001One second cuz I don't think I'm on too. That's right. This is what happens. I'm still on summer break time. Give me one second. All right. Okay. Pursuant to the open public meeting act, public notice of this meeting has been given by the board secretary in the following manner. Posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the Vorhees Township public schools administrative building on August 4th, 2025. Sending written notice to the courier post on August 4th, 2025, filing written notice with the clerk of Vorhees Township on August 4th, 2025. And posting on the Vorhees Township website on August 4th, 2025. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty
002and justice for all. >> Board secretary, please call the role. >> Mr. Bryce, Miss Ktover, >> here. >> Mrs. Munan, Mr. Rosen, >> here. Mr. Rosner, Mrs. Ruer >> here, >> Mrs. Stewart >> here, >> Miss Verie >> here, >> Mrs. Watson >> here. Good evening. Sorry I get like right into business. I was, you know, all frazzled at first, but I want to say hello to everybody. Thank you for being here. Um, we are going to get right into business so that we don't keep anybody during their summer um or the end of summer. We are not right. Correct. We're not going into We are not going into I have to check. We are not going into executive uh session. So, we are going to move right along. Um can I get a motion
003to approve the minutes of the June 9th, 2025 regular board meeting? >> So, moved. Very >> second. >> Online voting is open. motion unanimously passes. >> Um, I just have a couple of very brief comments. Um, I hope everybody had an excellent summer and people feel refreshed and rejuvenated and they are ready to get back to an excellent school year. Um, I my summer went way too fast. I'm assuming everybody else's did as well. Um, so I am I apologize for that. I wish I could stop time, but we are unpaid volunteers and we do not have power like that. So, um, but I I do want to say that not all of us got to take the summer off and I know Clark and his team um do tons and tons and tons of
004work in all of our buildings to make them ready and to um refresh and renew. and I want to say an immense thank you for all of the work that you do all summer. Um we are so incredibly lucky to have you at the helm of our district. So thank you so much. Um outside of that, best of luck on our on our beginning of the new year. We'll have another meeting in in September once we start get going. But I wish all the teachers and staff and administration the best of luck starting a an excellent 2025 2026 season. All right. Uh fire drills and safety drills are on the are no attach. Yeah. Uh there are no attachments. Um harassment, intimidation, and bullying is in the attached report. Suspensions are on the attached report.
005Oprah requests, we have one that's been closed. Summer projects, board secretary. All right. Uh to pick up pick up on your comment, um we have a report that is at everybody's uh site tonight. Um it's department of buildings and grounds summer of completed I'm sorry, summary of completed projects. So um Mr. Matthysse and his staff were very busy as usual in the summer and some of the things that they worked on like in this building uh they had their annual mandatory safety training at held at VMS. Uh they uh detailed all the the offices and carpets, powerwashed the building, uh installed a motorized door latch at the front entrance, relocated prek furniture to outside providers at Beginnings, uh trees pruned, shaped, and thinned. parking lots repaved and then there's annual inspections for fire alarm, sprinklers,
006boilers, flag pole, generator, kitchen suppression system, wellwater sampling, and indoor air quality testing. Um, at ET Hamilton, some of the some of the uh some of the work that's done at each school is repeated at each school, and some of them are specific to that school. The ones that are repeated each school are classrooms emptied, floors stripped and waxed, carpets extracted, uh certified playground mulch is installed, mold and moisture investigation is done. Voicemail adjustments were made by RFP, which is our vendor. HVAC preventative maintenance, trees pruned, shaved, and thinned, replaced parking lot signs, area rugs, professionally cleaned. That's more of a a preschool and the younger grades that have them. um re replace blinds in various classrooms, uh masonry work and so forth. Some of the specific things are installed hard surface flooring in several
007classrooms, installed a new outdoor bench at ET Hamilton, four new HVAC units, and in this in whatever classrooms need replacements, we go through and we install them based on the the age of the unit or the the condition of it. Um, exterior camera upgrades have been continued throughout the district and interior door security hardware has been updated throughout the district. At Crescent, uh, we installed a new playground system. So, you should be able to see that soon. I think it's almost finished, if not finished. Um, at Osage, we have there's uh some rod grant projects ongoing at Osage, Signal Hill, and VMS. At Osage and Signal Hill, there's new boilers being installed and backflow preventers. Um, we've also replaced the condenser for the walk-in freezer at Osage and the walk-in freezer was rebuilt. Again, our
008own staff does that, which is really a big savings. Um, at Signal Hill, again, the rod grant boilers replacement and the backflow pre and um it's I think it's almost finished. It's a a 20 by 20 shade structure on the playground and that was donated by the PFA at Signal Hill. At Borhees Middle School, we had with the Rod Grant money, uh we replaced 10 HVAC units in D-wing. Um if you go to the front office, you'll see that they have new furniture, new reception counter, new flooring for that area and the conference room and two staff restrooms and awing have been renovated. um wars middle school painting. There was a lot of painting going on there too in the main office in the mail room, the conference room, seventh grade office, sixth grade secretar's
009office and and other areas as well. Um so overall, those are the highlights of what was done and uh just general maintenance that we do each summer. So thank you again for all the hard work and it's always a busy summer for Clark and his department. Thank you. >> Superintendent report. Hey, good evening everyone. Sorry. I hope you all had a fantastic summer and I am delighted to extend a warm welcome to each one of you as we begin the 2526 school year. Just want to give a few highlights of some things we did this summer. Um, we had our code of conduct committee reconvene this summer. They met last summer to revise regulation 5600, our code of ethics chart, a code of conduct chart, I'm sorry. And this year they came back to work
010on some incentives that they would like to see incorporated in our schools. And I'll be sharing that information with the principles. We've been busy with preschool. Out of all of the available seats that we have in the district right now, we only have 17 remaining. And we do have a new complex near ET Hamilton that will start leasing soon. So we expect that we'll get more students. So all of our seats are almost filled. So we're excited about that. Uh we brought some teachers in um to work on the win program. They developed some instructional materials for each of our wind groups for grades two. So, we're excited about the work they did this summer. And then we also put together a preschool protocols document. Now that we have um 29 classrooms plus we have
011um preschool providers, we felt it was necessary to put together a protocols document so that our instructional coaches are aware of the expectations for all classrooms. And I think this is going to really help us to make sure every classroom is primed um to promote student success. And in addition to our work this summer, I also want to just to briefly announce and we'll you'll get more information soon. Uh we no longer have the NJSLA. Don't get too excited. It's just being changed to NJSLA adaptive. Uh this test will replace our NJSLA in the spring. So it'll be a new test in the spring. And the way this test is designed is that it's supposed to adapt to each student's current ability level. And as they progress through the questions, it should keep them at
012their ability level. Um, if they do not get the correct answer, they don't go on to the next set of questions. I'm I don't know what it exactly looks like, but that is what the state is saying is that it's going to be an adaptive test and that is going to be this spring. So this fall, and yes, I mean two months from now in October, we will have to have a field test. um we are going to get some sample questions, not the whole test, but some sample questions and our kids have to um go through the field test. It'll be from October 27th through November 14th. That's the window, but we don't know what our exact dates are. So, we I am excited personally about an adaptive test because I think it's important
013that students are tested at their ability level to see what they can do and how much we can push them uh rather than set a standards for all. Um, so I'm excited about the possibility of that this test will really help our students um, excel and reach their their ability levels. So, as we embark on the 2526 school year, we are proud of the tremendous work completed this summer by all members of our district family, our maintenance teams, business office, food services, administrators, and we have all of our administrators here looking great this evening, our teachers, and our support staff. Their dedication and preparation have set the stage for another successful year. We are deeply grateful to our parents and community partners for their ongoing support and just the entire incredible Vorhees family. Together we
014will build on a strong foundation continuing to inspire greatness, nurture potential, and empower every child to shine in 2526. And at this time, I have three brief presentations from our wonderful administrators. First, we're going to call Miss Sue Donley up and she's just going to give a very brief overview of the 2425 annual report. She'll be followed by Dr. Aligria and Miss Ross who will provide the 2425 annual special education plan. And then finally, Mr. Moscowitz, our assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction will provide the access for L's annual test report. So, in that order, thank you. Good evening everyone. Um my my explanation is extremely brief but the annual report is not it is extremely lengthy. It's something that we create every summer and it's basically a reflection of the previous school year. So
015the annual report is a reflection of the 24 25 year. um all the administrators and supervisors put something together from their department andor their school and we kind of create like a compilation of a year and review. So that will be available on the district website as of tomorrow. Um you can find it under our district under reports and it will be there for everyone to view. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Dr. Alria and M. Ross and we are going to kind of tag team this presentation about special services. Uh we have a lot of good stuff in this presentation and a lot of areas that we're working on expanding as a department and as a district and then also some areas that uh we're looking at uh making some updates for this upcoming year.
016All right. Right. So, the writing is a little bit small, but we want to just talk a little bit about our year and review. So, some things that we've been working on are did a special education handbook. It's posted on the website and um it just highlights our programs that are available. It um delineates all of our team members for how to contact them. It gives a chain of command. Um just gives an overview of our department. We also have an instru instructional associate handbook which was developed and it's given to each instructional associate on the day they start. We review it. They create sub plans. It creates a list of resources within it are just examples of how to support different kinds of support that can be provided and um just provides a guideline
017for them as well as the staff in the classroom. >> One big area that we had uh that we knew we wanted to work on this year was improving our parent community engagement. And so we've been working really closely with the CPAD group which is our special education parent advisory group. So as a department we've done a few presentations and workshops for them. We meet with them on a monthly basis. We join the monthly parent meetings that they have. Um we've really been trying to get parents to come out. So we've offered child care as well. Really just to make sure that we're removing access barriers for our families to come out, have discussions with them. That group really does provide us a lot of insight on uh special education from the parents perspective. So
018we are happy about that in improved partnership. So some of the things that we've worked on are roles and responsibilities of the child study team transitioning from prek to K and fifth to six. These are topics that our parents have asked us for some additional information on and then also talking to them about the CST evaluation and eligibility process. Um Miss Ross has been working with our teachers, our ICS, our inclusion teachers, um doing monthly bimonthly PLC's and also some administrative check-ins. Our lead teacher has been working on spire training for our resource room teachers and providing some intensive focus group support to ensure that we are using that intervention program in our uh resource rooms. Our PSD and our autism teachers have had improved training on the star star curriculum which is what they're
019using in their self-contained class. We've been working on deescalation and behavior management training and then also really working to support our instructional associates through the RBT certification process. As a district, we really are trying to build capacity from within. So we are trying to get as many of our IAS to have that RBT certification as possible. And then excuse me, Miss Ross has been working with the Vorhees Rotary Breakfast Club. Uh this is our second year to have an art exhibit and you will see some pictures on what that looked like this year and then of course continuing with our win grant which is the mental health uh behavioral health grant that we have through Twin Oaks and the count Camden County. So a part of our annual report which is included in um which
020will be included in uh Miss Donny's report is just going over information that we've received. This is the public report card. Um there are some areas on here that we will be discussing in terms of next steps. This is I want to just preface it. It is from the 232 24 school year. So it is a year behind. So some areas that we met the target on were fourth grade uh ELA proficiency and fourth grade math. Some areas that we are still working to meet that target are eighth grade ELA proficiency and eighth grade math. When we look at this, we are seeing that, you know, we we are making progress, but we are not where we need to be. And so, as we talk about some next steps, you'll see some next steps that
021we're doing as a department to support that eighth grade. >> Talk about the proficiency gap. >> Yes. So, our so you can notice in our fourth grade ELA proficiency, we did meet the target. However, in our proficiency gap, we did not. So this is where we look at where are most kids proficient, where are they getting, and then we want to make sure our gap, our students are as close to that proficiency rate as possible. So we did not meet the target for ELA proficiency in eighth grade or fourth grade. And we did not meet the gap for eighth grade math as well. We did meet the proficiency gap for the fourth grade math. And we'll talk on the next few slides about some things we're doing to target those concerns. and some things we've
022been understanding that we needed to make sure we targeted. So these have things have been implemented for this year. Um so we will talk about that but we will be looking to continue to make some improvements. Some areas where the district does really well is our least restrictive environment. As you see here we've made the the target met the target here for our LRE which means that our students are included um as much as possible according to the state. uh their target is 45, we are at 55 and then also for our students who are in general education less than 40%, the state's target is 14 and we are at 11.81. So we are meeting the target there. And then also the parent involvement is something that we always want to continue to make sure
023we're soliciting that feedback and that input. So we are um meeting the target there. One thing we've also included this year with our parent involvement is sending home a parent survey prior to every single IEP meeting. So those parents are also providing some some written input that we're able to use in the IEP process as well. Our DM scores, that assessment is an alternate assessment that's given in our self-contained programs. We did meet the target in fourth grade math and eighth grade ELA. We did not meet the target for eighth grade math or fourth grade ELA. However, it is important to note that since the 22 23 school year, our fourth grade ELA, although we did not meet the target, we did show an increase of 10% in proficiency and also in the fourth grade
024math, it improved by 38.89%. So we did proactively over the years we've been doing um increasing staff training and we've been are purchasing programs like accessible literacy learning and moving forward we also are looking into a unique learning system as well for our middle school programs. So some things that we've talked about in terms of some areas of growth and our next steps. We have been um working really to expand our executive functioning class at VMS for our special education students. So we want to make sure that a lot of times what we're hearing is our students who are coming up to VMS, they need a lot of supports with executive functioning. So for special education this year all of our sixth grade students have h have been into the executive functioning class. So they
025are getting support with how to use a calendar, how to prepare for a test, how to study, how to time manage. So these are some really big gap skills that we've noticed that we have as a district that we do think is going to help those students in their academics as well. So continuing to expand on that executive functioning class. We're also expanding on adaptive specials for our students who are at the middle school in terms of the self-contained classes and making sure that all their specials are accessible to them such as health, music, gym, that type of thing. And then in terms of the math area that we uh know that is a weakness, we are looking at exploring some additional math supports for our VMS resource and ICS groups. Miss Ross has been
026meeting with those teachers to talk about and and really discuss some additional resources that we want to look at as a department to support our students to really provide them access um to the curriculum so that we are able to see some traction on their um proficiency. looking at our behavioral supports, our instructional associate assignments, being very intentional in in that those assignments. Again, we did did talk about the adult support uh onboarding and what those protocols will be looking like and what they have looked like in terms of making sure our staff is uh ready when they do start with our students. We're not just assigning them and leaving them on their own, but really making sure that they are trained and ready. Continued alignment of the curriculum with our special education programs. As
027a district, we know that we're using Wonders for our elementary and really just making sure that the Wonder Works at intervention program that couples with it is being used with Fidelity as well so that our students have access to that part of the curriculum. Uh looking at peer buddy opportunities, making sure that we are increasing them as much exposure to the general education students curriculum and classes is really what we're trying to do. We're looking at our increased continuity of phonics in interventions. every school we are trying to find opportunities that we can build into teacher schedules to provide some level of RTI or phonics instruction to really support some of our struggling students. Um so we are seeing some success with that. We do have before and after school tutoring as well for special
028education students where we are again using that uh intense intervention for our students. continuing to foster opportunities for parent engagement, really working to make sure our compliance is up to par, professional development of course for our CST, our teachers, um, and just making sure that they have the information necessary, and then also district-wide uh, education acceptance initiatives for inclusive practices. This was a topic we discussed at our leadership retreat and it is something that we are pushing as a district to make sure that again we're having those opportunities where students are with their general education uh peers as much as possible. And then I'll let Miss Ross talk a little bit about the implementation full implementation of the win period for second grade. I know Dr. Hackett mentioned some work that was done over the
029summer. So Miss Ross will talk a little more about it. >> So Miss Morgan from Osage and I have been working with the second grade teachers develop a what I need period. it's an intervention or an enrichment period depending on what the child needs. And this summer we did work with a group of five teachers who kind of created um a file of resources broken down by fluency, phonics, comprehension, writing, and the last one's I can't think of the last one. I literally just looked it up. But it has um we created an alignment with each intervention. what interventions can be used aligned with um our ELA curriculum. So if for example if in unit one you're working on like the EA diagramraph sound, these are some interventions that you can use for that. Or
030if the the topic is you know finding the main idea, here are some interventions, resources, progress monitoring assessments that you can use. Teachers did a great job. It's easy to um access and I'm excited to start it this year. And one important data point just to mention about that second grade win period is we are seeing and we have seen throughout this year a reduction in CST referrals for second grade which was one of our hopes when we talked about the pilot of this program. So we are really excited about that in addition to the academic growth of course that the students are receiving but we're also seeing less referrals coming to us for second grade. So some additional department additions we have been hiring additional staff as a district. Um, we have hired an
031additional BCBA or there is one I believe on the agenda for tonight that we're looking at. Uh, we did we have a new speech language pathologist who started. We've been hiring teachers, instructional associates, really just making sure that we are fully staffed as a department. Uh, we have created an additional autism class. It's at Signal Hill. Uh, we have a very large growing population of students. Um, I think over this summer we may have hit a record in transfer in students. So we are constantly growing as a department and special services especially. So that did cause the necess that did necessitate us to need to add another um autism class um as our vendor for the while the district has used great great minds now we have transitioned over to amazing transformation. So they are
032the current v vendor right now for our RBTs. Uh we have reduced the number of RBTs with the understanding that we are trying to build the capacity as a district with our instructional associates here. So we continue to encourage all of our instructional associates to get their RBT certification. We are supporting them in that process. But every interview that we do, we are certainly putting that out there for them and encouraging that. Uh targeted instructional associate training. So we have our first training on Thursday with our instructional associates. So we are looking at um just making sure that we have those targeted trainings for them. Quarterly meetings for adult support progress. that is uh quarterly meetings that the child study team members will be having with parents and teachers and us as administrators to just
033go over the support uh required for students who have adult support and see where we're able to fade or what changes we need to make to that um support and then parent clinics for the autism programs. You want to talk about that a little bit? >> Yeah. So, we're going to do um kind of like parent conferences every quarter, but it's where it's an opportunity for parents to come in and maybe observe some discrete trials or some targeting of skills and then meet with the teacher afterwards to explain explain the procedures and things that were done and strategies that were done, things that they could really take home to practice. We're going to tie that in with our adult support quarterly meetings as well. our our um IAS are going to be using an online
034um data system which is going to give us real- time data make it easy to graph. So every quarter when we're doing these clinics we can actually really track their progress and say okay he's acquired this skill now we need to update the goals and um retrain staff if needed. So also excited about that. All right. So just some other information on special services. We have approximately 456 students who are receiving special education. We have about 16 pending referrals. 160 students who receive speech only. So that is the makeup of special services at this point. Um just a quick information on child study team responsibilities. We do provide this information to new teachers and I believe it's also in our handbook. Just some things that our child study team is available to support with and
035what they work on. So, of course, testing, collaboration, supporting teachers, writing reports, classroom observations, um really just making sure that they are there as a support. They know their students on their case load and they're making decisions and participating in that decision-making process with all the information on their students. And then in the PowerPoint is just a slide with who all of the case managers are. Um, a couple years ago we did reconfigure case management to ensure that there is continuity and consistency in every building. So there is at least one case manager who was assigned to every school. Sometimes we'd have a teacher who has three different case managers because you know we have three different case managers assigned to a school. So we did eliminate that so it is um consistent and we
036have that level of continuity for our teachers to have one single point of contact. And this is just some information on what we provide in our in-class support, which is our co-eing model, our resource room, kind of what they look like, what some of those supports look like, what the interventions look like in both of those programs. Um, you know, we did do a lot of work with our ICS to make sure both teachers feel valued and as equal members in the classroom, so they're both on, you know, the Genesis report card instead. In the past, it was maybe just the GenEd teacher and the special ed teacher felt left out. So, we wanted really wanted to make sure and we did a lot of work to make sure both teachers are listed on the
037roster. They do their lesson plans collaboratively. They're shared together in Atlas. We have, of course, small groupoup instruction, accommodations, and modifications. In the resource room, um that is where we're seeing even more differentiated instruction. We're seeing some changes with the curriculum supports in terms of Wonderworks, Inspire, and really just some more targeted intervention programs for students. And then we have our LLD and our autism. >> Yes. So our LLD program, we do use the Wonderworks. We do try to make sure like we're maintaining alignment with our general education curriculum, but the interventions are more intense. We use Spire, Edmark, visualizing and verbalizing. We have touch math. Um we do some handwriting without tears. We do have a lead teacher for that program as well. And they talk about a lot of language infused strategies that
038can be incorporated into their everyday lesson. on a monthly basis. Our autism and self-contained classes. As I mentioned before, we started accessible literacy learner learning. We have Edmark. We have Boom Cards, TouchMath. We do use reading milestones to pick up on some of that comprehension piece. We've been using happy numbers. And we're incorporating this year unique learning systems. We have um yeah, that's right. We have BCBA help. We have a pyramid consultation and we have monthly collaborative meetings as well. So just so we end with some pictures um to bring home bring it all home in terms of what does our special services look like. So this would have been our third annual buddy day that we had this year but unfortunately it got rained out but we did get some really good pictures of
039students who were in our buddy classes wearing their buddy day shirt. So we wanted to make sure that we uh put that out there. We certainly appreciate all of our buddy classes. It is a wonderful opportunity for our general education students working with our students in our self-contained classes and vice versa. I've seen it myself where you go in the classroom and we might have a student who's not really wanting to listen to the teacher. As soon as their buddy comes in, they are all ears and listening. So, it really is um wonderful to see them interacting together and um we are appreciative all of all of our buddy classes that we have. And then this was just a picture from last year's buddy buddy day of all the staff. We get a lot of
040people, a lot of staff members who come. They volunteer their time to just be a part of the program. So we are certainly appreciative of all of our staff that supports us. And then this is the Vorhees breakfast club exhibit that was held in April and Miss Ross can talk about that a little bit. >> Yeah. So each child works on an art project and we just put it on display at the this art exhibit. This year it was located at um it was held at Kingsway Learning Center. So they did some pottery displays, they did artwork, they did watercolors and um parents came out and the Rotary Club was there to support as well. >> It was a really wellattended event. The parents were so excited to see their children there with their art
041displayed. There's not a lot of opportunities where our children are really feeling super proud and and happy about their work and on display and being honored. And so this was certainly one of those opportunities and the parents were taking pictures. They were just so excited. So we are um you know really happy about that. And then some pictures from ESY. So extended school year we do break it down into themes. We incorporate a lot lot of science um because this chance just to do um critical thinking enrich vocabulary but they did solar s'mores. Um yeah so it's where learning meets fun. So, we try to make it as exciting and um fun for the kids and engaging as we can. >> And just some more pictures. There was dinosaur week. So, our children enjoying dinosaur
042week. >> That's it. >> Thank you. Any questions? >> Thank you everyone. >> I have a I have a couple of questions if you're open. Sure. >> Um so, you mentioned that you are gathering feedback from parents um from IEP meetings. Can you speak high level to the qualitative improvements you've seen in the parent experience from IEP meetings over year-over-year in the past few years? >> Sure. So, one thing that we um when we started the parent feedback form, it does include like any feedback that you have, what do you want in terms of goals for your child? How have you seen your student improve? And so, looking anecdotally at those notes, we are seeing that families feel like they're their students are feeling supported, they're making progress in their program. It also provides them
043an opportunity to suggest any changes or recommendations that they might have. In our conversations with the CPAC uh leadership group, we are talking to them as well. We've sent them surveys. They send surveys out to their families. Um and they've provided a lot of positive feedback to us just trying to make sure we're getting as many, you know, involved in our meetings. And so we've gone through, you know, having virtual meetings, having inerson meetings, having child care, like just trying to find ways that we can make sure that we're meeting and reaching all of our families. Um also our CPAD group has done like meetups. So they have done like meet up at the park and and meet up at Sky Zone and trying to solicit families. So we send information out. Um so one
044thing that we are seeing is that families are feeling supported. I think that is also represented in that 90% that we see there. Of course we want to continue to increase the number of 90% but we are seeing that families do feel supported and heard. >> Thank you. One more. Sure. So you mentioned also that you're seeing an increase in students who have autism that have you know has justified the the num the second classroom at Signal Hill. So given that trend in education, what do you anticipate the needs of the district might be to meet the needs of these students? What what unmet needs that are coming down the pike? >> Sure. Good question. So I one thing is that the additional class so we're seeing a big range, right? So we're seeing some
045students who have more needs than others. We're seeing some students who are more higher functioning. And so we're really trying to push as many of our children as we can into as much inclusive opportunity as possible. So sometimes that might just mean library class where we have students from our self-contained really pushing in. Sometimes that's for an academic subject if there are if they're higher functioning in an academic area providing them with aid support so they are able to access it. So, as we move forward as a district, I think just looking at this last side where it says inclusion and trying to just be as open as we can, knowing that everyone is different and that our children might have different needs, but they do belong in our program, our schools, and just making
046sure that we are working with open arms to really accept our students because I think that's what we're going to have to do. There is no self-contained program outside of high school. So, we need to make sure our children are as exposed as possible. general education children exposed to our children and our children exposed to the general education classroom as well. >> Thank you very much. >> It will take some staff training. So we will definitely >> look to add that. >> Great. Thank you very much. >> Any other questions? No. >> All right. Thank you, >> Mr. Moscowitz. And Mr. Moscow will present the NJSL SLA data at at our September meeting. I have to switch classes. This is what happens so I can see what I'm going to talk about. Good evening everyone.
047So this is our access for L's testing data that we received over the summer. So the access for L's is a suite of assessments that measure students proficiency in English language and students are assessed in four domains. speaking, listening, reading, and writing. And these suite of assessments include kindergarten access for LS and grades 1 to 8 and then the alternative access for L's for students who have some intellectual disabilities. A note about multilingual learners. It's been only two years since we've changed the acronym for it. We were talking about them as ELLs or ESLs. MLS is the term we use in the last few years. They want to talk about them as a multilingual learner that they're learning more than one language. The proficiency levels access measures students academic English language skills and they're aligned
048with the WEDA standards. So in level one, these are the six levels that they are assessed on. They're entering. That means they're just beginning to acquire English and have limited a very limited ability to communicate and understand English. Level two, students can understand and use simple English phrases and sentences in familiar context, but may struggle more with complex language tasks. Level three is developing. Students have a growing command of English, and they can communicate with an increased effectiveness, but still make errors and need some support with the more complex language used for understanding. Level four. Let me think of it jump twice. Oh, it's good. Sorry about that. Level four, expanding. Students are becoming more proficient in English. They can handle the academic tasks with less support. Level five is bridging. Students are approaching full
049proficiency. They can engage in academic tasks with minimal support and understanding and use the English language in various context effectively. And level six is they're reaching their goal. They've achieved a high level of English proficiency. They can handle academic tasks independently and use English effectively and accurately in most contexts. So, proficiency level uh considerations. The proficiency score is a whole number followed by a decimal. I know some of us when we were in school and we took different tests, it was a grade level and month. That's not how the the tests are measured. It's the students proficiency level is the whole number and then the number after the decimal is how far they progress within that level. So a score a student with a score of 3.7 at proficiency level three is over halfway towards
050achieving that proficiency at level four. The students individual student report describes what the students can typically do using English at the proficiency level achieved for each domain. But then we should also understand proficiency level scores should not be compared across grades. A second grader with a four in listening and an eighth grader with a four in listening are exposed to very different grade level appropriate content as they test. So while their scores reports reflect the same proficiency, the eighth grader is demonstrating more skill by responding to more challenging content. These are our timelines from last year. It tells the the public when we begin the process. It begins in no in November. the test window from last year and then when we begin uh getting orders for materials. So looking at this, this is the
051Vorhees Township three-year summary of the number of MLS by proficiency level. So a couple things, we've seen an overall increase in students who are ML multilingual learners in the past three years. You can see that at the bottom that the number total number of students there was a 6% increase from 22 to 23. There was a little under 7 and a half% increase from 23 to 24. But from 2022 till this last school year coming now, there's been a 13% increase in the last three years of multilingual learners. So we see an increase overall with our students. Second thing to observe, 45 students scored at level four to level six this past year. This was up from 37 students in the previous year and from 33 students the year before that. So, we're seeing an
052increase level from four to six. The district did see some students who scored level one and level two a little bit higher this year. We're going to look at this year's results to see how these students progress in the 2526 school year. We have a lead teacher and a director who's going to work with the new data dur that begins with the ins service. As a reminder, a student must score a 4.5 to be considered to exit ESL services. When you look at this chart, you're seeing the access for L's with the proficiency levels with our subgroups. Across the top you'll see Hispanic, Asian, the white subgroup, IEP, lowincome, and chronically absent. And on the left, you're going to see their proficiency levels. A majority of the students in these subgroups are scoring in level
053three, developing, and four expanding. The breakdown was 31 students scoring level one, 48 students scoring level two, 59 students scoring level three, and 49 students scored level four, 13 students in level five, and finally there were three in level six. Some summaries of the results. The groups of students taking access each year may fluctuate. So, we have to understand that they're entering and exiting the program and as well as they move into and out of the district. But over the past three years, the percentage of students scoring at level 4 expanding has held steady of an average of 29%. 28% in 22 23, 32% in 23 24 and last year 28%. The first indicator for a student to exit is a 4.5 or higher. Of the 34 students at level four this past year, 22
054students scored between a four and a 4.4 and 12 students scored between a 4.5 and a 4.9. We're seeing students move and getting close to the exit criteria. The subgroup data, a majority of the students in each subgroup, except lowincome and chronically absent scored at level three or level four. The subgroup with the highest percentage of students at level one or level two was the chronically absent subgroup at 47% and the lowinccome subgroup at 48%. So what we need to do with our interventions is to continue and conduct ongoing data analysis with the ESL team. They're going to begin that process this week with the lead teacher. Continue to collaborate between classroom teachers and ESL teachers to support students language needs. Initiate collaboration between the ESL team and building principles to address chronically absentees students
055who are multilingual learners. And provide teaching staff and administrators with annual professional development to understand access and how to better meet the needs of these children. This year we're going to be providing sheltered instruction training for ESL staff in great in 2025 2026. This delivers languagerich grade level content and instruction in English that is compre uh comprehensible to learners allowing MLS to progress academically while developing proficiency. 31 teachers are receiving this training this year beginning during our inservice days. We'll utilize district programming to meet the needs. We have our win program as Dr. Aligria and Miss Ross spoke about. We've seen great progress with that. We'll continue with the RTI process to help these children. We have basic skills to those who need additional support. We have the morning program at all the elementary schools
056and at middle school. And we have differentiated small groupoup instruction in class to target needs. And of course, we have one ESL teacher at each of our school buildings to provide services. So overall we can see progress. We also have to remember that there are some increases in level one and level two and the ESL teachers will begin crunching that data this week. >> Any questions? >> I have a couple. >> Um on slide nine you had the subgroups listed. Uh what happens if a student falls in multiple subgroups? How is that data taken into account? So, it's possible for somebody to be both chronic chronically absentee, low income, and >> it's possible for them to be in multiple subgroups. >> So, how do we account for so that we're not double counting in these
057numbers? >> Well, we I can go back and look at the data. This was in line what we did last year when we looked at this data. So, I modeled it from what we did last year. Um, we would have to go back and look at each child and see where they fell. It have to be individually by student to do that. We'd have to we'd have to parse them out and then we'd have to look because what happens is you could be in multiple places in the same data. >> Well, I think it Yeah, I it would be great if we could break the data down that way just so we don't think that the numbers are artificially inflated. >> Um to that same point, are we doing any intervention specifically geared towards our
058lowincome and chronically absentee populations? I think uh I think we continue to utilize our services that we're having. The morning program has been a success which we have extended since we've had the co years. We didn't always have that program and we've also increased ESL every building having a teacher in every school and that in the last couple years has been an increase in our services to service the children. So I think we're making progress. This year we have a lead teacher to actually help gear those services as well. That's it for me. I >> just have a quick question. Just you mentioned the morning program. Do we have any data on the percentage of students who are identified for the morning program that actually accept and attend the program versus those who may decline
059for any reason? >> We keep attendance data for the children in the morning program. >> But I I'm talking about whether if they're identified to it for it, whether they're signing up for it. period and then you know then then I think attendance comes after that but whether or not they're >> we usually >> it like does you know is it is it 90% of the people you know of the students identified actually attending or are we seeing you know a significant amount of people not attending for various reasons >> we have tracked the children after they've been accepted I'm not aware of data of those who do not accept were a decline so if we need to if we need to track that data if that's a question we'll have to do that this
060are coming up, but we track the children once they're in the program if they attend. >> I I think it could be an interesting data point to look at. >> I I agree with that. I have one additional question, too. Um, so just looking at this this slide, do we have any information about the time it takes for people to to kind of move through the levels in these subgroups? Do we have any information about how long it takes >> to move through to the level of reaching? >> I think it depends. I think what happens is we do have children who score 4.5 and depending on their ability in the classroom, they stay in the program depending on but we do encourage them to exit. So we we have data than when they leave.
061Um but we we do have sometimes students who have a 4.5 who stay in the program, but a majority of the time we track who comes in and out. And just to add to that, the state tracks us. Uh they like to see a student once they're entered into the program, they like to see them exit within four years, >> right? That's good to know. Thank you. >> Anything else? >> Thank you. >> Moving to audience participation. Anyone wishing to address the board, please approach the side table on the right and write your name and address on the login sheet. While the board has limited its ability to respond to the public on matters involving personnel litigation negotiations and attorney client privilege, the board will now hear comments from the public relating to items on
062the agenda for this board meeting. Comments are limited to three minutes. The board will not take action this evening. You will be notified at some later time by letter, electronic mail, telephone, or in the context of a later board meeting of any action the board does take. Seeing no comments, moving to the business portion. As we move to the business portion of our meeting, we want to recognize that it may appear as if the board takes action with very little comment and in many cases a unanimous vote. Before an item is placed on a board agenda, it is thoroughly reviewed by the superintendent and administration. The superintendent then presents the recommended action to the appropriate board committee and works with the committee to ensure that the members fully understand the recommendation. Once the committee is
063satisfied, the item is placed on a board agenda for discussion and action at a public meeting. Board agendas are made available to the board members several days in advance of the meeting, giving us ample time to review the agenda and have all of our questions answered. Further, we are kept up to date between meetings on the ongoing work of the administration and the important issues in the district. All of these efforts ensure that we are well informed and prepared to take action at our meetings. Moving to policy committee reports and action items. Um, can I get an update from uh, Miss Branch Stewart? >> The policy committee, please. >> The policy committee met on August 19th for about an hour and a half. Dr. Hacket, Mr. Mosquitz, and board members Julie Kettover, Julian Verdie, and
064I were present. For first read, the committee reviewed and recommends for full board approval. Policy 0173, duties of public school accountant, policy 0174, legal services. Policy 0177, professional services. Policy and regulation 1570, internal controls. Policy 1620, administrative employment contracts. Policy and regulation 611, Special Education Medicaid Initiative Program. policy and regulation 6220, budget preparation, and policy and regulation 5516, electronic communications and recording devices. And I note that most of the committee's time is spent on that spent having robust conversation on that last policy and regulation. Um, and the committee is still refining language and treatment surrounding ancillary devices such as smartwatches. We discussed no policies or regulations for second read and our next meeting is currently scheduled for September 9th. Thank you. Thank you. >> Can I get a motion to approve all of the items
065under policy? >> So move Stuart. >> Second. Rudder. Online voting is open. Motion unanimously passes. >> Mrs. Rudder, can I get an update from the academic excellence committee, please? >> Yes. So the academic excellence committee met in person uh today from 6 to 7 which is why the board does not have minutes from it. So I apologize about that. We discussed club attendance. We also discussed um grading in Genesis at the elementary school level and there is going to be a report card committee that's going to be formed to handle that. We went over the district professional development plan for 2025 2026. We talked about the New Jersey Department of Education changing NJSLA to NJSLA adaptive. And we spent the majority of our time thoroughly reviewing the staff survey from 2024 and 2025. We still
066have um parent and student surveys that we will go over at our next meeting which is scheduled for Monday, September 8th. >> Thank you. >> Can I get a motion to approve all of the items under curriculum? >> So moved. >> Second. Rudder. Online voting is open. The motion unanimously passes. >> I believe Miss Rudder, you're also doing the person. >> I'm up again. >> Thank you. >> Yep. The personnel committee. Um, we met on Thursday, August 21st virtually. It was Mr. Rosner, Miss Watson, myself, Dr. Hackett, and Mr. Moscowitz. Um, we discussed the 2026 2027 district calendar. And there was just one suggestion to change the dates of the teacher in service. We also discussed the district goals for 2526, which have um been provided to everyone on the board to review. We went
067over the results of the survey to the staff to possibly have a July professional development day in 2026 that would be used in lie of a another day during the school year and we recommend moving forward with that. Um, we had a conversation about the amount of resignations that are on the agenda and really it comes down to the fact that it was mostly instructional aids that resigned due to going back to school or finding jobs that um pay more money and we will continue to interview for those positions. At this time there's only four vacancies and that's that was everything that we talked about. Right. >> Thank you. Can I get a motion to approve all items under personnel as recommended by the superintendent? >> So moved. >> Second. Roter. Online voting is open.
068Motion unanimously passes. >> Mr. Rosen, can I have a finance committee report, please? >> Sure. Uh the finance committee met on Wednesday, August 20th. Julie Ktover, Dr. Hackett, Helen Haley, and Daniel Kerry, and myself were in attendance. Um it was virtual. Um all the items on tonight's agenda under finance, transportation, building grounds for vote were reviewed and the committee is recommending approval of all the items. Um there was an update to the thresholds for bid and quotes effective July 1, 2025 regarding the solar initiative. We are awaiting evaluation from the consultant. The district did supply information to consultant. We're waiting for um his evaluation. Um with respect to Vorhees Township, the Mario Maroto I can't pronounce that complex agreement is being finalized and the district is continuing engagement regarding future residential construction. construction updates, the
069sewer project and the uh Voyes early child development center. Um they're going through the punch list items and finishing touches. Uh the department of health needs to inspect the kitchen for it to become operational in the new uh uh early childhood development center. There are a few change orders um under review and the ROD grant related projects are continuing. Regarding transportation, savings were realized due to consolidating kindergarten transportation and bidding out high costing routes, which helped offset other increases in transportation services. The district will review potential other policy changes. We reviewed the multi-year cash flow trends and we also discussed joining the Cherry Hill purchasing co-op, the Xerox leases and the review of the usage of those machines, the renewal of lease of the lease for the buses owned by the district and the Acme
070gift card program. The next finance committee meeting will be on September 10th, 2025. >> Thank you. I get a motion to approve all of the items under finance. >> So moved. Second Birdie online voting is open. >> Motion unanimously passes. I >> get a motion to approve all the items under transportation. >> So moved. >> Second. Online voting is open. Online voting is open. >> Motion unanimously passes. Can I get a motion to approve all of the items under buildings and grounds? >> So moved. Second rudder. Online voting is open. Motion unanimously passes. On to public comment. Anyone wishing to address the board, please approach the side table on the right and write your name and address on the login sheet. While the board is limited in its ability to respond to the public on
071matters involving personnel, litigation, negotiations, and attorney client privilege, the board will now hear comments from the public. Comments are limited to three minutes. The board will have taken action this evening. You will be notified at some later time by letter, electronic mail, telephone, or in the context of a later board meeting of any action the board does take. Hi. >> Hello. >> Um, I'm Marcy. I have a three-year-old and a four-year-old that are attending. I can learn as if I'm not loud enough. Um, sorry. So, I have a three-year-old and a four-year-old attending the CDC this year. Um, I am here, I guess, with some questions. Um, we had a wonderful orientation today with Principal Lewis and their team. Um, we were disappointed that the contracted third party, Just Kids, which is doing before and
072afterare for this program, was not in attendance. Um, we're grateful for the preschool program. Um, and the before and afterare program is really what's allowing my husband and I to send our children there and leave the program we're at now. Um, with that being said, there's a lot of questions myself and a lot of parents have about this program. Um and unfortunately uh we don't have answers and orientation today we did ask a lot of questions and I have concerns that those in the building of the VECDC don't even know the answers to those questions either. So this is a program I'm expected to drop my three-year-old and four-year-old off at 7 a.m. next week. Nobody can tell me who's actually going to be in the building. No one can tell me if anybody from
073the Vorhees school is actually going to be in the building. No one can tell me how many students per person in that program. Nobody can tell me how my child can certainly go from that program and be safely transported to their classroom. Um, the all-purpose room is still under construction. So, what are they going to be doing with my children from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.? Are they expected to be on the playground for that long? Where in the building will they be having their activities? um a lot of those questions that us as parents are concerned about and I was graciously volunteered by several of those parents to come here and ask those questions. Um we understand it's a new program. There's a lot of learning going on and we're rolling with the punches
074for sure. But again, expected to drop my children off next week 7 a.m. and I don't even know what door I'm using. I don't know anything. So my I guess my main question is who from the Vory school district is the contact person for just kids and when can we expect some communication is really all I got. >> Hello. Good evening. How are you? And thank you for coming. Um Miss Lewis and I met with the owner of Just Kids um just um late last week and we worked out the arrival and dismissal. They are independent program. They are not affiliated with our district, but we want to work together because they're our children. And so, we did work on the rival dismissal plan. They assured me that they would be sending something to the
075parents um to talk about arrival dismissal, let you know about the studenttoteer uh studenttoteer ratio. So, I'm assuming that email did not go out. >> Did not. >> Okay. I am I'm sorry about that. I will reach out to um them first thing in the morning. And I'm going to also encourage them not only to send the email out, but to to schedule a some type of virtual or inerson meeting before next week since you're not getting that information till very late. So, I will take care of that. If you've left your name and if you could just leave your phone number as well, um I will give you a call tomorrow once I reach out to them. And I'm sorry that you don't have the answers that you need because you should. >> I
076appreciate that. and I they answered some emails about pricing and times and things, but the emails about drop off and those more process were not answered. So, um I appreciate that that conversation was had. Uh I know several of us parents are eager to have that and having something virtual would be a great platform and I know everyone would appreciate it. So, thank you. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you for coming. But we also welcome you to send us emails. Send Dr. Hackett an email. That's also a totally appropriate way of having your concerns addressed as well. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Uh good evening. Welcome back for the summer. I actually had planned not on asking or saying anything except for when I heard the July inservice day. I even watched a couple administrators faces.
077Um, >> it's optional and we're giving an option. Yeah, there we go. Yeah. Yeah. >> I was >> We want to give you options. >> I was going to email the administrator. I saw your faces. >> Fantastic. I was just going to say take in account the teachers who do the summer um programs and stuff like that. So, thank you so much. >> Yeah. >> I Yeah, I I gotcha. Okay. Moving to board comments. Um I'm just going to go down the the deis. Um Miss Verie, I'm not sure yet. Okay. Um Miss Ktover, >> nothing for me. Thank you. >> I have no further comments. Um Mr. Rosen, >> uh nothing. >> I can't remember. Uh Miss Rudder, >> um I just want to say sorry if I left out the word optional. I
078didn't want to make anybody think that they had to work in July. I apologize. Um Um No, that was all. No, >> I hope it's a wonderful school year. I look forward to getting my kiddos back in with you guys. So, >> I have no comments. >> Okay. There is no um executive session. Our next meeting date is September 15, 2025. Can I get a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> So moved. A >> second. >> All in favor?