##VIDEO ID:zs0y9v_Xqs8## burough of Stockton in the township of West Amwell and advertised in the hunter County Democrat and Trenton Times newspaper please stand for the black solution flag United States of America to the for it stands one nation indivisible andice R call please Jennifer Bachelor here Martin Dennis herea P here Brian ke here Kevin KES Aon o Michael stra here L Todd Marino Jim Gallagher here uh next we have to administer the oath of office to Mrs Dennis you can stand all right I'm ARA dentist who solemnly sweare or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey I will bear faith and allegiance to the same to the governments established in the United States and this state under the authority of the people I Mark the dentist who solemnly swear or affirm that I possess the qualification prescribed by law for the office of member of Board of Education and that I am not disqualified as a voter for New Jersey revised Statute 1941 or disqualify due to convictions of a crime or offense listed in New Jersey statute 18a 12-1 and I will faithfully and partially and justly perform all all the duties of the office according to the best liability very good thank you welcome okay uh our student representative apparently went home from school sick today so I don't think we're going to have a report from the student representative for the board so with that um do we have anybody from LEF for a report believe they'll be coming around public comment run a little late okay fine uh how about the the P [Music] oh hello Jessica hardigan PTO um so in lie of kids night out February the PTO will be hosting a Valentine's Day dance um Friday February 7th in the multi-purpose room at South Elementary um the grades will be broken up um between prek and 1 they'll attend between 600 and 7 and second and fourth will attend between 7:15 and 8 15 um this is not a drop off event and students must be accompanied by an adult at all times um admissions $5 per student with a Max of 20 per family um families can either pay cash at the door or they can sign up early on membership toolkit um there will be snacks drinks glow sticks and earplugs for the grown-ups for sale also um it gets really loud in there with the DJ um beyond the bell after school enrichment is almost ready to launch we launch next week which is really exciting because we've put a lot of effort and work into it registration will be open from February 3rd to February 28th registration is available on membership toolkit or paper forms um please be on the lookout and backpack mail if you have a student in elementary school um we had some really great responses and people volunteering to teach CL or not volunteering but signing up to teach classes we have about 15 classes to offer students which is pretty impressive um that is subject to change of course based on enrollment if we have to collapse classes or anything like that but um classes will be available Monday through Thursday from March 10th to May 23rd um and there will also be a signup genius coming out this week um asking for parent volunteers parent volunteers will be um asked to assist teachers help run kids to the restroom and help with attendance and dismissal parents and staff members in grades um 3K through six if you have any pictures please send them to the PTO email address lot of members here so if you could please send us pictures we definitely need it our yearbook committee has been really busy building pages so they're not stuck doing it at the end of the year um a signup genius went out today for Penny Wars this is going to be a districtwide event and it it turns into a really good and wonderful fundraiser so please sign up for that if you're able um we're starting to work on events for the middle school and location for the end of the year um there is going to be a fifth and sixth grade dance sixth grade class trip and an end of the year picnic again another signup genius is going to go out for that if anyone's available to help with that that's going to be a bit of an undertaking and we constantly ask like the same five people to do all the things so if anyone listening at home or in this room has any time to give to that that would be really wonderful um and I just wanted to take time to thank all of our volunteers who continue to show up and work really hard on all of our events from holiday shop to after school enrichment Christmas tree pickup kids night out um we wouldn't be able to do any of the things we do without people helping um so that's really wonderful and thank you that's it I just wanted to acknowledge the work that Jess and the PTO has done on the enrichment program um from back in the fall till now and all the different activities that we're going to offer it's taking a ton of work so thank you it's going to be awesome okay um our on the correspondence we did have one letter last month that was posted online for anyone um next up uh we have we need a motion to approve our minutes from our regular meeting of December 16th and December the 10th and our executive minutes from November the 25th can I have a mo so move on Mor thank you and a second please second by thank you any discussion on those minutes all those in favor I anyone opposed uh next up first up we have a uh report on Mid midyear student data update Len please take it away thank you um good evening president Gallagher members of the board Mr suzo and community members thank you for the opportunity to present our District's K8 winter Benchmark assessment results from our middle of the Year testing window tonight's presentation will provide you with a comprehensive overview of how our students are progressing academically at this crucial midpoint throughout the year we'll examine performance data across all grade levels looking both areas of strengths and opportunities for growth the information will help us understand the effectiveness of our instructional strategies inform our adjust adjustments as needed and move on to our second semester the data I'm about to share it reflects the hard work of all of our students the dedication of our teachers and the ongoing partnership with our families while these benchmark assessments are just one measure of student achievement they provide a valuable Insight with our students Mastery and grade level standards and help us identify where additional supports may be needed as we res review these results together I want to acknowledge behind every data point is a child with unique needs circumstances and potential so our goal in sharing this information is not just to measure performance but to ensure that we're providing resources and the support necessary for each child so I want to go ahead and acknowledge the board and thank you um for allowing me to come tonight we had had this opportunity or had this discussion at our curriculum committee and we really thought it was very important for us to report out on the progress as opposed to one time in October or November where we pre present our njsla student achievement data so the purpose of tonight's presentation is really to show you the growth and the opportunities in which we have um provided our students in the first two marking periods so think about that marking period one marking period two so not a lot of time and you will see tonight the growth and the exceptional work of our teachers and the dedication of everyone to being um the best for our students and showing up for them and then helping them understand how they need to show up for us as well with the achievement results so thank you and we'll go ahead and dive in so the demographics this is as of January 1 and it shows a snapshot of the population across all our schools I know it's a little difficult to read from the back but our to Total enrollment as you see is 794 students and it represents diverse backgrounds and learning needs understanding demographic data is crucial as we examine achievement data because it helps us understand where their gaps and how to ensure instructional strategies are meeting the various needs of our students in the following slides we'll analyze the different student groups performed and how they performed on our winter Benchmark data and then discuss some strategies that specifically Target and support students needs so I ready you've heard me talk a lot about I ready since last spring when we talked about how we were using it um in our hit program or our tutoring program and then how that provided such a pilot um structure for us to implement this year with accelerate and flex with I ready we can better understand what students still need to learn and find ways to meet those instructional priorities of our students as well as build a classroom culture that data guides instruction so it's very important to have these conversations with students with families with each other during our plc's with the admin team and then vertically across many different subgroups so as we look at the different performance levels um with I ready I wanted to point out that the there are are five different levels so mid or above grade level is a dark green and these colors correlate to the back the graphs I'm going to show you on the next couple slides the reason that the on grade level in yellow it has a highlight is just because you can't read yellow lettering um but then you will see the two or more grade levels below and three or more grade levels and everything that the student does in the personalized instruction during accelerate or Flex is tied to how they did on the diagnostic so with that we can have a unique and specific understanding of where the students are and just because um there's a lot of data behind I ready they did a large scale study a couple years ago um in students in K and 8 who met the recommended guidelines of I ready usage so between 30 and 40 minutes each week per subject they exceeded their typical growth measures um and achieved higher growth on standardized testing for those that didn't meet those necessary minutes so even though we talk about the importance of meeting certain expectations and guidelines it's because the research supports it I didn't pick up oh let's just do 30 minutes there's research behind everything we do so that we can say this works this has been proven and let's give it a go and tailor and iterate it for those of us for our South hun and kids so we also give benchmarks and I'm not going through every one of the benchmarks we give in our assessment profile but I wanted to highlight those um where we have the most amount of data and that we can report out um so we also give Ral medm marks and those of you that know reveal is their math program we use K8 so we're developing that consistency across all the grade levels the reveal benchmarks as some of you noticed on the um assessment calendar that's posted online they're what's called cumulative so they assess the students um from 1 to 7 1 to 4 depending on what the grade level is and the purpose of that is though that teachers can provide a spiral review for the students and their math skills so at this point in time every grade level except I think at second grade has given their first Benchmark assessment um and then second grade's going to give it the first week in February but this keeps all of our um instruction on Pace and our pacing guides are set to cover all of the instruction and the standards needed for the njsla in miday so the point is to keep on Pace to assess and then Pace our students across the district and find out where the opportunities are for additional supports so here we go we're gonna dive right into the reading data so what I did was we developed um the what we'll go through first is the diagnostic results and we're comparing the fall versus the r winter and we're going to go through the reading data first so as you see we see encouraging growth patterns among the first these first three grade levels and you see our kindergarten classes have shown remarkable progress with 66% of the students now working on grade level material so it is a little challenging to see the numbers from the back of the room I have shared it with the staff um and tomorrow we will go ahead and share it with the community at large but I want you to see is you follow the green so when we're looking at our Trends we're trending up and to the right when we move from the fall to the winter so as you can see our green gets larger our red gets smaller and we can see the progress that students are making first grade has also demonstrated St grains with 30 3% of our first graders now working at grade level material this is particularly strong growth for our students who receive Target interventions and we've got a move from 8 from excuse me from 84% and then one below at 68% grade two 54% of the students are working on grade level at this time of the year grade three shows go on to the can go on to the next one grade three shows amazing progress we 69 youve lost your connection Tony three as the board members can see from the graphs in front of them has 69% of the students working on grade level that is outstanding for this time of year think about what that means read students is when we bring it up we will see also showed significant amount of improvement in their reading scores 60% of the students are now reading on grade level compared to 44% in the fall this growth correlates directly with the implementation of small group instruction and our new integrated Reading Writing and vocabulary program so we're seeing these results across different platforms so the instruction they're getting during wit and wisdom in their Ela blocks is then translating um to the I ready lessons and the diagnostic information so the elementary level K4 we have 58% of the school working on grade level working on grade level exactly where they're supposed to be 58% of the students are on track for end of the year achievement we move to fifth and sixth grade again we're seeing Trends upward and to the right so we know we still have more work to do and that's fine as often times as you get into the Great grades the upper grades the gaps get a little bit larger as imaginable because you have more unfinished learning so that's okay we've making the progress as you can see the students the green is growing and the red is shrinking seventh and eighth grade reading again we implemented a new program and um with Whit and wisdom we know that there's some logistical constraints we know that we are on a rotating drop for seventh and eth grade for both math and reading and that's challenging for programs that are written for a middle school um five days a week but our teachers are doing great as as our students so again we're seeing that progress where we're seeing the big red which is the three or more grade levels below go down and we're seeing the dark green and the light green move up so again we're seeing great progress and we're moving in the right direction we're now switching over to going to look closely at math again we've got the growth in kindergarten you could see that we've closed that um one grade level below which would be prechool and now students are working at grade level content with um the two green bands same thing we're seeing that small that closing of the red at the top and I know those are tough to see typically um if the top dark red is 4% that's about 1.8 students or one two students so when we consider all of the students are assessed in this on the I ready diagnostic that includes all of our different subgroups our special education our multilingual Learners all of our students and so that progress is amazing and again we're seeing the growth getting you can just look at the growth of the red reducing second grade is a Hu is a great example example as well um where that small red bar um shrunk immeasurably excuse me measurably again we're looking at um grades three and four the green is growing as you can see um with the fourth grade math that large green box at or above grade level has shown tremendous progress fifth and sixth we know we've got some work to do we are using the accelerate time to monitor the progress as well as monitor how we're doing with reveal and our pacing with reveal um so again we know we can see where the specific targets are and where specifically we need to focus our interventions and additional strategies and seventh and eighth grade math um we're looking here we were going to identify seventh grade as the you know that's going to be the one cohort we're going to focus on we knew that coming in to seventh grade this year we had six their previous scores in njsla um also told us that these this cohort of students needs some support for whatever reason when they were we want to go back to covid in second grade um we can put all of those different things into place as we look at our students so I just want to share some of the um or share the plan we have for seventh grade math students so as you know no I'm going to talk a little bit about this before I get on to the um suggested activities so what we're going to do is similar to the mtss and the tiers at the k6 level that we've been so successful we're going to implement a tiered support system um for seventh and eth grade beginning next week what we'll do is um we have data meetings um beginning tomorrow so tomorrow we'll meet with the elementary School uh and we'll review the data and then on Wednesday we will re meet with the high school and review the data from the high school as well as the seventh and eighth grade so what we'll do is we'll be able to just like we do at the k6 level we'll be able to take the seventh and eth grade data and again I'm going to speak to seventh and eth grade and this is where we're going to work on tiered instruction we are not tiering the high school I just want to make that clear as I'm talking and so we will look at all of the data we can break the or we can divide the students up into tiered groups just like we do with the elementary school we can look at the students and say look at them that are three or more grade levels below what do we need to do with these students so at that point in time we're going to restructure our Flex for the seventh grade math students so that they are working in small groups just like we do with the elementary school we're going to be able to track the progress we're going to be able to train the teachers and provide instruction with the I ready toolbox which are lessons that are taught to students in small group not on the computer and then the teacher can assess um and assign specific skills just like we do um at the elementary level and the student passes that quiz and moves on to another deficit so the idea is that we are creating these small targeted groups and in seventh grade math because that's where we're starting right now because have identified that is the cohort and we know that when we identify a targeted group then we can do the most amount of work parents will be part of this process as well you will parents will receive a letter saying your student is now going to be receiving this support two to three times a week during Flex you may notice that there may be additional practice with I ready at home as well as additional practice during the other flex days so we're taking all of the things that we put into place um last spring with the high impact tutoring that was such a success put into place this year as we've just seen with the elementary data what it looks like when we're successful and we're going to now take that and Implement that with the seventh grade math students moving forward so I also want to share that um we because of our tutoring and the company we um contracted with for the high impact tutoring during the day which we're going to start to or excuse me after school um based on our grant money that we're starting tomorrow for fifth and sixth graders after school we do have additional licenses um for teacher and students so we're going to be offering a high impact tutoring after school for seventh and eth graders in math so that information will be communicated to families within the next um week or so and then we look to probably start that in mid-February and then we would be able provide after school support for them as well all of these things we have learned work really well so let's go ahead and give them a go at the middle school level um and we will have updates and I'll be able to provide updates um at board meetings next month I can provide an update on how we're doing as well as with the curriculum committee um moving forward so um at this point I just want to shift gears a little bit and talk a little bit about before we get to Next Step or you can move to next steps is fine um but I want to address um some of the conversations and the questions and concerns we've had about students above grade level so when I in introduced I ready earlier this evening I noted that I ready also gives a clear understanding of student who's performing at or above grade level and since this performance band I Contin uh excuse me considers consistent with performing where students need to be I can't separate we don't separate at the above grade level for the atg grade level so we look at all of that green and we say this is what the students are doing and they're consistently meeting grade level standards yet I want to share that the diagnostic score allows us to identify skills and standards that a student has mastered so which allows them exposure to content that is above grade level so the personalized lessons are all based on where the student has succeeded so as we look at where students are to enrich and um accelerate or extend activities you know specifically maybe for our gifted and talented students we're looking at an Adaptive assessment that's helping us focus on what a student has mastered where they have succeeded and then how can we support them moving forward so the I ready diagnostic just to give you some information um as students are presented with the diagnostic the um they will be presented with 50% of the information that they've been exposed to and know and 50% of the content that they don't know so that's why it can be very challenging as a student moves through being successful the program adapts as students might not get the answers correctly or may not be succeeding with that skill the program adapts and then the student is is the assessment changes so that the student isn't met with frustration but they're also not met with boredom or accelerating through something that they feel like they already know um so it pinpoints their exact ability on where they are and what they know students are also exposed to above grade level material so a second grade student could be working on grade level content and skills in within a personalized learning path and that's not to say they've mastered every with second grade it's just saying they've mastered some of the skills and Concepts so they can move on to third grade so just like any of the teachers here can tell you there are things in third grade standards that are sometimes easier than what are in second grade standards if you're looking at some of the math concepts measurement in data or specific geometry so the way that I ready works it's very personalized for that student and where they're being successful so excuse me just like teachers can look at toolbox lessons that support and close some learning gaps they can also look at toolbox lessons within I ready that will then extend they can also we can also extend part of the reveal curriculum there's extensions and wit and wisdom so there's lots of areas for extension but I wanted to speak a little bit to um how we use it for our gifted and talented students as well as any student that's performing at or above um some of the just suggested activities as we move through this we're going to look to set some goals for the diagnostic spring assessment as well as our njla this is just about the time we start to have conversations about what does it look like as we prepare students for the end of or the Spring State Testing we want to celebrate performance and Improvement and progress towards our goals within next week we will be calling students down to the main office and each one of the three Elementary um buildings to share that these are the students that have met their stretch goal already at this point in time that means they've surpassed their typical growth goal and they have exceeded that so we're going to celebrate them with a small goodie bag and their name announced over um the loudspeaker and we'll also highlight them on social media so I want to be able to highlight that there are students who may be meeting stretch roles in reading but maybe they haven't met those goals in math and that's perfect ly fine so we have all that those names and we're ready to go next week um so what we're continuing to doing is then address the bright spots look for areas of focus and then plan next steps what data can this give us to help support all of our students so as I talk about often about our professional learn learning communities and what teachers will be doing so over the month of February they will be meeting and discussing the class data um and we'll be looking at we are in our data meetings across vertical so we'll look across content so how can we use the new updated writing standards in our science and math and technical areas how can we use reading informational texts or non-fiction in our social studies History Science and other classes um so we'll be looking at those we're going to look to see how we can support students in accelerate and flex meaning what specific groups do we need de form what students have now met goals that we're going to exit from tier three we may be keeping them in tier two or what students have met all the goals and now are just going to have tier one support in their classroom we will go ahead I know families have been asking we'll be sharing the individual student reports with families after the February 5th um Middle School on location data meeting I wanted to make sure we had all those conversations so those reports will go home just like they went home in the fall and and then we're going to look at the tier 2 and the tier three students and we can do that specifically in I ready and then look to say how can we support these students within the content the lessons we're teaching every day and that is a wrap thank you for everyone and all their hard work board members do you have any questions about the CL presentation absolutely so that is data we can pull from I ready which is really really helpful so measurement and data and geometry are two math domains that we see um especially as we get into the upper grades it was funny I had a conversation with an administrator today so when do they teach measurement and data in the elementary I was like actually they started in kindgarten so the way that the our math program is set that all four of those domains are taught all the way from kindergarten through so when we look at think about geometry for kindergarteners we think about shapes right being able to identify them and then it moves up and spirals throughout the year so when we look at like seventh grade math and we look at measurement and data we might be looking at reviewing arean perimeter and multiplying fractions or a lapse time those are typically are perimeter and time what no matter where you are in what grade level are typically the most challenging and geometry so thinking about how we teach geometry domain at the middle um excuse me the Middle School the elementary levels a lot of that comes through our modeling which was something is one of the the areas on njsla that our students um need to practice more so in all of our math lessons and our units they talk about math modeling practices so that's using manipulatives that's visual that's spatial that's actually modeling what it may look like um in a math lesson so instead of just reading or drawing boxes with Aryan perimeter kids I've been in a third grade math lesson where the child and the teacher actually put blocks together so that they could identify what 2 * two means and how to find the area because they actually put four blocks together so we really are looking now after this diagnostic data how can we then um create enough opportunities for practice for measurement in data and geometry any other questions from the board comment just I would mess with so many of our teachers in the audience today to not say this is obvious from the data a lot of work has gone into this not only in getting the kids working in ready but in the process of getting them ready you can see from that early the the early band data that they need to adopt and get into the program so that is a lot of work and I want to thank our our teachers for doing that foren for for leading leading that in charge absolutely absolutely and kids grow right like and it's the constant okay trust the process they're going to grow they're going to develop and a kindergartener at five is going to be different than the kindergartener at six right and so and our teachers know that right so there's es and flows and you know sometimes the program doesn't meet where the children are at a certain point and that's okay um because it's a work in progress right our kids need to be in school and experiencing and being taught the material just like there is a report I can run an I ready that if students at this point in time if they took the njsla tomorrow what would they do there was no other teaching well 54% of our students will score um fours so that's the data we can get from I ready but we know that there's a whole extra year I mean we haven't even gone through um the rest of the content and remember whenever we talk about standards we're talking about standards at the end of the year so uh New Jersey student learning standard is what students are to accomplish at the end of the year so after they've gone through several iterations of exposure and practice and then Mastery that's where we see and that's why we push and choose our test dates for njsla absolute latest we possibly can some districts have to do it in March and I you know feel sorry for them because there's a lot of Unfinished learning in March but we chose the absolute latest we possibly could with allowing for makeups and submission to the state so so that's just a a strategy um that we put into place last year I'm not I I don't know previously what you um with South Hunter has done before so any other question J can you talk a little bit about um I guess to your point that kids grow um so some some people might say this progress could just be exposure that that that it's just that's what you would expect so can you talk to how our data compares to the data that I already um normally sees absolutely absolutely so when we look and I didn't get into a whole lot because there's a it's a it gets very technical but when we look at typical growth data is 50% of the students uh or excuse me they have mastered 50% of the content at this point in the year it makes perfect sense right so 50% of the year is done 50% of the data so when you look at our data and I was talking about 66% are on grade level or 58% so so we're above and um where we need to be at this point in the year and as the teachers look and dive into their class data they can see exactly where students are and how far they in the the Mastery they've had I working with teachers and 77% of their students have mastered so when we look at that data we're we're ahead which helps us um and so that's some of the those are the some of the reports that we'll look at at the data meetings as well we'll look at the projection of proficiency they call it and so where are the students today as I talked about and where are they projected to be so we talk about that as being typical growth and then the other measurement of growth is called stretch growth and I didn't get too much into that but we can measure students a it's called their stretch growth and so it's typically a percentage of o their typical growth so those kids as we said we're going to celebrate those that have met that for the diagnostic that means they're on their way to being Way Beyond um where they're supposed to be at the end of the year question yeah well first I just want to Echo what Michael said and say thank you to all the teachers for um I had a question I have two questions actually the first one is about the slot the slide um that deals with local local benchmarks and Universal screening assessments when that when all that testing is completed will that be looked at relative to the I ready data and so how are those going to be put together and how will that be used so that's what we'll talk about at the data meetings um there's there's I mean to get into the Dibbles for K3 and to get into theel for the high school I mean it would be a very long presentation I wanted to show I wanted to talk about the K8 I ready data because it's something that sweeping across all those grades whereas the Dibbles is there's some Assessments in kindergarten in first and then there other Assessments in second okay one two and then there are additional assessments we use for third so it's a little bit more complicated and those assessments for Dibbles are our early literacy assessments so those are our letter sounds called phonics phic awareness understanding um fluency passages and so all of those are are building blocks for learning to read and so those those data points we will use this week I'll use them tomorrow as I meet with the elementary school to say you know we've created um what we're calling a rubric and to identify students for tier two and tier three so we look at a certain score for I ready we look at a certain score for Dibbles we look at a certain score for and for grades and the upper grades so all of those things come together to allow us to create a profile of what a tier 2 student or a tier three student we don't just rely on I ready or we just like we just don't rely on grades just like we don't just rely on teacher input we have to put all of those things together and as I also said like this is just a data point so if a teacher says the child really needs some extra support we say okay why do you think that sure tell me why they were out of the country they been dealing a lot at home this that and everything that's fine and that's why we have an inperson meeting so we can determine that um and did that help answer your question a little bit or enough or no I I I think so yeah [Music] um I think so um my other question actually had to do with the tier two and tier three that are kind of mentioned on the next step slide the one thing I one of the things I was wondering about is what about tier one you know who's one grade behind so you know supports for for I'm assuming that's what tier one is right one grade behind and tier two is two grades behind tier one is the whole class and so typically we identify um students in tier two and tier three or two or more grade levels or two grade levels below and then three or more grade levels if a student is at one skill standard or strategy one grade level below we know that that working with the teacher in small groups within the classroom peer support all of the things that we have in place in our classroom is going to support that student that's why we do these data checks because if a student is one grade level below at a certain point in the year and then we see that they're two grade levels below we say okay let's scoop them up and let's put them in the small group with the interventionist or with the standards with support teacher so we're always monitoring the progress so I guess like when we're looking at all the charts of the green the yellows and the Reds I mean in most of those charts the yellow is the the biggest group right which is one grade level behind they're basically receiving the same kind of intervention or assistance as the the green the and the Greenwood no no no they would receive specifically what they need so that's the data and that's what we get from the the every day on the I ready they're G to receive what they need from the the myad is that what you mean no they're going to receive it from the teacher so a teacher you know and there's so much more to a classroom instruction than just these data points I mean I would tell you that classroom instruction is outweighs all of these data points the teachers have the kids in front of them they know exactly what they need from one unit to the next from one lesson to the next so if a student if they teach a math lesson and there's four students that aren't understanding whatever the concept was the teacher pulls those four students and retes provides another practice page and that's why we work in small groups because there are students that did understand it and are good to go independently so even though on I they may be presenting as one grade level below you know in our classrooms we know that when we teach something 80% of the students are going to get it the first time we know 20% of students were going to automatically have to pull in a small group or retach them in some way you know I don't they could have not gotten it because they have an ear infection and they can't hear correctly or maybe they need something um visually as opposed to just auditorally so lots of different things but the teachers know that and so the tier one students um that everyone is exposed to the material and then it's just a matter of looking at the lesson and looking who was successful with the lesson the independent practice the small group practice that kind of thing thank you any other questions board just wanted to clarify one thing because I just when you were answering um Ronnie's question when we just to clarify um so when we're talking about that we have like 50 you know how the 53% of the kids that are in the green right but I think we you said something about like well we're halfway through the year right but that should mean that we've learned half the material not that half the kids would you know what I'm saying like so the the Diagnostics that they were that were given is is based only on the material that we've learned to this point in the year you know what I'm saying like we we would want 100% of the kids to be at Great level no matter what point of the year right not 50% halfway through the but the way I already diagnostic works as I said it's 50% what they know 50% what is new material that they're being exposed to so that's where the fluctuation comes in these numbers where the kids you know the how we're categorizing it as being at grade level one grade level behind like that's based on the material that they've learned to the point in the year right so I think I just I think and that's kind of leads into what Gina was getting at was that if we still have a lot of kids at at yellow at halfway through the year or three quarters of the way they're are below what we've taught so far so I think you know kind of just and I think your question was how do we compare like having 53% of our kids or whatever right at grade level is that comparative to other other places right not that we're halfway through the year and half the kids have learned at grade number you yeah and you I from what I understood and what you were saying is that the at level is what they would be expected to know at the end of the year yes learn half of it the end of the year that's the 50% yes that might be just exposure and being successful with grade level content are all different things so also let's take a pause to say remember it's January so we've done a lot in two markeing periods compared to where we were and we also know that we've got from here till June so we've got a lot of work to do to keep going we also know that we have work to do right we're constantly growing evolving and I'm not in all of my celebrations and praise and saying how wonderful they are I'm not discrediting the fact that we have work to do there's no doubt and just like when we looked at our njsla scores and we you know we were comfortable before in threes we're not comfortable in threes anymore we want to be fours and fives and that's the goal so this gives us a temperature check of where we are at this point in the year so we went to the doctors they took their temperature okay some have a fever so we need to make sure we address those most PE Mo a lot of people are really healthy and on track to staying on track and that's where we are um that's not to say that when we meet this week that there won't be lots of things that we're going to talk about and change um we're constantly changing and iterating our curriculum this is the first time we're going through wit and wisdom this is the first time we're implementing foundations this is the first time we're using Hagerty so this is the first time for reveal in 678 so there's still a lot of things that we haven't worked through yet um and so I just want to say that as well we're not where we need to be no I think overall this is so helpful just to even see these numbers throughout the year I think that's huge because in my mind what I'm thinking is we see this now so we can catch a lot of these kids before they get to where our seventh and eth graders are now because you know I feel like we've been in that process of like they were a little behind a little behind a little behind and now they're a lot behind and we didn't really talk about them in these cohorts and stuff before so I think this is this is helpful just to show it to us this way and that this is great and I think like our first second our kindergarteners now will not get to the point where our sers are today which is going to be helpful so I so I think the Educators see the initial sets at the beginning of the year and halfway through and we probably see our individual kids but be being able to see kind of program implementation and see hey this is this is working like we're making progress towards something that is helpful for us to see like where we need to yeah this helps us speak to you know what are you doing about test course okay all right I think that's it for thank you very much um Mr suo yes I just had a few slides that I want to give an update I won't be long I promise um so I wanted to give an update although you can't see it at the top for preschool just to kind of give you you know an update of where we are as of of today um we have been investigating another option um specifically looking at housing three preschool classes at the elementary school and housing two preschool classes at St John's so if you remember you know back in November we talked about this we had originally looked at perhaps utilizing St John's for all of our preschool classes they came back with a pretty high number of I think it was 291 right 291 ,000 per year to rent out their facility for all preschool so we decided um really back in December what if we just rented out literally two classrooms in a conference room and we could take three of our preschool classes and house them at the elementary school and then the other two house them at St John's so we reached out to them before winter break um we proposed this kind of gave them a number that would work within our preschool expansion budget to help pay for the rent and we're waiting on a response which we're hoping to get finalized in the next couple days um and then we'll have some more information so I think uh this is an exciting possibility um which could work well for the district and this keeps our class sizes correct maintains our class sizes yep so we have five sections of preschool this year we intend on keeping five sections for next year so we would stay status quo uh so as soon as we find out information from St John's we'll share it with the board and obviously the community and then talk about next steps um I also wanted to give an update just on West anwell just a couple things um in reference to the water issue and the board knows this is I've been keeping them up to date we've reached out to d uh several times since our initial meeting back in November um here's an example of what I've been getting back you know we're working on coordinating with different divisions in the department we'll providing possible dates for meetings on next steps so this has been going on really since November uh unfortunately we haven't been able to solidify them with a date to actually meet uh just being fully transparent I think one of the issues is they don't know what to do at this point um as far as what a remedy goes so I'm assuming that they're trying to work on that before they would meet with us to figure out next steps in the interim obviously we continue to be on bottle of water um you know it's been Rel LA to us that you know the cause of the contamination is the business that's next door um so we've reached out to them and had some initial conversations they are providing reimbursement for our water that we are purchasing on a monthly basis our bottled water for our students and they're trying to work on a resolution as well with the D but nothing as of yet um Andrew and I met on January 8th with the commercial real estate broker that did the broker's opinion on West anwell back in 2021 uh we requested that he update the broker's opinion on the west Amwell property uh he agreed to do this at no cost when he did the first go around he did not include the house in the front so he is going to include the house this time we did share with him up front as our real estate attorney told us to do just some of the environmental issues that we're dealing with right now because obviously that has to factor in the broker's opinion uh but we expect to receive an update from him sometime in February and then we'll report out to the board and then the community and then something else I wanted to share so uh and again like Jane Allen said I'll send out both presentations tomorrow but I did send out uh I guess it was a week or so ago to the community about some administrative changes that we will be making for the 25 26 school year so I wanted to provide a little bit more detail on that um I did want to give kind of like a history lesson um and know when this bar goes away in a second you'll see but this was our structure from 2018 to 2022 so if you look at the bottom we did have a supervisor position of stem and special projects um and then at the end of the 2022 school year um the individual that was in that position took a a position in another District um as an administrator and left the district so at that point we kind of really evaluated you know where do we go from here as far as this position uh we decided at that point that we were going to eliminate the position and we made that decision really on based on a lot of the things that Jane Ellen shared tonight uh we had a lot of balls that were in the air we were literally in the second year of our new math program R math we were getting ready to launch our new um W wisdom program we were in the midst of a pilot we were in I think year two of inspire science which was a new program at our elementary so at that point with all the different things that were going on and trying to structure the data and the different things that you heard about tonight we did make the decision to hire two instructional coaches um and replace that supervisor position um and have a little bit more on the ground support at that time based on all the different initiatives that were taking place and the support that we needed um you know obviously we've done a lot of work within those two years and we felt like you know foundational wise especially K8 we're in a really good place right now um so unfortunately our two coaches at the beginning of the year and it's a good thing for them they were hired by two other school districts as administrators so obviously they were talented and and were rewarded for that uh we decided because it was late in September like we weren't going to fill the positions school year had already started even though we had budgeted for them in our 2425 budget so we kind of just let that left that open and really evaluated what would be our next steps for 25 26 and we've decided to add some additional support so we will be adding the principal in charge of instruction and special projects as an additional support really to Jane Ellen to be quite honest with you because there's a lot of different things as you can see tonight that are happening and that was literally just an Ela and math that you heard about we didn't even talk about all the different things that are going on in science eventually social studies and throughout the district so that's a big piece so we really do need an additional person um to help support all the different things that we're doing one person just can't do that all by themselves so this individual will play a role in that and really helping support a lot of the things that you heard about tonight and being able to really work on different things that we're focusing on not only now but in the future and we will get some savings from it so when you look at the two instructional coaches as far as our salary and benefits and then the administrative position we save about almost $61,000 for our 2 5 26 school budget so I just wanted to give some background and some rationale um you know we did have a similar structure you know a couple years ago we're going to return back to that structure moving forward starting in July of of this coming year that's all I I have okay any questions about that any questions from the bo uh so for the principal um for the next September or this September 25 2025 yeah we know for sure five classes we have three classrooms available to us at the elementary scho no matter what uh so we're we're our question right now is just St John availability and backup plan would be West hws correct but I honestly feel like if we're able to come and work with St John's that would be our number one option right now as long as they don't come back with a crazy yeah okay other question okay with that we come to the period of public comments um we have two of these uh in every meeting um give me one minute here read a little Spiel um just a reminder we do have procedures and requirements that include standards of conduct that need to be followed by members of the public during public comments a member of the public becomes disruptive during a public meeting meeting including during any period for public comment a member of the board charged with running the public meeting to warn the disrupted member of the public that continued disruption may result in being prevented from speaking during the public meeting removed from the public meeting disruptive conduct includes sustained and appropriate behaviors such as but not necessarily limited to shouting Interruption and use of profanity or comments seen as abusive of seing or defamatory no participant may speak more than once during each public comment period that we do uh members of the public are invited to address the board on any matter for maximum three minutes during this portion of the meeting you're asked to state your name and municipality um I would say you are welcome to ask questions to the board we will if there something that we can easily answer we will try to do so if not we may take that under advisement and come back to you with a detailed answer and with that public comment is open please good evening my name is Lindley jamson and I have served students at South hundon Regional School District for the past 18 years I don't envy the decisions the Board of Education needs to make about the future preschool programming clearly we are all finding ourselves in positions that make serving our students in our community more and more difficult as someone who works with your children every day I remain committed to making sure our classroom and lessons provide the literal and figurative space for them to flourish and grow to find their voice to discover their potential I along with the members of the south hunon regional Education Association are willing to work with you so that all of our staff can continue providing a phenomenal education program to our students your children so they can grow and explore developing into lifelong Learners as you make your difficult decisions we ask that you ensure the proper contingency plans are in place so that our schools and students may continue to thrive we all look forward to you we all look to you to ensure that our staff and students are provided the space to continue teaching and learning in an environment conducive to meeting every child's needs we have worked with satellite sites like the St John's Jesus school before and we hope such a Sit such a solution or similar one can be found to ensure our students and staff can continue our hard and worthwhile programming some have said we will find three rooms somewhere how does the board intend on making this happen to set the students up for Success what will our classrooms and schools look like when the doors open in the coming years will our classrooms be bursting at the seams will our kindergarten students be able to find their space their voice and their potential in crowded classrooms of 30 students will teachers need to sacrifice creative spaces such as dramatic play reading Corners stem and art centers because we will need more desks to accommodate overcrowded classrooms if we need to increase class sizes and cut staff how will that impact the immediate and long longterm needs of our students as they progress through these formative years will they have the opportunity to grow and explore or will they be confined and constrained because our classes don't provide the physical and social space to grow the Sha encourages and is willing to work with the board to ensure if one door must close other doors will open to spaces in classrooms where all our students preschool through grade8 can continue to grow and explore flourish and nourish their love of learning where teachers have the flexibility and the opportunity to ensure that every child receives what they need in order to chart their path forward we ask the board to have a plan in place before any doors are closed for Good thank you you anyone else have something they' like to bring okay do we have anybody on one line uh good question we do now okay all right um anyone that final call anyone anything to bring for board seeing nobody I'm going to close the period of public comment and as I mentioned before we will have a second one uh we will have a second one tour um at this time it's 8:02 we've been in it for an hour I'd like to take a I'd like to ask for a 5 minute recess everybody's okay with that probably people an opportunity to get a drink use the bathroom um and so PL need motion go to uh recess at 802 come back out at 807 move by Ron can I have a second please second second by Jen I believe all in favor I okay we're in recess for five minutes he e myget it is only Monday yesterday and today felt like5 yday my wife I actually felt like a we had family dinner but we also watch e e e e TT by Michael all in favor I okay moving on to our commit report uh we will start with buildings ground transportation finance and safety Mr uh so this is a long one if I missed anything I apologize so Finance building grounds transportation and Safety Committee met January 23rd we had a presentation from auditing firm presented a 2024 annual comprehensive financial report so our full report is posted online in addition um to a shorter summary for anyone to review it so on the agenda tonight for approval along with the corrective action plan buildings and grounds updates so the middle school so as as of our meeting on Thursday the DP has not released the treatment works approval permit yet and we're waiting on a sprinkler system to be approved right for the DCA in this meeting tonight Tony talked about the water issue at West ammo and the prek program um we'll be working with our five attorney prare bids for the athletic field and the next steps will be discussed at our next meeting in February um so Financial updates so we'll be we'll be moving items 8 through n this evening um bills listed Financial reports um contracts that re re approving several agreements um including the Fairview Lake Camp and um so moving forward the Fairview camp that all my kids went to my wife went to um they'll be doing this as fifth graders instead of six I've done of sixth graders as long as I can remember um I think it's a good opportunity as the kids are going to the elementary school to the Middle School to have a a chance to Bing um was a good chance to to get together at at that that I my kids my kids love it um if anything else major [Music] um the resolution to join the the Bergen County ESC it's the qu purching purchasing program guess the intent with that is to make things less expensive for us as a school dist great as part of a co-op we can bid or we can I'm saying around we can have a larger organization to have yeah that's really all the the major things I have um guess the transportation updat so bu bus purchase we're waiting on a delivery of the bus and I installation of the C safety cameras and the tenative rootes for the 2025 2026 school year complete I think that's all I have so I guess with that like to move items a through M move by Brian second second second by Kevin any discussion on items 8 for I would second what Brian said about Camp phew we have been doing that since the mid 80s here in this area all three of our elementary schools um this year I believe fifth and sixth graders went to it so as it turns out even though we're switching it'll start fifth grade so all the kids coming up from the elementary school in lamberville and they coming to this building and one of the first big activities they do together it's going to be great um and we haven't missed any grad so I that's worked out very well um I would uh also mention as Brian mentioned the audit um this is something that we do every year we have our our finances audited by a professional firm um the Auditors we have had different Auditors our current auditor is Bill Mr col Han's from um I will read There is a uh a letter that says uh this is the official letter it says we noted no transactions entered into by South hunon Regional School District during the year for which there is a lack of authoritative guidance or consensus all significant transactions have been recognized in the financial statements in the propit period um Brian mentioned a corrective action plan that uh is also covered in this letter and uh it says the Professional Standards require us to accumulate all known and likely misstatements identified during the audit other than those that are clearly trivial and communicate them to the appropriate level of management management has corrected all such misstatements in addition none of the misstatements detected as a result of audit procedures and corrected by management or material either individually or in the aggregate each opinions unit financial statements taken as a pull So This Is Not Unusual that there are findings that there are little things that we could have done differently process things uh the two items in the corrective action plan are uh in some the district did not obtain any proper approval signatures and receiving signatures certifying goods and services my understanding is this is when this occurred because we had a year-long contract and we signed that contract thinking that when we signed the contract that was uh uh we recovered however because we were paying that in monthly installments apparently we need to make those signatures once a month and so we will do that going forward um the other item is that says that just says some records were not the records and processes um were completely accurate which again is related to that particular finding and so we will make sure that those signatures are properly kept going forward um are there any questions from the board on any of the items under going ground or things to discuss if not then let's vote Jennifer bord Yes Maris yes yes Excuse me yes Bri yes Kevin kki yes M yes R yes yes next up is our Personnel committee yeah so the Personnel committee met on January 22nd um at the committee meeting we reviewed the Personnel actions and appointments that are on the agenda this evening Tony advised the committee uh the administrative team restructuring that is uh that he mentioned in his update so that involves Mr Miller becoming principal in charge of instruction special projects which will support all three of the district schools um as Tony explained it'll be replacing the two instructional coaches that were previously the budget Mrs mcnight will be the new principal of the Middle School Mr Jason Miller will remain the vice principal the athletic director of the high school and Mrs kones will remain the principal of the elementary school also the superintendent advised the committee that a grievance was received from the Sha related to that uh restructuring and that will be discussed at the executive session this evening the committee was also advised of the timeline related to the hiring of the new high school principal that will be advertised from February 3rd to March 18th with interviews taking place on April 2nd and April 3r recommendation is anticipated to be made to the board at the April 20th meeting also we were the committee was advised of new positions at the middle school which would be needed for the 25 26 school year this will be part of budget discussions for the board in the coming months they include a art teacher a French teacher and a Spanish teacher finally the committee was advised that the negotiations committee had been created and the district will begin Sr negotiation sometime in February with that I'd like to move items second second second part thank you any discussion on on items say one um one of the one of the items here is the accepting recation of Tom Bill who was councelor here at the high school and I just want to say uh not only Mr B fantastic C he is a better human beings and so I am glad for us to see him go but I wish him the best in his re any other discussion on this I would Dennis yes jete yes yes Kevin K yes Michael St yes Jenn Bachelor yes yes curriculum and Technology um so we met as a group on Wednesday January 15th uh we welcome bashet to the committee uh and the first order of business we did a review a draft of the 5 to8 Middle School schedule um so that is going we're going to be looking at potential staffing needs from there and we'll likely be sharing that finalized schedule form after it goes through different stakeholders um in the March board event meeting it'll be followed by meetings with parents and students in those grade levels um who are going to be using that new schedule to explain all of it as well uh we also reviewed a presentation um for the gifted and talented parent Focus committee um that was going to be happening the next night Miss Lennon brought us through that um if you recall last year we did an audit of that program and um some changes were recommended in order to do that we are bringing inun Community input um we had 28 people sign up to be part of this focus group and um the feedback will be used to shape the program for the future it's going to be aligning with the reshaping of the district at the same time um and that committee will also develop a full timeline to implement at the k a level um in the new structure for next year we also saw a draft of the winter Benchmark that was seen this evening and um we went over timing for The schoolwide Benchmark data meetings um so that's going to be happening in mid February and also for parents that are looking to receive their kids data um after those data meetings are happening um that will be sent home we just want the teachers to have the ability to articulate about that first and then and then move through it uh we did have two additional items that were on the agenda they were tabled because we went pretty deep into uh the first bit and we're not as as uh important to be getting through this month uh we'll be handling those in February I have nothing to move the report poliy we met on January 16th and continue to review the regulation and policy um 500 around the attendance it's a mandatory change it relates to the addition of an new excused absence having to do with attending Civic events uh nothing significant there but we did take the opportunity to review the policy and regulation go we did replace in the policy natural parent with biological parent we also made a further change changing from rental rights to Legal Authority so that the definition now says for the purposes of this policy parent needs the party with legal Authority including a biological parent adoped parents work we also made an additional change to the regulation having to do with um student illnesses and uh support those need to be uh notification by the parent but also noting that absences from school due to student illness well considered and confused and referen treny are considered cumulative and they count toward loss of credit so that additional language was added to the Reg other changes in the regulation were consistent with what we had in the policy previously and those remain and there are no changes from the update made back in November when we looked at this first so this is second read okay so move I have a second second second from special thank you any discussion on the policy there's no discussion on must yes rank Keys yes Kev KES yes Michel yes Bachelor yes M denn yes B Todd Marino yes Kim G yeso meeting meity met on January 21st um the first thing we did was we reviewed a draft of the 25 26 school year calendar um some changes that that we would note is um for a long time we've had the professional development day on the on November 1st the day after Halloween but because Halloween is on a Friday this year we will um take advantage of moving that to um October 13th um which means that kids will actually have more school in November than we do a lot of the time so um we also looked at um spring break and proposed dates that would allow it to span both Passover and um we also brainstormed committee goals for 2025 um a lot of that has to do with analyzing um previous communication tools developing additional resources and guides for parents um really again looking at communication and engage Community engagement as the primary strategic plan goals for our committee um we want to look at you know the evaluate um use advisory groups and focus groups to continue to evaluate our current programs and then also to inform in future programming and we want to look at ways that we can expand how we celebrate academic can I just mention something about the calendar so typically the way it works is this month is just on for review um we'll bring it back to the board next month and that's when we'll vote on it uh so let's see that brings us up to our routine information items um we do not we didn't have we didn't have any last month right there was nothing to move there um so routine information items we do not have any HIV reports um we did have fire and safety drills on the dates that are in the agenda and um our enrollment report is uh attached online for anyone who would like to review it so that brings us to the second period of public comment um same rules quiet as the first if Ione something bring to the board I would invite you to come up and um give us your thought that the period public is open any like something evening hello um I just want to give an update on behalf of the laf um we are wa we I was a little late to meeting so I apologize um so the board members were really uh delighted when we saw the parent Square update this afternoon to see the pictures of the mural that was uh result of the laf Grant from last year we don't always get to see the results of our grants uh in person or um even the photographs of it so this was really nice um to see what was done with that and I really appreciate your sharing with the whole school Community because so many members of the school Community are the generous donors who made that Grant possible um so thank you for sharing that with all of us it looks great so I don't know teach who coordinated that is here tonight but thank you very much um wanted to let everyone know that the uh spring fundraiser is in the planning stages we are having an auction and casino night on March 29th um a little bit of a Twist on our theme and take a are already on sale our venue has a smaller capacity than our prior venue so we do encourage people to purchase tickets early um and our sponsorships are also on sale that's really the critical piece helps us raise money um to give more grants back to the school um open right now um for submission to Mr Peterson are the um summer Awards and Senior awards that we give out annually um the deadline for the senior Awards is March 25th and and those are awarded to graduating seniors for use um in tuition or other educationally relevant items as they go on to a two or foure um or vocational or technical school there we also have open the applications for summer Awards those provide those were provided to Rising sophomores Juniors or seniors for summer enrichment programs and the deadline for that is March 14th thank you thank you question what's where is the venue where's it's going to be it's in Ringo at I think it's Amal Valley is oh at their fire their Firehouse yeah upstairs at their Firehouse um and they've been great they've been working with us and they have some of the people who are volunteers with that organization um have family members in our district so they've really been great to work with awesome y thank you very much thank you oh actually one final question where can somebody and where what is at the laf the la.org um I think U Mr suo did send out a state of date for parent Square um and there's link there I'll send something out again coule couple more time thank you we appreciate it okay uh does anyone else have anything they like to bring for the board hello uh my name is Andrea little I'm from West danwell Township like to just State a few observ ations from this past month uh congratulations on the shift of the new committee leads I saw that was in the notes today and I heard your discussion earlier in the month I thought it was really refreshing just talking about some of the new ideas that new board members are talking about so um congratulations for your new Endeavors um it was good to uh also see the curriculum support this evening um and I see that was a principal that's going to be taking that position so um I'm not sure if the principal is taking over another location so that will be really interesting to see how that develops on where you're going to position them uh within the reporting in building and grounds and transportation it also stated in our enrollment um there was like a lot of forums that were signed that you were discussing uh and one of them was showing that our enrollment was down 6% from last year and it's actually showed also it was our lowest enrollment last nine years um and then it also stated that our choice was locked in at 97 which is 12% of our student body just again data points to be thinking about when we are looking at our facilities uh and in the superintendence report uh we got to hear from you about some of the new ideas um continuing about how to restructure the buildings U we also got to hear from the Student Association uh the teacher Association excuse me and I'm just just asking the board to consider two measures to restructure I know this is not very popular for you all to consider because we probably discussed this before and and brought this up but um one of them is to really reconsider and don't accept choice in the elementary school um it's a very tight space in that school um it can hold two grades per class um if we would stop that situation for now um and then when the school was renovated we didn't really allow for enough space to manage that um the other option would also be to restructure and move one grade up to the middle school I know that's also not very popular but there's space for eth grade at South and our population is shrinking we have 200 less kids in our district in the last nine years we have three buildings prescribed from the referendum we should utilize them we should make it functional it's not sustainable to consider otherwise and it's not environmentally sustainable to have more than three thank you very much anyone else have anything that bring we have anyone okay um seeing nobody I will close this period of the public comment um do we have a need to go we do we do have a need to go into an executive season um that will probably take about 14 minutes um we will not be taking any action when we return from the executive session um so with that I need a motion to go into the executive session at 8:31 we move by on that's