001I'd like to thank the correspondents for Mr. Saez. Did you want to share that, Mr. Herbert? We can. Our former retired VA, as members have already stated, thank you all very much for spending time with me at our last board meeting together in August. Those are the many kind words. I appreciate all that you've done to support me over the years, but more importantly, for our communities, for our lives. It was such an honor working for all of you. That's a lot going forward. Thanks again for that final point. That was overwhelming. The best point ever. Sorry, my colleague. I could have resisted. Sincerely, Timothy Simmons. The operations is going on that day, so we see guest presenters here. One of the reports that I am required to give each year is our graduation pathways
002report. And this just speaks about the number of our students that graduated via the NJGPA versus one of the substitute competency assessments. So the total number of students graduating in 2025 were 436. The number of graduates who met the graduation requirements by passing a substitute competency test, 19 for ELA and 78 for math. We had zero go through the portfolio appeals process. And with regards to students meeting alternative requirements as specified in their IEPs, we had 24 for ELA and 38 for math. So, and we do not have... graduation rate data yet the state does usually finalize that until November 1st so we are required tonight to report the actual report for the penultimate and that's all I have for right now I have a couple other things that the students are going to highlight
003in their report same for the I would say thank you to everyone for being welcoming and the PA absolutely is a letter for everyone this month's student achievements are as follows congratulations to sophomore Ansh Chowdhury and Joseph Cerami who were awarded honorable mention in the 15th in May of 2025. The theme was acts of kindness promote peaceful and inclusive society. Chloe Chen, a junior, participated in the Gilder Lerman Institute's inaugural citizenship challenge in May of 2025. They received almost 450 entries in the competition and we are pleased to report that Chloe was selected as one of the 26 finalists. We are proud to announce that four Washtenaw Hill students have been named semi-finalists in the 2026 National Merit Scholarship Competition. They are Aiden Desai, Julian Bigness, Jason Zhang, and Tim. This year's four Washington Hills
004National Merit semifinalists means that 31 Washington Hill students have qualified as National Merit for the most recent five years. In addition, we have based on the sports for school events, the Beat the Change Ambassadors helped first annual carnival for freshmen during freshman orientation. Beat the Change also recorded a lot of different sports and clubs dancing to music for school spirit. They also planned ice-breaking activities to ensure you feel comfortable at night. Local historians Roy Britt and Greg Fitzgerald spoke to the Social Studies Department. The history of war in New Jersey as part of the Rev. M.J. Tufigba Revolutionary School is a New Jersey K-12 school that has officially partnered with Revolution New Jersey and the New Jersey Department of Education to promote and elevate social studies education as part of the. The 2025 fall athletic
005season is over. Over 450 warriors participating. The Hall School Council sponsored a fan zone at. athletic season kickoff event prior to our September 5th home football game showcasing the fall athletic team. The turnout was a success and enjoyed by all. This past week, 10 student athletes traveled to North Hunterdon High School to participate in the Skyline Conference Sportsmanship and Leadership Summit with many other conference high schools. Our warriors had the opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations and exchange ideas with other student athletes regarding the tasks and triumphs of being our first meeting of of Walt's Warrior Athletic Leadership Team took place last week. Over 20 senior athletes share their ideas and opinions. Various watch on hills athletic related topics. Three home football games will celebrate or white out against homecoming in recognition of October 17th.
006And football cheer in March and Nancy are like, welcome to the SAT and the ESL and some of their tests as well. So first off, some of the data that I'm going to send to you is dealing with the SAT and SAT. Go first, your class children's test. involved. What we see here is we have four semifinalists. So the column that I'm really looking at, you see that 37% of population of students are in. So this is our percentage of student schools. So those that took a test and maybe didn't take one at least see that we're talking about this. So I've been an email to the board a few weeks ago. We really celebrated this at the beginning of the year with the staff. Not just a result of AP courses, there is a
007lot of prerequisite content that leads up to that. So this is truly a credit to our entire staff because they start preparing the students as 9th and 10th graders, you know, if you guys can attest to. This was a very deliberate effort. We changed prerequisites. We removed barriers to keep students from, you know, who wanted to take an AP but weren't able to get into any of the different, you know, laundry list of prerequisites we had. We also shifted some of our AP courses to give students a chance. so that they could balance out their schedule in 12th grade. So this was something that, in 2013, I had challenged the staff with, look, we're going to increase our number of AP students, so students take exams, and we're going to increase our scores. And everyone,
008you know, thought that was crazy. We actually set for as our goal for, and it wasn't that we didn't meet it. We were failures. It was let's give ourselves something to look at the progress. It's not that we, you know, put all these things in place to limit. classes so that we can artificially increase this. We've been opening opportunities for students and increasing their performance on it. Now, this is not our endgame. This is making what they used to be for college into more college-level content. P student does not mean you have to take six or seven AP courses. You may just really love science and want to try AP biology. And so we really try to tap into advising students and having the counselors, you know, encourage students who they think might... potential, which
009also is one of the things we get from PSAT, right, that comes from the PSAT, the AP Potential Report, so that we're reaching out to students who may not otherwise think to take an AP course, but the AP Potential Report identifies them as, you know what, this student might do really well in AP Economics, so that we're trying to be more direct about that. And so I just, I'm so proud of the staff pricing, opening up our courses, you know, some of the different AP courses we offer. So anyway, this is... evidence of that being made and success. Much better than I did. Are you going to say this is the fact that Sophie and Juliana, we determined, yes, we determined. Wait until June. That's early. It looks like the results are in AP exams.
010I'm saying one month in the second, right? So, in effect, you have a, you lose a month in the exam because some of the other schools, they start early. I appreciate that. That's why we like to start early. We appreciate the earlier start. So, the question, I think I brought this up before, for that. Well, that is a specific question given how many students actually have experience that they could show. I hear Sophie saying, did you get a research paper? Specifically, yes. From my AQA class last year after we did, you got to write. Oh, I got to write. I'm sorry. I had all these papers to write a five-page research paper. That is, however, a must-read. Before we go on to the HSLA, just a couple things about SAT and AP. Last year, AP
011was the first time that exams were either fully visual or high. hybrid digital. The only paper pencil exams were world language exams. That was something that was different for students. And last year was the first, class of 2025 was the first year it was a fully digital A to the C team. There are differences when you take those tests. So to take that into account, how much is that metric? I'm not exactly sure, but those are important. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the NJSLA. These are the New Jersey student learning assessments. These are the statewide assessments that are benchmark tests that assess how our students are doing in comparison to New Jersey arts and science. Mathematics testing, just so you know, is subject-based. So we're taking the NJSLA. These are grade
0129, algebra 4, and algebra 2, depending on what your ELA testing is grade. Science testing is 11 specific. And it's digital testing. This past year it took part in April and May, so we do have to juggle it around APs. So that's a very difficult month. So you're going to have a lot of students testing there, and that's always a challenge for them. So let's start to look at the results. The first result is for them to make sure you understand what we're looking at, the state of the... grade students that watch state results in high school and middle schools. Please remember that there are a lot of middle schools and they are thrown into the state data disaggregate. So I can't ever do a chart on all of the high school data on there.
013It's all cool to use these subjects. But you can see we have a good percentage of our students reaching level four. Just a little background, those students come to us and take the algebraic grade result. You'll learn other results from... On this study, Algebra 2 results are very good. To give you a background on those students on this part, so their next class is Algebra 2 as a freshman. It's a smaller subset, obviously, but the expectations are for all those students. And they do, and it's a good data indicator, so they've been placed correctly in the lower grades. So when they come to the data that you see, correct for the state includes high school. And our next is geometry, and this little story behind you. results are a little bit different than our outdoor
014results. Still for our geometry, we did have students who met expectations needed, but I want to talk a little bit about how our sequence has changed over the past year. You could remember maybe about a year and a half ago I came and talked, and that sequence change has shown itself a little bit in the results. But we disaggregate this now that we look at what ability grouping they're in, so there's more to the story. So we are required to report on subgroups within each of these tests. So I try to make perhaps this here a little bit easier to read for everybody. So the only subgroups that we are on are test takers. So you'll see some subgroups in some tests, but some and not others in tests. So you'll see that we have
015an Algebra 1 subgroup, Geometry and Algebra. And, you know, we continue always with instructional methods to help all the students in these classes, you know, achieve on these for this year. I'll give you a second to look at it, but it's a lot cleaner the way we put it together. Obviously, in our geometry group, that's a lot of students. That's a bigger group of students. So you'll probably have some more subgroups that you're able to. I just want to talk a little bit about the expectations. I'm going to show you data from 2023, 24, and 23, and 24, and 9. grade students could have placed in Algebra 1A or Algebra 2A or Geometry A or Geometry H and Algebra 2H. We made a switch last year where students who took pre-algebra in the eighth grade
016and did not qualify to take Algebra 1A would go to Geometry CP instead. And the reason of that is we felt that those students having a gap in between Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 like they would with the old sequence would be hard in terms of higher level math. An old geometry team to say this, geometry is a dead end course. Saying yes right over here. So your ability to know algebra, understand algebra is going to really do wonders for you when you get to higher level classes including pre-calculus, calculus. So we want to give those students a better understanding of Algebra 1 as they go into their sophomore year. and also is going to help them on the SAT, the emphasis on G. For a while now, it's not, probably with over 10 years,
017so we wanted to put our students in a better position for algebra, especially those who find that difficult, putting them in a better position over the mountain. When you look at some of the three-year results, I think you'll notice on the left side here, this is our three-year analysis, just a percentage of students who are in Magipro 1, Algebra 2, and Geometry, and scores went up this year. You know, anytime we see an increase, we're like, that. Number two, so pretty much stayed at 100%. A slight dip in the geometry. That slight dip was usually seen in the students who were coming up to us who did not qualify for LCP. And so that change to geometry did close our scores to go down a little bit this year. So we know the reason. And
018if I disaggregate the data, which I do every summer, I can, you know, substantiate that claim. So, you know, we continue to work with our students who find mathematics difficult. You may remember something Mr. Libera coined a year ago, the lunch bunch. If you remember that, that's our extra help that we provide our geometry students who are on the ninth grade. We continue to try to make smaller classes when we're scheduling so that there's more one-on-one assistance. We do a lot to assist our students here who do find mathematics difficult. really would like to see is how those students who were ninth graders last year in Jupiter State tests would do. Unfortunately, there's a last slide to label between ages in the assessment program, and that is going to be very difficult for when we
019thought about that in the October-August surprise. So this is still a very good story. I know that every student takes these tests, the P-Test. It's not an SAT test. Everyone must sit. So you know you get a large swath of results sometimes. What I really like is this is kind of, I guess, for Michael every year. He asks me, how are we doing? What does this mean? So unfortunately, the state is a year behind in releasing scores for schools on the school. So this past May, I will not get how other schools did on their state assessments until April. So in the meantime, I can look at 2320. So I shared this same data with, I believe, the Ed Committee about six, seven months ago. And I thought it would be a good piece of
020data to show up here. So this is, there's many ways you can look at this. I just decided this was a way to see how our students are doing. So on the left, you'll see the regional districts that we do our comparisons to. And this is the mean Algebra 1 and JSLA score for 23-24. So our mean went up 20 points from the year before. Other schools went up 6, some went down. Our rise got us to level 4, which on average for 23-24. Take it with a grain of salt, every district does have different sequences and different you know things that they have in their schools too like we do but I was very proud of seeing this score proud of the students this is a substantial increase from from years past pre and
021post covid so it's very good very good scores to see I didn't cherry pick schools these are schools that we typically compare ourselves to same that we did that Dr. Brackett so again this is a year ago data so All the schools that were giving geometry were on expectations. Our median score went up 8 points compared to the year before. Different students, different tests probably. Some schools went down, went up. And then on Algebra 2, we went so on average, our algebra, who come from us, from the middle school, taking Algebra 1 in geometry, we placed median expectation was a plus 19 points from 24. Some schools, as you'll notice, have less than 10 students. They don't even always have in this. So I thought this was a nice little comparison of the work of
022the students and the teachers in getting there. That's going to introduce Ms. Phelan. Those students in the geometry, they're saying that to geometry, there's figures there. It's going to be a little bit more intimidating. Well, if you take the algebra one. So that has something to do with a great comparison to see. how those kids did it is because they are going to learn to take it. So the jury's still out on what is the same course of care. Yes. Am I surprised? Am I surprised that there was a dip? Now, the squeeze for the students that had Algebra 1, we had to come to grips with. And from some opportunity, we'll be able to see. So we don't, and I really mean this, disaggregate the data based on what's sending to us. Now, I
023meet with the eighth grade teacher. I show them the results. It's not like we have a large spot. So it's not like I have a bunch of ninth grade geometry honors. Of course we have drawings. We have ops too. So there's not massive changes. So because of that, I think that our sending districts are doing a great job. When you look at those Algebra II students, I always get nervous. You're taking Algebra II in the eighth grade. How'd you get here? What did you take? pull any strings or anything to get up here. And they tend to do well on these tests. Now they're doing a C course. Those kids are this year. Remember, we make double up in the sophomore year. Permission, teacher recommendation, allowing them to possibly get to higher level math courses.
024So we're kind of trying to take care of the late bloomers that we see a little bit too. And that result is pretty good. I think we're going to show it next month. I think we're going to show those results next month. It's about 25 kids who are taking double math last year and 25 this year. So we're making, we have things in place where if you were misplaced, where you were late, putting your phone off of a school. So do I look at them? Of course, I'm looking at everybody's results and seeing how they do. I know other directors and supervisors at other schools. So we look at them. There are... My son went to one of those regional schools up there and certainly there was a difference in how the regional schools looked
025at that. Always saying, you know, so I do look at it, but I do work here. So I do know some of the things that we do deal with, you know, with students coming in from other districts. But for the most part, I feel that the students, some, yes, some of our seven districts do. get serious about demographics. And so that means that you could also generally that you'd pick the other IDFG districts that are geographically different experiences. Young women, we're pleased that the Jewett has told you. So what are we not satisfied? 4.1 police scoring level. 0.7. We're not eating this. We want to go. We're so super cute, but we want to. So as Michael and I stated with reporting the NJG, we are working diligently demonstrating knowledge. skills. They're not here to
026remind that we are not or argue that we will let these students and they're only nine to know each other for a second. We're not doing that. Instead, we're going to go through a focus to help our ninth graders. I know this board appreciates Dr. Toon's continuous improvement. She also has pointed out when doing well, it's sometimes we also need to get study halls, we have GPA, and we also have a way to use for students who are already days. I also want to acknowledge Bess and Bill's guidance to use our upcoming PD to take time for our entire department to look at assessment in alignment with our curriculum. So on October 13th, if any of you are free, we will begin at 7.30 a.m. to unpack individual test items in grade-level teams to SLAW,
027the NJGP. Next year, we'll also do the SAT and the ACT in two days. Then we will use the second department meeting of every month to share successful activities, give students practice. We will also be using benchmark assessments, particularly in our CP classes, in order to ensure our texts are rigorous enough to ensure that when students see a multi-number vocabulary or a context-related question, Carol knows it is not the first time that they are exposed to this kind of question. We'll close with one of the specific test items on this law that is relevant. Intentional about wanting to know the latest reading comprehension challenges students are practicing in their classes and how they align with what they're going to be tested on. One teacher told me we need to work more on helping kids circle
028or highlight disclaimer. So, for example, here is a paraphrase test. Despite the fact that the young man from along... lineage of general royals. He was living. So the follow-up question, the socioeconomic multiple students, wealthy. When we discuss with the students, this teacher said, they miss the word. They're so nervous that they're looking at, you know, generals, knights, royalty. So one of the students said, feel good about the subgroup. Our students, as Michael said, we can report on some and we care. as much about the students who are expectations. And so we have it already planned for this year for our sophomores who did not for our present ninth grade. If you have followed Livingston, some colleagues there, what they do is they put their gifted students in sixth and seventh grade and they start having
029them take. So by the time a junior, okay, there are all kinds of... has a program. It's a gifted and talented program. By the time Livingston students, many students have taken the SAT. They have been sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth grade, but they're taking it. So think about that. They were too endowed to go spend time. They were so close. Maybe. Now we'll take one or two. Supervisor of Science. This is Jane. Moving ahead, the progress we're seeing as a director is on the classroom. One of the most notable ones. This group has grown from 12.4% in 2020. We've also seen significant proficient, which is 31 points. We've also seen a 30% decrease. A significant number of our students are now admitted. We have focused on providing a nominatetrim curriculum, creating opportunities for productive struggle, and
030increasing students' engagement with data analysis and evidence. As a result, students are becoming more familiar with question formats and are looking ahead. We will continue to collaborate and build on these successes to ensure that every student that moves to Boots, you know that. Those 11th graders take tests, took AP, took SATs. That was a great score to get in the office. So I really have to say the teachers. So this slide, this is a fun one. This talks about our new testing vendor, not my new testing vendor, but the state of New Jersey, Pearson, the old testing vendor, somewhat out. We're still doing Pearson Science and GGPA retest next week with Pearson. Cambium testing is coming in. It's another company, different one. So what do we know about this? We know that it was the
031August surprise, but I knew nothing about it until August. And what do we know now? I have sat in on a training with the Department of Ed. Cambium, just so you know, supports testing in many states, such as Texas and Ohio. So you can go right on to those State Department of Ed websites. practice those tests. This test is an adaptive test, which is quite different than the ones the state is doing. Adaptive means it will read how you're doing and scale up or scale down based on how you're doing on the test and will top you off at certain scores. The testing interface is a good part. It's similar to the College Board Blue Book, which is the testing interface for SATs and APs. Desmos is the online calculator out of the Texas Instruments.
032That is great because our department, Mathematics, has made a major shift toward Desmos the past few years. And I would say the next two or three, that's the only calculator we'll probably use. We're going to be doing fully functional testing in the spring of 2026 and in the next week or so you'll see some correspondence on them. So we'll be giving a field test every school in New Jersey. That field test is quite expansive and a little bit disruptive, but Bill and I are working on things, trying to make it the best we can experience for the students. That field test, so you know, will not have released scores to students. The field test is the items. that will be used in later testing and for people like me to learn the system, the system,
033people like myself, and so on. So that we can understand the software regarding this. The state of testing. What is ESMOS? ESMOS is a free online calculator, calculator that our department has done. The students, that's the calculator that's available to students. This training was done by Cambium, not by the state. So it was basically the back end. Myself, Andy, Mr. Russo do on the back end to get everything ready. Nothing was said about items. Nothing was said about scoring. We don't know any of that. We know who's taking it, which is basically almost everybody. But we don't know anything other than this has been pitched as it was for the back end. Then my second question that they comment about missed it. State, they don't have to just sit there and, oh, and by the
034way, we incorporate IDI into the testing process. We'll have mostly have us give the tests, and then the State Department is going to do it. It's a long mess to say. We're waiting for this scheduled for October 7th. The 27th budget referendum, the 27th budget, I mentioned that it was where there was a ton of projects. With the 27, there's a smaller thousand to current co-op purchases, and any purchases of over 2,000 must get boarded with the committee. Discussion. The commissioners discussed the issue in the pre-video and shared that when facilities are being used by some community, it is actually costing the district to charge the print. We are charging the urban our expenses. Costing us. The office involved in transporting students to after school. Explaining club asks to cover the cost of transportation. Dr.
035Seward offers student ad forms so that they can either get another student to offer the same opportunity. Perspections on the roof. There was a part that was damaged on the current unit, so we pushed it up so the green is coming. Thursday and they're going to be in the next week's meeting. They sent us puzzles, like I said, as to what each of their designs would cost. So that's what we asked for because I think that's going to make a difference in terms of, they wanted to, they sent us, he put it out to two different providers that he loves. So they sent us some lockups pricing to go out. They wanted to find out if that's going to look good. That's not what he's getting. Our hope is that, I don't know what the
036leads are. So we should send a service. A service. This is more, and it's all with parent permission. The unit will be authorized to put a package. attorney was comfortable. Ms. Felser, I'm Rose Berski. Mr. Gallagher. Mr. Marachek. Yes. Ms. Krause. Yes. Started here, we had Ms. Ellie Matthews, publicity for the district, writing articles. Then Dennis Kelly, who was the editor of Finnegan Goes Retired, and so we would pay him an hourly rate to write about student events. And so we haven't had anyone to do that. And Lauren happens to have a person, their shared responsibility between HR and police in the district. And so we've actually entered in a bookshare service, a contract with Lauren, so that we pay Lauren an hourly rate when that employee does work for us. She did it last
037year first. It works out really well. You know, we invite her to what we're having. We always invite the F goes on the tab. The F goes on the tab. We say, that's worked out really well, so we just did the same. Mr. Gallant stated at the 1 hour and 26 minute and 23 second mark. Just to go back to your protocol question. The federal government has taken away the federal funds of three school districts. It's important for us to rescind this. I don't want our federal funds taken away. This statement was used to create a false sense of urgency as an excuse. This statement was not true. It's in the state of Virginia that he was lost funding at the time of our September 9th. We're threatened across any federal government. The federal government
038is not coming for our funding. And if they tried, I'm sure there would be a full-scale legal bill. Very important that statements that we make toward table are... I'm essentially stating something as fact when it is not true undermines the trust the community has placed in us. The public needs to know they can pull in our statements regarding any particularly with policy. I urge my fellow boardmen to be more careful when making such statements.