##VIDEO ID:ZzDxczDT1bk## indivisible andice for all never never hop okay Miss AML here miss crisal here miss e Giovani here miss hanset will be absent tonight Mr Sher here Mr Sone here Mr to here Miss WT here miss C here notice of the TW January 27th 2025 meeting of the Board of Education was emailed to the clerks of the burough of es6 bells North Cal and rosand and to the township of Fairfield and to the edor of the progress on January 7th 2025 and the star on the same day we are just going to quickly confirm our committees that we established and um have assigned to um various board members so anything placed on this agenda items one two three one through three will be voted upon in one motion and I so move second any questions comments I'd like to just say thank you to Debbie hollanda R giovan and Mar WD to her taking our delegates positions um we're really pleased that we are going to have a voice at the county and state level so I appreciate it yes Miss Emil yes Miss chrisal yes Miss C Giovani yes Mr Sher yes Mr Stone yes um sorry Mr to yes Miss wtz yes Miss Calon yes um i' just like to do a just a brief report today was um established as the Holocaust Remembrance Day because 80 years ago was the liberation of camps today's program was benefited by um our high school and it will be presented at the middle school and it was from a uh organization that is called 2G andj which is the second generation of survivors um it was an extraordinary program we thank those who brought it to our school um and I just like two of our members who were also there I was very grateful that we were invited um sometimes we don't get to me see all the good stuff you know but it was wonderful to be part of this program um and John to and Ruth D Giovani were both Pres and we have a few that will be attending next week so if they could just tell us their thoughts and experience today um I agree firstly I was really taken with the attentiveness of the students who attended and really how respectful they were in their questions but also their demeanor for pretty long presentation um and really to Ruth milman who was the presenter who was um a child of the Holocaust really an extraordinary story um which seemed to have I thought if an adult audience like so much more detail and depth that I thought the way that she crafted it to be appropriate for freshman and juniors and also maybe people who are not as well-versed in Holocaust Education she was able to sort of make it experiential but also educational yeah I I think Ruth uh covered off on a lot of the a lot of the points um an amazing story uh from a Survivor and um and the trials and tribulations that she and her family went through and and how many family members they lost and friends um I think she did a fantastic job presenting to the to the age level uh that was present um you could hear pin drop in the room the students were extremely well behaved I was really really really impressed um and we had several maybe three or four folks brave enough to stand up and and ask uh ask this amazing woman questions um and I think they were all great questions they really did a good job it was a great great presentation and how Poise she was on those questions really how sharp 87 years old impressive gone through the trauma that this person has gone through and she was so articulate and um you know able to respond questions um accolades to the staff because it's definitely a reflection on your teaching on how to establish appropriate behavior in a setting of that nature you know um it was extraordinary I mean at one point I thought you know there's no there's no Fanfare there's you know there's no screen coming down there's no dancing and jumping and music there's just these four women sitting there telling and this one woman telling her story and I kept thinking how are they going to react are we going to hear commentary or whatever but as they've said you could hear you know a pin trop it was and her story um you just left there with this feeling inside of you that you just you couldn't even imagine you couldn't imagine what this woman went through her family um and I was just very appreciative that she shared it you that she came and and did this for our students and um it's you know it's always great when it's part of your curriculum and it's in a book and maybe you see a film or you s you know go to a museum and especially if you go to the Holocaust Museum but when you have somebody sitting up there explaining to you what it was like to go from an extremely wealthy environment that she came from going to the gutters the ghetto the no food you know it was just I I applaud you it was a great program I hope it's something that you know the kids will benefit from going in the future so can I say one more thing that I thought was very interesting which we don't hear that perspective a lot is her the she presented that her father had taught them to have like immense gratitude for being able to come to America and that basically should devote your life giving back to this country that's taking you in and your life and you you don't always hear that as part of a holocaust story about like the countries that then take you and how her life was very transformative in obviously not only telling her story but also giving gratitude and appreciation for then being an American and I thought that was a a different slam that you don't always hear on a holocaust Survivor so thank you to the board members who attended and thank you for inviting us was that record or would that be available for the rest middle scho she's presenting again next week but for people that can't make it during the day have I'll send link I'll send him the link but we didn't ask to record it it's just unfortunately um we've assigned our new committees and our members and our first meeting will be tomorrow policy and going forward we have uh Finance okay one more and then uh we'll be part of Safety and Security before I get to my report I I also share um see similar thoughts to today's presentation um it was extremely powerful um but what I also want to mention is that um I just want to thank our administrators for making this a priority our principal for making this a priority for our students and um I also want to thank Laura Drago especially for really kind of putting this together bringing the group to us in the summer having these conversations and then the other great thing is that um in addition to the assemblies they're actually going to come back next month with us and um Caesar and Laura are working closely to get teachers trained in different ways that they can um introduce the holoc cost into the curriculum so that's kind of another phase of this so it's a team effort between our admin and um um really um excited that we're able to do this for our students okay just a couple things um so before I get to the school start times um on the agenda you'll see that we have um some reference here to January 20225 is School Board recognition month and um board members don't always get a lot of recognition so I I have the opportunity to say some nice things about the board and bring awareness to what they do so um New Jersey school boards Association has declared January 2025 as school board recognition month our board members devote countless hours advocating for our schools and while these individuals come from diverse backgrounds they work together for the common goal of supporting our students and Educators in addition to attending regular monthly meetings board members participate in training they go to professional development conferences and attend school events as part of their duties so I want to take this opportunity to thank our board members for their hard work and efforts in making our school district one we are very proud of themselves to be active participants in decision Mak and supporting students staff building everything a great part of a group to be for me I'm very privileged and honored to be a part of this GR okay um this Thursday is our first um school start times committee meeting we've assembled a a really great uh group of students parents staff and board members um students represented from all backgrounds grade levels um parents from all four communities um stu um staff from all different content areas and um a few board members um are on the committee from different towns as well so we really tried to work hard to put together um a group that we thought could come to the table with open an open mind and um different perspectives as we go through the process of looking at our our school day and our start times um I'm looking forward to a collaborative process and um next month I'll kind of come back and give you guys an update on on where we're at and with that being said I'll turn it over to I think Stacy's up first so happy School Board recognition month didn't know that was the case I know now thank you but I want to thank you for all the support you always shown to The English Department and for everything we do here at West Essex so uh for those of you I know there's some new faces here I'm Stacy Casas and the supervisor of English reading and libraries and tonight I'm going to talk to you about The English Department has been working to support our district goals and I would like to do that through the lens of our District's Vision we engage we EMP power and be Inspire so our district goals this year are to cultivate career Readiness and Real World Learning experiences and ensure a positive inclusive School culture and climate the way the department has been working to reach those goals are by developing real world interdisciplinary learning and writing experiences which I'll be talking about soon and through the use of ethical appropriate use of AI in teaching and learning now I'm going to kind of go back and forth to talk about how our teachers and our students engage EMP power and Aspire but I first want to highlight a few things that we as a department have been doing to reach our goals first off we engage students in authentic learning the props that I have brought here are this bottom picture here this is a a learning activity from one of our new reading Cycles courses where students learn research and media one of the things they do is they learn how to use the library databases and sometimes students have a hard time conceptualizing that what they're looking at on the screen are actual physical documents so uh Jenna Moss our librari in the Middle School kind of beg and borrowed these um these props from from other libraries so that students can really physically handle things like maths and pictures and letters and uh trade journals and magazines newspapers and the students kind of do a little scavenger hunt and it was really amazing seeing them you know click into place hey the things we're looking at are real things we Empower students by preparing them for future careers that don't exist yet right so we've been exploring a lot of artificial intelligence and its implications in the real world and we aspire to build character through our curriculum and through collaborations with things like no place for hate to uh to create a positive climate and culture in here's a list of the English teachers on the right you have our special ed teachers who worked very closely with us in our two Librarians uh we teachers engage constantly in planning and preparation looking at data from things like link it and the njsla to plan out lessons to find common strengths and weaknesses our most recent PDS uh teachers work in band grade bands of 78 and 9 and 10 11 12 to develop a Common Language specifically around the new standards so we have a couple new things this year we have a true crime honors elective that's available to Juniors and seniors it's one of the few English electives available at the honors level so that's been really successful so far we have new reading Cycles which the resources I showed you were part of those and then the biggest thing were the new standards we revise all our curriculum uh to align with the New Jersey standards that were just adopted for this school year our biggest change was probably in seventh and eth grade we add read Cycles but also revised our English curriculum to more fully align with nth grade to ensure a more seamless transition between those three grade levels and also um having a more integrated approach to language arts but I wanted to highlight the vision that New Jersey also adopted this is the first time we have a vision statement for English Language Art standards and this is just the beginning and if you look it says um an English language arts builds readers writers and communicators prepared to meet the demands of College and Career and to engage as productive American citizens with global responsibilities so the state standards really align with our own district and Department Vision Vision so that's always really validating what we're planning we engage students right these are some pictures from our new reading Cycles so for the first time students will be cycling through or are cycling through four unique courses at each grade level in the middle school and these provide opportunities for differentiation and enrichment the middle school is heterogeneously grouped so these Cycles offer an opportunity for students who are really self motivated to take on more challenging work and they are allow teachers the opportunity to really dig deeply into specific standards so in research and media literacy as I said they do a lot of research skills and they're thematically um they're also thematically grouped so in seventh grade they focus on change makers in eighth grade they focus stainability So within those units uh students can engage in their own projects that are by that are that they select through the research and the nice thing about that is it also aligns with a lot of the state mandates obviously the climate change initiative aligns nicely with sustainability and they have an opportunity to research different change makers in seventh grade which touches upon a lot of our other mandates as well communication and rhetoric is a public speaking course in seventh grade followed by reading and performing drama in eth grade where students practice those speaking and listening skills which are really important in especially as they go on in high school in the real world they're able to present in front of their peers they're able to be brave and fail sometimes but in a safe space and the kids are a little nervous going into it but they always end up really proud of themselves in the end reading for young adults uh helps Foster a a love of reading so we expose kids to a lot of high interest young adult text again they're of selected and differentiated based on interest and ability so students are not only learning the reading skills but they are gaining the experience of just having that time to read for pleasure as well we Empower teachers so students aren't the only ones learning here right we've done a lot of professional development in the beginning of the year I'm sure Caesar is talking has spoken to you about um our work with uh interdisciplinary lessons in the fall on the bottom right there's some pictures from the and I wanted to just point out that we we did a group discussion there and uh afterwards teachers from other disciplines were coming to me we're coming to the English teachers this is something we do in English class all the time and a lot of other teachers were really interested in what we were doing and asking us to share rubrics and ideas for preparing students for these types of discussions so it's something that we're really proud of and that we're holding something that we do in the English Department can be spread out to other departments as well and then the other focus of development has been on AI in my department so we've been spending a lot of my department meetings the morning PDS talking about how we can utilize it professionally responsibly where it falls in classroom use and as you can see these quotes are from different emails from throughout this past school year and last uh the teachers uh range from being super exciting and wanted to experiment and to share resources to extrem extreme skepticism so our teachers definitely stretch the gamut when it comes to their opinions but one thing we all have agreed on is that uh it's changed what we do in the class right whether we're we're integrating it or not whether we're skeptical or we're embracing it we are all in agreement that you know it takes a lot for students to buy into something if they know a computer can do it for them so we've been working on developing engaging lessons that Inspire curiosity that encourage creativity and critical thought uh we had a a volunt b within the English Department where we looked at Matt Miller's AI for educators where he talks about the increasingly blurry lines surrounding academic integrity and intellectual property we've had some rich discussions with that and you know right now we're focusing on trying to as Matt Miller puts it look at look at the world for future glasses and prepare kids for for a world that we don't really know what's what Z like we Empower students by providing them with the tools they need to so we have a lot of supports in ela the biggest one being teacher feedback if you walk through our halls in the high school the middle school at lunch after school in the morning you'll see teachers conferencing one-on-one with kids all the time on their writing reviewing assessments you'll see them um going over um different strategies and it's not just our struggling Learners our honors and AP kids are the ones who are most often meeting the teachers asking how can they do better they might come up with a question about a research top Library we have the Writing Center that high school students can drop in at any time and the teachers who are there we have ANS tutoring and then in the Middle School new this year we have the learning lab so Mr Ash's also going to talk about it in his presentation and expand on it a bit but this is a run in the Middle School in 121 out of three on three on the four three out of the four letter days at lunch and it's it's run by the supervisor and Caesar and we invite kids any can drop in for five minutes to the whole lunch walk and they come in for extra help for questions and homework to review for quizzes and really busy you can see Mr Mr over there's behind me but it's been really successful this year it's first year and then we also have foundations there's a picture of that on the bottom right foundations has been around for a few years it's a support class I had the priv of teaching it last year the English side along learner teaching the math side and that's run during the school day students are identified by their ajla scores and it's really a class that's designed to individualize instructions based on the needs of each individual student so we collect a lot of data and we target instruction you'll see some kids working in groups some kids working individually the teachers didn't want to be in the picture but they were conferencing with with with other students front and there's always a wide variety of learning going on and then we also have lunch Squad which is Avail available at lunch to some of our WTIC students Aspire we have a ton of clubs and extracurricular activities that are housed in the English Department from book clubs to the film club the you have literary magazines and newspapers in both buildings I want to highlight two tonight rogate rogate is actually an interdisciplinary gifted and talented Club in our middle school but one of of our Eng teachers is the moderator and I want to highlight it tonight because they teamed up this year with one of our reading Cycles courses which is also designed to be inter disciplinary so the roate club teamed up with our public speaking course in seventh grade and they ended up sending a team of kids to the Essex County public speaking competition where they play second place overall on the varsity level and to come a bunch of individual Awards as well so it was nice to see our program getting involved with this g&t club as well and then second our newspaper you know I always sing the Praises of the westre please visit the website this the winter sports media package is coming out soon they were working a production of that uh but every year our student journalists go to Ruckers to participate in the Garden State Scholastic press Association Convention and there are competitions there with on demand writing right so students are given a prompt they're given a set amount of time they have to write on demand and then it's sent to professional journalists to uh to to score and we don't get the results right away but we just got the results and Sophia Rose and one of our managing editors came in third place in the state in that on competition so we're really proud of the work they do we Aspire teachers our West essic teachers do more than what they do just inside the classroom so I wanted to highlight some of that our teachers are engaged in in volunteer work they travel they uh are getting second and third degrees and these are teachers who some of them are 22 and right out of college and keep going F them have been teaching 20 years and are going back to their third or fourth certificate and things all right we have a lot of talented musicians and artists and the nice thing about this is that they share these talents with their students so our teachers perform at the nehs Showcase they bring what they're learning in their classes to the classrooms and not only does this allow the students to see their teachers as as people and human beings but it also um is it provides great role models for students in what it means to be a lifelong learner right morning doesn't just end when they graduate sextics or college that you know you can have a a rich academic career even after you graduate and then finally the moment everyone looks forward to how we alumni engage in power and Inspire and piggy backing off of our teachers the first alumni Spotlight is Miss CL 2007 you've heard a lot about Miss Hegel when Dr we uh spoke about her this year earlier this year she was the New Jersey Governor's educator of the year at West Essex and I chose her this year because I really was trying to focus on our vision and she embodies what it means to be a a westes sixs graduate not through all the awards she's won because she's won many but through her character she is just a special human being who is so considerate and so caring that an hour ago I checked my email and there was an email from her my all good luck tonight on your presentation she just is very very caring uh she makes it a point to reach out to each individual student and family and form that connection so that her students see her as a person first I had a ton of emails I was going through from students but I picked one to highlight this is from one of her students from last year after the no place for hate lesson thank you for talking about those topics it really made me feel more comfortable I look forward to seeing you every day because I love the class and I feel comfortable in your class with you it made me feel less alone I really appreciate you and what you do and this is again one of many and you know I I asked her to share some thoughts about her own experience here and the words she shared again really um validate what we do and what what our goals are as English educator Educators so she talks about the humanities as being more than a subject it's a path to self-discovery and connection with others as a student was inspired to think critically challenge assumptions and find my voice and she certainly has so she doesn't tell a lot of people these things she's a very humble person but she aspires to write her own Memoir one day uh she does volunteer work every every summer she goes to Lake Tahoe and volunteers with environmental efforts in an organization called keep Taho Blue lead to save like Tahoe and you know every time I talk to her she's got something new going on and she she never really shes so I'm really proud to share I asked her permission to share it with you all tonight she's she's a wonderful human being and then for a more recent graduate Katie P so Katie graduated only two years ago but in her own words she's done so much it feels like forever ago that she was in high school she is currently a sophomore at Emerson College studying media arts production with a minor in business studies and communication for the Arts in her freshman year alone she worked on 11 different film projects while taking on a full course load in the fall she had an internship with our national conversation a California company that works on producing nonpartisan political news and uh this semester coming up she's doing two internships both in Massachusetts another age production in Massachusetts film office and one for Massachusetts film office where she is a location scout while taking a full course load and in the Summer She uh got accepted to the South by Southwest um intens program so she'll be flying out to Austin and she has an all access pass to the film festival there so she has a ton going on it was actually her film teacher who pointed her out to me and you know he talked about what a what a leader she was and she how she started the monare film festival field trip when she won grand prize there while she was in high school when I spoke to her I said I hope that we see one of her philms there one year so um what I want to do though is end this presentation by reading her full quote because I also shared this with my uh English faculty because to me this is this is why we do what we do every day so these were her words when I asked her to share about her experience at West Essence and she wrote um I felt challenged and inspired by every teacher and every English course I took during my time at West Essence it was every year without fail my favorite class and my favorite subject freshman year English was still the hardest to me because it pushed me in a way that I hadn't been yet but I'm forever grateful for that because it taught me so many essential writing and comprehension skills I still use on a daily basis especially when writing is such a huge part of what I do today I probably wouldn't be able to write and produce my projects without the things I learned from my parallel papers my freshman year with a page to screen adaptation studies my sophomore year or the extensive film unit my junior year or the Prion of the AP Lit curriculum my senior year at Film School whenever there's seminars and media studies classes I still without fail managed to bring texts like to kill a moer and The Kite Runner or plays like much ad do about nothing a street car name desire and the Beth or the film on the waterfront into the discussion almost every time because the West susex English Department curriculum and its teachers shaped much of my appreciation and understanding of how I view and how approach both art and the world [Applause] today ni thank you at the bar that's why I I do I usually prefer to go first but I'll do the best I can I did not forget that it was National and so if you will reach under your chair thank you guys for all the hard work you do I am thrilled to be able to have the opportunity to present a little bit of information about the mathematics and business department for you this even ah there we perfect so uh yes so my name is uh Greg ashof I'm the supervisor of mathematics and business I know uh the you're not exactly SP half but yes I don't know you guys yet so welcome welcome and then many of you I do know which is awesome uh so I'll be talking tonight about some of the progress that we've been making towards some of our district goals as well as some interesting anecdotes and information about the West essics mathematics and business department which I have the the fortune of being uh you know a leader in and help shame so first and foremost I always include our annual Halloween picture uh the West essics uh math department always does something each year uh for uh for Halloween and so this year they decide to go with the Western theme I missed the picture because I was splitting time to the middle SCH but I actually I really if you notice the picture he has like the horse blow up thing that was like a perfect angle so I was really happy about that one our Middle School team of course uh is uh very valuable as well uh they I think did a uh a a theme this year for Halloween but they didn't take one biger picture so I hav perform of them to share um we did lose a member of our math department this year but we're actually very happy for him he did not go too far so Mr Tim Walsh who was a math and special ed teacher has uh changed positions to our athletic director as many of you already know of course uh and so uh he talked with us for over 9 years and he is continuing his work at West Essex with us in the athletics department so while we missed him in the mathematics classroom in fact just recently we had a uh a vacancy that I needed to fill for a temporary amount of time and I did approach him about the opportunity to jump back in but because it is his first year as an administrator he felt that he was just a little too busy uh to uh to return to the Fest at that moment however it's great to have you know sort of an ace in the pocket in the future if ever we have for Te which does occasionally pop up yeah with between XY and Z so we do miss him but we very happy to see that he uh his career past in the uh some new faces as a result of that so in the middle school we have Jaclyn Carol who is a special education math teacher we actually have a Jaclyn Coro which is getting confusing but uh but they are uh you know we're very very fortunate to have jacine she comes to us uh with a wealth experience uh from a sending one of our sending districts and so we were glad to have her join us and she is is an excellent uh teacher with a good amount of experience and also knowledge of the school district already we also have joining us at the high school Stephanie sortino she is a special education mathematics teacher she just began she's actually do uh teaching some science this year as well as we she was fing a position um that was a little bit different than the math schedule but we're hoping to her background is in mathematics and so hopefully next year we'll be able to give her some more mathematics courses uh in West 's Tradition she also uh has a spouse who works at the middle school and so it's great to uh it's great to keep it in the family obviously and it's I think a testament she literally said in the interview that she she was a teacher for a very long time in a uh competing District we'll say and uh she would you know she'd come home from work her spouse would come home from work and the thing that Drew her to us was hearing about his experience at West essic and so I think that's a testament uh too and he's not even in my department so I'm you know I'm bragging about somebody El but uh it is I think a testament to sort of the the family Dynamic um and even not to put her on the spot because you may beet her one day and I want her to be embarrassed but it actually was one of the retirement parties that she attended as a guest that she said like wow like this is the place like I can't even imagine this you know like this I've never seen this in the community before uh the feeling so I think that's that's something that really like resonated with me and so we're very very happy that doing this uh so talking about our district goals of course we know cultivating career Readiness in real world experiences and ensuring a positive uh and inclusive School culture and climate our goals that Mr scas has already mentioned that I'll be continuing to expound on from mathematics and business department uh that our department goal is uh specifically talking about Mastery assessment to improve student outcomes which is a program that we sort of piloted last year so we have some results from that which I'm excited to share and then we'll continue to uh see that program grow throughout this year uh and sort of talk about the different ways that we can Implement some of those procedures and policies so first talking about some real world experiences from uh for our students uh in the business uh realm are FB LA and deca State competitions in 2024 uh we sent um over 70 students uh combined to both uh competitions historically we were lucky to break around 20 for both so this was a tremendous tremendous tremendous growth and the number of students who were excited about this uh these competitions and went what made this even I think more special we'll talk about this in a second is that in order to qualify for the DECA competition you actually have to qualify to a regional competition first so our students demonstrated such Excellence there that they were invited to continue on with the state competition our FBLA students are broke into two groups some took tests to demonstrate their abilities which is awesome obviously they were able to move on others just kind of sort of like join like an automatic in into Atlantic City but the level of interest that went up was obviously really impressive so we were thrilled to have that many students who went of that group of 70 students um we had eight students actually move on and qualify it's the national round the national round typically takes place in the summer and it is is a little bit of a to-do many of the students who do qualify tend to be seniors so they typically have graduated that point as a result none of the students who qualify decided to pursue the national round however in the future if we have a student you know I think that we will have many students open that will that will qualify in the future that would be a really great thing to obviously of course see down the road so figures cross if any of your children are excited about Deca are in it maybe we canit them to do it but uh but we'll see uh you know we do have students who qualify for that national competition which is great and it would be great of course to eventually s so uh the turkey classic which is organized by our sport management course enjoyed it sixth year this was its highest year of fundraising the teacher team did come in fourth which is disappointing we were second last year uh but the the students who won were very very impressive and so that was a really really great opportunity for the kids it's a very fun night I don't know if you ever had an opportunity to see it but it's a really fun like student Le um opportunity to see the kids in like a really cool element everyone has team shirts they all decorate them and it's a really really nice Vibe and it's what's cool to see is the fresh way up to the seniors it's like a really big Community event that's that's pretty cool uh and then our digital marketing and social media course continues to grow the West tics Instagram which is we night life and they're in their third year uh under the guidance of this fetta this year uh they're focusing uh on a little bit of uh some of the business side of it which I think is really cool because I think digital marketing and social media is a big part already of of um marketing and then obviously in the professional world and so affiliate marketing and brand deals and things like that are topics that they talking about our goal for that course soon is hopefully maybe to uh create some local business relationships and continue to expand by maybe featuring products or having the kids be quote unquote micro influencers for those products obviously you know within the real the reasonableness of the school and uh and in continue like let students get a taste of sort of what that that might look like I think for our students that can be really exciting opportunity in math our uh scores improved across all subject areas after the mastering program pilot in 23 and 24 so that is in my opinion very very good news our Algebra 1 scores and our ngpa scores actually saw a significant increase in passing rates or alra one score I believe went up by around 8% or NGP uh 8% of more students passed and our n GPA score went up I think somewhere around 6 to 7% which in uh in in the realm of all things is very very good from a year-over-year um expectation so both of those I think bode well for you know our students continued growth not to say it's exclusively the master there's obviously many different factors that come into play but it it is you know F positive result to the uh the future program so we're getting to look into it um the M master program on that note is being um now implemented in all of our core subject areas and we're continuing to uh evaluate through the uh a committee that we formed uh called the math Mastery and achievement committee so Mr dberto myself uh and I believe we have like nineth teachers somewhere uh meet on a monthly basis and we sort of talk about how the math department is doing sort of the the goals that we're working on we talk about Mastery but we also talk about assessment we talk about non assessment metrics and measurements of how the the health department so to speak extra help anecdotal things like that uh and all that comes together to sort of inform some decision making and some professional development uh through fo the department has Contin on uh and last but not least um several of the courses through the Mastery Program have actually brought in some integrated projects since the PBA have left there was obviously concern that we were going to be shifting back toward the traditional test and and make it a little bit more sty and sort of like traditional um but many of the courses have embraced the idea of still including Project based assessment in our curriculum which I think is really great um and they haven't really been necessarily like I want say forced but but like strongly encouraged at the administrative level is something the teachers are excited about which I think is great because I think that makes the projects a lot more meaningful the teachers are buying kind of creating own um in terms of our culture and climate uh so to start the year uh this year and each year uh we were able to host the uh Northern New Jersey supervisor uh association meeting for mathematics um so over 40 districts were able to come here I think I use this exact same line last year but I say it every time because I do mean it I really really like it when we host uh because I I have a tremendous amount of pride for our campus and not to say that other campuses aren't beautiful but when I go and visit other schools it's nice but I always feel like when people drive up our driveway and see our school they're like kind of Blown Away by that and that's is I think a point of Pride for us and so I always like to you know it's like having you know a nice whatever you want to show it off so I I do like having that and especially you know in the in the fall it's really really pretty around here so it's good to uh to host that and have opportunity for uh the no place for hate lessons uh occurred last year in the middle school and they're actually going to be occurring in the high school classes for math uh and that's going to be taking place this February so we're excited to be uh helpers in that initiative and obviously it's a super important thing that Administration together Administration put together Associated um the other important um cular pical thing we've been including is the building thinking classroom lessons so building thinking classroom is a concept basically where students are able to speak with one another throughout the course of a lesson and have an opportunity to have dialogue at the board using markers and where there's not as much pressure as like filling out a piece of paper where you know you're kind of committing to whatever you're writing one student has a marker they're talking about it they're racing they're fixing uh and then the teacher is typically in the center of the room or or walking around the room and monitoring their progress giving them feedback asking them questions and it's nothing that's super super crazy out of the box thinking it's it's a form of teaching that has existed but a lot of our teachers have embraced sort of a higher level or a little bit of a higher level of fatality to it um and because of that uh very excitingly we did have an opportunity to compare some results between teachers who were like maybe embracing that a little bit more and teachers who Embrace that a little bit less and the teachers that did embrace it more did see um High test results overall which is again a sign that like that kind of professional development and that sort of support for our teachers is important so we're going to continue to Pro that which is cool um I believe that I mentioned the math Master Committee of course um and our extra as well in addition F and deca in uh in math we have our math Honor Society we have our math competitions which include our math CS the middle school and also our uh Math League in the high school and then last but not least science club as well so all those opportunities exist for our students to continue to pursue their passions outside of the um the learning lab which uh uh Mr C had mentioned uh is uh something that the supervisor started running we did not know what to expect when we started the learning lab and what we found out when we started the learning lab that it was the math lab so about uh about I would say 90% of the questions that are brought uh do have to do with mathematics I don't know what that says about like me as a supervisor but uh but yes so many of the students who do show up to the math lab are I'm sorry I'm saying to the learning lab do uh do typically come with math questions as a result Mr learner and I are typically the two that are always in there uh because both of us do have the mathematic background um it's it's been really great in terms of just providing that support and that help we've developed a really strong relationship with with a good number of students we have a large number of stud students who are coming every day and are taking advantage of that opportunity which is awesome uh and we're also having students who are using it as an intervention and so in conversations that I'm having with parents uh I'm encouraging especially for our Middle School parents of course uh and those students who are taking advantage of it I think are enjoying the opportunity to feel a more confident in their course about 23s engage those with questions the other 13d use the opportunity to work in small small groups or alone and they'll typically be working on either group projects or preparing for tests we see them have their Chromebooks open a lot withing on me be which is a program that familiar with um or uh or some you know quizzing each other back and forth so it's a really nice environment uh for the students during the lunch to sort of have like some free opportunity to decide what they want ST which is cool um students typically are spending 25 minutes in the learning lab uh for the uh for the ones of people watching uh if you if you have a child as in Middle School um if you get there early it's a lot easier to get your questions answered at the end of The Learning lab it is very crowded and so as a result you know you may w a little question um yeah many of the same students are coming each each time we're available which is awesome so it is a really nice just a couple pictures so this is our Math League competition uh from last year um you know this always occurs in the spring so obviously these students some of them moved on uh to who've already graduated by but it was a very good good opportunity for them this year um and I believe I mentioned a good amount of this um the Mastery assessment mentioned which is part of our district goal just to repeat it a little bit basically is um has informed our districtwide Mastery Labs which are the middle school and the high school these are opportunities for students to retest which is basically sort of the the mindset of Mastery Program focusing on reassessment and the opportunity for students to learn from their mistakes to continue to grow um we been us it to inform teacher professional development including attending roundtables uh and veral articulation particular meetings were also informed where the teachers had an opportunity to meet with each other discuss what they've been noticing and pass it back and forth along the grade levels we also at the end of each year concluded the ver articulation with the sixth grade teachers just grant that they elementary schools are involved in the conversation as well um and last but not least our curriculum uh we continuing our roll out the Big Ideas program and so this year I'll be looking at that in a second but we're we're on to our second to last um members of that Pro and that's the picture there so this year we rolled out grade seven uh and also our GE curriculum next year we actually already have the algebra 2 curriculum as part of our Core Curriculum so next year will be our math a curriculum and we'll now have a completely cohesive program from grade seven up to Algebra 2 which is obviously very positive thing for our students so they know what to expect from you uh some of our student work so I featured a little bit of calculus work here on the left that was an assignment where students had to make an Instagram uh that student chose Isaac Newton uh went Jima on the right um uh is a comic and then in the center is actually um from one of our state uh that's a that's a a screenshot from a video so this was I believe like a handdrawn video that the student had made and that was one of our national finalists that advanced from the dec competition so uh I don't remember exactly what the video was uh but it involved I think like explaining how uh like a product placement work or not product placement but like a market fit for a product worked uh through the guys of of a bear that went fishing at some point I'm pretty sure um but yeah so it was obviously a very impressive video she was able to qualify in at the same level um so now did you want to take a picture that sorry yeah I just wasn't sure if that was my oh that's why uh so our um onto our alumni showcase so uh first and foremost I'm happy to talk about Sonia sha she is the class of 2019 uh she is uh she studied public health studies and Premed at John's Hopkins University and she is currently attending Dartmouth University specifically the G School of Medicine um I had opportunity to speak with her over the phone a couple of days ago she uh she has a younger sister still here in the district uh but she herself is doing really really well she appreciated the fast-paced learning over West tics classes and felt like the type of expectations that we place on her here made her feel right at home when she was at John topkins that she could kind of keep Pace with her her classmates and things like that which is awesome obviously right going to a top uh school like that and having said that you had like a you know the expectations and experience were similar I think is obviously a feather in our cap um math was her favorite subject through high school and she recalls Mr L and Miss gav well as having a big impact on her academic um our academic loves and she appreciated the enthusiasm and energy of all the West staff members so she had a lot of really you know positive things to say about the teachers she felt like really inspired to to continue to achieve high so F cross she'll be a physician soon and uh we'll be seeing her continue being successful uh last but not least we have Daniel martii from the class of 2022 so a very recent graduate um as well he is Major in biomedical engineering at tcj uh he actually came back to West essics to a presentation and that's how he connected with one of his former teachers and one of his former teachers says oh you know we do or Mr as does a lni showcase each year it' be great to to feature you because you know it's so cool what you're doing and and I think that you'd be um you know it's just nice to to obviously talk about uh the success of all of our students so in his case um his plan is to uh work with an international internship over the summer with either a nonprofit or NGO uh hopefully in Argentina uh but he said he was open to a few different countries but he's excited about that opportunity presumably in the biomedical engineering field um he recently gave presentation um to the students like I had mentioned and he talked about how he benefited greatly from the AP transfer credit process when he basically went into his um undergraduate he had enough credits where he had like a significant advantage over his class in terms of getting everything done kind of being able to choose classes he um he took AP stats and AP Calculus uh and he remembers most of the teachers and M spefically was the one that he had the opportunity to reconnect with so we were glad to have him feature here I believe that summarizes what I wanted to share [Applause] so good evening everyone congratulations to Greg and Stacy for exceptional presentations very thorough I'm going to pride myself tonight I'm being quick maybe not as thorough but quick I'm going for quick um welcome to second semester right believe it or not in my household now that saquan is in the Super Bowl we're like let's go baseball bring on the Yankees right football season's over for us Giants fans so uh welcome to second semester it's been over for a while yeah so welcome to second semester I know the high school struggles with you know the midterm week and it's a big stressful week for a lot of the high school kids but in the Middle School it's it's an opportunity for us to regroup we try and incorporate a lot ofal type activities regroup our minds encourage the kids to have healthy Minds as well as focus on you know what what they can do different academically for the second semester so we had a number of assemblies uh in the last two weeks as well as upcoming so minding your mind was the First Assembly this was uh with Colin Quinn for our eighth grade um Colin spoke to the students about ending the stigma surrounding mental health promoting education you know encouraging the kids you know things can always get better seek help when you need it was essentially his message um and to follow their passions we had Mikey Fon come on the 23rd he does an anti-bullying performance Mikey has been coming every year for quite a long time he's a poet a psychologist uh he kind of Storytelling type messages and make them aware how others are feeling when when things are said in the hallway and whatnot so that's very powerful we have a wonderful assembly I'm really excited for um next week on the 29th May in poets if any of you can make it uh this is going to be both grade levels it is going to be at the high school uh they also do anti-bullying they are theater trained um they're comedians but they also do uh hip hop theater improv and standup comedy to tell the truth uh to live audiences again about bullying type uh scenarios they're supposed to be very engaging uh for the kids so we're really excited about them so if you can come uh I believe it's at 9:00 a.m. on the 29th at the high school and then I know Wednesday right it's Wednesday yes yes uh and then the Holocaust assembly I don't want to steal Dr uh Westervelt thunder so I'm not going to talk too much about that and I know the board's kind of already heard a little bit but we are looking forward to that assembly as well on the 5th um the high school is is set the bar high so our middle school kids better I'm going to have to give him a talk this week about the behavior right we'll be ready to go so we're excited for that and then we had uh Stacy cuz I mentioned rogate super proud of our team our teachers were so excited Miss Jing and Miss Tes when they came into the building like their energy was powerful it was just really fun to see how pumped up they were with their trophy and with their wins this is a bigger picture and uh Stacy asked me to remind you that we are hosting a tournament in May so we are going to host a rogate tournament here in May which we're excited about always a great host school so Jeopardy Jeopardy style okay so that that be a lot ofun as well so that's really all I have from the middle school I'll turn it over to the high school thank you hi good evening everyone um congratulations Barda School boards month this is awesome some recognition for you guys and your volunteer work just saying I am a non- tene principal um [Laughter] um okay so a couple things I want to highlight that we had 78 students take our New Jersey state seal of B literacy exam in 10 different languages we had Arabic French Italian Korean Mandarin polish Portuguese Russian Spanish and Turkish and so I just want to give a little shout out to senora dasta and Mrs Laura drego for organizing this this is our fifth year doing this exam and our students once they pass the exam they get this designation on their transcript that says they I have the state seal of biliteracy so it's a major accomplishment for them and we're really proud of the number of students that take it and the different languages that we offer as well some extracurricular things that have been happening at the high school we had music buddy day earlier in the month this is where the four sending districts send their fifth and sixth grade students to the high school and they get buddied up with a middle school student and a high school student for band choir and Orchestra spend the afternoon together they get to talk about different things and then there's a performance at the end which really highlights just what our program is and kind of gets the students excited to continue on in the Arts we're also really excited to begin our Unified sports program um Dr Elizabeth McQuade introduced this program to our district and she has Mr Jared Capello Miss Alex airs leading it and we have our student leader Carly levit grade 11 she's taking the lead on this initiative we had an interest meeting earlier this month and our Unified sports program is about inclusivity it's about bringing kids of all abilities together um so our first event is this Wednesday after school in the uh cafeteria it's a tie-dye social we're providing the t-shirts so the kids can come if they're interested and everyone's going to be tie dyeing t-shirts it's going to be really fun we also have um I believe we're going to be doing a kickball event coming up and there's one other thing with kickball and something else I should have written that down I did not um but we have more events coming up and it's just something really positive for the school our students had expressed interest and it's just anytime you get to see different groups of students coming together who typically don't come together it just shows you how special West ess6 is some of our culture and climate news um we did have midterm exams last week and as you know um especially as parents of high school students the midterm exams bring on a lot of Stress and Anxiety for our students I don't know why they all crush it they all do amazing on the exams but just the idea of exams is very stressful to them so at our climate and culture meeting earlier in the month the students said can you bring the dogs back before midterm exams like that really helps us and we were like yes so thank you to the Coco family who um is our connection there Bright and beautiful therapy dogs they brought Mel and Charlie and Mel and Charlie were here and the kids just they just loved it I mean you could hear the chatter in the hallway too dude the dogs are here the dogs are here you know and everyone running up and it was and then you see Mel and Charlie and they're huge and they're fluffy and just it made everyone's day a little bit brighter and students felt a little more relaxed and calm going into the midterm week um as everyone has discussed tonight for Holocaust remembrance today we had um our presentation today and Ruth milman was the speaker and I just want to acknowledge um Miss Laura drgo who was really adamant in getting them here um she must have sent me 800 emails like when when can they come when can they come and so um she made it happen she made it happen and I also have to say you guys spoke at how great the students were when we first talked about this I said definitely the 11th graders it's perfect with the curriculum it's all great and Laura is like how about the nth graders I'm like I was like well uh you know you know and just if You' worked in a high school as long as I have you know that sometimes the ninth graders in a presentation is a gamble so um Laura was you know she we we talked it through and I said yes let's do it and the kids really were fantastic because I believe though Ruth's story was just heart-wrenching and and you know it's truly bringing our curriculum to life when we have speakers like this come in I really feel that it was an an important day for them and the students were fabulous and just made me really proud to be being be there in the room with them um another event that we had this week uh this month was our 8th grade open house for the first time we opened the doors to the eighth graders and their families to come in for a full Open House Event um it was cool we had different building tours going on the supervisors and teachers were leading information sessions we were able to give out some West estic swag they had these nice bags that they were getting the vibe in the building throughout the night was really positive but I received you know written feedback from parents which was just you know very validating that all that hard work was worth it they said listen I had one parent tell me this was her third child to come through and she really felt that we did a great job in highlighting all that we offer and um that was just a nice event for everyone and the supervisors were awesome killing it that night because they had to do the same Spiel six times um in a row and they did it and it was great so thank you guys and what do we have upcoming so our no place for hate lessons are happening in the math classes the weekend of the week of February 14th to the 19th the lesson is on digital Footprints and just reminding students that everything you put out there stays out there so be very mindful of what you're putting out there and how it can affect your future um it's a really powerful lesson so kudos to our Math teachers for allowing us to bring this lesson into their um room and also save the date our night of knowledge is Wednesday March 5th for those of you who don't know our night of knowledge is an opportunity for us to offer the community we invite parents and students from grade 6 up through grade 12 to come in and we offer various workshops that they can come to um and it's just a night and we want parents and students to come together so that they're listening to the information together and it opens up dialogue this year we're switching up the format a little bit the first session is actually we're inviting everyone to the first session it's a about um it's an intergenerational panel for a dialogue on social media and how students feel it's about their perspective then we have some adult perspectives and parent perspectives and so it's really going to be an engaging talk and I think it'll be really useful especially for parents of um middle schoolers too I know as a Middle School Parent myself we're navigating the social media path and it is challenging so save the date March 5th um night of knowledge and that concludes the high school thank you [Applause] guys actually I I remissed because I didn't say anything about your program for your incoming eighth graders um and it was a wonderful program there were a few of us who did attend and the same as you received emails you know how it is you you know you go to a certain store and you just happen to run into people and they're like oh my God is that great you know we had kids here before but we we came away with a lot more excitement they said that they had in previous times and actually my husband ran into somebody in store bused and he goes what did you do at school the other night I didn't do anything I'm like I said we attended something I said what he goes well so and so on the next neighbor you know they were all at Starbucks and they were all talking about it and saying that you know go home and tell your wife it was really a wonderful I well thank you I will pass it on that you know there was confirmation of what you're doing which sometimes we don't hear the positive from parents you know and we pray and hope that it got through but um it was a great program and thank you also for inviting us to that so I any comments from board members real quick thank you everyone for for presenting um and you know for uh I butcher hand just um uh L to hear like the focus of on AI um it's got a lot of uses uh and applications but also a lot of uh you know misuses and misapplications you know whether it's ch or or how any of the social platforms are implementing their own tools um and glad to see that you're both teaching it vertically and across the STA because um not a lot of people understand how the tools work and there's new tools coming out every day so uh so glad to hear that and Jack and Carol we know her as frany I was sad to see her leave when I was on the SP board but I'm glad that she's here now that I'm on this one so but but thank you for your presentations um I don't think we have any board committee going forward policies that have come across our our table and we have to look at going forward um Finance we are going to be taking the direction and start working budgets I know you guys have all had your budget meetings with her um so we'll go forward with that and uh our curriculum getting anticipating listening to what's being presented for next year and for going the summer and look forward to hearing all about that so we'll get our committee meetings going and anticipate working closely with you guys to hear all the exciting things you're going to have to offer um at this time I will open for for public comments on agenda items only okay with that being said Finance Jonathan following Finance excuse me following Finance motions are made of the recommendation of the superintendent of schools anything placed on this agenda items 1 through n we voted upon one motion and I so misso yes on 1 through six and N stain on C okay Miss Christal yes Miss C Giovani yes Mr Sher yes Mr Sam conone yes Mr to yes Miss f yes Miss Cal yes apply of building and grounds yes ma'am the following building and ground motions are made the recommendation of the super superintendent of schools anything please on this agenda item one will be voted upon in one motion and I second Miss AML yes Miss chrisal yes Miss siani yes Miss Mr Sher yes Mr Sone yes Mr to yes Miss wwit yes Miss Calon yes John Personnel motions the following Personnel motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools anything placed on this agenda items 1- 11 will be voted upon in one motion and IO motion any questions Miss yes Miss chrisal yes Miss C Giovani yes Mr sherff yes Mr stoen yes Mr to yes Miss wtz yes Miss C yes curriculum special the following curriculum specializ motions are made at the recommendation of the superintendent of schools anything plac on this agenda items one and two will be voted upon in one motion can I so move second Miss Amo yes Miss chrisal yes missani yes Mr sherff yes Mr Stone yes Mr to yes Miss wtz yes Miss Calder yes miscellaneous uh the following miscellaneous motions are made as a recommendation of the superintendent of schools anything placed on this agenda items 1 through N9 be voted one motion and I second again yes on one and two obain on 39 Miss crisal yes Miss Giovani yes Mr Sher yes Mr Sone yes Mr yes Miss vtz yes Miss C yes okay at this time I'll open up public comments on agenda or non-agenda just want to report out next week the board will uh having their Retreat on February 5th to go training um uh from our attorneys and um the next board meeting meeting will be February 10 oh yeah there being no further business before this board of education be it resolved this public meeting be adjourned at 8:44 motion to adjourn second all in favor