she still does a good job of um looking at exploring resources continue to implement CER which is claim evidence reasoning that's new writing formula they really working hard to that um compiling supplemental resources examining practice assessments
and released items whatever we can get we use. So that's how she's addressing that interventions and then we look at the subgroup report. The first part you see in ELA and math there's a gender subgroup just how it's broken down. You then have performances of ELA subgroups.
We see that in grades 3, four, five, our economically disadvantaged were low. So this is addressed through title one tutoring. So we're taking those students. We have federal funds that we use for after school tutoring. We'll t take these students and place them into um after school tutoring to kind of
address that uh dip in the um in the e econom economically disadvantaged. You then have in math subgroups again economically disadvantaged and Hispanic took a dip in the high school. Um so we're looking at that how to address that. And then we found that two races
really went up in all categories. So we we saw an increase there um in terms of that subgroup. In math um students with disabilities took a uh went down in four five six and but they shot up in grade seven. I think that's attribute again we
scored 38.8% 8% in grade seven um math. And I think that has to do with a lot of our special ed students doing well in that as well. So, we're looking at what they did and kind of replicating it for the other subgroups, working with the child study teams, working with special services to uh address the um the dip in
uh for the disabil students with disabilities. Um again, students with disabilities ELA as well, we saw a dip go down. So, we're looking at that what we can do to assist those students. subgroup performance in science across all boards, they went up. So, it was really good. All our subgroups went up
in science. I think that attributes to this fact that our scores did did better than previously. So, that was a good trend that we saw coming in. And then our dil dynamic learning maps is an alternative assessment to the NGSLA for our significantly cognitive uh developed
students. So, they take a alternative test. Um we can't report this year on them because we had less than 10 students who participated. So anything less than 10 we were not allowed to because of fur laws. And that brings us to our profile class at 20. The uh graduate report I gave this a
couple of weeks ago in a different format that I had to give it but uh 74% of um going to a four-year college, 16% to um two-year college uh for a total of 90% 5% to non college grade. So it means
a technical school or vocational school. Um and u so 95% for further education and 5% either employment or I think we had a few from the military as well. The the cohort rate of 94% again uh we I
reported a couple weeks ago that all 198 students graduated. Um but here we're showing 94%. It goes back to what I was talking to you about this 18 to21 program where those kids count as non-graduates. Many of them are the kids who sit for
the DLM test. So, uh, I'm I'm on um a conference call on Wednesday with a state senator and a state assemblyman, assemblywoman to talk about this. And, um, I'll be going to, um, Trenton on I
think it's November 10th, either the 10th or the 12th, um, with a bunch of other superintendent to, uh, speak to the full uh, legislative body about this to see if we can get something rectified there. So, we'll keep you posted
on that. Um, advanced placement, uh, we continue to really, uh, do a remarkable job of, um, 363 exams taken by students, the most we've ever given, students ever taken, 90% scoring a three or higher,
which is what's considered quote unquote passing. Uh, again, that's not the highest we've ever done, but one of the highest. um 187 students uh test with a score of three plus out of out of a total of 207 students tested. So it's
really remarkable. I'm sure we'll be back on the College Board honor roll again, which will be I think the fifth or sixth consecutive year. And one of the things um I've been trying to talk about with everybody that wants to listen about whether the student is a
special ed student, whether the student is struggling, whether the student is an honors or advanced student that giving everybody the opportunity, okay? Don't don't um label somebody that they're not going to be able to do it. We opened up
advanced placement to just about anybody who wants to take it. and the results have been great. Um, as opposed to thinking you're watering it down, we've increased the test and and the kids have met the rigor. So, we're very proud of that. Uh, and you can see the score
report uh for previous years. Um, I stand correctly 90% is the highest we've done. I think there might have been one year when we were higher way back when. Um, but it is remarkable uh growth. You can see the number of kids scoring three or above on that slide. SAT um
SAT we had 149 take 149 students take the SATs this year was up 10 students from last year we had 139 students take it last year um our mean SAT score is 1103 uh New Jerseys mean about 1049 and the national mean is about 1024 so we're
up 79 points from the national and 54 points from New Jersey uh reading and writing we're at 568 where New Jersey is 530 and the national is 510 10. So, we're up 38 points and 49 points, respectfully. And then with math, 536.
The New Jersey uh state average is 519 and the national average is 505. Again, we're above the the the state average and national average in SATs. Um ACTs, we saw a dip go down. Only uh 11 students took it. Our score is at 25
composite score. The national score is 19.5 and the state score is 24.1. Last year we had 16 students take the ACTs versus 11 students this year. Yeah, the ACT is more of a subject-based test versus the SAT which is more of a
critical thinking wrapped around a couple of subjects. Finding like college mentioned the ACT SAT is more of a comeback now um in the last five years than it has been. So I believe um just a couple of quick comments. We mentioned uh to Miss Cole's
question before um that the state has um partnered with a new company to provide the state testing um Cambria right say instead of Pearson. Um there the test is going to be an adaptive test which means
if you answer a question correctly or incorrectly it takes you down a different path. Okay. Um, there's a lot of questions that that raises in terms of if I'm answering a question incorrectly
and I'm going down this road, am I hitting a seventh grade standard or am I hitting a even though I'm a seventh grader or am I hitting a sixth grade standard because I went down I got it wrong road, you know, that kind of thing. uh when we start looking at data from past to now is there going to be
some kind of a of a a guide to help us make those connections or is it not um we don't have any information about that at all okay not uh we are giving a field test us and everybody in the state uh short I think it's two days of two hours
right um to uh grades four through 10 so or yeah four through 10 so it's the kids who took the test last here and um but it's not the new adaptive test. It's the old version of the test. They just want
to see how the new company works with uh the technical side of it and and they're also setting uh state benchmark by these scores because they're testing the students based on what they took last year. So they're setting benchmarks but they're also you know but it's really not the real test going to be. So, you
know, again, we've gone to not we Charlie and Jackie Gaggliardo and uh Steve Matt uh and some of our administrators and supervisors have taken a few of the online and um
it's really very cloudy. Um very very very slow in coming out with stuff. So, we don't know very much. So, you know, I think it's going to be a little bit of a rocky year. I'm not talking about the kids performance. I'm talking about the administrative side of it. It's going to
be a little bit of a of a rocky year. Um and um but that's going to be that's going to be the test in the spring. That's going to be the one that counts. It's not piloting. It's not a field test. It's going to be the one that counts. Okay? And we'll keep you up to date. If we hear, you know, I wish I
could give you something a little more definitive, but we really don't have anything more definitive. Okay? So, that's it. Any questions or comments for Mr. Haley? Um, as far as the action plans for, uh,
algebra and geometry um, at this point, do you know what resources? And if so, would it be within the budget or will you need supplemental funds to do that? Well, we have some title money we could use for certain things.
Um, in regards to PD, we can use title two funds. That's that's for professional development. So we are looking at um Ming is looking at what kind of PD we can get for the teachers and that could be used through title funds. It's also a plan that it it may have a
bigger impact next year because the first thing we have to do is do like a dive into data, right? And then well, you know, we can't put the kids on pause, right? So, you know, if we find out we got to do something a little different come November, December, January, you know, we could start doing it, but it's really going to be next
year. Um, we're limited to how we're going to get additional funding, but we what I want to look at is a hard look at what we use and see if we need to reallocate funds to do something else, you know. But, you know, to your point,
um, we'll I want to be able to accept or reject an idea based on, um, the whole the holistic picture of how things fit, right? schedule, money, things like that, training, but I want the
recommendations to come. You know, this is what we think we need as if they were funded. Thank you, Mr. Misum. Yeah, I I just greatly appreciate the district coming forward so transparently with the the data. Um I I think it is
commendable and um I really impressed with development of the action plans so quickly and your words about defining like a gap analysis. was if the plan ain't working, get a new plan. Right. Um question I had and I don't think we did, but with all the federal back and
forth, did we lose title one money? No, minimal. 10,000. Okay. 10,000 and and none of that would have any impact here. It all came after, but no, minimal. Um and in areas that really won't have a major impact on
Did we lose any title two? I think we went out with title three. Yes, we're okay there. And you know, one of the things that again when you look at our AP scores, right, and you look at our SAT scores, like Mr. Ryan is telling you, they're above the state and national, you know, you start to wonder
how much of that motivational thing we're talking about for kids factor in, but we have to make sure they understand the importance of it to them and to the district and, you know, so that that's going to be part of the plan, too. because it doesn't make sense to me that we're going to be handing out in three
weeks, right? A whole bunch of border edwards. We're going to be we're above the average in SATs. We're above the average in ACT. We're above the average in AP. So, why are we below average on this test? So, you know, I mean, that's why I'm
saying I want to look at everything. I know we have PEP rallies for the state testing. That may not that we have to ask our student rep if she'd like that. I'm not sure. Any other comments or questions about uh the test results?
And can I just end on one positive first? I want to thank Mr. Ryan puts a a ton of work into this. Um but you know 96% I don't know I don't want have a problem math. You know 96% of these sores are
outstanding. you know, um, but you know, as a co old coach, you know, you you look at the things you didn't do right. I used to say former coach, now I'm an old coach. You look at things that you didn't do right. So, but I, you know, I don't want anybody either listening to
this or watching on video to think the sky is falling here. Really, it's not, but there's a couple areas and I'm not going to accept saying, "Hey, everything else is okay. Don't worry about it." Right? We're going to worry about it. We'll see what we get. I would argue you're still a coach, but
maybe not. Yeah. Baseball coach. Yeah. Soccer coach. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's why I said I'm an old co. I used to be former now I'm old. Got it. Mentor. Coach. Yeah. Mentor. Um, one of the things I like to do after hearing a report is to ask if there are
questions from board members because board always brings up great questions and makes great comments and really appreciate your transparency with the test results and the budget question. Um, so just uh appreciating also the the board engagement with with this as well.
It's really important. Absolutely. So thank you very much and thank you Mr. Ryan. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Absolutely. My pleasure. Have a good evening. You too. All right. So, I Yeah, I think um for now that's it. I'll I'll have a couple of comments when we get to uh the era.
Okay. Was it okay? Okay. All right. Uh so, my only comments uh that I had I already talked about homecoming and uh 1:45 on Saturday. Our next board meeting, October 20th, is
going to be in the high school gym, uh, uh, excuse me, high school auditorium, where we will be celebrating the BOE Scholastic Awards for all of our students, uh, who received a certain GPA in a number of grade levels. So, that'll be our next meeting, 7 p.m. there. Um,
and we will take a pause after that and then we'll walk over here for the remainder of the meeting. Um, all right. So, uh, we have two sets of, uh, times where we open the meeting to the public.
The first for anything related to the agenda. So, at 7:58 p.m., we'll open the meeting, uh, to anyone who has any comments related to the agenda this evening. Uh hearing none, we will uh close the
meeting to the public and we're going to move on to new business where there is action to be taken and we are going to begin with personnel. Mrs. Cole, good evening. Uh personnel did not meet this month and we had 15 motions to be put forward tonight at the
recommendation of the superintendent. All right. Thank you very much. Uh, so M. Cole has moved all of those. Do we have a second? Mr. Begoian. Uh, questions or comments about anything in personnel? Uh, yes. I have a um under uh agenda
item number 13. Uh, we're going to redact take out the name of uh Mr. Naznney, third up from the bottom for that training. That's in there by error. So, uh, we'll have the minutes reflect that. Yep. You said Mr. back there.
Nazi this one. Okay. Okay. So, that'll be the minutes reflect that change. All right. Questions or comments from board members? All right. So, just a reminder to the public, we move to a consent agenda. Um
so basically when we get to uh the chair of each committee uh speaking about their section they are going to move all of these items at one time and then that will give us more time to have questions from board members and discussion about
the things related to those areas. Uh so that is personnel. So hearing no other questions and comments I'll ask Mr. Woodford to please take role. Mr. McGoan yes. Mrs. Cole yes. Mr. Danti, yes. Mr. Healey, yes. Mrs. Jones,
yes. Mr. Mison, yes. Dr. Rine, yes. Dr. Elotti, yes. Motion carries. All right. Thank you. Uh, we are going to move on now to curriculum and instruction. Miss Jones.
Thank you. We did not have a meeting under curriculum instruction. Uh, and tonight there are seven motions and I am moving all seven motions. All right. Thank you. Do we have a second? All right, Mrs. Cole.
Any questions or comments about anything related to curriculum and instruction? I just want to clarify again for the board. A reminder that uh resolution number four which uh annually the board has to approve the self assessment for
the district on anti-bullying um training for both uh faculty and staff and also following and and students programs as well as uh reporting and all that. And a reminder that the score of U
74 for the district and 78 um is a a score that I think the total can be 78. So we're in goodstead. What you're approving is just for us to submit this and then back when we get it
approved at the state level uh around January or so I come back and I report it again. And this these were the numbers that you were already reported in the previous meeting. They for 24 and 25. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Questions or comments from board members?
Hearing none. Mr. Woodford, please take role. Mr. McGoan, yes. Mrs. Cole, yes. Mr. Ky, yes. Mr. Healey, yes. Mrs. Jones, yes. Mr. Mone, yes. Dr. Rim, yes. Dr. Lotty, yes. Motions carry.
All right. Thank you. We'll move on now to finance. Mr. Brigoian, we did not have a need for a meeting. uh since our last full board meeting. Tonight on the agenda, we have four items to consider. I would like to move motions one through four under finance. All right. Thank you. Do we have a second?
Mr. Mone, questions or comments about anything related to finance. All right. No. Uh hearing no comments. Mr. Woodford, please take RO. Mr. Poison, yes. Mrs. Cole, yes. Mr. Ky, yes. Mr. Healey, yes. Mrs. Jones.
Yes. Mr. Mison, yes. Dr. Renee, yes. Dr. Lahi, yes. Motion carry. All right. Thank you. We'll move on to policy. Any update, Mr. Healey? Yes. Uh, we did not have a policy uh committee meeting since the last board meeting, and there are no resolutions
for tonight. Okay. We'll move on now to buildings and grounds. Mr. Spayberry is not here, but there has not been a meeting uh of the building grounds committee, and there's nothing to move forward. So, we will move on from there. Uh open the meeting.
Yeah. Um so uh before we go on to old business, uh Mr. Hurley and I spoke before the meeting and uh Mr. Hurley was going to make uh a couple of comments. Oh, we want to open up the floor first. Sorry. Okay. We're going to open the meeting to the public for the second
time. And this is anything related to or not related to the agenda? Anything related to or not related to the agenda? Nope. Okay. Then we are going to close the meeting at 8:03 p.m. Um, and then we are gonna move on to old business. Is there any old business?
Yeah, I I want to just uh comment. I know there's been uh some skull in the community about a petition that's going online and um we have not been presented with the petition results yet or uh but it it's
out there and it has to do with school calendar. So, I just wanted to um remind the board we've had these discussions um in the past uh when either someone's had a question about the calendar or when we uh put the
calendar together every year. Okay. So, the way board of education um the way we and the way all boards of educations put together their school calendar is a multi-layered approach. First you have to look at how many
contractual days you have with your faculty and staff. Uh we have 187. Uh many districts have around 183, 184, but we have 187. And um we also then look at the number of days uh in the contract
are labeled as student days. Um and we have 183 uh for some grade levels because of the parent conferences and 184 for the other. and the state requires 180. So we have an additional 3 to 4 days which
makes our calendar pretty tight. Uh the other thing you look at are um anticipation of if you're going to close school or when you're going to close school what the impact would be on either faculty and staff attendance or student attendance because if you have
either at a high level faculty and staff attendance uh absences are high that creates a major issue in terms of security safety and um and academics and if you have large number of students out it also impacts the academics of the
Um so in addressing like the survey is why the district doesn't have to wallally off um as we look at the the calendar um there are 58 religious holidays that the state
allows students to take off as an excused absence which means doesn't count towards nonredit policy. Uh there are also uh 10 federal and state holidays and that's during just the months of September to June those
religious holidays and state holidays. So when you look at a calendar you try to look at anticipated rate of absences and you look at your demographics. So in 19 uh in 2024 um published online Rutherford two
different groups Dwellix and Sperling that took I guess census data um the Christian population in Rutherford was uh between 58 and 60% depending on which survey you look at. Uh no religion um 34
to 36%. Uh Jewish 4.2 two pretty much consistent in both uh Muslim zero uh 0.5 uh Hindu 0.8 and Mormon 0.2.
Um when we look at closing school on a holiday, we look at sometimes what what is the impact when we're open on school. So for example in and this is a year old this data but on the uh three
Jewish holidays um in the 24 school year uh less than 1% of the students were absent 23 students and um we had I believe I'm looking at my we had three staff members absent okay for the
days. So again that's why we don't close school we have less than 1%. uh for Dwali uh we had zero faculty absent uh we had 43 45 students which is less than 2%.
Now last year the data showed none absent which I found interesting but because if you're absent now a student may have been absent but didn't call it a religious excuse because they called a religious excuse doesn't count against so
in Bergen County 96% of the schools are open for dual 92% are open for Eid and this is from two 2024 it may have changed a little bit uh 94% are open for Luna New Year 82% are open for Junth. Um
a larger number are closed for the Jewish holidays. However, in this um in the South Bergen area, nine of the 10 schools are open for the Jewish holidays. Again, has and that's has to do more with population. So,
the calendar is is really based on the days you have to get in and how many students will be absent. and a student is allowed to take off for a religious holiday um without it being charged against them in any way. Okay. So, I
just wanted that information out there. Thank you. So, uh Mr. Early and I talked about this beforehand uh because we became aware uh a few days ago about this online petition. So, I really appreciate your transparency, Mr. early
putting this in the open session on the record so that um if anyone brings this to your attention and uh have questions you can refer them to Mr. Hurley you can refer them to this recording and obviously as a board of education we're paying close attention to things like
this and this is important to be able to value community voices and you know if uh any of the information that Mr. early changes, demographic information or whatnot, I'm sure the community will be made aware, we'll be made aware um so that we can, you know, adjust accordingly as we might need to in the
future. Yeah. And also the uh calendar is presented um to the to the teachers association, to the administrators and supervisors first to make sure there's nothing uh when I put we put it together, we want to make sure, you know, I'm not missing something in a
contract that's going to come back and be a problem. then is presented to the board and to the public. It's published in a board agenda and it's there's always the opportunity for input um from anybody about the calendar. It's not done, you know, it's done at a public
board meeting every year. Questions or comments from board members? All right. Old business, Mr. Mazone. com. I appreciate the detail in which you know it was all very well explained.
I also know from having on the board for a lengthy period of time the challenges in working that schedule together. So um in light of the fact that there's a petition out there I know that we're looking at doing um surveys like climate surveys. Is it something that we can
consider including in a climate survey about you know because I think it's important for community members to understand that if they have a religious holiday they wish holiday holiday they wish to practice it's considered an excuse well everybody's told that right I understand but whether or not that gets communicated down they read
excuse handbook but I wonder if it's something we can put in one of the climate surveys well I I'd like to see when we get the results back you know because about again I'm talking off the top of my head course um I'd say 40% of the survey was open-ended,
right? So, um, one of the things I'd like to do is look at some of the comments that, um, and there are going to be a lot of comments because we've had about 400 in the 300s,
um, return so far with still about a week to go. Um the company we're working with told us that if you get about 8 to 10% you're you're doing really well in a in a survey and we're at about 14%. So, you know, I I think we should table
what we're going to put in surveys and let them be responsive to things we see in the results. You know what I'm saying? If things come in and and then we could we could have a conversation about what should go in. Sure. I appreciate reflexing the data.
Yeah. Yeah. I think we will see and and you know because the first three surveys are going to be faculty, students, and the ones went out to the parents now are more climate um culture, whatever term you want to use, right? Um and then the
others would be I guess piggybacked off what we see there. Okay. So you the parent survey is already actively out there and you're already collecting responses. Well, we're I I can see them on the back end, but they're going to this, you know, this plan forward.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. It closes on Friday. Got it. And we've gotten well over 300 responses. Is there a plan with regarding the surveys? Is there a plan to send out a reminder? We are going to send one more this week. We sent out one last week and it pretty much was what I spoke about at back to
school night. um after we sent the reminder out and um whatever that was seven or eight days ago and I had spoke spoken the night before at Washington and Lincoln and then the reminder went out uh we we picked up about 85 surveys right there.
Uh we also told people that the open-ended part um and and I met with the the the CEO of the company that did it talked to her about this. The open-ended was set up where if you didn't put an answer in, you couldn't continue. And I know for myself, if I
get a survey like that, I may not want to take all the time to answer every open-ended question. So, we put out a new set of directions that said, "Listen, if there's something you don't have anything to say about, just put out NA." Um, because that allows you then to go forward and there may be things you
do want to say something about. Don't throw away everything in the survey because it's one question you didn't want to take the time to answer. As long as there's something in that box, you can continue. And I think we saw a little bit of a spike in that as well after that. Got it. Okay.
Okay. All right. Uh old business. Any old business? I I just uh I should have said it before we left uh uh about the testing results, everything, but just like to say congratulations again for the advanced placement uh testing results. That's
amazing. Um and in a past life I think I told maybe Mr. I worked for the college board a long time ago as a programmer educational testing service and uh they they have a big contingent developing these tests and they make them
difficult. Oh yeah. So um it is it's high to do it. It is rem it's it's a um I mean as a former AP teacher it's it's not easy and you know the kids we take the test in early May we have about seven weeks
left of school and that's because in some parts of the country school is closing in uh middle of May end of May and it's a nationally normed test right so if you're taking an AP class you're doing work in August on your own in order to get to that part of the curriculum so the kids work very hard
the teachers work very hard. Uh most of the teachers go off to training uh and intensive training. I don't mean like a one day workshop. I mean it's a a week and sometimes it's a week away from home. Uh so it is a um a very strong program. And what I like about it is um mostly
juniors and seniors take can take AP classes. I think it's one class a sophomore that can take it. So you're looking at about 400 kids give or take and look at the number of kids who are taking tests. So, it's not a it's not this elite club we're creating, you know. It's open to a lot a lot of kids.
Congratulations. Old business going once, twice. All right. Uh legislative update, Miss Jones. Nothing this evening. All right. Uh we do have a need for an executive session. Three student issues. Three student issues. One legal.
One legal. No action to be taken. Uh, need a motion to go into executive session. Mr. Mone, seconded by Mr. Beoszian. All in favor? I. All right, we're going into executive session. Thank you.