001Good evening everyone. Welcome to the curriculum co-curricular athletics and pupil personnel meeting for the month of December. Thank you everyone for showing up. I I hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We have a short agenda for tonight. I am going to have Doc uh Mr. Morala take up the one big item on the agenda which I'm super excited about. Uh, Mr. Morala, all all yours. >> Oh, >> introduce yourself now. >> So, uh, we've been, if you can throw these down that way, if you don't mind that side. >> Sorry. Um, so we've been, uh, for the last couple curriculum committee meetings. Uh uh at the back end of the agenda, we've been addressing some of the uh current and new enrichment programs that have been uh offered to our students throughout the district, grades
002K through 8. And if you recall coming out of the summer uh this year, one of the areas we wanted to look at specifically was uh well, two areas we wanted to look at specifically was one, we wanted to find new creative ways to offer enrichment learning to high school age students. And the other one which has been an unofficial goal I know of of multiple boards and also the administration was to uh design and implement an esports program uh that would be on par or better uh to the schools within our immediate and then greater uh region. Uh so what we had done over the past uh really two years is is identified a way we could do that responsibly and at no cost to the district but also in a way that aligned
003uh from curricular standpoint with some of the larger items that we were trying to address throughout the district including social emotional learning, technology education, uh career readiness and life literacies and and some of the key skills that uh esports embodies. Um, so there were a couple ways to do it. Uh, from a from a uh construct or I'm sorry, a program framework perspective. We could have done it from in an internally like an inter mural style uh clubbased activity which uh could have organized something here within the district and had our our residents compete against each other. or we could have gone the official route and entered a league uh and set up a team here within a learning community or within the school district that we could develop and grow uh appropriately and with
004fidelity. So we chose the ladder and so as a result what we did is we elected through the enrichment program to introduce mono country school district esports and we are officially entered into garden state esports league which is the largest and uh really the only esports league in public education that public educators are using in this region. So uh we had a couple options in how we wanted to do it. We elected to start slowly when we had originally pitched this back in August. We had said that we were hoping to get three to five teams out maybe two to three uh this winter. We are we're going to do one team in the competitive uh the competition league. There are two leagues. Um uh the competition league is uh is really for newcomers. It's
005almost like AAA from from a baseball standpoint because some of these schools have been up and running uh for a few years now. And it allows us to develop the program slowly. And there's only one game that's being offered in this winter competition league and that is Mario Kart 8, which as I've learned from some of the high school students uh who were uh very quick to share with me is not the most popular game uh amongst the high school students currently, but I told them that's unfortunately that's what the league wants. So that's where we are with that particular uh with that league. Um I'm sorry I said competition league. I I misspoke. It's the contender league. So the contender league is the AAA version of or like the minor league version of the
006contender of the competition league which is like the varsity or JD varsity I guess would be a better uh analogy. So uh the league we were the game we are eligible for this winter uh is Mario Kart 8 and we have our first official meeting tomorrow right here. I see right through that wall over there. And we are excited to welcome our first official team uh tomorrow and we'll get up and running and our first competition will be one week from tomorrow. >> Uh and we'll find out who we're competing against uh at some point tomorrow afternoon. But it'll be a a team from Middle Sex County, uh likely bridge, East Brunswick, Edison, all of the teams. Now that's why we wanted Dart State esports as well because we thought it was important for us
007to be able to compete against our neighbors much like we would in a GMC competition. So, while we get up and running tomorrow, we're going to be paying very close attention to how the program would be uh how we can scale the program. Um how uh our technology responds uh to the demands of the league. You know, there we're doing some things that we've never done before like connecting to a Discord server uh which is how the students communicate uh when they enter into this league. And by and when you do that, we enter an agreement with Garden State esports that requires our teachers to monitor all chat that takes place. So there are things that we've never done before as a district that we want to make sure we do properly and which is
008why we elected to start uh small with in the contender league which moves at a slower pace and generally the teams that we'll be competing competing against are in the same boat. They're newer programs with uh lesser experience in this type of uh competitive arena. So uh we'll be auditing and examining how things go. Uh we'll be working with the students directly as almost co-c collaborators in addition to competitors and hopefully we'll uh be successful. We did uh survey our students when they registered to uh identify their prior experience which also kind of if we had kids that signed up that had significant experience maybe would have had a conversation about entering the more competitive league but we decided to air on the side of function. Uh plus we want to make sure we do
009it properly. Uh so that would be the winter league which runs seven weeks and begins tomorrow. Uh at the turn of the new year uh we will be eyeing the spring 2026 which uh offers us the opportunity for expansion significantly which would include uh into the middle school. So we approved enough staff to give us the opportunity to scale if need be. Remember this is all driven by enrollment. So we will only expand if the interest from the community is there. Um there were a couple things too in the winter that we had to work around. For example, the league only runs on Mondays and Wednesdays. Um so there were some conflicts that would have made it troublesome for the middle school to participate in the winter, but the spring offered us larger opportunities for
010middle school expansion. Plus, it gives us more time to work all the technology out and some of the more nuanced areas of the competition that we're unfamiliar with. Uh but the good news is and and I know the high school students uh that have reached out to me um will be happy to know that in spring there are three additional games that will be offered in the league. Uh Valerant Rocket League which is most popular and 2x which is fighting game. >> Um all of these games are offered. You know the games that are offered at Monroe are the same games that would be offered to all schools in the league. So you know we don't get to pick which games we want. I need to make that clear to the high school kids about
011100 emails. They want to know why this game's not offered in League of Legends. get it, right? But uh but it's also been a nice opportunity to communicate directly through our marketing and stuff with the high school students to see what they're looking for, what they like. Many of the kids in the winter were disappointed that we have a 3:00 start time because it conflates with sports and things like that. But, you know, the the the idea about Garden State esports, and if you have a chance, if you're curious about any of this, I recommend going on the Garden State Esports website because it not only does it talk about the the the way the league is set up, but it also talks in much more depth about the curricular ties, kind of the origin
012of why esports has evolved for students maybe that are looking for places to thrive and the ties to curriculum, things like that. There's a lot of interesting thing there. there is a unified uh esports league which we will be uh exploring in the spring as well for students in our special ed programs. So you know these these are programs and as Miss Bor and I were chatting about prior to meeting is is school boards and and NJSIA is very active in examining how this is all going to fit in a larger scale at New Jersey Department of Education. So this is something that I would have to say that Monroe is even a little late to the game on uh admittedly. So that but we do we we don't want to just install it just
013to install it. Uh we want to do it right. Um, getting back to some of the things that in my dialogue in our dialogue with the students, we've had to make clear. So, when you speak to Garden State Esports or any of the other coaches and we went and visited Old Bridge uh, and their team, they had one of the better teams around, so we wanted to meet with them and they're right down the street. They were super cool to host us and take them take us around their facility. We even sent our tech staff over there to take take a look, make sure that we could meet all those needs. They say the hardest thing that we have when communicating with the parents and the students is that this is a team sport. So
014like you can't just show up and play video games and then leave and forget about it. Uh you can't be a part of the basketball team in the winter and be a part of the esports team just like you can't be a part of the soccer team and the football team in the fall. So, uh, I think that is a important as this goes out and we we kind of canonize this into our organization for for the community to recognize and that's why we want to be very strict with how we govern this the in order to be successful and and there are pathways beyond, you know, just winning the county championship. There's there's careers tied to this. There's uh division one collegiate uh divisions and there's there's state championships at colleges and things like
015that. We'll get there eventually, but uh they they highly recommend not going down this route unless you're going to do it officially and in in the eye of how they want this to roll out at a larger level and and we as a district uh uh subscribe to that mindset. So that's kind of what we could look for as far as communicating with the public. Uh we all of our communications have been delivered uh similarly to the way we have promoted all of our enrichment programs. This is a feebased program and our fees go directly back into the program and um we were fortunate enough to partner up um with several uh community partners which allowed us to cover all of the front-end costs which was some small front-end technology costs not as much as
016you would think um now that everything's digital. And you know the real the real beauty of this is that we clearly have the facility uh given the technological infrastructure we have here specifically at the high school to really just kind of link up and get going. Uh we were here yesterday um testing things out. Everything went very well. So we'll tomorrow we're really excited at three o'clock to get it going and uh we think that this is going to be the start of something really special. And you know that's the way we've uh sold it to this first cohort of students that will start with us tomorrow. And we're really excited and we asked the community for patience and um and also partnership as we move forward. Uh couple things we'll look at is is
017you know in in my mind I would love for everything to run out of the high school but realistically that's probably not going to be feasible. So eventually we'll have to get into the business of governing two teams and two locations. So there are some scalability things that we want to be mindful of and we don't want to grow too big too fast to the point where it becomes unmanageable. But those are the types of structural things we'll be looking at uh throughout the winter and spring. From a financial standpoint, uh these programs operate in the same eye of the robotics programs, the computer science programs, all the enrichment programs that we bring to the district and the community are funded through revenue generation, whether that be through sponsorship or registration fees. We set prices
018that uh are targeted to a break even point um to make sure that we can cover the cost of materials and staffing and any professional development or technology expenditures that may come along with that because these programs uh will not affect the general operating budget of the district. Uh so I think the the important thing to consider about that is that these programs only exist if the community wants them to and the way that we measure the community's responsiveness to their satisfaction with these programs is through the enrollment. So if the enrollment is not there, they don't run. So when these programs come to the community um you could feel really confident that this is something that is driven by them because these enrichment programs all in essence have come whether they be through discussions
019like we've had over the past few years at this committee or through the citizens advisory committee or even just dialogue with supervisors teachers and colleagues. So, um, I think that's important for the community to recognize and an era when we're talking about examining all critical expenditures as they relate to organizational development, whether it's full day kindergarten, full day preschool, increasingly complex curricular expectations. When we come and we talk about Disney programs, they are not coming in lie of anything that we talk about in that. And I think that's very important because as I show we were laughing in the central office as we were preparing for tonight is that it when we hand out these these video game logos it almost becomes laughable at one side of our mouth but it is a viable opportunity
020for students. It's been proven it's been researched and it certainly is not coming at the expense of anything else um that is a critical core element of our organization. So, we will uh provide regular updates throughout the winter and spring on our development and when the time comes to begin dialogue about spring season, I will uh gladly provide the committee an update. >> Congratulations, Mr. Malda and to the entire team for the kickstart tomorrow. Good luck. Um >> just want to reiterate this is revenue driven. We do not have the budget capabilities but at the same time we do not want to stay behind on something that is um that is being praised by so many schools that have adopted it. Um, we started this conversation when I saw the presentation by a student and
021I was having this conversation with one of the supervisors before the meeting at the New Jersey um, schoolboard association workshop when we saw the Garden States do a presentation. Um, typically when everybody looks at esport they would say why are we making the kids go back and you know why are we why are we encouraging them to play on computers in the school? This is this is a myth because when you look at it from the esport perspective, it has allowed students to do something which was that they were doing in their room by themselves alone in a group setting. So the whole social emotional learning aspect of it is is is consequential here. But the student that made that presentation in the workshop talked about leadership skills that came to him, the team skills
022that came to him through being part of esports when he had always been an introvert, you know, playing in the comfort of his room and his computer. So, and then the NJSBA delegation in May passed a resolution about this where a lot of people from various districts around New Jersey came and spoke highly of this program and that's when we brought reignited the conversation back in May that what are we doing about it and can we do something about it without impacting our budget. So, I am really really thankful to see this. Um, like you said, it's going to be communitydriven, but what we are doing as a school district is we are making it possible for that cohort of students that want to make this their thing. There is careers in this and um
023we are opening the gateways to that. Um, if it if the community doesn't need it, the program won't continue. But the community continues to see the demand and fulfill and we will continue to fulfill the demand. So, I will open it up for questions, please. >> Um, how many kids per team? >> So, it depends on the game. Uh, Mario Kart Deluxe can offer four to four to six per for per I guess official entry. If we are in the uh I always mix up the names, the competitor and >> Contender. If we were in the compet if we were in the competitive league, they have very strict entry uh rules where like you only you have to like the team has to determine which four scores would be entered like I guess officially. So
024they don't they recommend instead of having like seven kids battle over to split the teams. We elected to do one larger team because we're in a contender league this this year because we're not in a lot of our kids don't have experience. But it really just depends on how you want to. You can enter up to three contender teams per school per game. We're only going to do uh one contender team each year. >> I have another question. >> Yes. >> At the middle school, you're only allowed to do club one time a year due to space, I guess, and busing. >> If somebody was doing a club and then wanted to do this, would that be a conflict? >> No. No. >> So, uh and and I'm glad you asked that. Uh so this
025this all uh enrichment service programs run uh separately from all school-based operations. So if you so if you could imagine that the minor retention play school and modern retention middle school have their clubs and their teams um and and those and obviously we go through those every year and we we vet them for their you know their their usefulness. the uh anything that we do through enrichment services uh are is runs in its own orbit but alongside that if you could imagine uh although they all run from the same curriculum and they they are driven by kind of the same policies and and and operational standards that all the school buildings hold they run separately. So it allows us to operate um alongside those those uh things. uh and we actually will often try to
026schedule complimentary in a complimentary way to those uh clubs. Um however uh this is the first time the esports program admittedly is the first time we've done an after school enrichment program for the high school and the middle [clears throat] school. So that is one of the things we'll be examining and one of the operational challenges that we experienced right out of the gate. So, uh um there's not enough space between the middle school day and the winter esports season for us to be able to do it properly, at least right now. Um so, what we will be examining heading into the spring is one, how we could successfully implement the the enrichment services operations into the middle school without conflicting with anything that exists, not just from a curricular standpoint, but also operationally. you
027know, we don't want to put any unnecessary strain on security transportation. Anybody that participates in these programs has to provide their own transportation. Um, and let me make that very clear on the front. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yes, Johnny. Yeah, I'm just curious. I'm trying to understand how it works. You have a team of four. >> So, can you just quick walk me just through a little bit how do you implement it? >> What does it look like? How do how do they win? Because here's a program and so you have four kids. So what happens in in other words for them to move from one level to the next level, what do they have to accomplish? >> So this all right. So for this particular season in the winter, uh they're playing a
028game called Mario. It's it's a racing game where the objective is is to win first place in in in an eightp person race, I believe. I haven't play really played through this myself, so I'm sure my son is at home. the uh the uh so essentially you know if you win you you advance like tournament style. There are multiple ways to to win. Uh some of the games include time trials. So the my understanding is this first leg of the contender uh league is based on time trials. So, what what the teams will have to do is figure out which character which items I'm not going to say weapons, but which items do you want to accompany that character with and how you want to expend those resources on the track in a strategic and
029competitive way that would give you an edge. Now, keeping in mind you only get a certain amount of tries to enter an official time. So, in my mind, what's going to happen is this team is going to sit there. No, we have four chances to enter our best time [clears throat] and it all takes place here. So like if we're competing against East Brunswick, they're in their lab down Route 18 or Ryder's Lane and and they're sitting in their lab, but that we have to submit our scores by 5:00 on Wednesday. Our team has four chances to submit their their time trial. They have to figure out who's going, which student, which are they going to use Mario? Are they going to use Yoshi here? Are they princess? Are they going to use the the
030shell with the spikes on it or are they going to use the bomb that has oil? Yeah. And it's laughable, but this is the dialogue that we imagine will be taking place. [clears throat] >> There's a strategy. They're going to come to a decision >> as a team. >> Yeah. As a team, right? >> And they're going to and then they're going to have to execute obviously and it's a lot easier said than done if you've ever played the game. >> And then hopefully they will outperform their competitors from East Bronzo. Now ultimately this this aggregates and there's a score and again I apologize that please check out the Guard City Sports website for scoring nuance but that's how it works and and as you and and that's just the racing game. There are other
031games that are more tournaments that there's sports >> which are so hard to explain. >> There's there's and then there's like the straight up fighting like Mike Tyson's Punch Out where if you beat the other guy you advance. So um some of it isn't as isn't as romantic educationally romantic as I described. Um but but while this is going on, students are being coached, they're being uh led and hopefully developing some of those standard nine skills, those life literacies that we think are so critical in 21st century. And we glanced over it before and I just want to uh reemphasize there is a dedicated unified division within Garden City Esports that encourages inclusion, special education participation. And that's something that we have spoken about at uh previous meetings and that we remain committed to the
032development of that portion of the program as well. >> Thank you. >> Yes, please. >> How are the students chosen and is there a criteria for choosing them to be part of this team >> and currently eventually there there likely will be. Okay. >> Um and many schools that have been running this for many years uh have been doing that in that fashion that you just described much like a varsity school. >> Right. However, uh some schools like us that are in their earlier stages, they do run it uh in the way that we're doing, which is right now it is a pay-to-play model. So, anyone right now that wants to be a part of it can be. Um we're not at the point yet where we are going to say um this is so
033competitive that we're going to pick a team. likely when we get to that point it will be embedded into the construct of the official school because like that once it becomes a part of the sport it stops becoming enrichment >> it it'll have to be part of the one and then that's a larger discussion then we've already started talking about it as as a high school and Dr. Higgins and then ultimately middle school and then you'll probably have like tryyouts and things like that. Some schools have electives that are dedicated to esports because there are other things like broadcasting components, creative design, marketing. Um is very interesting the way that they go about it. Um we had more time I could go into how they run their middle school electives. Uh but I want to
034make sure Mr. Snder has some time as well. But um the uh some districts elect to actually develop an elective around it and then they really get into the digital citizenship and everything like that. Some schools run it after school like a team. Some schools run it after school like a club. But the schools that are better at it have it much more ingrained in than the culture of their of their school. I would imagine that this is what the community would aim for when we're all said and done. >> Thank you. I think at this point um the community, the high school students and the parents need to become aware that this opportunity exists and we see how it you know I know this winter leak is set. Hopefully you get more engagement in
035spring and hopefully there's a lot of talent amongst our students like everywhere else. Um for this >> we're be very explicit in and and showcasing how this winter goes because we we we we this is so new to to the district just to staff and students. So stay tuned. We'll we'll showcase it on social media and I'll be happy to update the committee along the way. >> And there are a lot of myths about it not being the right thing to do. Why am I let allowing my kid to play esports? So the more the parents learn about it as a program, it'll help there might be so many students who want to do it, but the parents are going to be on the fence. So I guess that education would help too. >> I'm
036sure that there was a lot of discussion about it over the last couple weeks because I was I started peppering a lot of information to the public about it most recently especially. Well, thank you for all the hard work uh and good luck. >> Thank you everybody. >> The other item and really quick uh we wanted to address something that was brought up by the student board member Adity Theora in the last public board meeting. Um he he was given information by other students and asked to bring it up. It was about option two being taken up or something like that. So I've asked Mr. Snder to just clarify why that impression is out there amongst the students and why it is wrong. So Mr. Snider, please. >> Happy to. Hope everyone had a nice
037Thanksgiving. And before I do that, I would have to I would be remissed if I didn't. Tonight is the kickoff to our winter concert series. So, I'm headed right to the Brookside concert after this. We'd love to see anyone from the community at any of our concerts. I know it's been posted um online and uh have that information available. So, uh that is starting today. So, it's exciting. So yes, option two, option two uh or alternate pathways uh for physical education is in its third year right now just starting um now the students had completed health marking period one and now they are um uh instead of fizzed um doing option two. I'm happy to report option two is not only up and running, it is booming. It seems with a 321 seniors participating in
038this program. uh official. >> That's almost 50% of the class. >> Yes. With which is which is half of the class and uh they started that right at the beginning of second mark period. So we are up and running. Um it's like I said just booming very exciting uh for the program. Um but I I look at this as almost like my baby because this was one of the first real projects I took on um um a couple years ago when I started this role. So it is up and running. I think the clarification if I can offer it to you of why some students may have been confused about option two is option two is open to all students but there are deadlines and those deadlines had to be hard deadlines. So there have
039been students that have asked to be in the program after registration process was over that we had to say unfortunately we are past the deadline for and uh that's for a variety of reasons that we we cannot accommodate. So Dr. Higgins and I um um um have been in constant touch about this and we did have to stick to the very hard deadlines of that. So there may have been confusion. I'm only guessing that if a student was told it was past the deadline, that they interpreted that as the program was not running anymore. But the program is up and running very healthfully running with with with like we said half um about half the class at 3:21. I do want to commend um Sean Field, one of our physical education teachers. Mr. field manages
040all 321 of these students weekly to make sure they're doing what they're supposed to do, that they're getting their 150 minutes, and that they are submitting their time log in on when they're supposed to be doing that. So, um, kudos to him. He's just been fantastic with this with now that the time logs are starting to be due, um, um, for this this marking period. I will reiterate what we had said that we have a strict two strike policy on this. So the first time a student is to miss their log, they are still in the program, but they will be given an email saying this is you missed your log. Make sure you submit it. After the second time, they will be placed back in physical education uh in P12. And again, this is
041a graduation requirement and it is not um I joke with students, it's not a get out of gym free card. This is a graduation requirement and the 150 minutes must be met. But um luckily the students are um excited to do it and we have no doubt that they will meet the 150 minutes. >> Can I ask you a quick question? So while we're not limiting students, what is the deadline that the students were not aware of? >> So the deadline, this is a class now where prior it was the first year it started it was not. This is a class the same way they would take another >> if they were in strength and conditioning per se. They would register for strength and conditioning one or strength and conditioning two when they're doing their
042schedule. they needed to register for um the alternate pathways when doing their schedule and there was still some lead time in in after that but this is a class so it really had to be done last school year going into the school year >> so all the juniors should know now that if they want to take option two as seniors they should be selecting that as >> correct um I've arranged that um Mr. that Sean Field and myself I'm going to the two of us. We're going to go speak to juniors during their um during their class and explain this whole process. Um we have a PowerPoint to show them and go all the ins and outs of of the program, what's required in the program and then uh hopefully there will be no um
043confusion. But I'm I appreciate the opportunity to uh to clarify that. But we are we are up and running in all smiles uh with um with the program. It's very successful. >> Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Schneider. And that concludes the agenda, but I do want to take a minute to thank everybody. This is my last official curriculum meeting after not wanting to miss a single one in the last four years because I say this without any shame. This is my favorite committee meeting. Um I, you know, I've seen cricket get approved in this meeting and I'm ending with esports getting approved in this meeting and this is just talking about athletics. I have learned so much from all of you. each one of you individually um the grunt work that goes in
044our program creation in our curriculum um I honestly in the last four years know a lot more about education than I did while I was getting educated so there's a whole back back end the other side of the story that I learned and I um am so much better for having known that I you know I I don't want to go into the details of everything that was done in the last four years which I think was great but I Just want to conclude by saying that the most important work happens when good talent meets with the students need. And I feel like I'm not undermining the work any other committee does because I work on other committees too. But I feel like our district has a lot of talent talking about students, talking about
045teachers and administrators and supervisors. We have great talent and you know our our need of student success as I've seen in the last four years with the work being done in this committee is being met through the work that's being done. The the backbone of student successes the good programs you know everything else facilitates it. The budget budget supports it. Infrastructure supports it. policy, make sure things going. But the little, you know, the the the importance of the programs and the work that this committee does is um is is is priceless for the lack of a better word. So, thank you to all of you. I know we're missing Mrs. Russ today and Dr. Roselle, Dr. Don, Dr. Roselle. Um, I want to thank each one of you for the real hard work that I've
046seen you put in. Um, we've accomplished a lot. Um, a board member has two roles to play and I hope I have been able to play both of those well. I my bigger role is to bring what the community needs to you guys and I have been trying to do that for the last four years. The other role that I play is to see what you're doing to understand and to become that communicator, the leazison, the mediator with with the community to not just explain things the way they don't understand, but also to show and market the great programs that we're doing. And I've tried to be the voice of the district for that. And I hope that other board members will continue to, you know, keep on keep go going ahead with this great
047work. Um, good luck to everybody for the next year or so. Um, Charlie, go ahead. >> I I'd also like to thank you as a board member for your work and your effort that you put in. I really appreciate I'd like I really enjoyed working with you and I appreciate your leadership that you showed and uh thank you so much. Uh I know what it's like to work on that committee. I've been on seven of them. I know the amount of work. I know the amount of effort you put in it. It's just and it's it's a no thank job. >> It's a thankless job. >> It is. It really is. But service do it you do it in service and that's it. You said it in a nutshell. So, uh, thank you. >> Thank
048you very much. >> Much appreciated. >> Thank you everybody. Have a good night and happy holiday. >> Take care.