001then okay I think we're good thank you hi everyone thank you so much for coming tonight uh we are going to start with the ofans so we have a lot of people here tonight which is really great we love to have people from the public um typically we do public comments much later in the agenda and we actually have a pretty long agenda because we have a lot of presentations um so for those that are here to make public comment we're actually going to tweak our order so that you don't have to sit here unless you want to so I'm going to ask for a motion to go out of order to do public comment next on thank you okay just our standard opening before we open the meeting to public comment we wish to
002remind you that our meeting is now video recorded and publicly aired while the board welcomes and encourages public comment we ask that you be respectful including any any comments you might make about staff the board does not endorse any comments made by a speaker nor will the board be held liable for any comments by members of the public the law prevents the board from speaking about specific students and about Personnel matters for this reason the board will might answer any questions on these subjects finally the board's policy limits each speaker to three minutes we ask that you respect this policy in the time of your fellow Comm community members by concluding your comments once you reach three minutes public comment is open for hour or until public comments are complete whichever comes first at this
003point I would like to invite any members of the public to come forward and provide your full name and address before you see so Nicole Burman um can I my address to you separately I'm in Mars Township Dr muchi and members of the Board of Education we're representatives of Temple Benet or and Marist toown Jewish Center B Isel we're also parents with the Mars School District we share this letter with you tonight as an affirmation of our desire for a strong and constructive partnership with our district leaders we appreciate the MSD matric student supports and resources at times of unrest including a variety of resour ources specific to the devastating conflict between Israel and Hamas it answered many of our questions Jewish families were struggling with and we thank you for that but we wondered
004why it did not Merit a communication of its own indeed there was nothing but Silence from our district leaders for almost two weeks even as parents reached out and others nearby districts offered words of support to their constituents you may not be aware why a terrorist attack in against citizens on the other side of the world would bring us to our knees in marst town for most American Jews regardless of their level of affiliation there's only one or two degrees of separation between us and Israel we have Israeli friends and family Camp counselors youth group mentors exchange students and other District connection dis direct connections to the people of Israel beyond that American Jews share a constant and continual fear that the h cost will not remain a historical fact to teach our kids about
005but it will be repeated this everpresent fear has been growing recent years and the United States has experienced an alarming increase in anti-semitic statements and acts with nearly 400% rise in the 3-we period following October 7th as compared with the same time period last year many of our children have siblings at universities where de demonstrations are not only grieving the loss of life in Gaza but are or simply Pro Palestinian they are decidedly anti-israel and anti-jewish students in our district who are Jewish know that people all over the world cheered and celebrated when hundreds of Jews just like them were attacked and killed in the most unspeakable ways we know that the district does not condone terrorism or anti-Semitism or violence of any kind but it would have helped our Jewish parents feel supported and
006reassured of their children's safety and well-being to have heard from our district leaders within short order we know that the district strives to respect celebrate and affirm our wonderfully diverse Community but it would have reinforced these important aspirations if the district had used this terrible occasion to reassert its values and commitments in closing we'd like to offer some suggestions to move forward my fellow Board of trustee members J V them with you thank you hi I'm Jennifer in the township happy to give my exact address later you canile Dr muchi Board of Education good evening we are grateful for this opportunity to share our thoughts and concerns we'd like to offer some suggestions which we will also forward in an email in hopes of starting the dialogue with you number one please consider reaching out
007to Jewish students through appropriate channels especially at the high school middle school to see how they are Fairing and whether their social emotional needs are being me as they try to grasp what has happened number two please consider reaching out to a group of Jewish parents such as members of the boards of Trustees of our two congregations in order to delve more deeply into the focus areas you outlin in the times of unrest document to understand how they relate to this specific event three thank you for inviting Rabbi Michael saats and Rabbi Adam Gilman to speak to the high school social studies teachers please consider leveraging other experts to support the high school such as faculty who teach Holocaust and genocide studies four please consider expanding the no place for hate initiative at FMS to
008the high school as well five please consider reviewing policy 5520 on disorder and demonstration and revise if necessary in preparation for potential requests for walkouts or protests at the high school number six please consider adding specific training on anti-Semitism and islamophobia for teachers and administrators as part of the district's commitment to culturally responsive practices seven please consider expanding policy 5757 on anti-racism to more clearly Encompass anti-Semitism as well eight please share with us how the district evaluation the resources it recommends to teachers and families and ensures they aren't anti-semitic on such a divisive issue as this we ourselves struggle to find appropriate sources nine please maintain very careful oversight of and provide substantive guidance to teachers who may be discussing the terrorist attacks in Israel perpetrated by Hamas and the ongoing conflict in the Middle
009East this is an exceedingly complex and nuanced issue with entrenched ideas on on both sides and it is important that no student be made to feel culturally alienated or ideologically attacked we thank you for your leadership your dedication to our children and your caring and compassion at this difficult s thank you Mor toship provide my address back door um like many of you I have served on a number of boards um I am a co-founder of gr green moristown I serve on the township um Board of adjustment so I'm I really appreciate your service um I'm up here tonight as a proud graduate of mortown high my family moved here in sixth grade specifically because we wanted to come somewhere my parents thought be important to be somewhere with diversity one of the things that
010I have always loved about Mor toown and our school district is how we celebrate diversity and that diversity is so all-encompassing we have so many different people here with so many different stories as a member of the community I have always looked to the district as this Beacon of light that we are such an amazing District we provide so much education an opportunity for our students um I waited I thought for sure the school district would say something to my community specifically my stage Community about what they were doing to provide for the needs of our students but as a parent a Jewish parent I was getting information from where my kids had gone to to Camp the pram my son was I in Israel watch social media take take it away from your kids
011horrible images may be coming from Hamas we know that Hamas used social media to film what they did and so I reached out to the district saying let all parents know this no child should see these images and yet still silence to me this issue about not saying anything has left me feeling like we are not seen that even though white supremacists will come for Jews as readily as they will come for people of color we are not seen as a minority the world's population of Jewish people is 0.2% and of that population 8% of the world's Jews live here in New Jersey and within three square miles there are four synagogues here this is a community with a lot of Jewish people and we heard nothing nothing do do we not count does our
012pain not count and you know I mean yeah my son was just in Israel and we may not you know he may not wear a skull cap to school and when I went to Morris Town did I have schwas drawn on my desk yes did I have pennies thrown at me yes did I almost get suspended for hitting a kid in school because they called my friend a k yes but I don't tell people those stories instead I say I went to a public school I graduated from Mor high and I was able to go on to an ID League school I've always championed this district and I was hoping you would Champion us too thank you I'm sorry I'm new here so how does this work because I do have something to ask you
013so this is public comment so if you have something that you want to say can come forward name's Jennifer I have two brown boys in your school right now I have Jennifer Ponder p o n d r uh or Mrs Herzberg whichever you prefer um I have two brown boys in your school system right now at third grade at EXA I spoke to miss muchi Dr Dr muchi um about the whole situation with the book Banning and um Monster Liberty I take it very Ser seriously as a black person in this community I should not have to worry about if somebody's going to come in here eventually it will happen or if it has I don't know yet but if it does I need to know that each one of you are going to say
014something to keep them from not teaching my history her history their history whatever history that you decide you want to teach also there is no excuse to be banning books I grew up I went to maryon I went to Kent Place and I graduated from Morristown beard I went to Johnson and Welles I have a degree I want my boys to expand their education in public school I never went to public school so I don't know the whole world but I do read what's going on in other states with these women these women who think that they know what they're doing they don't they're making doing a lot of damage I need to know that all of you are going to do something if they are here if they try to infiltrate our schools because
015all of our kids deserve to be able to read whatever they want they deserve to be able to speak and learn and just grow and if these ladies come in here they're not going to be able to do that and that's what I'm fearful of I want to know my boys are going to go through this District without any um backlash of you know oh I read you know this book oh that's not good you know no I don't I want them to read I want them to learn I want them to be awesome individuals I want all these kids to be awesome individuals but I don't want these you know I'm I just that is one thing that I'm really concerned about so that's all I have to say and um so please and
016uh you know I I'm willing to speak to anybody else and I'm you know I just ask of you if they do or if they are please please fight for our kids because they don't deserve it and if you're not going to fight for your for the kids I will okay thanks okay thank you hi I'm Emily waler I'd also like to prepare my address in private and probably come is no surprise that all of us would like to share our dresses in PR we're not feeling very safe right now um I feel really comfortable with the words that the other Jewish community members there I'm standing up to add my voice because I don't know that only hearing from three of us represents the volume of what I've been hearing for the last three
017weeks three or four of us getting up does not show you the outcry that we are hearing in our circles um I'm on a list of over 20 parents that are patting back and forth constantly in synagogue it's been a conversation I've talked to non-jewish friends in the area who are connected to you guys very closely who were frankly disgusted and disgraced um I just I just want to add my voice to represent that the four of us multiply that by I don't know T 20s 30s 100 we're uncomfortable thank you thank you hello I'm Mara hafeld and I'll my address after Township and um I also want to my my voice I had uh two children who have graduated from Mar High School and have been very proud to live here for the last
018more than 20 years and been so proud to be able to share how great it is being in Mar toown that it's so diverse and I thought inclusive and was really I still get emails so I know what's going on in the high schools to my stock there's been no communication regarding what's been going on just in terms of recognizing peace and love and you know we share and all of that together I know all the communities around Mars town have communicated to their community and more than once recognizing that people are hurting they're suffering and it's not you know and it and it isn't about who's right who's wrong or you know taking s it's about ethics and humanity and I think Maran should represent that and that as well without have taking any
019sides and having any opinions but to really recognize what's going on in the community what's going on in the world what's going on EX Israel and what's going on in the high school the um universities it's a very scary time for all of us every one of us to leave your house not knowing if you're going to get thrown in in the train if you're going to get stabed just because you happen to be Jewish and I think all of us should be recognized for who we are as people and I think the this community should really be part of that thank you than hi good evening um my name is alen annaul I have three sons in cartown high school I have a husband from Italy so my children are half Jewish and half
020Italian and but they but they know their roots are Jewish and what upsets me is everyone in this community knows that the a lot of the Jewish people here we contribute so much to this temple in so many ways our temples do a lot of Outreach they do runs to support food banks there's our money is going into this community because we care about this community and if you're Jewish and you live in this community you choose it for diversity I mean I don't want to sound cliche but there are Jews in Livingston there are Jews in Short Hills these are towns that are predominantly Jewish but when you're a Jewish person and you come to live in this town you came here for that diversity and so for us to not get back what
021we bring to this community is why I think everyone here is so hurt it's like we want you for all the good you bring in but when it gets a little bit difficult we don't want to touch that that's that's scary it is scary and so I think all of us came out tonight which is why the room is so full is because I have friends that have been trying to figure out how to fix this problem and I'm not only here to sort the Jews in this town it's my friends who are the ones that are taking the time to really bring this to light so I think all of us we can't change what's going on and I think it's just the acknowledgement that we are here in this town as part of
022that diversity and if we're not welcome here then maybe that's that's the case but I think you're going to lose a lot of wonderful people if it's not welcoming for Hispanics and blacks and everybody who belongs here if that makes sense we're a teeny teeny little people hi um I'm Judy daringer I'm out of marown I can give you the information um later but it wasn't actually even originally going to speak but there's one Gap that I wanted to go because I grew with everything every everybody said uh I also want to look for our current student body and what they're going to be because college campuses are in upheaval right now and your recent grads are in these schools getting threatened being put under lockdown and it's from misinformation and misunderstanding that these people
023just finished high school so while you want to I know that it is not in your control over the colleges but you are feeding into schools and so making sure that what you teach the whole student body in terms of understanding and so and seeing uh all sides of things I know um my son in Fring heisen is watching CNN 10 and I don't know that it's always getting the full side of that I'm not actually with the conversation that came up today and his teacher is being doing a good job of speaking and going back and forth but I know that he is saying his fellow students are not seeing the um Israel side in terms of self-defense and so and CNN is very notorious for it and so I know they want to
024the news but I can tell you it's um it does not give a complete picture and so I wanted to have you also think about what are you teaching these children and what are they going to bring to so that it is safe for everybody and for the students who I think have come and done been very successful with you thank you my name is get my address later um have been a resident of Mo's Township for over 20 years May 22 years now came from Madison I have three children who are either at the school system or just graduated one of which is in freeling heisen right now 14-year-old um I'll just add this one component that may not be realized um in response to being silent one comment that I heard back was
025well it wasn't really something that happened here so the threat isn't really here um one thing about being Jewish it's not just a religion it's a culture and I don't know if the statistics right but approximately half of the Jewish population which someone quoted 2% resides in Israel the other half is probably about the US um every Jewish person knows someone in Israel so it actually does impact people here half my family lives in Israel my son who's at freeling heis and hat his cousins are in Israel so it really does impact individuals here too it's not just in this foreign land it really does impact us here so this is Morris Town's issue too thank you any want to close soon anyone [Music] be hi everyone my name is s Michaels resident Mar Township
026neighbor of Melissa's had three kids go through the school here and um I I guess I've heard a lot of people say stuff um about how they feel I guess what I would like to offer is um the extent that um the township is having Outsiders come in to speak about the topic um the history of Israel is so complex and um I just I don't know the extent to which the teachers um how they present that but um I love talking about the topic and I would just love to have an opportunity not to make a pro-israel pitch but to help um understand more about the history so I would just like to say if the the township ever allows people to come in I would be so happy to conduct um some kind
027of a conversation but um I have a daughter that was over in Israel to to do a gap year and needless to say it got cut short she had to leave Israel a couple weeks ago and um I just in my lifetime never thought we would we would be here and um you know each day I just listen to the news on um I even thought as I was walking into the building I I thought I wonder if people know that there's going to be people from the temple here tonight like it it feels really scary and um uh I've sort of been alarmed at my job just how a lot of people are going about their lives nothing is happening and um I know everyone's aware of it sometimes I think people are just
028so so it's so unpleasant people don't want to address it and um uh it it's not going away and I just think the more our kids understand the complexity of this um the more people will make um rational decisions and their opinions will be informed but there's a ton of um misinformation now so again just would love to be part of anything that the school is doing to invite um open free discussion not pro-israel not anti- Palestinian but just um deeper understanding thank you hi I'm Adam Smith and I have to add on to that about how this isn't an issue in the past ma Massac happened on October 7th was three weeks and maybe it's the end of the new cycle or you hope that by being silent about it it just goes away
029but it's live every moment I I'm also guilty of watching three news tabs on my screens during the day and having a half a mind and a world here you know regular job Family School all those things and another half of the brain watching Israel I have a what's up feed with my brother-in-law who's in the north you know defending the north against another front every day I pray for him and and the whole state to you know not get worse but it it it's not going away anytime soon and so I think you know if we could just say you know why is this different let the let the kids know you know what what happened you know um as objectively as possible without taking sides that's even a thing hard for me to
030understand who's the bad guys why is that even a discussion but I don't want to get political but to not ignore it by ignoring the the situation I I think it's almost complicit and and saying it's okay for it to U have occurred okay and it's not thank you for your time thank you okay so um that we we close to have a comment and almost everyone that came forward is someone that I've known for many years many of you that didn't come forward I feel like you're here for me you're not here for me you're here for your community and those of you that know me well can imagine what my personal feelings are about this and it's you know horrifying and saddening the incredible loss of life that you know we've all seen
031um in the past three weeks and we're we're all you know those of us that are here that are the board of bed do this because we love this community and we love our kids we love all of the kids you know just love our own kids my daughter's not even in the district anymore but I continue to do this because I love this community and I love all aspects of this community when I moved back here as an older person because I went to Mari also um I came for the same reason that you're saying Sam and you know I think collectively we we feel your pain um this District stands against anti-Semitism anti-islamophobia anti all forms of hatred um I know that an has put out some resources and she may have some
032things that she wants to say but if we fell short we're sorry you're an important part of this community and I just wanted to say that to you and I appreciate you being here like I said in your public comment board because you would have been sitting here for two more hours waiting to have these comments and I didn't want you to have to do that um but the statements that that you read Nicole and Jen I think you said there was something that you wanted to send to us and I'm sure we would love to see it I'm very visual um and with that I'm just going to turn it over to talk to me she anything like to add so well to begin with there any other comments from other board members anybody
033who wants to add uh hello I'm VI and brother reads and what I like to say to you is that under the trop Dr Joseph PR from Kane University uh for the from the Holocaust Resource Center I taught a course on Holocaust and genocide for several years King University as an ad Professor so I am well aware of the the difference between this situation and other situations that happen to our community so I want for one uh to say that to you that to know that I am well informed Dr PR was excellent tutor for me and Mentor for my graduate program at came so I want you to know that I am understanding and aware thank you I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you for coming we hear you and
034I wanted to Ange that you are um being heard and to Echo Lissa's comments if we have fallen short and taking myself just responsibility and sincerely and deeply sorry but thank you um for your time tonight um I would Echo the um apologies and certainly I think one of the things that happens in trying to get something right um is is the complicated matter of language and and wanting to get it right um so I can understand how that comes across in sometimes a positive way and Al other times feel that you're not seen or not heard and so I think what I heard tonight that I feel so much hope in is how much everybody is committed to our students being safe and being hard and if we can keep that in our community
035which has always been our strength and I know that this will be something that we all learn from and that we I hope that how that goes forward gives you increased confidence and how much weal your trust in in what we do for our students and thank you for voicing that because that is the most important thing that we all stand up here to do is make sure that our children are well taken care of so thank you um so thank you to everyone that attended this evening so far M and as mentioned uh we appreciate public comment always our primary concern is to make sure that all of our students are safe and well careed for as I heard a thread through uh some of the comments where we took notes it is important
036that we Foster critical thinking skills analytical skills in our St students that we're raising our children to be Global Citizens what I appreciate most uh about the moris school district community is the fact that we are comprised of individuals who are civic-minded who are respectful in their discourse and who are free to share ways that we can come become better as a community I appreciate the suggestions that were made this evening specifically related to policies that we should consider and also the Outreach efforts that we can make of the 10 suggestions that were made this evening during public comment there are a number of them that we have already instituted um we do appreciate getting the followup and writing as we would like to continue our partnership to make sure that we can follow through
037on the other suggestions and have a strong and productive partnership uh we will be responsive we appreciate everything but I think one of the things that was most telling this evening was an acknowledgement of being in a public meeting at a school system and individuals not feeling comfortable sharing their address on a public record and I think hearing that really speaks to the way that several members of you came to the podium to share your ideas and your thoughts and your hopes for our school district and I sincerely appreciate you sharing those messages and also sharing the way that you felt when delivering them so understand that they've been heard uh we also look forward to having that followup email so that if there's anything we missed in taking notes we can follow up with
038you personally and in the next portion of our business meeting today uh we're going to go through some presentations on student achievement we'll need a couple of minutes just to adjust uh and get our uh presentation set up for this evening we encourage you uh to stay and engage in those conversations and watch that presentation but we'll also take a couple of minute break uh so that we can stretch and greet each other as neighbors while we shift to the next portion so feel free um to stay and to also chat with us as we get set for the next POR in the meeting than my do than you do [Music] okay than no than yeah ch yeah f than tell yeah back fr here a you okay spe yeah okay you memb so we're
039gonna do the student report before we go along of our presentations so welcome hi my name is Isabella and I'm the junior board representative um unfortunately today I'm doing the S and the student update so for the S which is student government update um the major thing that we've been working on is the homecoming Dan and the homecoming week which were both I thought a really big success so spirit week is what we had before week and definitely School something that SJ members have been working really hard on and um well students and staff got to participate in events during the pep rally which is another B hit with a lot of people out our school um the actual homecoming Dan thing that SJ worked really hard on and was really good success and currently
040SJ is working on raising money for charties with funders like no sh November and the holiday gift shop dri that's kind of and um for the student update overall the student environment is very positive homecoming week has definitely boosted school spirit among students and we're excited for more school events the football season has been a great success as the student section turnout for home games has been huge especially because like the lights and stuff I know a lot of people like that um students are also getting involved in a lots of um clubs and activities especially after our Club carnival in September and that definitely like created a lot of interest for the different clubs that our school has to offer um and lastly many school sports are ending their Seasons but there's been a
041significant show of support from students as many teams enter State and County tournament so yeah I know a lot of sports are like coming to a close but a lot of people have been going and showing supports for um other teams as they enter the state and count like today um the girl team did advance to the um semi-finals at the state thank you so much so we're GNA go on presentations if you need to leave feel free good evening thank you everyone uh for being here this evening and uh we appreciate the conation centering us on our our values of our community and the focus of tonight's presentation is on student achievement data throughout the district and also some new programs that we are beginning I'd like to first um give a little plug
042for discover MHS so last week we had the opportunity to go to discover Mor to school which was an outstanding of all the wonderful programs that are available at the high school we had our CLS uh as well as all of our academic associations on showas and really the message that everyone came away from the evening with was no matter what your interests no matter what you want to do whether it be broadcast casting musical theater multiple AP courses STEM Academy the path is here at moristown high school um so we wanted to share that with the board so that they could see the presentations as well as the profile of uh marown high school that is sent uh to every college that our students apply to I created a brief uh back and front
043uh paper because tonight we're asking the board to share um the goals that we expect some discussion about and ask them for their approval generally we look to goals in a couple of different areas obviously we always have a student achievement goal we have a goal that will focus on our school culture and climate and then we have a goal that focuses on the uh social emotional Learning and Development of our students uh on the front page of this you know we asked the question which some board members had and public office has how do we measure these goals we see them written on the board agenda they look outstanding who couldn't agree with them but what is their significance and how do we know if we've achieved those goals um so our first goal
044is always on increasing the rigor and making sure that every student has the most challenging curriculum possible available to them at all grade levels uh part of how we're focusing on that is by having action plans and each school that administrators will uh Garner support for for implementation of District goals and then for each building to drill down and think about what does this look like at Normandy Park or at freeling heisen or at the high school and then we have all of this Focus within our district for determining if we're meeting our benchmarks for success and I never want to miss the opportunity to say that beyond our district doors we have an entire Department of Education that's also looking Inward and the process of New Jersey qac which is the third item uh
045that I identified the right hand side we have the State Department of Education will be coming into our district on multiple occasions to evaluate Us in all areas from how we manage our finances how we maintain our facilities most importantly how we manage curriculum and instruction and and how we support the growth and development of all students in our district that happens every 3 years and this year is a year for qac evaluation um and these members from the New Jersey Department of Education will be in District visiting classrooms surveying facilities talking to administrators students and board members to make their determination if what we hold out to the public as our evaluation in each of these areas is upheld also you see our district Mo motion or District mission that we believe each student
046should asend and also that um our students are guarant graduates equipped with lasting results of these benefits and coner to an individual future life experiences that is our Morris School District Advantage so this year we're committing to you that we would hope to see an 8% increase in the percentage of students in grades three to five who meet or see grade level expectations in math and language arts we have been focusing on having our students come into school on the most basic component of learning and while we enjoy a very high student attendance rate each day we also realize that there are some students that are struggling following coid to have consistent attendance and attend to School regularly so we are focusing on those students who have been chronically absent um and expect to see
047at least a 10% increase in or excuse me a 10% decrease in chronic absenteeism and then because we believe each student will Ascend it's very important to us that we focus on our gifted and talented Learners and that we ensure greater opportunities for uh gifted and talented cluster activities in mathematics and language arts the development of our Quest program at the middle school greater electives and more ability uh for us to differentiate and provide enrichment activities both in school and outside of school so by increasing the number of opportunities available for students we hope at the elementary and middle school grades to really help students identify their areas of interest and strength so that we can develop those talents over time and also build out those skills uh on the back of this uh you
048will see how each building goal wants to get us to more gifted and talented learning opportunities more student engagement in better attendance and an increase in MJ SLA schools so on the left hand side you'll see building specific gos and on the right hand side just a little bit more about the high school and trends that we learned which is following the pandemic our high school student particip ipation in AP exams decreased um there's a number of things that we have been doing to increase that participation including uh being recognized by the College Board to have an AP African-American studies course pilot program added and also for the High School faculty to develop what's called precollege AP courses so this pre uh AP courses are for 9th 10th and 11th graders we're starting this year
049looking at language arts and the idea is by increasing the rigor by developing more opportunities for students to engage with higher order thinking and college focused curriculum that they'll be well prepared for AP courses so a little plug we're behind on our freshman enrollment for AP exams and right now our hope is to tremendously increase the percentage of students taking AP exams stengths the line there will be a second opportunity of a few more days but we are um seeing that some of our freshmen who maybe might not be as familiar with the importance of taking the at exams that are registration for exams in May are not as high as we would like to have it um so we're on track we're improving um but that's the area of continued fcal for us one
050of the things we also realize because we often look to the high school as a measure of the success of the district is what makes a high school student successful and it is those opportunities um to build out and identify their strengths and have strong academic support in elementary and in middle school so the next uh brief portion of our presentation tonight is going to be from two of our supervisors talking about a new model um that we put in place in a district this year where instead of all of our supervisors working from the high school and going to other schools in the district our supervisors moved out their base to the elementary to the middle school and with new home bases became more equipped um to engage in the elementary and middle school
051curriculum to understand those connections to best prepare those students for their experience in high school and future success um so before before we go on to uh the next portion of the program just kind of on this brief overview of how do we measure goals that sets up the presentation just wanted to see if there were any questions from board members or or comments before we move on to segment two com thank you very much Dr M for this presentation to get thank you okay so it's a real pleasure uh to introduce Mr Michael Sarah who is our supervisor of mathematics k12 and Miss Cara Duma who is our supervisor of language arts P 12 and uh Michael has been spending a lot of time at Al jail and Sussex school and Cara I feel
052like we've carried you and pulled you to go everywhere you have also um been stationed instead of just the high school doing a lot of Works especially at Alexander Hamilton and Hillcrest and uh both are here to talk to you about our new model of having our supervisors fully engaged in the K12 experience so welcome car welcome Michael um good evening everybody like Dr muchi said my name is Mike S I'm the K12 math supervisor and this is Dr Tera she's the K12 Ela supervisor for [Music] the good evening everyone so we just wanted to start by going over what our roles were previously so there's a better understanding of how we transitioned into this new role so last year you could see up here the number of teachers we supervised through 12 in our
053department and also our major responsibilities um but we were as Dr muchi had said we were stationed at the high school that's where office of work so we were we were entitled right supervisors K12 math and Ela but the majority of our time is really spent at the middle and high school level and when when we first sat down with Dr muchi uh at the early spring she has said I remember your words where you set your bag down every morning matters and indeed it it does matter a great deal and we're going to talk a little bit about that so under this new model under so are new model thank you um where we set our bags down every morning is different than it was last year and what was just to repeat how
054there was a multitude of students within the high school and the middle school but there's also more administrative support whereas at the elementary schools it's it's primarily the principal and now with this new model we have there supervisor support within the buildings on community levels getting to know students from kindergarten all the way on up getting to know the community members the families and just really witnessed the progression uh throughout the years actually my first master's degrees in Psychology and I always value those increments of development you can clearly see how valuable a lot of those things are and then how they uh tie right into everything within um this pampl and to start an important part and we always say this for teachers in the classroom as well is that without the relationship no
055learning is going to happen and it's the same thing as far as looking at developmental Milestones I mean to be able to be committed to two particular buildings the sister schools every single day you get to know the kids you're not just popping in and out you're developing relationships with the kids and the teachers and you know what what is a typical kindergartner what are they going through social emotionally um and to have that to have that knowledge k35 is a typical so you could see any sort of gaps that emerge and help to Bridge and fill those gaps uh when you see that happen because then secondary would be the academic piece once they are comfortable and um and happy in their environment and of course with once we continue to nurture uh the
056social emotional pieces and mindful of that and work to support that there are so many critical pieces of academic development as well is a prime time to help assist with enrichment Within These programs but it's also a time where research has continually shown that that is where post pandemic learning loss has come that is where crucial ages third grade fourth grade fifth grade cases in kindergarten we're learning what US Happ especially that third and fourth grade where the academic um Gap is and spreads so we can help to work to nurture that identify specific areas of need and work with the principles and teachers on those levels and then finally we get to right the standards and the the progression um here you can see we we we are actually an intervention strategy our our
057new roles were established for the purpose of tackling the gaps that we're seeing emerge in particular at the third and fourth grade level um following post pandemic and also just recognizing the gaps again going back to this is what a third grader should know in math and Ela um we need to get them here where are they now and to take steps back and to know what they're missing in third grade we know what second grade looks like what first grade looks like so it's easier to fill in those gaps and I'd like to just revisit one point change comes at the Speed Of Trust so we're we're circling back to the beginning of the presentation where we're committed to these buildings really getting to know and establish relationships with kids and teachers because without
058that we're not going to have any sort of deep conversations around teaching and learning and msd1 Community right everyone's familiar with that and we have some just images of us having the having more opportunities than ever this year to really get to know teachers and especially like in in unique and different ways visiting Thro with GRE for opening PB day where we had the opportunity to sign up and volunteer uh and I got to connect with teachers that I haven't talked to in in in years this is Miss Wendy chain she is a second grade teacher at Hill Prest and she was just celebrated last week um at the salute to teachers so I got I I said we have to get a picture for for the meeting tonight so she was more than happy
059to pose and and honored to take the picture uh and this is an activity we did just building reestablishing relationship this is the FMS Ela Department uh just getting to know each other again and you could see our our yarn that connects us all um keeps us together throughout the year um also with this I also have the opportunity to have back to school night with board members as well at the elementary school so that's been uh a nice fun addition to uh the different back to school nights on a different level it's a lot of fun um this is myself actually uh co- teing with um at alport Bale the days of the week as we just kind of going by greeting the students in the morning was a fun opportunity uh last Friday
060I went down to Brook uh Brookdale Community College for a very massive math convention and that includes uh one of my middle school one of our Middle School and High School teachers so was a very good thing partner day where we all shared different events we went to so I actually spent decent amount of time going to some of the elementary ones as well as some um older gr ones and at the end we we shared that we continue to keep uh board members a brid on on that visit and then uh speaking of salute the teachers this is another our recipient this is Miss Jenny salar who was another of teachers working with her on Timmy M um we invite any board members or community members for any questions at this time thank you
061very much good evening drci for president vice president Co esteemed members of the Board of Education and our valued families it is my pleasure to present to you this evening our spring 20 23 state so down one down first MJ GPA overview as per statute mhf 11th graders took the New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment in English language arts in mathematics and spring the assessment measure graduation Readiness in both subjects and is aligned to standards students should have mastered by grade 10 elaa and Algebra 1 and geometry standards students who do not meet the minimum requirement on either component are afforded the opportunity to retake each in the summer and in the fall they may also meet a designated cut score from other competency tests like the Adat the ACT acup Placer PSAT and sat the
062third pathway is by meaning the criteria of the NJ do Department of Education portfolio appeal for ELA and orat here's a comparison to the state of MS the spring 2023 NJ GPA results 81% graduation ready in La 19% not yet graduation ready in La 58% graduation ready in math 42% not yet graduation ready math now turning to the spring 2023 New Jersey student learning assessment here are some select notable achievements in grades 3 through five njsla we have seen year-to-year increases in these grades and these components meeting or exceeding grade level expectations means passing in the eyes of the state some select notable achievements in grade 6 to eight at jsaa and in grades 9 to 12 with a significant increase I might add in our Algebra 2 Source here's our spring 2023 njla Ela
063for by grades the more green the better by the way as we turn to compare year toe and percentages we should keep the following in mind for math 12.2% of our grade seven students participated in the algebra 1 assessment in L of math 7 39 % of grade 8 students participated in the algebra 1 accepted and 12.9% in the geometry assessment in Li of math 8 so math s and math 8 outcomes are not representative of their respective grades also the state does not include 11th or 12th graders in math results as these are considered retakes here's our spring njsla spring 2023 njsla math percentages by grades here are year-to-year different comparisons in the last two years for both Ela and math grade three grade four grade five grade six seven grade eight and grade
064nine Ela only here we feature algebra one district and school 2year comparisons here we have geometry recall that both FMS and MHS students take these math assessment Algebra 2 featuring MHS students only we now turn to two-year comparisons for both Ela and math for our grades three to five schools starting with Alexander Hamilton Thomas jeon Sussex Avenue and Norm Park the following slides are year-to-year comparisons of njsla results by subgroups these are percentages of student students meeting or exceeding Expectations first by race and ethnicity Elementary Ela Elementary MTH Middle School Ela M scho ma High School Ela and high school math here are yearyear comparisons showing percentages of needing or exceeding expectations in ela comparing students who are economically disadvantaged with students who are non economically disadvantaged across the Grade B amen now year toe
065comparisons sh percentages of meeting or exceeding expectations in the LA comparing students who are receiving special education with students in general education across the grade bags in m year-to-year comparison showing percentages of meeting or exceeding expectations in ela comparing are multilingual bilingual students with monolingual students across the grade bands and in MA the following slide highlights some of the intervention strategies that we currently have in place first addition of a math intervention in the high school and a secondary math coordinator an njsla results followup action plan for school highlighting the importance of being very transparent with our data reporting with our results and empowering teachers to improve our students achieve through that very same data we've applied for New Jersey Department of Ed high impact tuing Grant which we have not heard back yet either
066way uh but this grant was specifically Target to grades three and four because this these are the grades that the state has identified with the greatest needs coming out of the pandemic we are currently evaluating our K2 Ela instructional resources we are currently evaluating our K five social studies inst structural resources and in the social studies one of our criteria is to seek resources that also supports literacy dedicated to ELA structural resource is critical because these are of course the foundational grades well these grades may not appear on any state of achievement data per se they do in fact feed into our grades three to five and success in this space mean success for our students all the way up to grade PA and again a social studies piece with the literacy is a strong
067buffer for that success we are evaluating our 6 to8 math inst structural resources and looking to find resources that are comprehensive and rigorous for our students in their ability to meet the the needs and the rigor of the assessment and as my colleagues uh Cara and Mike just reported we have also instituted this Elementary principles and supervisor uh partnership to ensure that eyes are always with our elementary grade for the number of reasons that they just highlighted and glad at this point to answer any questions our board members might [Music] have how do our numbers compared to preco are we down are we up so in general uh All State numbers have dropped uh since Co since after Co and this is what we refer to as learning loss and the effect of learning loss
068unfinished learning however you wanted to uh say but we are now experiencing a bounceback so we're seeing our numbers in some of those slides that you just saw compared to year to year especially from last year we're seeing growth and Improvement I believe we have begun to turn the corner in in in that um area but you know we need to remain laser focused on helping our students you know again really go beyond that experience of learning lot and ensure that they have all the skill set they need to achieve in the future grades so you came from another district and and you have experience in other areas of New Jersy How would how do you see Maran uh coming looking at our data what are some of the overarching things that you're noticing that
069improve on or not or celebrate yes I would say this is not really atypical of more but you clearly see um a difference between our students who are identified as economically disadvantage and those who are not so that is an area where I believe our education system should uh work to bridge that Gap um we see significant differences in the subgroups as as as you've seen um and in this particular uh District because our multilingual Learners uh are are the big one of the biggest Subs I see that clearly evident here um than anywhere else I've seen but again I am also seeing a bounce back in scores and performances um across for our students I think the challenge is and this is when we speak about equity and ensuring that all students have successes
070and all students have access to high quality rigorous education that we meet that demand for all of our students and so you saw some of the slides and you see some of our real highflyer students with scores that are you know u in many cases above not only state average but in many of the other districts I've worked in where I've seen but then you also see those students who are liting behind and are is focus just to ensure all our students get ahead um how do we do we do comparisons against like districts I saw the state number flash up there quick but that's a that's too big of a sample set do we do the comparisons against like districts and how do we do so we certainly uh apply try to do those
071comparisons just like we're doing our presentation now and making our data available to the public or other like districts are doing the same so it's a matter of timing it's a matter of uh waiting for their data to be public size and we are certainly going to take a very close look at those comparisons and we hope to report back on and and my La last question was really what why the big differences in math proficiency versus Ela I mean it's just so obvious yeah very good question we know that in math uh Ela actually helps support math because now more than ever a lot of the math questions are centered around meing your ability to read will help you get a like up on your ability to to meet the map needs but that
072Trend that you you're you're referencing is actually quite visible across the state we know that with Co and learning loss it was in math that students were most affected so again specifically grades three to four because we were babies during 2020 and in math is one area where um we're seeing that effect uh greatly hence why one of our uh interventions is to strengthen our M instructional resources and instructional uh processes in our Middle School grade as well tell me about math in seventh grade because that is just the one that I just can't come yeah it's interesting because you see uh students in sixth grade they're m to the school uh they're it's you know there's a significant bump in the rigger in math um and then you see them the data clearly show
073them taking a step back in grade seven they bounced back in grade eight uh a bit but you know it is that middle space that we really uh believe that alignment a comprehensive approach uh can really help those students because uh you know it's the same teachers for the most part it's obviously the same school it's a lot of the same expectations but that grade is significantly uh challenge also recall that many of those students are also taking the more rigorous in courses so some of that math seven score that that you're referring to also signals uh the students who who should by all means be still way ahead but they're the students who are not taking the more challenging and rigorous that and there were some things that were I know uh highlighted last
074year that were being done in those grades uh with the blog you know with the with the schedule with other kinds of things training teachs and so forth um you don't need to comment on those but I I would really appreciate that you look at that and see what is working what is not working with the supervisor absolutely I I guess as as vi just said I'm concerned about a couple of things the feet drop off and particularly in math from middle school to high school I mean it it's significant drop off in that um and then as you look at the economics versus non-economically disadvantage and math they both drop off a seat clip but the economic disadvantage goes down to single vises and so and I I will always do we seem to
075do a really remarkable job of our higher fevers and we focus a lot on our higher fevers but specifically the number of people who are high going on to college is going to be small versus having Just serviceable skild For Life a life Proficiency in reading and Mathematics and I just feel that this data keep saying is our Focus comes on our high Achievers and we're still losing the Gap here and now this is just test course there's a lot of economic disadvantage that brings into this test score results half of these kids are saying will I have a cat for the winter will I have food um etc etc and so you know the public school system has to be all things to all people and I just really feel that and I know
076this is kind of true addressive but this is really acute to me that you know it's and it's something that our parents talk about what happens when you're at the low in the middle end of the district and it doesn't sound like we talk about that absolutely well said Mr F and we are here for all our students right economically advantaged or economically disadvantaged students I think one of the key pieces to your point of course is being in school attending and as Dr Lui just refered a few minutes ago our new attendance policy is aimed at doing just that um it makes not a whole lot of differ if we improve instruction we we increase rigor or our students are not there in school and we do understand that there are a lot of
077competing factors that may keep them after school but you know with these changes in poy I'm also seeing um really a greater participation and once we have them in school we can te to their whole child needs we can seek ways that we can support them by extended day and Extended Learning opportunities and that that those are two key ways that we can begin to bridge that Gap and ensure that all our students feel safe feel that this is their home that this is a place that they can achieve that they can fla their talents and their abilities and really compete with all all our students at every level and no matter what demographic I I think that's fair and I think the last presentation I think is a good start you know it's I
078remember when I was a child and I have sophomore and one of the things that always worries me is are the teachers turning on the light for the students and as they unleashing potential in those young people early on and saying I think you can do it and it's the experiential learning versus the actual class learning as well and Dr I know you talked about that but that's the piece that I see sometime as the Gap I feel based on the anecdotal information that there's a disconnect between the child the educator and it is becomes a drudgery versus someone is unleashing my potential for learning and loving and the love of learning and it happens early and I think the last presentation was about that but then something gets lost something gets lost because then
079it's a drudgery and and I think we have to think about that connection to young people thank I I'll just think one other comment probably I the I agree we need to address the absences is 10% Improvement enough I mean should we be pushing for more um than just 10% maybe it's we need to just figure it out and then expand upon it next school year the decrease many kids are that I think we were at 90 I think that's why they were saying with yeah I think so getting 10 kids that are there no 0% maybe like look at at the the disadvantage disadvantage and looking at what percentage they're they're coming you know compared to the rest that you could extract not just like you just told us the MTH you can't you
080have to think that that all taking alge right so that that affects that seventh grade well let's look at percentages of attendance for the the sub groups that are the most impacted and let's put some efforts extra efforts in there yeah I think they actually did that and I think that's one of the reasons why we've added buing to so many students who are economically disadvantaged right Linda because the correlation between advantage and not being bu so it all ties together all students are great well thank you I would like to actually turn it over uh to our mol principal uh who will actually speak to one of these strs in that space that U he has been implementing specifically aimed at the tier one for instru which is critical so that we do not
081need other forms of intervention for thank you Mr Vargas and thank you to the board for giving me the opportunity to speak about our efforts at freeling heisen this year and one of our strategic actions this year to improve learning outcomes for all students at freeling and in the critical Middle School years and at the same time close some of those very stubborn and post-pandemic growing gaps that you saw between the subgroups is to really pull our Collective energy and attention and put it on our inclass support classrooms at FMS and when I talk about in-class support classrooms what I'm referring to are sections in which there are two certified teachers one certified teacher in the content area and a second certified teacher who's certified in teachers of students with disabilities and very often the
082content area as well um and what makes the that setting unique is that both teachers are responsible for the teaching and learning of all students in that classroom space now at freeling heisen if we look across the three grade levels we have 65 inclass support sections um in math social studies science and language arts so really all students um are touched by the inclass support uh classroom and what we're really focused on this year is integrating the best models of instruction in the inclass support setting in order to number one optimize the two certified Educators that are in those classrooms to best meet the needs of the w range of Learners sitting in those classrooms the six inclass support instructional models um that are up there right now which I will briefly touch upon really
083accomplish two things um number one they decrease the teacher to student ratio in those classrooms and number two they increase the opportunity of every student in those classrooms to respond and share their thinking more frequently and also to receive more frequent feedback from the teachers so that's really why we're so heavily invested this year fing and integrating the best instructional models for the inclass support classrooms when we look look at them there are six that are often written about and there's been a lot of research on the first is the most traditional um which I would argue is one that we want to see less of and it's the one teach one assist model uh typically whole class instruction one of the teachers leading it a second teacher supporting students um as the one teacher
084leads all class instruction second model is team teaching again um I would argue not the most efficient both teachers are leading the whole class instructional lesson um often playing off one another and sharing uh instructional responsibilities one teach one obser Ser now we're getting into what I would say are some of the the the really more effective strategies or models we want to see in this model you still have one teacher leading whole class instruction the second teacher is intentionally collecting data on formative data on students on something they've agreed upon prior to the lesson it could be instructional uh uh learning data on a stud progress towards the objective could be Behavior data uh and that's what the second person's doing here's where we're really leaning into these models though at freeling heisen where
085we feel we get um the the the most effective use of two certified instructors in the classroom in alternative teaching you have one teacher leading a larger group uh on one aspect of the lesson and you have a second teacher and it can be either pulling a small group could be to pre-teach to reteach to have more small group guided practice really optimizing two teachers in parallel teaching another one we really want to see and we're going to be measuring implementation of in our classrooms through walkthroughs now we're going to reduce that teacher to student ratio by dividing the class in half and we're going to teach the same content we may teach it a different way but again we're providing students with more opportunities to interact with the teacher share their thinking and get
086feedback and then finally something that um we see I just thought very effectively use at freeling heisen on Friday and something we'll be doing PD on uh on November 17th for our teachers station teaching here we'll have the two instructors running small groups on two different topics they're teacher-led um while a third group of student is doing something independently or as a small group um so again really effective in that optimizing both teachers and we're accomplishing those goals of reducing the teacher to student ratio and increasing um feedback to students and opportunities for them to be engaged by sharing their thinking um and really we believe strongly at FMS that if we pull our Collective attention and energy and implementing these strategies at a high level in our inclass support classrooms again we will increase
087achievement for all students while we at the same time um close those gaps that we were all looking at um when we were looking at the achievement data if there are any questions I'd very much like to provide you with an opportunity to I have a just observation can hear me doesn't look like it's um in any case um I wanted to know if the size of class matters you uh are showing circles showing the student students and I see that probably the maximum is 16 and then it goes down from there for some of these models is there a correlation between the success of the mod you're using and the number of students that the teachers and co- teers address what what I would contend is that the size of the class is even
088another reason why those three strategies I spoke about um are so important for us if we want to improve learning for all students because what we're doing especially with the alternate teaching the parallel teaching and the station teaching is we're reducing the teacher to student ratio and increasing as I said opportunities for students to share thinking and get feedback what I will say is the size of the class makes it more complex so a station teaching lesson with a class of 24 um may involve a couple of other independent stations and not just three uh like I saw in an eth grade ELA class this past Friday that I observed but I would say while it makes it more complex at the same time it also in my strong belief makes it more incumbent upon
089us to do it could you just share a little bit about how these teachers sort of what opportunities they have for planning to be able to use the data and I'm imagining this is all wonderful but how they get to work together to strategize how they're best in eng sure and and this is part of our our presentation on FMS on this we are so fortunate at FMS in that our teachers share um common planning time a common prep period of 40 minutes every single day and they meet as a grade level professional learning community so let's say sixth grade language arts another two times a week for 40 minutes so a huge obstacle to doing this effectively in many schools is you need time to sit down and plan that out um we are
090so fortunate in that that is uh less of an obstacle time will always be an obstacle for teachers there's never enough for them to do the type of planning they need to reach all students but I would contend it's less of an obstacle at freeling Eisen as it is at other schools and I'm very familiar with thank you thank you Mr thank you so much and I'm gonna um hand it over to Dr Pinz um so we have here our DM scores DM is an alternate um State assessment for our students with IEPs um so we're very proud that um all of our eighth graders have met I mean our 11th graders met their target um we see that the yellow on the on the far right so they're very proud of our lers and
091you know that you know it's not always easy DM goes according to our students your needs um we're going go into the access for our L's at this time so you're going to see two different scores our access that most of our L's take and then the alternate access with for our L's that have um IEPs as well so this is our first slide which Compares our cap five um you can see that in kindergarten most of our um multilingual Learners are still um you know at number one what we want to see is growth um really approaching three fours and fives so we're happy to say that you can see that as they enter first second third grade you see more three fours and fives um you need a 4.5 in order to be
092exited bu the program so we are um we did see the most um growth in our fourth and fifth grades and the most students that exited this year this is just a comparison to show you um 2022 and 2023 um once again we're very proud of our fourth and fifth grade um they had the most um students exit the program and go on to ESL only or for monolingual classes this is our um access um for 6 through 12th grade um we see progression here with our students going into the threes and fours um in ninth grade you can see we had the most students take the um state exam because that is where we are experiencing most of our new entrance right so between 9th and 10th grade that's why you see such large
093numbers here um and then we had quite a few students exit in our 11th and 12th grade program as well this is a comparison once again with the 20122 2023 school years from 6th to 12th grade um here we saw the most growth in our 7th grade and 11th grade um for exiting the program this is our alternate access these are the students with IEPs that took you access um so we did not have too many but we're very proud of their gr as well any that's it any questions for me on DM or access what sort of goal is appropriate for the number of students that are actually out I me it looks like it's maybe less than 10% it is what's a reasonable goal after three or four years well it depends when
094they enter so we have to look at how many years they've been in the program a reasonable expectation is to have our students exit within three or four years of the program um but it depends on when they're entering so some of these scores that you see the kids are with the six months maybe seven months because they have to take it no matter when they enter our school district so student may enter in February and they'll sit for the test in March um so that's important to see that as well we we saw um 71 students exit the program last year roughly 9% but but it's the numbers we saw across the top of each grade level that's the total number of students in the program correct in that grade level 71 any other
095questions than thank you yes next so that uh that was the portion of our presentation on student achievement data that we mandatorily report out and discuss want to let you know that we'll have that full slide deck available online along with all of our email addresses uh so that if you have any questions when you actually get a chance to sit down and look at the hand you can reach out to us I'd like to thank um Miss Zuma Mr Sarah for their presentation and also Mr you for giving us that strong insight into what our FMS classes look like and Mr varas for bringing the presentation together now we're going to shift geers uh back into the second portion of the presentation tonight which is more about school culture and climate and also reporting
096out what we're observing about student behavior in each of our schools and I'm sorry I forgot to also thank Dr P Gomez our assistant superintendent for bilingual and special education for reporting out the uh the last portion of student achievement data so thank you everyone for that and now uh we'll do the EV vrs reporting so tonight um I'm going to go over the second semester violence and vandalism report from last year we've already seen it I did it when we did the HIV report card so the same information but also wanted to share as we reflected over the summer we took a look at the date of what we've seen so this is not new information we saw this I think June July time period um these are comparisons longitudinally of how our second
097semester has been over the past um almost eight or nine years the definitions of violence and vandalism are along the top there um and then I've done a comparison like you saw uh back in June July the same data for the full year so I will report in again again to you in January for what our first semester looked like this is our official report for this um for this school year we also looked at the hi data from last year uh we had 80 incidents that reported 33 were confirmed to be hi you can see as we talked about um a few months ago who they were uh reported by it's good to see that there's lots of different folks that feel comfortable reporting and especially that we're seeing our students report into us
098um of the 33 that were were confirmed you can see the locations where they occurred um bus classroom online within the school building uh lunch and recess and then we broke down um our confirmed HS into what the perceived or actual characteristics were so we were seeing some Trends across race gender and gender identity uh comments about appearance um some perceived weaknesses in terms of social um social status uh disability and then there were six that were really kind of across the board in terms of other there were a lot of supports and remediations that we continue to put in place for our students we do student meetings Reflections restorative conferences uh sessions if the students are both um interested in doing that sometimes we're referring our students for counseling there's pushin classroom ESL lessons
099that occur we continue to check in with our students uh and we want to help them build their social emotional skills this is an incident in a point in time and we see this as an opportunity for growth and learning for our children so I wanted to talk about some of the things that we're doing this year related to HIV and anti-bullying as a reflection um we did our annual PD for all of our principles and our anti-bulling Specialists on um the Hib law we had cyber bullying and harassment education assembly LED at the middle school and the high school by our prosecutor's office and diarra's house I think as well was part of that assembly they also did a parent program um we annually train all of our students in stff on the hi
100policies procedures and we annually train our coaches uh and PE staff on hien Athletics which is coming up in November uh we also meet we have our school safety and uh climate team meet meetings that happen at the school level to review data want to share and it's on our website I'll have it on the next page all of our hi contacts by school are available on the district site and each School site in the footer I've also indicated which of these um folks uh speak Spanish as well for for folks in the community that need that support we revamped our web page so if you were to go onto the um HIV from our district site you can see uh my information's on there the anti-bullying specialist information there's a state school climate State
101coordinator that families can reach out to uh if they have any questions links to our head policy our grades reports and how to report anonymously or made through our online um hipster program if if that's a vehicle somebody wants to use so what are the things that we're doing this year um to make sure that we're having our students start out with a really great start so we're continuing from a mental health and wellness perspective restorative practices we run friendships groups and social skills groups at our schools we are so grateful to have our social work intern program that now covers K2 um they do a great great job I work with um their coordinator at targeting different areas where we want them to kind of push into classrooms and maybe do some one-on-one support
102students student they also just issued the FDL parent newsletter so at um K I should have said K5 you may have seen that if you're a parent of an ele student um come through from the principls we continue to have our mindful moments and our yoga for classrooms uh and our counselors are pushing into uh classrooms preschool 8 on various topics related to social skills F understanding your feelings mindful the high school staff will be having training next week on Mental Health vers Aid it's a skills-based training course that our teachers um will learn about mental health and substance abuse issues and there will also be a parent night so if you haven't seen that kind of come through that's going to be on November 7th at 7 o'clock um for the MEF is sponsoring
103for us so we're really excited for that initiative at the high school and then no place for hate is going to be launched or has been launched actually at the middle school so I know Joe is included in a lot of his newsletters looking for um any families that are interested in particip I think um tin Alberto said she's met with students already and had some really great meetings um because this is really a lot of student run in terms of the program so more to come on no place for hate and then finally includ continuing on our inclusive communities and our sense of belonging we still have our excel at FMS we do community circles I was in a Kindergarten class the other day and they were doing roses Buds and thorns and to
104see a group of 25 or 20 you know know kindergarten students actively listening and engage with their heart to each other about kind of what their roses and their Thorns were um was was really something to see and really a nice skill set for the kids to have to start out um we've got positive behavioral interventions and supports our schools as we've talked about we want to make sure our kids are involved through after school activities and sports you might hear Bucket Fillers from some of the K2 kids um positive referrals at some of our schools you're here so we're catching somebody doing something good not catching them something bad we want to reinforce the good behaviors our near pure muring and know often here Abby ororo talk about the work that they're doing in
105terms of Story Time and um pushing into our younger uh classrooms and then really continue to engage in in uh Center our student Bo so sorry we had a lot of presentation um just want to see if you have any other questions any questions for Dad no I'll come back again in January thank you so much so some of the things I was going to share I already shared but one of the things I did want to mention for the board last week before time now and I were able to attend the tribute to teachers teach last my gosh um yeah was that Monday it was it was really a lovely event I feel like the teachers that were honored felt really good about it but it also seemed like the teachers who were just
106there to be their fellow teachers really thrilled so that was just a great thing that I felt lucky to be able to be part of and I know you all would love to have been there wanted to share that with you and now we're going to go over to committee reports we already had our student reports season would you like to give us an update on curriculum sure see the curriculum committee met on October 18th we had a productive meeting covering an extent of agenda and approve the following items the September 13th meeting minutes theor School District professional development plan Spanish translators for the 2023 24 school year which includes a te team of five teachers two from Marone High School two from Freel heisen and one for the prek through fifth grade the translation
107is needed for school and District forms for parent nights and informational noices for the community this is locally fun funded a comprehensive list of district field trips for our K to 12 students throughout the school year was approved please note that additional field trips may come up for approval in the coming months students decide science programs and Labs were also approved the students to science team will work with students and teachers to participate in biotechnology lab activities including biotech experiments for grades 9 through 12 stem career research programs such as biotech career day for grades 10 through 12 and lab internships for our grades 11 and 12 stem students as well as virtual class Laboratories laboratory activities for grades 5 through 8 these activities and programs take place both outside the district and in District
108in which scientists push into classrooms and may also take part in our grades K through five stem days thank you to Gilead Sciences and Mars Plains for their generosity in providing $61,200 in grant funding for this the Mars School District ski program was also approved this program run runs through the community school and will allow Freeland heisen middle school and marown high school students access to ski trips at shauny M in Pennsylvania these ski trips will take place after school during the months of January and February program costs are covered by collected participant tuition the committee also approved the novice teacher coaching initiative at Alexander Hamilton School the consulting firm Elevate educators will provide job embedded coaching to our novice teachers at Alexander Hamilton School Elevate Educators was utilized last year in the district for
109after school mentoring this coaching will be broken down into 15 halfday visits across three months the job embedded coaching model includes goal setting informal observations of teachers debriefs and modeling as necessary it would be for seven teachers 33d grade 24th grade and two fth grade including one special education teacher this program will serve as a pilot for future consideration and will be funded by title 2 this is currently pending while in review by the business office our final approval is for the sore fifth grade tutoring program which helps fifth grade students and their families achieve success in educational support mentoring and enrichment opportunities through various Community Partnerships the tutoring site will be at the Valley National Bank in marown um our students will work with college students and teachers to identify areas requiring enrichment and
110work collaboratively to strengthen those areas since about 95% of parents do not speak fluent English sessions are done with a bilingual facilitator despite a delay due to challenges in recruiting students and happy to report that is now on track to begin in early November please be advised that you will see a new motion on tonight's agenda to approve the sunset program at Lafayette Learning Center this came up after our curriculum meeting but with board approval tonight effective November 1st 2023 the community school will open a sunset program at LLC from School dismissal until 5:30 p.m. days of operation will follow the school calendar the committee welcomed Dr Diana Pinto Gomez assistant superintendent of pupil services and bilingual education to our meeting Dr Pinto Gomez presented a new three-year bilingual plan every threee school districts must
111submit a plan describing their District's program for English language Learners the plan is an opportunity for educators to review the academic needs of their elll students and the type of program to best address those needs our current three-year bilingual plan is active in its last year and on record with the Department of Education this new plan is a work in progress and will be revised and updated throughout the school year it should be ready for board approval this summer the committee also welcomed Brian Young supervisor of Science and stem who presented presented information on both the students to science program that I highlighted earlier as well as the new marown high school STEM Academy informational packet and application Mr Young shared that this information will be sent out to sending school districts blasted on social
112media and Shar throughout our school district Marcos Vargas assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction presented a working draft of the 2023 24 districtwide professional development offerings for the upcoming inser professional development day on November 7th Mr Vargas also discussed the launch of the Gil in context for educators roll out and how it supports teaching planning around State mandates and Beyond Gail in context for educators merges quality standards aligned material with ready to use lesson plans across a variety of disciplines and other instructional tools to help teachers achieve their professional goals first launch training will be virtual on the November M 7th professional development day for 6 through 12 bla social studies and science teachers additionally Mr Vargas updated the committee on the latest developments around the delayed State via the adoption of the new 2023
113New Jersey student learning standards in LA and map he also provided a status update on our high impact tutor and Grant application including the state's delay in reviewing such applications Mr Vargas informed the committee that the Everett lighthouse pilot program was picked up by the fourth and fifth grader fifth grade teachers at Normandy Park School who are excited to get started the goal of the program is to improve writing instruction and it will begin around the end of no November beginning of December you may recall that everit by Nella is a prome extension for Google Docs it's like grammarly but it focuses on helping students improve their written argumentation and literary analysis skills students use Everett to request and receive grou work Aline feedback on their short response writing in Google Docs anytime they want
114this was originally discussed at our August 23rd meeting at that time it was considered for seventh grade at FMS but has now shifted to the younger grades and I'm pleased that it will now be piloted in Normandy Parks fourth and fifth grade classes it should also be noted that the Sora College Access program that was originally on the curriculum agenda has been tabled for the moment tutors and mentors in the program would assist students with essay writing the college application process and completing financial aid applications and they must go through an onboarding process additionally a certified teacher must be secured to supervise this at Moran high school during lunch some tutors might be out of state for virtual sess sessions the district has asked for more clarity before bringing it back to the committee you
115may have also noticed in the curcum minutes that the committee did not have a chance to review the state testing data presentation at our meeting due to sub slides needing adjustment as well as new graphs being developed the final slide deck was shared with the entire board after the meeting meeting I would like to thank Mr Vargas and his team for all of their hard work in putting this very comprehensive and thorough presentation together for this evening as you can see it was a power packed agenda to quote our fellow board member Linda Murphy thank you once again to Dr pintz Mr Young for joining us as well as Dr muchi and Mr Vargas for their insights and informative discussions I look forward to the next meeting on November 15 than Linda would you like
116to give us a finance update I certainly would um we met on the 23rd of October and the first thing I'd like to start with is something that didn't get discussed in our committee meeting but is on the board agenda this evening motion 12 under education matters has us accepting $355,000 for New Jersey high imput impact tutoring Grant so we actually submission oh for the submission not the anyway $35,000 is not significant number so I'm very happy to report that um and now to more mundane matters we have have um a lot of uh work to do with our grants that we receive uh so final reports on the following grants have been submitted the esa which covers title 124 the iidea grant the ARP Grant the sr2 Grant and there's an on public completion
117report so all of these have to be um updated to show how we actually spend the money and once the final reports for psea and idea are approved they'll be a board motion to accept carryover monies and amend our 3.4 so thanks to the hard work of the finance folks they keep us on all these GRS and it's wonderful thank um also on the agenda this evening under business matters motion 22 there's a list of fix fixed assets that are being presented for disposal these are items that are either outdated or inoperable um some includes various furniture for the schools and a few other miscellaneous items uh some of which will be posted for sale on uh go deal or or perhaps just um we have a very uh long list of donations uh on
118the agenda tonight for acceptance motions under business matters motions 6 to 11 um so uh one is from um Miss Eileen wolf for $1,000 for the freeming heis and voice soccer team uh there's a grant for uh $1,100 to Woodland School from the FM Kirby Foundation which goes for the cost of assemblies um $6,000 from the LA Emily PHA Foundation which is a residency grant for Alexander Hamilton and these funds will cover the entire cost of a um Pages for players Junior residency with the Shakespeare Theater um of New Jersey through morar um then we have another one for uh Mor County Clean communities that funded an earth science day curriculum sustainability assembly program for Alexander Hamilton um and then and another uh Mo for chose Legacy $1300 and this for a taond do pickathon
119which sounds like a lot of fun um and last but not least a a new bench in memory of former student miles M mski uh from the family there'll be a PL reading Miles of Smiles and uh POS 2013 um uh family also sponsors a scholarship through MEF which you should be aware of as well um this is the time when we're getting involved in audit updates the Auditors are reviewing their field work and um found a few minor exceptions for internal control testing we don't know at this time of the exceptions are going to be included in the audit as a finding um but more to follow on that and we also have an approval for the 2425 budget calendar so the work is starting now it actually started on October 15 and it
120will run through the budget development will run through um the public hearing which is scheduled for April 29th so requires a lot of hard work all bottom up every Department every school will provide their input and we'll end up with our new budget um Capital project update the turf lights uh is awaiting a final punch list but as you've seen the scoreboard Bo of the tur fights are a big success everybody's loving that um the final contract total came in just a little uh over $1.3 million but there was actually a refund coming back with for about $990,000 was exended the Woodland renovation on the roof uh is's no update on that stonework that's underway should be completed over a weekend pending weather U there's no update on the hbac at Woodland for the windows
121and uh unit gun lers because those are going into next year for completion um for the Alexander Hamilton parking lot this is a subject of discussion for several of their last meetings the uh principal mros um has reviewed the need for additional parking and due to a change in programs at Alexander Hilton they do not have as much need for visitor parking so there are approximately five vacant spots there on a daily basis given that we are not going to proceed with replacing the grass for additional parking will remediate the soil um as as is required um and the filings will be completed by the architect and held event that we be done at some point in the future the rod grants um again we're waiting for approval on those we didn't have any notification
122on which projects were approved for how much money um and at this point given the where we are with the budgeting and the capital planning we may need to have these things scheduled in the summer of 2025 so we might be having push these things out due to lack of information uh from a long range planning standpoint uh proposed projects include fire alarms at um at sale and the hery park elevator replacement at FNS some hbac replacement for Morristown bandroom and a room 112 as electronic upgrades at the high school for the third floor to accommodate AC window units anyone who's been teaching on the fourth floor recently knows it get awfully darn hot up there for instructors and students so this is a way to provide some relief and inally hopefully it um anyway
123we'll be working with the architect over the next couple of weeks to review the scope of work and get some cost that's fores um a comprehensive maintenance plan has been uh it will be filed with the county office uh and I printed it out so you can see how pretty it is it's all very colorful uh the form reports on a 10year historical spend on maintenance and repairs for our school buildings calculates the minimum amount the district is required to budget and shows what we anticipate spending so annually we invest about 2 million doll in repairs and maintenance in our facilities the uh State minimum Target is only2 $57,000 so we are very good at keeping our facilities uh refreshed and ready for our students to um so um I think this is probably posted
124for public consumption if you'd like to look at the detail on that report and then uh we already mentioned the CAC um so we've completed the dprs needed for submission that's on the PO that's under policy motion five on the agenda and there'll be a motion to approve the submission uh at the next board meeting um we have some um new Transportation joint Transportation agreements uh motion 17 24 and 25 so we'll be providing some Transportation support for children on the green paring Township and sister charity at St Elizabeth's and um major kudu Greg ssky for all the hard work he does in our transportation department um we also have a motion 16 which will approve our hazardous roots for this year a route can be considered hazardous if it has even One Stop on
125the route that fits the criteria that in the agenda there's a list of the criteria that we look at so you can you can take a look at those um Mr K has weed AP CNL to create a presentation for our drivers on the proper safety protocols in the evental live wire God forbid falls on oura and that schedule will take place on November 7th bu to the bus one of our favorite buang uh is beginning presentations at Alexander hel Al Bale and that'll be happening this week the presentations are both in Spanish and English for our students um the long awaited hydraulic lifts have arrived are being utilized by our Mechanics for our buor so they can actually raise up and work underneath with us um and we can do more inair as the
126result which is a is a cop matter for us and then there's a report a district report for transport transp transport I transported resident students due by the 15 it captures all transported in District and our distri students as well as students attending non-public who who receive a in Lou uh so that report um is um going to be approved I get at our next right it was due by the 15th we have a food service monthly update U uh it's on for approval motion 14 it's called biocurity but really the only change to that report is some updated contact inform soard that's done on an annual basis so there's no major changes involved our next finance committee is November 14th and I'm guessing we're talking about thanks Linda Kati would you like to give
127us an update yes so in addition to anything covered in executive session um just the drawing well we talk about that as well the annual approval of the organizational chart some approving of student teachers and social worker interns um of no in the abolish and establish is one um bilingual math that is um so that we can make sure that we have a qualified um math teacher that that will become a math class with ESL support through co- teing which lets us hire and and facilitate that class uh sooner and and done well um several of the items on the agenda are actually slight adjustments for bus drivers um based on their route and to account for the time needed and um finally um the breakdown of the teams for um crisis team School climate
128and safety School Improvement threat assessment and wellness teams at each um building um and then um one thing of note is that there is somebody taking advantage of the referral bonus which is always great when our own teachers are referring other Educators um as well and our next meeting is November 4th thanks ktie uh Beth would you like to give us a policy update yeah sure okay so then the um committee met on October 20th and as always we start by doing an initial review of policies which require mandated procedural updates by SC at may this month we had seven all of which were reviewed and approved for first read on tonight's agenda um to a note and obviously you know you guys don't read them if you have questions you let us know they're
129usually quite lengthy but um of note we had policy 5111 eligibility of Resident non-resident students in addition to our mandates uh mandated updates rather from Strauss ese we had some inclusion of language to allow for tuition students uh sample tuition application was also reviewed by the committee and will'll be leveraged to create a MSB tuition application once drafted it'll be reviewed with principles for their feedback um the committee also in connection with this policy discuss Renovations occurring at five pots housing and the impacts on our families who have who are displaced during the renovation at this time and their potential timeline for returning to living within the district or relocating to another District so more to come on that um also of note is policy 0162 notice of board meetings I know we had discussed
130this at a couple prior uh policy committee meetings and also it was noted um at the board meetings but uh you should know that we do have now posting notice for board meetings to newspapers The Daily Record is our official newspaper and happen to marown is the second news paper um we have three policies that we approved for that were abolished for review and then discussion we've discussed our proposed 2024 2025 board meeting dates um we reviewed those nothing of not more pretty standard and then we also reviewed the Comm reviews together The District Individual School counts report as of September 20 um our next meeting is December 1st November has been canceled FYI and um that's it thank you great thanks would you like to um yes just two important points um they are
131finished um in the end of your campaign um looking for donors to round out the year um but in big news and make sure that you and anybody you know that is talented signed up to audition on December 2nd from uh mors town on stage anyone who lives Works worships receive Talent training Goes to School in Morris Township Town um moris Plains and all alums of MHS um are welcome and try to register before November 12th because it will cost you nothing and you have a chance to win ,00 so that's not bad um and then the show will be February 29th so mark your calendar for a very fun night yeah now we're gonna move over to the business portion of the meeting moving minutes motions one and two do you have a second
132second thank you any discussion Anthony please call the yeah M Murphy yes m yes Dr adriz yes Mr Smith yes m w yes Mr Cole yes yes moving policy motions one through six wait a second any discussion Anthony please call the roll Mr lyd yeah Miss Murphy yes M yes Dr Rodriguez yes Mr Smith yes Mr wall yes Mr Po yes M yes moving educational matters motions 1 through 12 wait a second awesome thank you any discussion Anthony P Missy yes Miss Murphy yes Mrs pedalino yes Dr Rodriguez yes Mr Smith yes M wall yes M Cole stain on number 11 and yes to all others Mrs fod yes moving pupil Services motion three second thank you any discussion pleas M yes Miss bery yes M yes Dr Rodriguez yes Mr smth yes Mr wall
133yes Mr Cole St on number one yes on two inre this the yes human resource moving Human Resources motions 1 through 32 with revised motions 1 3 8 9 and 20 and New Motion number 32 any discussion I'm sorry we have a second secondry than any discussion pleas call this yes Miss Murphy yes M abstaining from motion number 18 yes to all others Dr Rodriguez yes Mr Smith yes Mr wall um abstain to number motion number 21 yes to all other Mrs Cole yes M yes moving business matters mo one through 25 with new motions 24 and 25 have a second I'll second thank you any discussion anything please call the roll M yes M mury yes M yes Dr Rodriguez yes Mr Smith I obain on motion five yes M wall yeah m p
134yeah M yeah that concludes our business matters do we have any business okay with that can I have a motion to adourn favor thank you so much everyone have a great night