October 12th, 2023 Board of Education Meeting

001for like to call the meeting to order Mary roll call Miss Sebert yeah Miss Kennedy yes Miss picala Miss Hy Ron yes Mr blandina yes Miss de Benedictus yes Miss wre Mr Edwards the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to advance notice of and to attend meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act The Brick Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be posted on the administration office board the official District website and channel btv2 and sent to the Asbury Park Press to Brick times St Ledger and Municipal clerk's office uh can I have a motion and a second to go into executive session motion

002Ally I'll second that motion Mary uh I'll you want mey to do it go ahead Jim I want Mary to do it whereas the pr board of education has per formed pursuant to applicable Jersey statutes and whereas the board is charged with responsibility of Performing all acts and doing all things consistent with the law and the rules of the state board of education necess necessary for the lawful and proper conduct equipment and maintenance of the public schools and public school property of the Brick Township School District and where section seven of the public meeting Law act sorry permits the exclusion of the public from a meeting of the board in certain circumstances whereas the board has determined that circumstances exist for such such an executive session whereas the board has found the action described below

003to be necessary and proper now therefore be resolved by the board on October 12th 2023 that the public shall be excluded from the discussion of an action on the executive session here and set forth the session will be approximately 15 minutes and the general nature of the subject matter to be discussed is harassment intimidation and buling reports it is an anticipated at this time that the above stated subject matter will be made public if and when it is deemed to be in the public interest to do so and the need for confidentiality no longer is is required by the board Barry Miss Sebert yes Miss Kennedy yes Miss picala yes Miss ayon yes Mr blandina yes Mr Miss B that de Ben addicus Excuse me yes motion Ali Mary Miss Sebert yeah Miss Kennedy yes

004Miss picala yes Miss Aon yes Mr blandina yes Miss St Benedictus yes uh can we please stand for the flag [Music] salute I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all please be seated often it may appear to members of our audience that the Board of Education Act with very little comment in many cases a unanimous vote please understand that before the matter is placed on the agenda at a public meeting the Administration has thoroughly reviewed the matter with the superintendent of schools discussed it in appropriate Boe committees and only then if the superintendent is satisfied that the matter is ready to be presented to the full Board of Education it is placed

005on the agenda for Action at a public meeting board of education members are given advanced notice to review the agenda and through the chair ask questions or voice concerns in rare instances when necessary matters are presented to the board of education for discussion at the same meeting that the final action may be taken Miss mamar before you introduce our student reps would you like to share something with the group yes Kenny can we put that picture back up for just a minute so Dr frell The Brick Township Public Schools would like to welcome here an Farrell the newest member of the Farrell Clan not only to the Farrell team but to The Brick schools family so congratulations to you and Mrs frell on your first [Applause] grandchild congratulations Miss Mac thank you Mrs Sebert this

006evening we have um the representative is here from brick memorial high school last week she was at the homecoming so we weren't able to have her but we would like to introduce her this week um Kristen mcwade is a junior at Brick Memorial High School uh she's a very high achieving Junior and a proud student leader and proud Mustang she's been an active member of the student government Association since freshman year and is currently the president of the brick memorial high school student government Association Kristen is a seconde Cadet of the brick Junior Air Force Roc and currently she is the kitty H Hawk I'm sorry Kitty Hawk National Honor Society Commander additionally Kristen has played field hockey since her freshman year and is currently the junior captain of the team welcome Kristen at this

007time Kristen will give the report for Brick Memorial High School Kristen thank you for welcoming me um first I'll begin with the message from Veterans Memorial Middle School it has been a great start to the school year at bmms vets Middle School kicked off the school year on August 29th with sixth grade Locker night it was wonderful to welcome all of their newest Mustangs and their new and their families over the last month vets welcomed all students and staff back to the building started fall Sports and hosted back to school night for seventh and eighth grade parents all of their sports teams have been competitive in their respective divisions the MMS autism program visited the Field of Dreams with the MD program from lrms and the Unified sports programs from BHS and bths last week

008vets participated in the National week of respect with a vary with a variety of different activities including mismatch Jersey day Jersey day and spirit and spirit day we are very excited forgot to take my allergy pill we are very excited to introduce a new weekly tradition of EMS with our staff walk-up song each teacher chose a song that they would have as their walkup song it is played on Friday afternoon and the students help their teachers vote on which staff member the song represents V vmms has many upcoming events 23's 24 yearbooks are now on sale the link can be found on their website sixth grades social on November 2nd more information will be coming out next week and lastly the Vets annual veterans veterans Day celebration is on November 6 from doors open at

0094:30 and the ceremony will begin at 5:30 now from brick memorial on September 21st the student government hosted our annual homecoming dance our theme was Endless Summer and we had over 650 students in attendance we would like to thank our faculty and staff who chaperon serve food and helped make our night a tremendous sux the brick memorial marching Mustangs would like to thank all of our student body staff Administration and Community for their support in hosting their annual home show held on September 20th despite the rainy weather they were excited to debut their public show with the theme Wild West brick memorial celebrated week of respect also from September from October 2nd through the 6th thank you to Mr Mosley and Miss West for promoting positivity throughout our school on Wednesday October 5th the National

010Honors Society held its first ever college essay social we would like to thank all teachers and guidance counselors who assisted in this rewarding experience helping our seniors prepare for their right Futures the Muslim Community was honored to welcome guests from traditional from a traditional Heritage dance group directly from Albero Barrow Italy on October 5th this beautiful troop of dancers and performers danced for over 300 teachers and students during the fourth block bmhs was on a stop on the way to Seaside where they performed on October 6th 7th and 8th at the Italian Street Festival and Columbus State parade students were very enthusiastic about this experience which has become an annual tradition at brick memorial thanks to mrini and her classes many students in our very own Mr baresi joined in on the fun we are

011so grateful to the group for joining us on Friday October 6 Unified sports from Memorial teamed up with BMS and townships high school and middle school to experience the magic at the Field of Dreams playground in Tom's river we look forward to many UniFi sporting events in the upcoming school year also on that Friday 47 volunteers from the brick memorial student government and National Honor Society partnered up with our future Mustangs at midstreams in the organization of their traditional Fall Fest in addition to picking pumpkins students were treated to a fun carnival experience with food face painting and games faculty and staff at Brick Mor would like to thank the curriculum planning committee for a successful professional day on Monday October 9th faculty members were thrilled to get to choose Ed Camp style workshops the

012drama club will be holding their International thesbian Society induction ceremony on October 23rd at 6 p.m. we would like to send a congratulations to all 14 inductees our Air Force Junior RC is hosting a blood drive with the Red Cross for brick memorial students on October 25th brick memorial is pleased to announce that two of our teaching students under the guidance of Miss of Mrs LTE Rivera will be heading to Lan Mill Elementary School every Friday to get Hands-On classroom experience seniors being IA canaro and Ava momes visited Lan's Mill Elementary School this past Friday and had a small reunion with their kindergarten teacher Miss Diane Lee who is extremely proud to see her former students considering this rewarding field calling all Mustangs on October 20th The Brick Township community will be honoring the legacy

013of Mrs Crystal Hansen a beloved coach teacher and friend all for ma cheer leaders and community members were asked to attend the brick memorial versus Brick Township game where she'll where she will be honored once again brick memorial is collecting candy for Terry's trunk trunk Retreat Terry was a beloved secretary in brick memorial for 30 years brick memorial would like to win this competition and trophy for the sixth straight year so anyone who would like to bring candy may bring it to the front desk this week student government is sponsoring a Halloween door decorating contest where bragging rights and trophies are on the line so come take a stroll through our halls or check out our social media to witness our creativity for sgaa we decorated our door with Halloween socks trick- or treat smell

014our feet finally October is National principal month we would like to thank Mr baresi for his leadership and his support as you can tell October is booked and is booked and busy in brick memorial but now on to our sports report it is hard to believe that our fall seasons are coming to an end and postseason play is on the horizon for many of our Mustang fall Sports we are excited to report that we are having a very successful fall season at brick memorial and several of our teams are on the hunt or have already cled Ed divisional championships and postseason births our cross country teams just competed earlier today in the Ocean County relays our girls finished third in the in the division finishing just two points behind the first place school and we

015were looking to avenge that separation at today's meet meanwhile our boys have one of the best runners in the entire state in and Jared bores who is currently ranked eth in New Jersey our girls volleyball team has won nine out of 11 games to bring their record to 10 to 5 and looks to be the top seed in upcoming Shore conference and state tournaments this Saturday there will host their annual dig pink game against Donovan Catholic in which all proceeds are donated to the side Out Foundation which benefits breast cancer research and awareness our girls soccer team is having a great season and is currently ranked six in the shore conference they played earlier today in the second round of the shore Conference tournament at Rumson they look to be a top seed in the

016upcoming state tournament our gymnastics team fell just8 points short of a divisional title earlier this week they however have had a tremendous season consisting of both dragons and Mustangs one of brick Memorial's sophomore stud students Liberty Kennedy has been nominated for short conference gymnast of the year and finally we are excited to report that our Mustang football team is currently 7-0 and has earned a at least a share of the independence division championship we had two Lacy tomorrow night and then the big game next Friday night at brick memorial when we host the dragons we have a lot planned for that evening including a real dedication to our late great cheer cheer coach and teacher Miss Crystal Hansen festivity festivities will start at 5:30 so be sure to get there early and take in one

017of the truly great at atmospheres in all upshore conference Sports as always please stay current with all of our news and updates on brickschools.org website subscribe to our Mustang Weekly Newsletter and follow us on Instagram and atbm Stang Sports and of course don't forget follow us with our Mustang Express podcast straight from the Mustang's mouth on Spotify Amazon music Apple and Google podcasts thank you thank you Kristen and now from Brick Township High School Amaya Dalton Amaya good evening I'm Amaya Dalton Brick Township High School student representative as we enter October bths students are now settled into their school schedules our homecoming dance on sep nber 30th was a huge success bringing the dance back to the high school was very exciting and over 600 students attended and enjoyed the music food and announcement of

018our homecoming Court thanks to the student government cheer team and bths staff there was also great participation in our homecoming Spirit Week especially our socks Crocs and Birkenstocks day my favorite and great attendance at our homecoming football game despite the very rainy weather last week was a busy week for bths the bths chapter of the international thespian Honor Society inducted eight new members congratulations to all last Friday bths was visited by an Italian folk troop students had the opportunity to attend an assembly where the troops celebrated Italian culture through authentic music and dancing Juniors took the PSAT last Monday through Friday the mock trial team had their first opportunity to work with three assistant prosecutors from the Ocean County prosecutor's office last Thursday they will be the lawyer coaches for the team throughout the mock

019season and the team is very excited thank you Emma Tori and Rachel bchs also celebrated the week of respect last week a respect Banner was placed outside guidance and many classes and individuals signed their name while passing by to signify their commitment to Pro promoting respect in our school Community to update about our fall Sports our football team has had a a tough last two weeks powering through a muddy homecoming game and coming up one point short of a win in their last home game on Friday at halftime on Friday the 2013 bths football team was recognized for the 10-y year anniversary of of their state championship and over 40 players from that Year's team were in attendance the boys and girls soccer teams have finished their regular seasons and are beginning to play in

020the shore conference coaches Cup tournaments this week the boys and girls cross country teams have rallied some Stellar individual performances at the ASAP Championship senior Anthony Thomas placed 10th sophomore Aiden R placed 23rd and our young sophomore star Kiera mq had a huge performance placing six the brick gymnastics and marching band are both dominating their competition Seasons right now gymnastics has a record of 5- one and the marching dragons remain undefeated the marching dragons also held their own Music Fest this past Saturday at Veterans Memorial Middle School they would like to thank the Vets Administration Central Administration and the bricks and grounds and Bricks brick grounds and Facilities crew for all their help and support for the Music Fest the field hockey team had held a pink game for breast cancer awareness month and won

0213 to Zer against Red Bank Regional the girls soccer team has their annual pink game on October 18th the team has been raising funds for breast cancer research by promoting an apparel fundraiser and collecting sponsorships from local businesses the team will also participate in the making strides Against Breast Cancer Walk in Point Pleasant on Sunday at the pink game team parents will be selling food to collect even more funds to donate to the American Cancer Society in addition our schoolwide pink for a cure day will be held on Monday October 30th students and staff are encouraged to wear pink for breast cancer awareness month looking ahead head many bths clubs and organizations are fundraising at Fall Fest at Windward Park on October 28th including Harry Potter club with a W making station NHS with pumpkin

022bowling and sand art and also the mock trial team coin Club student government government Association and class of 2025 will also have games guidance is promoting Red Ribbon Week October 23rd through 31st Red Ribbon Week is another initiative to improve School culture through drug and alcohol prevention and awareness as to how the relationship with between drugs and violence creates Destruction for communities and families the student government is sponsoring some fun fall festivities at the end of the month the annual pumpkin decorating contest invites any club team or class to enter and the creative pumpkins are displayed outside the main office the annual Halloween costume contest will be held in the auditorium during block four on Halloween the categories include best homemade most original scariest funniest best duo and best group as you can see there's

023a lot happening at bths this month and the student body is definitely excited about it pleasee note marking period 1 progress reports will be open for parent access on Friday October 13th be sure to stay connected to bths events and inside information by accessing our school website SGA Instagram at bths sgaa and our school Twitter at bths dragons you can also always see all of our happenings monthly through Dr cajun's Dragon review before I conclude I would like to share with you an update from Lake Riviera Middle School ours thanks the PTA for hosting our six grade social over 100 students attended and had a great time dancing and eating last week they recognized the week of respect with themed days anti-bullying lessons and team building activities to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month they have been

024doing a slideshow every day recognizing famous Hispanic Americans in Spanish classes students played games and were also able to bring in authentic food from the country they were from one student's mom made tacos Dorados another student chanos Rosas and banadas and someone brought Spanish candies the authors of beyond the laces Bob Solomon and Rick young visited Miss Pooch Char's class to share the importance of kindness mayor crate and Brick Township honored County teacher of the year Jacqueline pochar and named October as Jaclyn podar month many clubs at LMS have also been starting up including Miss Kerwin and Miss Lynch with the newspaper Club Mrs dandi hosting the art Club where they made sugar schools to recognize Hispanic heritage month the science club has been starting up as well as the voices from the lake and

025the interact Club is holding a sneaker and food drive as well as the Halloween dance some upcoming events at lrms include the Fall Festival on October 17th from 5: to 6:30 p.m. on October 18th the school will be wearing pink for breast cancer awareness and encouraging students to bring in $2 for Rel life for life and on October 26th the Halloween dance will be after school with parent pickup at 400 p.m. no late bus some updates on lrms Fall Sports the field hockey team has been working hard and improving each game the boys cross country record is two- one and undefeated in their division meets the boys soccer team is playing hard and showing Improvement each game they are looking forward to achieving positive results this week against two divisional opponents the returning League champion

026girls cross country team is 2 in one overall they have two big divisional meets this week Wednesday against cross Town Rivals vets and Friday against Lacy at home the girls soccer team is moving in a great Direction they currently sit third in their division and last week they beat their cross town Rivals they've hung tough against every team they've played so far and they continue to fight hard and are hoping to pick up a few more winds in the next couple weeks to move up in the standings that is everything I have from Lake Riviera it's great to see exciting events are happening at the middle school thank you for this opportunity and I will see you all next month ashg go dragons thank you Amaya from The ROC we have Cadet staff sergeant Color

027Guard Commander Rashad Dingle Rashad good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is cette Staff Sergeant Rashad Dingle and I'm the jrc color guard Commander I'd like to provide to you with our monthly report on September 22nd we provided the color guard for the brick memorial High School homecoming game our new saber team debuted on September 29th at The Brick Township High School homecoming game the team performed a saber arch for the homecoming king and queen and their court at halftime the same Cadet also provided the color guard before the game Cadets met at osbornville elementary on September 30th to partake in the Britain Woods cleanup on October 8th our Cadets and instructors carry the giant Italian flag in Ocean County Columbus Day Parade to honor Italian American Heritage coming up on the 25th the 25th

028of October sorry we will host the American redcross at Brick Memorial High School for a blood drive we hope you can help support us as we work to impact the Nationwide blood shortage if anyone asks about the blood drive to donate please contact Lieutenant Colonel duin our Master Sergeant futral thank you for your support of our cadetes have a great [Applause] night Miss Maxim our presentations please thank you Mrs Sebert um at this time I'd like to invite up Mr Mosley to give the um self assessment report good evening um My Name is Earl Mosley I'm the district anti-bullying coordinator and this time I will go over the self assessment that we just completed on okay but I P too much just a quick one um just a quick review of Hib uh harassment intimidation

029or bullying any gesture written verbal physical act or any electronic communication whether it be a single in or a series of it in perceived as being motiv R characteristics such as race color religion ancestry national origin gender sexual orientation gender identity or and expression or mental or physical disability or by any other distinguishing characteristic it can take place on school grounds at a function school bus or off school grounds and it has to substantially disrupt or interfere with the orderly operation of the school or the rights of other students quick one conflict versus HIV conflict mutually competitive or imposing action includes disagreements arguments and fights and it is a normal part of growing up Hib on the other hand is one-sided one or more students are victims of one or more person's aggression and it

030applies to Hib rules under ab and the intent here is to physically or emotionally hurt someone now each year we do the self assessment the school climate teams required to evaluate at their implementation of the ABR from 1st of July through June 30th of 2023 and it's a guided ABR that we use the tool for these are the eight elements that are required core element one is hip programs or other approaches those are programs that we are actually running at the schools core element two is training on the board approved hit policy and its procedures core element three other staff instruction training that's outside training that we're doing core element for curriculum instruction on hi related information and skills number five hi Personnel do we have the right Personnel working in the schools doing Hib

031core element six is hi level incident reporting are we Pro reporting things properly hi level core element 7 is Hib investigative procedure are we going through our procedures to investigate and finally core element 8 is hi reporting out outside the school I broke this down into different School levels the first is the high school uh maximum score is shown maximum score is 78 if you look uh brick memorial got 74 out of 78 for 95% and Brick Township was 77 out of 78 for 99% the middle schools once again I broke those separate same scores Max of 78 Lake Riviera was 76 out of 78 for a 95% and vets middle 74 out of 78 for a 95% this year elementary schools Drum Point 76 out of 78 for 97 percentile Emma Haven 70 out

032of 78 for percentile and Lane Ms Elementary 75 out of 78 for 96% midstreams 75 out of 78 for 96% Osan Ville 77 out of 78 for 99% and vets element vets vets Elementary 75 out of 78 with a 96% also preschool Herbertsville 78 out of 78 100% good job and War wolf 77 out of 78 for 99% thank you the the two presentations we do every year in October are um required the templates are right from the state the hi uh self assessment the next one will be Dr Anderson our director of curriculum instruction who will report out on our standardized test scores Dr Anderson thank you o thank you Dr Farrell um so each fall districts are required to report out their state assessment results from the 2023 Administration um there are typically

033four uh state assessments two of which I reported out in August and those were the access results and also the NJ GPA the New Jersey uh graduation proficiency assessment tonight I'm reporting out on the dynamic learning map or dlm for ELA Math and Science and the New Jersey student learning assessment for E Ela which stands for English language arts Math and Science and so whenever we receive data the first it it always goes through through three levels of analysis A District analysis a school analysis and a classroom analysis the district analysis is spearheaded by uh myself and our curriculum supervisors we look at the sub claims we look at curricular interventions professional development that we can offer to improve those areas that are weak we look at our lesson framework to see how we can

034embed more differentiation and then our team um looks deeply into the data to see what uh where the weaknesses are and what goal goals we should set for our grade levels or a department level plc's and PLC stands for professional Learning Community it's when teachers work together and collaborate uh on on by grade level or by Department um then at the school level representatives from my team go and meet with school administrators and we meet with data teams we um create a strategic action plan for each building we monitor lesson plans for pacing we meet monthly with our principles and our school-based uh administrators uh and we look at the plan we look at the goals we've set we adjust the plan based upon our walkthrough data that we that we collect each month and

035then finally there's the classroom analysis at that point we have our classroom teachers and interventionists looking at data looking at the classrooms uh their students The rosters uh setting growth targets for their students looking at other data sources to see what kind of interventions they can provide for our students to help them uh be proficient on our state assessments and so uh the first assessment is the dynamic learning map and so the dynamic learning map is an assessment that special education students who do not take njsla take students are assessed in English language arts and math and grades 3 through 8 and 11 and in science in grades 5 8 and 11 the dynamic learning Maps use uh what are called Essential Elements and these are specific statements of Knowledge and Skills that are linked

036to the grade level expectations that are included in the New Jersey student learning standards in the spring of 2023 we had 56 of um of our students were assessed in ela uh there are four levels uh in the dlm the blue level is emerging the gold is approaching Target and the green is at Target or Advanced of those 56 students 40% of our students were either at Target or Advanced and so this is the dlm for our um for math 56 students also were assessed in mathematics and 30% of them scored at Target or Advanced levels this slide shows the DML results for science remember science is only administered in grades 58 and 11 so there were only 25 students who took that assessment and 177% of them were at Target and so here's a

037list of all of the interventions that our special education department have implemented as a result of of this data um they do a lot of progress monitoring of goals and objectives in both the IEP um and in uh in working within their programs they we offer extended school year program a very robust program very comprehensive uh during the summer we have we embed uh daily Learning Centers and small group and individualized instruction we embed uh those skills that students need to be um to score Target uh and Infuse the essential elements into lesson plans and instruction additionally our teacher teachers work with the special education academic coaches and the science academic coach to provide uh targeted support that's aligned to the dlm um and also uh use specialized curricular materials that address any skill barriers

038and that align with the grade level Essential Elements so our coaches really do a lot to support those teachers um so they're familiar with the dlm and they have the resources to align to to that assessment okay next on to um njsla that stands for New Jersey student learning assessment for English language arts this is a slide showing grade three to five district data versus State um data uh we had 4,14 students in grades 3 through nine take this assessment if you look at the bar graph it shows the percentage of students who scored at each level of proficiency one from one to five so uh one which is shown in blue it is not meeting uh to partially meeting in light blue in Gold that's approaching and in green that's uh level four and

039level five uh and that's meeting and exceeding expectations respectively the first graph shows the district data the second bar graph shows the state data so that you can compare the district grade three G3 stands for grade three District to grade three State and then grade four District to grade four state and grade five district to grade five State um as you can see by the graph we were below the state mean with grade three furthest from the state mean in grade five closest to the state main this slide shows grades 6 through n District versus State as you can see by the graph we were below the State average in grades six and8 and in grades seven and N we scored above the state average and then after we review it by grade level we

040then um disaggregate the D data and we analyze it by schools um and so that allows us to divert resources to schools and to uh great levels that need the most support um here is grade three percentages midstreams and osor Osborne bille scored above the straight average with students uh 50 with uh 55.1% of students meeting or exceeding expectations and 45.2% of the students and here's grade four Lane Mill and Drum Point both scored at or above the state average the state average of 51.3 and this slide shows grade five and three of our schools Drum Point Lanes Mill and midstreams all scored above the state average of 53.3 and then next is the grade bands uh for Middle School grades 6 through 8 in grade six vmms was just uh within one point of

041meeting the state average of 49 in grade seven we had the strongest results with both middle schools scoring above at or above the state average and in grade eight Lake Riviera scored above the state average and here's uh grade nine results by School in both um schools we scored at or above the state average of 52 after we analyze it by um grade level and we analyze it by school we also take a look at our subgroup performance this key shows the percent of students who met or exceeded expectations in each subgroup the district average is represented in blue the economically disadvantaged subgroup is in red and students with disability subgroup is in yellow and the English language Learners are in green and that's for English language arts those percentage of students scoring level four

042or five and so we have a whole comprehensive set of interventions that we uh use to support and strengthen our English language arts uh scores so we have computer adaptive learning programs at the elementary level we use Lexia Core 5 and it has a personalized learning path for students at the middle school level we use Achieve 3000 we also sponsor a slew of schoolwide contests and competitions to get the kids to use the programs because the programs adapt to the students responses and they present them with materials and their own um questions that are aligned to um to improve their skills in in English language arts we also uh involve all of our students in goal setting uh there's a lot of research that shows when students are invested in setting their own goals and

043tracking their progress learning is accelerated by up to four times typical growth uh so we uh have implemented that across the district we've also used data informed instruction so that teachers are planning lessons based on the data and students are setting goal based upon their own learning path um that is established on those uh computer platforms we also integrate more writing as a result of of our scores you know to increase the rigor is really important so uh we use something called document based questions where students write to uh based on primary resources to build their critical thinking skills and they synthesize an argument and they uh improve their writing School skills by supporting that argument we do a lot more interdisciplinary writing in content areas this year's data showed us that kids were weak

044in Reading science and Technical subjects um so we're integrating more writing um to help them write within that context and we provide a lot of professional development and support for our teachers we have our student supervisors are supporting our building Administration and reviewing lesson plans and pacing guides making sure uh everyone's getting through the content at PACE they need to so that kids are exposed to all the content before the test we have job embedded professional development with our coaches and we use um the data to help our teachers plan uh for their own student growth objectives with students in their class um and they work in in professional learning communities and that's an important structure that will support School Improvement so now on to math so here is a slide that shows the district

045versus the state math results in grades 3 through five again the key is the same in levels one uh through level four and five and the First Column shows the grade three District compared to grade three state in the second column and so on so there were 4,028 students who took the njsla math assessment and so we're closest to the state average in grade three and we're we have the greatest needs at grade four and five and so um this is really an area of focus for us and then here's the grade six to8 band so we have the greatest need for support in grade six scoring uh below the state mean and we scored within one point of the state average in both seventh and eth grade and then after that is algebra and

046geometry and so we um we scored above the state in both algebra and geometry in fact 11 points above the state average in geometry and here it is by um school first our elementary schools So What by what the grade the teachers do at each grade level is they're able to look at the data their previous data and make adjustments to their program and pacing for their current students both Emma and Osborne Bill scored above the state average which was 45.9 and here is grade four percentages fourth grade teachers have the benefit of evaluating the students that they let that left them and also get to see the results of the students that are in their class so that they can plan on targeted instruction based on both sets of data drum points scored six

047points above the state average which was State average was 44.4 gum Point scored 50.6 of the students meaning and exceeding so the same process of program evaluation and goal setting occurs at every level and this slide shows grade five math and Drum Point scored uh above the state average State average is 40 and this slide shows 6 through eight math instruction uh math data broken down by school grade six shows the greatest need for support scoring below the state mean of 35 and in grades seven and eight uh Lake Riviera scored above the state mean students took the algebra assessment in grade 8 and high school and here are the level of proficiencies for each school and we scored above the state average on the algebra assessment and here's the geometry by building both schools

048scored above the state average of 51 and lastly this slide shows the percentage of students scoring proficient by subgroup in math compared to the district percentage and the trend here is that the overall District results were higher than our subgroup results which means we have to provide you know additional interventions to support each subgroup and also strengthen our tier one uh programming which is is the the uh instruction that happens in the classroom so we just adopted a new math program it was only year two for our elementary Division and it was year one for our Middle School Division um and so what we have to continue to do is Implement and reinforce the try discuss connect routine because that routine um is is is exceptional it's very rigorous it's an a rigorous instructional routine

049that provides students with opportunities to problem solve and to evaluate one another's thinking and compare different mathematical representations so U helping teachers become really proficient and comfortable with that model is a priority for us using our personalized learning tools and um the computer adaptive programs like I ready uh my path and I excel and get more math um those resources really help our students uh who have gaps because of the pandemic so it fills in the gaps and also our math lesson framework includes a small group instruction component so that teachers can work with students using that data from the those programs and see what their weaknesses are and provide some uh targeted support and intervention again we we engage in goal setting with our students and we also involve them in data chats helping

050them monitor their progress not just setting the goals for them but set the goals with them and pro and you know working through and monitoring how they're doing schoolwide contests are a big part of it too again you got to create a culture of achievement and also our math interventionists work during the day in our basic skills program and also after school those programs are set to start soon and we also have um our uh resources that are aligned to njs La Target the sub claims those areas in within each of the assessments that are weak and so we embed that as practice into the school day and additionally again professional development is key we provide uh less than plan review pasting support job embedded professional development with our coaches um and the professional learning

051communities in each school really support School Improvement along with data um PD that involves data analysis and making data actionable um improving students mathematical thinking reasoning and questioning to promote Rich mathematical discussion and for our subgroups our intervention coordinators are tracking student progress on those uh computer platforms uh we have a very robust multi-tiered system of support So students are having difficulty then are referred to the inrs process where where they can get um second tier a second tier of support through our basic skills program and we have student mentoring programs for those who need an extra layer of support we also have our Title One extended day program and Jump Start program in the summer and so lastly is our science um results we had 1,800 students in grades 5 8 and 11 take

052the nsla assessment um it's reported in four bands not five and one is below and it's in blue level two is near proficient in Gold level three is proficient and level four is Advanced proficient in green and this slide shows the grade level performance compared to the state and here are the grade five science scores disaggregated by performance level and school Brum Point uh scored at 26.8 they scored above the state average and here's grade eight and great 11 lrms scored uh above the state mean of 18.6 and then here's our science subgroup performance and here are those intervention strategies that we use to support um and improve uh student achievement on njsla science so the 5e lesson model um supports inquiry based learning uh and that's an important tool uh students really spend a

053lot of time in science learning how to think like scientists and so we uh have just implemented uh actually just two years we're in year two of open CED curriculum so grade six through eight students are using those science and engineering practices to ask investigate figure out scientific ideas they're also doing um simulations with incits and gizmos um at the middle school and the high School level and that's really important because science isn't a collection of facts it's all about the process and being able to understand scientific phenomena around them using scientific language and being able to manipulate variables and those programs enable us to do that and so we also have a new um new curriculum at the high school ihub and so that that'll assist us um in supporting our students and also

054linkit benchmarks they're new um linkit just rolled those out and they have predictive value in helping us identify students who have dep have weaknesses in their in their learning in their knowledge prior to the assessment and a and our academic coach support is is critical our AC our science coach has gone through K through 12 working in classrooms to support teachers with the routines that they need and the resources they need and so last year in 2223 these were our goals based on the 2022 administ njsla Administration so we want to do increased growth outcomes across the board in ela Math and Science how are we going to do that well in ela when we looked at the sub claims we were going to do that by focusing on writing at the elementary middle school

055level and information text in the high school level in math it was focusing on major content and modeling because what was happening is there was so such gaps caused by the pandemic it slowed teachers pacing down so they they were remediating with their students so some of the major content they weren't able to get through uh in in their grade level um and in science we focused on investigating sensemaking and critiquing those were the areas and so each month we work on our action plan we meet with our principles we track the the the progress of those goals and here's the comparison between 22 20 and 2022 and 2023 Administration so as you can see in the First Column um it's the grade level then the second column it's the number of percentage of students

056who've met and exceeded expectations the third column is the 23 Administration the most recent Administration of those the percentage of students who men exceeded the next column is cohort growth so when third grade students went from a 31% in the in 2022 to a 40.3 33% there's a 9% cohort growth from year to year and so if you follow the chart you can see that then our fourth grade students grew 8% and then there was a 4% growth in cohort and the 19% growth in cohort and so on and then the year-to-year growth would be just different students same grade level so from 22 to 23 we uh increased a percentage in grade three and in grade four we increased 0.1 n and in grade five from last year to this year we increased 6%

057grade 6 6% and so on for an average of 5.2% and the last column is the state growth just to show you that um we actually um outgrew the state by a lot and why that's important is because we may be below the mean but we're closing the Gap and so when we said that we would do it by improving those sub claims that's where the curriculum department and coaches provide resources for our teachers and so we had double digit growth in the writing at the elementary school level and at the middle school level in those sub claim areas writing conventions and writing expression and at the high school level we were focused on informational text and we grew 133% in just that sub claim and here's our math growth comparison between 22 and 23

058so the year-to-year growth which is grade three from 22 to 23 was 3% and grade four 2% grade 5 6% grade six so significant growth it's hard to follow a cohort in math because the content is is much different in each grade level and then when you get to the middle school what happens is some students take algebra and some students take grade eight um you know math and so that can be confusing and we weren't surprised at grade seven data we had lost uh 3% but again the new math program was implemented in sixth and seventh grade last year and the sixth grade students were familiar with it because they had it at the elementary level whereas the seventh grade students were it was brand new to them so we anticipate uh an improvement

059in grade seven this coming year and again the state growth isn't it for in many cases we outperform the state growth and how did we do it again focusing on subclaims 2 in uh major content and modeling and reasoning at the elementary level and in science we when you compare 22 to 23 what you see is we grew 3% in grade five 4% grade 8 and 11 and 4% in grade 11 whereas the state only grew 1.3 2.9 and8 and we were focused on senten making and critiquing and investigating and in those areas in fifth grade and 11th grade we saw Improvement significant and so based on this data from 2023 it's about math and Mr finale will tell you it's always been about math so we really are um and and it's you know

060is a good reason too elementary teachers like to teach reading because we know that reading is the foundation of everything and so a lot of times we steal math time and we're sorry Mrs Bey we do that but we do that um she's our math supervisor at the elementary level and so creating that balance and making sure that we're allotting enough instructional minutes to math is important and our weak areas are major content and reasoning um and so we'll be focusing on that you know from K through uh through 12 we're also going to increase our growth outcomes in in English language arts and by focusing on reading literary and informational text because those were the weaknesses in the sub claims from the last Administration and in science it's going to be about investigating or

061critiquing again and we're also going to continue to work on our action plan um with our uh School level leader ERS and continue to meet uh monthly and assess that progress in our in our uh walkthroughs and one thing that's really exciting that we did apply for a high impact tutoring Grant which hopefully will get us more resources like we lost an interventionist last year uh for for this school year because of s two cuts and our class sizes are high and that Grant would mean so much because so many students are right there in level three they're not yet meeting or exceeding expectation but they're very very close and if we receive that Grant which is worth $614,000 we would end up being able to add staff to Target those students who are in

062that level in that you know approaching category which could have a dramatic impact on our scores so we're really optimistic um I know that all of my my supervisors are all here tonight so um uh Mrs Kaine right there good the wave our Ela supervisor at the elementary level and social studies and uh K through uh 12 ESL supervisor um Miss Lane she's our secondary supervisor 6 through 12 for Science and also kada 12 for Visual and Performing Arts and she's also our uh co- STEM Academy supervisor and Mr Cuts who's our secondary supervisor 6 to2 Ela and social studies um and uh Mr Thompson who is our secondary supervisor 6 through 12 in math and business education and Career Education Career Tech and Miss batty who is our uh Elementary uh math and uh

063science supervisor k35 in and addition does Title One and also miss Kane does title three so our supervisors wear an incredible number of hats um and also I have to give a sh yes thank [Applause] you and and they are working tily along with our our school leaders and our teachers and also I need to give a shout out to Mrs wayer who's our special ed supervisor who helped compile all the data for the dlm and provided me with a script so I would sound like I know what I'm doing but at any rate um that's it Dr FR and I know I lost but I don't care he let me I could get it down to 25 minutes but that is not me like I live and breed this and I'm really excited about

064it um so I was 30 minutes but I knew I would be that thank you Dr Anderson the presentations will be up I guess tomorrow right up on the website sure are so M mamar right thank you Dr Anderson thank you approval of minutes can I have a motion and a second for the approval of minutes motion Victoria second Fran any board comment see none Mary Miss Sebert yeah Miss Kennedy yes Miss palala yes Miss yes yes Mr blandina yes Miss Benedict yes let's talk Elisa I'm going to give you a break for committee reports we'll start with um you want to go you want to keep talking well kind of all I would say was that we met on October 2nd at 4:30 and in attendance was Miss Bala the share person Mrs Kennedy

065Miss Diana Rome Miss wayer Dr frell and myself and we just looked at the travel and training field trip student teacher placement in Grants um and then we reviewed this whole presentation and I asked for feedback on how I could make it better and highlighted the interventions and responded to questions and then I highlighted the fact that we sponsored one of the days of the AP colloquium in our County and so we are committed to strengthening our AP program and we've been involved in that uh fall p uh conference and we hosted the uh science session on October 3rd we also had a professional day which I couldn't believe how great were they to recognize that the teachers were excited by their PD and Ed camps and so was Mrs Farrell so I was really

066personally Happy by that and then we I also explained that the notice of standardized assessments for the you know current school year went out to parents on September 30th and our individual uh SL njsla student reports will be mailed home um they they should be um going home tomorrow or Monday at the latest and our progress reports for grades 6 through 12 will be posted in Parent Portal tomorrow and then our next meeting will be November 8th oh my God thank you Dr Anderson Mr Edwards Finance facility thank you I had one already thank you though uh facilities committee met on October 2nd at 2:30 attendant Miss Bala Miss wre Mr BL blandina Dr fro myself Miss mcam Miss gardi from spel Architects Mr Williams from spel Architects Mr yor from Neta Architects and Mr

067Pico uh the first projects discussed was the brick memorial High School Penthouse c andd replacement of air handlers and replacement of a cooling tower Mr y informed the committee that the uh that the um contractor is finalized uh the punch list has been issued there's a change order that would needs that's on this evening's agenda related to The Plum and air filter box redesigns due to variances with the equipment specs and that the contractors is putting together the closeout documents and final applications so that project is complete uh next was the lake R Lake Riv Middle School air conditioning uh this is a project that will continue on until next summer I'm sorry this is not a project that will continue on to next summer uh this school did not require an electrical service the

068contractors anticipated to have all work 100% complete by December 1st and therefore Lake Rivier will have uh 100% air conditioning vet more Middle School boiler replacement and air conditioning uh the boiler replacement is substantially complete however the air conditioning will require electrical service upgrades and will continue on until the summer of 2024 and M Haven Elementary School air conditioning that school requires electrical service upgrades and therefore will continue on until the summer of 2024 veterans memoral Elementary School air conditioning also requires electrical service upgrades so we'll continue the summer of 24 drump Point Elementary School boiler replacement and air conditioning uh boilers are substantially complete the electrical I'm sorry the air conditioning however requires electrical service upgrades which will continue until summer of 24 and Lanes Mill Elementary School as we've on to discuss that

069Transformer is uh at jcp's site they uh do anticipate delivering it uh Within by the end of the month of October however that installation will be required in June and July of 2024 brick Mora High School parking lot reconfiguration um the the majority of the work is substantially complete except for the lighting in the parking lot those the light poles were delivered already and lighting installation is ongoing it's anticipated that the lighting will be installed and completed with over the next two weeks and which point that project should be substantially Complete midstreams air conditioning and osbornville Elementary School air conditioning we are waiting on uh regular operating District grants from the state of New Jersey we're told that we have been awarded grants but once as I reported before at the meeting we still don't

070know which for which projects we are uh getting grants for osbornville elementary school kitchen Edition uh we have a meeting upcoming on October 16th to go over the design development that project will out to bid on November 9th and bids will be awarded uh open are on December 7th osor Ville nurse office relocation that again is pending Rod Grant approvals worm wolf uh air conditioning and Herbertsville air conditioning also Brick Township High School air conditioning uh sorry kitchen air conditioning and drump Point Elementary School kitchen and conditioning all waiting on Rod Grant approvals parking lot assessment so the uh the district uh the Board of Education set out on an ambitious plan 10 years ago we had a parking lot assessment done for all schools uh many parking lots were reconfigured and redone we I've

071reported out previously that the plan was completed in nine years so that's great it was actually completed in nine years over when it was supposed to be 10 uh so at this point we're going to ask our three civil engineers to provide us with a new 10-year plan because parking lots are like the Golden Gate Bridge once you get dumb Pon One side you got to start all over and make sure you maintain them otherwise uh you end up in the situation where we were in which is where they required major improvements in order to bring them up to where they're at midstreams kitchen uh we also talked to the committee about looking to do something with the midstreams kitchen there is a kitchen there now currently it is very small um doesn't really have

072a great serving line there so we're going to also ask the architects of record to take a look at that kitchen and determine what Poss possibilities could be done there um and costs involved in that next meeting for the facilities committee is November 6th at 2:30 uh Mr bendida Miss wreb Miss mcllin Dr far myself then went into a finance committee meeting at three o'clock uh first item that we discussed was a stabilization aid application I informed the committee that the stabilization Aid committee application with all the supporting documents will be fully submitted to the doe on October 6th which it was so we'll uh cross our fingers that of the $20 million they're saying they're given out through the state we're going to get 27 million because that's what we applied for uh Wellness

073competition uh so this is really exciting that something that we're doing throughout the district Dr Farrell and myself spoke to the committee about it we've got a wellness competition going on with all employees of the district we've broken them up into 11 teams right 11 teams uh the first competition is to see the the groups who can get the most biometric screenings done by October 31st the winning group you haven't gone yet come on let's go you're on my team that wi um the the winning uh team will be the team that gets the most screenings done Andor the highest percentage of screenings done within their team um maritane Etna is our third party administrator they've uh really helped us out with this they're giv us uh some money towards some cool swag that we

074can purchase to give out as prizes um we're trying to keep the first prize uh secret but Mr CL sending it out in an email that's what I heard I heard you send it out an email oh it's out there the first prize is out there so the first prize is no it's out there people are talking about it already yeah people are talking about it about it yeah people who was shaking her head she says it's out there so I got this cool Yeti when I was at the Medford education Education Foundation event and uh so we're doing really cool yetis for the brick staff with a brick shield on it so um something really cool that we're hoping people get excited about uh as of the last tally count Veterans Memorial Middle School

075was in the lead so Dr Farrell would get over and get his biometric screening done it takes I went and got mine done it was it was quick it's it's very not a hard thing so we're really excited about that are we're going to have another contest that kicks off on November 1st it's going to involve steps um we're going to again keep the teams the way they are and see which team can get the most steps prior to Christmas hopefully put Dr Farrell in a Santa Claus suit and have him go deliver cool swag prior to Christmas uh Transportation operation assessment so myself and Dr farell talk to the committee we got our t a draft report of from the company ceso that we've hired for the transportation operation assessment uh actually today myself

076and Dr Morris with some of the transportation staff met with ceso and provided them some comments on some things that we'd like to see tweaked they're GNA um one one of the issues because of how long it took to get the report to the Finish Line is things that they're making comments on in the report have already been fixed for 2324 so we've asked them to look at the 2324 data now and modify the report to reflect what's currently going on in the current school year rather than talk about what was going on that we've already corrected so that they're going to do that and get that back to us um we had hoped that they were going to do a presentation at the next board meeting but it looks like it will be the

077December board meeting because of that so they'll do a full presentation at the December board meeting uh the 20202 2023 audit the Auditors are in they uh I shouldn't say they're in they don't really come in anymore they do everything remote but we're uploading all of our documents now to their portal for them to review and provide their audit that's due to nber 6 the 2425 budget Dr fite spoke to the committee about preliminary forecast for 2425 uh 2425 will be the last year of our S2 Cuts it's the first year that the mandated 2% tax levy growth will exceed the S2 cut that doesn't mean that we're going to have a budget increase because other costs go up as well so it's still a matter of fitting everything within that small shoe box uh

078and then on the this evening's agenda Ocean First investment has as we've worked out a deal with them where we're going to open up an an investment account it'll be a separate account that we'll be able to transfer money into that will earn a 5% interest rate for the district so additional interest earnings on uh the our cash flow and next meeting is November 6th thank you Mr Edwards uh public comments on agenda item this will be the first opportunity for public comment and will be for agenda items only the board invites thoughts and reactions on agenda items each participant is asked to give his or her name prior to making a statement all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer the board will not during the public portion of this meeting discuss matters

079involving employment appointment termination of employment negotiations terms and conditions of employment evaluation of the performance of promotion or disciplining of any specific or perspective or current employee and or students does anyone have public comment on agenda item ma'am yes up good evening my name is diod Brower ladies and gentlemen today I stand before you with a heavy heart compelled to share a deeply distressing incident that has affected my family I hope to shed light on the issue of bullying and the devastating consequences it has on innocent lives bullying is an epidemic that continues to plague our society even yes it this is just for agenda items that was the the the Hib the assessment Mr Mosley had an agenda item onl yeah it was on bullying okay continue yeah continue it's all yeah I'm no

080continue just making a statement okay I don't expect it back and forth okay so where was I uh bullying is an epidemic that continues to plague our society leaving countless victims in its wake my child a bright and compassionate individual has become a target of this cruel Behavior day after day the torment of verbal abuse use exclusion and intimidation as apparent it breaks my heart to witness her pain and helplessness but this story doesn't end there recently The Bullying has escalated to a horrifying level after a court hearing for an assault on my child's father a man who simply went to pick up his daughter and dared question illegal activity was subjected to physical violence this incident serves at a stark reminder The Links of bullies will go to assess their dominance to instill fear

081we spoke up and the bullying escalated most children do not speak up for fear of retaliation they know nothing will stop them I filed an HIV which is unfounded the policy created to prevent The Bullying is actually helping the bully the policy obviously is not working children are killing themselves my own has threatened it numerous times since this started I follow the direction by the school it got me nowhere my child has not seen the inside of a classroom since February 9th It's upsetting to me and everyone in this community and I have the support with me of my family who've also been affected by what's happened here thank you [Applause] thank you for your comments anybody else sir so my name is Benjamin Brower um I am the father and is the victim this

082is the first time I'm speaking out publicly about this I went to pick up my daughter who was I was asked to pick up um because I called the police a bunch of kids attacked me okay right now these kids are being charged with second degree felony assault right which is a very heavy charge they're still in school um nothing's been done about it there are practicing intimidation by going through other students four of the kids showed up in my house we have uh reports documenting all this activity and and I don't know like why I mean we we were promised by the Board of Ed and we were promised by the school that once this is resolved or once it is reported which it was that something would be done and nothing was done

083these kids are still in school these kids are still on cheer squads these kids nothing has been done right my daughter who has done nothing wrong just a victim of the bullying right is sitting behind in her room right coming back and forth to my house and my wife's house right and her spirit is broke she's depressed she's on medication and I'm sorry that this is not the proper decorum but the proper decorum wasn't wasn't done for us you know I've been you know my my kids went through school here two of them they graduated one went out to college and went on to the Army my son is here he's going to college and my daughter is not going to have a chance to finish here we're just asking for justice and we're asking

084for the board to please send my daughter to a school that she's not going to be bullied and not brick memorial because it goes back and forth and the school resources off officer inform the school and inform the board of vet from what I understand that's all I have thank you thank you ma'am hi my name is Ronnie Rizzy uh I'm here as a representative of gays against groomers a nationwide organization an international organization has become now and uh you know there's a lot of statistics and we could talk about this mandate that mandate this number of kids that number of kids who's gay who's not who's using which bathroom I'm going to give my personal story I'm 73 years old I came out in 1968 when it wasn't fashionable okay okay talk about bullying

085I also became a police officer so now the cops don't like me because I'm gay and the gays don't like me because I'm a cop all right thr went on top of that that I got clean and sober 37 years ago so now the drunks don't even like me but what I want to know is is a school here for education or indoctrination and manipulation because allowing teachers to have students do something and tell them don't you don't have to tell your parents with a seventh grade with a sixth grade teacher or fifth grade teacher say I'm going to teach you how to drive but don't tell your parents because you might get hurt I'm going to teach you how to drink but don't tell your parents cuz drinking may get you drunk I'm going

086to teach you how to smoke but don't tell your parents cuz you might get cancer I'm going to teach you how to be transgender but don't tell your parents because it goes against our movement our radical movement I was a tomboy be eyes I call it now okay I was love pants love boys toys for my confirmation my aunt got me a baseball bat a baseball glove in a baseball I mean and I was a tomboy if I was in this generation and she just says you like being a boy I would yeah cuz I like their games I like like their toys I like the way they dress it doesn't mean I like their genitalia it doesn't mean I want to be a boy or be a man it meant I was a lesbian

087and that's all it meant and anybody that tells a child anything and says don't tell your parents as devious motives you're either a pedophile or a predator that's the only two groups of people that should be telling children I remember running the police force woman say you better behave yourself or I'm going to tell that police woman to arrest you I walked over to that kid and I said your mother's a because she's telling you not to come to the police and any teacher that thinks it's correct or any parent that thinks it's correct to teach transgender to condone transgender I'm not against transgender don't get me wrong I'm not transformed I knew somebody back in the 70s went through the whole transgender from male to female you had to have one year of psychotherapy

088you had to be over 18 you had to dress and behave like the other gender before anything was given to you you know Google it I'm not going to sit here and tell you all the detrimental side effects of of hormone blockers and this blocker taston and happening I mean it's gotten to the point now that the lgbtq MC Community is just taken up the whole alphabet when I was gay it first came out it was LG lesbian and gay then they get a be for the bisexual because they didn't know where to put the bisexuals now let's Mt for the transgenders because we don't know where to put the transgenders oh let's add q and R and cist and this and we covered the whole alphabet already from one movement that started with two

089initials we now covered the entire alphabet you know and talk about intimidation you went into a very liberal School and tell the kid how many of you think he might be transgender kids look around and now it's becoming fashionable to be transgender the hands start going up and now the other ones are intimidated at the putting their hand up also because they don't they want to go along with the crowd it's what's in fashion couple years back it was being a bisexual then it was being a lesbian now it's being trans drag queens reading to kids and upset ities of outfits and obscenities of material that 5 years ago they would have been arrested for doing this to children and I'm here pleading with this school board count I would have been dead I would

090have been given hormones I would have been all mixed up I would have known if I was a man or a woman I would have known what I wanted and all I would have wanted to do was die so if this transgender program continues the way it has in many schools 10 years from now check your suicide list because that would I be be honored thank you hi my name is Darlene carubia I a taxpayer um my children my son has gone through the school system um and congratulations Dr farell I am a grandma of a beautiful baby girl um who lives in Brick by me off of Princeton Avenue and who I hope will go through the school system one day I am a very good friend of dedis and I've known Shannon since

091she's very small I hear everybody here speaking about all of these fall events that are going on homecoming football games she hasn't been to any of them yet the cheerleaders who were charged with assault went to homecoming dance last week I have a little document here about the code of conduct in the schools and I'm wondering School authorities have the right to impose consequences on a student for conduct away from school grounds that is consistent with the District Board of education's code of student conduct pursu pursuant to this Authority shall be exercised only when it is reasonably necessary for the students physical or emotional safety security and well-being for reasons related to safety security and well-being of other students staff or school grounds pursuant to there's also a David's law about cyber bullying I'm wondering

092if thinking of about my own granddaughter and my grandson also my son-in-law is a police officer if I send my daughter's daughter my granddaughter to this school district and she's being Cyber Bullied the way that Shannon is being Cyber Bullied and things like this happen to her what protection are you putting in place and if she's going to have to be homeschooled is she going to have the right resources uh I've heard over and over again that the resources that were provided to Shannon at times didn't work and even the even the teachers were appalled at the type of education that she's getting at home including no socialization this is very concerning to me as a grandmother as a mother and as a taxpayer uh and I would like to see something done about this

093I would also like to read this to you we cannot turn a blind eye to the devastating impact of bullying New Jersey is ranked fourth for bullying in the country fifth for children involved in a fight and seventh for truancy due to bullying it affects not only the immediate victims but also their families friends and communities it erodes self-esteem hampers academic performance and can lead to longlasting emotional trauma no child or adult should have to endure such cruelty it is our Collective responsibility to address this issue headon we must Foster a culture of empathy kindness and respect both with within our homes and in our society as L at large thank you just a reminder I know you're speaking um I agenda items only we do have a for public comment too so if you

094guys want to come back up good evening my name is Diana rot tamber I've been a resident of Brick Township for 25 years my three adult children have gone through the brick school system graduated from Brick Township High School I'm a registered voter I'm a taxpayer I run an ad I'm an administrator for a Facebook page for residents of Lake Riviera um the subject of bullying has come up so more often than not um I am a personal friend of this family um my husband H who's here having witnessed what Mr Brower uh looked like the night of his assault by about 15 teenagers my grandson is also in the brick school system now as a first grader and the more and more this starts coming out um you know there was just an incident

095a couple of weeks ago which we all know about I wonder how safe if he's going to be and if I suggest S Suggest to my daughter to just homeschool him because it makes me nervous we always say it takes a village to raise a child I always considered the brick school system as part of my Village because I went through some pretty horrific things when I was married to my ex-husband and the brick school system actually helped me but I didn't have to go through this situation but I'm witnessing it the bullying the cyber bullying I've seen it for myself what these kids are saying to this young lady unprovoked you know you have you you post one if you repost let's just say a video on Tik Tok something funny these kids are

096attacking her right then and there again like everybody has said these young people are still cheering going to dances she's been looking at four walls it's just not fair we have to do better for our children you know I like I said it it it pains me to say it because I had the you know brick school system in the highest regard but now with this that what's going on I I I have to question my grandson even staying in the school district thank you hi my name is Shannon Brower um I witnessed the attack on my father on February 11th and I haven't been in school since February 9th as you know and it's been an extremely extremely tough past few months for me and my family and you know obviously it's been really

097rough and I just feel like you know I'm not getting really any support from the school system or really anybody besides my family I've just been really getting tormented by multiple people in your school I just want to I feel like you need to do better I don't want anybody's go through what I went through or feel the way I feel thank you thank you for coming up anybody else Mr Finelli do I have to treat you different now that you're a grandpa thank you both my grandkids got engaged this month so he has a lot of catching up to do but it'll go fast it'll go fast uh couple genda items involving money uh let's do the easy one first number nine it looks like Nea underestimated that job by $85,000 $7,000 for ducting

09811,000 for ceiling 6,000 for walls which I can all understand that what I don't know what this means ahu revision to fit $61,000 so the total addon to this job is $85,000 which seems like a lot of money is it and should we do better should they be doing better in estimating the cost of the job um second one is really got me going we've talked about disproportionality and discipline several times in explaining understanding what that is what the state's involvement is what the district has to do and now we finally looks like we've awarded a contract to brain Behavior Bridge first of all my understanding and let and correct me if I'm wrong was the state got involved because discipline was disproportionate in a certain group of the school students okay what when I

099look at this this is all teaching and educating about educating it has nothing really do to discipline but let me give you some some information first of all it says this company is qualitative in nature requiring expertise extensive training and reputation in the field of endeavor and somebody need to tell me what that means did you write this no okay because I I I have no understanding of what that is but let me let me give you what uh what caught my attention here the total amount not to exceed $466,000 that's almost a half a million bucks if you look at what this company or person I'm not sure whether this is a corporation or just a onep person operation uh Dr Sarah Allen she charges 3 $50 an hour so if you do the

100math just some numbers $466,000 divided by $350 an hour comes out to 1331 hours 40 hours a week that would be 33 weeks which pretty much coincides with the date of the contract 1113 23 to 63024 all right to put that in perspective $350 an hour times 40 hours a week comes out to $14,000 a week or $56,000 a month the school district is going to be paying for this person to come in and do these things now keep in mind that my understanding is this disproportionality in discipline it's that you had a problem or the school had a problem with how they would disp disciplining students or was disproportionate now when I look at what this person does and of course the contract wasn't attached so I couldn't look at that they do strategy

101sessions support tools and training for parents raising little brains to be happy and healthy that that's the first item in there secondly they do school assessment for parents teachers schools and administrators to implement new research and training they do employee benefits well we won't even get into that offer independent expert opinions and testimonies and evaluations I guess you spend some time in court resources translating brain science into practical applications for organizations and parenting and then executive function which might come close to what we're looking for coaching kids and adults on self-regulating planning and focusing So based on all of this information that I got off off the website I'm not a very good computer person but I knew to had a Google what does all of this have to do with discipline those my two

102items thank you Mr first uh Jim want don't you to touch on number nine the 85k with uh so all the items listed there are unforeseen conditions and are improvements to this space so there were things that were not part of the original design that we've once the contractor got in there and opened up the space that we asked for that to be done okay so there they're improvements in this space so it's not it's not an Omission on the part of Neta it's not it wasn't an error on the part of Neta it was something that we asked for improvements on after the work was opened up okay good could you what what is that ahu revision to fit for 61 what is so the way that the way that it would have gone

103in the room with the way the room was designed you wouldn't be able to walk around the unit so we made revisions to the room so there's more space to be able to get around the unit okay so you're to blame okay the disproportionality this is the third year we've talked about this last year and the year before um you know uh the state I don't want to dis the state the state has uh simple metrics how you discipline and report different demographics hold on hold on slow down I'm I'm going to punt it to you in a second but um because I give my uh kind of No Frills um opinion of it which is true they look at it so if you're disciplining a certain demographic whether it's a minority group or a

104a special ad kit over a certain Mark of State averages they say you are disproportionate and therefore and this is not out of local funds I want everybody to know that and I've said this last year and year before this gets deducted from the idea Federal money they actually put it in the ID fund said this money is your mark for disproportionality and then you have a few state approved vendors that um do this work uh we had a professor from Temple or R then went to Ruckers that approved last month it was on the agenda right prior to because we were opening a bid and nobody bid on it um and now it is approved so not public funds the money out of ID EA that they earmark that you have to spend on

105it and certain group of vendors according to the bid that do I will let now M rer talk more about the vendor because she knows more about actually what they do just remember the money comes out of this pocket or this pocket well it's Federal money it's still it's still tax money I'm I'm sure and it's a lot I wish we would get more in idea separate from that and utilize it for different uh things but again it's a compliant issue that we have to do Mr grer do you want to add a about the actual vendor and some of the things they do I do I do know the last years they meet with administrators constantly and teachers and talk about interventions prior to the actual disciplining of um of students so you can

106add to that if you would uh So the plan um the previous plan basically was to look at the intervention and referral process um that's when students need support and then they go to a committee to assist them and getting strategies and support prior to them going to the child study team for evaluation that was done prior to me coming here with the previous person um they also uh implemented uh pbsis in the high schools where it's incentives programs for students um you know who are doing good things and behaving well in school it's incentive to uh you know work hard to do what you're supposed to be doing um also was instituted a cultural mindset on the elementary level so they would you know have a a morning meeting it's really engaging and teaching

107the teachers how to install install all of that within the classroom so what Dr Allen is doing is jumping from off of what the previous work was done under the mandatory cceis which is early intervention services for behavior and for discipline and for classification um um and she's jumping off of her the current work that was done and now she's going and she's putting people in the building she's actually working and meeting with every single staff member going into classrooms assisting teachers helping teachers manage the behaviors in the classroom so less students and more education can happen um she came for our October 9th uh PD day and her company provided a full day of training for our teachers teachers she was here during the summer and provided training for administrators so this is just

108an extension of the work that was already done last year unfortunately we didn't have anyone who bid on the project and we are required to do it by the state mandate so this year we do have someone who is taking on the project so you're telling me she's already doing this before the contract was even approved uh she was paid just to do the workshops she was paid just to do workshops stops the training oh okay Y at $350 an hour no it it was just a workshop day all right and and all of this somehow ties into how you administered discipline we're actually CED disproportionate for classifying students of a minority emotionally disturbed so that's the indicator from the state that we are disproportionate so this when you look at the problem and then

109you start to go backwards where does it stem from it stem from students in the classroom who are not self-regulating who are having difficulty maintaining in the classroom and that's where the problem starts we have to go back there to identify the problem and then work on it oh if I understand this is not a one person operation it's a no she has a company correct it's a company and and how much time are they going to spend to earn this $466,000 they're going to be here every day all school year every day all school year correct and and and there's nobody in the school district that can do what this company does we are not allowed to have internal people provide this we're actually getting monitored and I have a meeting with the state

110department uh at the end of this month okay and you're saying this is money that's allocated to the school Under ID EA special ed Grant yes okay I guess we'll have to wait and see uh Mr Finelli just on a good note over the past three years we have decreased our ratio we were at 12% then we went to nine then we went to seven and we are earmarking to go to at least 6 or 5% to get out of disproportionate the lower our ratio goes the less disproportionate we are so we are making progress we went from 12 to 5 without them no this is with all the work that has been done all the last three school years but this company just started this we we've had a previous company who was paid

111a lot of money also okay so what what do you need to get to if you went from 12 to 5 uh State average is no no no no you said you 12% to 5% what do you have to get to 2% 2% that's the state requirement to meet the indicator 9 and 10 okay $466,000 is a lot of taxpayer money not local funds I understand local funds not local funds not out of our but everybody in this room pays School tax state tax federal tax federal money um that they earmark in the grant that IDE Grant is millions that they put in just for this um but I don't disagree with you with the process and uh how the state works this complying issue are you telling me this is fully funded uh backwards

112in my opinion I'm saying it's coming from federal ID yes money so yes but yes it's fully funded so like Dr F saying in the grant that we got for 23 24 this money is allocated for this project we can't spend it on anything else we can't spend it on our own people we got to we we're mandated to go out and get a contractor to do this work on our behalf okay we tried three separate times to get a contract to do this and all three times we got zero bids this time we got one that's this contractor and so that's why they're on the agenda because it's mandated that we have to go through this process okay thank you thanks Mr fernell any other comments on agenda items good evening Greg Cohen um

113first I wasn't going to say anything about bullying but bowling is nothing new to Brick Township Schools I experienced it myself back in high school 100 years ago my son who is now a US Marine um experienced it while he was in Memorial um this is not uncommon this has been going on for a long time this absolutely needs to be addressed by this board of education some thief needs to be put into this policy and they should not be happening now moving on to just one quick agenda item that um I would like to ask about um and this is under operations number 101 is through be sending of a parental Transportation contract contract and then the ratifying of a new Transportation contract for two different students going out to hawkswood which is in

114eatown and that is a special need School although parental contracts are not an uncommon thing to have happened when I was here on Brick Township we had a few what I would like to know is why we're offering a parental contract was this sent out to MC prior to the parental contract being offered to the parents did we reach out to Lake do we reach out to Tom's River do we reach out to Point Pleasant to see if we could have done a jointure which could have saved the district a good portion of this $44,100 that is being paid in Parental contract yes and MC cannot provide a contract okay very good thank you Mr f being none we're going to close the agenda items Madam chairman I just wanted to make one brief comment

115before we move on to the things I just wanted to let the people know that got up and spoke as well as anybody else that's listening and just understand that as it relates to the board members and the administration that are up on the day as because this is a public forum uh during the public comment period uh public has the right to speak and address the board and and about anything related to school matters uh that they want I do want everybody to understand that uh one of the things that we as a board or Administration could not do and cannot do publicly is discuss particular pupil matters uh in in a public for so I I just want the people that spoke to know and anybody else that's out there listening uh to

116understand that the lack of a direct respon response here in a public forum is not from lack of Interest or listening or or caring uh by law that's something we can't address publicly uh I I think the people that spoke Mo you know understood that but sometime other people that might be listening might not understand that uh so I just want everybody in the public that might be listening to this or or online listening to understand that uh you know that's the situation and and that's why there is not a direct immediate response verbally in a public form thank you Ben um let's see oh I I just had a question I'm not 100% sure if this is considered agenda but I haven't never done this before that's okay so I'm unaware if there's another

117section where there's a public comment so we're going to vote on item I apologize no no you're fine Dr Anderson curriculum and instruction thank you Miss seber under curriculum instruction the superintendent recommends that the board approve the following items 1 through six I need a motion and a second motion Aly all right second Aly Mary who was the first um Mike is first Miss Sebert yes Miss Kennedy yes Miss picala yes Miss a room yes Mr blandina yes Miss St Benedictus yes Mr Edwards operation yes this evening the superintendent recommends items 1 through 15 I need a motion in a second motion France second Michael Barry Miss Sebert yes Miss Kennedy yes Miss picala we didn't ask if there was any board comment oh I'm sorry is there any is there any board comment we'll

118start back we go back I'm sorry Victoria I I just wanted to mention about uh operations item number eight and how proud I am that Capital funding is going to brick memorial for their HVAC project um I think it's important and a huge priority of this board and coming up with the funding and budgeting for this and planning this has been a long time coming and I don't think any adult educated person or any of our children should be in a situation where they're not in a climate controlled environment and I think this is a great accomplishment of this board and I fully support it yes thank you Victoria Miss room are we back to voting we're back to voting yes maam so yes I'm staying on on uh number two but yes to the

119rest Mr blandina I abstain on uh vendor number uh 1262 and that's number one yes everything else M Benedictus yeah Mr kler Human Resources thank you m hbert uh tonight for HR the superintendent recommends items one through 32 for approval uh Motion in a second Mot who wants to take a second motion was Victoria second was Michael blandina second was Michael Micha yes any board comment no yes as a matter of fact I um I read all the details of the agenda as I always do every month and I looked at number 26 at the updated language for the job descriptions of our district directors and I viewed them I see that they are rigorous standards for our district directors with high expectations and uh their job descriptions do reflect what our brick students are

120getting and uh the best standards of practice in our school system thank you I did have something to say I wanted to make a comment on um number three happen to know the bus driver who's leaving for the best of luck sorry we're going to miss her love by quite a few people that's my comment thank you mine any other board comments being none Miss Sebert yes Miss Kennedy I'd like to abstain from number five item four yes everything else number five number four number five item four okay Miss picala yes Miss yes Mr blandina abstain on number nine 1 10 and 11 there yes everything else Miss de Benedictus yeah Miss mcar do we have any of our new hires here tonight I'm not sure do we have anyone in the audience that we

121hired this evening don't believe so not this evening thank you for asking of course thank you uh Miss Maxim policy and planning thank you Mrs Sebert under policy and planning the superintendent recommends that the board approve the following items one through three I need a motion in a second motion Al second Al Al and any sorry go ahead any Bo comment seeing none Mary Miss Sebert yes Miss Kennedy yes Miss picala yes Miss Sayan yes Mr blandina yes Miss Ste Benedictus yes public comment this is the second opportunity for public comment each participant is asked to give his or her name prior to making a statement all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer comments shall be limited to five minutes and each speaker may only speak once the board will not during the

122public portion of this meeting discuss matters involving employment appointment termination of employment negoti ations terms and conditions of employment evaluation of the performance of promotion or disciplining of any specific or perspective or current employee and or student public comment ma'am you could go thank you my name is Holly Pastor I am the office manager for the Children's Palace it's a daycare and brick and I'd like to thank you for allowing me to speak today I must apologize oliz for being here um because I'm sure there's much uh more important issues for you to consider however I feel as though I've exhausted every other route I have approached on this matter to be as brief as I can we have been asking to be returned to the transportation list for Warren Wolf school and are being

123told they are not able to do this until the next school year we were getting transportation from as far back as 2015 up until the 20 2019 school year it wasn't until parents notified us this Summer that we had come off the list we were unaware since that time I've tried to correct this issue initially in August we were told by transportation that since we were already on an existing route that they would allow it I was told to send our contact information and they would call the school however no sooner did I send that information I was told after contacting the school they would not be able to do it I went further and was given the name of the director of Transportation I spoke with him two times where he stated he was

124making calls to try and attempt to correct the issue but would come back and tell me that he could not at that time I asked uh where else I could relay to and I was given the name of the director of special services to follow up initially I was given a meeting to to be added for next year and this appointment email was sent to me as well as the Director of transport a and the principal of waren wolf I emailed back that I was looking to correct the problem for this year and that next year was not what I was looking for finally we did speak and she was made aware that we were previously receiving Transportation I was made aware at that time that she had just uh been put into that position

125in November and was unaware she was going to look into adding us and she was going to speak to the principal and the director of Transportation that was on September 7th a week later on the 14th she contacted me and said that Transportation was looking into the roots and at that time it was when the meeting was planned she wanted to know if I wanted to continue and I said it was not necessary to continue with an actual meeting if they were doing the roots I waited uh I checked into about that status on the 19th and i' had gotten no response um finally on the 21st I mailed Transportation directly who uh transportation did attempt and I missed a call on the 22nd he said in the email he would try and call again

126and I responded to the email but didn't hear back I emailed at the end of the day again on the 26th and again on the 27th finally on the 29th we spoke initially he stated that the best he could do was next year and he would start advertising us as an option in January I again stated that we were we had working parents parents who needed this did not want to pull their children out of the out of a school that they already knew for after care and that we had been getting Transportation prior at that time he said he was going to check with the principal to confirm that we were in fact using the school so I waited and emailed on October 4th to check the status and again on the 5th finally

127on Friday he called and stated that his position had not changed after that I sent an email directly to the superintendent asking him to look into the matter as of yet I had not gotten a reply based on your current congratulations I understand not hearing from you every Point I've tried to make has been met with answers that just do not make sense the bus passes us our direct location every day I feel like we and our parents for some reason are being penalized for no s fault of our own everyone says they're making calls to correct the problem but I don't know who's making the decision ISS because they come back and they say that they can't do it I've been told that routes are already set that the buses are on schedule and

128can't make a stop that the Dynamics have changed at this time I'm asking the board for assistance in resolving this matter we are a reputable business with a good standing in the community here since 2012 it has been a daycare for almost 40 years but we've had it since 2012 we are not asking for special treatment only to have our Transportation status returned to what it was I thank you very much for your time and consideration the only thing I will comment is that it's an operations decision I'm very aware of everything when you did contact me you know Miss rer right before she went out for her surgery did get back to you and unfortunately nothing has changed on the decision I'll be glad you could contact my office again I'll be glad to

129talk to you again for it um but this is something that came in late in the game and transportation I hate to say is a nightmare lately oh I'm aware of it but but the only problem is is that here here's what I'm going to ask you to do again just CU M gringer's back reach out to Mr gringer I'll be glad to hear it one more time with you um but I could tell you that I am very aware of all the details and I could tell you everyone in the loop that did talk to you was looking for a way to help you and and help with that route I I want you to honestly understand that because I said the same thing from the director of transportation to our director of special

130service to the principal herself Miss Goodfellow everyone was involved in it and looking at different areas um but again I know Miss gringer is right here if you would reach out one more time it'll be glad I can't promise anything again we'll look at it one more time but I know ad nauseum this was looked into and I I feel bad you weren't hearing what you wanted to hear and lately it feels like with Transportation some of the messages are not the best messages we're delivering um but I want you to hear that right from me all right I will continue to pursue the matter absolutely thank you thank you thank you Holly um anybody else public comment sir how youall doing my name is Devin deloro I'm here tonight with my uh fiance Jessica

131Hawkins we have a 5-year-old son who's been enrolled in Lane's Mills Elementary since August 8th we went for our initial IEP meeting on August 23rd after our I meeting apparently our son's uh what's the word I'm looking for the uh case manager was changed we weren't made aware of that our new case manager is uh Amy Ryan and she has given me nothing but problems and headaches every time I send an email and try to request information and find out what we need to get my son in school because he's autistic and he's going to need therapy I've spent many emails back and forth with Miss Ryan I called Dr frell yesterday I left him an voicemail I sent him an email and I finally got a call back today from Miss Granger I I

132would like this resolved as expeditiously as possible my son has so far 26 unexcused absences and every time I reach out to Amy to try and get this meeting pushed up sooner she comes up with an excuse she needs this she needs that she needs this she needs that on 9:22 when we brought my son in for his uh evaluations we were told they needed the three evaluations that they completed that day and then they would do their reports and then we would have the eligibility meeting Amy is currently trying to push this meeting into mid November which will then only give them about 2 weeks before the 90day Mark I'm not letting it go that far my son's five and he can't talk so I got to be his voice tonight that's all I

133got to say we'll tell you obviously um want talk about any specific issues this isn't the venue Mrs grer is here she is the head head of special services I spoke there today you spoke to that's the person you want to stay in contact with and I know that's the person uh that you could do that I I had one conversation with Miss Granger at about 10:30 this morning then at about 3:45 I get an email from Amy refusing to uh but that's because Amy reports to her and I wouldn't this is not the venue for you I I understand but she that's the person to coment she's in charge of the entire department okay all right thank you thank you for coming any other Mr Finelli for are the changes on the absence rules

134still on the agenda I didn't they they were yes the policy is still on the agenda the policies they still there yes I we jump past them okay I have one one comment on that first uh on the very last page page three of the changes in absence which looking at that I have no idea what the changes are because they don't highlight the changes but I I'll read you the very last line the willful misuse of six Le this has to do with employees by the way not students the the willful misuse of sick leave may be subject to discipline and and and and I key this word may I mean are you kidding me the school has an absence problem the student problem is worse but the employee absence ain't so great either

135but to but to say that if you willfully misuse sick leave you may be subject to discipline why does it say may instead of you will be period end the discussion um secondly I I I I didn't get a chance to obviously digest the SLA presentation and I will look at that and talk about it the next meeting and compare it to last years which I have but a couple of quick observations first my way thinking take that word emerging out of there and call it what it is right that's that's the bottom of the line you're flunking you're not making it you're failing you're doing something to call it emerging means you're going somewhere you're not going anywhere you're at the bottom of the list secondly uh a couple quick things do students get

136dumb when they move into the eighth grade as far as math goes I mean I looked at I looked at that one thing and it just stood out like 8th grade math it's like off the chart and bad what what happens there and the last thing is I might know some of the answers for this but just looking a quick observation of your res results in all the elementary schools they're all over the place they're like somebody took you know color pain and threw it on and wherever it's stuck it's stuck you you need to investigate the reasons why that's so bad and oh by the way the first place to start looking as far as I'm concerned is the school that are doing really well you don't have to reinvent the wheel just find

137out what they're doing and I understand you know there's different students in different needs and different everything but they they're all over the place and the last thing is just a a piece of information which I'm curious about this past week the Latino Community you're smiling you know what I'm talking about why am I bringing this up the Latino Community got a judge to agree with them in their lawsuit that New Jersey as a whole facted this segregation in schools throughout the whole state a judge agreed with them so the next step is how are they going to fix the problem or maybe somebody's going to take it to the Supreme Court and Get It reversed you're looking like you know what I'm talking about right yeah now my way of thinking is how do

138you fix this problem have more school buses driving driving around spend more time on the buses moving them around I me and my question is is is this going to affect the brick School District at all because we were on the border with Lakewood and my last question is one where where you can answer it or you don't have to answer it and looking at you've had a chance to digest all the SLA results right and and for the most part I see percent improvements are you satisfied with the with the improvements you had in this one year only not not where you want to be a way you going to be but are you satisfied with the results that you got this year put you on the spot I'm going to take a couple

139because usually I would get back to you and some before I get into the policy one first of all emerging the state that's an easy one the state designates it emerging I know what you're saying I know you have to use the temp I just want you know so middle school math Statewide and nationally especially seventh grade math is just horrific this past time I mean horrific you're saying seventh but I saw eighth no no I'm going to get to the eighth what happens in eighth grade if you saw our Algebra 1 scores in eth grade our highflying math students take Algebra 1 in eth grade they do not take take the e8th grade math and jsla if you saw the ninth grade algebra 1 scores which are low our non high-flying math students who

140have to take algebra one when they get to high school are taking that at that level so that's something to look at when we look at uh the data and that's important to know math is something and you know Dr Anderson and I we talk about at nauseum about the math and you know the the old basic as an educator was you really got to start with reading comprehension Ela right because you got word problems in math you really had to start at a low level um make sure you got the right programs uh elll programs in fact we've actually changed some math programs over the last years waiting to see them uh to fruition um now the most important question you ask which puts me on the spot and I don't want to give

141it just a yes or no for you said am I satisfied I gave you some wiggle room thank you um I'm never satisfied with anything um because I I wanted this District to be very very successful what I was happy about I won't to satisfied and only because I'm in a very happy mood this week Grand I was happy that we really moved the needle in a lot of areas and schools that maybe weren't traditionally the top schools a few years ago are top schools there in a lot of areas have been moving the needle we have a ways to go I do believe it starts with attendance I do believe it starts with with some of the new programs uh that were in um but we made some Headway now in our strategic plan

142our goal setting even this year we we looked at breaking up 5% over two years I think it is at least so it's like two and a half% increase each year we actually hit that already this year in a lot of the areas more than two and a half% um but um not satisfied happy with some of the movement we got a ways to go here with test scores you know I hate passing the buck to the state but since I've been very vocal about the state they put more compliant issues on things that are not what I call Core Curriculum I don't want to be that person but I'm going to do it the old three Rs we got more compliant issues outside of those areas um we have a huge demographic shift here

143and now I'm going to get on my soap boox about um our community um the elll population since I've been here in four years went from 90 to 5 90 now to give you an idea in January which is the summer for the southern hemisphere we get anywhere 30 50 to 60 registrant now those students don't count on our October 15th enrollment data that gets us Aid by the way the aid that comes for immigrant status is minuscule it's Federal title 3 Aid the cost to educate that child is exponentially greater many of these children have different uh could be Title One children economically disadvantaged could have a a learning disability to be classified um could have three categories the state funding is cap on one anyway they do test in March even though they

144come in January and they do count in our test scores and subgroups um so there there is a challenge here with the changing demographics and I'm talking more about title one uh socioeconomically dism managed and elll Learners where we need some more resources and support and we're not getting it from the state and quite honestly the way the state does it with the testing is backwards because they they'll put out compliance on certain curriculum that's not even tested and they don't have any money that matches I probably said so you deal with the state I don't all right the last one was was oh you you consider no consider the thing I me about absence taking that word may out of there and putting in I did I want to get I'm sorry that policy

145so the policy has changed again I'm going to I'm going to complain about the state so the state changed the staff and employee uh sick leave and sick time and absentee um I think Mrs Farrell probably likes it um because you can actually take a sick day not be required for a doctors know for certain I read all the rules I read all the rules done through the state not through the education committee but through a labor committee and that new policy I'm going to kick it to pun it to miss Magmar but that new policy matches the language from the state we can require in certain instances that's why it's my a doctor's note after C certain days on a couple of things according to the statute you want to add to that the

146policy that's that's why the change in the policy we didn't write that Dr Farrell's right the policy matches the new law from the state okay I I I understand that you you was the head of the whole thing here I I looked at all the reasons I read the whole part policy I looked at all the reasons why people can be out 7 days for a death in the family it's ridiculous I don't know how you can run a business like that personally all right but my thing is it says the willful misuse of sick Lees it's not it's it's not it's willful I mean you're trying to scam the system and that should result in some kind of disciplinary action not not maybe not if not according to what the state put in their

147book because they're not running your school School District uh if you if you if you do something like this then you deserve to get smacked in the head I mean that's that's the end of the story and I'll accept Happy by the way all right because I want to I want to look at the reason I ask all of that is I want to go over this for next month right but I want to go over with the right headset I don't I don't want to look at all the negatives I want I want to look at the positives I want to I want to see what's happening I want to understand what's happening I want to understand why it's happening and you know put put my own mind at ease thank you thank you

148anybody else for public comment Mary L pounder uh Brick Township uh I wasn't going to get up at something Mr Finelli said kind of triggered a thought for the last several months I've been doing door knocking with uh John Catalano and uh we spent some time in Lake Riviera and on two different occasions a parent from that area told me that kids from the north side of town were being busted to schools on the south side of town both to the lake and to the high school and that it had to deal with gang activity so I just wanted to ask are kids being bus from this side to that side and if so what why is the reason for that question no that's not the case not for gang activity we have different programs

149on both sides of town so there could be a reason whether it's locational Oram or stem program kids from nor side or soust it's not to break up the gangs all right that's all I wanted to ask thank you ma'am I can't believe I'm even asking this question but in the past couple of weeks I've been told by a few people that there's strange additions being added to the schools and I guess the older you get the harder it is to believe strange things so I I came tonight to ask directly are they adding Kitty L to the bathrooms in the schools have you heard have you heard of it being added to any schools in the area okay so all the rumors I've heard ma'am I I'm sorry I don't deal on Rumors in

150this town is the worst for it no okay because just so you know if I ever find out it is true now ma'am please Mr Edwards can testify I'm like a dog with a bone I don't even want to and they will be held to pay no right yeah thank you for coming Mr Cohen I didn't Greg Cohen um first Dr F I want to congratulate you on the birth of your grandchild I have eight of them it's absolutely amazing um love every second that I get to spend with them so um last month I stood up here and Mrs wab allow members of the current Board of Education to campaign during their comment section about statements that I made allowing board members to do this was highly inappropriate and should not have happened I

151also asked a series of questions and was asked to sit down and would receive my answers later I should have known better than to do that and have insisted on my answers right then and there instead Dr F attempted to answer some but not all of my questions when I tried to follow up with additional questions based on his answers and for clarification I was shut down again not by you Dr farl um is it true that we've had a recent large influx of new students that has caused the bottleneck in our registration office can you ask all of them so that you have all your we want you to get all your comments out and I'll I'll make some answer okay um we were um you know if if that is the case um

152where are we going to place these students will this cause an increase in class sizes to over 30 to 34 students per class which we all know is not going to be Effective Education for the students in those classrooms do we have the proper infrastructure for any kind of increase like this for example do we have enough teachers do we have enough teachers that are trained to take care of these children and educate them while they're educating the other children in their classes Bill 5 uh 5756 was a bill to take away parental rights however it was not for Miss Ayan Ron's many hours of reading and research as speaking to a lawyers and advisers this policy would have sailed right through the committee I know this because Dr fowell thanked Miss anone in a

153board meeting for efforts on on behalf of the committee to stop this bill from moving forward now that the wind is blown in the opposite direction parents are speaking out now both Miss Kennedy and Mr balina are singing a different tune um as the boards of Education are repealing this all over the state now they preparent rights Mr Bina in all the years you've been on the board and you've been on the board for quite a few years Miss Kenedy you're relatively new to the board hold on first of first of all this is public comment you address public comment to the board if you address anything it's to the presiding officer that's fine so in a time that they've been on the board of education I guess I could ask you the entire board

154um when have we the taxpayers the parents and the concerned citizens ever heard either of you or the entire board say anything about parents having the rights to know what's going on with their children now is the time for common sense and transparency to Prevail now it's time for us to take back our Board of Education thank you thank you Mr Cohen the so and this is on me the second public comment session the last few months is not supposed to be a Q&A I try I asked for your email last month or you can email me I I did try on some easy ones like there is no litter in our bathrooms I could say no or a quick answer I I do try to respond some I do want to take some time

155I want to think about it maybe with test scores I may have to get back to you not know the answer it is not a Q&A the the agenda items portion which is in the front is very important to be a Q&A because board members going to vote on it so we want to get answers for that so last month and in all honesty that was me Mr cor M I answered what I could and then I said you know hey you can email me with any questions you need I will get them and Mr suuk emailed me some very similar to you just asked Mr Finelli about sick leave and I gave him the whole statute and and respond so I'm trying to get the second public comment session just to be second public

156comment session not a Q&A with me um I am not an elected official obviously I'm I'm an educator um and I try to to keep it that way one of the questions you asked that has happened to us in August into the beginning of September is registrations increase people move in we do get a bottleneck in the registar we are kind of understaffed in a myriad of issu and I want to address this one for you we so we get them what we say through the last two weeks of August and first two weeks of September are just you know tough I mean we try to get some overtime with people in central office for registration I want the state to hear you because that's exactly what does happen so if we get a classified

157student an elll student last minute late um we do try to move people around so we don't have those exorbitant class sizes kindergarten is Capp at 25 I tell my wife all the time you don't get an aid till you get to the 26 but we move people so they may be in ascending district for Drum Point but they may end up going to kindergarten if they're a late register uh at osbornville yes our class sizes do increase this time of year now I like that registering come in before the October 15th ASA because that's the report we send to the state so it's important uh for that and after that it does but we've had bottle next the last two weeks of August first week September um we've tried the last two Springs to

158really get the word out to people but I don't know if people just moving late I don't know um if there is a larger influx um at that time of year I don't know so yes in a bottleneck or registration we did the best we could I think we did a great job what resources we have does it increase class sizes you bet it does after years so I that's just a quick follow question are we using any kind of online registration process yes District that was in did that It sped up everything yes thank you anybody else no just want to add again if anybody does want to email me it's actually better to I could get more information more timely fashion with a lot more details on anything you need okay throw it

159good are you good okay uh we're going to close public comment um and open board comment we'll start with Mr blandina today yes first of all i' just like to address I've only been here less than three years uh so I wanted everybody to know that however I've been attending meetings for over 50 years as a graduate of the Brick Township school system where my 84y old mon now started bringing me to meetings here such people were board uh presidents then as Bara blinsky Dan Newman Judy Fox people like that uh they were here in the town then running this board and when the meetings were held at the other end of the building uh secondly if you read back on my literature from three years ago I was always for parental rights I'm a

160Brick Township boy who loves the school school and will always love the school system here I won't come in for I have never come here looking for a personal uh gain or anything a job or anything I came here to serve the people of Brick Township and the stool that I love since I went through the school system so I have been coming here 50 years to school uh board meetings uh when I was not old enough to drive to the school uh now I'm going to get back to my original agenda uh items I wanted to talk about number one I want to thank the uh uh Township of brick specifically uh Chief Forester and from the county i' like to thank Sheriff Mardi for the efforts they've helped us out with some lighting

161at the school Brick Memorial High School where we waited and saved us thousands of dollars in the last couple of weeks uh because the lighting that was scheduled to go up in those schools uh had not arrived yet and uh we needed lighting specifically for sports events going on for the next few weeks until those lightings are installed so I want to thank again Chief Forester and sheriff mashon for their assistance with helping us save thousands of dollars of the residents money here in Breck Township uh additionally I'd like to talk about an item that's dear to my heart uh the education of the students in the school and giving them uh cultural experience uh as chair of the Ocean County Columbus State parade committee I work very closely with the uh County Commissioners and

162other entities throughout the county and I am fortunate enough to bring in the group from Italy for the past several years to The Brick Township Schools we started with Brick Township School approximately 12 years ago and we expanded a couple years ago to the brick memorial schools the students spoke about that earlier and I think it was a a cultural experience for them and I enjoy doing that every year uh bringing them in when we get them in I came directly from uh Kennedy Airport this evening uh bringing the group back and they performed in our schools only here in Brick Township uh as well as some Senior Communities throughout the uh thing and of course as the students mentioned at the Ocean County Columbus State palian Festival this past weekend additionally I'd like to

163uh thank all the staff that put that together from the uh language departments the transportation department and uh the principles in both schools I like to send a special shout out to Dr anerson and Mr Bui for showing uh their Spirit of the Italian Heritage culture and dancing again this year in both schools of course I danced I don't know if they do I don't have any personally but did dance both years now with the groups of people from Italy and uh Mr baresi was dancing with them at Memorial this year so that's part of what I enjoy doing I'm here for Brick Township and I'll always be here for Brick Township well I sit whether I sit on this board or I don't sit on this board so I want to thank uh you

164for joining us here this evening uh anybody who ever wants to reach out to me uh feel free to do so uh the numbers in the book and and I'm glad to talk with anybody here in Brick count I have for over 50 years thank you very much thank you Mr blandina BR I want to um say thank you last month I made a shout out to as I called it everybody in YouTube land to come and fill the seats and at the beginning of the night it was standing room only so thank you to everybody who came out um having to do with our scores and any sort of issues that are going on School the biggest thing is Parental involvement if you're here as a parent you're obviously really involved in your kids'

165life and you need to go and you need to ask them you need to say hey how's your school going how is your work going how are your grades going and I have a middle schooler so I get it sometimes they don't want to talk to you well unfortunately our job is not to be their friend it's okay to go and email their teacher say hey how are they doing are they missing any work what is going on that is your job as a parent and the more that you ask the more that you will know hopefully and we can maybe alleviate some of these problems these test scores the more you help your kid the better it is more reinforcement the more you ask them about their friends about what's going on the better

166that their school they will be and the less of this bullying will be happying happening we need to just teach our kids to be kind humans and if we could all just teach them to be kind and productive members of this Society then we're winning so be nosy if you agitate your kids guess what it's okay it is okay they will get over it and more seats filled thank you Fran meline oh boy what a night huh so um I guess I've changed just about everything I was going to say first thing I would like to say is the reason why I ran for this sport of Ed was for parental rights because a dear friend of mine asked me to do it because of something that happened in the school he recently passed this

167week um and left his children with no parents mom had passed eight months prior sitting here and listening to um how some of the students are bullied um Rand have to go over that policy again because it's heart-wrenching I saw that young girl sitting here shaking I mean who should be in school being afraid who should be in school being tortured or at home and not get an education because education is what we're supposed to be providing we're supposed to be providing a safe place and an education how is that not happening what's going wrong we need to figure that out um we ran on parental rights and we ran on um parents knowing everything I'm there's there's something's missing in this equation and we need to figure it out um I'm very upset very

168very upset to see what this family has gone through and and others now I've been getting phone calls we need to do something work on that policy um also the woman who came and spoke about being a lesbian who goes to her I mean she was just a Spitfire you know she was really uh I enjoyed her her and uh I appreciate what she did but again like France said what I started saying from the day I W up here talk to your children every day ask them what's going on in school ask them what they learned um some of the things that they learned are not things that we as a parent wanted them to learn so the parents need to know and we also be a little bit more diligent on getting back

169to the parents because what I'm hearing from quite a few parents is is they're not getting the call back or they're not getting we need to work as a community and I said I want to say congratulations do girl a granddaughter a grandchild that anything is a gift from God now you'll see how we're R toward you have a nice puts things in perspective right thanks meline Victoria I wanted to say thank you to our brick memorial morial uh spokesperson Kristen I want to say welcome and thank you and I'm looking forward to hearing her and Amaya Ami Amaya Amaya report again next month they they um they're a delight at our meetings I want to thank Dr Anderson personally I've sat on the curriculum and instruction committee for several years now and I know

170reporting on testing data isn't easy I'm always amazed how the data is analyzed and I'm always um proud of how our curriculum Department our super supervisors our academic coaches plan and show steady growth uh it's the data analysis the it's a testament to our programs it's a testament to our teachers how we approach testing our children and we see that growth concept it's so much more important for our children our students to know they are growing then they're not achieving that it it they're they're diabolic um and I also wanted to uh thank Dr Anderson and all the students uh the school district website promoted the green teams and in Township um uh green team's efforts to clean Bren clean up Breton Woods this past uh month and it went out on the district website

171it went out on to all the teachers to all the parents and a lot a lot of our school students and school teachers got involved and went out they picked up Brenton Woods on a day that was not so nice but it just shows the dedication of our environmentally conscious students and um lastly I just like to say that on um September 27th it was my pleasure to represent the brick School District at the Ocean County School Board uh meeting um the highlight of the evening for me was a presentation from the coordinator of communication and Technology at the Jackson Public School District I've had a lot of big wishes for this District since I've been serving I wanted to see the social studies supervisor I wanted to see a couple more Vice principles I

172wanted to see ahe of guidance I wanted to see our kids get more authentic um field trip experiences all kinds of different things and now I'm really really on the bandwagon to see that our school district has a coordinator of communications and tech technology because the their cont contribution to the district and the community the community at large is unvaluable and it really promotes the transparency that all of our directors and administrators promote in the school district every day thank you I'm looking forward to going to the New Jersey school board's Workshop the last weekend of October I can hardly wait to learn some more have a nice month everybody thank you Victoria Ally okay so I wanted to um welcome the community members who've joined us for their first time for their first meeting

173maybe your second meeting um welcome glad to see you here um I wanted to say as the chair of the policy and planning committee um meline and Fran and I did work very hard with going to speak with the lawyers and we all took part in that um hanging on holding off on 5756 so that was a group effort with our committee so I'm glad that the community is glad that we took the actions that we took as a committee that I'm happy to chair um I do also look forward to planning the new to attending rather the New Jersey school board's conference in two weeks I'm super excited about that um I wanted to thank the um student Reps for the middle school report because I love that I love hearing what's going on

174in our secondary schools um and most importantly my record speaks for itself with working for parents I'm was very big in the PTA with my um elementary school and the middle schools so I um that's it my record speaks for itself but thank you very much have a good night thanks Ally I'm gonna put a Shameless plug up here for everybody on Monday to come to the Field of Dreams in Tom's River um our brick dragons are playing the Hawks it is free and you could check out the awesome facility while you were there and support most of our students as well but on that note um Dr frell do you have any additional comments before we did I'd be remissed because I wanted Fran you said something I say all the time about being

175nosy as a parent and I'd be remissed with all the bullying without getting specifics but bullying I want everybody to hear me bullying is very covert it is not overt and many many many times many of the major incidents are happening outside the schools we need everybody's help we need parents' help to Model Behavior we need everybody's help to bring that to everybody's attention by the way not just schools but authorities so please please please parents be nosy as I always say friend I want to add that was perfect be nosy ask questions bring it to people's attention whether it's the schools whether it's authorities bring it to their attention um because it's very covert you know I think of all the times we are we can maybe intercede on something that's pervasive and bulling

176then I think maybe all the times we're not getting those pervasive um um agitators say so so be nosy you know let's all try to uh to help with this this is a community um effort uh for all of us because many many times it is not in the school buildings walls so thank you for reminding me that thank you Dr Farrell calendar November 9th and 10th is Teachers convention so the schools will be closed our next meeting will be here on November 14th at 7 pm can I have a motion and a second to adjourn motion Ali second Fran Mary Miss cert yes Miss Kennedy yes Miss picala yes Miss aan Ron yes Mr blandina yes Miss Benedictus yes everyone have a good night thanks for coming out nothing