001I'd like to call this meeting to order. The mission of the Freel Tangent School District is to honor and support every learner every day on the journey to become curious and engaged members of a diverse global community. A notice listing the time, date, and place of this meeting is posted on the public bulletin board of all Freel township schools on the entrance door of the administrative offices of the board of education on the district website at the office of the Freel Township Clerk published in the Asbury Park Press on January 11th, 2025 and sent to the Star Ledger on January 8th, 2025. Please join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible,
002with liberty and justice for all. Can I get a roll call? Mr. Dvita, Mrs. Brand, Dr. Casey, Miss [Music] Slambert here, Mrs. Spieler, uh, Mr. Williams. It's so present and Mr. Amaroso here. Thank you. Can I get a motion for the approval of the June 10th, 2025 regular meeting minutes? Motion. A second. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Any absences or abstensions? Yes, you were. Can I get a motion for the approval of June 10th, 2025 executive session meet minutes? Motion. Second. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? And one abstension. Y. Thank you. Okay. President's remarks. I will be brief. It's very hot. We're all We're all done. Nobody wants to hear me talk, but I will just give a few tidbits. Um, we got a letter from Les
003Richens that our um, comprehensive equity plan has been approved. So, thank you to the whole team that got that done. It was certified as complete. The other thing I wanted to bring up and remind everyone is about um, the summer retreat. Um, so if you haven't already, remember the original email came from Neil. So, when you're searching, don't search my name, search his name, and the calendar will come up and populate those days for me if you haven't because over the next week or so, we have to nail that date down. It's it's getting uh to be right around the block. So, with that, I will go right to the administrative report. Bob, do you want to do worse so we don't forget it? Uh certification page. I Rob Dvita, the school business secretary, certifies
004that as of May 31st, 2025, no line item has been overextended in violation of NJAC 6A23A-16.10C3 and that sufficient funds are available to meet the district's financial obligations for Okay. Um, we had an excellent end of the year. Our graduations uh at the high school were wonderful. Um, the air conditioning stayed on this year both times. I know it was still warm, but as you know, the second one it typically turns off. Uh, wondering if you have feedback, you don't have to give it to me now, about the format of two days instead of the same day four, uh, three and six, the two different days at 5:00. If anybody has feedback about that, um, let me know. So when we look to plan for next year, um, we can do that. Our um moving
005up ceremonies at our elementary schools were equally as wonderful. Um I purposely didn't last time mention because I was hoping she would come this evening, but I do want to recognize Kathy her last board meeting unless she comes runs for the board. Um [Laughter] she's a trooper. I did not. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend her retirement celebration. My son was uh I was at senior awards night at the high school. Um, but I did want to make sure at least I got to mention here the great deal of respect I have for Kathy. Um, she is one of the people when I need an opinion, I call. I'm like, "Hey, can I run something by you?" Because number one, she's always honest. She doesn't tell me what I want to hear. She'll be
006like, "Yeah, I don't think that's a good idea." Um, but also generates ideas and um and suggestions, too. So, I um somebody somebody said like, "Oh, are you happy shoes are tired?" I'm like, absolutely not. It's quite the opposite. It's going to be professionally for the district. Um quite a loss of someone with such experience, such work ethic, and somebody who has such care uh for the staff and students under her supervision. I know that Danielle and Betsy will keep that tradition alive at Ericson, but uh professionally and personally, I am uh going to miss Kathy being here, but she's not far. So, um I wanted to say that. I also wanted to share in case it gets back to any board members, we most recently for years on early dismissals um are it's it's
007very common for our students from Barklo to walk unsafeely unfortunately across 537 and and visit the shopping centers. Um this year has been increasingly worse uh of what's being reported to us about the behavior of children there. Unfortunately, every uh business owner or manager that has an issue calls Barcelo. We are not their parents and we struggle telling them that. We've done everything we can. We've sent it uh individual letters um not individual letter, a letter from Dr. Curus to the families. We put it in the newsletters. We've now advised um and I might send this out at the beginning of next year. We told them to call the police. We have no authority over children once they leave school and their behavior in those parking lots. They're connecting it to us because they are
008dismissing from school. And no matter what we say, uh they continue to call Barlo and call the board office. We encourage them to call the police that we have no authority over children when they're not with us during the school day. What are they doing? Uh the claims that they have um misbehaving in the store, jumping in front of cars. Um saw all that last week. Disrespect. I mean, when I was in the what's now the snack room was my office, I used to yell out the window like, "Go to the white." Um, but there's nothing. I've seen issues crossing there, but not misbehaving. And yeah, I this year has been um it the the calls that we get have increased and we've tried to address it. Um, but at the end of the day,
009I I'm bringing it up here. one, in case you hear it as board members, but two, there's a manager who quote unquote threatened that they were going to come and tell the board. And I said, "Well, I'll tell the board." Um, and also, you should be calling the police, not calling us. Um, so it's frustrating. We've we've tried, but we don't have that authority over them. We've communicated to the parents, unfortunately, down to the last day. Uh, we have not they have communicated to us that we don't they don't see um improvement. So, I wanted you to know that in case it does get back to you. Um, going into the, uh, HIP report first, um, to review the self assessment for determining grades under the anti-bullying bill of rights act. Remember, um, this is
010a measure that each school safety team does in each school to determine compliance with the law. Um this year all of our schools had uh score of 78 which is the maximum meaning they are compliant with timelines. They're compliant with what's required under the law. I would also like to share this evening um our bullying report. We had seven incidents and all were confirmed. But I would like to share when I looked at the cumulative data we are last year we ended the year at this board meeting at 84. This year we're ending with 58. our most and that's a 31% decrease. Our most significant decrease in the district was at Barcolo. Um it was down over 10 cases from last year cumulatively for the year. And two other schools worth noting that were down
011um four or more were Donovan and West Freehold. Um so it is a tremendous accomplishment to be reduced by 31% and to see such such a significant reduction at Barcelo next September to June. What? The 58? No, no. The um the decrease like the decrease is from June September to June last school year. September to June this school year. That's where we were September to June 2024, September to June 2025. Y might I add something at one of the Eisenhower graduation in particular, one of the speakers spoke of what a loving environment at Eisenhower. That was actually the theme of the whole speech. I was moved by it because, you know, you hear a lot of different things about the culture in the buildings, but that was that was very refreshing and um I was
012glad to hear that. We're doing a lot of work in our buildings. We focused on middle school over the past uh few years moving to elementary district directed. Our administrators in our buildings are always working on a positive climate and culture, but from a a district-wide um initiative level, we've been working diligently in the middle schools. Um, as I mentioned last time, our middle school staff is now 100% trained in restorative practices, moving into restorative justice conferencing next year. Our elementary schools this year will be focusing on responsive classroom and working on um everybody being aligned with the practices that come under responsive classroom and the morning meeting that goes with that which in theory we should see the results hopefully at this time again next year. We have one student recognition this evening. this
013evening we're recognizing a student from Eisenhower Middle School. I'd like to invite up our geography B coordinator, Mr. Crep. Hold the microphone. So the president Anna Roso superintendent Dix assistant superintendents Dr. Blau Mrs. Montgomery and members of the board of education during when CO hit right wasn't too far long ago when CO hit the National Geographic Society decided to suspend geography based in schools the schools being closing and we were hoping at some point that they would return back to that. They decided after 2 years that they would no longer be bringing that back. So one of my good colleagues across town at Barclayo, Mr. Martin Tans and I got together and said we wanted to do something to promote geographical literacy. So we decided to continue with the geography movement instead of the geography
014society writing questions. We wrote our own. So we we spend about 30 hours after school hours this year. Uh I alike constructing over 235 questions to take care of the different rounds. So students were eligible to take part in seven rounds. The first three rounds were multiple choice and rounds four through seven were open-ended. And so at Eisenarrow this year we had 13 students that answered six out of seven correct. Uh two of each answered seven out of seven correct which was really when you think about it an unbelievable feat and then for more students compete in the next few rounds to get to the championship round. It was really fun for Michael and students cuz I decided this year again this year to do the geography with the students that I teach. So I'm
015blessed I get to teach two grades. So my seventh grade class that I start my day off with before I transition eighth grade had a chance to watch it. And when Michael was one of the final three students, it was great. We had all three grades represented in the final three. We had a sixth grader and a seventh grader and eighth grader. It couldn't be better than that. And so Michael at one point answered with the other student in the championship round 16 consecutive questions correct. And it was like uh the Ranger fans will appreciate this. Right, Mrs. Lambert? Uh right, Mr. Dixon. It was like the garden roof coming off right away when Michael and this person other student answered 16 in a row. Correct. And the students said, "Mr. Gre, this is so
016much fun." And I just want to remind you something being a teacher who loves the social sciences that Albert Einstein actually started in the world of social sciences when he was a young boy. He became very empowered by uh compass compass rose. He couldn't believe the compass rose could move in indefinite periods of time. But he struggled and failed and he decided to move to a different science that we thought would be a lot easier, which was physical science. So he chose physics. So that's how challenging this is. But I want to bring up Michael here and congratulate him. Want to bring the 2024 2025 Dwight David Eisenhower Middle School first place geography bleed champion. Thank you. Michael, my wife only always has one geography question. You know, we got to get it right. She's
017like, "Where is Portugal?" You don't get it. A lot of people say, "Oh, it's in South America." Because they speak Portuguese and Brazil. It's in Europe. You knew that. We knew it. All right. Did you have anything else? Ah, there we go. Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Get out while the getting's good. You don't want to hear this. Congratulations. Thank you. You, too, Mr. Prep. You don't have to stay for this. [Laughter] He's too kind and gracious. Thank you. Um, all right. Everybody can see. I'm sorry. My back is to you. Um, I am going to spend a little time this evening reviewing two things with the board. First, we're going to review our district goals. Um, all of these you have seen before as you completed Mr. Dixon's evaluation. So, this is a
018summary of that data that you've already seen before. Um, and then we're going to take a look at our district I Ready data for uh for our first year of implementation. So, first we're going to start with our elementary school goals. Um, as you know, we implemented foundations um as a foundational reading program in kindergarten and first grade this year. So, both our kindergarten and first grades across the district did meet this goal. um kindergarten at 91% and first grade at 82%. Um I know that was the one piece of data that when goals were completed that um first grade data wasn't finished yet. Um our first grade pacing um was a little off from the recommended calendar from um from Wilson this year. However, we do anticipate that not being the case next year.
019Um the first several units of the program are review units. So those students that were first graders didn't have the benefit of reviewing because they didn't have foundations when they were kindergarteners. So moving into next year, those kindergarten kiddos moving into first grade will move appropriately through the pacing of those first couple of units because they will have had foundations background. Um and the same will be true for our second graders or this group of first graders moving into second grade. we will be implementing foundations for those kiddos next year. Um at as at second grade they will have had that foundation of and familiarity with foundations. So they'll um as expected move pretty quickly through those first couple of units. Um grade two we had a foundational reading goal as well. Um this focused
020on um the measure of the developmental spelling assessment um because we in second grade we still use the um units of study for phonics from Heinaman. Uh again, our students did really well in this area. We tiered uh these goals. So students with lower pre-assessment scores had to make greater gains than students who were closer to proficiency. Um and again, our second grade students achieved this goal at at 94%. Uh for third through fifth grade, we focused on a math goal because in those grades, we implemented our new math and visions program. So, same thing. You'll see the tiers to the goal. Students with a lower initial prescore had to increase their performance a little bit more than the students whose scores were closer to proficiency. Um, again, those students with the lower scores didn't
021necessarily get all the way to proficient, but they made greater gains than their um counterparts who were clo already close to proficiency. And our third grade students met the goal at 95% achievement. Fourth grade again also focusing on envisions. This um was using operations with whole numbers to solve problems. Um again same structure you'll see for all of our goals that um that tiered uh expectation for achievement and um our fourth grade students met this goal at 90%. uh fifth grade focused on adding and subtracting fractions um which was the uh topic seven in the envisions program and 97% of our fifth graders attained that goal. In middle school we focused on we had goals in the area of language arts and math and a a qualitative goal for our science and social studies departments.
022So in ELA, we focused on argumentative writing, that writing rubric. Our goal for this was to increase student performance around this rubric to move students closer to proficiency in the area of writing for NJSLA. Um I broke down on this slide so you can see performance at each of the grade levels, six, seven, and eight at the bottom. But in total, um our our middle school language arts students met this goal at 87% achievement. Uh in math we focused on envisions topic assessments for the students who were in the pilot classes. Um again a tiered goal similar to the other grade levels and again I broke down performance across all of the grade levels beneath. Um but you can see the really marketkedly high performance in those areas which is part of why in a
023previous meeting I recommended in this board approved um implementing the envisions math program for our sixth and seventh grade uh grade level classes. the we are seeing very clear evidence in student achievement that this is um impacting student growth and understanding in the areas of mathematics. And in uh for science and social studies, we um this is a continuation of a a previous year's goals. We've been working on building uh district uh common assessments that are standards aligned across um all of the grade levels um for both science and social studies. So last year uh the departments worked on building these common assessments. This year they worked on implementing them and doing some data analysis around student performance um identifying areas where um content maybe needed to be beefed up because students were underperforming related
024to particular standards. Um, next year we're going to be doing more of that work and building some of these assessments in our link platform so that that data um lives in our in our district data warehouse. That's a little narrative of what I just said. Uh, questions about district goals while I ceue up our next It's it's pretty impressive. Yes. Yes. Um and and I will um say that you will see some impressive student achievement on our I Ready performance as well. Um as you are aware, we implemented I Ready back in the fall. We trained all of our teachers um at our uh October professional development day last fall or September professional development day in the implementation of I Ready as our new district diagnostic tool. So I Ready has two sides to their
025platform and we're going to talk about both of them this evening and I'm going to move back and forth between the podium and the computer because I'm going to go into the platform and show you some actual student data as well. Um but we're going to look at two things tonight. We're going to look at both the diagnostic data, how our students performed on that fall, winter, and spring benchmark assessment so that you can see student growth from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. You you may be getting to this, but I was just curious, are we in this review, do we also look at we compare to peers within the state and within nationally and within globally? Yes. Stay with me, Dr. Casey. Stick around, Dr. Casey. Um, yes.
026Yes, I do have some data that I can some comparative data that I'm going to share. Um, so so anyway, we we I Ready replaced our previous district benchmark assessment, the NWA MAP, uh, tool, and we also replaced Freckle with the I Ready student instructional path. It's called my path. So, we're going to look at both pieces of data tonight. I can show you both how students have grown in relation to the standards on the um on the benchmark assessment but also the impact that students spending time on their personalized instructional pathways is having towards student achievement. So those are the things we're going to look at. The other thing is I put in a little bonus slide. I know that some of you had asked at a previous board meeting for some information about
027digital platforms that we use. So I put a little summary slide together with a list of some of them by content area. So we can so I can just share that some of the names of those with you. So I again does several things but the the purpose of selecting it is that it is standards aligned and it's adaptive right. So it helps us to diagnose students uh instructional needs that related to and connected to standards. It is linked directly to NJSLS. So that was one of the reasons why this platform was really appealing to us. We can identify exactly where kids instructional needs are with on this benchmark and then teach into it related to the New Jersey student learning standards. The other thing that the I Ready platform offers is a really comprehensive
028data and reporting um dashboard for teachers, for administrators, and for us at the district level. We can do really quick and really easy data analysis to determine students strengths and needs to determine areas of need in terms of our curriculum. If we see large um gaps where students in a particular grade level in a particular content area are underperforming, those are places where we need to be looking at beefing up our curriculum. Um and most importantly from the teacher side, there are really easy um to access teacher reports that help inform instruction in the classroom on the daily. So teachers are really learning to live in I Ready to inform their teaching on on the daily. The other thing that I Ready offers is instructional resources. So, for example, a teacher after a a benchmark
029assessment is reviewing student data, they can go into I Ready and find resources, instructional resources that support our district curriculum that our standards align and that um teachers can use to for small group instruction or for reinforcing particular um lessons or or skills that students need. Um and my path falls in that area as well. um students following the diagnostic receive a personalized instructional pathway. So based on how each student performs on the benchmark assessment, students then get placed on this pathway where they receive individualized lessons in the area of areas of reading and math in each of those domains that support students strengths and move them above if they need to keep moving and fill gaps for kids who are struggling to meet proficiency with with standards that are either at or below their
030current grade level. Um, so this is a snapshot of how our district did um from fall to winter on the reading assessment. And so I'm going to see if I can use this. Okay, my little my little laser pointer works. So the bottom bar here, diagnostic one, this is the fall benchmark. That's the assessment that we gave at the beginning of the school year. You'll notice at that time we had about 20% of our students, you can see the number here in this mid or above grade level range and down here at the other end in the red, 8% of our students in the three or more grade levels below. Right? So from from well above to well below um along this continuum and and everything in between. Um students in the green two areas
031Oh. Oh, where did my laser go? There it is. Right here. It's on the ceiling. I'm a little cockeyed tonight. Sorry. Um, you can see here we're at about 44% of our students are at the start of the year are considered proficient. And this yellow area is um is always bigger at the start of the school year. And you would anticipate that, right? So, think about a third grade student beginning the year at in third grade, right? You wouldn't expect a third a typical third grade student to be above grade level in third grade at the start of the school year. They haven't learned any third grade content yet. So it is typical in the fall to see this yellow band be larger because those are the kids who are going to get their grade
032level content and then move it move along the green as the year progresses. Um some other things I want to highlight and um and make note of the large growth from this 44% of our kids who are at or above grade level to the spring which is the bar above to which is both the 47% who kids who are mid or above grade level and the 24% who are kids who are early on grade level. This is a large increase of students from fall to spring who are are proficient in their grade level standards and that should translate to proficiency on NJSLA. The other thing I want to note before I go to the next slide is the market decrease in the areas of red. Um, at the start of the year, we had 19%
033of our students either two or three or more grade levels below as readers. And we cut that number in half. We reduced that number to 10%. Five at the two or more and five at the three or more grade levels below. Um, that is really impressive work. Um, and it speaks volumes uh to a number of things. one obviously the quality of of our teachers and the quality of our curriculum in terms of tier one but also and more importantly the um interventions and supports we're putting in place for those kiddos who are underperforming right this is this is our our MTSS this is our kids who are working on their my path and getting their individualized lessons below grade level to help move them closer to proficiency this is tier 2 instruction being provided
034by classroom teachers to close those gaps for kiddos and tier three um intervention where kids are being pulled and getting um services from interventionists. It's really really impressive. This is um this is was the data you spoke to at our last meeting. Dr. Casey, you look like you have a question on your face. That go ahead. When it says sorry when it says grade level and sorry I'm not in curriculum so these are that's okay. Uh and it's does that mean that this person the student is um where within the grade level does that person fit mean that they've it's measuring the student against the the proficiency of those grade level standards. So what the expectations are of a third grade student at that time of the year. Remember this was fall and this was
035just a few weeks ago, right? At that time of the year. Time of the year. So diagnostic one is at the beginning of the year. So this is implying that at the beginning of the year 20% of the students were already sort of proficient to go to to skip a year. No, not at all. What it says is that 20% of our students, remember that's K8, but 20% of our students in the district have already mastered in some capacity their grade level standards at the beginning of the year. Yeah, at the beginning of the year. So what the my path explain how then the path for those? So for those kiddos, well, and I don't want to just say that it's my path. For those kiddos and every student, regardless of where they are in
036the continuum, they're receiving differentiated instruction based on their diagnostic needs, which is the the powerful impact of the data from the diagnostic assessment. Right? So what the teacher can do then is look at within reading each of the domains. Does that does that student have a strength in in reading fiction, but but a weakness in reading non-fiction? Does that student have a a weakness in vocabulary and that vocabulary might impact their understanding of non-fiction text? Right. That makes sense. Yeah. So over excuse me that is an overall measure. What teachers are doing instructionally is looking deeply in each of the domains to make decisions about instruction for kids. So then is is it then therefore saying that 50% of the over 50% of the students going into that grade are not ready for that grade
037because they're below or to some extent but I would say that is an expectation for a typical student right ready for the next no to not have mastered that grade level content right at in the beginning of that grade level content right the no at the the entirety of that grade level content. So the grade level standards. So that 20% have mastered the entirety of the grade level content before they got into grade. That's what I was saying essentially. Yeah. As readers. That doesn't mean they can't be taught to read more deeply, to write more deeply. And again, this is one measure, right? So there's a lot of other tools that we use to measure student success. Um and again, this is not what the state of New Jersey asks for. They make kids take
038NJSLA, right? So, no, I just want clarification. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, I'm going to So, this is what I was speaking about before in terms of um data by domain, right? Again, this is data for our student population K through 8. But you can see how uh um again the bar the bar beneath is is shorter or is smaller and lighter. But you can see as a district we've made marketked improvements. The top bar being the most recent diagnostic, the below bar being um the full diagnostic. Marketked improvements in all of our areas of of um literacy instruction, right? Um high frequency words. Um surprise surprisingly this was an area that we thought was um our students were not going to perform as well in just with the shift in our foundational reading program
039and turned out to be um some place where we're doing really marvelously. Um so it's caused us to rethink some of our summer curriculum work. Um vocabulary clearly an area we're going to be working on in terms of support and instruction and comprehension will always be an area of focus and growth for us. Uh this is the same snapshot for our diagnostic results for math. So you can see again K through 8 um the bar below it was the fall diagnostic 15% of our students in that mid or above grade level increased to 51%. Yeah. And again, an another really sizable reduction in the number of students in our two and three grade levels below. So again, Mr. Dixie mentioned at the last board meeting, the I Ready trainers when they were here saying things
040like, "We don't see data this impressive." It it really is extraordinary the the growth that our kiddos have shown and we are very hopeful that this will be reflected in our NJSLA scores this year. Um these are the mass domains. Again this is district whole level district data. Um fall diagnostic below most recent diagnostic above. But you can see again similar market growth in the areas of green in terms of increasing students um to proficiency and decreasing the number of students who are two and three grade levels below significantly. Um Dr. Casey, this speaks to the question that you had asked previously. Um I have a snapshot to share how our district compares um to New Jersey and then to national. So this bar right here is our performance data. 48% this is reading 48%
041at that mid or above grade level, 24% early on grade level. These ones at the bottom in the two and three or more years are both at 5%. This bar here to the left is compared to other IR districts in New Jersey which equates to 239 se 239,795 students. Those are in New Jersey. Um the national numbers you can see again we are performing far better than than comparable districts other I Ready districts in New Jersey. the national numbers are even more impressive. Um, and the population of students um, nationally that use I Ready is over 8 million. Um, so again, our our growth and performance for students is is really impressive. This is that same data for math. So again, this bar here on the right is our data. um vertical just the same
042data I showed before that was horizontal. Um compared to New Jersey again marketkedly fewer kids in needing of in need of intervention and supports marketkedly more kids in the proficient areas both compared to New Jersey and compared to national. Interestingly, in the area of math, New Jersey is New Jersey data is pretty comparable to national data, not ours. Um, my path, I want to share a little bit about my path. This is the personalized pathway that students receive. So after each diagnostic, they um students log back into I Ready and they get their personalized pathway. They log in and it tells them what their next lesson is. Um and it moves them through lessons. Um as students are successful with lessons, it will move students through a domain until they master out that domain at
043a particular grade level. Um it may if students are struggling with a particular skill, it may send a flag to the teacher. If students don't pass a particular lesson um that focuses on the on the same skill two times the um a red flag goes up for the teacher so that the teacher knows I have to stop the student from working in their my path. I have to sit I have to do a little bit um more targeted instruction with the student and then send them back onto their my path reopen that pathway so the student can continue working. But teachers get yellow flags if students don't pass a lesson and then and then the red flag and the pathway stops so that kids don't continue to move forward making errors and things that they're
044not being successful with. It really the um the system is set up to make sure that teachers are that safety net for for students to help them be successful. Um I just wanted to share a little bit about um the amount of time that we're seeing kids spending on I Ready and how what how that equates to student achievement. So in the area of reading our average lesson time uh per student was 10 hours and 41 minutes. Um and then this is some data that I already provided to us in terms of um how time in my path equates to progress. So in the area the the recommended amount of time that students spend in I Ready is to or 30 or more minutes 30 to 45 minutes per week. Um, we've gotten a lot
045of really good feedback from other I Ready districts that recommend focusing less on time and focusing more on successfully passed lessons um as opposed to the amount of time because some kids could spend 45 minutes on one lesson and not be successful and that isn't going to help them continue to move on their pathway. Other kids could get three lessons done in 24 minutes. So, the goal really that we focused on this year was having teachers support students in completing two lessons successfully. Um again when we look at it in relation to time the goal is is 30 to 45 minutes and for those students um that spent that amount of time in their pathway 136% right so our goal is 100% of kids make typical growth 136% of those students that spent this amount
046of time not every student but this the these students these 1183 students that spent this much amount of time made 36% growth um towards their typical growth goal which means that many of these students also hit their stretch growth goal which is like to move them beyond. And for our kiddos who are in that two or three years or more below grade level, those kiddos are the ones we need hitting their stretch growth goal. Um the the data shows that for students that hit their stretch growth goal two years in a row, we can close gaps for kids and get those kids onto grade level proficiency. if they hit their stretch growth goal two years in a row. So the fact that we are exceeding the expected 100% for more than half of our students
047who are in the platform is wonderful. Um this is that same data for math, right? So comparable amount of time in the platform that um you know between 10 and 11 hours. Uh and again um we're looking for more students to be in this 30 plus minute because that's how we're going to get kids moving on to um success in their my path and mastering their grade level standards. And the other thing to notice that's important is not just the amount of time, but how that equates to percent of lessons passed. So even these these kids who aren't spending the full 30 minutes, we still have n does that say 93? 93% of our kids passing their lessons at 70% or more, which is great, which is what is going to equate to achievement and
048proficiency on the on the benchmark assessment. um coming in the next school year. Uh the I think that I shared previously and if I didn't I apologize. New Jersey um passed legislation this year regarding um early literacy screening for students. So that um the guidelines for that legislation will be in place for schools beginning in the 2526 school year. The Department of Education put out a framework with guidelines. Um the picture is linked there, but um part of the the recommendations in these guidelines are that districts should be conducting universal screenings of students at grades kindergarten through through third grade um in in these recommended areas of literacy. The good news is I Ready does that already and part of our I Ready platform that universal screener that we use for every student meets the
049requirement. There are some additional assessments that um the literacy framework recommends. They um I Ready also has these have has these assessments in their platform. It costs us nothing additional. It's part of our license agreement with I Ready. We will be using those additional literacy tasks and training teachers um in the first days of school and how to administer those literacy tasks for screening every kiddo kindergarten through third grade. And this is just a short list of some of the digital resources that we use across the district. I organized them by content area, but you will see that there are um a lot of repeats, right? So, we use I Ready My Path for both ELA and math. We use Nuzella across um almost all content areas. I could have put Nuzella in math also
050for data literacy. Misella has um a reading, a writing, a science, and a social studies platform. So, social studies teachers use it for um securing um primary sources and giving kids access to articles about um historical, you know, periods that they're teaching. There are loads of science articles in Newella um that have links to data literacy and some of the things that students will be tackling on the NJSLA science exam. So, here's a little list. D, you have a question. I see. Uh, Dr. Casey and I were just talking about the time in I Ready and, uh, whether it's done in school, at home, or combinations. So, I thought maybe if you could share maybe with everyone. Sure. Looks like um so at this point this year, the um guidelines were we want two kids
051passing two successful lessons per content area, two in reading and two in math each week. Um, and teachers tackled that differently, right? Some teachers assigned it for homework. Elementary school teachers often did it as part of their station rotations. So during, you know, following whole group instruction in the classroom, the teach this class would go into station rotations. Teacher does small group instruction and kids are rotating through a menu of things. My path is always one of those choices on the menu. Um, at the middle school, it is more challenging to carve out time. Um, so teachers were giving assignments. Some kids if they didn't finish them in class, they were given time to do it at homework or um during study hall time. We are we had some focus groups with middle school teachers
052for both ELA and math this year and came up with some really great suggestions. We talked through the some of the things that they were challenged by this year in terms of giving kids time and platform. Um so moving into next year that is a goal and we will be giving recommendations for you know how teachers can do do it more in impactfully to ensure that kids are getting time and their pathways each week. Thanks other assessment between different buildings. Yes. So um one of the um measures, one of the growth measures that I look at also is a quadrant report and um four quadrants. High growth, high performance, high growth, high achievement, high growth, low achievement, low growth, low achievement, low achievement, high growth. Um, all of our schools, all of our grade levels
053were in the high growth, high achievement quadrant um for the end of the year. It's a beautiful thing. Again, my hope is that this time next year, I am sharing with you that this progress on I Ready equates to performance on NJSLA because that's and and Neil has has shared this in the past. You know, our our growth has been impressive in recent years. We keep waiting for achievement to catch up and I I I think we're starting to see that happen. I just want to point out I think just highlighting the slides the comparative data comparing our district to New Jersey and the nation is extremely impressive. Um that's one measure we always look at. If you remember the for those you've been here for a pretty long period of time they used to
054be provided with that data the DFG data right right it used to be much more comparative they don't do that any longer but to see our data compared to the number of districts in New Jersey and then the nation and then the national norm which was the first column um to see just the visually just look at the green it's um a tremendous achievement of our students and our staff who have put so much time into working with our students and providing them that differentiated instruction, engaging them in I Ready and and my path as well. Um for our our students to demonstrate such significant achievement and again I ready when they were here they said repeatedly that they don't typically see data like this from school districts and now you see why when you
055see it compared to New Jersey and the nation. Do you have any districts in Mammoth County or districts do you I don't know that number off the top of my head. I do I can tell you the um several of the surrounding districts that do are high per higher than us performing districts and and I leaned on them for feedback before we made a decision to pick a tool. Um that was one of the reasons why I Ready was so appealing, right? That that higher performing districts than us are seeing success for their kids as well. Um I I just want to um add to Neil's comment and really shout out the teachers, the supervisors, the coaches, the instructional coaches, the building leadership that this was a heavy lift. This was a lot of change
056in one year to do a brand new diagnostic, a brand new uh personalized pathway with new curriculum in K and one, new curriculum in three four five. This was an awful lot of work. Um, and I'm awfully proud of all of the work that they did because it w it's reflected in our student achievement. And so I just I want to shout out all of the people who who did that work because this wouldn't have happened otherwise. I have one more question. Um, do we and this might be a silly question, but it's 99 degrees out. Do we know comparatively in that state and national for those norms? Are they doing the same testing as often as we are? Are they doing the same lessons per week? Those are the re that's those are the
057recommen that's best practice. Their research says if you do this in terms of best practice you will see impact and again as Neil said what what I read is telling us is that we are seeing marketkedly more impressive impact than other districts. Right. hospitals, other districts, the other states. Um, yeah, I guess the other states and our state, they're doing, let's say, two lessons per week. They're going by the Again, I that is the recommendation. I can't I can't say correct. The only thing we can say is that they're giving the diagnostic because that's the data, right? I say that one and two is there. You can just say that they're giving the diagnostic is all that we can guarantee, right? Spanish by chance. Yes, it is. So for our our Spanish speaking students, they
058can take they can take the assessment in English or Spanish based on where they are and their level of learning. Um but then we also have the my path for them in Spanish. So if kids are um more free more fluent Spanish speakers, they can do their my path lessons in Spanish. Spanish language class. So for our students for our typical students who are learning Spanish or for our for our multilingual students like our students they use no it's not part of their curriculum. I want to write on uh Mr. Dixine's comments that I'm very proud as a long-standing board member and president of this board. Your achievement is outstanding. I really want to congratulate you. Well, you reported it well and it's refreshing because it's our job to beat this horse and sometimes we
059get down on ourselves. I mean, that's why we're here. All of what we do is reflected in that chart really. That's the output of what this district is performing at. And so, I'm really proud of that and um you can always push and push harder, but that's the kind of news that we want to see. So, it it's refreshing. Yes. helping and supporting teachers to do this work to do. So that yes, thank you. I think we can move into public participation. I'm not sure uh is there anyone that wants to address the podium before I read the statement? No takers for public participation. Okay, then I'm going to move on to personnel policy and communications. Um, I guess we need a substitute. Carmela's not here. I got it. Want to do it, Chuck? Yep.
060Um, good evening. We did not meet as a committee tonight, but right out of the gate, I do have to defer item number two to Mr. Casey. It's a FTA negotiations. He's going to do everything but number two. First or second, Dr. Casey, just say I move it. I just I move to pass. You'd like to move item number two? I move item number two, memorandum of agreement as listed. Second. We have to do it second. Okay. Is there any um questions on that memorandum before we vote? Do you need a roll call? We do. Okay. Miss Mrs. Yes. Dr. Casey, yes. Miss Crosby, yes. Mr. Rojulo, yes. M Lambert, yes. Mr. Williams, Mrs. O. Sullivan, yes. Mr. Amarosa, yes. Motion carries. There you go. Thank you, Dr. Keys. Uh, we'll continue move number three,
061resignation as listed. Number four, new employment 2025 2026 school year as listed. Number five, new employment established salaries 2025 2026 as listed. Number six, contract renewals central administrators 2025 2026 as listed. Number seven, contract renewals. Renewals non-affiliated staff 2025 2026 as listed. Item number eight, contract renewals 2025 2026 as listed. Number nine, contract renewals one room assistance 2025 2026 as listed. Number 10, change of assignment salary adjustments as listed. Number 11, change of assignments as listed. Number 12, leave of absence as listed. Number 13, unpaid days as listed. Number 14, structured literacy coacher as listed. Number 15, district lead nurse as listed. Number 16, CPR coordinator/trainer as listed. Number 17, stipen teacher assistant as listed. Number 18, district honoria as listed. Number 19, ESY 2025 staff as listed. Number 20, ESY staff updated as listed.
062Number 21, ESY volunteer as listed. Number 22, translator/interpreter as listed. Number 23, additional compensation as listed. Number 24, affirmative affirm bullying investigation findings as listed. Number 25, school security/drill statement of assurance as listed. Number 26, student teacher practic practicarium observation placement as listed. Number 27, curriculum committee as listed. Number 28, middle school restorative practices as listed. Number 29, certified substitutes as listed. Number 30, non-certified substitutes as listed. And that is it. It was 30, right? You got all you got number 30, too? I did. Okay. All right. All right. Do we have a second? Questions. Congratulations. Sorry. That's right. We might say no. I don't know what number you are and all that, so you're okay with me. I want to also congratulate Mrs. Parker, um, Mrs. Elizabeth Parker because um yes, she may not
063remember me, but No, I said when I walked in, you do remember. I have to tell my Mrs. Parker story. So, I come home, I go up in the room, and I said, "Melanie, get off your phone. What are you doing? You doing your homework?" She's like, "Dad, I'm working collaborative with my collaboratively with my math group." And I was like, "What?" Look on the phone. They're working on a math problem together. And I'm like, "This lady is going to go to the moon. She This is This is a superstar." I was like, "Go ahead. Continue on the phone chatting with your friends. As long as you're doing a math problem." Never interrupted. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. Did we have any other questions? Nope. No. All right. All right. Roll call. Mrs. Bran? Yes.
064Dr. Casey? Yes. Mr. Crosby? Yes. Mr. Ro? Yes. Mrs. Lambert? Yes. Mr. Williams? Yes, Mrs. Sullivan. Yes, Mr. Roso. Yes. Now, congratulations. Yeah. Yeah. Beat the heat. All right. Let's see what page I flipped my page back on myself. Sure. We made it to curriculum. Are we ready? Okay. Um, Mrs. Brown. Okay. Good evening everyone. The curriculum committee did not meet. Uh, members of the committee are Miss Crosby, Mr. Sullivan, uh, my Miss Montgomery, and myself. I'd like to move the following as listed. Number two, as listed, course reimbursement. Number three, home instruction as listed. Number four, 2025 2026 school calendar update as listed. Listen, short. I just want to take a minute to go through the calendar changes we did share with our staff, but for any parents that are watching, uh, the calendar
065removed our snow days with a referendum coming. This will be the typical until that referendum is complete. Uh we want a a hard date that school will end so that we can guarantee that our work can begin for the summer with other contractors that'll be in the schools. So our emergency closing days are built into the calendar. Um if we use one before President's Day, we will be open on President's Day. The next makeup day is uh June 19th and then the third makeup day is April 6th and after that we look at spring break. Um that's how we will make up our days. Uh the memorandum of agreement that was approved tonight include language about conferences. Our model of conferences is changing. We're moving to the Manalopin model which is well received there which
066is on veterans day our staff will work who who do conferences will work uh different hours. I think it's 12:30 to about 12:30 to 7:30 and that day will be dedicated exclusively to parent teacher conferences. Um by doing that mo they we achieved removing two early dismissal days giving students more instructional time on those days. Um October uh Columbus Day is an early dismissal day now for professional development. We also took out one or two one or two prof uh staff development. We removed two. So we g this calendar reflects four less early dismissal days than originally um proposed. Diagnostics teachers will be engaged in data analysis. This board thanks you for that. We've been pushing for that. Not that we don't like professional development, but we want to increase instructional time. Yes. So thank
067you. Yeah. All right. And it wasn't a short uh presentation. We had a lot of curriculum today. See? So, it was fine. Do we have a second on Mrs. BR's motion? All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Seeing none, finance, facilities, and transportation. Mrs. Lambert. I'd like to move the following items. Um the secretary and treasurer's report for the month of May 2025. Bills and claims in the amount of 4,744,763.17 approved by Dr. Casey. Um item number three, travel and related expenses as listed. Sorry, that's item number four. Item five, transfers as listed. Item six, end of year transfers as listed. Item seven, the transfer of current surplus to reserves as listed. Item number eight, toilet room facilities as listed. Item number nine, the listed out of district contracts. Item 10, out of
068district contract update. Item 11, specialized evaluations and services during the 2025 2026 school year as listed. Item 12, nursing services for the 2526 school year is listed. Item 13, fiscal year 25 title 2A grant as listed. Item 14, the IDEA grant update as listed. Item 15, establishing the breakfast and lunch prices as listed as you see them. Item 16, the PACE stipens as listed. Item 17, acceptance and approval of the RFP for Wilson Foundation's training and correspondent materials as listed. 18. Parcel 23 AD U as listed. that is for the project, the road project that is supposedly beginning very soon. Um item 19, the parcel 23 Eastwood is listed, also related to the 537 road project. Um I'd like to move item 20, report of awarded contracts as listed. Item 21, acceptance of RFP for
069construction manager listed. And item number 22, approval of ethic management as construction manager as listed. Any questions? Thank you. Do we have a second first? Second. Thank you. Questions, Mrs. Lambert or anyone? Um, just a little bit of update. Um, I was part of the team that um was interviewing the construction management teams that had gone on I guess for the better part of a couple weeks. And um Neil and I uh served on that committee and uh we interviewed the different teams that had come in and I'd have to say they were all very professional. Really we could have gone with any of the teams that had presented. They were all very qualified. It just came down to some very fine points. Um, so I am excited that we hired Epic because I know
070that when we did our original referendum 25 years ago when the West Free Old School was built, there were issues with inadequate construction management that led to some lawsuits on windows and roofs. And so we really I really want to thank you, Bob. I really think you did an outstanding job. He not only did he pre-screen many organizations before we even saw any of them, I know that was a lot of work and I really want to thank you. He really puts his heart and soul into it. I think you would agree. Absolutely. And uh it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. So, thank you for that. I mean, we just were there to support you and I hope we helped you. But this is and Mrs. Williams how we did the
071original screening together. We spent a couple hours at the conference working on that first going to the uh launch. So, it's a lot. I mean, no, it's an important job. it it's it's we're spending about a million dollars and so it's very important that we took our time and we did the initial scoring and you know more or less what we did we did the three interviews kind of confirmed what the scoring was and it was tough again all three companies all came with great recommendations from colleagues of mine as well as other BAS I know in the state who work in very large districts who um you know they do a great job all the time and um all three of them could have done So part of it did come down to kind
072of like when you meet the people who are going to be here in the room are going to be on site with us. You know, how do they engage with us? Correct. And I think that was for the committee. That was a big part of of that little bit of a nuance there. Yeah. We're actually able to meet the actual people that will be managing our construction sites. So, and that was important. And they gave really good feedback and one of the gentlemans is right in the burrow, has an office very close by. I felt that was important. He says, "Construction emergencies. are now waiting for someone to travel potentially. So, you know, again, there were just some fine points, but um I'm excited that I feel I really feel like we're putting our construction
073in good hands. This is a lot of money and a lot of projects going on at the same time. It's a tremendous amount of coordination. It would be way too much work for Bob's office to manage the day-to-day operations of trailers and equipments and boilers and and traffic situations and and it's just a tremendous amount of planning. We need a full-time staff for that. So, um, thank you guys for participating. Kudos. No, it was our pleasure. That's okay. Do we have any other questions for finance facilities? I'll be sure our This might fall into old business too, but um are custodians over kind of keeping an eye on things as these days become more especially this week? They are. um as soon as school closed and I think I discussed this both in finance committee
074and at the board meeting I know we talked about this it's hard to remember they started going uh building by building to close the dampers in the spaces where um there's no construction going so yes we we I don't think they're 100% done um but they as a team they've been going through closing everything they can close um that's happening I've heard from a few It's already kind of like I'll be keeping an eye as the taste board you'll be keeping an eye on. We we bought small kits to measure relative humidity. The team has been told you know you've got to check the rooms on a daily basis. Um we have a formal training that's being requested by Beasley. Um they are insurance company and I'll talk more about Beasley and in new business.
075Um so there are certain things that we've protocol are in place. I think people are more cognizant than ever. Um, so it's yeah, if I think we keep the dampers closed and and we're not pulling in that warm wet air, we should be in monitor what's happening. We should be situation. The team will also um they're four buildings with the the wood ceilings. Um they will all be part of their summer clean. They will get cleaned on an annual base at least to start. Now, as we've got more time back in with the contract, um, we're going to start to work with the company to develop a, you know, a taskless annual semianual stuff. Maybe that's a semianual tech. That's in some of the that's where the mold grew up in the on the wood
076beams caught up in the dust and the debris that wasn't getting to. So, everyone's at high alert. So, yeah, not a good way to start the summer. Yeah, but we're prepared. We're prepared. And, um, all the power squads that want to said, "We're prepared." Started last week. Mother Nature started our system test a little early. I'm at Heights and a lot of daughter parents are there and they see me and they're like, "Hey, you notice the weather?" I'm like, "I'm sitting here." Yeah, of course I do. Yeah. All right. Um, can I get a roll call? Oh, I guess we don't need one. All those in favor say I. Do you have any opposed? None. Okay. All right. Excellent. Do we have any old business? Any new business? I have some. Yes. So, for new
077business, um, one, I will send it I I didn't send out to the board yet. I will send out tomorrow. Um, the county reached out to send us our official notice. Um, oop, sorry. So, county reached out for official notice for the elections. Um, for those people that are running, they are due by Monday, July 28th at 4 PM. Um, in the letter, which we will send out, and I think I'll have Alli McKe post on the website, there's a link to the New Jersey School Board's web site, which has the application. So, we have three seats up this year, and again, if you are running, they are due by 400 PM on Monday, July 28th. Um the second piece as I said before with Beasley our environmental insurance and we had a conversation about
078this earlier on um this year during the budget process. So that time I had indicated that you know Beasley was requesting us to do things um in addition to what we normally do. They're coming in they're having an environmental company come and provide additional training to our HVAC techs and to our lead custodians. Um, in the next week or so, they're going to actually come back out in August and do a a physical walkthrough with our teams and and look at some things. Um, they asked us to, you know, clean the UVs in place and we've done that. So, I also indicated they were being a little bit koi about renewal and, you know, but we were working with them. We were doing everything they asked for. Well, a couple days after our last board
079meeting in our finance meeting, um I got notice from our insurance broker, Lata Brennan, and she said that um here's only renewal. We need to work on the Beasley quote because they're covering our other seven buildings. At this point in time, they are declining to cover Donovan. So, I said, can you give me any communication in terms of what they're asking for? And I'm going to bring up the email and and I'm hoping what this is is that the team that we spoke to during the Donovan situation, they were engineers. So they are probably not a part of the renewal team. So one of the things they were asking for is they were looking for the smoking gun so to speak of what was the root cause of the mold and they wanted a report
080from the we have two insurance companies. UDICA is our main insurance company, but they provide very limited coverage for mold um and as things like that. Then we've got environmental coverage that is acts as our primary coverage for mold. Um so they wanted that report. So when I saw that I responded back to Latin, listen, we gave them that report back in either November, December when they asked for it the first time. Um in there it clearly defines what the cause was. They said that our equipment was old and needed replaced. Check. We passed our referendum. The equipment is going to be replaced in the next couple of years. Two, they said it was due to excess moisture. We just discussed one of the things they asked to do. The NJA environmental consultant commented on
081the same thing and suggested it last year as well. Close the dampers. If you're not working in office space, you've done unoccupied. Um, we've done that. So, we reset the report to them. Um, we've not heard back from them yet. So, tomorrow at some point in time, I'm going to touch base with our broker and we're going to have a follow-up conversation. So, what I was disappointed at was that while they were kind of, you know, skirting around the issue for a while, tell me this in December in in January when we start this process, right? And and I understand while we blew through our coverage, right, for the building, um, tell me earlier on, so I've got more than two weeks to if there was some other document, one of the people said, "Bring
082in another engineer." I'm like, I'm not bringing another engineer now. The it's done. Everything's been remediated. We had people come in. You asked us to do the report on on the roof. We did that. There was no moisture. They didn't find. So, I'm hoping we go back to again, we dealt with their engineer engineering department, not their renewal department, that they don't talk on a regular basis. So, we gave them that report a while ago. We resubmitted it. Um, I'm hope like we're going to have to do something. Um but so I am working on that um again tomorrow. So I just want to update the board. If I would have known this at the finance committee would have had a discussion a couple weeks ago wasn't the case. So um I just want to
083make you and again it's disappointing. They were hinting tell me about it two three months ago when we submitted the not at the 11th hour. Yeah. What would happen to another? We will start to shop around for all eight just that one. All eight. Yeah. So, let me say that. Yeah. So, I'll get more I'll get more information. You need more work. Well, so what happens is Lata will shop on our behalf, right? Plan um I think Beasley is like the biggest game in town in New Jersey. So, I'm not I'm not sure what the competition is if they're or if there's people in the marketplace, you know, based upon there's other states or even this state too. There are um insurance companies moving out of the marketplace because their area of the market's been
084hit with a lot of losses lately. So, um I going to find out tomorrow. Hopefully some more information, hopefully some good news. I will let everyone know um as soon as I hear something. So, it'll probably be in an email because we don't meet again until the end of July. Do those does that company in particular or any potential new company do they umbrella us during our construction or is there a separate policy that's a construction policy? So, we will have to get a um building risk builders risk policy and actually we have to get a small one this year because we have the HVAC work starting at Apple and Ericson this week. Um that's part of the rod grant. So, I believe the thresholds once you $3 million you they recommend you get an
085additional bill risk policy. Next year we will have built into the budget um a bill's risk policy for what we're going to anticipate you know 20 $30 million worth of work. So yeah, that'll be but so yeah, it's is that is that cost part of the referendum? You're allowed to withdraw the insurance costs from the ref. I believe I can not this year's cost because majority of that cost is from the rod grants and the HVAC that's not part of the referendum. Next year it's part of this the other cost soft costs that are in that pot of money. We should be able to put that in there for builder risk. Okay. All right. I'll default. That's a good question. I had that down to and I skipped it. No problem. Do we have any
086other questions or any other new business? All right. And I'm gonna save my president's remarks to uh thank Kathy for her service. Um I'm going to ride on Neil's comments. He stole my thunder, so I thought I would move it to the end. Yeah. Yeah. So um when I first joined the board, um I remember Chris Marian stormed in. He's like, "They're taking our principal away at Kina." And I was like, "I'm sorry, Chris. That's too bad. She's going to be my daughter's principal. He wanted to punch me in the nose. And uh he was right. You've been a superstar and not only um a friend, but also like you've provided such guidance to my family, to my daughters. I mean, I can't even imagine like you not being there at that school. It's it's
087But life goes on. and I know you have so many things planned and Ellen and I enjoyed seeing all of your friends and family and they spoke so highly and it was just tremendous. I was so happy that you invited us and uh it's been an honor to have you in the district honestly and my girls still talk about you know how much they loved Ericson. So thank you for your service and on behalf of the board I thank you for all of your years of service. We wish you a great time. And I think that's it folks. Can I get a motion to adjourn? I think you didn't say anything. Oh, I'm sorry. Before I do that, does anybody want to approach the podium? Okay. Now, seeing none, thank you for reminding me. Now,
088a motion to adjurnn. All those in favor say I.