We also do our own local assessments that align to the NJSLA. Student achievement data is presented each fall showing students with valid test scores across three years of testing to examine their growth. We usually either meet or exceed state averages. Summer curriculum work happens every year to adjust pacing guides based on data analysis of our students performance on various local and statewide assessments. We will be improving our communication of local data and providing parent university workshops in the coming year, including disseminating this information on social media. One possible theme of this data presentation could be dispelling the myth of school scores. The the discussion included whether or not all schools are using the same instructional methods and whether differences could account for variations in student achievement. Miss Qichch explained that all schools follow the same curriculum which includes detailed pacing guides. Maple Valley Middle School updates.
Second place in the Southwest District, fifth grade, second place for the local lodge. Matthew, come on up. Great job. Then we've got Anna Proise Melikova. She's here. Come on up. Anna won third place in the Southwest District in fifth grade and third place in the local Elks Lodge. Thank you. Awesome. Then we have Abby Metsinger. Come on up. Come on up. I think you were up here before for the uh theater awards. Great job. Um and she won third place in the Southwest District, sixth grade, first place in the local lodge from for the Elks. Thank you. Ashvvic Gupta, if he's here, come on up, sir. We've got third place in the state, 7th grade, second place in the Southwest District, first place in the Marlton Elks. Congratulations. Awesome. And lastly, and certainly not least, with second place in the state for eighth grade, second place, we've got Annabelle Black.
Shortly before I wrote the speech, I was asked the following question. How would you describe success after high school? My answer was the following. To me, a successful post high school experience is defined by how many new rhythms I will have the opportunity to explore. Class of 2025, everything in the universe has rhythm. So, why not live as many of its dances as you can. Thank you. And now, I would like to introduce Ella Ferris, your class of 2025 validictorian. [Applause] I've said it before, guys, and I'll say it again. Bryce should have been validictorian instead of me. That guy was much more eloquent than I'm about to be because to be honest, I didn't want to give this speech. It's just that I don't know most of you and most of you don't know me. And yet, I'm supposed to stand here and say something that's meaningful to all of us as if we've shared the same story.
Remember that we did it. We dreamed big. For me, dreaming is how I found myself in places a younger version of myself would have considered impossible. I used to dream of this very moment, being on the stage as the validictorian, being successful in the most challenging classes it took to get here. But the most significant thing about this dream, or any dream, is that some of the most impactful parts of the journey here were not the classes I meticulously planned to take, but the ones I hadn't. In ceramics, I forced myself to branch out, making new friends and expressing every detail detail of my life from vacations to beliefs and passions through clay. Then there's psychology where I found a passion for studying the brain, changing the college major I once thought was set in stone. What I'm saying here is that sometimes the road less traveled or sometimes our trails will diverge.
Another important definition is that of peer conflict. Peer conflict is in cases of mutual conflict between two or more students that does not meet the definition of bullying. The administration will take action to support conflict resolution. Parents and guardians will be notified. And finally on this question is retaliation and false charges. Retaliation against a person who reports a complaint or participates in an investigation into bullying is prohibited. Such a violation is considered a serious violation of board policy. false charges also shall be regarded as a serious offense and disciplinary measures could include up to expulsion from school. How does the school address with the student mental health crisis? Jennings County Schools recognizes that depression and self harm are problems of increasing severity among children and adolescence. Students who experience depression cannot benefit fully from the educational programs at the school corporation and the students who have attempted self harm pose a danger to both them themselves and to other students.
My younger son's graduating this year in weeks. I guess I could stay on as a community member. Really like being involved and what's going on, seeing how I can help shape it. I moved around a ton. Grew up in Western Mass, but bounced around to a whole bunch of different places. This is the first town, including the one I grew up in, that I really feel like there's a sense of community um throughout the whole community, and really enjoy that. You know, I really want to see like what can this town do next? Great. Thank you. All right. Um, like I said, I thought I would um the reorganizing the board, which is just where we kind of make sure all the the seats are filled and um do some committee assignments if we're ready to do that. But we always do it with when there's a full board.
And when they produce that report in, you know, for basically a big task list, I believe ours was 41 pages of images and things that we need to give attention to, they come back out the following august with that list and they look for compliance. And we were one of I I think only four districts out of 74 that got every single thing on the list repaired uh built uh fixed and and and I asked Matt to join me up here because he should be the one Oh, apparently I'm saying a lot of what he planned on saying we didn't plan. But Matt has the joy of working with the team that does 99% of this work. So I'm going to step aside, let you call your folks up and uh Oh, thank you, Mr. Conrad. I appreciate that. You did talk about everything I was going to talk about.
All right folks thanks for considering my comments and have a great night. Bye-bye. Thank you. We do not have any additional callers. Thanks, Aaron. So, let's move on to um unfinished business, which I think is the resolution. So, I know so what I'd like to do um is just kind of go through the resolution and what we have changed from the last meeting and talk about it. I know the council member said they have a couple of uh suggestions they want to talk about, but that we'll get to those after I go through what's changed just to get everybody to a baseline and then we can talk about those changes if that's all right. Um Erin, can you bring it up on the screen? Yeah. Do you want me to share the redlinined or non-redlined? Uh let's do do the non- redline. That might be easier to go through because the red line gets kind of long in some areas.
F is to approve the source for teachers listing for April 2025 with the associated um rates listed there. G is to approve the cafeteria dispersements for the month of April 2025 in the amount of $2,96.15. H is to approve the care dispersements for the month of April 2025 in the amount of $11,32.72. I is to approve travel and professional development for a couple of our staff members. J is to approve some uh budget transfers. As everyone is aware, we've had an increase in related services. So, we've had to get a little creative um moving money around from accounts that that still have funds available to fulfill those obligations. Um as I told the finance committee, we will still end our year not in a deficit. We'll be fine, but this is really going to take up a bulk of our um anything that we'd have to roll over.
Current progress for the opening of Maple Valley Middle School includes placement of classes, staffing, which was aided by a recent survey disseminated to all staff and possible staffing reallocations among the three middle schools. Schedules and furniture orders are in development. Field trips. A question about the addition of more free local field trips. that is to the post office, library to police department, local businesses, etc. to increase experential learning particularly at the elementary level was raised. Mrs. Q. See explained that similar trips already occur often through summer programs such as 21st century program. Nevertheless, more options will be explored for the coming school year. The meeting was adjourned at 7 p.m. Thank you, Commissioner Suarez.
if she'd come on up. First place, Southwest District, first place local lodge. Congratulations. Congratulations. What a group. Okay, if we can kind of move together because we're gonna This is the photo op part right here. Have your mic for a minute. I'd like to thank this young group. A lot of knowledge and a great job by them all. Let's give a round of applause, please. Thank you very much uh for your time and allowing us to uh be with these folks. Thank you. Oh, thank you so much. One thing I'll point out too and uh and in the letter that invited parents to uh come with their kids tonight to get recognized for their amazing achievement in the essay contest is we also want to start trying to we want to create a little website attached to our uh homepage that'll showcase their essays totally voluntary if a family and students wanted to share it.
We've shared walls, maybe classes, maybe passing glances, but that's not the same as knowing someone. Truly, we're just strangers in the same yearbook. So, what great insight could a complete rando like me possibly gives that speaks to everyone? I thought about it for a not so long time because I'm a massive procrastinator. And I realized the one thing we all share, the one resource we're all running out of at exactly the same pace is time. So, I won't tell you what this meant or what comes next. You already know what matters to you far more than I do. So instead of dragging this out, instead of pretending to summarize four years of hundreds of lives I barely know, I'm going to give you a little gift, I'm going to give you your time back. Since time is the one gift that fits everyone. So take this gift and talk to your favorite teacher, hug your mom, breathe a little deeper, laugh with the person next to you, make a memory, or don't.
Presenting chances to take the road less traveled and taking those chances for us will make all the difference. One last time, I ask that you think about a dream that you have for the future. I asked the same people from before from earlier for the dreams they have for the years ahead of them. Z wants to get his masters in computer engineering and Sadi wants to make a change in global conservation efforts. Berlin wants to go to as many concerts as she can and Kate hopes to travel as much as possible. Gabrielle dreams of graduating law school from the University in San Diego to go on as a STEM lawyer. They just like every single person here have big dreams for the future. Along the road to those dreams, there will be chances to try something new, opportunities to shake things up. And I advise you to take them, keeping the end in sight.
The board has a policy and procedures that are intended to increase child suicide awareness and prevention. All corporation personnel have training to be alert for students who exhibit signs of extreme depression or who threatens or attempts suicide. Any such signs or the reports of such signs from another student or staff members are taken with the utmost seriousness. If an individual student concern is noted, the staff member reports it to the school counselor or building administrator. A staff member stays with the student at all times during stabilization of the concern and while assessing the risk. Parents, guardians of the students are immediately contacted and asked to come to the school. The family attends a meeting to discuss the concerns. They are provided with a resource guide of available community supports for mental health. A referral to local providers can be made if the family would like assistance.
And last year, I think it took us until August um because someone was always missing or we had such a full agenda, we just couldn't get it done. So, um, so I wanted to take the opportunity to do it, man. First thing and let's just get it resolved so that we can we can that's right. Catch us when we're all here. Um, so that we can, um, we can just move on with the work that we need to do. So, the first thing, um, the first thing we always do is the chair. And so, for I'm just going to turn it over to Elro briefly. Actually, I'm not sure. Well, I'll have you be in control of of the the process. Um, but I will say that um last year at this time um or last year in August um I was really looking to uh give the position away.
So I won't labor bel labor the fact. Um I would like to invite the board please to come up in front of the dis. Mr. Schlloer if you would join them also. And I'd also like to invite three people I see in the back row. Uh Jim Hopper, Kirk H, and Colleen. Would you please join me up here? [Applause] Come on. Um, uh, I would like to recognize I I know the board item says Jim Hopper. The certificate says Apple Valley Unified School District. It's a team effort in the maintenance and operations department. Three of the key members um working with I know we have a retirey over here in the front row, Martin, one of our members. Uh Mr. Kaufman, one of our previous members in the M department. Uh this this is u it's a culmination of the um the support the desire of every member of that department to make sure we have the cleanest, safest schools for our kids.
Okay. Um, I move the motion, Brook, so we can put it on the table. You need a second. Okay. Um, say that again, Chris, to one has to make a motion to present the resolution. I need a second so you can discuss it. Okay. Is there a second for the resolution? I second. Okay. Thanks. So, we had a meeting uh last week with uh city staff from planning and OSI to discuss some of their comments from last month's meeting. Um and I think Erin, you can just scroll through the whereas as I talk. Um we we were able to resolve the different whereas statements to come to uh consensus of what we would suggest and what the the uh city staff members that were there agreed to. um they weren't really we didn't feel like they were very consequential changes. It was more word smithing so it was pretty easy to get through.
Um, and then the other one is just to move forward for uh some sub services. Again, we had to staff some of our aids with source for teachers subs because we were unable to hire them. So, we're just kind of eventually going to move some more money from salaries into that line as well for the remainder of the year. K is to approve the general services contract with Camden County Ed Services Commission. Again, this is for any type of services that we need to use during the school year. Sometimes CST services, things like that. We don't always use them, but we approved the general services contract. L is to approve an addendum to the agreement between Burland Township School District and ESS. That's source for teachers. And this is actually just to approve an hourly rate for our for an ESY aid. Um so we needed to fill another aid position for ESY.
Any questions from the board? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on to public recognition. This portion of the meeting is open to the residents and non-residents of Clifton for the purpose of addressing any subject matter pertinent to andor directly related to the operation of the Clifton Public School District. Residents and non-residents are requested to sign the register provided for this purpose and to state their names, addresses, and subject matter. Comments are limited to five minutes per person. Issues raised by members of the public may or may not be dis responded to by the board. All comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate. The board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking. Specifically, comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board.
But, you know, when I see to see these essays, they're incredible and it just feels like to try to give them a little bit wider audience um just truly profound uh thoughts you've had on the topic and uh so just thank you for representing our district so well. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Yeah. All right. We're going to move on now um to our music award winners. So, we've got if I could have uh Mrs. Smith kind of join me here and I'm and Mr. Canton and Mr. Bach come on up too. We've got um three different categories here. Yeah. So, um, first we're going to recognize the students who were, uh, achieved all South Jersey orchestra. So, Victoria Lee could come up. I'm gonna I'm gonna give you want to hand out the shake. [Music] Next up, we've got Oliver Lieberman. [Applause] Then we have Jason Pace.