So, last night's storm. I know several of our communities were hit pretty hard by that. Um thankfully everyone is safe from what uh I have been told, but I know that a lot of people are dealing with um damage from the storm and um
still figuring things out. So, you know, if if there's anything that we as a high school can do for anyone who's watching the board meeting, um please let us know. Uh I do I don't believe power outages are an issue. Otherwise, you know, we we would have offered for folks to come here if they needed to charge items or just have a place to be. Um but
I really um wish all the communities um well in terms of recovering from all of this. Our campus thankfully made it through relatively unscathed. We had a a little rain come into gym one two um and do a little bit of damage to that floor. It's warping just a little bit from the water. That was it. Our director of
operations, Mark Snowden, came in last night to actually check on the status of the building um and was back again early this morning. So, thank you to our crew for keeping our building um in good condition. But I I feel for everyone who's dealing with that right now. Uh
and that's all I have for tonight. Thank you. I don't have anything. Uh Mr. Sty, any comments? I do, Mr. President. I have a couple of things I just want to let the board update the board. Um, a couple of the pieces of funding that you've heard on the news and have been
talked about. Um, one of the big federal pieces that we get is IDEIDA money covers special education for us mainly tuition. Um, usually we get notified in June. Uh, we literally got notified it a couple days ago. Uh we are getting the
funding. Um $367,000 is what our allocation is. We do got to apply. Um but $367,000 is our allocation. Uh last year it was 385 just so you so it did go down. We did see
that coming. Um I had budgeted 335. So we're kind of a little bit ahead of the game there. Um so that's good news. uh the ESA grant grants which is um they've changed names over the years acronyms but title
one title two title four that's the big three that we have it's about 60 some $65,000 for us um I have not seen any notifications at all I've been checking every day so that those have not come in
yet so I'm not and the department is kind of quiet right now they were fielding a lot of questions and now they've just gone quiet. So, we haven't heard anything. Um, the second we I'm sure Bob knows more than I do. He always does with this stuff, but um we I don't
have anything any news on that at all. Um and then part of our state funding we get is we fill out an application for special education students extraordinary aid. Um it's based on applications and costs over $40,000 for some students and
55,000 for others. Um, we did get our uh x aid money which is great. We budgeted a revenue of 300,000. We actually ended up getting 978. Um, that's the good news. The bad news is we had applications of about a
million8. So they dropped the percentage from 61% to 51%. About four years ago it was 80%, right? And it kept going down and down. So it's 10% per year. So next year it's going to be 40%. So I I'll take the mystery out for you. But it's
But that's that's where we are with the funding. Um so um you know it could be worse. I I I think this is actually good news for this year. Um I would love to have the titles funds but we'll see. Um but the key one to me in terms of
federal aid was IDA and getting that was uh that was helpful. Otherwise we would have had to fund that. That would have been tough. Um anyway, and the only other thing I want to bring up to the board is that we do have a change order on that I did put on today. Um it's for
the project, the design lab, the the wall, the green, the quote unquote green wall, which we don't really like. We pitched a different type of wall. Um it's kind of almost like not the same color, but similar to where the Hall of Fame plaques are, and it's hooked on to
the wall. It looks a lot neater and a little lot more presentable. It'll be the same. I think it's like a a bluish type color. It's going to be the Yeah, one of the colors that's in there. But it it'll look really nice and it'll have the lettering on there. It'll look a lot different. There is an upcharge. Um the contractor is taking
some of the cost. We end up paying $13,000 for that additional cost. Uh much better product. Um and it is on the agenda for tonight. Hopefully, it is the last change order for this project. They're probably not going to wait. I I don't anticipate anymore.
So that's that's my comments. Thanks. A question. Yeah. Uh Mr. SC, you you said that u title one has not been released. I haven't gotten any in indication on the e-wig system, anything that shows
indication of of where um where I usually look. I don't see anything from DOE home room. I don't see anything from a broadcast. I I have nothing cuz the only thing that has what has been withheld federally and they haven't said what they're doing with it but what they
haven't released yet um is title I think it's title one part three right but not title one not the big bucket of title one that has been released um then title two title three and title
four are also being withheld at this point in time. Um, so I'm just it's it's odd that they have maybe they're waiting until they have everything to release it. Uh, but Title One has not been withheld.
Yeah, let me rephrase that. Title One has not been withheld at the federal level. Yeah, I don't. We have not been I wonder if because we do the grant application for everything together if they're waiting to see like they if they're waiting to to put that in there until they know what's definitely
happening with the others. I don't know. Yeah, because I I because if title 1A had been withheld, there would be a lot more screaming than we're hearing right now. Yeah. Particularly for the title one school, the larger schools that really
Yeah. uh need it. We But you know, for us, that's why that's why I think there's something odd going on, isn't it? Right. I That's what I I I just keep I keep looking every day. It's not there. And I'm like, "Okay, when's it coming, guys?" Right. And we're already past the beginning of the year. So strange.
I'm just going to use this opportunity to just want to reiterate the special ed and the expenses and the fact that we're not being reimbursed. There's been a lot of lip service down in Trenton where they have said bless that their goal or some of their goals was to
make sure that we be reimbursed our actual special ed expenses. Of course, the law says it's above $40,000 and 55, but let's just use 40,000. And even though we're above 40,000, they don't reimburse dollar for dollar. So, it's
even worse than the 50% drop because if you even at worst, say we have a $30,000 average cost per student, which is above what it is. But if we have a $60,000 expense for special ed and we're only getting 10,000 which is that means that
the government's really only but the New Jersey government state is only subsidizing onethird of the additional cost. So it's even worse than it looks. And uh if anyone out there has any power to uh to make something happen
down at the state level, we would certainly appreciate it because every dollar we get is one less dollar the local taxpayers will pay. But I just want to emphasize how big a strain it is. And and just like you said, every year they're dropping that number. So
that's one every dollar they drop is one more dollar we have to increase which means we have to cut or figure something out in in I guess starting in October November when we start going through the budget again we're going to hear about all the
issues that we have but thank you Tim well and and given given Mr. president that we are now fully in an election cycle. There's not going to be anything that happens until after the election and they get into lame duck. So, right and then they'll have another reason not
to do something. But yes, so I just want people to understand that I'm teeing up the October, November discussion of budget. Okay. Shall we move into the NJ GPA results? Yes, we have Mr. DeLisio, our director
of mathematics and assessment, and Miss Mary Ellen Fallon, our supervisor of English, here to share our NJGPA results. And you do all have a copy of the presentation in your folders. It's possible there could have been a few minor edits since we printed this out
this morning, but it should be pretty close to what is being displayed. I hope everybody's having a good summer, and I just want to say this is my last meeting with Mr. Sty. So I was at his first meeting what 15 years ago probably. So this is my last one. So
thank you. You can come to August if you Oh no that's okay. So uh today's presentation is about the NJGPA which is the New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment. Um we did this the last two summers. Um and uh we'll
give you the background of all uh the test results and how our students did. So, first thing though we want to show you a little bit is how the sausage is made with this test here because it is a rather big um you know effort and I'll talk about some of the people that are
involved in that a little later on in the presentation but the NJGPA overview uh is that every year in March uh there's an administration it's a grade 11 graduation requirement so it is a requirement
uh to pass the test both in ELA and math to graduate from a New Jersey high school. Uh the NGPA measures graduation readiness in mathematics and English language arts. They're two separate tests. Uh the English language arts is
aligned to the 10th grade uh New Jersey learning standards and uh the math is aligned to algebra 1 and geometry uh standards. Uh testing always takes place the third week of March. Um, I know Mr. Labera is here and I want to thank him right away
because we always work on the schedule together during that week because we have to have it the the week that it's designated by the Department of Ed and uh it's always good to work with him about this with the schedule. This year it took during uh during the week of
March 17th and it's all digital testing which does make life a little easier for us. Uh and the picture on the left is just a setup of one of the areas. is this is gym 78. This is our normal setup that we have uh with about 80 to 100 students in here. This is a setup that
we do for a lot of testing. Um, and again I want to just emphasize a lot of people are involved in this and I will later on. Okay. So, just a little bit about what the requirement is in New Jersey. And uh this this does take some time to explain
because there's a lot of pathways. So, if you're a high school 11th grader, the first pathway to have the meet the graduation requirement uh is to score a 725 or better on the ELA and the mathematics portion of the
NJGPA test. There's two separate tests. It's binary. You either pass it or you don't, right? We don't look at averages. There's no bands like you see with the NJSLA. This is just a pass or not test. Uh if you don't pass that test, you will
get a letter from me in in June of this year. You also get letters if you did pass it telling parents and students that their their grades are posted or their their report is posted on our Genesis um student management system. there's a second pathway. Uh so that
second pathway is alternative passing scores on the following tests both ELA or mathematics portions that are separate. That would be the PSAT, the SAT, the ACT or the ACUPPLACER uh which is a college board test that we do
administer here uh for the graduation requirement. So uh the first pathway is the passing score on the NGPA. If you don't have that and you have the alternative passing score, um, you've passed and you're graduation ready. Then we also of course have students
that don't have first or second pathways. We have to go to the third pathway. Third pathway is the retest in October of students in their senior year. So there's a retest of the NJGPA. It's usually the uh first or second week
of October. Uh those retests are same as uh as uh the tests in March, digital in both math and ELA. If you've passed math, you don't need to take that again. If you've passed ELA, you don't need to take that. So you only take the section or the test that you didn't make the
requirement. There's also a fourth pathway because in November those scores do come back to us and sometimes we do have students that haven't made that third pathway. We do something called the ACUPPLACER. it's a college board test we administer here or we can do something called the portfolio appeals
process. So there are multiple pathways uh to have students graduate and I'm very proud to say that all of our students have always made the graduation requirement here and that's because they work very hard um throughout the process.
So let's take a look at the results. So like I said this is a binary test. you've either pass or you don't. Uh, and the first um bit I'm going to show you is graduation uh percent graduation ready for all students uh for math and
ELA. So on the left it's graduation ready for math. Uh the brown is Wong Hills, the state is yellow and on the right is the ELA. Um, this year we had 419 test takers and
we increased our math pass rate by 4 and a.5% and we increased our ELA by a tenth of a percent from last year. So, uh, take that, you have to understand these are different students every year. So, um, you know, that's a piece of the data
you have to take into account, but we'll take a 4.5% and a 0.1% increase. I was very proud of the students uh with this and I'm very proud of how the teachers uh in both departments in fact I think it's a schoolwide thing to get our
students ready. So it was a nice um increase in pass rates this year. So each year we also are required to talk about our subgroup performance um in both math and ELA and the results
for the subgroups for some subgroups do not appear on this because there's a small sample size and we do not identify students uh by that way. So um Miss Failen will talk a little bit about the ELA at the end. Maybe I'm just going to
skip. She'll come back to this. All right, I'm going to go to the math. So, I'm very very proud to say that we had extremely large percent increases in some of the subgroups. Um, like I said,
overall 4.5%. I'll just give you a little taste of some of the other ones. Our black and African-American students, a 14.8% increase. Um, our Hispanic Latino students, 6.7% increase. Uh, two or more races was a 7.4. 4% increase. We had
increases across the board in in our our subgroups and um that that's tremendous. You know, that that 4.5% came from somewhere. So, we're that's uh some of the subgroups it came down to. So, um those students performed extremely well again and um I couldn't be more prouder
of them. So, you may be asking like how did we get to 4.5%. And uh no, it's not from luck. It's a lot of hard work. It's hard work from the entire department, from the entire school. So, I want to go through a couple things that we've kind
of implemented in the last few years that are really coming to fruition for us. And I'm going to start at right in the middle where it says a student- centered approach. Everything we do, we think about the student. How can we help benefit them? Not about benefiting us,
it's about benefiting them. Up top at 12:00, it's the staff scheduling. So we we've made some changes, you know, specifically uh with assignments that uh you know, we think would work better to get students more prepared. You know, those are decisions that we make. Um I
talk about those assignments with you know, with uh Dr. Jwitt, Dr. Labraa. Um and you know, we come to decisions Mr. Sabino about staff scheduling. We've put a lot of edtech in curriculum review the last few years. edtech.
You'll see those little signs that say Albert IO and Delta Math. So, those are um educational technology platforms that, you know, we pay for and use and our teachers use them. And I think that has a direct link to when a student
takes these tests. They're more comfortable uh doing mathematics online. I'll let Miss Failen talk about the ELA. Uh but they're more ma they're more and comfortable there. And I think that has a lot to do with it. In the past few years, we've also reviewed our curriculum. Make sure it's really close
to the standards. Making sure that what we're teaching is what the state of New Jersey requires us to teach, which is not teaching to the test. That's teaching to the standard. Uh the test just happens to be based on the standard, and that's a good thing. Um we
have a lot of support here for our students. So, this multi-tiered system of support, guidance counselors, case managers, uh our school psychologists, um you know, it's not easy being a student these days and high stakes testing and tons of emails from
me about where to go and how to prepare are not easy for some students. So, our multi-tered support system of guidance counselors talking to students about, you know, this test, making sure that they're prepared, uh, that they understand the, um, you know, how it's
going to work. Very, very important to us. So, big shout out to those folks. Our IT MBNG department, this is what they do is unbelievable. So, Andy's behind me. I've worked with Andy for a long time now for testing and um, I
think we have it down finally. So, uh, in terms of it, you know, we have to make sure all these Chromebooks are working that, um, you know, we have to register our students, get them set up in the back, you know, the back end. Um, we work with our IT folks on that. It's
a lot of work. It's a lot of paperwork. Um, a lot of time with me looking at a this software called Pearson Access Next and working with that and it's it's it's not easy. Our BNG department is fabulous. So you saw that setup in gym
78. Those are the same setups throughout the school. Um Mark uh kind of jumped on this year mid mid testing. They really helped us out. Uh making sure that uh the the the climate is right for the kids. Chair is being right. Uh Mr. Sty
is ordering me pencils even though it's even that's a long running joke here. um even though it's a digital test uh BNG really helps me out and you know our administrative team uh helping out because our administrative team for the most part along with case managers and
guidance counselors are the proctors our teachers are proctors too but you know we don't pull them out of their teaching assignment to go proctor so it's an elaborate you know jigsaw puzzle of getting proctors ready so uh they all help out I think the past few years that the
teachers have really understood the assessments and the importance of the assessments coming off COVID. You know, that's a long time ago now that I feel, but the assessments uh have really been looked at more. They understand them. You know, we we we don't teach to the
test. We want our teachers to understand what's on the assessments and they do know these things. And finally, the communication. There's a lot of communication. If you have a child that goes here, you probably got some emails from me about this test in the in the past. Uh we communicate to the students.
Uh I have um they they they respond to my like uh my emails thinking that it's like a chat bot sometimes, but it's not. Uh we they know where to go. They know how what to study. Um I feel that, you know, we do a really good job of letting, you know, letting people know
what's on the test and and parents know. I mean, I've u I've had kids who went to other districts, my own kids, and I didn't know when they were testing. I didn't get any emails. So I think we do a really good job of communication here. So some takeaways uh that I want you to
know. Um so where do we stand now with the data? 46 of 421 rising 12th graders still need to make the math assessment. So we're going to be working diligently with them. They may make it by the time school starts if they take a July or
August or September SAT or ACT. So that number probably will go down a little bit. 29 of 421 rising 12th graders need to meet the ELA and 26 need to do both. So these numbers are, you know, not so different. Uh we did have, you know,
some some students come in from other schools this summer already. So we have to gather their results and see, you know, if they've passed that test or even took the test at at where they uh were from. So if you have a a student who comes in this summer that comes from Pennsylvania, they didn't take this
test, they have to sit for the nove for the October retest. So we have to you know put that through um through the through uh you know looking at all that data in the next few days few weeks and uh the last part I just want to talk about two things. One is the plan for
for for those students uh the fall retest like I said we we do not just go and give them a test. We have uh our NJGPA success class which we're we're working with students this year. Uh algebra 3 and English 4 are where some
of the students um end up taking math and English. Well, they all take English 4 and they'll be working with our teachers there. We're going to let we let our teachers know who are the students uh that haven't passed so they can do some uh direct work with them. They'll get emails from me. they can
walk into my office anytime and work with me uh before school, during lunch, after school. And then, you know, if we have to do the ACUPPLACER portfolio, that's what we do. Uh you know, we we make sure that uh that takes place and our students are ready to graduate.
And just the last bit, I'm not going to, you know, go too much into this. So we've taken up a little bit of an initiative here in the past four or five months where we've been using a lot of artificial intelligence um that we have specifically uh Google
Gemini to look into our performances and um make comparisons to a lot of other schools. We've always done that but the AI does a deeper dive for us. Um the AI has given us some thoughts about what the last three years of scores have been
compared to a lot of schools. Um and last week we uh we met as administrative team right over here in the uh the annex and worked on uh AI and notebook LM which is just think of it as an AI tool um on ways which we can have our
teachers look at data without maybe someone like me or Miss Failen just spitting out the data to them so they can look at it on their own. and uh ask questions of their own of that of their own data. And we uh we have some PD sessions. Uh Miss Caro has um scheduled
some for September, August for us and the teacher. So we we're you know, we're kind of going this next mile with the uh with the use of AI in our performance reports and how our students are doing to give us a little bit of a deeper dive and save some time for us um by by doing
that. So, I'll let Miss Failen talk about the ELA and um we'll take any questions then. Thanks, Michael. Um good evening board members. Welcome to the new board member and Tim, we're all going to miss you. I know Michael has said that consistently,
but I want you to also know that we Michael D and I speak for the administrative team and we really appreciate all your service and all your going the extra mile. So, thank you. Um to the board members, thank you very much for inviting us here tonight and
also thank you for your support. Um as we have a lot of online and personalized resources and that's what really helps prepare our students. Uh thanks also to Michael, to Bill, and to Liz for helping
us prepare these results. But more importantly, Liz has always embraced the need for continuous improvement and the growth model. As a quick review, I reviewed with Jim Aquavia and also Bill
um both of whom said brevity is the source of wit, Carol. Um, so I just want the new the new board member and some board members who just want a refresher um refresher on what the test measures.
So we're looking at the level of written expression and the knowledge of language conventions. Students are asked to synthesize information, examine vocabulary and context and analyze sources. And there are three types of questions. open-ended, short answer, and
multiplechoice responses. In the past couple of weeks, I've been preparing for the opening days, as Michael has, and the subsequent department meetings for the English uh department specifically. One early agenda item that will help prepare our
students for the future is giving them more experience on the kinds of test items we expose them to after a unit, a poem or a non-fiction essay. Bob remembers um eight years ago, nine years ago, we
really did not do well in non-fiction or poetry and we have uh spent a lot of time improving. Now, I noticed we need to emphasize a more sophisticated vocabulary in context
starting really in 9th grade since it is a 10th grade test and the students take it in 11th. It's 10th grade standards based. The vocabulary is not the NJSLA or the old HESPA by the way. So for
example in the digital library from the NJDOE with release test items it is clear that students not only need to know the definition of words like squalid, capacious and penury but they also need
to find the sentence and the paragraph in the excerpt which the test provides to give them the clues as to why they chose the response. So, one easy way uh to work with the English department is
to start giving them two questions around a vocabulary word, not just a definition. We have work ahead of us with time and attention. We've helped our kids grow in the past and we're looking forward to more acceleration.
Thank you again for your attention. I just want to add uh that I want to thank the Michael Ariel, the administration and the entire staff uh our teachers, our maintenance, our IT department. They actually allow um
school to go on while we are testing. A lot of schools have to have delayed openings because they don't know how to manage testing and still have classes run. Um which is why Mr. Delesio was saying that the proctors are usually administrators, CST members, counselors, and then teachers who are not teaching
at the time. Um, that is a huge undertaking and the fact that we've been able to do that and continue instruction when there as we all know there is so much time devoted to testing um is tremendous and that it's it really does take a village for that. Um so between
our teachers, our administrators, our maintenance, um our support staff, our IT department, I really thank you for allowing instruction continue to continue while having a very serious and supportive testing environment for the students, which is what allows them to do well.
Does anyone have any questions? Yes. Yeah. Go ahead. Um for a question and a comment. Um your chart that says um that's titled uh percent graduation ready all students.
There's two two tests there. As I understand it, they need to pass both tests. Yes. So is there a chart to say how many actually pass both tests? Uh we don't have a chart for that. I can give you that number. Yeah. Okay. I would be interested to see if that goes up or down. Okay. because you
can't really decipher that from these. Sure. Um the second thing is just more of a comment and I don't know if it's required that we report on the races of the results. Um it is it's required. I'm just I just feel like that's
it. It it doesn't help it. It's required by the state. I I understand that. I'm just making a comment that breaking people down by the way they look is just I find anathema to the American spirit. I'll just leave that as my com nothing to do with the teachers or the
results. Thank you. Appreciate uh Mr. President. So uh thank you uh Mr. Dlesio and uh Miss Failen the um I'm just curious. We talk about the number of students that I think it's somewhat related to what Dan
was getting at. the number of students that uh are rising that need to meet the math assessment or they need to meet the ELA assessment or they need to meet both. I don't think those are mutually exclusive. So my question would be you
know how many total students need some sort of intervention that are rising. Um question Mike you don't have to find that right now for you. It it may change every day with with u but in terms of the total that happened
at the time that this was put together and you cross reference though the 206 the 29 and the 46 you know what is the actual unique number of students that uh require some sort of intervention at that time. So that was question number one. And
question number two is I'd be curious as to what the percentage is of the population of students that that represents. And I'd be also interested in knowing how that has changed. Uh both actually I'd like to see if we could look back to where we were were in 2019
and then see how that changed as we worked our way in and out of CO. Yeah. One of the issues with this test it's really three years old. Yeah. So, um, used to be a whole totally different, you know, if you went to school in New Jersey like I did a millennium ago, you took the HESPA,
okay, actually the HSPT. And just to be clear, I'm less concerned about the type of tests that they were required to take and the actual number of students or the percentage of the eligible population that was required to take some sort of intervention regardless of test
there. For this, it's 49. If you look at because you added the how many need both, it's 49 students that need some sort of um intervention to meet the graduation requirement. Yeah. And then just if we could get a look back at how that percentages had
have changed, whether it's whether it's decreasing, increasing, just to get a sense of how we're doing, particularly coming out of COVID. There's so many things that CO screwed up that you know would be helpful to understand that. Yeah. I mean, having done this for a long time, this
year felt really good, you know, with just everything kind of went into the went into play right with the students. We had great attendance. Um, yeah, it was a good year for testing and part one of four coming up. We have some other
good results that we'll be showing to soon and at at some point in time, it would be interesting to see what uh what the notebook LM analysis kind of uh presented to you. Sure. Yeah, it it a lot. A lot. Yeah,
I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah, it was a lot. Yes. Thank you both. Um, can I assume that our ELLL population is just mixed right in with this? They're mixed right in. Yes. Yeah.
Thank you. I have a couple questions. Uh Mary Ellen, you had mentioned that there are a couple areas that you're going to I guess highlight for next year. Poetry and I forget the other one. Uh Mike, were there any mathematical areas that were a little weak?
So areas that you may since this is a we don't really have a lot of items from this test. So there is a practice test online and there's a paper pencil version too which is basically the same thing. um we do get data, we have that data on
how our students did on the standards. So we go back give those to the teachers. Inevitably what we do find is uh there's some geometry items that students do struggle on. Um that's one of the things that I've we've seen a lot. Um the algebra
items, not so much. That's used a lot obviously in mathematics. It's a algebra is a common thread. uh most of the students in their junior year have already t took geometry a little bit earlier right and are in algebra based classes so they tend to have a
little higher algebra scores but geometry is always the one is an oldtime geometry sheer that sad saddens me but that's the truth behind it yeah uh the other question I have is uh kind of relates to the shared services that Bob is going to talk about uh momentarily um
do you believe that we Again, we have students that come from four different districts and they come with four different curriculum that they come to us with and then we merge them in. Do you feel that there's any issue with respect to the curriculum that those four schools have that may affect us in
any way that something that we might be able to help those four districts specific district? I I answer this every year. I feel it's fine. Um, these are our kids. You know, I when I look at them in the hallway, I look at them, they're, you know, they're they're
ours. You know, these are juniors. So, um, the responsibility is on us uh because they've been with us for two and a half almost two two and three/4ers of the year when they're taking the test. So, the responsibility lies on myself, the teachers, and you know, and
ultimately all the administration. So, um, we don't look at results like that. Um, do I have conversations with uh middle school teachers and uh principles and curriculum directors? Yes, we've had them in the past. They're great
conversations. They come up here, but you know, I I always look at these students as they're ours. Um, yes, they're warriors. Yes. So, so I just I'd like to follow up on that. Uh, and I understand that and and and
certainly recognize the importance that once they're in once they're here, they're they're ours. Um, at the same time, when they get here, they're threearters baked. We're a finishing school, right? We're we're finishing them off. So, what does
h what happens before they get here is really important. And one of the reasons why when when people look at the performance of say our high school and they compare us to well how do you compare to Ridge or how
do you compare to Milbour or how do you compare to Montgomery? Well the reason why we are a little bit under those particular schools even though we remain a high performing school is the fact that those are K through 12 vertically articulated school districts and we are
not. we are we are a receiving school with four different sets of educational uh instruction that's incurring before the students get here. So, you know, I I love the approach that we take with those students when when they get here. That's entirely appropriate. There are
students as soon as they walk in in the door and and they are warriors. That said, that doesn't take away the fact that we have to get serious about addressing the issues about the vertical articulation of our curriculum with the sending districts regardless of whether
there's any regionalization or shared services or not. I mean, this is just fundamentally about the quality of education that the students get throughout this system. And we are not doing as good as we could because we do not have a vertically articulated
curriculum with the sending districts. And that's that's not a matter of opinion. That's a matter of research of of research and solid fact. So again, I appreciate the comment, but I think there's the reality that we have to be very serious and look at how that
vertical articulation is working. I I would say at this present time, and I can only speak for math, it's the best it's ever been. Last few years, Mrs. Failen has done an outstanding job. you know, you know, you just got to get in the room sometimes, right, with people.
And we've had a lot of that. We've gone down to the middle schools. I just had a middle school, a new hire from the middle school email me last week about worried about teaching algebra 1. So, I pointed her in the direction of a few things and we're going to be talking all
year. So, there's a lot of capable people that are at our middle schools that, you know, want to make sure that all our kids are prepared. And, uh, you know, we uh, this is it's the best it's ever been since I've been here. And I feel like I've been here a long time
lately. So, yeah, I have. And Bob, what I was just gonna say was um Michael and I were um emailed by a principal saying I have two new teachers. I have a math teacher and an
ELA teacher who could help them. But what I wanted to say about ELA, uh since Bill has come, there's been a real push for us to have more than the, you know, gentleman and ladylike uh conversations.
We've actually talked to all four ascending districts principles as well as their ELA teachers about a novelbased approach and more sophisticated vocabulary and evidence in your
arguments. Um we had a lot of reading circles uh that kind of to your point about COVID um continued to iterate into 2021 and we were seeing in the slo that our
students were not performing where we knew they could perform. So one of the things we've done they're now teaching night they're now teaching animal farm and we're teaching to kill a mockingb bird. So to Michael's point, this is to
Liz and Bill. It has nothing to do with me except that I'm the I was the conduit for getting people together. But we went to their schools. Um the middle schools hosted this year. We have Greenbrook who
wants to um invite everyone if uh for all uh subjects. So we agree 100% um that those foundational grades seventh and eighth particularly higher expectations and the teachers who are in the middle
school who have had students come through here they're like bravo. Thank goodness. Thank you. Great. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate presentation. It's always great to see uh the improvement that you guys are making and working hard toward
that. So again, thank you very much. Uh we'll move on to committee reports. We have two committee reports. Heather, operations, please. So the operations committee met on July 9th in the morning. President was
myself, uh Mr. Burnberg. I'm gonna do I get this right. Miss Bowone Romansky. Is that I'm close. Uh Dr. Jwit, Mr. Size, and Mr. Snowden. Uh the first topic was the HVAC repairs
and we discussed how the condensate tank replacement project that's part of our 2526 budget um was projected for the budget at 144,000. We talked about moving forward with it ASAP and we had a proposal from MPA at a
price of 114,000 to replace the condensate tank for the south boilers and it's a timesensitive and the lead time for the condenscent tanks can be 8 to 10 weeks. However, after our meeting, we discovered that MPA lost their cooperative contract. Um the second
co-op price that was received was from Mcccluskey which was $121,253.70. So the proposal is on the board agenda for tonight for approval. We had a conversation about the rooftop units which was discussed in executive session
and Mr. Sty gave us updates on the financial and budgets um with the federal and state grant funds. Anyone have any questions? I have a related operations committee question. Go ahead.
So I believe was at the last meeting that we talked about the crosswalk um issue that came up the request that we it was last or maybe the one before then. Yeah. Yeah. So, um I was somewhat disappointed
to hear at the last Warren K8 board meeting, uh them take exception to uh you know, our particular position on this. Made it seem like it was the high school's fault that we're not moving forward with repairing or putting in
place that sidewalk. Um, and I I just want to get a little bit of color from you to the degree that you're able to share it because I I'm I'm just confused at how we would be responsible for something that is actually the responsibility of the county because it
is a county road. Uh, or if we wanted to really, you know, get into the details of it. Um the township has received pilot money that we don't get a part of that they could certainly use those funds to do crosswalk improvements
because of the fact that there was a pilot induced property that was built up causing the need for students to be able to cross the street. So I'm trying to figure out how it's our fault that we're not paying for something that it's not our responsibility to pay for.
Do you want to talk? Do you want me to talk? We've we um the BI the BA and I have had conversations for quite some time. We were talking about uh the project and and concerns that his board their board
had. Um certainly looking at kids crossing the street. That's always a concern. Um so we did some preliminary, you know, just a little kind of guidance and work. um asked an engineer just to take a look at it for us. They did. They
gave me a preliminary number. The number was astronomical. Uh because the amount of sidewalk that is needed isn't just in front of the schools. It goes down all the way down the road. And then it's not just it's not just straight up property.
This is like everything's on a hill. There's trees. There's this. So the price was insane. And I think that was our point of jumping off. Whereas that if it was something that was affordable, it would have been easier to talk about.
Um all along their concern was certainly different than ours. We're kind of used to having kids leave and either go left or right. They go down to trrowousers. They go down, you know, they'll and some of them live over here, some of them live over there. They'll walk. whereas
they have little kids and I think that was their major concern. Um I don't know why they felt so strongly that we were going this was a done deal. It was never that way. Um I didn't sense that from
talking to them. Um I don't know why they made comments at the board meeting. I can't comment on why they they felt disappointed. Um it was it's a lot of money. I kind of agree with our board members in that meeting.
We we have four towns here. It's not just one. And the other thing that our board brought up was uh I think you just said it perfectly. It's a county road and it's the township's project and they get pilot money. Um these things were
brought up by the way to the township. Um so, you know, I it's just a difference of opinion there. I think they're in a different place than we are. Um I think they're little they're concerned about the little ones crossing the street. I think that's what it is and I think that's why they made the comment and
they and they it's a lot of money and they want some help. Well, look and I I certainly appreciate and completely understand the need for it, right? This is not saying we don't need to have a crosswalk there, but the idea that it's our somehow our
responsibility to pay for that crosswalk. Um, and I understand being a good partner and if if something was reasonable, but look, we made significant cuts to our budget this year and cut back on services for our students when particularly when you talk
about afterchool transportation and we had to we, you know, we had to let an administrator uh administrative position um uh be eliminated. You know, I you know, I I understand sometimes, you know, we
all got funding issues. We're all trying to manage it, but I I thought it was a little bit of a cheap shot to blame the high school district for the fact that there's not a crosswalk going in when it is absolutely not our responsibility, nor is it our authority to do anything
about it. So, and why would they even think that watch would want to pay for a war in school? I mean, unless you guys want to pay for watches, we'll take that. But I mean, how do you expect, you know, where there's four districts coming in to pay
for one district is a little so I I think part of the reasons is some of it I had heard was, oh, we they've been talking about it and talking about it. And I think what Tim says is they've Tim the two OBAs have been talking about it and in their committee meetings they may have been talking about it. Um, I went
back and I I I because I watched them I couldn't figure out how did I miss all this that we were involved in this and it was only three meetings in three minutes that I could find that they really discussed publicly um the sidewalk and only in one of those did I ever hear that they had were talking
with the the high school about it. And so in my mind we had not we we didn't know we weren't planning on it. It was an exploratory like you said. Um, and my big questions constantly were, "This is a county road. It's a township project.
Why were these not put in when that was developed and why is it not now?" And and the feeling is that well, everyone's kind of doing the town's helping in kind with their um engineering and things like that. But to me, really the burden
should be on the town and the county. And I I think your idea the pilot money really is where it should be um going. It it it in my opinion is not the high school that we are at fault for for not going in. Um they they are having a lot of problems with their students. They
have a lot of young kids and they have a lot of parents that are sending those young kids to school walking and crossing the street there. So they're really seeing it. Um whereas we have the kids going, like you said, up and down. We when we were there, we watched them go all the way up to Crowers. We watched
them go all the way into Sterling. one one set of kids that walked across the street. You know, we have but they they're older. They know how to they should know how to look both ways. They should know how to do it. The traffic is, you know, fast there. Um but they are they have been having more problems
with their young students and parents sending kids off on their own. Well, and I I just I felt it was important that we set the record straight publicly since there were public comments made at that meeting that were blaming us for the
fact that it wasn't going through. And it is not our responsibility. It's not our fault. It, you know, we certainly sympathize with them. I certainly sympathize with the parents. I agree that it needs to be done. It just doesn't need to be paid for by this district.
I agree. Yeah. So, just so everyone's clear, from my understanding that that district, they've been talking about this for over a year or so, and there may have been some preliminary discussions with Tim, but we as a board, I only found out about it a few months
ago, and everyone else then found out about it. So, we were certainly a late to the party, number one. Number two, there's a development that's across the street, which is the major part of the problem, I would imagine. We provide busing for those people. Is that correct, Tim?
Yeah, we we provide a bus stop, right? So there's a bus so that they don't have to walk across. So if they choose not to use it, not us, but we are providing a bus so that there is a safety concern. Another issue that was brought up to us had to do with like
the weekends where the kids were walking across the street uh to get to the uh the playground that's at the uh at the school at Woodland. So, there are some other issues going on, but you know, just like you said, we've addressed the
issue. And again, the kids, they're walking, they're walking at their own peril. They're supposed to know. And uh we provide the bus as we are supposed to do just like on any other street that may be uh a dangerous route, so to speak. And uh we address those safety
issues, which is one of our number one priorities. So we we are addressing that and obviously there are certainly luxuries that would be great if we had that unlimited checkbook but we certainly don't you know might be better to build a bridge over the road but
maybe that's not an option but you know I'm just saying there's other things and I've seen other districts with bridges over the main roads because Milbourne has a bridge from their middle school to their field so it it exists. Um that's all I have to say on this
subject. Thank you. Okay. Uh is that all for operations? All right, Bob. Uh shared services. So, just a a quick update that the u the Rowan U shared services regionalization
study group uh will be uh briefing the shared services regionalization um uh advisory committee uh probably sometime in August. We're just now in the process of trying to find a date
where we can get the vast majority of the the folks together. um because of the makeup of the group and the the other responsibilities that folks have it is difficult to do so but we are trying to get together a meeting by the
end of August. At that meeting the committee will receive the first full draft of the uh feasibility study and the recommendations that are included in that study. Uh from that point in time, the group will then react to the
presentation. Uh we'll have some discussion about it. Uh and then work toward preparing and scheduling a presentation to the full community uh sometime in the October time frame. I think we want to make sure that that it's uh presented to the full public uh
before the end of October. Uh and then from there, we'll see where everything goes. But um it is a very comprehensive report um and we expect that uh there will be a number of actionable items coming from that report uh not only for
our district but for the sending districts as well. Anyone have any questions for Bob? No. Okay. Again, thank you for your efforts on that. All right. First opportunity for the public comment. Note the first public comment period will be
limited to agenda items for this meeting only. The second public comment period will be open to any topics. All topics are limited excuse me all comments are limited to five minutes. Do we have anyone who like to make a comment? If so, please state your name and where
you're from. Anybody? Seeing none, I will close the uh first opportunity for public comment. Again, there will be a second opportunity for public comment and at that point you can comment on anything. Okay. Do we have any items for board discussion this
evening? Okay. Moving on. Mr. President, I like move items A1 through A4. Second. Sorry about sleep at the wheel.
Um, okay. Any uh discussion? Roll call. Mr. Deaggio, Miss Ferrrono, Rosmeri. Mr. Galla, yes. Miss Lee, yes. Marichek. Oh, sorry, not here. Mr. Morrison,
here. Mr. Casa. Yes. Mr. Trump. All right. I'm trying to keep you on your toes till your last minute. Obviously, Mr. Burnberg. Yes. Everybody. No. I said you. I didn't answer. Mr. Trump. Okay.
Now they're just messing with you. Tim, it's time to leave. Yeah. No sugar. Said that about a year ago. Okay. Moving right along. Uh, Mr. President, I'd like to move items C1 through C15. Second.
Any discussion? Roll call, please. Mr. Deaggio, yes. Miss Ferano Rosmerki, the other ones. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Uh, Mr. Gall,
yes. Miss Lee, yes. Mr. Morrison, yes. Mr. Proa, yes. Mr. Trump, yes. And Mr. Mr. Burnber. Yes. Okay. Motions carry. Mr. President, I'd like to move items D1 through D12.
Second. Not used to this. Anyone else could chime in too? Any discussion? I was laughing. I just uh uh Mr. President, I'd just like to call out item D8. Uh the board of education accepts with gratitude a
donation in the amount of $5,000 from the Warren Township Lions Club to be used for the marching band to aid in the updating of outdated equipment. That's truly appreciated. Thank you. That's very very very very generous of them. Yes. Thank you.
Okay. Roll call. Mr. Majio Roski. Mr. Galla. Yes. Miss Lee, Mr. Morrison, yes. Rasa, yes. Mr. Trumpour, yes.
And Mr. Bernberg, yes. Carrie. Great. Thank you. All right. We now move into the second opportunity for public comment. Again, comment on any of the subjects. Uh, do we have any comments? Um, board member comment now.
Almost next. Oh, okay. As soon as I close. Okay, we're going to close public comment now. Other business. Carol, you'd like to say something? Well, just wanted to congratulate Monica Crowley, class of 1986, watch Hills and one of our Hall of Fame fame members.
Uh, she has been appointed chief of protocol for the United States of America. Her responsibility will include hosting being um the events of the America's 250th birthday. Nice. the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic
Games. Wow, that's great. Wow. So, Miss Praza, is is is that the protocol office at the White House or Okay. Yes. Wow. It's a big deal. You have something?
Oh, please. Um I had a short conversation with Dr. Jew about this and I just thought I'd bring it up as a uh a discussion at the board level at over and not not necessarily for now or whatever, but um
I thought it might be worth oh actually two things. One is I thought it'd be worth a discussion to see if there's a uh a reason we should offer three-year graduation for the high school students, which is a three-year program. That's it's a very, you know, doable thing if
those people who wanted to do that. There's uh we had some and I'm I'm probably not doing it justice and Dr. Joey can get into more details, but we had some conversations with partnering with Rar and Valley about like dual degrees and there's lots of that going
on right now. it doesn't seem like it was feasible um because of logistics I believe but um I think we should at least on a board level discuss the offer of a three-year graduation for a particular set of students that might
benefit from that. Um so I'm just going to throw that out there as a discussion item uh for the future. Um, and then secondly, and completely not on the same subject, um, I think we should at least, and I know Bob started to go into the AI
thing, um, but I'm working on a couple projects and I will tell you that we should attack the AI issue immediately and with a lot of energy. This is going to be a big issue and this issue is
going to come out as like a title wave. It's not going to be kind. I'm telling you that there's going to be, you know, a lot of um issues in the employment workplace and it would behoove us as a board to look at our student population
and start I don't even know what that means yet. Start addressing the issue now. Um because it's going to be a tuml. Wow. So, in followup to that, uh Mr. Alec and
beginning of June, I attended the New Jersey School Boards Association AI Summit. Um, and there were several different presentations that I was able to attend. Uh, one of which that I found uh, particularly relevant to our work
here uh, was the presentation by the gentleman who is I think the uh, technology director for uh, East Brunswick Public Schools. Um, East Brunswick public schools has a really highly defined
um, set of protocols for uh, for the educators uh, for the students and for the parents uh, that are broken out in uh, including by by grade level because obviously um, you know, when you're in the elementary school um, elementary
school students shouldn't be using AI at the time. You know, I think it's you that's an important that's a critical time in developing the skills of how to learn and and AI will never help, you know, will never take
the place of somebody being able to learn how to learn for themselves. Uh but then they talk about how teachers should be able to use it at the elementary level. Then when they get into middle school and they have parameters around how do the educators use it to inform their instruction, how
do they then what are the guard rails that are in place for how it is introduced to students, how students can utilize it as an appropriate tool and then it gets more robust as you get into high school which is obviously where we are. Um, I think looking at at some of those models, uh, you know, would be a
really good place to start, including they also have, uh, some board policies that they've they've put in place as well. Um, but I I completely agree with your assessment that, um, it's coming. It's coming fast. It's coming whether we
like it or not. Um, and it's going to be a skill that our students are going to need to understand how to use it appropriately and effectively. And I think that's, you know, I think the more the that we get a or the more that we try to keep up with it, I'm going to say
we're not going to ever get ahead, but the more we try to at least keep up with it, uh, both for our faculty and and for our students, I think it's going to be really important. I think, uh, Mr. Dlesio spoke today about how the faculty are using things like Notebook LM, which
is a fantastic tool to be able to throw a bunch of resources in and then have that be, you know, your learning buddy or, you know, your research assistant or in this case, you know, help to do analysis on student performance on on assessments. So, um, yeah, I've
actually, uh, mentioned to, uh, Michael and Liz coming out of that that I think that this needs to be a, you know, something that that we as a board engage with quickly to support the administration in their efforts to uh, make sure we're doing everything that we can to empower our faculty members to
uh, use it in appropriate ways and for our students to understand how to use it in a way that complements their learning and doesn't work in place of their learning. I can just tell you administratively we um welcome the help and support and
collaboration in this uncharted uh territory. And I do think um the alternative graduation pathways and AI seem like two very relevant potential strategic plan uh components. So just keep that in mind as we're moving forward. Um but really thank you for
bringing this up. and the AI piece. I I mean there's there's so many facets to that that I think it would be great if the board um engaged in that discussion, you know, along with us. Um you know, staff-wise, that will be tremendously helpful. And uh Dr. J, what I can do is I can
share they actually I received all of the documents from the various presentations. So what I can do is um send them to Dr. Jitch so she could put it into a Google folder for the board so that you all can have access to it. And I could put it into a notebook. LM, there you go.
Just to give you an idea of how fast how fast this is happening. Um the the statement yesterday was that all of humanity's information has already been trained and learned a year ago. So these
pretty much those AI components that you have in your pocket right now on the cell phone contain all humanity's wisdom literally for all etern like everything put together. There's nothing to train. So it's kind of getting out there really
quick. Anyone else? Anybody? Okay. As I alluded to earlier, uh we had executive session and we were not able to complete everything. We had
an executive session. Um I had mentioned that the CSA, Dr. Jwitt's uh evaluation which we have to do on an annual basis was a topic that we had to discuss in executive session. Dr. Jwitt has been rised. Um we are going to shortly make a
motion to go into executive session. We will discuss that. Uh then we will come out of executive session and adjourn the meeting. There will be no other further action after that. With that said, I'll the um everyone can then depart.
Everyone could depart before we go into executive session and I'll dismiss. Such a terrible word, the administration and all that. But it's just the word. No, it's just the word dismissing. I don't feel terrible doing it. just a word to
and um and uh again the live streaming and excuse us. Yeah, excuse you. That's better. Thank you. And okay. All right. With that said, is there a motion to go into executive session?
All those in favor? I Okay. Thank you everybody. We will see you in a month. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I was actually