001can everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance 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 Dr ha I just like to read a quick statement if I may sir the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the rights of the public to advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provision of this act the clide Park Board of Ed scores notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted in the office of the burough clerk burough Library bur Rec Department the office of
002the board of head and the office of school numbers 3456 and the high school on October 13 2023 and notices were forwarded to the reporters of the record October 13 2023 this is an official meeting I'd like to take the rooll of I may uh Mrs Abu here Mr capano here Mrs Fredo here Mr garciaa here Mr nadw here Dr pontano here Mr ranc Court here Mr Russa here Al mrakia here and Mr is he dear very good thank you everyone okay back to pontan yes welcome this evening I like to see so many people here for such wonderful uh news I want to welcome you all and I want to start our meeting by calling up Miss ith yellan I hope I got the name right she's our media specialist from Cliffside Park School
003number three and she has some wonderful news to sh with the community and the board of education so welcome thank you for coming here and joining us this evening and we're going to start our meeting of good news with some wonderful news thank you thank you to the board for having me welcome to all the parents and students that are the board uh meeting today it's so wonderful to see such a nice and uh robust crowd here so I'm very excited my name is ith M yelan and like she said I'm the school librarian at cide par School number three I have been um teacher in the district since 2011 and I also grew up inide par and went to I am since 2015 I've been the school librarian and I have made it my
004goal to make the program better each year to students learn about the value of reading and how to become lifelong learners in my library how to conduct research and the importance of information literacy and the importance of being a member of a community and a school we work on maor Day program stem activities author visits and more I cannot take the credits for all of this because if it were not for the guidance and support uh and a lot of trust of my administrator my school library program would not be what it is today and and I would not be the librarian I am today on behalf of the New Jersey Association of school librarians and a member of the executive board I'm here to present Mrs Donna Cales with the administrator of the Year
005award this award represents her commitment and importance of literacy in our schools and her support for the school library program and its librarians oh this means the world to me it really does thank you so much from the bottom of my heart the library is always a very special place in my heart and um I pulled Miss Molano out of third grade many years ago because um the library like I said is near and dear to my heart and um once a learner always a learner and um she has turned our library SL Media Center at number three School into a wonderful wonderful place for children for um Educators and for leaders and she has she now collaborates with all of the media specialists in not only clide Park but in New Jersey and um
006in our state and um and all over now and um congratulations to you too for your position and thank you so much this is really um you know very heartfelt I really appreciate it thank you very much thank you ith you ready for me Dr P one second I just want to say thank you ith on behalf of the Board of Education and thank you Mrs calibri for all that you do and for always making us proud of course the Board of Education knows that that's why we made you our director of curriculum so looking forward to many more wonderful things to come and in continuing our evening of good news tonight is a very special night because we have so many families here to support our wonderful students who have made us Proud by
007getting perfect scores on the Statewide assessments congratulations you are a special group and you make your school district proud so right now I would like to ask Mr capano to come and join me with Dr Hayes so that we can honor our special students this evening so ladies and gentlemen I am honored to be in front of you this evening as the superintendent of schools in this District we're here to recognize Excellence Excellence on behalf of our students Excellence on behalf of our parents our administrative staff our teachers and our Board of Education so thank you all thank you to the students for the outstanding job you do your hard work your determination thank you to the parents for all of your nurturing thank you to our teachers for your nurturing as well helping all
008of the students achieve what they did administrative staff thank you for everything you do every day Board of Education thank you for your support it's a great great celebration here tonight and I'm going to ask our administrators to please join us one of the time first from PS number six with Mr Barner please join us and we had a sixth grade student I'm sorry former sixth grade student who achieved the perfect score on the performance of the spring 2023 New Jersey student learning assessment from number six School Ashley herado aseno Ashley you pleas congratulations conratulations Mr continuing with perfect scores on the spring 2023 English language arts section from the Middle School Benjamin Luciana Tiffany Giller Yasmine Al Hindi Elana mearan Chloe nunz conratulations Brooklyn pack Solomon pack congratulations Marina Ryan C Thea Santana congratulations
009congratulate so kind as to step in for Mrs russas sure from PS number four perfect score mathematics Roman low back to the Middle School perfect score mathematics Ana fera conratulations Middle School perfect score mathematics you didn't made off straight stra okay Middle School perfect score English language arts perfect School mathematics and E perfect score perfect score English language arts and Mathematics elshad Puma perfect score Ela and math Middle School Eric T congratulations perfect score high school science J dep that concludes the perfect scores for the month of October we have one other student who come back in November so last words for our students please know that you're an inspiration to all of us my sincerest congratulations on behal of everyone in this room keep up the good work and we know we're going to
010continue to be seeing you in this room and continue to be giving you Awards best wishes family thank you to be I'd like to congratulate our students obviously as well and I'd like you to meet Mr Bogner Mr renquist and Mrs Cal in the whole way to take a picture and to look at your medals thank you very much the last thing j said to me and I punched it I didn't know G told and I drew consent agend I like the your idea quickly and we could do that agenda and then we'll back report Mr Alo Mr Alano while they're taking a picture in the hallway we'd like to do the consent agenda and then we'll come back to committee reports after the testing presentation motion to go out of order you want to
011startop Dr P yes hello board members sorry we're going to we're going to switch things around a little bit we're going to go through the consent agenda for the next few minutes while while the we're we'll flip back to Mrs calib and to do the njsla presentation while the students are in the hallway taking their pictures with the administrators I would like to make a motion to go out of order and just do the consent agenda and then we will come back to committee reports uh when everyone reconvenes and we can do the testing fre as well in order to be expeditious in people's time uh motion second all in favor I thank you you want to kick it off Dr H so uh for 24 Personnel resolutions eight of which were hi investigations I'd
012just like to I met with Dr Pantano on Monday uh we she told me she read through the Personnel didn't have any questions they're all profun uh the hi investigations I wanted you to know of the eight six were unfounded two were founded however all eight investigations included outcomes of counseling and parental notification the two Hib investigations which yielded founded Hib results uh one was again simply parental notification and counseling but one of the investigations the second one down the active hi did occur with 252 869 that included a Saturday suspension uh a series of written reflective questions done by the student and uh three days of counseling sessions so uh my recommendation is that we affirm the hip specialist findings policies and procedures 14 resolutions and uh I again I just I apologize the
013hi was with them and I spoke to Dr pentan she didn't have any questions if anyone else on the board has questions um I'd be happy to try to answer them now any questions Mr Alano would you thank you thank you very much CL you said seems straightforward I said Thank you any you run you can do a roll sure sure I'm I'm just going to do a couple of quick Finance quick and just to move it along um we met last week with the the board at the work session to go through our capital projects I engage land Associates as promised and they'll be getting back to us hopefully in the next two to three weeks in regard to assessments then we'll compare that to our Surplus and we'll prioritize in regard what we're
014going to move forward with in regard to assessments and engaging the department of Ed for potential Spring and Summer 2024 capital projects um we we also went through our full year 23 audit we went through the corrective action plan so thank you for the board for all your support uh we had three findings nothing material but again the staff did a heck of a job based on the size of our school and the complexity uh we will be engaging in the full year 24 start of the audit even though it's only early in the year we're going to be engaging what we call drrs audit that's essentially a big old Transportation uh report because we have our own compl and uh it's very uh voluminous and very full of detail uh so we ask our
015orders to do an early audit before we actually do the certification and the certification is November 15th and we also ask the orders to do an early ordered on Assa that's essentially big word for our enrollment Dynamics from special needs to regular students to elll to ESL and that needs to be certified in early December so unfortunately unfortunately we're going to see our Auditors again in a couple of weeks to Kickstart a full year 24 on it um we also did a midyear review for the county and the state in regard to a a full year 24 that's this year the 2324 budget it's a series of there's a series of Excel spreadsheets that essentially have what they call indicators and half Cliffside Park uh rates in regard to key indicators legal there's Finance indicators
016there's staff indicators there's enrollment indicators there's all different type of indicators Transportation indicators and I believe there was 12 total indicators and we came in right solid in the middle in regard to where we should be we weren't to the bad on any uh indicators we were to the good on all indicators and there's a there's a threshold that you know you know like think of a 1 to 10 and four or five is kind of your sweet spot in regard to the range and we were pretty much in that range for all 12 of the indicators which is a very good thing and it encompassed a wide swath of different indicators from again from fiscal to enrollment to Transportation so that was good news and they are in the process of reviewing it there
017was a 20 some odd questions and a couple of Excel spreadsheets with those 12 indicators we haven't gotten back feedback yet from the state in the county but we did um install it and uh deliver it on on time and then there's also the comprehensive maintenance plan which we were fortunate enough I was fortunate enough to get approval from the board at last week's work session that's that famous required maintenance everything that kind of keep the buildings up and running that was also submitted to the the department of Ed and the county and we are waiting to hear back in regard to their assessment so thank you for that and thank you for your support and we talked about the capital projects I will be engaging the principles I'll be asking Dr hay if I
018can take a few minutes with the principles at their November meeting to go through some of the early budget Dynamics in regard to we have templates uh budget templates that essentially go look at everything from supplies to it to to books expiring to new series to capital projects to wish lists so I'll be asking for Dr to Dr Hayes for a few minutes for the principales and the supervisors at the uh November meeting that's pretty much the finance over viewers anyone have any questions okay I'd like to take a vote if I may yeah just if I can um interject I I know the you know Central offices uh have a lot of u a lot of work going on and and we are under staff and I want to thank you and your staff
019for always putting together uh an excellent audit I think you're here 10 years now uh yes thank and and in the past 10 years uh you deserve all that credit for putting an excellent budget together together uh always being uh conscious of uh the taxpayer and uh doing the right thing so uh you deserve a lot of credit and I do want to thank you on behalf of the board I appreciate that thank you Mr capano and again as you know it's always a team effort starts with the board giving us the opportunity especially with the capital projects to succeed uh so I appreciate everything that the board's done and the opportunity for them to re-upping every year with me I do not treat a a job as a as a right I treat a
020job as a privilege so again I I want to thank you again I want to thank our business office um they've done some yman work and and and the staff themselves principal supervisors everyone has a piece of the pie and uh also folks like uh Mr savastano who uh goes above and beyond pretty much each and every day on the information technology side we'll have to make that assessment yeah so uh we have folks like him who are uh always try to be part of the solution team player so thank you for that Mr capano I appreciate it I may have a motion to accept so move that is Mr may I have a second if I may pleas that is Mr Rancor I think we'll any uh question from yeah no committee and we'll
021do the Dr P we do the committee board later okay Mrs Abu yes okay Mr capano yes Mrs Fredo yes Mr garciaa yes Mr nro yes faap pontano yes Mr ran Court yes Mr Russo yes mrakia yes Mr yui yes so move okay I'd like to have just a a quick two individuals just to adjourn this piece and then we'll come back again finish up and can have an adjournment soov okay I'll okay very good okay Dr Pantano Dr Hayes yes okay what do you want to say I want to uh go back to the beginning of the meeting I have in front of me a policy and it's District policy 0143 and it's called high school student representative to the board of education and I do feel it's necessary to read it into the
022record so that we all understand the responsibilities of our new representative the Board of Education recognizes that experience gained by the input from students in the school district is a Val valued source for improving the operation of the school district to this end and in accordance with law the board authorizes the appointment of a minimum of one student selected by the student body to serve as a non voting student representative on the board the student representative must be selected from one of the grades 9 through 12 the student body may elect or appoint the student representative to the board and a process to be determined by the superintendent or designate the student representative Shall Serve for oneyear term and their duties shall include attending all board meetings excluding any discussions of the board involving subjects
023which are confidential representing all high school students within the district and presenting student proposals and concerns to the board of education and keeping the high school students informed of the business of the board by providing a monthly report to student council concerning the activities of the board the student representative shall rotate each school year student representatives are expected to adhere to all bylaws policies and regulations of the board in their role the board in no way relinquishes any of its Authority powers prerogatives or responsibilities but rather adds to its membership a non voting student representative for the mutual benefit of the board student body and School District now keeping in the vein of good news tonight it is my great honor and privilege to install our first student representative one that I met when she
024was 5 years old in Miss spontaneous class and I have got the good fortune to watch her grow over the years as a student as an athlete and most importantly as a leader among her peers and I must say when I knew you at 5 years old and watched you through the years I always knew you were going to be a great leader and I was so happy to see that you were selected by your peers as the president of the class of 2024 and I as the president of this board of education could not be happier or prouder to install Irene ropos as our student liaison to the Board of Education now unfortunately it's a little crowded up here at the deas but we we would definitely like you to sit at the table
025with Mr alfano and we greatly appreciate all of the input that you've already given us as far as our open student lunch for seniors Irene I am so proud of you and I know you're going to do great things starting here and continuing into the future and I know that you said you were going to be a little casual this evening because you were at volleyball practice because I believe our volleyball team is having a phenomenal season thanks to you and the coaches right so congratulations and please come up and join us don't get too close to him he bites okay so on to the testing presentation correct Dr Hayes yes just Cali Mr alvan you it's all yours do we have to go that way you have to pull down the screen yes look
026we have to come back up to to close anything well we're going to talk a little bit about potential uh uh committee reports but you can for the committee reports you guys can stay really any way you want theer right on top just the one yeah no problem no pressure want there oh thank you thank you okay thank you so much Frank thanks again y okay hello the Ste board members are you principles Alo uh uh I just want to let you know that there's before I start there's two presentations that I have on here the first one is the one that's going to go up onto the Board website but it's 90 slides so I cut out the detail a lot of the detailed slides they're going to be up by regulation but I'm
027not going to go through those save you some time so mercifully onlyon 54 oh thank you yeah you are welcome appreciate that that needs to be done in 15 minutes yes it will be done in 10 thank you I have okay I'm also going to just letting you know just jump around a little bit I'm not going to follow the the word if you have any questions I can certainly answer them related to any any of the numbers that and I'm old and I wear glasses welcome to the show uh so as you know we're going over the numbers for for last year's njs Administration which were better than last year for sure better than the year before and we had more perfect scores than we have ever had so we have phenomenal students we
028have some really really brilliant kids and that's something that we should really really be proud of and I'm proud that most of those were my g&t students I wanted to throw that in just to let you know that that program also works we go straight into honors Unfortunately they go to BT or ba but I is so that's uh language arts results are here they are organized by by regulation in in this format now how they want to see it uh this is a comparison and I'll explain what they are um these are comparisons of change in level one and two which are the two lowest levels and these are changes in levels four and five which are the two highest levels um what we want to see is uh shrinking of these numbers negatives
029in here and we want to see positives on here it means that the numbers are growing in the positive shrinking in the negative the middle section level three those are the students that are on the cusp of achieving uh we also want to see this grow as long as those are shrinking we want kids to move towards the right on these charts okay oh if you yeah that'd be great okay so this this chart here is the percentage changes now this is in comparison to the state um what's what's important to note in these slides is that I I actually I'm going to talk through the narrative first if that's okay and then I'll go through the numbers you my turn it like this this is uh mathematics this is language art this is mathematics
030these are the subgroups that we're going to go through momentarily this is mathematics and these are the subgroups and these are the science numbers and these are our SCI I don't know if you have seen any of the numbers yet they were just released okay these charts here are important because these actually show you how we did in a much more real sense that's much easier to see so these is third grade results note that on the right hand side dark blue those are are students that met in exceeded expectations that's called the proficiency metric uh third grade despite the fact that the numbers of growth are not great from the previous year we still outpaced the state in both of those okay third grade very good would you mind skipping to the next one
031fourth grade very similar we still UPAC the state even though there was some shrinking here um mathematics grew we're still above this thing the Elementary grades always do very well unfortunately with the exception of fifth sixth and seventh and I will explain why just a minute if you don't mind thank you uh this is fifth grade fifth grade results 55% proficiency and 35% in mathematics in math we are we were a little low districtwide um and the science numbers are our weakest numbers and I will talk about that more ter thank you uh sixth grade math also um is a little below but Ela is above the state even though there was some shrinking sixth grade is the grade that has seen the biggest drop both when they took the test last year the year
032before in fifth grade they were our lowest performing cohort now that're in sixth grade they're also our lowest performing cohort there is something to be said for the fact that those kids were in second and third grade when the pandemic hit uh they lost a lot those those ele Elementary grade second third fourth those are the grades where kids learn how to learn the content is almost secondary it's how they it's when they learn how to study how to read how to how to do basic mathematics and losing a lot of that content despite the fact that it was virtual really really hurt that group of kids and those growth metrics that you saw in the beginning third fourth and fifth grade this year grew Sixth 7eventh and eighth grade contracted in terms of growth
033across both both major uh both major subjects Ela and uh you can go to the next one to see thank you uh seventh grade sth grade ELA results were great were very very good above the state notice that we're getting close to where we were in 2019 which was the first uh post pandemic uh pre the first prepandemic year after that there were no njsla examinations for two years uh in mathematics is also a little low it did contract but again math was the subject that suffered the most during the pandemic uh you may go ahead p uh e8th grade results you see a very similar story 8th grade was a really good group of kids those most of those kids that just left they were eighth graders um this this grade was also another
034stuff you see that they are above the state in both matth and Ela okay and uh this high school algebra just you know uh includes eighth grade one of the reasons that the eighth grade math scores are not higher is because all the kids that are high level they take the algebra test and they are included in these results not in the eighth grade math so if you included them in the eighth grade math scores they'd be even higher than they were uh so and Algebra 1 Algebra 2 Algebra 2 population is very small because is just ninth graders that take it so despite the fact that it's statistically significant these are not that sign impactful for for for our GRS so go ahead thank you now this is the stuff that I wanted to
035talk a little bit about if you don't mind I'm going to read some of it and talk through it a little bit um Co 19 while it has receded as a global pandemic um has left an undeniable and delible Mark on our education and our students um the Swift and unprecedent ship to remote learning in the face of pandemic related school closures expose deep rooted inequalities in access to technology especially in our populations unfortunately uh and reliable internet connectivity this digital divide disproportionately affected marginalized communities amplifying existing educational disparities and as a result a significant portion of our students endured protracted interruptions to their educational Journeys um it also brought into the spotlight the need to focus more on children's emotional condition uh there is there was a there was a serious isolation issue some
036kids just couldn't focus they couldn't go to school because they they were afraid they they didn't know how to handle the situation and it really really caused just exacerbated the the problems that we were already experiencing um it hadn't an impact on emotional stability but it also raised concern about long-term psychological effects which were experiencing now in their inability to retain information in some cases they're having a really hard time remembering content that they learned days ago in some cases um so as we navigate the post-pandemic landscape it's evident that addressing these multitudinous challenges necessitates a comprehensive and multipronged approach we need Innovative strategies we need additional resources to bridge digital divide and heightened awareness about mental uh health of our students it also remind needs a commitment from all of us to the foundational
037principle that we can't leave any student behind right um Everybody deserves an education so thank you um AI huge very important um if you have not heard about the Advent of AI then you've been living under a rock in the Amazon rainforest because it's literally everywhere you turn today uh the uh one of the most Revolution AR Paradigm shifts in the educational landscape actually it's probably on the level of the Industrial Revolution According to some experts it is vital importance that we as a district get ahead of this change and teach our students how to use the technology properly and safely um artificial intelligence holds immense potential to revolutionize education in various ways they personalize learning experiences by adapting content and pacing to individual students uh AI power tutors and chat boot can provide instant
03824/7 support uh offering explanations assistance with homework AI can help Educators by automating administrative tasks can allow them to focus more on teaching and providing insights into students additionally a can facilitate Global access to Quality education through online courses and language translation tools which we kind of need right now explain why overall AI has a capacity to make education more efficient accessible and effective for Learners around the world of course there's also the fear that students will use large language models like chat gbt for cheating a little bit like I did with that paragraph right there seriously it wrote it and it was very good I wrote the rest I promise uh more so than this AI is currently being used to spread massive amounts of disinformation on platforms like Tik Tok and YouTube where
039various Bots create content aimed at children in a matter of minutes um and it's full of propaganda and seriously improper mostly science science videos um so this is the reason that we have to leverage the fact that we're still at the Advent of this technology and we have to use our position to show them how to use this technology properly safely and for them to recognize when it's being used to influence them in certain ways uh so we need to get ahead of this and get involved in it now today yesterday possible okay thank you uh testing achievements and narrative the clip par School District elementary and middle school grades beat the state of New Jersey proficiency numbers across the board in ela uh despite continued lower performance in in years past in mathematics our
040scores as a whole have recovered from the spring 2022 and administration most grades also beat the state and Mathematics proficiency it was only three grades that were below um in analyzing mathematics numbers now that we have multiple years worth of data we realize that what we have dued is a pandemic cohorts continue to underperform when it comes to State Testing results these are the students that were in second to fifth grades during the pandemic as mentioned last year students learned learn how to learn in these pival grades as I've said before and uh that has contributed massively to testing outcomes as proof of this you need to look at how the 22 23 3D fourth and fifth grade cohorts performed versus the year before all those proficiency numbers are up and sixth seventh and eighth
041grade scores are all down when you look at those comparative charts that's where you see those changes the result for science tests across all grade levels have been consistently below State levels and need to be addressed I will discuss that in a separate slide but on a happy note we had more perfect engine laa scores than ever we had a total of 19 students receive perfect scores in La as you know we just saw them they were awesome awesome kids they're brilliant brilliant children so please thank you uh I just put in some happy pictures so you guys don't have to look at just my words the entire time um these is when last year when the uh cpon Park design team won the real world design challenge uh they won second place um Eric
042Mary she's number one in her class right now got some catching up to do uh miss matali this is a a trip to the Storm King artart Center as you know Cliffside Park School Number Four was awarded uh Blue Ribbon school last year we had we have yoga Wellness yoga taking place in our after school program right now uh we had students that won gold medals in mathematics at the decathlon this year and these are some of my kids from last year dissecting frogs which those kids all did too which is great so you're going to see some of those in this room in a few more years thank you uh Elementary strategic plan for growth Cliffside Park is in the process of finding a more effective Data Tracking program as much as I love
043numbers and following them along and creating spreadsheets we have too much information we have too much data at this point it's not the collect thing it's the application how we're using those numbers to improve our uh our scores and our our students education so we're looking at multiple options linkit is one of them uh Fairview uses it uh Richfield Park uses it there's a few districts around here Fort Lee uses it it's a it's a proprietary platform that provides us with quality Benchmark vetted scores vetted questions and also njsla organization where teachers would be able to access their students scores at any time and not just the scores but also the breakdowns the uh the the strands the specific standards the questions asked it's it's really quite phenomenal and it's something that we're looking into
044for the future uh the EXL platform is still being used to fullest potential now we have we're using it for benchmarks we're using it for constant progress monitoring we're using it for sgos uh it's been it's been a a bit of a godsend for us because we as you know we had very little to go by and it has allowed us to rank our students and provide them the help that we need we use it for identification for title one we've been using it extensively and it's it's been very good for us uh schoolwide still being use for the ELA program K to 8 um as you know it's a digital curriculum platform with more than 100 units of study educators are also being encouraged heavily to participate in plcs and professional learning opportunities uh
045personally doing a PLC in a month on AI with the gifted Consortium for Bergen County and then I plan to take that information and turn K it to to our teachers to provide them some free resources and things that they can utilize in classrooms today um uh intensive support t one we still are using the Fant and panel uh lli program it has proved very very successful uh with our Cade of six students um conquer math is still a major part of our mathematics training curriculum we have uh Ela effective Ela coaches that are that are moving around the buildings we have at least one full-time title one person in each building that is helping to coach teachers especially new teachers on F ofel L and uh and schoolwide throughout the district same with math
046uh CL of par school district is encouraging heighten awareness of student emotional well-being and steps are being taken to train teachers and not only how to maintain the well-being of their students but also their own emotional wellbeing with uh recent like the recent Workshop that we had with Alicia Del Lorenzo who was phenomenal and I don't know how much you guys paid her but she was worth every penny she was phenomenal um please thank you so much uh Middle School Ela plan of action the middle school department is working dently diligently to prepare rigorous lessons so the students can match the New Jersey State student learning standards uh teachers are focusing on close reading building vocabulary and writing assignments that build uh reading skills and also fluency uh Middle School Eli teachers are working as
047a team to ensure curricular sander fideli we they're also trying to create lifelong readers by making Ela projects not just not just reading but things that are reading adjacent such as uh utilizing their favorite uh book or story to create bookmarks for their future favorite stories uh teachers are also planning to have eighth grades participate in a read aloud from project that will coincide with read Across America to have our own students read to younger classes which is lovely it's it's a really great idea um we are also preparing trying to prepare them better for the research simulation tasks that are the backbone of the ELA portion of the engine SL achievement and uh there is a schoolwide in common lit just like last year are continuing to be used we we started common lit
048and uh schoolwide last year for the middle school and it has proved to be pretty great as you saw for seventh and eighth grade laa scor were pretty good uh the LA department is also uh building a partnership with the CLI par Public Library they invited Joseph Rivera to speak with middle school students about online books resources and materials that we have available for them in our Public Library um mathematics the math committee is reviewing current curriculum resources for read-option or change mathematics uh standards are being updated this year uh so it is a perfect opportunity to review what uh what our math program is using or the materials that we're using we actually attended recently also a a presentation on an lli style workshop model remediation program for K 5 and also algebra that
049works as a a little bit like a li they're enclosed kits and they're designed to accelerate students and it's a it's a really wonderful idea for the Scythe Academy for some of those kids that come in with interrupted education that have maybe second grade level education they're entering high school and expected to take an algebra test it is it is an absolute impossibility so a program like that would be wonderful for for students like that or or our our lowest Achievers in the K to 5 grade levels um Middle School teachers are working with professional development the conquer math uh the savus 2.0 curriculum again we're going to see if it's still an option there's lots and lots of programs out there EXL is also being used at the middle school and we are offering
050extra Health daily and students are highly encouraged to partake High School interventions um we're strengthening writing instruction and student capacity for analysis within the informational text uh which is again the res simulation tasks it's it's it's reading for information um Ela department has identified standards such as citing evidence and multiple meanings of words to focus on uh I EXL is also being used at the high school very effectively lesson plans are focusing on student engagement and many lessons as part of daily instruction uh silent reading and close reading which is part of schoolwide uh is being uh pushed to help with fluency comprehension I'm speaking quickly here I know I I don't want to take too much more of your time um we are increasing Journal free writing for students to promote creativity confidence and
051organization of ideas consistent dialogue and impementation of high quality literature that engages students uh greater diversity and inventory of culturally appropriate materials for our kids and we are also engaging in Greater communication with therapy um the reason for this is that the Freshman coming into fair viiew and some from Fairview into Cliffside are sometimes not on the same level in different subjects s and we just need a little more access to State testing scores for example at an earlier point so that we can maybe align our curriculums better with them and that's obviously a much longer conversation not something we have to talk about tonight but for the future um mathematics interventions uh proficiency rates for State assessments specifically Algebra 1 which is literally for us the only assessment that matters because it's the only
052one the nth graders take with very few Algebra 2 students in nth grade and I think we had five geometry scores so they're not even included in our numbers uh ongoing ISL Diagnostics once again uh preparation for the PSAT the ISL now has PSAT prep sections not only uh not only related to NJ SL SLA and NJ GPA but also the PS which every student takes in the 11th grade right yes oh sophomores and juniors take it my kids just took it today in but um um we are using AI programs to increase teaching and learning opportunities in math that is part of the the PLC that I was talking about earlier U we're continuing to create a culture of collaboration among subjects specific teachers increases focus on demonstrating standard proficiency how to properly understand
053the assessments and type uh question types that we have uh a lot of teachers don't know what some of the standards entail like on grade level like there there's a lot of codes that that the state uses that are not clearly explained unless you go deep into their websites and pull out all this information we're trying to get that to the teachers at an earlier point in time um more emphasis on academic language in subject phase vocabulary we are providing accommodations for MLS including assessments given in their home language in some cases Spanish is easy but we have a lot of kids coming in from a lot of places right now the world is crazy place and we have a lot of kids coming in that we don't know how to communicate with in some
054cases we have very few Arabic speakers for example we have a lot of kids that are going to be coming in from Palestine and areas of the world like that turkey uh it's it's very tough to find people that speak those languages and AI is a great way to do that there are systems that they can put headphones on the teacher speaks in English it translates in real time it's you can literally teach a class to a student it's phenomenon again for a future conversation but um and again greater communication with Fairview oh and we have seven HTML web design classes at the high school house seven so that that's awesome that's that's something the kids need to learn that's the future um thank you and uh the narrative for science the 2023 engine Science
055assessment scores were much lower than we had hoped once again none of our grade levels have performed the state if e8th grade was within one percentage Point um science is by far the worst of all three subjects that are tested for our district um but the results while they're discouraging actually disguise another reality and that is that the njsla science test is actually an Ela assessment with science content sprinkled in um it's a very reading and comprehensive heavy test exceptionally so the following slide that you'll see in just a moment has a sample multiple choice question question from the digital itom library that the state provided um you're going to see that if reading comprehension is for students have very little chance of getting these questions correct so our high numbers of entry level mLs
056are required to take this test in the first year that they're here they have to take the science test um and so therefore a disproportionately large number of our low scores are first year MLS and I have entire charts that again I can show you at another time time where I have aligned MLS and students of ips with scores just to show you how striking it is that the Reds at the bottom match MLS and IPS it's it's sad it's it's sad to me to see it um so the science interventions that were implemented last year continue um oh feeding two birds with one stone have you guys ever heard that instead of killing killing two birds with one stone no yeah well you I figured I didn't want to promote violence against Aven creatures
057so uh that's but that's what it means I think that AI is a good opportunity here as well potential solution for exploring options for science content is integrated into more Ela classes I think that Ela classes need to change and this might be overstepping my my position here a little bit but I think that Ela classes need to morph into integrating science more integrating social studies other more integrating all because Ela is not in an island a kid needs to learn how to read based and this is something we do we we use schoolwide which uses their interests and books that they like and we need to put this science content into the ELA that they do every day at the lower grades they have science only a couple of times a week fifth and
058sixth grade get science every day but before that there's very little in in in the way of science instruction and it shows it shows that's what these scores reflect so um oh this is the multiple choice question that I was talking about notice all this reading for a multiple choice question in mathematics a multiple choice question is a simple math problem and as I have said in years past our students are great at multiple choice questions when it's a simple multiple choice question when it's a onepoint answer this there's a chart here with energy and variables and all kinds of things that the students have to read through and interpret to answer a multiple choice question so it's not really a multiple choice question this is a reading question that just happens to be about
059science please thank you um the waa this is the waa explanation which um is in a separate presentation actually but I always put these numbers in here as well um this just talks about what the exam is but if you could skip to the next one the ml population for for Cliffside Park saw 15% increase from 21 to 22 and an additional 30% tell them what the increase oh multilingual multilingual Learners they used to be called Ells now they're called MLS next year they'll be called something else same group of kids 15% from 21 to 22 and another 30% from 22 to 23 it's just massive massive amount of children that have been taken in over the last two years um this massive growth has drastically affected the waa access results for 2023 despite this
060fact there was some positive growth moving children from the banded levels 1 and three which are the entering uh entering through emerging into the expanding four and six levels which are when hopefully eventually we can move them out of the program after approximately 3 to four years um we're also still reeling from immense regression during the pandemic and this year in particular like I said before we looked at the impact of MLS on njsla testing scor and while first year ml students are exempt from the ELA portion of the examination they are required to take the math and science uh which is it's a disturbance they're going to if they're going to exempt them from one they should exempt them from three it's it's the reading tests um the engine examinations are very verose the
061results of our large ml relations are low it skes the scor districtwide former mLs are also not accounted into the ml group so successes are just not evident we can't see them um the significant influx of students is very low with any English proficiency particularly the lowest and highest grade levels has had a profound impact on our district many of these students are arriving as refugees from non-spanish speaking countries and we have very limited means to communicate effectively with them this is an area where like I mentioned before an AI translation tool would be very very very very useful I could conduct a class title one class math with four Turkish kids and we don't speak the same language it's like the babble fish from Hitch hackers got to the Galaxy I don't know if
062any of you have read that book but no shocking very exciting but that is uh something we're eager to explore in the very near future and then the following slides are just the weeder numbers which again I band together K first second the third fourth fifth look at that we had 235 kids take the weeda test in high school 235 the previous year which is the the next slide was only it's it's unexplainable it's scary because that's not slowing down sorry to bring it down at the end there but so that's it that's all I have for you folks if you um a lot of these numbers again the presentation is going to be up on the board uh on the C Park website tomorrow um presentation actually much longer but I cut out all
063the detail schools for you feel free to look through those numbers and if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them to the best of my any questions Angel did you say there would be two presentations no there's only one this one I just used for tonight oh I got you that's a subset L it's just a smaller I got you I got you thank you that's for Q yeah wants to see all those little things and they're coming that's compliance it's for compliance for CN we're all set everybody's happy thank you thank you Mr Alvin I thanks Angel stretch out the dream last thing I want is for that thing to fall I'll stay down here you are in nice thank you very oh you down there too I want to come down
064I want to come you want to stay down I'm tough all right so Dr Pano believe the last piece we wanted to talk a little bit about committee report yes okay I think that's I believe that's the last I think that's the last thing so I want to thank everyone for joining us this evening thank you for a very comprehensive testing presentation um I look forward to some committee reports this evening and just to give a preview for our new representative um Irene we would love it for you to give a committee report at least once a month of all of the wonderful things happening at the high school anything that you think the Board needs to know so in the past I've seen students speak for 5 10 minutes just highlighting you know some
065interesting things that are happening and obviously you're going to meet with your student council Representatives your class representatives so anything that you feel that the board should know about you'd like us to look into and so forth but I would also encourage you to share it with the principal and the superintendent before you share that okay so I was at the uh school board's convention today and it was very well attended CLI said was represented 83% of Bergen County school districts were represented there unfortunately Bergen County wasn't one of the 100% counties we do have more school districts than I think any of the other counties um are there any other committee reports Mr BR um well I attended the uh Bergen County school board meeting I guess it was last month this point but
066um so it was a very interesting program because um there was a gentleman there named Lester Taylor who was also an attorney and his subject was parental rights and public education and um you know um it was it I wouldn't go into a lot of detail but basically he separated into two parts one was student rights and one was parental rights and um I I think most everyone is familiar with the basic parental rights and I won't go into all of them but um some some of them kind of surprised me actually uh one was the that you a parent has the right to a copy of a teacher's lesson plans and other materials upon request I kind of didn't ever know that before so that was enlightening to myself at least and um some
067of the other things I think everyone is knowledgeable of such as you have the right to observe classes and have conversations with teachers of course upon request and um that um special education I think everyone knows you have the right to an IEP and placement with a reasonable time to um for knowledge of both cudio and non cudio appearance and um then the third and last one that they talked about of the parental right was the HIV and um you know I the one thing that I thought was interesting there that he pointed out was that um parents must be involved in the process of annually reviewing and putting into practice The Bullying prevention programs I I know you all have been in other districts so I I personally at least since I've been in
068this District I seen that happen but um and I don't know if it's a mandate or just a suggestion but I think it's amending so that was just something that I learned from that and then uh as far as rights of students um the one big thing that they did that he emphasized was um that um all students regardless of race gender disability or other identity has equal access to educational activities and programs and then that led into a discussion of policy 57 and which I would think maybe some folks in this room might be aware of um it it actually is is a policy only um and it and it talks about generally just summarizing it is that schools um are not required to out transgender students to their families and uh you know
069I guess some school districts according to what was discussed had actually thought it was mandated and that got some school boards in into trouble so I never have heard us discuss that either at any of our meetings but it was something that was we might should check into to see if we have a policy like that um so that was that was that and in general there was another gentleman that talked about new laws relating to education that were being passed in Trenton and I thought those were interesting as well because especially some of the things Lou report on where we're trying to stretch our budget and one of the things I if you'll be happy to hear this but they said that they've now uh passed a law to extend the service life of
070certain school buses to 20 years so uh I don't know hopefully we don't have any in the district but I'm not sure we might um and then a couple other things they extended the flexibility to hire retired teachers for an additional year I know we have a couple of retired teachers on payro at the moment and uh finally they talked about waving certification and credal Ving fees for teachers for one year so that way they can help you know fulfill the shortage that is going on so so that's kind of the general summary of the meeting it was very good wow thank you thank you thank you ladies for always representing us and clides interest and thanks for all the new information you're always Patriots are there any other committee reports I don't know if
071we've had many committee meetings well building and grounds we we're always engaging Lou is uh tremendously transparent with the emails going back and forth with Architects and engineers at the work session we talked about some uh Capital uh Improvement projects that that we'd like to undertake in 2425 uh as you know we have some projects from 23 24 that are uh on uh have been bided and we're just waiting because of the shortage of material Etc uh so that's pretty much it for building and grounds you know uh it's a got five schools with a lot of things going on uh the gym floor at the middle school was uh uh repolished uh I believe our principal's har happy now about that uh the high school uh uh the scoreboards are pretty much complete I
072did have a former um board member reach out to me Mr Shelly uh our scoreboards are new and all our scoreboards and many you know I was in Minnesota this weekend with my daughter for ice hockey and they have home and away but when we went to the University of St Thomas as the try to recruiter in Minnesota they had their where home is they had their University of St Thomas and Mr Shelly made a suggestion to change the home uh to possibly Raiders or clide park and and we felt that the high school principal and U um athletic director will uh come up with that that plan and then they did come up with the plan to I believe it was ERS and don't quote me on it or CP and uh chiro our
073uh director of facilities was going to coordinate with the scoreboard people and they said it was simple because the letters were vinyl so uh good things like that the basketball hoops are uh now all the electronic components are uh all uh in place at the high school so a lot of smaller projects going on but everything's moving along well with buildings and grounds and you know we did our uh physical need assessment uh so we're in good shape with that we pretty much it for build we did fiveyear facil plan also with with land so we're pretty button up on yeah good thank you and then I think I will uh just do a brief education update because although we had our testing presentation this evening and I encourage anyone in the audience or online
074watching this to actually look through that testing presentation last uh month Mrs calab was here and shared some curriculum updates with us and encouraged us to go to the Cliffside Park website and look at those curriculum updates and uh you know all of the most current instructional strategies and programs we have are on the website so I would encourage anyone to go to the website look at the testing presentation but also take some time to review the new and exciting things that are happening in the area of curriculum I know I for one because we have the Middle School uh people in the audience this evening I am very thankful for everything that you do in social media because I really do look at everything that you put on Facebook and Instagram and I'm very
075excited and encouraged by the wonderful instructional strategies that I'm seeing being implemented in grades 6 through eight especially when the students are outside reading and and engaged in Hands-On activities in in the content areas and so forth so I thank you for that I think that wonderful things are going on and I think for the last committee report although I know you're not prepared do you want to give us an update at least on the volleyball team we have States tomorrow yay we should be home congratulations on making it to the states and what's your record we are now 21 and six excellent and that you know from where you were in middle school right in seventh grade to where you are in 12th grade that program has come a long long way and it's
076to all of your credit so on behalf of the entire board we wish you the best of luck in States tomorrow and let's see bring home some gold for us no press no pressure we're behind you and I think that that's it right anyone else make a motion to a journ