##VIDEO ID:h8HLZSqQ09A## board member Duval Wilson here board member eer here board member Gord is he vir virtually yep will'll mark it that you're virtual board member Meyer here board member sack Gable here board president telis for here board member bad Lama here and board member Whit letter here thank you right please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance flag United States of America the repblic for which it stands one nation God indivisible and justice please take notice that adequate notice of this meeting has been provided in the following manner that written notice was sent from the office of the secretary of the board at 2:30 p.m. on January 5th 2024 that s was sent via email to mapo and South Orange Township clerks and the editors of the news record Star Ledger tap and tooma and the Village Green where whereas while the senator Byron M be open public meetings Act njsa 10 4-6 requires all meetings of the South Orange Maplewood Board of Education to be held in public njsa 10 4-12 sets forth nine types of matters that may lawfully be discussed in executive session without the public being permitted to attend and whereas the board has determined that one issue is permitted by njsa 10 col 4-12 to be discussed without the public in attendance and shall be discussed during an executive session to be held on Thursday November 21st 2024 at 6:30 p.m. and whereas the nine exceptions to to the open public meeting acts outlined in njsa 10 col 2-4 are listed below and next to each exception is a box that will be marked when the issue to be privately discussed fall within that exception and after each exception is a space where additional information that will disclose as much information about the about the discussion as possible without undermining the purpose of the exception shall be written any matters which by express provision of federal law state statute or rule of Court shall be rendered confidential or excluded from public discussion the nature of the matter described as specifically as possible without undermining the need for confidentiality is attorney client privilege hip reporting and Personnel any collective bargaining agreement or the terms and conditions of which are proposed for inclusion in any collective bargaining agreement including the ne negotiation of terms and conditions with employees or representatives of employees of the public body whereas the length of executive session is estimated to be approximately 45 minutes after which the public meeting of the board shall reconvene and proceed with business where formal action will be taken now therefore be it resolved that the South orang M Board of Education will go into executive session for the above stated reasons only and be it further resolve that the board hereby declares that his discussion of the affir subjects will be made public at a time when the Public's interest in disclosure is greater than any privacy or governmental interested Interest being protected from disclosure with that i' like to make a motion to come public session to have a second thank you board member Callahan all on favor all right it's unanimous we're going to go into public um Clos session e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e [Music] hey Miss blink sorry m that like we're going to have a short video by Mr Curtis Grayson an art teacher here at Columbia High School who had his work exhibited Cuba I just wanted to say that I've always wanted to go to Havana because I do reeda the casino so I'm always envious of everyone that get to take a trip there and I hope we can enjoy some of your art work thank you uh hello yes thank you um for welcoming in um for those that don't know I guess sit I guess for those who don't don't know my name is Curtis Grayson II I'm a visual artist art educ Ator uh been teaching at Columbia High School for 10 years now uh this is my 29th year in art education excuse me um I had the the pleasure the opportunity of being selected as one of the one of the 25 artists from New Jersey um as a visual artist um some work that I worked on over the summertime um to be a part of thank you to be a part of as far as the um the African Cuban Bal um one of our one of my mentors um um Ben Jones um professional artist International artist he pretty much has been having opportunities for artists to be able to travel back and forth and he's been doing it for about at least 115 trips that he's been back and forth to Cuba um which was amazing um you'll see as far as like the work is my work was there and it's it's still there um opportunity to be able to collectively come together meet a lot of people internationally uh as a visual artist uh travel and see a lot of the museums and really understand more the culture what was taking place um in the diaspora as far as as artists um there um my opportunity there it was it was uh it was profound it will definitely be Earth shaking and will continue to grow as far as as an artist as myself as a just an educator um and continue to understand as far as the plight of what the Cuban people um African Cuban people are suffering from um you will see in this video they had it's the the exhibit was taking place the Bal uh started on the 18th um but we had to go a week before of course to set up the work to bring the work in um and the exhibit is at um casad day Africa um which is in Havana o Havana um of Cuba um the work is permanently in installed so they have my work it will be permanently there uh we'll do limited editions later of that piece um there was a school that was located inside the actual Museum I got to uh talk to students and take pictures and see their teachers as well um the video you're going to see was one out of out of many videos I was able to select this one video shows the highest form of um education diversity um the pedagogy is just unmar remarkable where I was asked to do an interview in front of my painting from students that were from the hearing impaired and so what happened was by me translating well me talking about my work they had a translator that was translating into Spanish and then also the sign language whatever person that was actually signning to them um and just the amount of energy that people would when they recognized and saw my work people couldn't believe that I'd never been to Cuba before um they recognized what I did as far as the work that I had and it was a tremendous amount of artists that was there I knew about at least five artists from New Jersey that came but you know we all really came together and it was just a profound experience the exhibit is going to probably run until February I may even have to try to go back just to before it closes or something um but it was it was a lifetime event for me um and you can cue the video so they can actually see it [Music] start start see all right um my name is Curtis Grayson the [Music] third um visual artist from [Music] America happy to be [Music] environment first time first time here in CU first time here in CU um I wanted to represent the [Music] culture from visual visual images that I see try to bring to life beautiful [Music] SC also showing the beautiful architecture African African Mass from here collides acrylic and collides this is my word multimedia artists just loving as far as AFC Cuban [Music] I at C C Day Africa I'm an artist and I'm also art educator I teach I teach I teach students High School teach high school years on yours love love the teach love the paint love the drawer love to share love to share this piece this piece here when they got the title the title they had it was music [Music] movement but no no the actual title it took me a while to think the actual title is the post in the high Fe of that is my piece permanently permanently installed this will be the permanent collection here this [Music] piece once I once I get back to the States we're going to do a limited edition trip 55 not my w I'll be 55 in December I don't look 55 I'll be [Music] 5 so that is that is my pie you know just love but um loving the people loving the culture being able to understand the expression be you know connecting with some people that I know that's here as well just Lear more [Music] about go back and share when I go back I'm going to do a whole presentation to present [Music] [Music] yes but uh yes no I'm loving it I love it I leave I go back um Monday so I came in November 9th November 9th 18th I [Music] all brought supplies um pads art pads um uh we had as far as acrylic brushes everything and the people was just very uh very warm and giving but they were uh they were just very appreciative what I really recognized and understood going there um everything is different you know the the the connection that we have the uh of having our cell phones there's like hardly no Wi-fi I I had to explain to my friends that here that it was like AOL dial attached to a string pulling a rock um through molasses up a up a hill had like one bar one dot it was like almost Harley you know I I was supposed supposed to get there on the 9th I got there on the 11th because I had to stay in Miami cuz I'm coming two days after the hurricane so the hurricane had already took place while I was there I was getting as far as a lot of feedback from people uh because they had an earthquake on the other side of the island it didn't affect us but the the pride of the people was just amazing to see in such turmoil or such you know Strife of what they dealt with um it made you really appreciate the smallest things when I say the economy is so tough the cab driver was telling me that it takes him seven eight hours just to get gas going in the morning 10 o'clock in the morning and getting gas at 7 8 o'clock at night but when I went to visit as far as the museums it it it match as far as our museums in New York and Chicago and every every other places everything is high high level as far as um you know the creativity the ability and it was very warm welcoming as far as their um you know for the Arts and we want to just continue to you know build that combination and that connection um so my goal is possibly you know with the permission as far as maybe with the school um to bring some of the artists here uh and maybe do like a a um a slideshow or whatever of what we experien and talk some of the some of the artists they have their film that's going to be showed through PBS um so you had International artists from all over but mainly from Jersey and everything there was such a culture that was connection and pretty much we were set and prepared for the event because we were um attending Zoom calls or whatever throughout the summer just to be prepared of what we need to expect um I've traveled out of the country several times but never to a situation like that where you can't use your credit cards there is no debits there is no tread um you know because of the trade embargo unfortunately it's causing a lot of hard hardship so you had to bring completely cash um because of we was and luckily I had some people there already to help me out and you know help me navigate but my landlord that I stayed at the Airbnb she said I'm I'm Cuban now because she saw me constantly getting in out of taxis and moving around and there's like zero crime from and definitely wanted to make sure that uh the school scene because at first I didn't even push it as big but didn't realize how large of an opportunity it was until I was a part of it um and it's still growing and it's still happening and I'm still getting feeds from people from what'sapp and you know as I'm posting slowly um things that's happening or whatever that I'm able to you know still share from the work and just everything I've seen I'm still processing things but my students were all asking like what happened what did you do what did you see because they knew I was going but they KN also knew that they had a project that they were working on a skeleton project and I said I'll be back and I'll continue working with you but you know what I'm expecting from you from my students you know so the constant education is constantly going and you know that's a a testament of what I like to be able to share and to be able to show my students um and it was just it was just very powerful very powerful and and I'll I'll leave it at this um I remember one opportunity seeing a middle school they were in the museum and while we were installing the work hammering nails and people talking everything this classroom with like maybe fourth grade third grade was still so focused attending and and and participating raising their hand as if oblivious like nothing was happening like nothing was around them and I was just I was in awe just looking at I was like that couldn't even been me if I was that young still focusing like that listening to my teacher and having that much tunnel vision but that's what we were seeing in the midst of everything and then until you know they was decided they wanted to take pictures and stuff but it was just amazing it was amazing but thank you I appreciate it uh I I I speak to the board and speak for the community it was an honor to have you represent Columbia High School in the school district thank you sir much appreciate it right we'll have a update from our student reps now [Music] okay uh first we want to recognize Miss abiodun Banner the admin intern at Columbia High School Miss Banner has been a tremendous help to the CHS administrative team during her leadership program internship um she's taken the lead on attendance and discipline and set up Key Systems that have made High School workloads easier and more efficient CHS Administration is very grateful for her dedication and hard work thank you to miss Banner um next we want to recognize Miss tajir Kelly Lewis at the mantro Early Childhood Center we're eager to recognize Miss tajir Kelly Lewis for her exceptional dedication to preschool education with her boundless enthusiasm creativity and care she Fosters a nurturing and engaging learning environment where children feel safe valued and inspired to explore the world around them Miss Kelly Lewis consistently goes above and beyond to support the intellectual social and emotional development of every child her Innovative teaching methods patience and ability to adapt to each student's unique needs make learning a joyful and meaningful experience the positive impact she has on her students and their families is truly imagur thank you to miss Taj M Le um next Miss Mara Hicks from Columbia High School we're proud to recognize Marsha Hicks for her outstanding work in developing an AP core presentation to support students in their advanced placement courses particularly those taking AP classes for the first time this program was designed to support students of color in their academic Endeavors by creating a community and connecting students with resources next want to recognize Mr Curtis Grayson who we just heard from we recognize the amazing work of Mr Curtis Grayson our teacher at Columbia High School for being selected as a visual artist for his prestigious 15th African Cuban banal in Cuba his artwor will be exhibited and permanently installed at the central Contemporary Art Museum of wifredo lamb in Havana Cuba this special exhibition runs from November 15th through February 28th Mr Grayson and 24 other artists from the United States will also be featured at the ca Africa and the central Contemporary Art Museum of Alfredo lamb during a reception on November 16th 2024 Mr Grayson's talent and contributions to Contemporary Art are amazing recognitions that make Columbia High School and our school district very proud next we want to recognize Dr Bean folks who recently made an outstanding contribution to education through her presentation at the New York state reading Association her paper a gradual release model to teach comprehension strategies in asynchronous classrooms introduces an Innovative approach to building students meta cognition and improving text comprehension in online asynchronous learning environments the 2024 Columbia High School varsity field hockey team uh we want to recognize for an exceptional season earning the first winning record in over two decades 10 and n and securing double digit wins for the first time since 2019 setting a new blue division record of 9 and three surpassing the previous best of six and three these accomplishments were made possible through the players dedication teamwork and commitment to supporting one another on and off the field congratulations to the players led by their captains and coaches Stephanie Rivera and Marissa buzar for making CHS history and inspiring us all with their hard working success thank you to Jan Guida Putra who is recently appointed to the South Orange public libraries board as a leaz on to our school district over the next five years she will do an excellent job at strengthening our relationship with South oranges library system and finally a large thank you goes to Donna Friedrich and Vanessa laforest for leading the fifth graders in organizing the annual Ruby Bridges walk to school day for the second year in a row this event has explained Ruby Bridge's historic courage and resilience in the fight against Injustice serving as an enduring symbol of Hope and progress students engaged in thoughtful discussions and explored actionable ways to combat racism and bullying reflecting on Ruby's Legacy and her relevance to that the students even suggested that the elementary school Ruby Bridges attended be renamed in her honor thank you Mrs friederick and Miss Le forus uh good evening everyone I'd like to begin by addressing the state of security at Columbia High School so far the ID enforcement has been a bit inconsistent and the enforcement uh inside of the school um has unfortunately been subpar a very small number of students are wearing their IDs around the neck due to lack of enforcement we will be in conversation with the administration so that we can take action to reiterate the importance of students wearing their IDs in classrooms so this policy can be enforced throughout the school year to continue we have been working with Mr Sanchez to try and have some clubs be without um their advisors in the cafeteria uh clubs are an integral part of student life in high school so we are excited that some club meetings will begin soon also in October we met with board members to discuss a committee where the board members will meet regularly with the board representatives to address numerous issues regarding Student Life um this is definitely a step in the right direction in to in terms of board student communication and we see it as a tool that will be useful to both the board and the students we look forward to seeing what we can accomplish together furthermore in the past week we met with the middle schoolers uh at Maplewood Middle School many of the students stated that they would benefit from some sort of period for study hall or teacher advisory so we will definitely be looking into that uh we also Al talked with them about the counseling department in the middle schools which was an issue that we looked into last year many of the students said that while counselors serve as a useful resource to many students a lot of students can go through their entire Middle School experience without once meeting their counselor one-on-one some students suggested that a mandatory meeting with their counselor even once could help students feel comfortable with using the counseling department throughout middle school and even perhaps shift the stigma around the counseling department as a place of discipline the counseling department is an extremely crucial resource for students and we want to make sure that students know that there're somewhere for them to go whether it be for guidance someone to talk to or help with their future plans finally Prince Sanchez showed us around the new student facilities in the high school they look like they'll be an amazing resource for students and the student body is very excited for them to open uh that concludes my report thank you so I I do want to quickly shout out these two reluctantly um they reached out to uh principal Sanchez and myself about being better conduits for uh the middle school student councils so uh we had our first meeting with MMS uh so we have another scheduled meeting with uh SS uh coming up and then uh we came up with the idea of just doing a running Google sheet so the advisers at both middle schools could enter students questions or comments and our gentleman here could could answer answer those uh on a daily basis so I do want to shout them both out for trying to give a voice to our medal middle school students big thank [Music] you all right next we have our superintendance update I am uh just want to quickly note uh the district got it its results back from qac um Dear Mr Bing pursuant to requirements of njac 6830 the South Orange map school district has undergone the New Jersey quality single accountability Continuum and J qac review the Essex County Executive county superintendent and team conducted review of the School's district self assessment on the district performance review DPR documents to verif the school's District's compliance with all five areas of NJ qac based on that review the school district has been placed on a Continuum in the five New Jersey qac areas which are instruction and programming fiscal management governance operations and Personnel the completed njq act County Office reviews resulted in the district receiving the following placement scores for each area listed below for the area of instruction and program 83% for fiscal management 100% governance 100% % operations 85% Personnel 85% these placement results will be provided to the State Board of Education which they were provided a week ago um I am pleased to inform you that your district has satisfied at least 80% of the weighted IND indicators in each of the five areas of qac review process and has been designated as high performing the commissioner has recommended to the State Board of Education that the dish should be certified as providing a thorough and efficient system of education for a period of 3 years or until the next New Jersey qac review congratulations on this accomplishment uh the district will actually be looking at uh a timeline of our Q acts over the last uh seven to eight years we are gathering that information currently and uh we'll provide a PowerPoint to the board and to the public within uh by the new year so I do want to give a big shout out uh to everybody involved uh in the qac review it is not easy um um that is a shout out to our teachers a shout out uh to all staff a shout out to our administrators um to me this shows uh the work we are doing uh is recognized um and also shows a sense of teamwork throughout the district so big congratulations to everybody who participated in this in October uh and it's well deserved almost it [Music] say good evening um Dr K and myself are here to uh give the annual report on our state um assessment scores um we are pleased to give you this report um Keith okay next slide please so we decided to take one slide and a moment just to remind you of some of the things that we talked about last year and the thing and the interventions that we were putting into place um first if you would remember I we created this graphic to kind of focus in on the whole child and how we are looking at our um SSD student um in the these few areas that overlap to create and Inter and to support our students so we have culture and climate um intervention and referral services student opportunities instruction and programming to the right you'll see um what some of the highlights that we did focus on during last year um if when you do go to this will be put on the district website you can click on each one of them and I'll take you to the exact interventions that we put in place so our access and Equity Department really focused in on culture and climate seal our hibs um last year we we focused arm restorative practices and to ensure that we are promoting schools and environments of belonging um in intervention and referral services we have taken the past few years we've really been focusing in on revamping our inrs um uh referral process than and um to make sure that we're consistent across the district um and to make sure that everybody felt truly trained in it our assistant principles who who run it um I have often said that um inrs is a game changer and changes practices and truly truly moves districts and schools forward um so we we've really honed in on that this again this is from last year's student opportunities we've we' established um a lot of academic and emotional supports through tier 2 especially at our high school with um eyes on the fries and AP core um were some of the the uh programming that we included last year and workshop for our freshman Workshop classes which was brand new last year we focused in our students who were struggling in eighth grade and kind of giving that transition into high school and giving them some of the supports that hopefully filled in some of the gaps that they might have had that was for both Ela and math um instruction in K5 we launched our Eureka Math um and we piloted our um phonics program um we developed to strengthen our tier one and tier two interventions um we did many crossgrade level meetings to ensure alignment and consistency especially at the middle school and high school levels um and programming we strengthen our academic intervention programming and um student support programs to really Target the needs of our students next slide Keith okay we're we are now going to focus on Ela and how all of these interventions and supports that we put in place last year how they affected our students and our scores um with the njsla so Ela we have um made a lot of great strides in ela we continue to move forward and continue to progress um the top left is s SMSD compared to the state we outscored the state in every grade level um you'll notice a pattern um we kind of highlighted noteworthy um data in green and some areas that we're looking at and continue to focus on in kind of a pink or an orangey color um when you look at the change in fours and fives we want our students to score fours and fives that's our aim and our goal always you can see especially a nice highlight is our ninth grade increased 7.4% which is huge um we do believe that there's a lot of the interventions that we put in place last year for our freshman that's can be the result of it is the result of that so we're very excited about that and an increase in the exceeding expectations was pretty dramatic as well to 36.9% from 3.5% so really zeroing in I believe the workshops really had a lot to do with that but we'll talk about that as we as we continue to go forward where we did decrease it was not a huge amount um but we're keeping our eye on that and that was in seventh and eth grade um so some noteworthy um statements we can make um based on this St data s has de exceeded the state average in all areas and evident increases in the amount of students meeting exceeding expectations is through seen throughout most grade levels okay Keith next slide please now here we broke down our demographics and it's over the course of I know it seems very overwhelming there um but it is over the course of three years we've been taking our data since we had um since covid um and when we started up with njsla one very noteworthy area to look at would be in our high school um our black and brown students are IC and black students have made a significantly uh significant increase in their scores we're starting to really see that we are um targeting a lot of our subgroups and it's working so we're very very very excited about that we are we are moving in the right direction and need to continue to do that next slide Keith please our math results next slide please Keith okay so uh top leftand corner is looking at the our our district compared to the state um we do have some areas that are in um pink that we really need to look at and continue to focus on um you can see that all of our um elementary schools did exceed the uh State average um and then when you move over to the next top right um you'll see again a lot of our our um level fives which is exceeding expectations has increased throughout third grade through 8th grade um and but there are still some areas that we're going to look at um where the Orange is one thing I do um really want to focus on this this is information that we got from linkit right so our data warehouse gave us all of these charts and all of this information was able we're able to go over the course of three years which we really haven't been able to dig deep into Data really ever and and unless we manually did it and and we just didn't get to that we weren't able to zero in like link it would do for us so one thing that we are starting to really notice when we Dove deeper and looked at um like our Exel data that we have we're finding that where we need to focus most in math is great level sixth seventh and eth grade uh math right so looking at the kids who take the normal normal normal math track right sixth grade math seventh grade math eighth grade math high school they go to Algebra 1 then geometry and Algebra 2 if you follow along in this data you'll see it very clearly that that's when we tease out all of this information that's where we need to focus on our attention on right so we'll talk a little bit more about what we're going to do and some of the interventions that we're going to put in place but that is one of the things that we've so desperately needed and Link it is doing that for us is giving us the data that we need to be able to pinpoint what we need to be doing to make sure that our students are getting everything that they need and just to know the full presentation of linkoln will also be going up but it's 139 Pages that's how in-depth of data we got and I mean it's it's brilliant our supervisors are coming together to really explore it as well we're having meetings on it we're we're very excited to have such detailed data that this is just a very small small small highlight so please if you you're a data ner like myself please dive in and there's 139 Pages for you but this is just highlighting the particulars but one of the things that I really loved just by showing this is the difference between those that take algebra one at the high school level and those that take it at the middle school CU it's two different students right so we needed to see normally we would get algebra one is one lump sum but we could you know it would take a while to figure out whether who was who but this was just a click and it was there so it's been so helpful to just have that data to be really able to zero in and you can really follow our students this way especially with the threeyear um three years worth of data right you can really track our kids to see where they go year after year and then you can look at grade levels across so it helps us to really decide what's curricular what is a particular student Maybe and what we can do to move forward next slide Keith again here we are with our demographics um you will notice again in many areas um our subgroups we're seeing some nice positive growth which we are extremely excited about um and we we will continue to look at that again when you start to look at we one of the things we want to do is sort of look at our demographic data and look at our grade level math data from sixth grade on and really kind of correlate that we we'll easily be able to do that with linkit um to see who our kids are pinpoint them and then be able to create plans that that will support um these particular students and definitely close the achievement right because by having this data that's how we can be successful in that exactly next slide Keith please next slide this is our science results again we are me we are exceeding in our science again uh District uh comparison to the state um and it looks you know that that data looks great um it what we are are no noteworthy areas across all grade levs there steady increase in all overall performance um we continue to strengthen support and consider additional science resources to support our growth um the plus 4.0% change in levels three and four from 2003 to 2004 and all grade levels combined suggest a positive trend in science pery at a higher performance level one area though that we next slide I'm sorry Keith this is where we are going to be focusing and looking at our subgroups right that that is where we know we need to um continue to focus when it comes to science um and so the gaps are still significant in science um and we will be working with our science and our stem supervisors to really zero in on this area next Keith so new year new color but same graphic right we still believe that this is the best way to support our students and it's overlapping of all of these services and and and supports um this is now for what are we doing now 2425 um in culture and climate We are continuing to focus on culture and climate our hivs um looking at restorative practicing practices and continuing to look at inclusivity and giving environments of belonging we'll be using our New Jersey Sky data to make improvements and continue um in those areas um or continue to improve in those areas so we have now I'm sure you know we've we've changed our name from I s to ntss because we do believe in our Diamond that I'm sure you remember that Miss Dr kareah um created but really unique to us where we we've believe that we are our students are on this Continuum of students of where areas of where they need support but also areas of giftedness and supports in those areas and that it's fluid students can have areas of strength and in and or need in in the in gifted areas but also needing supports in others um so it it's both sides of this diamond We are continuing to use that and work with our schools um on the inrs side of that diamond but also our gifted and talented side I just want please I just want to add on that not only are we using it for academics we're really pushing it for Behavior attendance social emotional so this way because I think it all encompasses the student it's not just the academics there's other factors that impact that so really looking at the student holistically um and intentionally um through through wherever they liely on that learning Continuum right so everything can impact itself we're we're Gathering counselors as well as case managers we're all working together with special education department I mean it's really a beautiful thing to see how much Unison we've created but I I I really feel that we're really in sync now and and I think that we're going to see tremendous gains from that um from that collaboration um and we're going to continue to partner with teachers and and just the school counselors at the high school but we're also bringing what we're trying to do and we'll talk about that as I transition the conversation into the middle school as a secondary a part of the Continuum uh because you know we have the elementary then we have the secondary but even creating that true partnership between middle school and high school um so when the kids get to high school it's not such a huge transition and the school counselors will only be talking about what they have already heard starting at the middle school level so I I believe even that partners of articulation through the grades is going to have a tremendous impact on our students um academic achievement as well as just just growth all together which is what I want to see not just academics I want to see the whole CH absolutely so and also um the special education department curriculum and instruction and access and Equity have been working together to create automatic interventions so if a student presents with a certain amount of absences automatically everybody knows what needs to happen for that particular student we're also doing that with um failing students right at col Colombia right now but again wanting to move it down to um the middle school so if a student is failing if they have one F this is what will happen no matter what any for any child at any point in time if there are more these are the steps that will happen automatic interventions are non-negotiable they happen right so those that's what we're working on this year and introducing it into um the schools and I just want to add one of the things I love that we're also going to be incorporating it's not just to support the teachers of course we're want to support the teachers but we also want to help the student if they're failing how do they what are the barriers they're facing what are the challenges what's keeping them you know are they going to the conferences the teachers are inviting them to if they're not why KN the teacher's willing to do it why aren't you going right so even that accountability piece on the student but as much as I don't I wouldn't say accountability as much as it's teaching them when there's a problem when they're having you know struggles or stress or something's impacting their academic progress or their well-being how can they advocate for themselves how can they reach out and who do they reach out to right because mental health might require someone else to reach out to if it's academic maybe Meeting those conference periods if it's something that's happening at home maybe family counseling but really targeting all the factors um and helping them realize that they can empowering the students to also advocate for themselves because the teachers try to do that and sometimes they just don't show up right so really empowering both the teacher and the students to for True advocacy I think will also through the collaboration will have a positive impact yes absolutely so and then in instruction we are um skip oh I'm sorry skipped over to student opportunities we will be expanding academic and emotional supports across all schools with tier 2 um interventions tutoring and counseling there have been with our data that we have on the high school especially especially our ninth graders we did put a lot of interventions and programming in for freshman last year we're seeing it's working so we want to replicate that at the middle school level so that's our goal is to try to get it at the middle school level because we know it's working right um we have um so then an instruction this is year two of um Eureka math squared for our K5 they've targeted professional development to really continue to build their teaching practice um we also are um are focusing on our tier one and tier 2 intervention um that it is the launch of um magnetic reading and I ready which is our assessment tool for our phonics program um in grades K through three and um we are also um implementation implementing I Exel and I resources um for all students and teachers um we're supporting our data informed decision-making with data warehouse and Link it which has been a dream for us and um we're updating and strength ing a middle school math Curriculum by selecting new math program for 6 through 8 for 25 and 26 we definitely believe especially based on this data that we need to focus in on our grade six our grade seven and our grade eight math um that would be looking at new programming for them and new curriculum so really honing in and making sure that we're strengthening those areas so that we're making sure that our students who choose the the regular math path right this is grade level math is is what most kids do throughout the country are getting the supports and a good program to support their work and and get them up to up to par I we do believe it can happen we we're again using this data and having this data has been a GameChanger and being able to really pinpoint what needs to be done and we do believe that once we start to strengthen our sixth seventh and eighth grade math that we will see the changes also at the high school level who of the same children who are taking that choosing to take that grade level math path okay then um programming we're strengthening we're going to continue to strengthen our intervention and and support programs to add diverse needs of Stu uh to address the diverse needs of our students and subgroups um and we're also getting to a point now where we're starting to see that not as many students need reading Intervention which is what we want right reading intervention should be short periods of time you don't live there you go in you get your intervention for a few weeks and you you leave you and continue within the classroom we um our data is showing that many of our students whether it's njsla or are I ready and I Exel that many of our students are doing really well in ela and reading so we'll be transitioning as this happens we'll start transitioning some of our reading teachers or reading interventionists into math interventionists because we definitely do see the need for that uh next slide that's that's okay um so now we're just going to quickly touch on access we don't have enough population in the grades to really speak to the data so I just a quick reminder of what um access for ML testing is it's just basically all our ml students it's a way to provide information on their progress on on English language proficiency so um there's six proficiency levels as you see in the chart we go from entering emerging developing expanding bridging and reaching once they hit about 4.5 they're able to begin to exit the program but with support of course of our amazing ESL teachers so we have a very strong program if you next slide Keith if you see we we do have a lot of students in development stage but they're constantly working we're constantly talking with Dr roess we're constantly talking with our teachers and I have to say one of the biggest Advocates I've ever met in of teachers and this kudos to the ESL Department they really advocate for their kids so it's exciting every time we we have these this data results they know exactly who their kids are they know exactly what they need so working with Dr robas has been helpful because he communicates with the teachers always and just helps to continue to improve um that that grasping of the Ang language proficiency so but that's all I can really speak to on access unfortunately we don't have enough students in a particular group to uh give that information same thing for dynamic learning Maps this is the dlm next slide yep Dynamic learning Maps is the assessments that we give for students with significant cognitive disabilities um so they generally do not take the njsla so in replace of that in place of that it will be the dlm and and it includes English language arts Math and Science just like the njsla next slide particularly our groups are that our students in our in our district that take the dlm are students in our autism MD or LD programs um our students also in out of District placements may also participate in the dlm um our dlm aligns with grade levels and the subjects tested like I said the reading the math and the and the science but again unfortunately we do not have enough students that we can release that information for suppression law so um we you won't have them but our teachers do and we're constantly working in conversations with the special ed department on how to continue to support our students with the most cognitive needs in our school district as well as all our special need students so I think that that is our presentation we're very pleased with the direction that we're going in and we're we know that we're going to continue in this trajectory um and we are very excited for next year to take our same graphic bring bring you the story of of this coming year and show all the improvements that we make I mean I I will be the first to say that there's been a lot of change in the last few years in programming and where we're focusing and and who's doing this work day after day after day our teachers and this this work could not be done this is a huge celebration not only for our students but also for our teachers and the work that they do and and making sure that they get the opportunity to see this data because it's we're going in the right direction and it's really I mean our njpa scores from um from earlier in the year and this correlate and they're they're just showing positive growth in the right direction and that we know exactly where we need to put our Focus to support the students who need that extra little support and help so any questions any questions uh so first of all oh sorry sorry I didn't see I can go after you will okay fine sure uh so first of all I'm super excited to hear that the linkit uh system is already showing results that's very uh encouraging uh with regard to the students who take the dlm I was just wondering is there a level of characterization that you can give us about what that data showed as far as relative progress or not among you know elementary middle high schools there any amount of data you can share with us the testing coordinators for the dlm although I support um but I do know it's personal to the student and their goals and I'm sure I don't know if you if I don't know if you would want to um Kathy but that we don't we can yeah we could have conversations but we don't really address that that as much as we we let them let let them tell us what they need because they know best but it definitely relates to the personal growth of the child like their IEP and their goals and it's very directed to that if that helps yeah it's not generalized really it's really personal to the student good thank you hi an and Dr Korea thank you so much for that presentation you know I I understand this as you said we are re-calibrating our I RS Services part of which is you know how we decide who gets Services can you tell me what that looks like like what we're changing and and what's been the feedback from the instructors so far yeah so what the first thing we did last year was just recalibrate because uh as you saw in the Dr Fergus report everybody was kind of doing their own thing everybody had their own forms so the first thing we did was streamline all forms all information came to our office and we were able to see by demographics how students were being referred the grade levels then we had conversations with our supervisors there were particular grades that had a big uh you know achievement Gap if you will or or in that population demographics like a big thing we saw was second to third grade we saw big shift and we saw well kada 2 gets academic intervention third grade they no longer have it so maybe that's one of the so we made sure that we spoke to third grade and try to really zero in as much as we can to improve the through the curriculum writing putting in more lessons that may have differentiation really speaking to the particular grades so that was kind of like last year this year we are we call it n jtss because it's the New Jersey tiered system of supports a student still will be referred but they could be referred for an action plan for intervention academically or they could be referred for enrichment that doesn't necessarily mean a gap plan uh gifted action plan that just means I I see some green flags I think that they might be able to handle more enrichment and we create an enrichment plan we also have data now so we have nagari which is our data that uh test General abilities right cognitive thinking logic thinking we also have I Exel that is an Adaptive program as well as I ready that meets the students where they are so they start at the grade level bit of the student is struggling with some prerequisites it automatically brings down the level of work and it IT addresses those prerequisites until it finds that space where the student is so now we actually know if there's a third grader and a first grade level of particular sa reading we know away okay two grades below we're calling an academic interventionist we need intensive intervention we got to get on it if it's one grade below we try to attack it through our own small groups right through our own interventions um the teacher within the classroom so really zeroing in on what exactly is the need is being provided to us by fashion teachers of course um I ready I Exel which are adaptive learning platforms as well as nagar um and of course a parent can also also send in a letter a recommendation or referral to the ntss committee you do not have to wait for a teacher to recommend the student to be processed so um so that's a it's just a streamlined process and there's more interventions provided we're making sure that the teams sometimes it was like okay who wants to volunteer or some people were being volunt toed right like as they say but we try to say no we need a special ed teacher on the team we need an academic interventionist on the team we need a general education teacher on the team so even making sure that the team is full of different experts to really provide that that inter the interventions are holistic and it's not just we also have our social worker um to make sure that mental health is being considered often times we have twice exceptional students that may struggle because they're both gifted but also need have an IEP and that can be very difficult so providing support for students that are in that situation to the teachers um through our academic coaches our in our academic coaches have been just amazing to really go in there do um cite Les of interventions with the teachers provide different um guidelines charts whatever it is that the student may need and that that can support the teacher to be able to provide that for the student so I just think that in that collaboration um bill I hope that answered your question we're just zeroing it and being super intentional and the process is being Mak making sure the process is the same throughout all SSD no thank you I really do appreciate that and you know but and with the instruction s are they you know are they being surveyed on you know how they feel these changes are being effective not currently but that is in our plans um to uh inter to survey the administrators and to survey the teachers as well since the plan is new the ntss framework is new right now it's kind of hard to survey them now but um I I do want to do that at the end of the year because I always I always appreciate feedback and I I believe it's a live document I tell the administrators all the time this is live we can update it at any time because we need to be just as alive as the kids in our classrooms right because things shift um missions shift Visions shift so um definitely we always talk about like at the end of the year really asking having kind of like focus groups to see how we can improve already we've created a focus group um at the high school level with our school counselors and they have been able to share so much with us on how the process is different at the High School level than it would be at the elementary level so being intentional that the high school has to look different because the kids are different and the the expectations are different so already just having that that beginning of the communication we've already started to improve the forms from even last year for this year on just that feedback but yes the continuation of feedback will always be welcomed yeah definitely and I I I was just gonna say and I understand that changes hard I just you know I I just hope that we are you know surveying the the boots on the ground and when the rubber meets the road you know how is it going so yeah I appreciate that thank you absolutely and and like I always say again and again and again you know when we were at when I was at Clinton school and we were principal and we were a focused school we got out because of our inrs and I will stand behind that every single time inrs targeted intervention on our students is a game Cher and once we can get this really solid we will see changes in our students individually and I I I will say that over and over again that that was the I think at Clinton was the game changer and what made us come out of focus within a very short period of time um so we are really zeroing and I'm focusing um and also a few weeks ago um Dr kareah did a presentation on um ntss in our district and it will be recorded and put up so if you missed it and everybody if there are questions about it read watching that video will be quite helpful um and I think will answer a lot of the questions I welcome questions I it's my passion project I really believe in uh helping support the whole student I think the collaboration between me mental health professionals academic interventionists coaches really the whole the whole system really coming together to wrap around services around our students I think is what's really going to make a difference sorry thank you so much for that presentation and I quickly raised my hand because it's sort of piggybacking off of what bill was asking but what are all the measurements that are used to identify a student who does need academic intervention I I know when I was taking notes you and mentioned I already and njsla are we solely relying on these test scores to identify students and and then also what is the family engagement piece of this so I'm sorry so I think I think the main thing is we're at the whole student so it's a whole student is not just academics right so the I ready the I Exel that can give us academic information but we also rely on the teachers if they're seeing that a student is struggling to bring that to the team and really what it is is a group of peers coming together to brainstorm ideas right we have all these great great teachers and different people in our building to who are there to support students and teaching can be really isolating you're in there all day long by yourself many of our teachers are so the idea is to say hey I have this student and I I don't know I I'm I might not be quite reaching them in this particular way or I'm noticing that they're you know they just seem really sad all the time or they're not coming to school or you know I I keep asking them to to come in for conference period we work on it I think they have it and then they take the test and it just doesn't seem to be working so the whole idea is to be a sync tank for the most part and create a plan that is datadriven right whether it is um it could be a behavioral plan that we're following and they use the data collected from a behavior plan to say success it could be something like that it could be an academic situation where a student is struggling with some particular piece it doesn't even have to be like they're struggling with reading in general we really zero in on what are the big game changers for them we start there and we target that as a goal and we put in some one two different things that a teacher could do a little bit differently or change a practice or hadn't thought of reaching them in this way and they try it for six weeks and then we come back and we see how it's going and we collect we keep collecting this data so it could be I ready it could be I Exel it could be anecdotal notes um parents are invited to these um we welcome parents to come to these meetings because they bring a totally different perspective right to to the Ball Game and I think if we don't have that perspective we're losing such a big piece of our of of this particular child so they're always invited to come um we try really hard to make it comfortable because it's it's it can be intimidating for a parent to come in with a team of experts in their field talking about their student but it's it usually everybody feels pretty comfortable and you leave with a plan you leave with a plan that's not overwhelming you talk about you start with your first thing that is like what is the one thing that you think if we can tackle this particular weakness how is it going to change it might make a huge change in in in their way of of of learning or being in school or um learn like doing school right and then we tackle that we come back after six weeks we review it and then if everything's going we keep doing that intervention or M the goal is also to make our kids as independent as possible we might start have a plan to start removing some of the the maybe oneon-one um supports right we're trying to build our kids to be independent that's the biggest thing we can do for our kids So eventually create that plan to start pulling back some some of those supports so that they're thriving on their own but not pull it out completely and then you go to the next if there's something else that we want to okay now we're going to tackle this one and we're going to use one or two different interventions or different ways of of tackling this um Stu the student who might be struggling and we work on that and it could be another six weeks there's also times when we're not seeing the progress that we'd like to see and we might bring in the child study team and at that point part of our plan is also that a case manager in your building would come to the meeting and hear everything and give us guidance on what to do so it's a really collaborative and then just um as you're talking I was just thinking of one other thing and it goes back to you know how we're collecting information and feedback from teachers and so on but is there also a plan for classroom observation from the cni Department to go into classrooms and kind of see this work at play and have those you know direct it would probably be more in the in the building level um where principles might go in the system principal runs the ntss um team and they lead all of these meetings and they know what the the um the plans will be and the action plans are for each student so yes they will I mean they should be going into classrooms all the time anyway um for us as central office people we like to visit and and and we'll just go in and see things but we don't we're not going to look at individual plans um from the cni department but at building levels absolutely yeah and there's a lot I mean our academic our academic coaches our instructional coaches they're are part of the ntss in every committee it's it's kind of hard for us like or even even if administrators come into a classroom I I worry about that a little bit because you know I don't want the teacher to feel it's a punitive measure as so by having that instructional coach come in as a true genuine colleague help support they were there to create the plan now they're going to create the support of the plan I think has been just what really has been so successful um but we definitely have look Force we're going to be walking around with Mr Bing and doing the look Force for the ISL implementation I am ready implementation but I think it's more than that I think it's deep conversations colleague to colleague um case managers are people on the ntss committee so if I become the case manager of a particular student I will follow up with that teacher how's it going I'm not going to wasit six to eight weeks what if it didn't work so after two weeks there should be like a touch base like hey how's it going are those interventions good if not let's talk about it because I don't want you wasting 6 to8 weeks if it's not helping the student so we do have multiple measures that we there's a big referral form often teachers staff we don't like it because it's a lot of information but it's important we have qualitative and quantitative formative there's two types of Assessments formative assessments and summative assessments right so your formative are your exit tickets your classroom instruction on the spot taking the pulse of the student right in in the middle of the action and then we do have different levels of qual quantitative assessment which is nsla is your standards base assessment that's the standards of that grade iel is where the student is so they might be sitting in a fifth grade class but they're at a third grade read level nagar is talking about logic and general abilities how they think it has nothing to do with the the grade or anything it's a nonverbal assessment so all those give different points although they are tests they give different information so we use that that kind of gives a more well-rounded uh look at the child as well as teacher recommendation and like in special ed there's child fine anybody could refer a student to ntss I hope that answers your question great thank you that was really helpful um and I feel like uh board member Whit letter and gford kind of got it the zoomed in version which I had questions for so I'm going to zoom a little bit back out because I think we kind of got um some clarity on on what's happening in the classrooms some coaching and training curious if we Zoom kind of back out on students receiving tier 2 tier three support what kind of metrics are indicators will we look at kind of across the district to say what is our progress how are we sharing alignment between the interventions we're providing and student outcomes at like a district level in terms of maybe rate of successful exit from tier 2 tier three supports back to tier one um and then kind of what a plan for how do we analyze disaggregated data to ensure that we have Equitable access to tier 2 tier three supports across all demographics based on existing data that we do have over time so I do have a district ntss team as well so we're going to get together now as ntss is on traveling in the it's actually happening now it's usually the first marking period we start to see patterns towards this so like I said I have all my all my coaches are in my district so they are all in the field and they come back and relay information all the action plans are controlled by our office so we can see every action plan at any time of any student and as the action plan is being collected it's also creating demographics on the spot a grade level uh subgroup of any kind IEP 504 Target I mean every everything so as a teacher filling it out on a Google form I created a spreadsheet that automatically makes graphs for me so I can see it by school and look for patterns or particular grades like we discovered last year with that second third grade transition so when we come together my goal is to ask these questions to really look okay let's look now at in the as a school right by school by by Elementary and secondary are there connections from elementary that we can do to help support middle school or anything we could do at Middle School to support the high school because change takes years but we need to start seeing it from the beginning we can't put Band-Aids at the end so we need to start seeing from a systematic approach how that's really kind of playing out so yes I to the the thing is having that ntss District committee I think is going to be huge for us because then we can look at it as a district and particularly although it's every school but still is it second to third grade in every school then that's something we need to talk about curriculum right but also and then also share interventions right like that is a huge piece that's why we put our coaches every every single team has a coach on their team because they're the ones who are traveling throughout the district they can say hey you know what they're doing over here is really really working let's make sure that we're incorporating it into the interventions over here so we're looking at the data to find any kind of trends that are working and then we can say hey what seems to what's happening here what are you doing and making sure that we have those conversations with all the schools and our admin are being trained and all the that as well yes so that they can have an eye on it as well and then just to build on that what does that look like at the preschool level is there what's the process is it different does it remain the same is it so we just thinking especially our partner sites what that yeah so we have just um uh our preschool is now under cni it was not for many years it was under special education so we have been meeting with lerway and learning a lot this is this is for us is you know brand new for us so we're learning their process of what they have because we want to understand especially at a preschool level like just like the high school is so different and we have to kind of figure out ways to do that we want to do that with the preschool and be very intentional about we what we're doing we are finding you know as we as we can start to see some of the um just the transition into our kindergarten what are some of the things that we're noticing and we are seeing things like you know sometimes we maybe we're having kids sit too long at at I mean these are real things that happen at we you know our kindergartens our 5-year-olds who've been on this Earth for five years they sometimes our expectations might be too much so we're starting to really look at that data to find out what we can do what we can learn from preschool to maybe carry over some of those um uh interventions or practices into kindergarten especially to make it an easier transition in you know it's it's a the what is expected of a 5-year-old these days to be a lot pretty high and I think what we need to do is see how we can then look at our kindergarten curriculum look at our schedule and how we can break it up do some purposeful play where you're learn taking a lot of these standards and and strategies and putting it into a purpose purposeful way of kids to have choice and Play and Learn through those areas so we're really taking a nice deep dive in that and now having um Mr Johnson who's our uh preschool director part of our team we can now um start to learn from him and um see what they're doing because the it is a huge change from what they're doing in their preschools right now and into our kindergarten we have to make that a little bit of a better transition they also have creative curriculum which provides a lot of data so um I told Leroy that as they you know again it's beginning to the Collection part of the year and I want to dive in that with him with into that with him because that really can speak to the age and development where the student lies and all our partner sites use the same curriculum so that'll kind of help streamline the partner sites with our actual preschool and then additionally we've included our uh like we were doing lessons for the Department of access and equity and we made sure we did it at the preschool level as well so this way they're included because SE is such a huge component from the transition from a preschool to kindergarten so yes we are definitely bringing them on yeah yes absolutely so I I like the fact that you've broken down the algebra one by middle school and high school that's you know it gives you a good indication of how people are doing but what I find a problem is that the algebra 1 High School only 14% are at four and five that means 86% are below meets expectations and what I suspect is if you take the same population back in go back to third and fourth and fifth grade mhm they're the same people who are part of the 30% who don't make it to four and five so as you put your interventions in place over the next few years you should see that number go up absolutely because if that doesn't budge the interventions are not happening correctly yeah if you Trac them back they didn't have the new curriculum of math right and and so like with all these improvements yeah through the years so I think it's good that we have it broken down and I think I would pay attention to the algebra one high school because algebra one middle School means people are already motivated yeah right mean they already want to do more than what they have are going by default so high school algebra 1 14% is is like terrible so I so but that that's where we're seeing that data right so now with this information we are able to see who these students are they're the students who are taking sixth grade math seventh grade math eighth grade math their next class in high school is algebra 1 right so that's that's this core group so we truly believe we focus focus in on grade level six grade level seven grade level eight math their their curriculum and getting a new program for them it's their turn right we got K5 going now it's now we need to focus in on this fifth uh sixth seventh and eighth grade math we will start to see those numbers continue to well to grow right and so that's by pulling out and really dissecting this data we now feel pretty confident that this if we put our Heart and souls into into this area we're going to start to see year after year a nice progress and you'll see that that number will increase but it's the same kids that take that grade level pathway pathway but thank you no but we are definitely keeping an i and nice if um link it also gives us a data by grade so it it gives us sixth grade in in 2021 2022 sixth grade sixth grade sixth grade like it and then it also gives us those sixth grade in seventh in eth in algebra one a cohort so having those two separate we could look at the course and we look at the student progression so having both sets of data broken down like that for us is really helpful do do you track by student I me obviously you're not going to publish that to the outside world by student one kid joins in kindergarten and the kid is in 12th grade when we can see all that entry date into the district I mean that that is what lincol does for us we can come up with the craziest scenario and talk to our rep and they spit it out to us and we're like AI it's amazing it it truly is it's a GameChanger for us we are keeping an eye on all of that yes thank you absolutely this is just a statement um because I know we're we need to probably move on but I just want to give um just a little bit of attention to the stem and Sciences that's our weakest link and um I'm glad that a presentation said that you'll work on trying to strengthen that area and consider some additional resources so my my ask is just as we're I'm going into budgeting and looking at um the next school year figuring out how much money needs to be allocated to the to the Sciences in stem and maybe doing what we did with Ela where we're looking before fifth grade looking at primary and what more could be done there to support um the the higher grades so thank you for for tracking this and um thanks for the support yes and we really believe in that systematic change it's not just fixing at the top it's really beginning from the beginning for sure great thank you thank you thank you both uh our next presentation is the continuation of uh our October board meeting as you recall we had the presentation of our special services audit uh we're going to talk about uh next steps um well we're not going to talk about next steps we're going to talk about a productive path forward I like that name um which includes next steps yes I'm going to turn it over to Kathleen okay great well thank you so much good evening everyone um the first thing next slide please the first thing that we wanted to focus on was selecting a and developing a special services Vision that really recognized the strength of our students our commitment and highlight to um providing inclusive environments for our students and focusing on the all-important end goal for all students which is producing contributing members of society positively contributing me members of society so with that said we selected the vision uh the South Orange the uh school district of South Orange and Maplewood recognizes that every student has unique and individual strengths and needs we are committed and I thought that this really was great to piggyback off of the whole Child Focus um that we just heard about from uh cni we're committed to providing uh inclusive programs that meet the academic physical social behavioral and emotional needs of every student so that each student has equal opportunities so there there's that um inclusion and access and Equity there too um to succeed and become contributing members of society next slide of course underneath that we have our mission of making sure that all students are receiving individualized services and providing that inclusive environment and Limitless potentials which is is uh a wonderful mission to have um at the the core of that our values can be encompassed we felt in in three statements fostering student Independence um providing that inclusion not just in feeling welcomed and respected and supported but also being in that most inclusive environment with which you can still be successful with special education supports and of course collaboration I have loved the collaboration that I have felt in this whole Community it's only been two and a half months but I've loved the uh the collaboration with the CPAC and um all of the stakeholders cni and access and Equity so we believe strongly that that homeschool connection is integral to our success and that collaboration and thorough communication with families is essential next slide and I wanted to go over our supervisor structure for a couple of minutes uh we have suis who has been with us for many many years uh she is responsible for supervising special education at Clinton South Mountain and the annex mantra's Early Learning Center Eight outside preschool providers and SS she's also responsible for our extended school year program or supervising our extended school year program and the district Dynamic learning map so as you guys were talking about the um Mr Meyer the uh um specific data from the dlm testing I think we should probably make that a part of our special ed committee and go over those results they are as uh Dr karea said very specialized and individualized but we can still see some Trends and celebrate those successes so I think we should definitely go over that in in detail and she's also uh responsible for triple i in the sense of when students move in and there are special education needs she makes sure that that is at the Forefront and that those needs are met within the context of triple I we've welcomed Christina pineri um just before I start I believe she started in the beginning of July or middle of July she is responsible for dilia Balin uh Marshall Seth Boyen tusin MMS all of our district par professionals and uh and the communication and collaboration with the SS uh the company that that um employs them and our summer child study team preschool through 8th grade we have also just welcomed uh in between Christina and myself or are just after me um Tim Franklin and while he only has responsibility for one school as opposed to the other two who have many schools we all know that that Columbia High School is our largest school and very timec consuming so we didn't want to give him more than that and he's also responsible for all of our district related Services all of our non CST social workers effective School Solutions at not to be confused with the at the high school and all contracted providers and the summer child study team at the high school so it's it's fantastic to have three supervisors they are committed they are dedicated they are absolutely fantastic next slide I wanted to take some time to go over the collaborative monitoring report and really the corrective action plan that is the product of the federal audit so the good news is and I'll I'll get into it in a couple more slides my wonderful meeting with our doe monitor I I felt like coming into this position what better way to start than to just reach out to Jennifer spear who is our doe Monitor and just say listen I'm new I want to gain some understanding and some insight I want to make good we want to make good as a district on all of the the things that we need to work on she was thrilled to come out and we'll talk more about that but I wanted to go over the um the monitoring report and and so basically you know there were nine areas that were cited and and the you know it focuses very much so on paperwork it's not coming into our classrooms it's not seeing our fantastic teachers and our awesome programs it's really more about paperwork so there were nine areas cited and the good news is that we have already received full compliance in five of those nine areas so we are already more than halfway there there are four that that still need work and we will go over those um and Miss bear started out by saying that she was never in the belief no one at the doe was ever in the belief that the four things we have to work on weren't actually happening it was just that we couldn't produce the proof and the paperwork and the compliance end of things to prove that it was happening so the first thing that we do still have to work on and it's only for um outstanding for speech only students so there's your globally um classified students with a an ENT a uh a classification and then you have speech only students so those students only receive speech services so for just speech only students the uh proof of Parental notification for identification eligibility the meetings that that we have as a child study team that was outstanding not the fact that the meeting happened just the proof that the parents were notified in a timely manner that they were being invited to a meeting uh second the parents again of only speech students speech only students after an IEP meeting has happened you know you've got your draft IEP you've got your draft documents the parents usually leave with those but within 15 days following the meeting they should receive a a shiny packet in the mail that is um the finalized document again not that that wasn't happening for speech only students but we couldn't prove that with document ation next slide and then um again for only speech only students when a a student is referred for speech only or or even for um a general classification or or a global CST evaluation there needs to be an educational impact statement from the classroom teacher and again not that this wasn't happening but it wasn't reflected in the paperwork it wasn't reflected in the documents that were reviewed at the time so um I actually have um brought over a document that I used in Elmwood Park we struggled with with that as well so I brought that that document over and we're currently looking at it as a mechanism to um to fix that very quickly and again not that it wasn't happening already then another part of the and this is for all classified suit this was the only area that was for all classified students still outstanding um a completion of functional assessment components so that means that there's a classroom observation when an initial evaluation is requested or referred um a classroom observation teacher and parent interviews a documentation and this speaks to uh the mtss process um the interventions the prior interventions that were put in place before that referral happened next slide and the next couple of slides are all of the things that we have already made good on that we've already received full compliance from the state on and that was the consistent reevaluations conducted within three years again just the paperwork regarding that not that they didn't actually happen uh written notice of graduation a summary of academic achievement and functional performance prior to exiting next slide and then ensuring you know when when you have an IEP team meeting there are certain members that have to be present and if you are excusing members it's absolutely fine as long as all the parties are in agreement and that there's documentation of the parents agreeing and consenting to the fact that those members won't be there so ensuring that all that paperwork for identification meetings eligibility meetings and annual reviews and reevaluation meetings again we're good on that but um at first it it was an area of concern and then parental consent being obtained um and maintained in the student files prior to conducting initial assessments again all good there and then the last area that again we we are uh clean bill of he on is the proper IEP documentation of students that are there's a percentage that they are in you know um interaction with their general education peers and then not an interaction with their general education peers and we needed to um provide proof that um when students were removed from the general education setting for more than 20% of the day that we made all those efforts to return them to a lesser restrictive environment and of course again we were doing that we just needed to produce the paperwork that proved that next slide so that is the um the uh collab the uh monitoring in a nutshell from the state then we had our independent review so uh Patrick keenoy came in last month and presented on that so I won't go into a whole lot of detail but just to summarize kind of the crosswalk between the two his report concurred with the collaborative monitoring report in the federal audit regarding paperwork and compliance um he also had more of a focus on the paraprofessional assignment criteria and fading which I absolutely agree with um the professional development in writing measurable and actionable uh smart goals and objectives uh the maintenance he focused more on the maintenance of electronic files the state will always focus more on paper files so they will go into the big fire room on the third floor and and mle through all that paperwork he and rightfully so um you know felt that we also needed to have um just as much maintenance of our electronic files which is absolutely true and then lastly he focused a lot more on that least restrictive environment in our programming next slide so our goals that I'll go over in in a few more slides for 2024 and and and really Beyond um you know they they focus on a melding of the two reviews and profiles but really what we have to do is make good on the remaining four items with the state that is a non-negotiable and we have to invite Jennifer spear back in to um to show her that those all nine items are good to go so again as I said I met with uh with her on October 30th we reviewed the four outstanding items and it was I I invited the three supervisors in with me which she thought was fantastic we had a wonderful wonderful meeting I have to admit I was nervous but we had a wonderful meeting it was really great so again those four items U meeting notification and documentation within 15 days for for speech only students completion of academic or rather educational impact statements for speech only students and those the record of the functional assessments so she basically said that uh we feel we're ready and I don't see that right after the holiday we wouldn't be um she'll come back in she'll look at you know 5 to 10 samples and she has absolutely no doubt that we will be getting a full bill of of you know Health there and full compliance in all nine items and I also thought that it would be a great time to uh share our progress on our standard operating procedure which is part of the goals the district goals and uh my department goals the special education standard operating procedure get her thoughts on that I thought that that would be wonderful and she was very open to that and excited about it probably the most exciting bullet point on this slide is that she also offered to join us um in December December 10th to provide specific professional development to our child study teams on the areas of paperwork compliance and best practices in effective IEP writing and I don't think you can get better professional development ment then from the state monitor uh the doe Monitor and um she was very excited to come in and a side note it's completely free her Services we've we've already paid for in all of our taxes so um she will be coming in December and we're really excited about that and then she'll be coming back in in January and she offered to come back toward the end of the year any more professional development that we might need should be more than happy to provide next slide okay so following the independent audit presentation in October from Mr kenoi we issued a uh a district survey and 31 parents responded and or 31 stakeholders um and we really wanted to make sure that it was an opportunity to respond you know not in a quantitative way but in a more qualitative way it was a narrative format you know with our questions and we really wanted everyone to um you know share their thoughts on the you know the audit and the results so I can't because it's qualitative and not quantitative I can't produce you know pie charts and and all all of that fun stuff and graphs but I can talk about some common themes and common themes unfortunately there was a survey that was done as a part of that independent audit but it didn't seem like it reached everyone a number of parents of the 31 that responded said that they weren't aware they didn't know where to find it so there were only 3 uh 343 parents that responded to the 21 questions that that were issued so so that's that's unfortunate but um of the the those who responded there there were definite concerns about the par professional plan and I can completely under all of the concerns I can I can understand they were worried about the paraprofessional plan what is it exactly going to look like how is this happening um and I'll speak to that later in our goals uh they definitely spoke to a desire to develop programs that keep students in District which is just wonderful to hear we want nothing more than to keep our students at home um interestingly enough we're approving an ER teacher tonight which will be an addition of a classroom at Seth Boyen not that it's not open to all students of course across the district that could be in need of an emotional regulation impairment classroom but there will be at Seth Boyen and I'm so excited about that um there were questions about compliance and paperwork you know how do we do better in the future concerns regarding um reevaluation and potential declassification because one of those things that you know was noted by the state and it really was about more so about the paperwork and not the actual action of a reevaluation but a lot of times parents are concerned when they're entering the reeval re-evaluation process that their their child might be Declassified and then what you know what supports are in place but luckily our collaboration with the cni Department can assure parents that you know there is absolutely no lapse in service your your children are still very well supported and it's really a celebration at a declassification meeting you've met your goals and objectives yes you might still need support but not in the realm of special education which is fantastic that's where we want to be and the most important part is that all of these questions you know were answered personally via email the parents shared their email addresses we were able to reach back out to them many of them responded Thanking us for our personalized responses and um it really was a wonderful um survey to uh conduct next slide so that brings us to our department goals and and many of these if not all of them are multi-year goals but we'll talk about you know 2425 so in a nutshell the four things we want to focus on born out a lot born out of the uh both audits professional development paraprofessional criteria and fading least restrictive environment and standard operating procedures the one thing that I can say with certainty um in the last two and a half months is is not that we don't have systems and processes and procedures in place we just need to fine-tune them we need to standardize them and we need to all be on the same page so um that's where those goals come from next slide so in the realm of professional development we recently conducted a survey just over the last couple of weeks I think it ended on uh the 15th it was a teacher survey that was conducted we had 107 responses and again I I wanted it to be qualitative and not quantitative and you know I loved reading everything that the teachers had to share and again the the commonalities in in what they uh feel they need professional development in are the curriculum resources platforms and and programs and those span from general education to special education and I'll work with cni to make sure that we provide that professional development and and much of that is already planned really um the second thing was inclusion and the co- teing model our teachers are so very dedicated to providing that inclusive environment but they need help in in how that is best to look so they they would like professional development there the third I would say biggest um Express need was classroom management and difficult behaviors we're really really seeing particularly the lower grades um you know as um Mrs B Bodner you know discussed that transition from preschool into kindergarten is a tough one and we we definitely need to support our teachers with classroom management and then difficult behaviors vertical articulation in in all areas really um you know especially from building to building when students are moving from whether it's um preschool into kindergarten going into the middle school going into the high school effective use I thought this was interesting effective use of par professionals they want to you know teachers want to know how are par professionals best used in my classroom what's the most effective use of them so that's fantastic specific offerings for related services and and I I've seen this as as a common theme in other districts I've worked in as well we we really do focus our professional development opportunities both inside and outside you know on on teaching and related Services often you know Fall by the wayside so we definitely need to have a focus on um providing specific things for related services and we're actually conducting a separate survey just for related services to ascertain what they feel they they would you know most benefit from um best practices in in writing goals and objectives which we're covering with Miss Spears coming in um from the doe and then accommodations and modifications in the general education classroom so if we are to provide this least restrictive enironment that we strive to and this inclusive environment when a student receiv receives support say in ela and math and then they go to um you know a general education classroom for science and social studies that teacher should feel absolutely confident and secure in providing those accommodations and modifications so cross trining you know that that special education teacher involvement within the general education professional development so that they feel comfortable implementing those accommod and modifications okay next slide and continuing with professional development um some professional development for the child study team has already occurred uh so on September 3rd they received compliance and paperwork maintenance training um that was the the actual paper file type training and then on uh November 5th they received training on the Frontline platform so more of the electronic uh documentation on December 10th Jennifer spear is coming to train us on compliance and best practices in IEP writing so that'll be fantastic and I had actually written this slide before I was able to get to the um professional development survey results from the teachers so I was happy to see that that what I see in talking to teachers and and going into the buildings is is that need for best practices and inclusion and general education and in class resource support teachers being involved in professional development so that they are I I always say the best classroom the or the best co- teing model is when I as an observer or visitor walk into a classroom and I have absolutely no idea who the general education teacher is who the special education is teacher is I have no idea you know who the special education students and general education students are it should be completely cohesive um classroom management and positive behavior supports already had that on my list um I would love love love and I know that that I think CPAC actually may have had Ross green uh present I think to parents um but Ross Green is one of my absolute favorite authors lost in school favorite book um he has a company called lives and balance and he comes in and does um you know his um process is called uh CPS collaborative proactive Solutions so it's all about being proactive it's all about developing that for with your students so that when behaviors happen as in Handle With Care you know you can be that solid object and that um support for the students um I would love to to find a way I'm going to have to to search all of our grant opportunities and and figure out a way to because it it isn't it isn't cheap um so hopefully we can we can get him in and then U Mr Bing and I have scheduled meetings with special education staff we plan to have those every 45 days and we had our kickoff meeting uh last week on on November 12th so just checking in and making sure that um we're meeting everyone's needs and hearing everyone's um concerns and successes next slide on to professional criter paraprofessional Criterion fading and I want to start out by saying that this is a completely collaborative process with all of our stakeholders the entire team so the parents are involved from the very very beginning of even talking about paraprofessional criteria and certainly a part of the fading so the first step you know a firm believer that you can't manage what you're not measuring right so if you don't know why a par professional was assigned obviously there are needs but if we don't know exactly why a par professional was signed was assigned it's very difficult to to show progress and to show success and then to eventually Foster Independence and and fade that support away so we started out by um creating a tracking document that identifies power Professionals of course throughout the buildings what their assignments are and the case managers have been trained in using a criteria document um you know that that basically discerns the purpose for the paraprofessional we discussed um you know how they will come up with very specific goals and objectives for the assignment of that paraprofessional there's many different reasons and the data that they'll take to show progress or lack thereof um so there are many different reasons why par professionals are assigned it could be executive functioning skills you know maximizing time on task it could be because of behaviors then within behaviors it could be elopment it could be aggression it could be a number of things so whatever those things are particular to that student that document needs to reflect that how are we collecting the data the bcbas are on staff to train our staff on how how to collect that data most in the most effective way one of the most important things is that we don't establish criteria and goals and objectives it's not it actually needs to be re Revisited much more often than the annual review of an IEP so we establish the the the reason for the the par professional the criteria the goals and objectives every 3 months we need to revisit that and the parents are included in that conversation and it doesn't have to be a full IEP P team meeting it can be a phone call it can be a check-in um a going over of data and then monitoring and updating that tracking document and Christina specifically um as she oversees the pair of professionals you she will be meeting with the building admins and going over okay you know we've been able to decrease support here this leaves a person okay we're we have a need over in another building you know so we'll move them over there and and in constant collaboration with the building admin and um and we actually from ESS have a person boots on the ground in the district here five days a week Gloria and um you she's fantastic and she's our Point person and a person that will collaborate with daily next slide and the next thing we wanted to talk about is lease restrictive environment you know of course we want to ensure that our class students are in the most inclusive environment while and with their general education peers as much of the time while Prov providing them with the support that they need I want to make it clear that students while you know in-class resource support you know is is certainly the least restrictive environment while still receiving special education services that doesn't mean that we are in any way disbanding our self-contained you know programs the students who need that that support of course will still receive that support and we want it we want to to have a high consideration of the rigor of instruction at all levels so an example of that for instance at elementary you may have in-class resource support and pull out resource for ELA and math are our core subjects but then a general education placement as we talked about before a general education placement for science and social studies where the general education teacher is supported in how to entrained in how to accomplish the the the uh accommodations and modifications that pertain to them then in middle school you know we recognize that the material is getting more difficult so we'll provide an in-class resource support and pull out resource setting for ELA and math and um an in-class resource support setting for science and social studies as well I'm a firm believer that by taking away the content area specialist in that team teaching approach and pulling a student out into a pullout resource setting outside of their general education peers and without that expertise of the content area specialist we're actually doing them a disservice um so that's that's our our thought there and then going into High School of course there's you know increased rigor inclass resource support pullout resource for all subjects Ela math um science and and history so that's kind of a glimpse into our thoughts on leaste restrictive environment and the next slide and as I said you know I wanted to put some timelines and and thoughts into the standard operating procedures review and development again not that we don't have procedures in place but just kind of fine-tuning it polishing it and um making sure that that everyone's on the same page so as I said our special education standard operating procedure it's in our district goals to be completed by June um 2025 with progress check-ins in December and March our Section 504 plan uh sop again every I think every building has kind of their own way of doing things so we're just going to gel that together I'll be meeting with the assistant principles to accomplish that we're hoping to have that complete in February of 2025 with progress check-ins the first this month and then again in January we'd like to fine-tune our home instruction procedure we had some issues with that in the beginning of the year they are um definitely squared away but we want to make sure that that there are no issues moving forward uh so an sop for home instruction due uh March 2025 with check-ins in December and February and our mckin vento process and as I'm the homeless liaison um just kind of you know working with with registration access and Equity to fine-tune that uh standard operating procedure and we hope to have that complete by April 2025 with progress check-ins in January and in March so it'll be a very busy spring for special services and I hope to have an opportunity to present on all that we've accomplished this year at the end of this year and um have some real successes to report and that is the end next slide just thank you for your support and if you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them so this is something I have you know maybe you can help me understand is that there seem to be two separate systems one is electronic and one is paper and they're not the same and never theion meet but I don't understand that why can't they be streamlined so the same form that's available electronically is available by paper so that we can fill it electronically H print and that way the state guys love it and the independent Auditors love it right the state's funny about that the state is um well there there are certain things um in the evaluation process there are evaluation tools and protocols that really can't be digitized you know they are hard copy so those those you got to stop that I don't understand that meaning what do you mean cannot be digitized take a picture and put it up there I mean I do that all the time I digitize all my documents right right they are they are they are booklets Kathleen is being generous the state is not the 21st C I'm trying to be kind in my clear yes they will ask for files of paperwork when they come in it is a it is an NJ dooe issue it is not a district issue I I sorry I disagree with this okay yes what I all I'm trying to say is everything that can be on paper can be digitized so make sure that you digitized and hit a print button when those guys show up it's not I don't know maybe I'm missing something here I mean this is not may I this this can't be sure I mean I will so I did have that a similar question I will say as a special educator I wish that that was the case and that we could do that but we can't um but I guess to that point right because the state is finicky about how documents are presented how do we plan to ensure that we have compliance pieces maintained on both sides over time knowing that we have to maintain the paper files and we have to have a better system for ensuring that everything that can be kind of placed in the online document repository in front line also does so that we would have both sides of the house kind of figured out and and compliant on both ends sorry in my experience if you have two systems they will never be in sync over time they'll be entropy and they will go their own way you cannot it does not matter there has to be one golden Source I mean I do this in software every day I mean if you have to a branch it'll never be the same after three months so all again maybe I'm you know this is is not the right place to do it all I'm suggesting is can you please make sure that as much as possible oh absolutely you have just one source and you know and we don't have to worry about papers ever I think you should join the NJ doe and then change everything for us right and and I can say that 95% if if not 98% of everything that is in a paper file is also in that document repository it is there there are just some booklets that granted they could be they could be digitized but because we also have to have them in paper form the the manual effort to to do that probably wouldn't wouldn't be fruitful um but I can say that that 95 to 98% are digitized as well as in paper but when Jennifer Spar comes in she does not want to see me pressing print she does not she will she will go right into that file room and and sit down and start reviewing um you you mentioned a lot of partnership that you're doing with cni which is awesome is very cool can I ask you to also have a similar partnership at the same level with the business office oh absolutely the budgeting problems we had last year was because these two departments did not talk to each other right so you know I I know you you're brand new you know you're going to start from scratch can you and also the business office will be led by somebody brand new so can you just make sure that you have the same level of partnership with the business office as you have with cni absolutely thank you and I don't mind chman in uh two and a half hours today talking abouts so it's already started y yeah no I I am a firm believer that the business office and the special services department have to work hand inand without a doubt thank you so much for the presentation uh it is great to hear as a result of your conversations that we are uh nearing our way into compliance uh with those audit items because obviously our goal is that we are going to hit compliance as a bare rock bottom minimum and try to get well above it for our kids um one piece that you mentioned as a concern among parents was par professionals and so I wanted to just go to that slide regarding the par professional criteria and fading I really appreciate hearing within the special services committee the amount of thought that's going into that check-in process and looking at the criteria for how a professional is given and also when it should be faded and by what degree um and I know at the same time we we look at the par professional as an individual support that a child needs based on their profile and it also happens to be a cost center issue so reducing par professional support will save us money but we all know that we're doing that first and foremost goal based on the individual needs child so in that fading and check-in process um if you're looking at a child's needs and it looks like in fact we're not seeing opportunities for reducing uh we need to continue maintaining or perhaps you even see in a case the need for support is actually increasing in some areas are you set up through this new framework to accommodate that oh absolutely absolutely everything is individualized and if a student is in need of more support that is another part of the criteria and it's kind of the opposite of fading of course it's increasing but if that's what the student needs at that time absolutely but the focus really is and the conversation with parents you know while we're we're having this convers you this discuss discussion during an IEP meeting or at a check-in you know is we want to provide this support for as long as it's necessary there could very well be a student who has no Aid support and we see a need for Aid support but maybe just through a difficult time in their life a difficult time in the family a difficult time in their academic Journey for whatever the reasons are we just need to go into it with the thought that this is temporary and temporary could be 3 weeks it could be could be 3 months could be 3 years could be 5 years um but just having that lens of this is a temporary accommodation and modification and not something that we want to continue to take away that that Independence it's celebration when we can take away a par professional really thank you so one of the things you mentioned was that you did surveys with families and also with teachers as kind of curious about the distribution of I guess the families um were they mostly Elementary School uh teachers or families or were there more high school students because I know there's always this concern about um special education in the high school so I want to know what what is the greatest concerns that we have at the high school level the greatest concerns at the high school level were really um focused in that co- teing environment and accommodations and modifications and I would say that the I was happy to see that the um the contribution from the teachers was pretty well spread there weren't any it wasn't all it wasn't heavy on Elementary it wasn't heavy on middle school or or um High School I mean comparatively there are more High School teachers so there were more responses but but really it was um it was a good mix but I think at the high school it was mostly that inclusive providing that inclusive environment and knowing more about the best way to do that and the accommodations and modifications really for General education teachers um which is is so encouraging and and strengthens my belief in our our teachers and how they want to provide our students with the best and they are themselves themselves saying that they need help there and we're here to provide it just bouncing off of that um do you plan on doing a parent caregiver server annually I think it's great that you've done it and I think in the past we've always dependent on CPAC survey we never really I don't think we've done our own internal survey for the district yeah so so I'm happy that you did it thank you and be replying to people individually goes such a long way and know it takes time so just curious if that's something you'll do annually thank you thank you yeah I would look to maybe do another survey in June like after after this year is over I like to start the year out with a survey and the year with a survey um particularly in the area of professional development so we provided you some professional development where did it fall short where did where was it a success what do you still need so that we can effectively plan hi um so just to go back a little bit to par professionals we've been talking also a lot about training and I feel like training for par professionals is kind of one of those perennial challenges in any school district just with the time with that they are often contracted folks and that is the issue here here too right and so just thinking about as we're working on kind of that bidirectional training model between to establish better co- teaching to establish more inclusive practices um how are we also thinking about training for power professionals knowing that it can be a challenge given the way that contracts run and do we have an opportunity to maybe talk to the new kind of boots on the ground person Gloria that we have from ESS to to have some inroads into additional training for our par professionals so that they can be most effective absolutely um you know and ESS provides their own training um and onboarding for and and yearly training and semiannual training for their par professionals but that's actually one of the things that Gloria is here for she's for you know the on the spot training like you know one of the uh principes calls and says hey I had an issue with a par professional or classroom I didn't like what I saw Gloria will be right in there to you know on you know in in person provide some some feedback and and instruction and then I had one more question if that's okay okay um we talked about having those I guess every thre Monon meetings to talk about what's happening with the par professionals assigned um that could potentially given you know what your case load looks like be a little bit of a heavy lift so just thinking about from Christina's P perspective has there been any thought around how can we systematize that both from a scheduling perspective and then also is there kind of a standard agenda or list of things that they might be you might be looking at in that meeting um to kind of Base your decision Mak moving forward to to get you to that next three-month Mark right so these meetings are meant to be no more than 10 to 15 minutes at the very most and you know Christina is is uh already offering to you know maybe if if a case manager is overloaded and and can't have the meetings themselves you know she can have the data have that meeting I can any any one of supervisors you know can um you know can assist but really it it shouldn't be longer and again doesn't have to be a full IEP team meeting um just a 10 to 15 minute check-in and if the you know the parent is unavailable or however that check-in can happen it could be obviously virtual it could be in person it could be through email um you know an exchange of data that way if everyone is is quite busy because I know parents are busy as well their work schedules thank you last question I have two questions I'm gonna keep my mic on um with regard to the least restrictive environment slide I just wanted to um get a little bit of clarity when you talk about the elementary support of the in-class resource support the pullout support um and you mentioned general education placement for science and social studies yes are we looking at being able to maintain for students whose profiles require that second teacher in class support for those science and social studies subjects or supporting them in a different modality I think we're looking at supporting them in in a more of a consultative way um and and to be honest there there aren't many students who who have that type of program anyway um you know we're in in-class resource support for science and social studies is really warranted um you know Mr Bing and I are both of the belief that and I think most of our teachers are as well that if there's that focused instruction in ela and math you're carrying that those skills over into your general education social studies and Science and while they're absolutely could be consult necessary accommodations and modifications help you know for that general education teacher um the the real support is in that core area of ela mm got it uh and then just going back for a minute to the outstanding items left uh from the collaborative monitoring report I see that several of them are with regard to the speech only students as opposed to the the more broader classified students is there a reason for that as far as a different framework for it or a different file cabinet or what was the distinction you know I'm not sure I thought that myself and I I honestly don't have a a succinct answer um I think that there wasn't as much maybe oversight of the the speech case managers um that's the only the only thing that I can really identify as the issue it's again it's not that they didn't have the paperwork their paperwork wasn't making its way into the document repository electronically and it also wasn't making its way to central office so again I think that goes back to to standard standard operating procedures and everyone not just your more typical case managers of globally classified students but it it you know you you have to bring those um speech only case managers in just as much as you do the case managers that are for the global students all right thank you thank you very much no the business administrator update uh for both both for Seth boen and tuskin epic management is uh working through the closeout items and also their punch list reinspection was performed on October 3rd and 4th uh for Marshall School the boilers are operational uh but they're having some control wiring work to be completed uh the can uh the for a better term the business um the boil BMS which is the controls that oversee how heating as working his program will um to be completed and punch list is underway mantros the again the same as um Marshall the boilers are operational the BMS BMS system is being programmed and the punch list is occurring a Columbia High School where most of the work is going ongoing at this point in time uh d-wing new science rooms duck work piping ongoing d-wing laboratory casework and plumbing installation continue awing second floor uh underlayment installed setting of VV completed and continue piping uh VV is uh ventilator units I believe some of these acronyms I'm not certain about uh new boiler at D andb on controls wiring ongoing Media Center new hva system continue Media Center uh continued with framing walls and sheetrock uh common areas terazo floors completed uh common area wall panels installed common area post painting resumes uh roofs coating on the way at B and c-wing areas awing science rooms work is on the way mechanical work underway a batement of exist of existing guidance completed began demo demolition of old hva systems d-wing R d-wing rough HVAC piping and dut work installation inspection underway as required rooms adjacent to Media Center were completed auxilary gym roof parit wall coding on the way uh pre for next abatement phase near room uh they're preparing for the abatement re near room a231 inspections are under way as required new ramp area entrance to Media Center completed uh Maplewood Middle School Boiler Room insulate insulating steam lines repairing nearing completion so continued steam pipe insulation continued in installing thermostats continued um routing and connecting UV UV u v UV second floor installing uh for the ther I apologize I'm struggling with the lighting here um installing unit shut off for Transformer continue wiring starting up 12 buvs out of 39 continue pH system testing and debugging owner furnished accessories provided for all gender restroom on second floor Auditorium rooftop units uh one two and three started up ATS building automation system wiring to field uh to field equipment continues continue loing the auditorium roof the replacement of two smaller flat roofs subs subs have begun de demobilizing remove storage boxes and completed addressing original door punch list South Orange Middle School electric service installing anchors and conduit it supports targeting completion between uh Christmas and New Year South Orange Middle School uh waiting for the building permit setting up site trailers measuring the door replacement ordering materials that is basically the construction update and just you'll hear from the committee had a a good uh committee meeting where there was a lot of updates on various items going on in your budget and other items which will be part of your uh committee reports thank you and now here's I guess my update all right this month the board held its first quarterly Retreat of of the school year providing an opportunity to reflect plan and strengthen our efforts as part of our board training we conducted a review of the board's role in the budget process in collaboration with the administration the district will roll out a new budget calendar this year alongside this traditional calendar the administration will form a budget advisory committee which will incorporate valuable committee input Community input into our financial planning process the board also reviewed the governance handbook a key document that establishes clear norms and expectations for both current and future board me boards this represents a significant step forward from the unconventional practices we experienced last year by creating a governance handbook that better defines the board's role we are laying the foundation for stronger more effective governance which ultimately benefits our entire School District I also want to congratulate this District including our teachers staff and administrators on our recent njq Sac scores which demonstrate that we are a high performing School District we also received a thorough review of our njsla scores highlighting the excellent work the district has done in implementing its data infrastructure to better Target and provide services aimed at improving student outcomes additionally I want to acknowledge the efforts of our special services team in guiding the district forward on a productive path as we continue implementing necessary changes to ensure we are effectively serving all students particularly within our special education community this month I would like to highlight our first read of policy 8420 important revisions have been made to ensure compliance the law and address the needs of our students specifically more language for the care of students with I APS and 54 plans has been explicitly incorporated into the policy additionally we want to reassure the community that students will be informed at the start and conclusion of all safety exercises that the activity is a drill to further support students the policy now includes Provisions for age appropriate discussions at the end of each drill to address any questions or concerns finally parents will be notified of the drill on the same day including its nature so they can have meaningful follow-up conversations with their children if needed I also want to acknowledge the South Orange Maplewood Board of education's recognition of transgender day of remembrance which was held on November 20th this day honors the lives of transgender individuals lost to violence and discrimination and reaffirms our unwavering commitment to inclusivity and respect we stand in solidarity with the lgbtq Comm Community recognizing the resilience courage and contributions of transgender individuals within our schools and beyond our board remains dedicated to fostering safe supportive and affirming spaces where all students staff and families can Thrive as their authentic selves together we will continue to Champion Equity understanding and the Dignity of every individual in closing these initiatives enhanced budgeting processes stronger governance practices thoughtful updates to our policies and our continued focus on including iuson and Equity reflect our unwavering commitment to transparency accountability and continuous improvement with the support of our community we are dedicated to building a school system that prior prioritizes the success and well-being of every student and and now I'll read the board president's statement the school board meeting is a business meeting in public and not a meeting with the public often times it may appear to members of our audience the Board of Education takes action with very little comment and in many cases a unanimous vote before a matter is placed on the agenda at a public meeting the Administration has thoroughly reviewed the matter with the superintendent of schools if the superintendent is satisfied that this the matter is ready to be presented to the Board of Education it is then referred to the appropriate board committee the members of the board committee work with the administration and the superintendent to ensure that the members fully understand the matter after the committee discusses the matter it is then shared with the other board members for consideration only then is it placed on the agenda for board discussion and action at a public meeting meeting now we'll have our hearing of individuals and delegations thank you for coming in person and dialing in by phone this evening the South Orange Maplewood Board of Education certainly respect that you've taken the time out of your busy day to address the board at tonight's meeting we value public involvement in our school district and we are eager to hear what you have to say the board does have time limits to by policy and it will be enforcing those to enable as many people to speak as to speak as possible this evening each individual will be given three minutes to speak please do your best to stay within the time afforded to you the first public comment period is usually limited to 1 hour the second public comment period may be limited to 30 minutes all input sh with the board of education is taken very seriously and will inform future deliberations and work by the Board of Education and its committees i' like to call Yakov Steinfeld [Music] thank you can you hear me now I'm asking for little more than 3 minutes CU this issue is going to rivet you I'm going to read I try to minimize n years into three minutes dear Board of Education on August 6 2021 my dearest daughter Sophia shinefeld a graduate of Colombia High School took her own life by Suicide she was exposed and manipulated manipulated by the Board of Education own policies and agenda clearly started clearly stated in your mission your mission is right here I just printed it this evening from the Internet it's full of gender expression gender conforming cisgender nonbinary and transgender all kinds of things you have failed in your mission all of you to properly educate our children instead of normal accepted curriculum of math science Sports Etc you have allowed this deadly cult to take hold in these Halles these sacred holes 200 yards from here you have adopted outlandish baseless cult-like dangerous ideology as your written Mission States clearly we've shown it anybody can read it I know of three students in this High School who committed suicide being transgender I can provide names but I don't want to for privacy matters one of them is my daughter sfia shinfield I entrusted my child in your hand and he failed us I am so upset you have no idea I'm looking at you and I don't understand how in 2024 after years of all of you trying to do your best and I'm sitting here since 6:00 listening to all these good people explaining your policies and procedures and wow how did my daughter slip through the cracks and I have to visit her every year in her grave do you even begin to realize that Untold damage to my family that was created who even gave you the authority to intervene so grossly in Family Matters like this as evident in many dead young lives throughout our nation facts 40% of transgender youth try to commit suicide many succeed unfortunately listen to me 30% regret whatever they did in their youth fact I've been in Florida I was invited twice to National meetings of great importance and I've seen transgender people you sit here and you think you know what you're doing and you think that your policy or from whoever it's coming and I will investigate this where this colonel colonel of evil started who is even born in the wrong body are you born in the wrong body I just heard you how you trying to protect our children while in effect they are dying have you asked your nurse the school nurse how many people died how many transgender kids died in the last 10 years is there any number is anybody following I need one more minute two I'm I'm very sorry that I talk like this I'm very sorry that I speak like this I've never imagined that as a father I will send my kid to school and she would be exposed Mr thank you no no no one more minute no you spoken for I allowed you all for one minute to speak so you know this is this is this three minutes that you're giving me is shameful shameful I give that three minutes to everyone three minutes and I heard this gentleman in the first time speaking for 30 minutes about his trip to Haiti and his great experience you're shutting my mouth and I won't allow it so one more word if you I'm announc I'm announcing I'm sorry sir I'm announcing a $20 million lawsuit against you I'm sorry sir and you take me seriously thank you Mr sheinfeld thank you Mr sheinfeld you spoken you can send us a letter thank you one of your children horrible you f zero 3 minutes you should see the list of 300 medications given to her to try to fix her gender thank you very much disgus and you yes excuse me sir sir please sir please sir sir I will ask you to stop sir please oh [Music] about where did this come [Music] from e it's going to take a 5 minute recess e e e e e e e Community member vital you're on for uh public speaks condolences to Mr shinefeld and everybody uh Mr valital we'll need you to speak up a little bit we're having a hard time hearing you hello uh yes we could hear you okay I was just saying my condolences to The Man Who Lost His Child and everyone else I see the district is once again considering advanced notice for school lockdown drills thank you when the New Jersey law on this was last revised in 2022 the first draft contained provision for advanced notice it was later amended out so the state rules don't require advanced notice but they don't prohibit it either our district can choose to do better let's take a look at what others do first let's look at a few other states New York State starting last summer requires eight days notice of lockdown drills advanced notice that is the state of Illinois since 2021 requires 5 days advanced notice School administrators can opt students out of of walk through school lockdown drills Virginia requires 24 hours advance notice what does the edtech and school security industry say well two companies I found recommend and advanced notice the partner Alliance for safer schools whose Founders include School Security leaders and sro's says that unannounced lockdown drills might seem like a way to test the actual Readiness of students and staff however the unattended consequences can be severe these drills can lead to panic confusion and increased stress levels for students and parents you should notify parents well in advance and allow them allowing them to discuss the issues with their children drill should be announced to staff students and parents and include a scheduled time frame in which the drill will be conducted for example Monday between 9:00 a.m. and noon drills should not be conducted in a surprise fashion what did the advocacy group say finally the group students Demand Action was founded by students in response to the tragedy of majer Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida in 2018 some of its Founders are leaders and survivors of school shans they recommend that parents should have advanced notice of drills they say that a study by Georgia Tech and every town found that school Scher drills are associated with significant and Lasting increases in depression stress and anxiety and fear of death among students parents and teachers they go on to say that there is almost no research affirming the value of school shooter drills involving students either to prevent school shootings or to protect the school Community when shootings do occur finally we have every town for gun safety a leading gun safety organization it was formed by a merger of previous groups Moms Demand Action and Mayors against illegal guns they say active shooter drills increase anxiety in the hope Community training school staff on how to respond to active shooter situations is important but there is no strong conclusive evidence that supports the value of drills involving students in fact there is mounting evidence that student involved drills are associated with lasting harms such as increases in depression stress and anxiety as well as widespread fear of death throughout the school community in conclusion I recommend you make rational decisions not emotional ones consider the negative consequences of your actions on children's well-being shown by research thank you thank you and that concludes our public speaks all right we'll do community community reports so all right the special services committee met on November 11th we began at 6:30 adjourned at 8:51 it was myself board member Meyer Whit letter superintendent B Dr Gilbert Mrs Jess Maria were all in attendance uh prior notice of the meeting was sent out to the full board on November 4th as a reminder and a request for any questions with a link to our internal tracker after that meeting minutes were sent on November 12th to the full board for review ahead of this evening we began with our CPAC check-in which supports District goal number for increasing collaboration around special education by engaging with CPAC this discussion addressed concerns at South Mountain School around pullout replacement there was a teacher recently hired to fill that need and the district's current review and planning to prevent similar issues in the future CPAC emphasized the need for consistent Assistive Technology support as well as dislike Lexia specialization for professional development and ongoing improvements in communication upholding timelines and increase of programming uh the spectrum of programming rather uh professional development for staff and a more proactive responsiveness when issues arise this month's meeting was centered around topics related to District's goals one and four primarily goal one is around College uh and career Readiness where we talked about um the par professional and teacher support to ensure students IEP is align with the principles of the least restrictive environment so with this we reviewed as Miss uh Jess Maria said earlier the power professional criteria document to guide discussions on student support needs across the school year and improve collaboration um and by increasing touch points with family um also we talked about uh which was surfaced earlier that ESS will provide an on-site representative which began on November 12th this will enhance our District's ability to provide more direct support feedback and training for power professionals um with ongoing efforts to monitor the implementation and address par professional development needs across the school year secondly the committee discussed the presentation that you saw earlier tonight and reviewed the surveys administered to both the community and teachers regarding the audit survey and the professional development feedback survey respectively the district shared that they offered to host a monthly check-in with the CPAC board and this will be another proactive way to increase collaboration um supporting that District goal that I just referenced next we had a few items that we discussed in our committee that will be up for board approval tonight so the first of which is the bcba job description so the committee discussed an update to the language to the bcba job description which would allow candidates who don't hold another do or a department of Ed certification but only hold their bcba certification to apply for the role which thereby expands the applicant pool this role will prioritize supporting teachers and students in both General and special education classrooms with a focus on coaching training intervention planning and particularly a focus at our younger grades in in particular kindergarten second we talked about the extension of e programming at Seth Boyen by adding a classroom so that is on the agenda tonight as was referenced earlier in resolution 4694 um so we are excited to discuss this development um further in upcoming committee meetings expanding this programming for students not just at Seth Boyen but potentially other schools as well providing much needed support within our district some of the goals and wins were moving forward with a clear timeline for the federal monitoring corrective action plan and engagement with the monitor increased engagement with CPAC within the committee and with the district itself and the expansion of that ER program our next meeting will be on December 17th at 6:30 do any of our board members have questions at this time all right seeing none I'm going to pass it on thank you the Personnel committee met on Monday November 18th at 6:30 p.m. in attendance were board president telesford board members dval Wilson and VOD lamman and myself and from the district Mr adad Doan Dr Gilbert and superintendent Bing uh the public facing meeting minutes are posted on the website but a few highlights um a welcome to Mr Zaba our new assistant ba who started earlier this month he's jumped right in has been working closely with Mr Deandra our interim ba and uh in more business office news on the Personnel resolution you will see that there is the uh new business ad administrator up for approval starting on December 9th Mr Mr Bing and Miss Jess Maria are currently doing an analysis of some of the positions within the um special education staff specifically inclass support EBR academic interventionist pullout replacement IEP coaches and social workers while they work through all of this very closely together there are some SP Ro special education open roles that are put on hold until their analysis is complete in terms of committee goal tracking for the 5-year Workforce diversity plan the staff member survey initially to be sent this month has been put on hold Mr adido is looking to shift gears in the meantime and work with Mr Draper on some elements of the new marketing campaign in order to continue progress on year one work moving forward the committee will be tracking staff evaluation status on a monthly basis to ensure we have better oversight of the process and progress part of our discussion this um this month was around qac as superintendent Bing mentioned earlier this evening the Personnel score was 85% in um in 2024 versus 100% in 2018 uh we lost a total of points 12 on evaluations missed and three points on a Personnel indicator which is currently in appeal we also discussed the supervisor of counseling guidance and student well-being job description that Dr Gilbert had shared with the board along with all of the context and research he put into this reimagined role the committee appreciated the time and effort put into this however we decided it was best to table this for now now primarily due to timing and budgetary concerns uh that include using grant money to temporarily fund an FTE um next year's budget process has not officially kicked off there's there's so much unknown and won't be answered for a few months um still teachers contract not settled health care costs increasing effective 2025 and understanding the impact on our current budget and the true cost of this position and Associated staff over time this also led to a discussion around why you know a question was asked why wouldn't we just reinstate the original position as it was when the timing is Right during the budget process and academic counseling versus mental health counseling there are concerns around all of this kind of falling on this new position and essentially a new proposed Department structure without a proper Staffing plan and the associated PD training requirements needed um we will continue conversations around guidance leadership once Administration begins to consider the staffing needs for the 25 to 26 school year meeting ended at 8:00 pm and we will next be meeting on Monday December 16th at 6:30 p.m. any questions [Music] the fft committee met on November 13th uh with all the board members and the administration attending uh for the construction update the in Maplewood Middle School the all gender bathroom is expected to be finish off of Thanksgiving in CHS music room has a new edac it never had one before in Delia Balden uh the elevator is being repaired with critical parts that are past life expectancy and to avoid catastrophic failure uh for the business office there are couple of documents that are coming online one is comprehensive maintenance plan which the board will be approving today and we also have the purchasing manual which is actually pretty nice because it lays out regulations by the administration and both will be available online soon in um this is a new thing for us at least is this we had to make an extra payment to IRS because with the rising interest rates we grew beyond our tax exempt allowance so we need to pay the IRS about $1.2 million and we suspect that similar payments will have to be made for rest of our portfolio and for the first time at least in you know since I've been on the board there's been a check fraud that happened at one of our vendors who stole about 68k and again just to clarify this is not from us this is happening you know at the vendor site I mean and the maple police are involved uh for the budget we have a tentative 20 2526 budget timeline which be published soon the entire district is using the online budget preparation system system 3000 All Digital no paperwork uh the registration the another new thing is that there's a re-registration campaign that will start for incoming ninth grade students it is new for us but it's a standard process many districts do it it ensures that all students live in our town and the registration is done again you know at ninth grade at between Middle School and High School uh all the you there are obviously many many more minutes and there all posted online feel free to read that the next meeting will be you know a week before the next board meeting that's all I have any questions I just want to highlight one other piece from that uh a few board members so far have gotten to participate in one of the uh s bike bus rides uh that are getting elementary kids to schools on Fridays uh they're the remarkable events that bring a bunch of kids through town on bikes it's a it's a real party scene and uh they provided a presentation that we looked at during uh fft in particular looking at elementary schools that are in need of additional bike racks to accommodate uh and Facilities acted on it I've heard more or less immediately and certain schools have gotten to order uh bike racks uh as a result of that so uh we appreciate uh receiving that information and the uh District's quick work on it am I up uh the policy committee met on November 6th uh and uh myself board member Gifford and sacket Gable were in attendance uh we discussed the policies that are currently up for first and second read uh tonight we have uh I think five policies that are up for second read policy 2200 on curriculum content 3160 on physical examination 40 uh 4610 on physical examination 5751 on sexual harassment of students and 8467 on firearms and weapons uh we have no alterations from the first read up for first read tonight we have policy 8420 on emergency and crisis situations this is a policy that we had uh adopted with updates just last year but the state made additional updates recently with regard specifically to a significant number of specific protections uh for students with disabilities in the uh development and conduct of safety drills uh within this policy We are continuing our District's local policy change of announcing the drills at the start of a security drill not simply at the end of the drill which is the state requirement it also continues our District's local uh explicit consideration and care for students who might be caught outside of a classroom with a locked door at the time of drills uh such as in the hallway or bathroom ensuring the well-being of those students during the drill and of course we have the state standard protections some of which came from this District originally uh specifically that drills don't include roleplay or simulated uh uh violent incidents uh this ensures we also have a policy that we are adding in within this uh uh ensuring that students have the opportunity at the end of a drill for a check-in uh with the teacher or staff member to uh just address their experience with the drill and any concerns or possible traumas that may have been raised uh during that security drill and finally we're adding a provision uh ensuring that when parents are notified that same day regarding a drill happened that they're given sufficient info about what happened in the drill that they can have a meaningful discussion and reinforcement with their students um I will note just uh pointing to concerns that were raised by uh a public speaker this policy came through uh fft in that Comm we had uh among others our director of security Stan vales Who provided information as we considered the possibility of for example giving uh notice of our drill days in advance uh and it was uh the determination of our Administration uh in light of uh the information that they have and insights that if we gave a notice of drills too many days in advance uh it would really water down the effect effectiveness of the drill to be able to sort of automatize uh the um actions that students need to take when these things happen as far as the kind of lockdown they need to do uh similarly providing opportunities for an opt out would uh really undermine the effectiveness of the the drill not the uh the trigger for any trauma but just the drill for the kind of things you have to do in that case uh for students who may need that the most uh and so we were um felt confident to move this forward and uh after multiple rounds of review this is ready for first read this evening um the rest of the information we'd encourage you to go and look at our uh policy minutes on the website uh I would last want to just reference uh as the policy chair uh and in recognition of the transgender day of remembrance yesterday that our district has long been a strong proponent of policy 5756 on transgender and non-binary students uh and ensuring support for those students uh in school and with regard to their families and their Community thank you any questions okay well the um cni committee met last week with all members in attendance and we centered our meeting around topics related to District goals numbers 1 two and four so I'll give a brief recap of those and the rest of the notes are posted on the website so for goal one College and Career Readiness we had a preview of the njsla presentation shared tonight and discussed instructional and programmatic imp implications of the data regarding goal two global citizenship Miss wble provided an update on as AB ISM sharing data from last year and efforts to support students with attendance challenges she introduced an N jtss um attendance manual to guide improvements emphasizing family and student engagement and just noting while the state requires schools with chronic absenteeism above 10% to create Improvement plans our distri districts rate is around 8% so we're being proactive there possible causes for absenteeism and ongoing support strategies were also discussed then we discussed uh goal four family and Community engagement survey data from the magnetic reading and ntss curriculum nights showed attendees gained a better understanding overall but shared additional questions and suggestions this feedback will guide future planning um a math curriculum night was held this week which I attended um and there's another one scheduled for next month we also discussed adding a library of curriculum night recordings FAQs and key instructional resources to the new District website for easy Family Access there will be opportunities also on the website for community members to give input on the Yonder pilot in addition to the internal feedback that will also take place from um students and staff we included discussion on the CHS schedule in response to the challenges experienced with the CHS scheduling at the start of the year the district has taken significant steps to address the gaps and create a more effective process moving forward they've developed a new team new timeline a whole process to ensure greater success in future scheduling Cycles to promote transparency and accountability the district shared a month by Monon timeline detailing key actions with the board that we and the cni committee will review regularly um and for November and we'll report it out as an oversight rule um but for November the district successfully completed the scheduled actions that they had listed on the timeline supervisors updated the CHS program of studies and the school leadership team ensured that course codes are aligned with state standards the program of studies um and that's just the like the course catalog for the high school is on track to be finalized by supervisors by the end of December so this proactive approach demonstrates the district's commitment to learning from past experiences and implementing improvements so that we have better outcomes our students do um items up for approval tonight we have a special dance curriculum as well as the policies for second read that board member Meyer already mentioned 2200 curriculum content 5751 sexual harassment of students um and just to note we also uh discussed an AI policy coming uh just for review and our student reps will come to our next committee meeting to share feedback on that policy um next meeting will be on December 12th Co one quick additional readout uh I just want to highlight that uh three members of the board in late October had the opportunity to go down to the New York uh the New Jersey Schoolboard association's uh Workshop State Conference in addition to a number of our uh SLT members and superintendent uh and it was just a phenomenal opportunity for trainings uh and networking learning from other districts uh and just a lot of really really helpful input uh I have to say my one con was that I was very jealous of the boards that got all nine members down to participate uh and I think that would be a great goal for next year all right I move on to the action portion okay on to action items uh before you you have resolution 4682 a through L resolution 4683 a through C 4684 evaluation rubric 4685 out of District placements 4686 financials a through L 4687 curriculum and instruction 4688 registration 4689 Hib 4690 special education agreements a through A and B 4691 policy second read a through e 4692 policy for three you have additional items 4693 School field trips 4694 emotional regulations and 46 95 an additional settle any questions I should say is there a motion want I make a motion to um put up for a discussion yep second right all right we're open for discussion and all right one quick item I want to highlight uh resolution 4694 the emotional regulation impairment program at Seth boen Elementary School uh I want to just give due to the ER class that we've had going at Seth Boyen for a while with the incredible uh teacher Michael wiio and I'm very excited that we are able to expand that with another classroom and be able to support more students in that program uh I think this is a great win for um the district and for students who really need that support roll call roll call Board member Callahan yes board member dval Wilson yes board member Ecker yes board member gford I'm not even sure if he's on we move on board member Myer yes board member sacki Gable yes board president telesford yes board member vad lamani yes and board member Whit letter yes all motions pass all right we'll have our next hearing of individuals and delegations I don't believe there was anybody signed up just make sure all right now you move on to new business any new business all right okay the Board of Education will meet in public session on Thursday December 19th 20124 6:30 p.m. in the district meeting room at 5:25 Academy Street in Maplewood New Jersey immediately following the opening of the public session the board will move to to go into a closed session in the superintendent office at 525 Academy Street in Maple New Jersey as well as using an online video conference platform to discuss Personnel match with that the attorney clarent privileg legal negotiations and other matters that may arise and require discussion to be announced at a later date immedately following the closed session the Board of Education will meet in public session estimated to be at 7:30 p.m. in the district meeting room at 5:25 Academy Street in Maple New Jersey in person utilizing an online video conference platform which include the hearing of indiv individuals the community can view the meeting by following the steps which will be listed on the agenda if there are members of the community who would like to attend the meeting in person please note that the masks and social distancing are optional in accordance with the guidance received from the local do and CDC action will be taken with that like to make a motion to to adjourn second thank you pan all in favor I okay we are adjourned at 10:44 p.m.