001[Music] public notice has been given by the secretary of the eam Township Board of Education in the following manner posting written notice on the official bulletin board of the eam township Education Office emailing written notice to the Burlington County times and The Courier Post filing written notice with the municipal clerk of eam Township Mr asenti if we could head to a roll call please Mr Bach here Dr Capello here Mr ficaro here miss Fox here Mr cath here Mrs null Miss Lee here Mr Thompson here thank you Mr rinti I believe now we'll head to the oath of office for our newest board member front and center yeah States or [Applause] all right thank you congratulations to our newest board member Dr wil um now let's head into one more roll call please Mr Bach
002yes dro yes Mr ficaro here okay Miss Fox here Mr kin uh here Mrs null here Miss Lee here Mr Thompson here Dr wil here we have a quum nice thank you menty I now need a motion um to go into executive session whereas in njsa 10412 allows a public body to go into Clos session during a public meeting and whereas the Board of Education of eam Township has deemed it necessary to go into Clos session to discuss certain matters which are Exempted from the public and whereas the regular meeting of the Board of Education will reconvene following the end of the Clos section at approximately 7:30 p.m now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education will go into Clos session for the following reasons as outlined in njsa 10412 items 2.2 through
0032.4 do I have a motion motion by Dr Capello seconded by Mr fysic Caro mrin if we could have a roll call please Mr Bach yes Dr Capello yes Mr ficaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr Kath yes Mrs null yes Miss Lee yes Mr Thompson yes Dr wil can I say yes no carries thanks mrin you we'll see everyone at approximately 7:30 [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] la [Music] pap [Music] w [Music] [Applause] [Music] pap [Music] oh [Music] yeah [Music] w [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] la [Music] oh [Music] n [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] yeah [Applause] [Music] go on to here [Music] he [Music] is [Music] you [Music] he [Music] a [Music] yeah [Music] oh [Music] la [Music] I [Music]
004la [Music] yeah [Music] yeah [Music] nah [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] n [Music] n [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] this [Music] get all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the rep it stands our nation under God indivisible and justice for all thank you now our newest board member Dr wil will be reading the mission statement the mission of the eam Township School District is to promote excellence in an environment that engages students in meaningful learning experiences in partnership with students dedicated staff families and the community the district provides a strong Educational Foundation that will Empower our students to achieve their unique potential Embrace self-directed lifelong learning develop the skills necessary for appropriate risk-taking and responsible decision making
005respect themselves and others problem solve individually and collaboratively and become contributing members of a diverse Global Society thank you Dr wil I'll now hand the floor over to miss mulik for the state of the schools presentation good evening um Robin and I are happy to be here tonight to do our state of the schools presentation uh Justin will be joining us for a few slides as well uh but we'll get us started so we do this every year right around October part of it is a requirement per the state but more importantly when we give the presentation we go above the requirements because we really want to try and give a full picture um a snapshot of the previous year so in terms of the parts we'll talk about we promise not to talk too
006much hopefully um but we really want to start by just talking a little bit about assessment perspective and what makes that up um because here in eam it's not about a single assessment it's about multiple and and kids growth the second thing which is part of their state requirements is to report out on Esa uh we get federal dollars in different titles so then we're required to report on that each year we add in District assessments again for a little bit of a global picture standardized testing results State assessment is what we're required but we also have an aptitude assessment that Robin will talk a little bit about and then really just to give some perspective in terms of data review and Analysis what we do with that information so to get us started like
007I said kind of broad picture um these are all different types of Assessments that we use because again we want a total picture of the child not just a moment in time so we have districtwide assessments that we give both assessments that look at growth over time but also achievement and specific areas examples of that would be benchmark assessments which Robin will talk a little bit about uh we have like an mid and end of year math assessment we have different standardized tests so those look at achievement and aptitude classroom performance this is a big one because again this is what's happening day-to-day in the classroom so things like rubrics checklist portfolio anecdotal notes teacher observation and feedback certainly report card grades and then parent observation and feedback so really with all of those different
008elements that's really what we're reporting on and what our teachers are talking to parents about um but again tonight we're going to focus on some different areas so in terms of Esa so we get title $1 and basically what we use that for is atrisk literacy achievement in our district we use reading recovery um so our staff serve 96 of our lowest achieving first grade students at our six elementary schools last year of that 59% of the students who were in Reading recovery made what we call Accelerated progress um and the national average for that is 40.4% we also use literacy lessons in grades 2 to five and we have Title One literacy specials in our Title One schools in terms of title two and four those are focused on professional development and Technology techology
009so we use the funding to have different teacher leaders in all of our eight buildings math coaches Tech coaches Elementary responsive classroom facilitators PLC facilitators both at Elementary and Middle School uh we offer various professional development sessions uh last year we had about 78 districtwide workshops that were offered at different times throughout the year about a 100 participants in those voluntary sessions beyond the school day uh and we offer different sessions in literacy math responsive classroom technology and then miscellaneous areas and in those 100% of the workshops that had ratings attached to them scores were either a four or a five on those evaluation surveys in terms of title three so this is for what used to be eell is now um multilingual learner so so MLS so you see multi- Learners um English language
010learning in terms of number of students that qual qualify for ESL Services we saw growth in that program last year typically were around 40 last spring we looked at that numbers 57 52 in the program five were parent refusals um the number of students who completed access for L's was 54 and that included alternate assessments 65% of them because we did grow during the school year we're actually the first time taking that assessment and then 85% of the students that took it in previous years actually showed increase from proficiency level from the previous year I'm good C drop uh a little bit more about reading recovery so as I mentioned previously 96% 96 students were served overall 75% made what we say accelerated progress or general progress the 59.4 is what I reported on the
011previous slide that's accelerated progress progress so they needed no additional interventions after that 15.6 made progress um but students continued to receive some additional supports once they exited 10.4% were recommended for additional Services 14.6% had an incomplete program so whether they started at one point in the year and didn't get to finish or they moved out of District or something like that that's in that percentage we are a read and Recovery um site so we actually train both our teachers as well as outside districts so we had 20 teachers from outside districts participate last year uh generating 30 almost $31,000 in revenue for our district and then down at the bottom is just what a typical level is in the fall so for your typical student it's a five for read and Recovery student it's
012a one and then when we go to the spring typical level is a 16 to be considered on Benchmark and our mean level for reading recovery was a 22 so we're happy with that the other thing just briefly uh part of Esser funding we use to help us with summer programs the Ed Foundation also helps us with Summer programming funds for that and then we use some District funds as well so each of the programs we offered this past summer are listed on the left and so totaling about 800 students that we were able to serve and give some additional supports too okay hello everyone I'm Robin Collins I'm District test coordinator so this is one of my fun jobs to do every year so thank you for attending um up here what you see
013is you can I'm going to point to you um up here this is The Benchmark assessment the scores we administer a benchmark assessment to all of our first through fifth grade students um in the fall and in the spring of every year uh and this determines a reading level for our students uh we use it for a variety of purposes we use it to um inform our instruction to get information on strengths and needs of a whole group as well as small groups and for individual students um and we also use it for um determining tier three status um IP growth um uh inclusion in inrs um and things like that and um that is our going to hit you for your next slide so that's our Benchmark assessment that we use it's a local
014assessment um used for determining growth uh this is the end of year envisions math assessment data I'm not going to read numbers to you you can look at the numbers but I'll give you a little information about the background of this our end of year math assessment is obviously given every year at the end of the year um and it is it demonstrates the students um comprehension of the math skills throughout the course of the Year this is typical results that you're seeing here there was a dip in our fourth and seventh grade data um and the information that we get from that is used to our math department analyzes that data and uses it to determine whether we need to make adjustments on um content major content supporting content um adjustments to the pacing
015guide so that information is really used to inform our instruction um just take a note that our eighth grade assessment there's an aster there because this is for our eighth grade onlevel students our high school level course students are not included in this data okay this is uh a summary of our coat um which is a cognitive ability test it's used to um assess our students aptitude in the areas of verbal quantitative and non-verbal um and our students get an individual score but this is our Collective data so that you'll see that there's a bunch of numbers up there what that really indicates to us is that we are of a general aptitude we are average so you'll see at the bottom there's three bands of average the lower end of average average and high
016end of average we typically fall within average and high end of average range that's interesting to note for our district more importantly our coat data is um gives us in information about our individual students so we use this data in conjunction with other data points um to ensure that our students are making growth so um we use this to see if they are on track for again tier three are gifted in talented program CST IEP evaluations um and our teachers are also uh trained on how to dive deeper into the coat data so that you can see an individual profile um and that will help teachers to um inform instruction for small group and for individual um lessons so that students are getting what they need an aptitude test though it doesn't change dramatically from
017year to year for individual students that's why we administer coats every other year so you'll see that the data is for grades three five and seven and I'm going to pass it off to you thanks Miss kins okay so um we're going to switch to looking at the njsla data that's the these are the state tests that are given in the spring uh they were paused during coid so like this slide tries to give a a longitudinal sense and we have 2019 we have 2022 we have 2023 we don't have 2020 we don't have 2021 okay because of Co but um what I would say just overarchingly about these slides they're happy slides in a way right so what you can see is um and do we have a clicker clicker perfect perfect perfect what
018we can see is um I'm going to jump to this slide just for a second and I'll go back but um so there's three sort of overarching bullet points but our Ela average score scores were greater than the state average scores in all grades but grade three for ELA and they were greater than the state average scores in math in all grades so you know we know they're greater than all we we know they're greater in every grade except that that one uh in ela and math right so it's that's fantastic and it also means it's a little apples to oranges when it comes to looking at etsd student scores and scores of students around the state right so how can we look at get closer to an Apples to Apples look which is to
019comp compare our own kids against how they've done in the past and that's what this graph is supposed to show right so and where you where you can see like green if you see a green outline on different columns so when a cohort of students so basically like third graders in 2022 how they performed as fourth graders in 2023 if they did better then there's a green outline around their column and the larger the green represents the larger the increase in their scores same for the state we compared cohort grade three from the state in 2022 and then that's the same kids in grade four testing in 2023 same thing if there's an increase in the state you'll see an outline a green outline and the width of that outline represents the degree of improvement
020similarly if you see a red outline that means the score went down and the width of that red indicates the degree of decrease so over overall for example grade three in 2022 big increase in 2023 as fourth graders um and then like the fourth graders in 2022 slight decrease almost the same but slight decrease in grade five in 2023 and you work your way across another big increase was six graders in 2022 versus their scores in same thing for so what we're looking at here is uh the scores are grouped for njsla into five categories category five and four are exceeding in meeting expectations that's what we want all students to be able to do to me or exceed so these percentages are based on those scores and then this slide shows the raw scores
021so top score and that the uh the meting or exceeding is based on these scores and again you can see the green and the red around the columns to indicate decrease or increase as we w we follow those cohorts of kids from 22 2022 to 2023 overall etsd average Ela score went down one point and the state average Ela score went up one point now it's easier to go up when you're starting lower right it's easier to go down when you're starting higher and our averages are higher than the state averages one point is not much of a change either way on to math these are the percentage of students who are meeting or exceeding I will point out for eth grade math there are no there is no no red or green outline there
022and the reason is it's no longer Apples to Apples once you get to eth grade and the reason the eighth grade is not comparable is there's a variable different with eighth grade which is that in our district as in many throughout the state but in ours uh we have a a large number of kids who um are taking algebra and/or geometry in 8th grade so they're not if they're taking that course they're not testing the eighth grade math um njsl they're taking the algebra 1 njsla and for our students who are in both algebra and geometry at the same time in 8th grade they take the algebra 1 and jsla not the geometry so the algebra the algebra 1 test is the high school graduation requirement test and it always trumps any other math test
023that a student would take if simultaneously enrolled into high school math courses which algebra and geometry are both considered to be high school math courses that's why there's no green or red for 8th grade math and then moving on to the raw scores um same thing eth grade math doesn't have green or red because of that variable I was just talking about um I will say just while we're lingering on that grade even though our essentially top performing math students are not taking that test because they're in algebra Andor geometry our students taking it still compare very very well with the state raw scores which are just above 715 right and you can see we're um at around just just under 7:30 um overall our average math score no change from last year to this
024year year the state average mass score went up um by one so and looking at um this is algebra um the uh just comp it's not really Apples to Apples here because the kids are they only take it for one year the algebra so there's not a like if they were moving on to say algebra for two we could do a comparison but they'll take that at Cherokee um the um and our average score and algebra one actually managed to go up it's hard to go up when you're almost at the very top to begin with but it went up four points and the state average score went up two points yeah so like I said happy slides all grades um higher than the state average except one grade in the LA and uh I
025will pass it back to miss mulik perfect so just to say on njsla a little bit more um so you saw the different graphs uh this just breaks it apart a different way so you see all the grades on the left and this is obviously just for the 2023 data so as Dr Smith had said if we look on the right that's the New Jersey scores and then when you look at the column right next to it that's our scores so typically we always want to be above the state average and we are right here except in third grade so that was 42 and that's 39 but everywhere else we're exceeding the state average the next way that we just report out some data and we have this broken apart literally by like grade by
026grade so I promise I will not go through every single slide but I am going to give you just a quick update on one slide and then certainly if you want to look at it for a particular grade you're welcome to do that Robin and I just love talking about data so if you have questions or when you look at it on your own uh contact us at the curriculum office and we're happy to talk more about any any slides or questions that you might have but basically the whole point of the state assessment was for College and Career Readiness so that's why we we're highlighting eighth grade first because the idea is by the time they're in eth grade you want them to be at a higher proficiency level so you see on the
027top row is the state numbers our district numbers which we showed but now we break it apart by some common subgroups so you'll see general education is broken out so where our district average was 59.3 when we break apart at that generaliz subgroup we're up to 68.5 our special education subgroup is at 24.5 but again remember that they are taking an assessment at their grade level and in some instances they're a grade level below maybe more um our economically disadvantaged is another subgroup that we report out on so they're at 41% and then you see the stars for elll because if a subgroup is below 10 in any grade we're actually not allowed to share that data um but we do get that from the state so if there was one student or two students
028we have that data that we look at internally but we can't report that out to the public so then basically every slide after that will take you through so the same exact kind of framework for grade seven and we see similar Trends grade six grade five grade four grade three and then we go into math so the same thing this is kind of like an overall slide that shows the percentages again we're looking at State averages on the right right here and then we are above in each of those areas at all grades so if we break apart again and I'm going to actually not talk so much about grade eight cuz just did a great job of explaining these are highest achieving kids so yes we would expect them to be very high you
029see 98.9% um then just grade eight all of our other grade eight students who also take the assessment but it's a grade eight assessment so I'll just show you with grade seven as an example so same breakout we have the state we have the district number which is 43.7 general education subgroup 52.5 special education economically disadvantaged and the Els again are at that number that we can't report on but we do have that and look at that information and same thing it'll take you through grade six grade five grade four three excuse me this is interesting just that um we don't have the 22 23 numbers yet they come out in the performance report but the state does have us what they call accountability features in the areas on the left so they're looking at
030Ela proficiency math proficiency Ela growth math growth progress towards e English language proficiency so that's an access for L's and chronic absenteeism so you see we go back from 1718 1819 we didn't have the assessments 1920 2021 but we do have our most recent information was from 2122 so the proficiency rates we reported on but we just got those growth rates last year and they're important to point out because these actually do when when Justin was talking about Apples to Apples this is truly Apples to Apples because what the state does in terms of growth they're not looking at our kids in third grade and how they did in fourth grade on a different test or they're not looking at our kids in third grade and how a different group of third graders the next
031year they're actually taking our kids and grouping them across the whole state with other kids that actually performed like them so there's two years of comparative data with the kids who perform the same as the previous year so this is really one of the most important in my opinion and ours I would say indicators so again what we see for ELA we see 64% in terms of growth versus is more than we had pre pandemic and then we also see in the area math 89 which actually was extremely high growth last year so we're looking forward to having those numbers again and see and comparing that again not just with proficiency which is the app basic overall proficiency level but that grow grow level with how did they do with like Pierce excuse science I
032don't want that have okay all right I'm going to share with you some information about njsla science um this is administered to all Fifth eth and 11th grade students um and it assesses their uh students ability towards the their achievement in the um njsls science standards um the this is a federal mandated assessment and it assesses kids abilities to apply the science skills and knowledge not necessarily memorizing science content that's why it's not given every year um interestingly for this assessment 2018 was a field test year we did not get any data for it full implementation first time through was 2019 2020 the world collaps we didn't have that assessment the year later we didn't have that assessment so 2021 22 was the first year was back and this is our our second year of
033taking it so it's still while it's started in 2018 it's still a relatively new assessment and you'll see the data for our fifth and our eighth grade students um each of the uh questions on the science U the students are given a um a scenario or a simulation in which to provide some context for them to apply the phenomena of science um and each question is based on a science discipline which would be physical science life science or Earth space science um a science and engineering practice which would be um investigating sensemaking or critiquing and then it also addresses the cross cutting standards which is Concepts that hold true across all natural and engineered phenomena so that's our fifth grade scores and then e8th grade you'll see a similar concept um like njsla there are
034multiple choice questions that the kids answer there's Tech enhanced questions which would be like a drag and drop situation and there's also um constructive responses where they have to uh write out an answer so this is our eighth grade data oh one more okay um and this last state assessment is our dlm our D Dynamic learning Maps assessment this is an alternate assessment to njsla and it is given to um all students in grades three through eight for language arts and math just like njsla and and Fifth and eighth for Science and it is for our students who um based on their IP recommendations um and the decisions made by the I team that they would take the dlm in Le of taking njsla um but it uh again it it's it administered to um
035all students Ela math and just 5 and8 for science almost done expr last part and most important part so uh we just wanted to end by talking a little bit so what does all this data mean and what do we do with the data um so this is kind of our data review process and really we are looking and analyzing and making decisions all year long goals adjusting and working to help all kids obviously is our goal so in the fall is when we collect Baseline data on the current year students um so again like we talked about Benchmark DSi math writin different things like that classroom performance how they're doing we get get all of these scores in typically in the summer and we're looking at them at a district level so that's that
036District level analysis and review and we create charts and we look at comparisons and we're looking at where was their aptitude versus where's their proficiency level and then we have building meetings the three of us do a little stop at every single School meet with every principal and really not so much about the DAT the numbers while we show them the numbers and we talk in overviews and more specifically about reading it might be literary analysis as as opposed to narratives the writing whether it's writing conventions uh math is it major content versus supporting content so we go through this in more detail specific to their school but most importantly we actually talk about kids so kids who didn't perform you know very well on one assessment or multiple assessments kids who are approaching expectations
037but aren't quite there and we're having conversations with the school building administrators about okay so what are you seeing is this kid on your radar they made six months of growth instead of eight months of growth so those conversations are really important and we're really proud that our principles when we're talking to them about names and kids are like Yep this kid's getting this support yes this student's doing this this they can tell you but the nice thing about it is if there is a student who maybe wasn't on somebody's radar now they are so we're just saying take another look take a close look maybe it was just a bad testing day maybe it was something this way but that's an idea for them to keep their eye on so that students don't slip
038through so that happens at the building level and then we take it the next level and now do that with our teachers so all of our supervisors myself we meet with different teacher teams on our inservice day so that was in earlier in October and go through the data as well they get their school level data and then they are shown where it is excuse me Mr case our Tech coordinator puts it up into the system so they can look at current kids they can look at past kids and they can do a deeper dive into their actual students and then then that helps them when they're working in PLC teams which start in October to talk about students and what they're doing what are we doing for the kids who actually already met that
039standard what are we doing for the kids who haven't met it yet so again kind of taking a looking at collaborative goals that we're going to create as a team so that's that PLC team that works we do goal setting so every teacher has a PDP or professional development plan then each school has a skip committee so that skip committee meets and we talk about school level goals and then we look at the school level goals and we have a district PDP or plan so that we're then helping to support the schools so we're all working collaboratively to make sure that those areas of needs that we identify from all of the data are places where we're focusing on sorry and the last part of that is we design our professional development different things we're
040going in curriculum writing in a future summer um things we're going to change or implement we plan all that around found on an ongoing basis and that brings us to our last part I swear which is focus areas so then we have these different Focus areas that we we share out in each of the core areas so this these apply to all contents related arts it doesn't matter but the idea that we're talking with staff we're having conversations or they're talking in their PLC teams about differentiating instruction making sure that we're meeting students no no matter where they are the second that piece so that social emotional competencies are helping in terms of overall health and wellness because we know if if that's not in place the academics don't come uh the third is about
041teacher Clarity this has been an initiative in our district for a while it's based on visible learning uh so the idea that we have clear learning intentions goals what are kids working on and why success criteria knowing what success looks like and then getting feedback along the way to know when they're on track or off track and how they can get back on um the next bullet just talks a little bit about assessments so whether it's self assessments that I'm doing as a student or formative assessments that I'm doing as a classroom teacher to see where kids are what's the next step and then sorry cold um intentionally selecting tools for technology that are going to support the learning so we're not just using technology for the sake of Technology but that we're using it
042to actually enhance the learning in the area of related of ela so that reading and writing are across multiple texts uh that kids are being exposed to electronic text writer Workshop that it's being implemented with Fidelity emphasizing structure and purpose or audience um teacher language for that specific strategy use the next bullet talks about conferencing so the idea that whether it's reading or writing but how are we elevating the proficiency of the student not just in the text they're reading or the piece they're writing but in their writing in general or in the any book that they're going to encounter and then that idea the last one is about scaffolding so that you can be responsive to what kids know so whether we're adding additional scaffolds or taking scaffolds away in math some of the
043big areas are again that idea of differentiation we use a workshop model in District um so what am I doing when I'm meeting with small groups what are the other students doing um we saw kind of uh Trend across this year in the supporting content so that's like geometry measurement data how are we making sure that we're getting to that uh the next one is about myth math discourse that's math talk kids problem solving skills the next one talks about just your overall mindset and that idea of productive struggle that it's okay to persevere through a problem to not give up to carry that forward and then in grades 38 to eight making sure there's a balance of both paper pencil as well as electronic because that's what they're going to be exposed to okay
044there we go sorry and then science um surface to deeper levels of understanding making sure that all of those disciplines are being covered and connected the SE one talks to the content and practices in terms of assessment so what we're doing in terms of instruction matches the type of Assessments that kids are being asked to do and then the third one talks about again that mindset or nurturing that productive struggle similar what we have in math so kind of looking at that from an overall stem lens and then the last major area that we have is social studies so that idea of the social studies practices uh the second one talks about active citizenship and grade levels and different service learning projects we start them in kindergarten and go all the way up through 8th
045grade and then the third one uh connects to a variety of of perspectives and making sure that we're accepting of others and um very and inclusive and then that is the end of our presentation so thank you sorry it was a long one tonight uh but hopefully informative and if anyone has questions again you can contact the curriculum office this is also posted on our district website under announcements you'll see district and school assessments [Applause] thanks all right thank you Miss mul um we're now going to move into any questions or comments from the board good [Music] point no all right um now yeah good okay um now we'll move into public comment uh we have two public comment portions at these board meetings the first one is for agenda items only uh the second
046one is for any topic you wish to speak about um so the meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest that are specific to the agenda however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student Personnel items negotiations we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting me since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to 3 minutes per person would anyone like to comment about the agenda seeing none we'll now move to the approval of the minutes I need a motion to approve item 6.1 and 6.2 motion by Mr Thompson seconded by Miss Lee any questions or comments from the board referencing the agenda all right Mr renti roll call please Mr Bach yes Dr capalo yes Mr ficaro yes Miss Fox
047obain Mr Kath yes Mrs null yes Miss Lee yes Mr Thompson yes Dr wil obain motion carries thank you Mr shiny we will now uh move to the rest of the agenda we're going to do a consense agenda today um so I need a motion to approve item seven items 8 items 9 items 10 and items 11 do I have a motion motion by Miss Box seconded by Mr ficaro um before board comments I'll hand it over to Dr Smith for his comments thank you Mr canthon I'd like to start my comments by affirming that ifim Township School District is committed to the safety of all our students and staff recent events in the Middle East uh the situation there is horrific and terrible families and staff in our district which is the largest K8
048District in the County serving the largest town in the county have connections even some direct connections to that region and situation as well as connections to many conflicts worldwide our schools are and will always be communities of support and care for all people all students of all backgrounds our mission now as before is to do whatever we can to support children to Foster safe and welcoming School environments for everyone and to take appropriate and Swift action to combat hate our staff and counselors are resources for students who may be dealing with stress related to these horrible and tragic on going events the work of our staff and supporting students and fostering kindness the work of our our parents and our families and supporting our schools has tremendous and real value locally and in the world
049as our children carry forward forward with them that kindness that empathy that care into every conversation every interaction every encounter and situation and experience here and anywhere on the globe to switch gears as this is our last board meeting before the November 7th vote I'd like to give an update for the board on our work toward our number one district and board goal of achieving tuition free full day kindergarten for all our schools our PT ETA and our ftk committee have been working to spread the word about our ballot questions community and committee members are attending this evening it's great to see you all here thank you we appreciate every ounce of that effort and every person helping in whatever capacity including through just having a conversation with a neighbor about why these ballot questions
050matter our district homepage also has more information I'd encourage everyone to learn more consider and remember to vote lastly I feel it prudent to share just a few words about a personal matter simply because I do live in town and am grateful for living here and how living here helps me or may help me hear see and understand our community uh a for sale sign may appear in front of our house in the next few days uh now that may not be of interest to anyone probably not but just in case uh so no one would waste even one moment wondering why uh my wife and and I are looking to buy the house next to Brad's Tavern on Main Street Medford uh when I met Alisa nearly 30 years ago she was managing a
051bakery and coffee shop in Eugene Oregon that was before her path to law school before marriage kids juggling family and career and all the while there was this maybe someday dream of a bakery and she has so much talent and she has made a lot of sacrifices most of all for me over many decades of of Decades of working that's me many hours not at home so her dream our dream so we may be moving but close enough I'll still be able to Drive Marlton roads before making a snowall and uh that ends my superintendent comments Mr canthon thank you Dr Smith uh we'll now move to the board any questions or comments from the board regarding superint items or anything from items 7 through 11 fgar just a uh just just a quick note
052here in terms of uh person uh Personnel um uh Mr renti I'm going to have a lot more to say uh to you in terms of of December but um this is this is a regretful uh regretful vote but I I wish you all the best with everything but I have a lot more that I will say when we get the chance later and I know that you're someone who does not relish the the the thought of the spotlight so I will promise to shine it as vividly bright as possible thank you I appreciate that I too will be ignoring um Mr rin's retirement for as long as I can uh any other questions or comments from the board seeing none roll call please Mr Rin I can just uh I just want to make
053a personal comment um and uh as uh Mr fcera said Mr ashiny we'll have more time to uh Shine the spotlight that you oh so love on you uh as we get closer to December but um be remiss not to say uh even though you be you may be elsewhere after December you will always be in my operational thoughts every day um as I think what would John uh what would John see think about this situation you know and uh and hopefully I've learned enough from you and your way of thinking in that time to be able to reproduce uh that if not I'll be calling you so uh the um and I would like to Pivot from that to um we had two uh Personnel appointments this evening many I want to congratulate all
054of our new hires and two in particular I just want to share a few words about first is uh Rob Cedar is here and Rob where where are you there bu there's Rob okay so Rob it's great it's just nice seeing you back in uh on etsd ground here as a parent I've seen you but as in official capacity uh soon enough so Rob will be our new transportation coordinator starting on January 2nd and he brings a wealth of experience and skills to this important role and everyone I so many people know that because without our transportation department school just isn't going to happen um he's currently transportation coordinator in bhe school district prior to which he was assistant transportation coordinator here in etsd and before that was an etsd bus driver Rob's bringing with
055him that inside outside bifocal lens of experience within and beyond our district we're super excited to have you back and uh even though in a sense you never left because um through all these steps you've been in Marlton and etsd Dad congratulations Mr Cedar um and because we want to make sure every board meeting has tons of positive action we have a second appointment tonight uh that beginning in 2024 uh and that's our new business administrator slbo secretary Jonathan Yates who's here Mr Yates thank you with his family and and Mom there too awesome um and uh Jonathan is currently the business administrator in Medford School District prior to that he was ba in Pinelands and Little Egg Harbor school districts the business administrator role is responsible for many important facets overseeing the business office
056budgeting facilities Food Service transportation and on and on it involves not just experience and skills which Mr Yates has in abundance including navigating through state aid losses due to S2 which as in case anyone hasn't heard that yet we are navigating that as well here and have been for some time and will continue to for one more year um but also on top of that on top of those skills and experience two other essential qualities that shine through and what he says and does are integrity and judgment and to top it off like Mr Cedar Mr Yates is a Marlon and etsd dad and your kids being here that just exclamation mark on that um and that detail has real value as the lenses that we look through in our work are manyfold and we
057do seek to walk in the shoes of any stakeholder affected by the decisions we make and uh Mr E would you want to share few words Maybe good all right good evening Board of Education um I won't take long I just wanted to introduce myself and tell everybody here that I am uh excited to get started I appreciate this opportunity I want to thank Dr Smith his interview panel and everybody who took part in that process um if I may so being a neighboring business administrator I can confirm John definitely doesn't like the spotlight but um he he is a knowledgeable ba he has been helpful for me I can pick up the phone I'll call him and he will if he doesn't answer he will call me back and he has provided some guidance
058for me so big shoes to fill there I wish you luck in your retirement um and I am a parent in town so for me um the ability to make a personal impact on the district in which my children will attend is important so I thank the board for their support thank you Mr Yates I have also found that either being named John or being willing to be called John is crucial to success in this District so that's another great uh point in your favor um any other questions or comments from the board seeing none we can move to a roll call Mr rinti Mr Bach yes Dr Capello yes Mr ficaro yes Miss Fox yes Mr Kath yes Mrs null yes Miss Lee yes Mr Thompson yes Dr wil yes motion carries thanks Mr
059ainy moving to committee reports are there any committee chairs that would like to share a report all right uh moving to Old business we have none moving to new business we also have none uh so now we'll move into our open public comment for any items of interest um the meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of Interest however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or Personnel items or negotiations we ask that you please see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to 3 minutes per person and begin your address with your name and address please is there anyone who wishes to speak have to walk me through this I forget how to do it um most
060of us are coming up for the same reason um we are speaking mostly to our community and not really directly to the board although we like you guys too but this is mostly for our community so I State my name and where I live right mhm okay Rachel Willie 200 Tomlinson Mill Road my daughter is a second grader at Mees we moved to Marlton when she started first grade the lack of free full day kindergarten was one of the main factors that kept us from moving here sooner I grew up in Mount Laurel and my spouse grew up in Tabernacle I was one of nine children and he was one of five both households were able to raise their families with a single income and allowed one parent to stay home now we are a
061dual income household raising one child and having to make difficult Financial choices about whether we can afford to live in the same area that our parents raised large families on a single income although my child is past kindergarten and this won't affect us step back I saw so many young families the other night at Savage Fields Trunk or Treat I was amazed by them as they came out fully Decked Out mostly in Bluey well done some holding babies as young as five weeks old I saw many parents with twins quite a few who will be going into our kindergarten classes in the next year or so the cost for those families to pay for Kinder Garden will be an immense burden on top of the ever increasing Financial challenges of feeding clothing and providing a
062home for their children Marlton is a special place it's a community and that's why I moved here our community is responsible for 97% of our schools funding we may not like it but that's the way it is I believe that we have a responsibility to our young families we need to come together and help in whatever small ways we can voting yes on this year's ballot questions is how we help it is how we let our community know that we are in this together we see how hard it is and we care thank you thank you hello everyone I'm Danel Remis at 39 Old Republic Lane I'd like to start off by thanking Dr Smith and the rest of the board for making tuition free full day kindergarten your number one goal uh this year
063we have two ballot questions the first is tuition free full day kindergarten as we know the education provided to a halfday kindergartener is not equivalent to a full day of learning let's not start out our early Learners education with with inequality the second ballot question is to maintain our Mental Health Services now more than ever our students need more support I'd like to address the public and let them know that it's in our hands I want to remind voters to go out and vote Yes to the two ballot questions on November 7th early voting starts this Saturday at the Gibson house and the last day to request a mail and ballot is on Halloween October 31st please support our Young Learners and future Learners in E sham and for more information you can visit our
064Facebook Facebook page is um Eve sham votes yes thank you thank you hi everyone uh Kristen nardello 94 K AV in Marlton um I don't have anything prepared to say I just want to say thank you to the board um to the community I think it's really important for us to kind of look at the community as a whole not just our individual selves um and I know there's some people who have kids who have already graduated or gone through kindergarten um and try to look for how this will um put our K will full day kindergarten will be just like every other community in the area um and I think it's really important for us to um push for that as a community and to look past what we individually need so um thank
065you guys for everything that you've done for this and um go out and vote thank you thank you hello my name is Dorian Carlton 130 Deerfield um and I want to thank everyone who's worked so hard to get us this far um we have a big hurdle to jump still we have to go vote and like everyone said before me um we are asking for a yes vote for these ballot questions um it won't affect my kids my kids are past kindergarten um so that's not my goal my goal is for all of our Young Learners to start off on the same foot the same foot for all of our families to be given the same opportunity um and we and we need to cross this Finish Line um voter turnout needs to be great
066we need to vote Yes for both they're both really important issues they benefit our town as a whole not just um Elementary age kids we're talking about improving the educational system which improves our property values which improves Our Town these are not issues that put us ahead of other towns we are literally just trying to keep up by saying yes and voting to have these programs so um I beseech the community to vote yes thank you thank you hello my name is Lisa Argus 31 Albany Road um and I've been up here a few times talking so I just will today my goal is to just ask the community to please vote Yes on November 7th for a full day kindergarten um tuition free um my kids are older now and this won't affect me
067financially as far as the $5,500 go but um it's more important than just the money I think it's also um you know mainly for our children and our youngest Learners um and I also think it's the right thing to do um you know and I could go on you know about the various other reasons why but um for me it just comes down to just being the right thing to do and you know for our kids um it's been very inspiring to me going through this um and realizing how coming here to these meetings and to the Town Council meetings and asking and seeing it show up on Dr Smith's PowerPoint presentation as an agenda item um it's just been inspiring to me to to speak up and when you really feel passionate about something
068to to come here and and ask and I also um encourage our community to to come to these meetings come to the Town Council meetings as well and speak up for our town if you think that something is needed or something's wrong or even just to give kudos to someone um and I think a lot can be accomplished if if we speak up um and you know my daughter has a soccer game tonight I think some of our other people here you know we missing soccer games and things to be here but um it's important and please vote Yes on November 7th thank you thank you good evening my name is Evan Scott uh the reason why I came to uh be in support of this Grassroots effort is because it did affect me personally
069so when I was in the military back in 2008 my wife and I decided to come to Marlton primarily because the schools were that good and so we wanted to be here it was a strategic choice to be here and then after our son was born in 2011 and as he's growing up and we're preparing for those you know times for school and whatnot we learned that there wasn't a three-year-old program which okay it is what it is we'll make do and then we learned that there wasn't a full day to tuition free kindergarten program and then we began to Crunch the numbers and on a military salary and on a military salary as a retiree trying to make ends meet was just not sustainable so we had to look outside the district because we
070not only needed the full day kindergarten program we also needed Aftercare and so we had to do the budgeting equation and unfortunately it didn't work out where we wanted to be here in the district so we were fortunate enough to find a private provider with a lot of help from other people to make it work so we were just lucky now I know that I'm probably not the only person who is not in the greatest financial situation or any situation that prevents them you know from partaking in the program so that's the reason why I'm here is to help pay it for board my son is now in 8th grade he's thriving we saw the change in real time as he was pursuing his kindergarten program out of the district I can't imagine what it
071would be in the district so I am voting yes for this I've been working with the group and trying to support their efforts in any way I can and the reason why I'm voting yes is because maybe we can give a little bit of certainty to Children and Families during uncertain times thank you very much thank [Applause] you I'm going to say pretty much what everyone else said uh I have a same kind of thing I have my child July 13th 2020 four months later was the uh the announcement of the emergency Co I'm one of the coid baby people we're all broke so full day kindergarten is going to be a huge huge help that is my second largest burden beyond my mortgage I have friends they're all having their first kids now and
072we've all had that conversation I don't know how I'm going to be able to afford this and I mean the amount of hurdles that we have have to do to upend our lives just to be able to get daycare down to a level that we can afford it um I didn't go to a great school I said my kid's going to go to the best school I can afford to send them to and that's how we ended up here and I'd like that to be true for the kindergarten he goes to for the prek he goes to and right now we're trying we're getting the best we can get with the money we have but I'd rather he go to a district school that has District standards so I'll be voting yes thank you [Applause]
073guys thank you to everyone who came up and spoke and and took time out of their evenings to to speak is there anyone else who would like to speak yes thank you hi my name is Aaron Gerson 67 Thornwood Drive Dr Smith it's nice to put a face with your name I haven't met you in person yet but I've spoken with you a lot over the phone um I didn't know that this was happening this evening but I want to add my voice to support a full day kindergarten and to that vote I have three children my husband and I have three children that have gone through the district here uh for over 10 years and I can attest to the fact that not having the access to full day kindergarten is a detriment to
074students they lose that foundational aspect and then both of my children my older two had to go through a read and recovery and I think you see it out larger or later for them in their academic career here if they had a different experience in that halfday kindergarten um I would tribute them coming back into the path they needed to be on with some of the teachers that helped them catch up later and I think what you can also see and this I think speaks to the points that we've heard tonight a lot of the students who go outside of the district for this then come in having had full day elsewhere Etc and then there's disjointed levels when they enter first grade and then teachers have to deal with that disparity as well um
075the other reason that the real reason that I'm here was just to involve myself more directly I've had my own concerns I know these are personal matters that aren't for this speaking moment um but I'm planning on following this a lot more closely and I've seen you know a lot with the data and you know frankly the jargon and all of the things that are reported here tonight something that I would like to hear more about is the professional development for teaching in this district and also for U the social and emotional competencies so where would you direct parents um to participate or to learn more on those two points and that's a question for the board and also for you Dr Smith I would say um and first thank you for coming if this
076is your first board meeting um I I know that came up as a theme in what our full day kindergarten uh committee members were saying and I can only underline that we have a large base here in and it's nice to have turnout um so as far as your question um I would suggest starting with the principle of the of your child school for that um because while we do have District um PD and as M mcul explained in her presentation um and each School layers on their own individual work and that would give you the best specifics for Where Your Children Are thank you having done that where do I go next because I think that that's something that I have broached with you we have talked about but I'd like to know the
077details of what all of those seminars and sessions that were available to teachers are those required what do those entail what are those benchmarks for teachers where do I get more information when I've exhausted my resources at school level that's a great question um once you've done that then you would go to the district level and then I would suggest speaking with Miss mulik who oversees our professional development thank you thank you for your time thank you again to everyone who came and spoke and took time out of their evenings to do so one more one more all right can't stay away hi everyone like you guys I have multiple hats um I'm back here Rachel Willie 200 Tomlinson I'm back here as a staff member and as a union member for our schools um
078I just want to let all our njaa members know um and everyone who supports teachers um in our community that our Union uh is also in support of the the two ballot questions and we hope you will vote yes thank you thank you before I say thanks again any other uh comments going once going twice all right thanks everyone again for for taking your time out of the evening the environment in the room tonight has been has been great and I hope that momentum carries on um over the next few weeks um moving now to board member announcements are there any board members who would like to make an announcement is no I just wanted to promote the E sham Ed Foundation designer bag Bingo that's going to be here at Dei um I believe
079it's uh November 3rd but you can find it on their Facebook page and I'm bringing it up it's coming up and also on tonight's agenda if you saw there were two requests for funding from the eam Ed Foundation that some of our great women here put together so it's important you know the eam Education Foundation as you know gives a lot of money to support our students here so um all for coming out and supporting the esham Education Foundation designer bag bingo I will try to make it here if my kids and husband allow because I love Bingo and I love designer bags thank you thank you Mrs null any other board members wish to speak all right I'll just take one more opportunity to thank everyone for speaking tonight and then our newest board
080member Dr wil it feels great to have nine of us here again um your time will be short but hopefully you get what you're looking for out of it and I know that from the board perspective we're definitely better for having you here um with that we can move to a motion to adjourn anyone with a motion motion by Mrs N seconded by Dr Capello all in favor I thank [Music] you [Music]