Monroe Twp BOE Curriculum, Co-Curricular, Athletics, Pupil Personel Committee 10.07.25

001Good evening everyone. Um this is our October curriculum co-curricular athletics and pupil personnel meeting. Um I have the entire administrative staff with me along with Mr. Zikner um and Miss Alvarez. I'm believe Miss Dupin is running a little late but we'll get started so that we don't fall short of time like always. Um the first item on the agenda today is and um the update by the athletics department along with Dr. Saski. So M uh Mr. Brando, you and Dr. Saski can take it away. Thank you. >> Sure. Thank you. Uh so we're going to talk about a couple things regarding mental health and athletics. Uh I wanted to throw just one stat at everyone. About one in every five high school athletes have experienced a diagnosible mental health disorder uh such as depression, anxiety,

002eating disorder or substance misuse. Um, so there are a lot of many contributing factors to this and one way to to help out is to invest in specific programs um that help out really with mental health literacy. So we're going to talk about um a couple of things that we're already doing more in-house uh with Dr. Sinsky and then I'll talk specifically about a program that that I would like the district to invest in. >> Okay. So last spring our student assistance counselor, Miss Bowski, uh ran a program through the counseling caucus and it wasn't the most well attended. So we were talking about different things that we could do to get more parents and students to hear a lot of these um you know programs and um understand the challenges or understand the you

003know the things that could go wrong with substances and mental health and different things. So in working with Mr. Barika. Um we were able to get a program together with one of the sachs, the student assistant counselor from Oldbridge and she made put together a program and we shared that with all the students in the fall. They came at the end of summer went into the performing arts center and went through this presentation. It was about 40 minutes long. Um but it was very wellreceived and um some of the things that they that they talked about the actual program is called playing it clean and uh talked about sports injuries and substance prevention. Many times students get injured and then they start to take medications to try to help with that. Um and sometimes it

004goes uh to the wrong direction. We talked about warning athletes the dangers of substance use and to ensure that they have safe and healthy season. And this is something that's going to happen again for the winter athletes, going to happen again for the spring athletes. Um discussed peer pressure, team culture, and then also shared all the different counseling um options that we have at the high school. Uh and the student assistance council on Miss Banowski's name. We shared shared that with the students. We're also going to be bringing this to the um Mr. Rambika as a parent program for each season also. So at that parent program, we're now going to be sharing not the same program from the like depth that we have with the students, but something similar, a shorter presentation to again

005give um the parents the information and and to understand. So, you know, it's a captive audience obviously with the athletics and um so and we have many many students that are involved with athletics. So, it's just a good place to get this information out there. So outside of this, u I did think it was important for us to maybe invest to have a resource for the student athletes throughout the entire season, not just something that happens just once. Um as you guys may know, sometimes the athletes are ready to have a conversation about what they're experiencing, but sometimes they're not. So I do think it's important for us to meet them where they're at. Um so there's a program called um it's an app-based program called Athlete Talk. um which is basically focuses on things

006like nutrition, anxiety, sleep, burnout, trauma, substance use, depression, relationships, and a host of other different things. Um the the app is pretty neat. I've been using like the um like a beta uh a beta app so far to kind of test it out. And essentially what it does is it gives the the athletes an opportunity to engage in things like journaling, uh do do listening to different audio resources that they have as well as take assessments in specific areas. Um and then we're able to use a dashboard that's that would be available to the district to kind of see how engaged the student athletes are. What are some of the things that they're you know that they're finding um most interest in you know throughout the app. Um and um we can also use it

007again different schools can do different types of things but through the dashboard we can also find a way to incentivize it to make sure that we kind of get rid of the stigma of you know that mental health may not be important you know or things of that nature. Um I think the plan would be to use it's it's only $500. Um, and right now we would be able to use title funds to fund that. Um, moving forward if it's something that we feel like um would be important and and beneficial to our student athletes, we can perhaps continue using title funds to to fund it. Um, and again, I would like to test it out in the winter and kind of see how much engagement we get. Um, through talking with the developers, they

008say that apps like this usually get anywhere from 2 to 5% engagement, but they found with their app that they get anywhere from 13 to 15%. But I would like to kind of just test it out and kind of see if it's a good resource that we can we can offer to our student athletes. Some of them may use this, some of them may not, but I think if we can reach to some students who may be in a situation where they need some help, you know, this would be something that would be beneficial. >> And our student, Miss Bonowski and Mr. Mary Dick and I look through the app and so she reviewed it, make sure there's prop like, you know, good good information for the correct population because I think some um different

009ages use it, right? I have a question. So, does it um how does it work? Like the students upload if they have a concern, if they're struggling with something and they get connected with someone or >> So, everything is is self-paced. So, the way that it works basically we would have a certain amount of subscriptions and the subscriptions would give the individual a username and a password. So, they're able to log in with that subscription into the account and basically they self-guide themselves through things that they may be interested in. So, we may have a student athlete, let's just say, who wants to deal with or is dealing with something and they want to, you know, read a little bit more about the stress or something like that, right? They can go in, they can

010journal on some of the questions they ask them in regards to that. It'll give them resources, you know, things to kind of do if they're they're feeling like that or things of that nature. And then from there, they can also take assessments and we would have access to it on the dashboard on the other end to make sure that we can see, you know, what are some of the things that that the students are looking at. Um, another thing that I thought would maybe be interesting is with our student assistance counselors, you know, if they perhaps see a student athlete, maybe we don't know, you know, from the athletic department, we don't know they're seeing a student athlete, and they know they're experienced with certain things. Maybe they can say, "Hey, I applied some of

011the resources that we have in house already for you to maybe um, you know, help to kind of deal with some of those things. But ideally, it's it's a it's a username and password that they would get that would allow them to access the system." >> And are there flags like if someone types something like suicidal ideation, there are flags? >> Correct. There will be flags. >> Yep. There will be flags and and we will be able to see everything from the dashboard end. >> So I have a few questions. First of all, I think this is definitely a a need that needs, you know, that needs attention. Um I'm assuming that we're already doing something within our school district, but it's probably not triggers uh is not tailored specifically for athletes, right? Is that

012what the purpose of this pilot is that you make some a program that's specifically for athletes? >> We obviously have counseling office and we have student assistance counselor and some of that unfortunately is is reactive. We see something that again is more proactive um and trying to give like meet the students student athletes in this case where where where they're comfortable which is on the phone like in an app. Um there's a chance maybe we c we could push it even further with not just athletes. Um right now like I said it started kind of the genesis of all of of these ideas started with that student assistance presentation last year and you know we had some some parents there but we we thought that we should have more and it wasn't getting out enough.

013So they were thinking about other ways to get you know get that information out there. Um so and you know Steve's been great with the you know letting us work with the athletes and I mean athletes are students oh obviously too so um and that's and then we can you know build upon this as we keep moving through. So initially this app was just for the students right is there going to be some sort of parent education on it when you would launch this in for the winter athletes would this be part of your winter presentation winter sport presentation >> so the winter sports presentation happens to be the same day that we have the board meeting but yes I think the ideally I would love to share with the parents you know um that

014this is something that we're looking into and we would like to have so that they're aware that their students obviously their sons and daughters also have access to an app like this you know from a resource standpoint. So all winter athletes will have the opportunity to download this app. >> Yes. >> And choice is theirs whether they want to use. >> Correct. I mean you can't force a student athlete necessarily to maybe look at something or maybe they may not be ready to discuss or to look at something but we can talk to the coaches about promoting it you know and and things like that. >> So I I want to go back to the statistic you shared. The adoption rate is usually 2 to 5%. >> I'm sorry. uh two to 5% you said

015and then you for this app is >> it's about around 13 to 15% according to the developers >> 13 to 15% according to the developers. >> Yeah. >> And again that the the function from a functionality standpoint it looks very similar to you know like an Instagram or like a Facebook. So it's very um you know from the standpoint of what it looks like. It looks like the apps that the students are already using. So I think it's it's you know they're used to using those type of things. So I think it it helps for them to be more interactive in that case because they're kind of used to those type of acts >> meeting them in a in an environment that they're comfortable used to and with athletes it's the the whole stigma of

016always acting and looking tough >> makes them hide these kind of things and thus the substance abuse it becomes you know they go from one extreme to the other and we reacted usually so I I agree that the need is big and while this grandfather that you know there's no better time to be prior than today. >> Yes. Sorry. I know. Um so let's assume that uh you you find a student that needs intervention. So where do we go from there? What happens next in in that unless I missed it? >> Yeah. >> Well, I mean if if like there is a back end to this so we would be able to see um who's doing what on these platforms on on this app. If there was a student that you know was going to

017certain places and that was maybe pro problematic or they um you know they started using this app and they started to realize that they have challenges. Every high school student has their own school counselor and then we have a student assistance counselor who deals with students with any um type of substance abuses or um in the more challenging cases of severe mental health. Um sometimes we can deal with it just here in-house with brief counseling and and work with the student, work with the parents, working with the teachers. Oftentimes we have to refer out for you know um mental health counseling also but we have plenty of you know services here that can support students. This is just another way because like was saying that oftent times students don't want to share these things and

018it's a matter of um we don't want to just be reactive. We want to be proactive. We, you know, the counselors meet with students all the time. They get referrals from teachers. They get referrals from maybe their friends will then say like look that this like my friends say these things online and then they, you know, we'll then talk with them that way. Um, so, you know, there's a lot of different ways that we find out, but then there are the supports here, you know, to to help them. this this can be uh extremely tricky in terms of how much information does a student want to put out there. >> Uh so I mean and I I I've heard what you just said and I agree with you 100%. Uh so in that particular situation

019what do you do? I mean sometimes you know a student uh doesn't want it out there and so at that point how do you deal with it? having to go to the student and and try and get the student to because you've already screen them, you know, that there's an issue there or a potential problem. >> I I would say, you know, at that point is also another tool that we have to perhaps be able to identify a student that may need help. I mean, if it wasn't for the app, let's just say in this case, we may not have known that this student athlete was experiencing something. So using the app and maybe to get identify a student who needs it can then allow us to then okay figure out how can we reach

020out to the student to make sure that we give them the supports that they may potentially need that we wouldn't have known you know perhaps we didn't have something like this but again sometimes you know I've dealt with athletes as as an athletic trainer before you have athletes who get hurt who deal with things that never say anything you know start taking perhaps pills for the pain and you know and then kind of it's a slippery slope from there um sometimes they don't want to talk to you sometimes you got to find a way to you know to reach them or sometime this, you know, maybe it was again this kid, it could be an actor, they're, you know, they're they're selecting things, taking an assessment, and now there's a red flag. And now on

021the back end from the dashboard, we can say, hey, you know, let's put ourselves together and figure out what we can do in order to support the student athlete at that time. You know, we have some information to perhaps be able to, you know, go out to them and reach out to them and try to see what we can we can do to help them. So if I could echo Charlie's concern, so I see a lot of value in this, but the whole fact that they're trying to stay tough and be tough because they don't want to lose any playing time, right? And for every athlete, coach shouldn't know what they're struggling with. Injuries are also like postponed and then they end up at the trainer and then they keep that facade of I'm fine,

022I'm coming back, right? So while I think this is definitely a great tool to be proactive and the coun counseling department is if my question would be coaches are not going to be involved in this or are they or when are they going to be involved in this? When are they going to be? >> Yeah. Are we going to keep the sanctity of this, you know, um the when the flags are observed, is it just the counseling department that deals with it or does the athlete feel like more people are going to find out? >> I think it's I think it's a case by case basis. You know, sometimes you have some things that are going on where again the student athlete is dealing with the counselors and maybe they're the only ones who know.

023I mean there's some sometimes things that I don't even know as the athletic director, you know, out of privacy for the student athlete and what they're experiencing and perhaps there may be some things that spread out into things that maybe the coaches do need to know. But I think those things would be handled on a case by case basis perhaps under the direction of their counselors and what they feel the student athlete you know may need at that time or what maybe they you know confide in with them about or you know how much information they want to get out. But again, I think the important thing, the important piece here is just to be able to identify a potential issue and be able to to be able to kind of act on that. >>

024And to go back with with Charlie, like there is confidentiality. You know, student is talking with a counselor. There's confidentiality. So, they won't be sharing it with a coach or a parent necessarily even. Um, but if there's any, you know, chance for them to harm themselves or anybody else, then confidentiality is broken. And that's something that all the counselors I know child study team does the same thing, right? um you know they let the students know that um ahead of time but also you know they do want to talk they they don't necessarily want to talk in a group like this or or with their teammates but once there there's that concern then um you know many of them do want to talk and if they have a relationship with their counselor or have relationship

025with a teacher or someone then there is there is that bridge I like I mean I think I agree with it because that it's a good struggle I think I think it's something we probably need but at the same time. There are pitfalls. >> Yeah. >> That and I'm glad you recognize those pitfall because I think there's always issues. No matter what program you put on, you got to look for what some of the how do you deal with them and so and and I think you have a pretty good handle on them. So, thank you so much. >> So, there's great value. My last question to you is once this winter athletes have you know piloted with this um does the title fund cover for the next season or what is our plan for

026future if we see success in this? >> Yeah. So I would say again the subscription that we would pay right now I believe covers us for the year. So we could actually use it in the winter and the spring as well. Um I can always double check that with them but again I would want to reevaluate regardless at the end of the winter kind of see how you know how successful it was before we roll it out with any other teams. And if I'm not mistaken, we would just resubmit next year with title fund for next year if it's something we would like to keep. >> So with title funds, we annually get our aotments and then we uh come together and identify programs or needs and areas and that's how we kind of distribute

027and allocate uh the type title fund that we're speaking about. >> And and if we like the idea but maybe this app isn't the one that works best for us, I'd be more than glad to go out and look for something else that helps. So yeah, we don't we don't have to stick with this necessarily. >> Sorry, I like one more question. any other school districts around us that have experimented with this? >> Not that I know specifically, but I know there are a lot of a lot of different schools do different types of things. Like I know um Red Bank Regional, I believe it is, they have um people come in all the time to do specific types of talks. Um so again, I I know this is kind of new, the app based

028um and the the developers said it themselves. A lot of colleges use it, but it's kind of starting to drip down into the high school. >> So we early adopters, so good luck. >> Excellent. Any other questions? >> Not regarding this, but can I ask Mr. Barona a question? >> Oh, absolutely. Okay, if you don't mind, Mr. Baron, I'm glad I caught you here. I was at Middle Sex County School Board's meeting last week and two attorneys were there and they were talking about the um spectator conduct policy and I don't know, do you know about I know we've I miss Alvarez. Did they have to sign a form? Uh, okay. So that kept on all the u because the one coach the one coach I'm sorry the one lawyer said >> if NJSIAA comes

029to one of your events and looks and that coach doesn't have the form that's supposed to be signed but then you could you could actually forfeit the game. So I just wanted to make sure we were able to we have our forms. >> So the spectator code of conduct policy which started at the beginning of this year we approved it last year. Okay. We actually posted it out at the beginning of the year through Genesis so that all of our parents sign it, not just the high school parents, just to make sure we're covered. Even >> that I wanted to make sure because when they said NJSIA, you can come and actually stop the me for the game if you didn't have the correct forms. I wanted to make sure that we open. We're good.

030>> Okay. Thank you. >> Yep. No problem. >> Excellent. Thank you so much. >> I was just going to say that I'm going to go to the college fair now. We have 70 colleges and that are here. >> There's also a financial aid presentation. So, That's great. >> Good luck with that. Thank you. So, since we have just brief program documents, I'm going to reverse the order today and maybe go to summer programming next. Mr. Malda, did I surprise you? >> No. >> Always prepared. >> So, uh this Thank you. Uh good evening everyone. This evening uh uh we have decided to report out our our summer recap will be in two parts. Uh the first part will be talking about our high school offerings this summer and then maybe next month or a little

031later on depending on the agendas fill out we'll recap our enrichment component which services prek would be free learners. Uh but the high school offering over the summer this year was both programs were brand new to our district. First being our Nths summer advancement program which was the first advancement program of its kind modeled in response to the participation that we had observed historically regarding our students pursuing out of district opportunities to advance in uh mathematics and uh math our math sequence and and Miss Gasco is here to correct me when I misspe um is is probably our our most uh codified structure as far as sequencing and and ensuring access is appropriate and it all begins with the accelerated math program at the elementary level. And what we were finding was is that if

032students were able to successfully progress through program accords with our very explicitly detailed expectations, uh they may find themselves in a position to go and obtain uh a math course over the summer to ensure that they could access uh some of the most rigorous courses offered at the high school level. Um once we observed that many of these uh students were going out of district and in many cases being instructed by Monroe teachers at those out of district sites uh we realized that it was appropriate after some careful consideration of examining our programs of studies uh that we could offer this opportunity here at the high school. And so Miss Gaspo and I got to work on it right around uh January February of last year and we were able to roll it out with

033a high degree of success. um our geometry program and our honors geometry programs which were offered over the summer uh were both um fully populated. Anybody that met our criteria and wanted access got in. Um we were priced lower than every single one of our competitors in the regional area. So, not only did we offer a localized and what we believe to be a superior product, it was also more affordable. Uh, and we're going to avoid speaking specifics about data because uh, we're very careful about reporting data because in some instances when the data is very skewed one way, you can identify individuals on the latter part of that data set. If you'd like, I can explain what I mean by that offline. Um, but uh, the generalized uh, sentiment from Miss Gasco, myself and

034and team here at the high school was that the program was an overwhelming success. Our teachers, our two teachers did a fantastic job and we spoke about this at the committee. um you know this was 5 hours of traditional direct instruction um which both of those teachers had never done before. I remember we teaching the 84minute block here every other day and uh the students the one thing we were concerned about right was the attendance and and getting students here on site every day on time and the students met the challenge and we but we were very clear with them that the attendance and the time served in the seat was very important as was the uh the performance and our students did very well uh and we couldn't be uh more pleased and our

035timeline worked out nicely to where we were able to report the data out to our guidance department to get those kids scheduled appropriately because the students that successfully earned the credit were then able to advance to algebra 2 and our counselor had plenty of headway to make sure that they were scheduled there appropriately. Um, I have to give credit Miss Gasco, not to put her on the spot, but I would often joke about how strict she was with her, and I'm a pushover admittedly when it comes to that stuff, but uh, Miss Gasco held pulls a hard line with admissions, and I think the proof is in as in beta. Uh, we historically do very, very well in our math assessments and, uh, and charting this unknown territory with teachers that did not have a

036lot of experience doing this type of instruction. They answered the bell and delivered it. And even in some instances, they covered for each other and the students were great. They uh we had one child, I don't want to blow up the spot, but we didn't think he was going to make it because he had a soccer injury and he showed up the next day because that's how seriously they took the program. And uh and we think we've got some good feedback that we can look at to see what we want to do next. Um, as far as next summer, uh, we have not made any, uh, definitive decisions on what next summer's program offerings would look like, but we can offer the community, uh, the knowledge that when we decide what programs will be offered,

037um, we will give that we will make those announcements with plenty of time so they can make their scheduling decisions next quarter. So what I mean by that is if we are going to let's say offer geometry again uh the public would have plenty of knowledge and so they can have that discussion with their guidance counselors and evaluate the math criteria to get that make a decision for them because we know that that's an important aspect of of being able to make these decisions over the summer. Uh and Dr. Sansky and his team offered some feedback. Um, but we're pretty pleased and I don't know, Miss Sc, if you want to add anything to that or >> Um, we work very closely with Kevin. So much that Mald is probably tired of hearing from me.

038>> But, um, yes. No, it was um, >> and what would battles? >> We we wanted to make sure that there was transparency and all of the expectations and what was going to happen, including the attendance policy on top of it, because the attendance being there in person is really what made made it work. And so we, you know, we worked together, we worked with Dr. Higgins and we were trying to mirror the attendance as to what would be a late, what would be an absence, what was acceptable, what was not. Um, and the students I we did not have a student drop out because of it. So, um, we also the teachers were extremely good in communicating with us as well as with the parents if they started to see a student that was

039late a couple times or they started seeing an absence. So there was no surprises by anybody and it was all done in a very nurturing way. You know, just remember you have to be here. Um it really truly allowed for a great deal of success through the winter because we knew it was going to be very successful. There was no room to drop or move to a different level. So what was happening is when we went through and if they signed up for an honors and I felt that it might be overwhelming to them just like in the outside programs, they were allowed to take the course if they want to. We didn't say you couldn't take it, but I did have a few conversations with parents and say, "You might want to rethink this.

040I still have openings in both sections. Once it gets closed out, it's not going to be something you do." And so, um, the success rate, while, like you said, because it was so extremely successful, um, you know, we don't want to give you exact numbers because it would it would not everybody 100% made it through, but far more successful than anything I've had in the past. So, I've always felt it's been successful in the past as well. Um, I would encourage parents that are looking for next year not to be looking now because I've already gotten a few emails. We are not ready not ready to sign up. It's only it's only the beginning of October, but it will come out and they will be notified that they do seriously think of the level and

041make sure that they look at the program of studies and they see what's appropriate and they can speak to me, they can speak to their guidance counselor um because the ones that were had the greatest amount of success were the ones that were in the levels that were appropriate to them. Um, when I talk to other schools, geography is by far the most popular one to take over the summer. And I think it's a good time. Um, generally it typically seems to be after 9th grade when they're taking it. Um, they're not involved in necessarily doing um outside volunteer work and things like that. They're trying to build for for their college applications. It's a good time to do it. Um, the algebra 2 is a much less um demand for that. And so I

042don't know that's something that we would offer because there's not too many students that ask for that. they can still go outside and take that going through. Um, but that's a much harder course to do because you need that to go onto the higher level classes going through. Um, but the geometry itself was a huge huge hit, a huge success and I think the students enjoyed being >> I just want to outline a few facts about this just for people who are listening. We offered honors geometry and regular geometry >> for students that had finished freshman year and wanted to just move up in level in mathematics by >> and I'm very intrigued by both of you insisting on not staring the number which just kind of puts the number really up there in my

043head. >> It was it was it was I mean I was thrilled absolutely thrilled. So we had two teachers teaching and we were able to handle two subjects and what we accomplished was 180 days of instruction in 60 days with LA and it was very rigorous. So they they it was they had the pacing set down ahead of time. Um they mirrored a lot of what gets done not as necessarily as much practice as you would get in 180 days. Um, and in our high school it's over 90 days because it's the every other day schedule. But it's very compact and to learn and retain and then to be able to transfer that to other questions because it's not, you know, especially the honor level. It's not a mirror of exactly what you did. It's

044the concepts is not an easy feat. >> And your assessment schedule was relentless. >> It was >> um, >> which also is why the attendance was so important because you can't get behind. Once you get behind it spirals and when students have not done well and and we did not experience this in our program because we really were very very tight about the attendance and explaining why um sometimes when the attendance is not there with others the grades will be very very low and then it's what's the point you know you don't want to waste your money going there but I was very right >> and looking ahead and I'll open up to other you know other people's questions looking ahead I want to understand and I know I'm not taking a commitment for what's

045coming. But are we looking to go, you know, into higher levels and we would need more staffing? Is is that what the plan is? Might not happen next year. It may happen two years later. >> So I don't want to talk with Liz and Rob, but in terms of for the math, um I can say we are not yet at the point of having the conversations of exactly what would be offered for next year, but um our hope is that we would continue and expand. how we expand is something that we have to talk about as a whole team because it's not really just about math. It's really about the whole school as a whole um to see where would be a best fit. >> So expansion is two ways in my head. One is

046you're increasing your class size. The other is you're offering more subject um from what I understood anybody that met the criteria was able to take and wanted to take it was able to take it this >> so we did it on a first come first- serve basis. Um and it filmed it very quickly which was nice for me because then I kind of knew who was in it and then if students if if parents were allowed to drop out if plans changed or they had vacation plans. Um so as I monitored that very very closely going through the nice thing about the way the application went because it was timestamped. Um I I literally in the beginning I was looking at it every single day but if I missed it a day or or I

047got students that that decided to apply on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday and I started looking at it Sunday afternoon it was very much timestamped so you know exactly who put in at what time going through. Um it just worked out beautifully for us that we did not have to say no to anybody but we did not go over the capacity of what we said we had. I think the only instance was there was a child that tried to get in like the day before the class started and they just couldn't >> there was and there it was filled at that point. Right. Right. And so but the far major we put this out mid January. >> We started talking about it right around January and I think we opened the registration like right around >>

048and we also sent a notice out to all parents that it was this was not something that was a surprise. a notice went out through Blackboard that it was open for anybody that was, you know, of that that level to >> what did we charge for um the students? >> Was it different for either of the subject or the same? Honestly, >> 1750. >> It was 1750. Um so unlike some of the other outside programs, some of the outside programs have the honors be more time and more money. >> Um but that's from my understanding. um some of the ones that I'm thinking of in particular. Um a lot of it was more I think just time to kind of work on problems and more independent time. We kept it the same. It was the

049same price. There was no more there was no more contact time but the idea is that if you felt that you were ready for the honors you should be able to do it in that time and not need more time and it was extremely successful. So um I like I said I was I was >> happy ear to ear. >> Do you want to explain why we don't give the numbers because I feel like I didn't do it the right way. So in terms of vision about what this looks like going forward, there's a couple things to consider. We recognize that so it's 120 hours for credit advancements. The time commitment involved over the summer is a significant chunk. So we've kind of recognized that the pool of students that are potentially interested in making

050that commitment is a relatively fixed, you know, pool. So in our consideration of what this looks like in terms of expanding we may if we add something we may pull from say the geometry rule that would have existed right so it's a careful consideration about what and where and how we kind of expand a little bit. So that's one of the big factors we're going to look into is, you know, we're going to run four classes but have the same enrollment as if we had the two geometry and that's fine, but we just want to have that as part of our radar, right? Because many of the courses are grade level specific or fall in sequence in certain grade levels. But all there are also courses that are maybe elective based or something like that

051that could hit a broader range of students that again may open up something other than between freshman sophomore year but again there are a lot of things and it's a massive time commitment. So we're going to be thoughtful in the way we look at it. we're going to overlay it on the course of studies, work at the high school to see, >> you know, maybe there are core sequences in place at the high school that it's a challenge to get certain courses in the natural core sequence that the students have and this would be an opportunity for them to out take this course that they wouldn't necessarily traditionally be able to have access to. So there's a lot involved in um but we can overwhelmingly commit to not commit to but say that the geometry

052and honor geometry courses were the right courses to start this with >> because we knew there was a demand. We knew based on historical uh interest that there was an interest um and a lot of people willing to make that commitment over the summer to our external uh school that were already doing this. Um, in terms of numbers, when you when the numbers are in this case so positive, if we were to share it, there's probably a student or two that would be able to identify themselves as >> I do >> being these people, right? So, um, that's the only and do the same thing with all it's called certain number data set pool that we would >> so it's overwhelmingly successful. You may recall like when we report AP data, if there's an exam

053that has less than five participants, we generally don't report that because because these meetings, as we know, are still very public. >> It would be very easy to identify outcomes to an individual. So that's kind of what we're not being facicious in it by we're just trying to protect students. >> And Dr. Le, I I totally understand everything that you just said and I also agree with it and you know how passionate I've been about bringing it into Monroe. It's a revenue source. So, I'm thrilled that we had this great, you know, uh, result this summer and my only ask and hope would be that it only continues to expand at whatever level you guys, it's just it we've we've, you know, we've touched taste of blood like they say. >> We sure have the

054uh, so just to follow up on what Dr. Layman had, he explained perfectly. So, where we're at now is, and Dr. Fernansky just left. So, Dr. Dr. Fernans will pull now worth requests for for us and we can identify student requests that maybe they were not put like in the electives the arts perhaps some of these uh answer like you know I think about this the cyber security course which doesn't fit currently into any track and it doesn't fit into anymies but you know that may be something that someone wants to round off I'm just using an example but someone may wanted to round off their transcript so we look at that we look at the arts that may not necessarily be acceptable someone may on our quest over the summer that we don't know

055yet. So, we're going to be looking at that kind of data, but then we also look in the park classes to see what we can do to support what they're doing. Um, you brought up revenue and it's a terrific uh segue unless anyone has any more questions about this. >> Any questions on the map enrichment, >> right? So, we mentioned we charge 1750 per student and we did pretty well as far as as as meeting our mark. So, where does that money go? Uh well obviously we have to pay for our teachers and fortunately this math class class did not carry a significant overhead because our curriculum our materials are staff. We just have to pay them their their their contractually guaranteed wages. So with this revenue uh we knew that the district simultaneously had

056another pressing need which was a way to address our summer uh remediation efforts. And right around this time last year uh Dr. Roselle had set me up uh with a rep at the school board's uh conference in Atlantic City that offered a service that specialized in meeting unique district needs particularly in large diverse dynamic districts like this that had a lot of nuanced needs. Um and through uh Dr. After work with the ESL uh her ELLL program and other various spin-offs from that uh we thought that there might be a solution to our summer school problem because what we were seeing is that the summer school that we offered here which we believe to be superior for the same reasons we wanted our advancement program here students weren't coming here. They were going elsewhere because

057there was an online option that was much more convenient that met their needs and quite frankly was a lot easier. And it was the general consensus of our team that was not necessarily the most um effective way to reclaim learning that may have been you know come up short in the in the last hour of the school year. So um we did a little research and uh spinning off the success that we had observed from Dr. Rosselle's inquiry uh we thought it might be a fit for uh what we called our virtual plus summer school. So, um, similar to our advancement program, overwhelmingly success, uh, uh, passing rates, and if there was no success, it was just simply because we never got off the ground, uh, with with some of those individuals. Um, as far

058as our objectives, which was to reclaim those summer learners back into the district, uh, in 2000, uh, in 2024, we had nine stu, I'm sorry, seven students do our summer school. This past year with the new program and the new model we had 76. Um so uh that was significant increase >> 76. So an increase of 68 students in 2004. Um strike that that was an increase. I'm sorry about that eight. >> But the um but uh so anyway the difference was is that yes it was online but every week we offered an option for the students to come in and meet with their teachers. We called the embedded support. few students uh took us up on that on that, but the ones that came in definitely benefited and those are the ones that we

059we really helped. Um we really kind of hit a groove about halfway that summer program function and we got some terrific feedback on how we can we can improve it. The difference between our virtual plus program and the other online summer school programs that take place throughout the state is that our district controls the content and we control the pacing and we can offer the students a support that otherwise doesn't exist with third party services. Um on top of that we had the technical support of the uh egenuity service um which uh I'll be completely honest and I don't want to ruin any negotiation position. They were fantastic in their customer service and their responsiveness and even their reportability um with what they offered us and their flexibility along the way. Um on top of

060that, uh he's right back there over there. Allan sat with us pretty much the entire beginning of the summer to make sure that our tech was working along with our other staff. We had about I want to say 13 high school teachers that were assigned about on average about 20 students each sometimes outside their content area sometimes within but it didn't matter because the teachers that we hired were there to provide support and to help the students connect with the content to get them because the content and the assessments and all of the uh instructional materials were already in place already stayed aligned. in some instances um in conversations with the teachers, our teacher would find out that the curriculum offered by the service wasn't necessarily in line with what we were doing here. So,

061I'll give one example where our physics teacher went in there and made a quick change to the curriculum within the engineering system to make sure it was even closer to what we were doing here in Monroe. And that was the kind of personalization that we were looking for to ensure that these children that were in the science classes this year when they come back in September did a mistake. Um, we had 17 different courses which was up 11 from 2024. That's right. The sixth number. We only offered six courses in 2024. Uh, this year we offer 17. >> Um, >> I'm sorry. What was that number? >> 17 courses. >> Yes sir. Um, and that's across all content areas, world language, uh, all the math and, uh, the sciences and everything like that. Um so

062uh so we used the revenue from the advancement program to fund this pilot and it came at no increased expense to the district and that includes all uh software installation, staff training and hiring for development. Um, so it was a complete uh not only did we um will we claim victory on the uh high school advancement program, we will uh claim victory on the summer school and we will claim victory in the business office because we didn't ask them person. Uh and we think we have a framework that we can use to improve. Dr. Sansky and his counselors already gave us pages of feedback for how we can improve from an operational standpoint to better help them uh to make sure that they can help the learners better. Um, we hope to get information out

063about this virtual plus summer school to the public sooner so they know that this is the best option for them in summer. Uh, we're also going to be exploring the 120 hour option which is something that we've never done before for next summer. So that would be for uh students that need a full reclamation of the course. Uh, Dr. Stevens now and Dr. will talk about that in the coming weeks. Um any change that we will make for the summer will be announced publicly well in front of the program of studies discussion at the high school. So what we'll be doing over the next couple weeks uh as we prepare for budgeting and program of studies updates uh we'll talk with our departments about anything that we think we can offer over the summer that

064there's a need for and then we'll talk as a team Dr. and I discussed today that at one of our upcoming K12 supervisor meetings, we will even discuss how we would like to approach examining the egenuity units uh for the school of seeds. There's further changes we'd like to make to marry it up to our career even more so uh I this is going a little bit longer than I originally intended. I did want to give Dr. Rosel an opportunity because while we were doing this um really in partnership with them but along separately Dr. Reload is running a pilot with YL through the system. Correct. >> Yeah, sure. Just very briefly, um I leverage title three funds which are um it's federal funding for our multilingual learners um and leverage that to provide credit

065recovery and I actually um did run um a 120 hour a full credit completion course um for for a student as well. Um again, I'm not going to talk numbers because those numbers are lower. Um, but we had an incredible success rate. The only students who were not successful in the courses were the students who had never logged on. Um, I was able to have one of our Spanish speaking staff members on site every single day for a student um for students. they could come in person or she was setting up Teams meetings um or Google Meet Meetings to meet virtually with students who didn't have the transportation to be able to get here um on a weekly basis. Um that staff member was also communicating out with families in their first language um so

066that that communication was ongoing with parents or guardians as well. Um, and we had, like I said, incredible success um, with that as well. And I I hope to um, well, ideally I hope to not need that program, right? >> U, but we can build off of that success. Um, that worked out really well. Um, and was a fantastic use of that federal funding as well. Great. >> Congratulations. This is I I I remember how 11th hour this was that we were literally all was finalized for summer and then you came in and you said we could use this and you said we're going to go virtual. We went up from 7 to 76 students and we met them you know we and and the fact that it was paid for through the other program.

067My only question is in the past we have charged for remediation. What's our future plan? This year this is how it worked out which is great. It was a pilot. We did charge a small fee. Um >> but are we going to change that? >> Uh so we the goal is to not is to charge as little as possible. Um and that has always been when it comes to these febased programs the district is not uh this these programs are not designed to derive a profit. Um >> cover cost as well. >> Cover cost. So, so it, so for example, sadly this year, um, for our after school club code, which is just began today, actually, we had to, uh, regrettably increase our price by $15. That was the first time we raised the price.

068And that was that was something that we had put off and it just happens to be we need to reup on supplies. You know, teacher contract doesn't change, but just the cost of loss supplies. But we as we head into budget philosophy um there are a couple things that we need to consider if uh these programs are going to be embedded into our district indefinitely. Um it probably would not be a responsible or prudent decision to uh have these programs rely solely on revenue generated through feebased programs. And the reason for that is what if there's a recession or if there's some sort of thing where that revenue shortfalls. So what we have to decide as a district to is as to whether or not we can or want to or see even feasible to

069embed these types of programs into our annual budget and done. Um and and we could figure out ways to do that and supplement it with with revenues. Um as for how we go about charging the price, um if there is an ability to reduce the price and cover our costs, we will do that. Uh we've done that uh over the summer for some of our robotics programs. We stood the price back on certain years. On certain years we we we've actually slid it back on music uh a couple times. The uh we slid it back on publisher um from the previous uh I can't commit to that right now. We don't you know we have to enter to negotiations for venuity again and uh you know I obviously there we have to take a look

070at what happens to future negotiations down the road as well. Um but the idea would always be to offer our consumer or in this case our student the lowest possible price um without railroading our effort for never having >> Yeah. And I want to emphasize what I was saying was that when we were doing the traditional approach our cost was pretty high for that >> and we were still incurring a loss at that rate >> even at that and we weren't even we weren't interesting the students enough for the success success rate. this the cost is exponentially less in this and all we need to do is ensure we recover cost which is the cost of the program and our teachers. So while I don't disagree with you in the the you know the philosophy

071>> for embedding it in the budget but we don't want to lose the program just because we have to look for areas to cut down our budget. So if we can >> No, no. And what I meant by that is I would just hate to say, "Hey, uh, we're running this uh, this summer school program." And then go to Miss Allen and say, "Hey, I got a $30,000 shortfall here to pay my staff. >> What do you got for me?" >> So, but that that's something I we don't ever want to be in a situation like that. So, as we grow, I want to be mindful of the institutional sustainability of such growth. >> Any questions for Mr. Maldo? No, I I just think that you guys have really put together one done my program.

072I must tell you I I ran programs and I I must tell you in the summer and the programs you were putting together and running are unbelievable. Thank you. >> And it's great to see these kinds of students. I think you have a very clear vision in terms of what you where you want to go and I think you also have a vision in terms of you know in terms of the reality of possibilities where there could be some dollars that may not be available and I think you're considering that too and I think that's very similar. >> Thank you. Yeah. And and that and that's where Dr. blame him. He he often grounds us with the you know we have to be mindful of that because it'd be very easy to say oh let's

073do a you know if we rolled out a a cow class over the summer it would sell out in the second right but what that does there there are there are ripple effects to that that could really undermine our ability to operate as an organization servicing students with what they need and it's not always just about putting a shiny product out there and seeing who comes because they will come know that we can we could put anything out there and say it's going to get come and also it's important for us we're going to grow sustain that the customer has to have a high degree of satisfaction. >> Best job. Thank you. >> Great job. >> And congratulations to all those involved, all the teachers, the 17 staff members plus the two for the en

074enrichment for the successful summer program. Does that conclude your uh update, Mr. >> Yes. And we'll uh we'll talk about uh elementary and middle school or elementary >> admin. Uh Dr. Could we move into the NPSS? >> Short review and MA. >> Yep. Well, it's actually going to be Dr. Roselle and Mrs. Mloud and it gets so um this time of year we want to kind of cycle back to something that's on our strategic plan that we've been growing and building for a couple years and kind of cycle back ground ourselves in uh some of the progress we've made, some of the updates we have. And uh Dr. Roselle, you want to kick it off? Um you guys have a few notes and things that you can follow along. >> All right. Um so our

075MTSS program multi-tiered systems of support services all students. Um we have made improvements to this process over the past uh several years. uh that included professional learning for our school administrators, for our interventionists, for us as a curriculum and instruction team as well. And a lot of the work that we have done has sought to really build a culture of data um to improve our data literacy, our student data literacy to make data and evidencebased decisions um and to ensure compliance compliance with um federal regulations, compliance with our uh New Jersey tiered systems of support and IRS um mandates. needs as well. Um, our MTSS teams exist in all eight of our schools. Um, they consist of building level administrators, uh, school counselors, um, in some cases school nurses, a member of child study team,

076um, interventionists, uh, and often in consultation with the general education classroom teachers. Um, so these are teams that meet at least three times a year. um they meet after students are assessed using MAP uh which is our universal screener. So we screen all of our students not only in literacy but also in math three times a year fall, winter and spring. And we have a very succinct data protocol where we are looking at the performance of all students to make sure that they are meeting adequate progress. Um if they are not, we then look at secondary and tertiary me uh measures of data to see, okay, was the MAP score a oneoff, but they're performing well in class and and other um their NJSLA scores are okay, the teacher doesn't have any concerns, or are

077there multiple indicators that a student um is in need of either tier 2 or tier three intervention? Um so we have that pathway that our MTSS teams look at um through the universal screener data. Um our MTSS teams will also look at what we call a request for assistance from classroom teachers. Um in some cases school counselors um I'm on slide five uh just in case you're um if you're following along. Um, and this is where a student may not have been flagged by our universal screener, but a teacher has concerns. Um, they will complete a request for assistance. They will track student data for a period of anywhere between two, four, six weeks. Uh, and they will go back to that MTSS team who will make recommendations for supporting that student as well. Um,

078so we really kind of have that topdown piece with the universal screener and then we have that um that bottom up piece for uh any students who again weren't maybe flagged by that academic screener but the teacher may have some concerns. Um within a multi-tered system of support we will refer to three tiers. Tier one is everyone that is all of our students everyone. Um, we are leveraging evidence-based instructional strategies. We have a high level of differentiated instruction. Um, and our MTSS teams have really done a great job of distinguishing a child who's struggling a little bit with grade level content and a student who is in need of intervention. They have fallen significantly below that grade level. Um and that is our that is our tier one. Tier one is everyone. Um tier two

079is that targeted support. Um so a student who is flagged by that universal screener we are looking at providing additional support an increase in intensity. Um maybe two to three times a week at tier 2. That could be in math, it could be in literacy. um and very targeted instruction. It might happen in a pushin or a pullout setting. Tier two um the research suggests that anywhere between five and 15% of students may need tier 2 support. So when we look at school-based data or we look at our district data, we want to make sure that the students identified for tier 2 are falling bel within that threshold. um ideally far below that. And then we have tier three uh which is much more intensive intervention. An interventionist may work with students four to five

080times a week um pulling out in very small group or one-on-one settings. Um supplemental programs uh may be leveraged in in tier three and this is a very small group of students. This is one to five% of students. Um and in all tiers of instruction, we are looking for growth. Um but particularly at at tier 2 and tier three, we want to monitor that that intervention um is meeting the needs of that student and we are seeing growth. Um and we do that through a very robust progress monitoring system uh through um link. Linkit is a data management system um that Mrs. Mloud and I um and I think uh Miss Truss, Miss Gasco, we could not live without at this point um because so much of our data is in there and we are

081able to leverage the data in so many ways. >> It's still crowdfunded, right? The link, it's still crowdfunded. Yeah. Um so linkit is is not only where we house our universal screener data. It is also where our interventionists are going to identify the specific goals for our students receiving intervention. They are completing intervention plans. Um they're leveraging um linkit during MTSS meetings to look at student historical data and things of that nature. Um so we have again linkit houses our our macro data all the way down to our individual um student data through that um that student hub. Um and I am going to kick it to Miss Mloud because I talked way too much. Um but I'm going to let her do some of the bragging and the success stories that we have experienced

082um as a result of of our MTSS. You took the you took the hard work of explaining everything and then you're giving her the >> opportunity to brag. >> Either one of us could do this blindfolded at this point. >> Yeah, this has been a journey. Um, and when this initially came in, we divided and we conquered. And while we all worked together, Miss Raldan and I tackled elementary because we really wanted to make sure everyone all of our student population was covered. And Dr. Roselle and Miss Desco and and and Mistrust and everyone else. I mean, we've we've really worked together to build such a nice um platform here. >> So, I just want to clarify before we like brag about everybody. Um, this is happening in a gened setting prior to any student

083being classified because we want to intervene before potentially a student needs services. And we always had an RTI process in place. It was called RTI. Now we have MTSS because now we've brought in behavior which you've heard from athletes to everything else where this has become a really important piece to address as well as academics because they go hand in hand. Um so everyone is now a part of this process and link it I will tell you while at first we were all intimidated this has actually been it's an integral part and now our entire staff for the first time and I've been here a very long time we're really speaking to date where I will have teachers emailing me saying hey my math scores are in can we review them can we go over

084them I have tier ones that are are high-flying now and I need to know how to address them and I have struggling learners. we need to know how to address them and the teachers have become more proficient due to you the utilization of this tool um which is really embedded in all of this um as as a process and again our tier one is everyone and our classroom teachers have stepped up the programs and curriculums that have been put in place now provide the the all of the teachers with the resources they need to address our tier one students along with our special education students students, our ELELLL students, and any other type of learner that we have, our gifted learners. We have a very unique um situation that we are addressing this year, and

085we're excited to share that with you as well. Uh outside of of this presentation, but they're being addressed also in this process. Again, tier two is pull out cushion. And again, we just again trained our interventionists. They're reading data now at a rate that we've never seen before. And so all of the tools that we paid for and that we brought in um map fluency, our interventionists can pull that data and read it in a way that they know immediately what supports the student needs, whether they need to be a push-in service, a full out service. Um and our guidance counselors right behind them are being trained also to address the behavioral issues uh that are arising and that is also housed in link. Um, and then we move to tier three. Like you said,

086our data shows that all of these tiers, the numbers that we started with are now coming down because we strengthen tier one in the process. And now that tier one is strong, we see less students moving to tier 2 and to tier three, which results in hopefully less classifications of students in the in the long run. Um, but again, link it. And I don't know that this would mean anything to you in some of the the verbiage here, but our interventionists are using it to house the plans for all of our students who need an intervention. Our tier one teachers are even using it. So, you'll see here tier one checklist. We started off with over I think 200 tier one checklists because everyone was like, "Oh, I need to track that everything that this

087student is doing and they're possibly struggling." We ended up knowing that they weren't struggling that it was a tier one issue where a teacher would swoop in and intervene. If they didn't succeed though with that intervention, then it moves to what you'll see here in RFA. And we noticed that from let's say two I believe it was 200 plus um tier one checklists only 60 were moved through as an RFA which is unbelievable because the teachers are now realizing that they work the magic. >> Would you repeat that? What did he >> It was 200 plus initially and that was year one uh tier one checklist where they start tracking and they chart behaviors and what they're doing in the classroom. Okay. >> Thinking the student needed intervention. >> The teacher swooped in, provided that

088intervention and realized they didn't need to go any further. So only 60 of those and this is district only 60 moved to RFA which then flags the team and the team will swoop in and assess that student. Um, so we've really had success with this. Um, data locker is another amazing tool that we're using from kindergarten all the way up to grade five, middle and high school. I'm not yet there. Okay. Well, they have a grade book. That is why. Um, K to five. All of our assessment data in math and ELA are being housed in here. So, when we move to an MCSS meeting, we open it up. The assessments are there. we can see what the child's doing or not doing and we can decide based off of historic data which is housed

089there what's really going on with this student. Um so it's it's really a tool that's very very valuable in this process and really I I can't I can't explain how much work we've put into this over the course of three to four years. all of us um we've called each other upset at some points and then once we see the successes we all celebrate um but but it is really it's become a great uh process and tool >> and it's so integral I I can't overstate how integral MTSS is into all decision making that we do as well so from looking at specific units of study looking at um the professional learning that our staff may need. Um the professional learning that's been brought in um for Matt is was a direct result of our

090MTSS program. The um same thing in literacy. Um the work that we're doing is all targeted and is all emanating from um this process. Uh we continue to make tweaks. We look at our data. We look at our protocols. We look at any updates from the state. um it is always going to to continue to evolve and to continue to grow. Um but it's underpinning everything that we're doing. Um and we're really seeing the success from it. I I don't have any questions, but I do have comments. Um I'm going to start by saying I think it was Dr. Layman who first explained it to us about a year and a half ago ago. I had not heard of MTSS before that and I started to see the number difference we were making just in

091our financials. Like to your point, less people getting classified, we're probably able to preemptively identify and address solutions so that we don't have to send some of our children out of the district because we, you know, we caught on earlier. Those were the advantages that I had been seeing in the last year through various conversations. But what stands out to me here is data culture. I you know me and I it's one thing to do something on a whim or I think or I feel and the other to have the flags staring at you through all of these data lockers and link it and to have the entire team on it and not just two people who are watching the data is honestly it I'm going to be walking out of cloud nine today saying

092that I we have best team here that can if we've gotten data culture into this team, the supervisory team. It's a game changer. So >> that's actually the feedback we got the I think I feel when we had RTI was what what we did, right? We would go in and say I think the student needs some help, right? And we were used to doing that and at first that very first year it was like we're going to look at all of this and now it's second nature. They come out, they've got all this data in front of them >> and really it's housed in here now. We have no more spreadsheets and there's no more. I think I feel it's it shows Joey performed this way on the assessments and look at all of the

093historic data and now we know exactly where to place the student and we target right >> before you would have known otherwise right because linking it all like the truth is linking it all together in one place. But the beauty is everyone has really stepped up and we've strengthened our interventionists or even our classroom teachers at this point for the most part when we go in they know what they know what the issue is. They target they use the tools we provide and they collect the data. So the students are really really progressing and thriving >> all grade levels or are we focusing on the elementary initiative? >> I'm very K5 but middle and high school. it it just looks a little different because of the structure of the school. >> Six through eight look

094nearly identical to Kada 5. Um so there will be MTSF meetings actually this week um at the middle school. They're grade level teams um because that's how we do it at the middle school and again identical process. Um, at the high school we're a little different because we are credit bearing and we have to be cognizant of, you know, a pullout intervention can impact earning credit for a student who may already be at risk. Um, so pushin sections in grade nine. Um, really trying to focus on grade nine. Um, and then grades 10 and 11 and 12 look a little bit different. Um, but we absolutely have a process um, K through 12. >> Carmen, you had a question. Yeah. How are the parents incorporated into this process? How are they notified? Are they part

095of the meetings? >> Oh, yeah. They're they're actually part that was moving to MCSS. That was a requirement actually. >> Um and before we had RTI and INRS and the parent would be really brought in at the tail end of the process where now as soon as a student is placed on tier two because tier one is everyone. If they're placed on tier two, the parent is brought in immediately and they're kept in the loop all the way through. Anytime the student moves a tier anytime goals are shifted, they get progress reports repeatedly throughout the process. Um, so at the end, let's just say the student's successful, great. But if they're not and they've moved through tier three and they have to move to CSD, it's not a shock to anyone. They've been part of

096that process throughout. >> Thank you. Any questions? And I think the process that we have now too, it gives the parents data as to why we think that they either need the intervention or they don't because it actually works both ways. Sometimes you have parents who say, "No, I don't want them out there." Um, but we've said, "No, they become independent. They can do this on their own. We're still going to watch them." So the data works both ways because it it it showed multiple sets of data as to why they've done better or how they've gone through. And it doesn't mean we're not going to watch them. It just might mean that they're not going to be targeted in terms of having the very intense data set that we're going to have with the

097teacher. But if you're going on from tier three and you're moving up, you're going to tier two, you're still under the watch, you know, and so you're still going to get support. It's just going to be a little bit um less intensive and more independent work in terms of students. >> And that was the shift, right? We had to really let the parents know and the teachers that tier one is a tier. >> Yes. >> We're not just putting them back in the classroom and saying go be free. That's it's here. We're intervening in the classroom. Uh they've worked that magic. It's just they need more than that. That's when we look to pull out. >> Adjusting our elementary schedules. Again, talking about a data culture and the decisions that we make based on data.

098Adjusting the elementary um schedule to include um everything in elementary has a cute acronym. um if period of what I need and Miss McCloud has been instrumental in in rolling that out, assisting um the principles and the assistant principles, meeting with groups of teachers um so that everybody what I need, not what a small group of struggling learners need or a a group of um advanced learners, but what does everyone need um to move along that continuum? So again period that >> so we revised the schedule to make sure that every school in elementary um K to 5 has a wait period well K is a half day so but um this is where we're building in other pieces as well with cluster especially our gifted students um Mr. Moralda will probably speak more to

099that at another time. Um, but it allows our interventionists a specific block to be able to pull pull the student out without disrupting the day. And then it allows the general education teacher or the special education teacher time to say, "Okay, you need this. You need this." And my I've been to a few faculty meetings so I can explain it to teachers. I have a whole slide deck on it. Um, but I'm like, but Joey might have an SEAL issue that day and Joey needs. So, it's what they need in that moment based on data. What did you collect to show you that you know that student needs what they need in that period? Um, so we revised and that really has helped us across the board in multiple ways. >> No data fatigue. Yes.

100And when we've had the meetings, >> no, it's actually working in reverse, which we've never, not that we've never seen it before, but it's just more than we've ever seen before where they're coming to us and saying, "Can you read this with me? Look at my kids. They're in the green quadrant." And I'm like, >> let's develop some activities for them. Let's really ch start to challenge those students or intervene. So, it's better than ever. >> The one thing I like, so elementary, the teacher, a lot of them will have the student all day long. So, they see them throughout the day and everything. when it goes sixth grade and above and we've brought the team together. Um we've had a day it's it's usually once a marking period or or going through um but

101it's the language arts and the math there together and the and the VP and the guidance counselor and so all the conversations that were going on it may turn into um there's possibly some other situations that are going on some behavior or some attendance. So while the data is the core of what we're looking at, we also then start to look at the child as a whole and even with the high school level having that we just had the math map and the the language arts there along with the with the assistant principal and the guidance counselor and the conversations were what's going on or what's not going on or what's improving and and it it really makes them be a unit together. And so that's hard to do at the grade six and above

102because they are used to their own subject and what they're doing. But it's really really allowed for some intense conversation. So to you know go ahead comment um >> yes >> I I want to pull you all who are involved in this the A+ team not the A team of >> because just listening to what you are doing for the students of this district I wish all five of my grandchildren lived here so they could go through the process of what you are teaching for the students. Um, they're in good school districts, but just listening, I I can't take my eyes off or or my ears away from listening to what you ladies and gentlemen have all accomplished for these students here. And uh I I I just give you 120% credit for everything that

103you've done for the children in this district. >> So just to bring it back, well, you know, as I was listening to this multi-are system of support You know, I was, you know, I and I was waiting and and as you were explaining the program, you started to answer all my questions. I started thinking study team, you know, how do you tie walls? And all of a sudden, the answers are starting to come. >> And I said, "Wow, this is unbelievable." I mean you've taken an umbrella and you put together a program where everything is under this umbrella and the communication piece is there everything is there the only question I have graduate question um with kids who are classifying um who is the interventions how do you how do you work with these kids

104because quite often these kids uh it's in class model or is it you have an in-class model? >> We have a few models. >> Okay. One inclass. >> So I just want to clarify one thing. Once a student um so the idea of MCSS is to identify if a child actually has um a learning disability or if we can intervene and and close that gap. And there are situations where we go through the tears, a child is not making growth. We've pivoted and tried a different intervention. they're not making growth, that's where it is referred to the child study team. If that child is found eligible for special education services, that is where the IEP team, the child study team will make a determination about the um the environment that they're going to have, what

105that child's goals are going to be, and things like that as well. >> Answer my question. Thank you. >> I was going to say, do you want to pick I like to say two things. Okay. because how kind of this starts this three-year process and I will tell you you know the state was looking at everyone the MTSS process and we did have to bring together a report and the third year they didn't even look at us at that point they said how fabulous everything was we just gave the last numbers and I will say it made a tremendous difference in the numbers in our students with the interventions that are placed at this level for how many students are classified so we have seen that in our numbers within even our classrooms that we

106have throughout the districts. This year, we truly have seen that our numbers in special ed are a lot less. And I honestly, no doubt believe it's because of all the process. And you've heard this through a three-year process. Now when we look at students that do go through tier three and they get to that last meeting and they need to be evaluated let's say and if the decision is made for classification that time is when the IEP takes over and looks at the goals and objectives you know we always teach the curriculum they have to be exposed to that but the areas of weakness are then looked at through the IEP and at that point the decision on the classification what classroom they may be in we have a continuum here within the district we

107have ICS we have ICR we have resource we have self-contained classrooms that we have throughout the district but at that process we have really we have gathered numbers for the last three years and the numbers have dropped tremendously this year and uh it's it's all the work that has been happening for the last three years so that's why we went back to the three years and we were not even asked to do the last year we gave the last numbers just recently to the state and they agree with all that we've done. We didn't even see anyone. So, it was really everyone was kind of taken a look at throughout New Jersey, not only, you know, Monroe. And I think, you know, we did they did a great job. They really did a fabulous job

108>> because, you know, my concern was based on the collapse of people >> the intervention got prior, right? And then if you still need areas of weakness to be worked on, that's when that IEP comes in. >> Can I know you want to say something? >> Uh, I wanted to ask you if you could in your conclusion explain are all school districts required to go through the MTSS and is there like a a measure, an award for doing exceptionally well? Can you nominate guys? anything like that to sign up. Anybody here? >> We did think about um quite a few times. Uh we were asked to present quite a few times and um not surprised. >> So it it because this was a process was here even with us asking us to participate in a

109few things. It is a really great process. Um something that I'm super proud to be a part of. I >> Yeah. When we go to county meetings >> Yeah. >> We're Yeah. I hear from I feel really proud like when we hear what other districts have. >> Have we been asked to go down to present at school boards conferencing? >> We were um asked at Expo because that was the only one that I did present uh not present but attend. Um >> this would be fabulous about your video. So we are the only tested we do have >> but there is certainly a continuum of implementation across the state. >> Okay. >> So MTSS New Jersey tiered system of supports is a required piece for us to have in place. Um formerly known as also

110still embedded in some of the regulations are the terms response intervention and intervention and referral services. So RTI and INRS again all them mushed together is NTSS for us. It accomplishes the goals, meets the regulations and most importantly serves the needs of the students uh in the school district. Kudos to the growth we've seen in the instructional staff. Um massive change in culture in terms of looking at information uh through the data lens. And again, it takes a significant amount of effort. >> Yes. >> So, you know, we I always compliment the administrative team on the work they're doing on the back end, the building principles, building administration, including the vice principles, all of our supervisors in maintaining the message, right? Revisiting it, embedding any conversations. Um, and the culture of changing culture takes time.

111And we are still in that change. We are have growth to work on. We will be tweaking our process uh forever. One thing I wanted to kind of ground us in is the entire conversation we just spoke about is growth over time. That's our lens from a district. Growth over time, measurable achievement against themselves and their performance relative to themselves. We have uh the ability to kind of flash against national norms and national standards and state standards and relative to the student within the school. Um but we are looking for growth relative to themselves. And growth we know is we look for a trend of an of an increase in performance or whatever we're looking at. But we know it's not linear, right? You have ups and downs as we go through. We also share

112achievement data which is a snapshot of performance at a moment in time. Right? So that is something um again it's a moment and a data set that we look at but again our focus is growth over time. Um achievement data like I said is a snapshot. It's measured against a benchmark that's set across the board. Um we look at learning as a continuum growth as a continuum student performance and the number changing over time. So growing and going up maybe going down a little bit. So we will look at data throughout the year including next week when we we see achievement data right so our students are growing sometimes they're passing over the benchmarks that that we are reporting out on sometimes they're moving within the benchmark you know within the windows and stuff that

113we're we're uh reporting on. So um just grounding ourselves in our daily work is looking at growth over time, looking at performance, adjusting instruction, meeting students individualized needs, groups of students and small group needs. Um but we also do take a look at um larger data to see uh are there trends in what we're instructing that may be hey we need to spend more time in this area or this content. you need to move this unit to a different sequence or time in the school year because it gets more uh more time right more it's more appropriate to be taught here because of the sequence of the information they need to learn. So those are the things that we use some of the bigger achievement data information to look at as opposed to drilling down

114and saying the one score that the students got in March defines them for the next 12 months. Right? So I just want to put things in context. We look at things across the year, dayto day, month to month, week to week, but we also consider the more guess one oneoff assessments as well. >> So I get that you're grounding us and preparing us for next week's presentation, but I don't want this high to go away at the end. >> And there's nothing to be there's nothing to be prepared for. I mean I'm not saying I didn't need to get that but >> because you're right people focus on in that year that month and as a district as our job in governance are the go the growth over time is y >> is it should

115be the focus and I just he just reminded me of something that you mentioned but I don't think you elaborated on it you said the cluster the gifted and chap talented program got a different had a different success story out of the MTSS would you touch on it Am I okay? >> Okay. >> Oh, is it for is it for >> No, no, no. It's not. It's not. It's just we're in the process of that. I'll make it very quick. It's just basically we're so used to addressing the students that have needs and we're very used to our higher average being the ones that we could say, "Here's a project go do and then show me what you've got at the end." Um, and sometimes because they're way up here, their growth might be a

116little flat, right? when you have someone who's struggling, their growth is usually quite large because we can we can build on that. Um, so we decided we wanted to take that a little further and we wanted to see that same amount of not the same amount but growth in those high achieving students. Um, so we had figured out a way to use our interventionists same capacity, right? They're interventionists, but now they're going to intervene with cluster as well. And they're going to challenge them in a way that we're hoping after this year. Not that we weren't seeing growth before, but we'd like to see more. Um, and this is outside of our advanced math. This is outside of those types of programs because we do have cluster services happening within the room. Now, we're gonna

117have an occasional once a week potentially pull out where she can further advance those students and work with them a little bit. >> Totally cool. >> Um, but it's all based on any data that comes to us from um and again, Dr. Rosella, look, Lincoln has become our our our best friend. Like, we can see trends in a way that we know, all right, this is unique to that school. this is a district issue and we can in real time start addressing those issues. Um, so it really has and and again everyone uses it in different ways. Matt has a way to use it. Oh, Danielle's got an entire way to use LinkedIn. That is lovely that I I can't wait to start already for when the title on funding goes away and we need

118to find money in the budget for this indispensable tool. Remember to bring out all of these points. You could just play the reporting to this meeting and hopefully >> the the board then will say, "All right, we really need it." >> Yeah, we took a very intensive two-day training on this this summer and without I mean it's unbelievable the capabilities of this. >> We are >> I know. Can we post on the curriculum documents? We have to do it tonight. You guys have three minutes. I could have quickly speak to the board, but I need the curriculum documents to be done. >> Sure. If it's >> absolutely >> I'll go three minutes. Um so uh last month or the month before I presented honors biology. This is um just referred to as biology. The reason

119it's there 2025 is that was expected. Um this was to update um to the science standards make sure the document was updated regularly. Um this course provides a very comprehensive um overview of life science to our nth graders. Biology is a graduation requirement. So um all nth graders do take some form of biology. Um you can see the document has a lot of great embedded resources, a lot of labs, um and a lot of opportunities for students to um demonstrate their knowledge not just through traditional testing methods >> and 2023 standards are a 202 >> only math alignment. >> Yes. So we're 22. >> M hasn't even >> the state's probably working on them right now. Oh yes. Okay. >> So we're up we're current to the most current thing. >> Anybody have a question?

120>> Okay. >> Well, you want to take >> So the good thing it's grade one. So grade one grade one math covers adding and subtracting of the point. So all different kinds of ways using strategies models. Um yeah they start with 10 then they move up to 20. Um they do extend it where there's counting by ones and by tens. the ones only go up to 20 and then counting by tens going up to 120. Um so they do have different models that they're going through. So not to minimize what they're doing, but it it's really getting we needed. Um as with the other standards that we've um the one we've done in terms of the new standards, keep in mind that there really is a focus on measurement and data has now gone towards

121um basically data literacy and as a combined measurement domain going through it where any types of problems that they're doing with the word problems as they're counting up to 20 and doing the adding and subtracting. No multiplying and dividing there. Um it's about asking questions, collecting data, analyzing, interpreting, um just getting the real life idea of it going through. Um remember, as we did the other ones throughout the last couple years, um fluency while it's there has been replaced more with the words of accuracy and efficiency because the actual time in the minute is not so important. It is more if you can do something in 65 seconds as opposed to 60 seconds, that's fine. Um we've got the tier one, tier two vocabulary. Um again the other thing is climate change has been added

122into those type of work problems going through the one big change in grade one while we still had it and it was there um believe it or not they took money out at one point in time and it has now been put back in and they were actually considered new standards from 2016. Um do I feel that our teachers did it in the past? They did because you can always go over and above what was there but it is now there. And so the two new standards that are in there, one is knowing the comparative values of coins and dollar bills um and which is greater like for instance that a dime is greater than a nickel. Um we would think that this would be common sense. Students do not seem in here. So this

123is actually a very important tool for them. Um and then using dollars and the solution problems up to 20 which is the application of the adding and subtracting of 20. Um so that's really the difference between the two. >> Any questions on >> Mr. Moralda? Can you do this in 50,000? >> I can. So, this this course uh honors finance is the uh is a complement to the only other existing honors uh business course we have in the department. Um this is a fullear course designed for students wishing to pursue business education and opportunity to satisfy their uh state required financial literacy requirement but in a more uh rigorous and maybe a little more uh focused setting. Uh the difference between this class and the personal finance class that we already exist that this is

124full year and it touches on practices of business finance, wealth and capital management and some of the more uh uh nuance topics that uh someone studying finance might choose to pursue. Most importantly uh like the other honors class that we offer in the business department, this course was designed specifically with the intent to win dual credit certification. Uh it's one of the unique courses in the business program that's taught by a person an individual that is uniquely credentialed with a master's degree and once this uh document is approved we will begin shopping it around to colleges. We expect it to be received uh very positively as this curriculum will be written specifically in you know in tandem with not only state standards but what's being featured at Middle Sex College Ruters and some of the

125local institutions how they structured their syllabus for uh introduity and I will be working on that with their implementation for this following school year in September. So, we've been teaching this, but this update this time is going to allow us to apply for dual. >> Correct. But, uh, students currently enrolled in the 2526 school year will not have access to that. Our goal would be for the college credits to be in place by 2627, barring some miracle work that we can get done within the next few days. >> I think we can get it done. I it's very unlikely that we would win that we would win that accreditation at this juncture of the school year but uh nonetheless we will we will try we have to get this in place before Christmas >> and

126we have been teaching this for how many years now two >> uh this is our third I believe it's our third year we have currently have four studies running >> yeah it's it was a great addition to our program of study and I've seen a lot of children she'll really benefit from this >> and it's also about uh for a little more focused approach in our uh traditional economics and finance class uh which is uh improve their performance detail. >> Any questions? >> All right. I was just take one last minute because we were supposed to have a discussion on board goals from coming from this committee but we are completely out of time. Um the two goals that we had set for our committee last year or as a board that came from the

127curriculum committee. One was increasing AI proficiency in the district and I feel like we made a lot of advance from both from a professional development perspective using tools for teaching our children. So I feel like we accomplished that this beautiful the other however we haven't made significant progress. So my recommendation it was for the portrait of a graduate and I don't think we have made a dent on that at all. So I would definitely want it to continue and a lot more focused this year on that if everybody agrees because I remember saying that we got to teach to the portrait and not to the test. So for that we need to finalize that portrait of our graduate. So maybe that would be one of the recommendations that we can see right and also if

128there's another goal that the board members or any of the supervisors administrative staff would like to suggest. Steve, you have my email. Send me a note about anything you feel should be a curriculum focus for the district in the coming year from our board lenses and I would love to hear. >> Thank you so much everybody. Good night. >> Thank you.