001[Music] hmm foreign [Music] welcome to the eastern township school board meeting i'd like to do a roll call mr vashenti here vegan here here okay pursuant to the open public meetings act adequate public notice has been given by the secretary of the eastern township board of education in the following manner poston written notice on the official bulletin board at the board of education office emailing written notice to the burlington county times and the courier post and filing written notice with the municipal clerk of yvesham township roll call please okay 2.1 resolution to go into executive session whereas 10 njsa10 allows for a public body to go into closed session during a public meeting and whereas the board of education of ysham township has deemed it necessary to go into closed session to discuss certain matters
002which are exempted from the public and whereas the regular meeting of the board of education will reconvene following the end of the closed session at approximately 7 pm now therefore be it resolved that the board of education will go into closed session for the following reasons as outlined in njsa10412 roll call may i have a motion to go into executive session mr lanzalota first motion i have a second miss fleming roll call please yes okay thank you we'll see everybody at approximately 7 p.m do [Music] foreign mmm so um [Music] do foreign so [Music] do [Music] foreign hmm foreign [Music] would everybody please rise for the pledge of allegiance to the fight of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands a nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for
003the all of the eve shum 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 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 respect themselves and others problem solve individually and collaboratively become contributing members of a diverse global society at this time we'd like to go into presentations we'd like to recognize 4.1 we'd like to recognize student jolene costley for winning the burlington county red ribbon poster contest [Applause] hello there we go all right jolene this is amazing so you were the number one contest uh artist in the entire county for this contest this
004is prevention plus so it's a county-wide organization the leadership of prevention plus came out tomorrow middle school to personally hand you a gift card which was a pretty large gift card by the way i know you're in it for art and saving the world but that that helps too right a little bit right um and to recognize her with a certificate our mayor was there members of our eevsham police were there the principal was there i was there snapping pictures and it was all about you you know and your your artist talent so thank you so much for that we wanted to give you a certificate and this is our board vice president this is everhart and then can you stand with us when we take a couple pictures mr case if you can do
005that and i think my mom's there too just come on down so being being in seventh grade this means if they do it again next year get another eaten another time to think about it right defending champ maybe we'll see i see i see mr hoffman taking pictures in the background leader of mms thank you sir okay at this time i guess i'd like to introduce uh director of curriculum and instruction daniel mcgulac to do the annual state of the schools presentation along with robin collins okay good evening everybody so robin and i will be giving our annual state of the schools so typically this happens a little bit differently when we're not in a pandemic so traditionally one of the requirements of the state is that we're reporting out on state assessment data however
006if you have children in our school or you work in our schools you know we haven't given the state assessment the last two springs so kind of to give a a flavor but still meeting the requirements of the state we have new information in here from our local data we have some old information that from the last time we actually gave the new jersey student learning assessment and then we have some actual fall data that we gave that's going to fulfill a requirement that the state had in terms of federal testing so we'll get started there's four different areas that robin and i will talk about one being esea performance so this is reporting on the federal dollars that we get and just kind of giving a snapshot of what it is we use it
007for and some of the results connected to that the second area is district assessment results again just to kind of give a little bit more of a broad picture so they actually see rather than one test one moment in time you get a broader picture standardized test so that's where state assessment testing falls but again in avsham we don't just give a state assessment state state assessment generally is looking at aptitude is looking at achievement or summative assessment overall um so that is the new jersey student learning assessment however this year with start strong that actually is not a summative assessment so it's totally different and we'll talk you through that tonight and then we also though give an aptitude assessment to really get a deeper dive and in terms of looking at our students
008so that's an ability assessment and then the last area which really for us is the most important area is what do we do with all that data what do we do when we're looking at um how our students are doing where are they starting growth that they're making throughout the course of the year teachers making goals schools making goals and things of that nature and then how we come up with focus areas so really i think the most important thing that we can kind of talk about is the whole idea of assessment is not ever a single moment in time assessment and the idea that it's made up a variety of assessments so we just listed some of those up here for you so that idea of a standardized test there's achievement ones there's aptitude
009ones the second being district-wide assessments so they're assessments that are standard for our district meaning all teachers give them at particular grade levels at particular times so a couple of examples of that are benchmark proficiency mid and end of year math assessments classroom performance so that's teachers assessing kids on an ongoing basis that's formative assessments which are kind of checks for understanding as well as summative assessments which are more looking at content learned over unit lesson things like that and so a couple of examples of those rubrics checklist portfolios anecdotal records teacher observations play a big part of assessments feedback report card grades and parent observation and feedback as well so again making sure that we have a complete look as we're talking about kids progress and growth over time in terms of the esea
010part so we get through that four different titles title one looks at at-risk literacy achievement so for us we're looking at last year's data we served 102 of our lowest achieving general education first grade students and that happens in all six of our elementary schools of that 43.1 percent of those students were successfully discontinued and what that means is they left reading on grade level being able to problem solve along their grade level peers the national average for reading recovery is 32.1 percent the next bullet talks a little bit about reading levels so in terms of reading recovery students what we look when we looked at that data they made an average gain of 18 reading levels from fall to spring as opposed to comparing it's typically 14 levels for a typical first grader and
011then the last piece is just another it's kind of reading recoveries for first graders but we also have literacy lessons which is the grade two to five program and we have title one literacy specialists which is what the funding goes towards and so they're delivering or giving that intervention to students at those levels the second area is title two and four so title two connects to professional development and four technology technology is also integrated into title two in terms of that funds really we use those to look at different teacher leader positions in each of our eight schools so like things like math coach tech coach responsive classroom facilitator [Music] don't move that about 126 these are workshops that are attended by staff during the course of the school year again last year pandemic those
012numbers were down we didn't offer as many professional development workshops but those that were attended both by professional and paraprofessional staff were sessions related to literacy math responsive classroom technology and miscellaneous areas and then of those workshops 100 of them received the uh two highest ratings which would be a four or a five when participants reflect on the sessions and then the last area is title three which is english language learners so for us in terms of number of students that qualify for esl services across our district that's 44 41 in program three or parent refusals um students who completed the access for elle's test because all kids are required to take that assessment 30 of them took access for l's i'm not moving it one took an alternate assessment which is the widow um
013number of students not tested or incomplete if you remember again last year we were not able to administer and a remote option it either had to be in person so if students were remote parents could have their child not take that assessment we did give them the option to come into the district if they'd like to but some parents did not so again we had some who either didn't take the test or if they didn't answer all the questions they would call that incomplete test and so that was that number below it of 13. in terms of suiting students meaning proficiency on that access for ls or qualifying to exit that was at 27 percent 53 percent of the students tested in access for the first time [Music] 71 of students that took the test
014in the previous year increase their proficiency level [Music] the next thing we just wanted to take a look at real quick so over the summer we offered a variety of different programs again looking at targeting based on data where students were and offering additional supports so this just lists everything from caps which we offered to exiting kindergartners literacy support which was offered to exiting first and second graders math was the same first and second graders a summer learning academy that was offered to students leaving so it would be fourth through eighth graders coming in metamorphosis which was offered to incoming sixth and seventh graders tier three which is uh focused on our gifted and talented students extended school year for preschool extended school year for k-8 and then a variety of tutoring services whether that
015was for extended school year esl reading specials or title one so in total if you add all those up it's a little less than 700 students that we were able to service and provide supports for over the summer hello everyone i'm going to go over some of the data that we have collected um which as dan mentioned it's a little bit different than we we typically uh show in a typical year we administer a fall and a spring benchmark assessment to all our elementary students in specific populations in middle school but due to the pandemic we were not able to do that because it's an individually administered assessment so what we did do in order to have reading levels for all our students we had teachers determine a reading level based on classroom assessments typically
016using their guided reading assessments and as you can see on this slide we had them report out that information as on or above level or below level so this was in lieu of a benchmark assessment i'm not going to read the numbers to you i think everyone can see them so can you okay and now here we have our end of your math assessment that is connected to our envision program for math um this is a group administered assessment so we were able to administer it like we typically do um so you can see that this slide represents the general population of students in yellow and our total population in the purplish colorado so i do want to point out that our 8th graders who are taking our high school courses are not included in
017these scores they don't take the envisions end of year they take the high school course so our eighth grade highest achieving students are not in that eighth grade bar they're not represented there now on to co-gets kogets are an assessment that um it's a cognitive ability test it's used to assess aptitude it is given to students but individually they don't vary their scores much over a year that's why we administer it every other year so you'll see that as administered at grades three five and seven it assesses verbal quantitative and non-verbal skills the composite is a compilation of all three of those district-wide as we typically see we fall in the average range skewing a little bit towards the upper end of average but still in that average range we use the coget scores as
018comparative data alongside a lot of our other assessments to ensure that we're meeting the needs of all of our students it's a data point that we use for tier three for high math for our inrs students for child study team evaluations additionally we trained our teachers in how to dive deeper into the individual scores so that they're able to garner a little bit more information about students individual profiles so that we are able to support their growth okay so the next few slides are really slides at the board i'll apologize ahead of time you've seen these for the last two years because this is the last actual uh data that we have where our students actually took the new jersey student learning assessment so that's why it says 2019 up there and so it is
019a repeat of the data but again we are required to report on the most recent that we have which is this so obviously a lot of changes have happened in the last couple of years but if we're looking at english language arts so this assessment is looking at students achievement as it relates to grade level benchmarks and where that falls in terms of the levels at the top is starting at level one which is not meeting level two partially meaning level three approaching expectations four is meeting expectations and then five is exceeding those expectations so you'll see going down the left side all the different grade levels the number of tests that were and then the actual numbers or percents at each of those areas over on the right it gives what our district students
020who are considered proficient so that's the four and the five meeting or exceeding and then what the state average is to the far right and that last column so we see in terms of as you're looking down that third grade is lower but the other grades if you're looking at you're seeing the district scores are higher in each of those areas as you move through them in terms of math um so this is the same exact framework it's looking at different major content as well as supporting content as students are looking at different grade levels and different information so the idea of third through eighth again but again as robin said earlier we do have students who are taking the high school algebra course so they then take the algebra one assessment so again a
021little bit harder to read that because it's pulled out so like if we look at again same framework you're looking at the district percentage which are highlighted in that blue but you will see obviously for the algebra one 98.2 percent because again those are your highest achieving students and it would look low if you're looking at grade 8 in isolation because all your highest achieving students are pulled out of that number the other thing that we are required to report on is different kind of some comparison so again these are comparisons but they're very old comparisons because again this is the last time that we have that data so when looking at ela and math proficiency you can see generally speaking for ela a little bit of a an uptick from the previous year up
022to in terms of math you see a little dip there uh in terms of growth so that's typical that's growth that kids are making in both ela and math 45 is considered typical growth up through a range so that does show you that students are progressing even different from the proficiency level and then we broke out in terms of the english language proficiency that's what i talked a little bit about with title three and then chronic absenteeism is another indicator that the state looks at and that you can see that would decrease over time that was a state goal that was a school uh district goal at the time actually and then the last piece is we also then take the data and we break it down by subgroups and we report out typically on
023some of our larger subgroups so again back in 2019 when this was new data we broke it out and we looked at different things related to economically disadvantaged so you see a slide with information on that in those same categories i just went through and students with disabilities and those same categories so again the njsla is a totally different assessment and that's a state-required assessment each year but for last year the state was able to get a waiver by actually having us administer this next assessment that robin's going to talk about but again the two assessments are completely different because new jersey student learning assessments is again that overall working toward standards where this is a snapshot that robin will talk about welcome to start strong okay so this slide really gives you an overview
024of what the assessment is it basically was created in response to the pandemic as danny's mentioned it's not summative but it's more um a way to assess a sub set of skills based on the prior year's learning and it really is uh there to give an initial summary of information that teachers can use to determine if students may need support it's not to be used in isolation it's not the only indicator it's supposed to be used in concert with other indicators that the classroom teachers typically use to ensure that students are being supported as needed and while it is administered through the same platform and created by the same company as njsla it is completely different it's the the design is completely different and the function of it is completely different it's not intended to
025predict performance on future assessments but the real goal is to provide classroom teachers with classroom level information on standard space information that they can use in complement with the resources that they already have and classroom teachers have been trained also in how to dig down into individual student scores as well to be able to assist in determining what level of support kids really need at the beginning of the year the intention is to focus on that classroom level support it's not a comparison across the state so you're not we're not going to get state level data to see like how start strong looks in other districts across the state it's really intended for classroom use students will get an individual student report and they're scheduled to arrive beginning of next month and as soon as
026those arrive we will pass them along to families now on this first slide you're going to see that this is the breakdown of the start strong data for grades four through eight um it's the english language arts assessment but basically it is a reading assessment it specifically assessed the reading information and reading of literature and it was done through multiple choice or tech enhanced type responses there was no written portion in the assessment and also it does not um assess the the writing abilities of students it is broken down into three levels one level one is strong support may be needed level two is some support may be needed and again level three is less support may be needed but again this needs to be looked at in conjunction with other forms of assessment that
027we have this is the breakdown for the math scores again the same three levels are used strong support some support less support may be needed and this portion also assessed in the same way with no open response it's all multiple choice fill in a number tech enhanced drag and drop type questions and it assess those major content clusters for math and just like danny had shared we have to uh share information in regards to our subgroup populations so this is the language arts slide for our subgroups no surprise our english language learners or ell students did not fare quite as well but that is to be expected and as danny has explained we do our access for ls later in the year to ensure that our students are making proper language acquisition progress either through
028the access for else or we also use the weda model if they are prepared earlier in the year to make that shift and here is that same information again broken down by subgroup for math now finally this is our slide for science only our sixth graders took this assessment njsla typically assesses our fifth graders and eighth graders and all the data was for the previous year so it's the sixth and ninth graders that took the science so we only have the data for our sixth graders we aren't gonna have a subgroup slide for sixth grade because um it is just one grade level and when you break it out by subgroups we are not necessarily able to guarantee anonymity because those numbers are so small but it measures against those you know science standards thinking
029about um data critical thinking problem solving skills and connections across all the science disciplines okay so kind of talking then through you know and sharing different data points you know what do we do with that so you know most importantly i would say so start strong was one of the assessments that were administered but we also delivered a lot of different baseline assessment data this past fall to assess where kids are obviously as we've talked about before we had kids coming off of being fully remote for a year plus we had kids who were in school maybe all the time we had kids who were in school part of the time so all different circumstances so really important for our staff to to focus number one on building those classroom routines and structures and number
030two doing some different assessments to kind of see what their baseline where they were so we did go back to at the elementary grades giving that individualized benchmark assessment so all of our elementary gave the benchmark assessment middle schools gave a different whole administered literacy assessment all of our grades give the dsi which is a developmental spelling inventory to look where their students are in the fall and then again they'll give that again in the spring to look at growth and then part of our math program has a readiness component so that's a readiness to look at what is the content um in terms of that they'll be exposed to through the year and where are they in terms of ready for that that um that level so those are some of the examples but
031again there was all different kind of things that teachers have been doing just on an ongoing basis just getting to know their kids so we as a district we always look at the district level data both as a curriculum team we look at it in terms of them building levels with principals talk about a different meetings look for trends and patterns talk about what we're seeing and then we turnkey that for teachers and typically that's at our october and service day so robin had mentioned that so we did have grade level meetings with all the different grades and we're able to go through different pieces of data for them that was particular to their grade take a closer look at that show them how to actually read and analyze reports and actually go into those
032to look down at the student level which is most important so teachers kind of like left that day looking at you know where the places where they think they're students that they need to focus on and then we also have them do some vertical articulation that day in terms of talking to the grade level before and the grade level after in terms of needs and things that they saw that then allowed them to go to the next step which is goal setting so teachers make goals and have pdps that are due october 31st every year then the school level makes their goals based on those teacher goals and then we have those in terms of district level and then what we do is we plan professional development we do curriculum writing planning and implementation based
033on all that different information and that gives us focus areas so this year our focus areas will be first and foremost we talked about that overall health and wellness getting our kids back into school making sure that they feel safe they feel comfortable that they're they're ready to learn the second making learning visible by focusing on metacognition so that students can transfer what they know or they've learned into broader contexts so that whole idea of really thinking about their thinking and being able to apply and transfer the third area is this is actually a continue we've worked on this through visible learning uh teacher clarity so that means having clear learning intentions you know we are t we are explaining kids are learning intentions so that kids know what they're learning and why they're learning
034it and then success criteria we as teachers are sharing that with students so they know what success looks like and be can be prepared for the challenges the whole idea of accelerate student learning because again we are coming off a pandemic and still in the peace and the thrones of it i should say but the whole idea of why formative assessment and if we're not sure what that is we're talking about checks for understanding quick checks to see what students know and are able to do so that that informs our instruction if they already know a particular standard or content we don't need to spend a lot of time on it if they don't that's the ones that we need to go deeper into the whole idea of technology so we certainly have increased our
035technology proficiency over the last year plus in terms of remote learning however really the importance with now having kids back in the idea of intentionally selecting tools that purposely support the learning and then prioritizing learning through differentiation and whether that's interventions extensions but differentiation is more important than ever so those are kind of focus areas for all areas so whether i'm a content teacher that means like science social studies math whether i'm a related arts teacher but really all teachers focusing on that and then we did break it out separately into ela and math and then social sciences so as it relates to language arts these are again some focus areas connecting to reading and thinking across multiple texts the idea of you know being internal criteria for that strategy use that gets back to
036that metacognition identifying text drug structure and recognizing how structure helps to import important determining importance uh drafting and efficient ways to do that both for craft which is more the actual writing versus structure which is more the grammar part and then increase opportunities for conferencing with students so that we're looking at elevating the proficiency of the learner from where they are and making sure they have growth in the area math the idea of we have actually been phasing in and if you've been at meetings before so we are in year three of our math implementation this is our final year to bring in envisions math so now that everybody will be doing it all grades the idea of making sure we're implementing that with fidelity it has a problem-solving piece it has a visual learning
037or direct instruction piece and then it has a piece where you're assessing and differentiating the second one kind of builds on that looking at minimizing whole class instruction and incorporating student choice and making sure that we're using resources that we have to differentiate the third one looks at the idea of major content so there was areas again during the pandemic that might not have been covered so that idea if we didn't get to something we need to make sure that we're hitting all the major content but also exposing kids to all the required domains the fourth connects to our district goal of that idea of math discourse being able to construct viable arguments reasoning and the practice standards and then the last one is incorporating electronic assessment tools and then the last area is that
038social sciences so that whole idea of social emotional competencies to support overall health and wellness that that consolidation of learning so what are the big ideas infusing contenary practices uh emphasizing three-dimensional learning we call that so the idea of what are the core ideas what are the practices and then and then kind of generalizing those together looking for opportunities to practice active citizenship and including opportunities to include and reflect on varying perspectives so those kind of give us that that area to focus and we talk about those with teachers for them continue to look and analyze and implement throughout the school year [Music] thank you danny and robin any questions from the board mr megan hey robin hi quick question for you you're the testing coordinator right so when you saw it was first time
039i've seen the 2021 strong start strong type of analysis when you saw the test results were as a district what was your original reaction this is where i thought we'd be um this is better than i thought we would be oh maybe we got to work on something did you did anything just hit you with oh this is interesting or i wasn't expecting it but honestly i think that the data was was very interesting especially the fact that we were able to drill down to individual students when we look at our district as a whole you know that gives us a good perspective but this was the first year that we were able to actually see student responses and we were able to share that data at our um october in-service and we were able
040to show the teachers how to really look at our student responses and it gave you a a very clear picture of what they could do or not necessarily could do or couldn't do but it could tell you whether they answered a question or not which would if they didn't answer a question it would reflect on their score but it doesn't tell you whether they know or don't know that subject area or that or that content area but it is important data additionally you could see how they responded so teachers are really able to tailor their instruction based on the way students responded to see you know where those gaps really are so um the the start strong assessment is based on released items from njsla that they've used in the past so this is the
041first time that we were able to see the questions they're not going to release questions and answers for njsla but since these are released the teachers are able to look at it so it was a new and different way to really analyze the data and actually i think that they the teachers were able to get a lot more out of it than just looking at a number like we typically do appreciate that thank you any other questions yes no were these the assessments that were given in september in school because you know i have two kids and so i got emails about it um so the start strong then began in it says grade four so nothing was done in the lower grades correct yeah so again this was just grade for ela and math
042it was grades four through eight and then for science it was just grade six and you could as a parent you would know the difference because if your child is used to taking the new jersey student learning assessment in the spring you're typically in the elementary schools taking that for four or five days or at middle school you're taking that for three days versus the start strong assessment was done in one day both ela and math and then we carried the science over just in grade six so you could tell it was a much shorter assessment just had those multiple choice and the the text enabled ones but that's exactly what it was that it was really like welcome back right uh we didn't even have a full week of school the following week we
043had a day off and then we were taking that assessment but again since it was really just designed to give us baseline data we wanted to do it early as students were coming in and take that that one day to do that knowing that we'd be able to get the most information by having it done and ready to be looked at for the october end service so this would be baseline and to give us a picture of learning laws through the pandemic is that the point of this so the idea i would say more so than learning loss i would just say actually helping with supports so for example there might have been a student who was remote and let's say did extremely well right so they might not need a high level supports transitioning
044back into the school year there might have been a full remote student who actually struggled being remote they might need what was that higher level in terms of needing strong levels of support um in terms of kids being in school you know maybe they were on a hybrid model so again some kids did better than others in terms of those different days some kids were in school more so it really just gave you information to look at to dive deeper as you look at the actual assessments you were doing in the classroom during september okay i'm asking because i'm concerned about the lower grades how do you assess who needs additional support based on the remote because who suffered the most during remote learning i had two little kids the younger grades so i don't
045understand why the state didn't come out with assessing you know first second and third like how do you know who needs more support so i would say the younger grades we actually rely on the data that we actually have so like for example in september our students our teachers gave to kids in first and second grade and those younger grades third grade benchmark assessments so not only am i getting to know my students i'm actually sitting down one-to-one as opposed to taking a multiple choice test which really wouldn't be appropriate for a first grader okay i'm sitting down one-to-one and actually reading with kids i have standardized questions that i'm asking i'm looking at their decoding i'm looking at their comprehension so that as a primary grade teacher actually gives me more information okay then
046start strong would in those younger grades um and same thing for math we did that readiness math assessment so that whole idea we're looking at the content that was learned and again we saw variations there because again in the younger grades so think about preschool kindergarten first grade we had full days last year right we had lower class sizes because you know obviously so we could spread them out and be there and every kid coming every day so in some instances like a kindergartner might have gotten further than they've ever gotten in a school year where they have 20 plus students because they have them every single day in front of them so again there's just so many variables but the most important debt is what we're getting from the classroom and the teachers actually
047assessing kids that first month plus of school i understand thank you and one other question something that jumped out on me uh by grade sixth grade the math really was the highest that they need you know a higher percentage of students need more support in math and sixth grade do you have yeah we did look at that absolutely um because again as we delve like deeper into that if you think about okay what really was going on there so we had fifth graders coming up who might not have gotten to some of the topics that were in the end because they were we were all on full remote the spring before we had teachers implementing a brand new envisions program so they were implementing new content in sixth and seventh grade so that slows down
048your pacing in year one of implementation so again they might not have gotten to all the pieces that they typically would so again you have to look at all that information where are they and really what what are they ready to learn but we did notice that obviously in sixth and seventh grade and fourth grade a little bit too okay that's all i had thank you any other questions from the board seeing none thank you again for the presentation moving on to section 5 public comment this meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items over for agenda items only however something happened here sorry i'm on a little medication so i'm sorry however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personnel items or negotiations we would ask that you
049see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person is there anyone who would like to speak public comment seeing none we'd like to close that portion of the meeting moving on to section six approval of the minutes may i have a motion to approve item 6.1 and 6.7 miss ryan motion first miss nole motion second roll call please mrs cappello yes this is everhart yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes mrs noll yes mr lanzalotta yes mr megan yeah this is ryan yes promotion carrick moving on to superintendent's report items seven one through seven six may i have a motion mr lanzalata second motion miss fleming any question well i'd like to turn it over to uh our superintendent at
050this time please thank you thank you mrs everhart and before i uh make some of my prepared comments i just um i wanted to add a word or two to what mrs collins said about the the benefits of the testing for this year i thought that was really helpful and and um you know mr meegan's question brought that out just hearing that it's so interesting how like sometimes a crisis creates an opportunity and some of the flaws to the to the testing prior to the pandemic that it took so long to get the results that you didn't get to see the questions it just the time delay that teachers would already have a new crop of kids by the next year when they got the data from the prior year and then to just hear
051you describe how the teachers are able to get the data now and it's not as large a chunk but it's a much more actionable slice of data for them and um so thank you for that and thanks to the curriculum department for helping the teachers be able to work with that um you couldn't let that go had to say you know it took it's like only like decades in the making to get to that point where we had that data so that's great um so there's a number of items i'd like to share about tonight um first this is our first board meeting since um the november elections okay and i always wanted to congratulate um joe fizzicaro our president who couldn't be here tonight he's actually um he's helping kids this is this is
052what he does every board meeting night and even when he's not here he's helping kids because he's the director of the fall show at cherokee so um and they are in like last minute crazy prep time to get ready for the show so um that's also way i i guess i might as well plug it as well like if you haven't gotten tickets yet please check it out so um and anish kanthan here as well who was reelected to our board and so congrats to both of them and also um to jamie lee who was a write-in candidate for the third seat um and uh so she'll be starting her term in january which also means that um melissa plumbing her term will be ending um around that same time and um we'll have more
053time between now and then to thank you but i just did did want to say thank you so much for your years of service and all your input along the way and we'll really miss it the um so a few other words on the agenda tonight very positive piece we have a recommendation for our next director of special services dr jen bland and dr bland she's actually sitting over there dr bland so that's great great to have you here and she was identified as the top candidate through our interview and selection process for this position i want to thank all the people involved in this election process there were many that final committee was very large but again that speaks to the breadth and depth of that position and how many stakeholders are impacted by
054the person in that role she's currently a supervisor in our district in two departments special services and curriculum and will bring her skills intelligence her heart for children and her experience as she's been in our district for over 20 years including as a as a classroom teacher as a special education teacher um back in the day and uh that that all those roles carry them with us all the time so our first official day will be january 3rd um so that director position because i'm seeing nicole espenberg thanks for assessment for being here too our outgoing director um will finish out right winner break and so that position will not be vacant even for one day um and i just seeing two together it's like a physical manifestation of the transition that's already started so
055um that was perfect thank you um the and as well that director position um is now a member of the superintendent's cabinet so we'll see dr bland at our board meetings in the cabinet meetings and board committee meetings um and she'll be sitting with our directors of personnel and curriculum over there um and uh i'd also like to yesterday was education support professionals day okay it's a national day of recognition and if you don't know if that term it's a really big umbrella and i just wanted to mention a few of the some of the rules that come under that aegis to give a little idea of the diversity of roles within a district any district but a district of 850 employees which we are right so within that umbrella of education support professionals we
056have bus drivers bus aides bus mechanics our transportation office our technology department director of technology frederick case right there man behind the screen all of our building i.t staff our maintenance department custodians buildings and ground staff we have joe idell and tom donahue with us tonight from our facilities department thank you guys for all you do for these meetings um then we have our paraprofessionals our teaching assistants our lunch aides our ecc and teddy bear staff we have our nurses mrs riley's back there i saw um and our school counselors media specialists child study team members including psychologists social workers occupational therapists speech therapists learning disability teacher consultants and it goes on secretaries clerk typists administrative staff across personnel business office curriculum and more and there is more but already that's you can see that's
057that's quite a list and um that ties in a little bit to my my comments i'm going to say in a second but you know each of those rules is uniquely important and um they could really instead of having a day have a whole month or a whole year of national educational services professionals year so thank you to all of our staff in those roles and um that leads into she says this is the last board meeting before thanksgiving um just wanted to say thank you to everyone those staff all the rest of our staff our board and our families for every effort all year long this year again like last year feels like a collective effort on behalf of an entire community to help children and when i think about that i think about
058actually texted my dad which probably was like shocked him because i i said i was remembering something he often said to me um and he would say he grew up on a farm and he would say that farms get passed down from generation to generation for a dollar in love a dollar in love and i've been turning that phrase over in my mind not in reference to a form but in the way a strength of a community in a town is passed down from generation to generation for a dollar in love you know and so many of us here we have a multi-generational connection to our town either you know we are here we're raising our kids here or we grew up as kids here and we're back here and in some ways it's like
059ibsham is a family farm and we pass it on all of us together for a dollar in love and i spoke in my opening video to staff this year about the greek word hellos which means life purpose you know so like the idea of finding a life purpose goes back even before the ancient greeks but when they have a word for it you know they felt it too and they were looking for it too and around the holiday time like this it's kind of like one of those chances to just lean back a little bit and look around and think about a word like that and for me and i think for many of us here part of that life purpose is really the greatest responsibility that any community has which is how it cares
060for its children there isn't a greater responsibility you know and the strength of the community is what we do for our children right and and so here we all sit and here we go to work every day all those rules all working for kids to be able to pass on to them what we've benefited from ourselves that family farm of yves sham for a dollar and love and those are the thoughts i wanted to share for thanksgiving so thank you mr thank you dr smith any questions from the board seeing none roll call please mrs capala yes this is everhart yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes this is null yes mr lancelot yes mr megan yes this is ryan yes mission carries hey moving on to curriculum and instruction i have a motion for
061items eight one through eight nine please miss noel first motion second motion mr canton are there any questions from the board miss noel i just wanted to ask about these two very interesting well they're new to me i'm sorry after school clubs that are on here 8.8 drama for kids and cedar run can someone please tell me about these are they new to the district i mean i've been to cedar run so can somebody tell me exactly what's going to happen and what schools i think mrs mccoy run is new um and they approached us in terms of piloting an after-school club at one of our middle schools so actually right here demesey middle school will be the the school that's piloting it um basically when an outside organization if we don't have a program
062or something being offered by internally by staff an outside organization could actually choose to do that um so you know i met with them i met with one of our teachers here at dmac we went through the program what it would look like we walked down to the rooms they're going to use like part of the outside classroom here at dmac and then an internal space as well and then basically we talked about cost we talked about insurance we talked about all the different kind of elements of that and then we are getting them approved tonight to pilot that the drama for kids is actually not a new one so that's when we actually had at bieler a few years ago before the pandemic but they are interested in returning back to our school so
063again in a school that doesn't have a drama performance they might be one who takes advantage of that club right now we're waiting to see who exactly would move forward with that um but it is when we piloted in the past thank you so for cedar run when would that pilot program begin uh looking like december so once they have their dates they'll send the flyer to me for approval and then we'll send it out to all the macy parents and they're going to do a eight-week winter course and then a eight-week spring course as well and then again we'll we'll meet and get feedback and then it can expand to other schools as interest is there uh and the cost would not exceed 99 i think it said 99 correct yeah and it actually
064will be when we met actually tuesday and we kind of talked through it so it truly will be 99 but we don't allow them to charge more than 99 any club because our parents are already paying a club and activity fee for our clubs so we don't allow them to charge over 99 any outside club offering something because it's a separate fate right okay i understand i know we have bricks for kids and i'm trying to remember that was also 99 then uh that one actually is 95. oh okay well thank you for all the information sure maybe i'll stop by for the cedar run club one day yeah that's great any other questions from the board mr canton yeah so um if we remember back to the spring we were given all these updates
065about esser we have sr funds to enhance learning acceleration we have sr funds to combat learning laws there's a portion of esser funds that's designated for activities that are outside of school hours so this year we're able to bring back saturday in richmond for eight saturdays and that's going to be at no cost to families because of the esser funds so saturday in richmond is back it's at no cost to families and it's obviously a very good thing for kids i'm glad to have that back i saw that in curriculum that's exciting yep another sign that we're turning the corner good news thanks for sharing that for the rest of the board any other questions seeing none roll call please mrs cappello yes this is ever hart yes miss fleming yes mr catherine yes mrs
066noll yes mr lanzalotta yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries and moving on to finance and operations may i have a motion please for items nine point one through nine point ten miss miss capela first motion second motion misses ryan sorry his medications kill me all right are there any questions from the board okay seeing none roll paul please mrs cappello yes this is every heart yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes mrs noll yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carriage section 10 personnel may i have a motion and a second for items 10.1 through 10.10 please first most of mr lanzalotta second motion mrs fleming any questions or comments on the board i have a comment uh welcome aboard miss dr bland i mean you've been here
067but welcome to your new capacity i also wanted to give a shout out to uh mrs meeker i just sat at this table for a long time and i i just know that she was a previous employee who has now come back to join us and we want to say thank you uh for coming back we're looking forward to seeing you again uh it was great to see you in the audience and it's great to have you back in your new capacity i also want to say good luck to mr cedor i also know him too and it's a great opportunity for him and i want to wish him luck as well so thank you for that anyone else seeing none roll call please mrs cappello yes this is everhart yes miss fleming yes mr
068canton yes mrs noll yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan um yes to all that abstain from 10.6 family conflict okay motion carries policy section 11. may i have a motion in a second for items 11-1-11 plea please first motion miss ryan second motion ms noel any comments or questions for policy we'll call it this time please mrs cappello yes this is everhart yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes mrs knoll yes mr lancelata yes mr meagan yes mrs ryan yes mission carries okay moving on to committee reports would any uh chair of their cur of their committee wish to share any additional information for the public or the board ms knoll i'll share about finance committee this month and um so we did meet last week the finance committee and i'm happy
069to report dr smith and mr rashinti have been working hard on the draft first draft of the budget for 2223 they've been working very hard and now um reduced to i believe it was like a 1.25 deficit so far right now and our state aid is being had been reduced to 1.6 this year yeah okay so um in addition mr rashinti has tasked the department heads and building principles to reduce their budgets by five percent those are due back in mid-december so they'll incorporate um that reduction as well into the budget um and let me see what else i had the only other thing that i want to mention is was happy also to hear that the administration has been working closely with the township administration to continue with the car sharing if you remember
070last year for the sros so that is extremely promising that uh we're working together again because they're putting their budget together right now so dr smith mr ashinti have been meeting with the township manager deputy manager the mayor to discuss that moving forward so that we can get additional help um for 22.23 and that's all i had for this month's finance committee thank you mrs knoll would anyone else at this time like to share anything from their committee seeing none we will close that and move on to old business is there any old business seeing none we will move on to new business is there any new business seeing none we will move on to open public comment this meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest however if your
071questions or comments pertaining to litigation student or personnel items or negotiations we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person when anyone wish to speak at this time please step up to the microphone please yes it's okay yes and at this time please state your name and address for the board my name is renee schmoback my address is 994 carlin drive in southampton pennsylvania i am a teacher in the district and i drove i'm sorry i walked in at eight o'clock at night um but the only reason because of the distance that you know for me to get back here the only reason i was coming tonight is because i was there wasn't an there
072was i'm hoping there was an announcement regarding our new director of um special services did that happen tonight or is that not a question i'm allowed to ask it it did occur it did occur are you allowed to tell me yeah yeah the dr bland was recommended for approval and she was approved and uh you missed it but i talked about it in my superintendent's comments so i didn't even get a chance to read it but i'm so glad you did but for whatever you're going to say i'm just glad you took the time to come so yeah and that is a huge win for special education i'm so proud of dr bland that is a huge win for special education that's all i have to say thank you thank you very much anyone else
073like to speak at this time please step down to the microphone thank you welcome just state your name and address for the for the public thank you my name is nicole tate um address is 324 revere road and i'm in marlton thank you for letting me come and speak tonight um i've actually been living in marlton for about 15 years i have um three children can i ask you to please speak up please oh i'm sorry can you hear me yes so i just i just stated i've been living in marlton for about 15 years i have three children two of which attend the amazing eshams township school district i'm a former medford teacher i've been retired for a few years to stay home with my children so i wanted to publicly say that i
074love our district i love our school my local school is van zant we have amazing teachers i know you know that and our principal is a 10 plus he is amazing so i wanted to preface that before i um say what i'm going to say now um so uh as a a parent i've had my two older students or children in half day kindergarten and i have my younger daughter is in preschool at this moment um so that is something um i don't want this to come across as complaining but simply wanted to start a dialogue with you um regarding your kindergarten program so i actually have a question for you i know that um like many districts we offer full day kindergarten and we also offer half day kindergarten so my question to you
075is why do we do that dr smith so first of all state thank you for coming and thank you for the preface um and thank you for the question because um it's a vital it's a very important question it's very important question um there are multiple ways to answer that okay so and i'll still give a few different answers but really i i would view them more as rather than answers maybe continuations of the conversation that you're looking to start that makes sense so because the topic is that big that makes sense that for something like the question and answer is just part of a conversation so which we can continue later too so i'd be glad to do that um the a a full day so our our arrangement here has been in place
076for a long time um so that's one thing so once you know a change along the lines i'm imagining you you're thinking that like maybe i don't want maybe why why why are we why do we have tuition based full day is that yes why do we have that and also half day why do we have why do we have two options [Music] so to make oh no that's fine i actually have just one more um how many other districts in burlingame in burlington county follow that model in charging a tuition-based uh full-day kindergarten in public school [Music] so i appreciate miss skipford's guidance on that so because i i was i'm eager to i like conversation so i'm always eager to like have conversations so um especially when we're talking about ways we can
077improve and help kids so that's you know that's a standing thing um so uh and it's it's funny it's it's not funny it's actually um really serious and wonderful that you asked that because we we do look at that we do look at what districts where districts are at with with full decay um we're in the minority there you know the trend overall is districts moving towards um just having full day kindergarten period no half no tuition just full day that's the trend um and more districts are you know we're still where we're at more districts have moved towards that direction um the uh the reasons are complicated you know back to your your first question about why why why are we why are we where we're at and and not where the trend is
078going right um the uh it's a it's complicated i mean i'll just say it the district i worked in before coming here had it in its long-range plan to go to full day k without tuition 20 years ago and they finally got there last year well two years ago before i left so and how did they get there sorry to interrupt but did it have something to do with the s2 formula and they were just pumped in with several million dollars more a year well money is a factor money is a very big factor so that's let's not forget how they got full decay what money is a big factor but it took them about 20 years and and part of that process was um so you can see like it's it's slow work um
079it depends a lot on freeing up financial capacity to do that um which is for us currently um currently a challenge um we're heading into year five of seven straight years of the state funding reduction um so you know which again these are all like little beginnings of conversations if that makes sense but um that's that's it i'll just say a beginning part of the conversation to your questions um which are really good and um maybe we can talk about more of course appreciate it just one more comment if you would if you allow um so i just wanted to give you a perspective of a parent who's sent two children in half day kindergarten one in pm on one at am so i've had two different perspectives my main comment would be um this
080and this is from my heart that we as a family have felt slightly as a second class citizen i don't feel that my my our my children truly felt part of the school which had nothing this has nothing to do with the principal or the teachers who are amazing simply just the schedule we didn't really feel fully part of that school until they were in first grade simply because they missed many of the social um things of school just being part of that that you know wacky schedule so that's really what i wanted to address this evening is that lack there i appreciate your time thank you so much i appreciate it i appreciate that last piece you added as well thank you we'll reflect on that appreciate it thank you thank you for your
081comment anyone else wishing to speak at this time okay seeing none guess we will oh would you like to speak again go ahead good i don't think you have to say just your name would be fine this time yep um and again you know this is my first board of education meeting ever so am i allowed to kind of piggy not piggyback but i haven't i kind of have a pretty good answer i think i could help that um lady out with or is that not allowed i i would say i mean just a thought would be since we got a conversation started that you could go continue you could continue with the conversation with her directly if you want that's or right now or afterwards well anytime you want i guess but but public
082comments really more like to engage the boarding conversation rather than i'm learning the ropes yeah yeah yeah i mean basically all i wanted to say was regardless if it's half day or full day kindergarten we are offering as a district the same exact curriculum we are whether they're coming a half day or they're coming a full day they are still getting the same exact curriculum they they truly are it's just things are spaced out in a different way if that is of any help to that nice lady from vanzant um it it it's yeah and that's all i have to say thank you thank you i won't raise my hand that's fine you absolutely can no problem there's no limit i don't think to questions okay i see there's i saw her hello please state
083your name and address um so i'm rachel willey and i don't live in marlton but i'm a teacher here please speak into the mic yeah sure so uh my name is rachel willey i don't live in marlton but i'm a teacher here at marlton middle and just jumping on board there if we're going to talk about kindergarten my daughter is um in kindergarten at mes and i'm absolutely thrilled to be a teacher and to have my daughter in kindergarten and to be so excited about the program so please keep that up wish is awesome thank you very much for your comment anyone else wishing to come to the mic okay thank you come on down please state your name and address please kristen nardello and i'm at 94 kent ave in marlton um to piggyback
084i'm here in support of the kindergarten questioning um to piggyback off that i would be interested in seeing if you guys collect any information about the um like the reading assessments and math assessments with the half day versus the full day i know coming from we're now demacy i have a jagger demacian rice kid and my um the vanzant kid that we used to have uh in that class from half day kindergarten i believe there were like 12 to 14 kids who needed a reading assessment like that that you know that whatever that course is that they offer for first grade um i would be curious to see what that looks like from the full day kindergarten in addition to what the like the math help that people get in the summer program from half
085day to full day so i know that we talk about the curriculum being the same i don't believe that that's totally true um [Music] yeah so thank you guys okay thank you for your comment yes ma'am please step up to the microphone actually we haven't yep you can all stand there yeah you can all make a line there that's okay please ma'am you can come up yep there you go renee again as far as the kindergarten yes data-driven instruction is huge however there are so many factors you need to consider when a child enters kindergarten for example like what she was saying about like she would like to see you know the data that's very you know that that's understandable but you also have to consider some kindergartners are entering kindergarten for just turning five
086there are so many dynamics to a child entering kindergarten which although data does exist you have to consider that big umbrella of children date of births previous you know whether they went to preschool whether there are so many other things regardless of that data i mean data yes we can all agree does drive instruction and is very important however you have to consider what a true kindergartner some and their birthdays their previous experience their you know if they were read books every single night before bed um if they practice sight words there's just so much to that so i hope that helps thank you thank you very much that was the last time thank you very much hi please state your name and address hi i'm sarah applegate from 329 revere road in marlton um
087i just wanted to say that i really love this district too um we're very happy here we have three children we actually live right near the tates um and our boys walk to and from school together so we really heard you when you said the thing about community what i would encourage everybody to think about is really how we treat the youngest in our community do we welcome them with open arms in the same way that maybe we do for our older students um you know we were lucky enough to age in to the rice preschool program through early intervention for my oldest very excited about your presence from a special education perspective um but just in general wanted to also think about how this impacts us as being like a destination of choice when
088all of the surrounding community communities have the full day program right eventually it comes down to budget if we're not drawing the students we're not going to draw the teachers we're not going to be able to keep up all the programs that you know we get funding for from the state at what point does that become a consideration for all of you to think about what you're doing here and whether or not you're going to open the doors and take the hit initially to cut that funding that you're getting from the full day program for people like me who can afford to pay it and are practicing sight words at night um but also limiting other people and their access to what they need and then making it sort of a disadvantage for all of
089us in the community so thanks for hearing me out thank you for your comment please step up and give us your name and address please hi my name is dorian carlton 130 deerfield avenue in marlton i just like to add my name to the conversation about full day kindergarten i have four children it took me three to realize that half day is not enough i paid for my oldest to go to a private kindergarten because at the time it was cheaper than marlton's full day program now i stay home so the idea of reconciling that budget-wise just doesn't work for us i can hear while i disagree with the statement that the curriculu the curriculum might be exactly the same but if a child learns it crammed into 2.5 hours compared to learning it and
090repeating it throughout the day and being able to do it in multi-faceted manner it's different also there is great value in the social aspect of school to have a child limited to a fraction of the time that another child the same age they have less experiences they are less equipped to enter first grade then i think that it's important to not just focus on the academic aspects but also those social aspects pre-k um private preschool is an hour and a half longer than marlton public kindergarten half day that blows my mind my son's in private preschool right now and next year i'm telling him he's going to be home at 1107 am two hours before he's done right now so he's basically stepping back in many ways that now he's being stretched socially academically half
091day kindergartners don't get lunch with their friends to socialize they don't get recess every parent-teacher conference i've had with my with for my children i don't ask them about academics first i ask them how are my children engaging socially how do they behave and i'll never forget speaking to my daughter's kindergarten teacher i said how is she engaging socially and she stopped and she said oh we don't have time to socialize that was her public teacher at mes and i think we need to do better thank you thank you for your comment excuse me um let's make sure nobody else has a public comment before we let someone repeat again anyone else wishing to speak public comment okay okay come on well you had yes you had your hand up yep renee again um another
092thing i want to say about the kindergarten is i hear these parents loud and clearly i do i do we also need to consider that change happens slowly dr justin smith i believe was hired during i want to say july in the midst of covet am i right dr smith okay now you have to consider before from my perspective as a teacher i look at it as and i hope i'm not crossing boundaries by saying this dr smith was handed a bunch of problems and millions of dollar deficits that have happened from previous previous previous previous and previous years he was then handed that and he came in and suddenly looked like he was you know the not so good person or the person that's you know putting powers benefits on the line and all
093of this stuff because again change is going to happen slowly i think now that we have a new guy in town i think you're going to see that change but we can't snap our fingers and say next year full day kindergarten for absolutely everyone that's not feasible and i think everyone in this room could agree that that's probably not feasible i don't know this is my first board member meeting um but i hope people see the potential that this man does have um but again you got to consider when he was hired and that's all i have to say okay thank you for your comment anyone else wishing to speak during public comment okay please come up i appreciate you giving me one more moment please just real quick does money matter more or do
094our kids matter more it's the only thing i'd like to say thank you thank you for your comment anyone else wishing to speak seeing none like to close public comment moving on to board member announcements does anyone have any board member announcements miss ryan okay well first i would like to thank um everyone for coming and also wish them a happy thanksgiving can't wait to see mrs meeker back at the board meetings and you know back in the district she was a bus driver for my kids for many years so i'm so glad that she's back in eve shams so congratulations on a new position we had a pto president's meeting myself miss mcgoula dr smith and all the pto and pta presidents and the one thing that they all mentioned was that they were
095so happy that the kids are now back engaged and they're excited to be back at school and they could sit on their face a lot of them you know run book fairs and are getting ready to run holiday shop and the kids are just very excited and the parents are very grateful and i think we decided that there'd be a lot more grade level um type activities starting and everyone involved with the ptas and ptos have been working so hard to make sure that the turn of events from kovid has turned into a positive direction so i wanted to just to quickly just address those parents who feel like their children aren't included that's something we can bring up at the next pto and pta presidents roundtable maybe we could find a way to get
096the kindergarten students half day kindergarten students feel more welcome and engaged in the school as a van's aunt parent a former van damn parent and a former vanzant pto president i know that was very important to us to make sure that every student felt included and had a very good relationship with the school and i agree mr deblasia is fantastic and the teachers are all great but so is your pto so if you want to reach out to them or i can give you the contact information of the president and maybe you guys can um find a way to get more involved and have have your kids feel more include included in what's going on but i do know that the ptos and ptas have done an amazing amazing job and it was so great
097that they were sharing ideas they were collaborating freely and i think that was probably one of the best meetings i've been to sitting at a round table this past month and i mentioned it to everybody that they're doing a phenomenal job so if you don't follow their facebook pages follow their facebook pages even if it's not your home school thank you to everyone for everything you're doing for our kids i appreciate it and i know that we all do happy thanksgiving thank you mrs ryan has anyone else wish to make any board member announcements miss fleming yes i just would like to thank mr canton again uh congratulate him that he won uh mr joe pisacaro and uh miss jamie lee so i'm glad that uh they were able to get on the board and
098again happy thanksgiving um and that's it thank you very much mrs fleming miss knowle good job right yeah okay yeah um i just wanted to thank thank dr smith for coordinating with the burlington county of health i just found the email in my spam folder about the clinic the vaccination clinic well i don't know why they all go to my spam folder from you anyway in case anybody else is one in their spam folder the vaccination clinic on sunday rice and vansant of course no pressure voluntary and that's for ages five plus administered by walmart i'm assuming the pharmacy tax will be there and um so that's wonderful i just want to say how great that is and i was telling my my family last weekend my sister-in-law and her kids were there and i
099said that we were working towards this board of ed and my little nephew said i want you to be on my board of ed i just thought it was funny so um thank you for that and i also i was speaking to my sister-in-law and told her i read on new jersey department of health website she's a speech therapist in a school that she's eligible for the booster she had no idea so i just want to put that out there because i know our moms are very very busy working mothers may not be paying attention she had no idea so i want to say that anybody who is working in a school any position can go get their booster shot and last thing happy thanksgiving to everyone because we will not be here um again
100and happy hanukkah i know it's early this year so i didn't want to miss saying that um [Music] so happy hanukkah to those that celebrate and happy thanksgiving enjoy time with family thank you mrs noll anyone else have any board member announcements mr canthan yeah so while we're on the topic of cultural holidays um the township had their first diwali celebration uh last week dr smith and i got to attend that that was pretty cool out of i always try and find an aspect of kids whenever we have these township events and at the diwali celebration there were three parents who we got to talk to who helped set up the event every single one was either a current or former etsd parent so i think that's great when we talk about the sense of
101community and the the fact that kids should come first so absolutely i just want to say also piggybacking on that so joe who's not here tonight you know he's doing his thing over there at cherokee and he's probably got a lot of eastern township school district students that came up through the ranks singing and dancing right so great job eaves from township thank you any other board member announcements okay i'd like to say happy thanksgiving on behalf of the board to everyone and uh moving on to the next item so i don't think we have a need for any public action or an executive session so i'm moving for a german do i have a motion to adjourn mrs brian second by mrs fleming thank you and have a safe and happy thanksgiving good night
102oh you