001Good evening everyone. We called our meeting into order during our executive session so we can begin our public meeting. Grayen is traveling for work so you have me for the evening. Um, so we're going to jump right into the agenda with the with the special public hearing on the 2024 2025 annual district report of vandalism of violence, vandalism, and harassment, intimidation, and bullying, also known as a student safety report. But just just before we start that, I just wanted to say one thing. I just wanted to say uh to congratulate Dr. Adhold on uh receiving the NJASCD's 2025 Dr. Ernest El Boyer award for outstanding educator of the year. Um he received it last week. Um Dr. Adhold does so much for our community. Um goes above and beyond and so a very well-deserved award.
002And with that, Miss Jessica Sinata. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for um giving me a little time this evening. The the first thing I want to emphasize is that this is our report for the 2425 school year. This is a report that's done annually. um typically in in the fall as the previous year concludes. And some of the data that I will also provide this evening is from the 2324 school year just so you have a baseline um to to compare some numbers. So the student safety data system collects two types of information for all schools um throughout New Jersey. And fortunately here in West Windsor Plainsboro, we do not see most of these types of offenses that are on this the screen listed there. Um, but we do live in a world where
003things happen probably more often than most most of us wish. Um, and so we do have processes and procedures in place if and when instance do happen. Um so with the reporting we not only report the number of incidents but we also report which is a reactionary number right but we also report our hip trainings and our programs which we think proactive programming in order to think about making good positive choices for our students. So, I'll go through both of those tonight, giving you the data first of our reported incidences as well as then a lot of our uh proactive programming. So, the first the next slide that I'm going to put up is actually the 23 24 data and I'm going to go through each category as we um so that I can explain
004a little bit and you can really understand what we're what we're looking at. So along the top you have the way we need to report our information and in the column on the left you have how it's divided um on grade level bands. So when we think about violence we think about typically some type of altercation between any number of students. vi um when we think about vandalism, this could be something such as graffiti or damage to a school or district property. Substance is the use of drugs or alcohol. And then we have confirmed HI. So I know in the summer Dr. Jess Jessica Smemedley did a report on all of our HI findings. This is just our confirmed HIPS. Okay. So that's something to keep in mind and a little different uh between this
005report and the report that you had in July. I want to also note that this number which is again two school years ago the 2324 report um when Dr. McDonald gave this report last year. He noted that during the 23 um 2324 school year is when the state allowed us to do preliminary determination with the law on harassment, intimidation, and bullying, which allowed our anti-bullying specialists and our administrators to determine if this was a conflict rather than HIP. Right? And that changes the conversation that we have with student. It changes the conversation around harassment, intimidation, and bullying. And therefore, we were we found that our students and our families were much more thoughtful about the actual conflict and the language that was used. And so, you're going to see when I um show the 2520,
006excuse me, 2425 school year data that that again is part of the reflection of that number that's going to drop again. So, this is our baseline. And then when we look at the 20 uh 2024 school year data, if we go straight to that HIB column, we're at 62 confirmed HIPS, right? The previous slide had 103. Two factors that I would like to highlight. One is the continued preliminary determination and targeted language around what is harassment, intimidation, and bullying. what are those three prongs? Um, we can talk about that with students. We can talk about that with families. But also in our K5 uh our K5 category there, that's uh that dropped significantly as well. And that has to we know that we have been explicit with our SEAL um curriculum and conversations that we've
007been having in our elementary schools. And so, of course, you know, we'll see how this trends year year after year, but we would like to to note that we're doing some intentional work in in our elementary schools around that. Not to say that we're not in our middle schools and high schools, but we have piloted some programs. Um, and so we're seeing some good good conversations and good results come out of that as well. Overall, when I went back and looked at not only last year's, but the the previous several years, all of the numbers in most of the categories fluctuate. Now, HIB has had some dramatic changes, but the others fluctuate anywhere from three to five, you know, maybe a little more depending on the year. We're pretty consistent. substance um use has again
008dropped um which we're which we're happy to see and we're doing some you know continued proactive work with our students assistance counselors specifically in middle schools and high schools. Um but when we think about why sometimes vandalism might go up a little bit higher or why violence might be a couple um digits higher, I ask you to think about social media possibly, right? and what a lot of our teens might call challenges that could be put out there that are not meant to be hurtful or cause intentional harm, but instead maybe thought to be funny. But when students do then accept and you know try to follow what's happening on social media the consequences to that come with a or the the those actions come with consequences that we do have to address. Um, we
009had put something out as a school district earlier this year about that of making uh parents aware if they weren't about any of the social media whether it be a Tik Tok challenge or an Instagram challenge um or others that younger students might know about that people our age might not. Um but we try to stay ahead of that and again th the programs and the positive proactive actions that we're taking in our lower levels. We're hoping to see then the better decision-making coming when they get to the middle school maybe start to be inundated with that social media um in the middle school and high school years that they'll begin to think about those choices rather than the reactionary in the moment. I can do that but instead that comes with consequences for myself
010and for others and I know better and I'll help others to do better as well. So those were a few of the of the numbers that we have to report but if you remember I also said that we have to report our trainings and what programs we're we're running. So, a few things, HIP trainings and program and programs. Our school counselors and our students assistance counselors go into and do classroom lessons at all grade levels targeted. They could be, you know, large scale or very targeted depending on what we need or um what what programs they're using. We have school safety and climate teams and they create initiatives within each building. I'll talk about those teams specifically a little bit later, but those um involve our anti-bullying specialists well as well and those can have
011very targeted programs in each school. For the past several years, we've been having full school climate summits that we have met here the past several years. All 10 schools are represented with students, faculty, administrative, counseling, and parent voices in the room looking at HIB data, their own schools, but also looking as a collective, as the district. What are we doing? Looking to make connections and correlations between schools. We have presented at our parent teacher association engagements, whether they be monthly meetings here. Um, I know that Dr. Smmedley, our director of counseling, has pushed into some PTA PTA meetings as well this year to talk about the counseling program specifically at the elementary level. A lot of times it they're more handson at the high school, middle school, and high school level when we think of
012course selection and things like that. But what do our counselors do at those younger younger grades? And just um to remind everyone that we are trained administratively and our anti-bullying specialists are trained yearly in the month of uh September on HI law hib process changes to that um and our procedures along with that. Also there's external professional development. I know there's an upcoming Strauss Esme, which is um the the company we use for all of our our policies um within the district. They're also offering some professional development that our anti-bullying specialists can take care take uh part in. So along with HIP come two very specific weeks that the state of New Jersey needs to recognize. And although it says week of respect, the state of New Jersey might think it's only a week. Here
013in West Windsor Plainsboro, we like to think of it that it's a full year of respect, but a targeted week that the rest of the year builds on. And so, some examples of how this plays out in schools. And you if you have um children in your schools, you may have heard some of them talk about it uh earlier this past this month would be some schoolwide themes. I know one of our schools had our school is a family and all of their their activities were created and directed toward that theme. One of our middle schools had a hashtag of blue up because blue is a is the color that represents a week of respect. It could have everything from a wall of fame to a a respect quote of the day. And so very
014focused conversations, push in whole school. Um but it's a week dedicated to building respect classroom and school culture. The second week that the state of New Jersey requires is school violence awareness week. And this actually happened this past week. It's a third week um in in October. So if we think of week of respect being earlier in the month, building your classroom, building your school, this is going to be building outward into your community. Okay? And connections that we have within the community. So some examples of what our schools did this this past week, conflict um resolution lessons within morning meetings. There could be schoolwide challenges, right, of ch not the same as a Tik Tok or social media challenge, but instead of a challenge of finding a positive, passing along um a positive message
015to a friend, right? Passing along a positive message to a teacher or a counselor that week, but really promoting notice something that someone did that was nice for their friend. Um and so challenges in that way to go out of their way to begin to to um notice the positives within our schools. All of this is centered in um self-awareness, self-management because that's going to be part of that whole conflict resolution, right? Part of that is understanding who I am and how I respond to what I'm being met with. And so while we talk about conflict resolution in those morning meetings or during a mediation, it's also reflecting on how am I responding during this and better understanding what what my role in this conflict is. And with this, of course, we're continuing our partnerships
016with our law enforcement officers, which I'll I'll touch on in in a moment. So, our school and safety climate teams, I mentioned those um in the beginning as being part of the HIB process. So, all of our schools have a uh school in and CL safety and climate team. That's a requirement. And when we come together um in that summit, right, that's one one time of year where we can all sit in the same room together. We share what is working. We share also where we need help within our schools. And some of the the topics that come up and what the purpose of those teams are is to create healthy and safe schools, right? We need kids to know that they are seen, valued, and we're working to create a sense of belonging in
017all of our schools. Remember on these teams we have kids, we have teachers, we have staff, counselors because our anti-bullying specialists is there and administrators and then we have parents as well so that we really have all the stakeholders at the table. This is heavy on our social emotional learning and our our goal work that we know is at the heart of what the district does. We have culturally culturally responsive classrooms and our staff who are trained in that in the past. Um we did training specifically last year for the nurtured heart approach. We also talked to parents about that and did a parent university about nurtured heart approach. We have other opportunities for parents this year um that I can share if you're interested. We're also using Second Step in our elementary schools and
018actually one of our elementary schools is piloting that in a more in-depth focused way um to see where where we can take it in the future. Um Wayfinder is a curriculum that we're going to be using with our secondary schools as well. And so we'll use these teams to evaluate, you know, the effectiveness and how students are are um reacting to and engaging with all of these. And we have policies on HID. This is why I'm up here presenting on this tonight. Um that's a requirement of the state. We have our code of conduct listed here. And when all of this comes together, restorative practices are in place because when incidents happen, the job of the school is to work with the student and with the families to create a connection so that that student
019can reenter our buildings feeling cared for, seen, and valued. And know that they're not judged for one decision that they made, but instead can move forward from a decision that they made. and know that it's okay. You know, we stumble and we get back up and we have support to move forward. And so our restorative practices are a part of that. And finally, just to highlight some largecale um safety and security pieces, um I won't read all of these to you, but I just uh want to highlight a few. We do have continue to have class 3 police officers in all of our buildings. We have, as you all approved last uh month at the board meeting, a memorandum of agreement with our police department, both police departments, West Windsor and Plainsboro. So, we have
020positive working relationships there. We continue to practice drills um two drills every month that we're required to do. And then through that, we have a reflective practice with our administrative teams, our security teams to um you know, see how always we can continue to improve when that happens. We have our mental health clinicians with in our partnership with Rucker's Behavioral Health Care in in all of our or in our buildings and they can service all of our students. The next one, our key players, our school counselors, our students assistance counselors, our child study team, and our school nurses are the core. They're really the core of knowing our kids and creating safe spaces for our kids. um parent universities. We're going to continue. We've been having those. We targeted some of our middle school and
021our sixth grade families in the spring and in the summer. And we'll continue to offer parent universities on lots of topics. Some of those being very specific. How do you how do you talk to your teens? Um I know as you know as a building administrator for several years, I got my kid doesn't talk to me. And so we have to talk about because they'll talk to us at school even if they don't talk to you at home. And so we we're sharing some of those tips and tricks um that we use in the school. And two pieces that I want to highlight, we've been using Gaggle um the Gaggle software as a filtering system um for our our Google platforms that all of our students well any student who has a a goo a
022Google account. We have now enhanced that. Now that AI is enhancing how we all are using technology, we wanted to make sure that our students were being as if they're on their school device or in their school account that we're able to monitor that in order to provide whatever supports. And so so we have enhanced what Gaggle does for us. We don't wait for a student to send an email or share a doc any longer. We're monitoring in time keystrokes so that we can provide support as quickly and as often um as necessary. And last is Safe New Jersey which will be introduced in the coming months whole scale to the community. Um, but it's going to be a platform that again provides a place for students to report concerns if they have concerns about
023themselves or about others. It started in the realm of HIB for anonymous reporting of potential bullying situations, but it's it's been built out since then to now connect to um mental health supports outside of the school outside of the school facility and outside of the school day. So, more to come on that um in November. And I finish up with our mission statement because that's why we do what we do, right? to empower our learners and to empower our learners to make good choices and to know that they are resilient when when a choice is made and a consequence happens that they can come back here and be supported in moving forward. So, I thank you for your time this evening. Thank you so much. Do we have any questions from the board? Liz. >>
024Um, thank you so much, Miss Kada for your presentation. Um, you know, there's been a lot of concerns expressed in in the community about mental health concerns and behavioral concerns and all of that. Um, I think it was very helpful to hear this here tonight about all the different ways that the school district is taking a comprehensive approach. you mentioned the use of um parent universities and as a means to have some out outreach to parents. Can you speak a little bit more about that? >> Sure. Um so Dr. Smemedley led some just so you know uh I want to talk about what happened in the past which was new this year. So in August they provided it was our in-house clinician um and with and Miss Karen Abrams who's a supervisor for special services
025in our middle level as well as Dr. Smemedley who's our director of counseling they provided multiple sessions catering to our incoming sixth grade parents to help that transition into middle school. So topics such as trail head talk, erasing the worries before the climb. They have a theme of like hiking up a mountain heading to middle school. And then another one called packing the right tools, building study and executive functioning skills because we're moving from that like one classroom in in elementary school to teams and multiple classrooms of middle school. And so then a couple others about navigating the terrain, social skills, and changing friendships. So lots of school parts, but also social aspects. So um that's something we're looking to continue into next summer. But a couple of of um upcoming ones, we have we
026recently had um a parent university on artificial intelligence, right? And it was a lunch and learn. So those are all listed on our website as well because even if you think AI isn't about the social emotional side, we do talk about that because you can't separate school and academics out from the social emotional learning part. And so all of our parent universities will will touch on that as well. And so Dr. Smmedley is continuing her parent university series also. >> Thank you Dana. >> Thank you for your comprehensive report. Um I had a couple of questions. Can you give examples of the approach like nurture uh nurtured heart secondond step and wayfinder? What are examples of like how that is integrated in the curriculum? What does that look like? Thank you. So um nurtured well
027nurtured heart came from a a philosophy of deescalation and so steps in practice in deescalation. I'm just going to give a large overview. Um so second step works on empathy, emotional regulation and responsible decisionmaking and think that could happen in a morning meeting, right? Targeted lessons that not only the counselor might push in for but then we're also piloting where teachers can turn key those lessons also. Okay. and then Wayfinder, although all could be uh K12 comprehensive when I know Sutterero, our chief equity officer, worked with um Dr. Jessica Smemedley, our director of counseling and our SEAL administrative team to kind of vet all of these. Wayfinder is a toolkit designed to help kids develop their SEAL skills, but like future ready skills. And so that was found to be more helpful with our middle
028school to high school age students with specific lessons. Now in a high school, you're like, how do they push in? It could be groups, right? That they might be come out of I'm not going to say out of class, but out of a study hall period. They might meet at lunch. Um have some type of an initial assessment taken benchmark to see where what different needs students might have. And then we could group and target skills. um whether they be specific social emotional um skills or that thinking future ready self-regulation um communicative things like that >> thank you so much for the presentation um just a comment and I remember last year listening to the uh 2023 2024 numbers um I'm so glad to see them go down and especially in the K5 five because
029I was always curious why it was so high and I know there was discuss um >> um comments about kids coming back from COVID and readjusting behavioral issues and things like that but um dropping down to nine that's a really great um number and I think what you said about the preliminary determination that's probably helped quite a bit. I was just curious because you had mentioned that there are some programs that that were being piloted to sort of in that K5 um group if you could talk a little bit about like what some of those programs was. >> So that's second. Yep. >> Okay. >> So, very targeted conversations and I think self-regulation is going to be a big part of that as that was a conversation >> returning from COVID. Um I think for
030all of us, kid or adult, uh that's that's a ongoing learning and self-reflective um aspect of growth, right? >> Got it. Yep. Thank you so much. I thought there was >> any more questions from the board. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you so much for the presentation. Now, we're going to have a special opportunity for public comment on the 2024 2025 student safety report. The board invites thoughts and reactions on the annual district report of violence, vandalism, and harassment, intimidation, and bullying from members of our community who are present. Each participant is asked to give his or her name and address prior to making a statement which will be limited to three minutes in accordance with board policy 0167. All statements shall be directed to the presiding officer. This public comment period shall be
031limited to 15 minutes. Do we have any public comment for this on this special public hearing? Seeing none, I'll close that public comment session and I will move to ask for a motion to approve the sorry to accept the 2024 2025 annual district report of violence, vandalism and harassment, intimidation, bullying, also known as a student safety report as required by the New Jersey State Department of Education, NJSA18A 17-46 and NJAC 6A 16-5.3F. Do I have anybody for that motion? Liz and Ly. >> Okay. Okay. We'll start we'll start with Mr. Chenner. >> Yes. >> Miss Hope. >> Yes. >> Miss Krug. >> Yes. >> Miss Maliga. >> Yes. >> Miss Mr. O'Brien. >> Yes. >> Miss Shetty. >> Yes. >> And Miss Bonsel. >> Yes. I got everybody that >> motion passes and and that
032adjourns the special public hearing um on the 2024 2025 student safety report. And now we'll move on to Dr. Hold. >> Uh good evening everyone. Uh just a couple comments tonight that um on a multitude of topics actually. Uh first um as the board of education had the opportunity to attend um New Jersey school boards association um at last week in the training program uh now that it's uh official uh want to just recognize Dana Krug one more time as New Jerseys board member of the year for 2025 2026. So congratulations again Dana. Um something that is unique and has never happened before. Um we had uh one of our district staff members uh serve currently serving as Miss New Jersey. She just participated in the MissUSA competition and was the first runner up um
033for MissUSA. So congratulations to Ivy Harrington. um wanted to just also talk about something a little bit more uh serious with respect to things happening um in the state of the world in the state of the United States with respect to the federal shutdown. There's been questions raised regarding what does that mean for students and families that may qualify for free and reduced lunch may qualify through federal programs such as SNAP or uh TAMP. Um so just for that it's the supplemental nutrition assistance program is SNAP. Uh that's a direct certification program through the federal government. Uh we have over 300 students um that receive direct services, 305 students to be exact, um that receive um uh services, food through uh SNAP, uh which is a direct certification program. Um we also have uh students
034and families that receive assistance through uh TNF, which is a temporary assistance needy families uh program. Um and then when you add in um programs through Medicaid, which is uh in the process of being gutted over the next 10 years thanks to one big beautiful bill, uh fosters, runaways, homeless, migrant, and then income-based. Uh we have 951 students in WWP that receive some form of assistance with respect for um food, breakfast, lunch. Um and thanks to programs such as Sun Hunger Packing, we have families that are participating in bridge meal programs. Um which means that Sunhunger Packing works with local food banks um to um uh do a backpack program sending meals home for weekends. So the bridge is the weekend. Um and uh the question that's been raised is if SNAP funding is not
035coming forward as a result of the federal shutdown as we've indicated through the US Department of Agriculture um will not be sending funding. Um that that does not mean that students will not eat in WWP. So, I want to just make it very clear uh to those watching, those that may um um hear this that um the district will be making sure that students that have qualified for free and reduced lunch, whether through the federal or the state program will be receiving their meals uh without interruption. Um but the the funding that then reimburses may not come or may come very late, but that is not important compared to making sure our students eat. Um so that will continue. Um, now with respect to um with respect to the the the what can we do
036question, there's families that have reached out. We received two emails today from um just heartwarming emails that just said like we want to help um how how do we help? I would say that in the absence of um the opportunity to directly support a neighbor, uh there are food pantries throughout our communities. There's the West Windsor Little Free Pantry um and with the at the art center. There's the Plainsboro pantry, the faith-based communities, majority of them have some form of food pantry. Uh there's uh county-based food pantries, and then there's Senh Hunger Packing. Uh and Senh Hunger Packing is um just been remarkable um uh and steadfast in supporting the district over these last um well, it's eight or 10 years now. Um, so just want to thank Senhung Packing, but just recognize that if
037um, folks like the scouts that are here in the audience or community members are looking for something to do, um, we can provide direct support to our local food pantries. And and just because we're feeding the students during the school day, it's important to know that the uh, food stamps that families may receive are not may not come. Right? So getting uh food during the day does not mean the family will receive the benefits that they they deserve and qualify for um to help their family food bills. Um so more now than ever the food pantries are going to see need. So um again I would just encourage our community to consider that. um focusing on another topic just um just because it's it came in uh yesterday, but the district received something called an
038energy scorecard. Um and and you know, as as you may know, the finance committee and Dr. Russo have done steadfast work with respect to um uh the energy savings improvement program working to um decrease our energy footprint. Um when we first went through the referendum and went through the ESP one and now we've entered into EEP 2. It's EIEP stands again for energy savings improvement program. Um we were not uh had we did not have a very favorable rating a as a district. Um but now we just received our newest scorecard. We now have uh from an energy efficiency scorecard. We now have moved to the number one district in Mercer County out of the nine regular operating districts. And in the state of New Jersey out of the 569 districts that receive ratings we've
039moved all the way up to number 22. Five of our buildings are energy neutral due to our solar program. Um, and our score went from a 59 last year to a 96% energy efficiency this year. That's because most most of those solar projects were done towards and came online towards the completion of the referendum and the ESIP followed some of the building construction um that was done in the referendum. So as programs came online and the rebates and the energy savings follow almost two years behind or a year behind um the way the rankings work or the way the agency works again we had a 40% reduction year-over-year. That's really important when we talk about long-term fiscal forecasting u because as the energy savings may seem significant we also added a tremendous amount of footprint.
040So we're able to basically maintain our budget essentially budget budget neutral as we've added footprint but we've been able to decrease energy. Um so we've almost become it's almost become net neutral. Um so again um we are we were prepared to put additional roof uh solar on uh three additional properties. Um but due to the solar grid being at capacity we were not able to pro proceed at this time. Um so we have uh taken some preliminary steps even looking at additional options for the roof at town center grover and here at village. Um so we have more energy opportunities in the future that we will consider but we will be you will see um staged construction five of our parking lots for solar parking lots starting in the spring and Dr. Russo has been
041navigating all that effort. So just congratulations to him and his team regarding that. Um Jessica mentioned it but I just want to mention specifically that the AI panel that was uh facilitated last week uh by uh Sutara was phenomenal. Um Sue was the moderator, facilitator, coordinator of all things. Um she worked with several other building administer building and district administrators. But when you talk about parent universities on a topic, we had over 160 parents come out for a lunch and learn on a Friday afternoon um in October to hear about the district's philosophy and thinking on in uh artificial intelligence and the and it just was a remarkable uh program. So congratulations to Sue. Uh we also had um 55 comments throughout that the panel was able to address majority of them in live time
042and then we'll be building responses and uh thinking of follow-up programs. Um well, but just really well done. Um and then um just for a a plug um for something to read if the community hasn't had an op-ed in NJ Spotlight last week with respect to um the state of fiscal funding in New Jersey. Um and just want to note a couple things that are very concerning uh that we need to be very mindful of not just as a school community but as a state educational community. Um, when you start thinking of the fiscal challenges that the state is facing, New Jersey has a $2.1 billion structural deficit. We have a governor's election. We have changes in Medicaid that's going to peel off1 trillion dollars across states over the next 10 years, which is going
043to be approximately three billion uh dollars to the healthcare industry um in the 26 27 uh for New Jerseys hospitals and medical institutions. When that hits, um, we're already seeing exorbitant costs. Uh, the state health benefit plan for educators went up over 30%. For the municipalities, it went up over 35%. Um, and so when you start talking about cap budgets and you start talking about impact of local taxpayers, um, 2% in allowances does not cover any of that. So, um, you know, the district is is really watching the challenges to health care, um, what's could happen with Medicaid. Um, and when you start thinking of state budgeting, when you start talking about impacts to Medicaid, the New Jersey is going to have to make a decision about what kind of programs they continue to cover.
044So, what does Medicaid cover? Medicaid covers programs such as um um family assistance or um uh NJ family care, right? So children's health care that are get covered that do not have uh health care through their through an employer of their parents or guardians. Um 40% of all births in the United States are covered by Medicaid. Um we have um senior living individuals that are um that that their funds run out and they are in nursing homes get covered through Medicaid. Um mental health services in the state get covered through Medicaid. um some of the uh wraparound services for families in need get covered through Medicaid. So Medicaid's a big deal for a lot of different things that we don't really know. And in the one big beautiful bill, there's other things that are out
045there like there's caps on the amount of money that students can take for for loans um for for for undergraduate and graduate school. There's u changes to how uh parent graduate plus loans can be done. There's changes to energy improvement and energy savings. Essentially a defunding. The strategy essentially is defund um agenda items that would have uh been funded uh through Congress by one particular uh party. So the bill itself doesn't go away. So clean energy doesn't go away. Just the money that support clean energy goes away. Um and and what we've also done then is we're shifting the balance sheet from the federal government to the state. So if you want to clear your debt, put it on someone else's back. So the debt uh or the responsibility for Medicaid will fall essentially to
046states to make state-based decisions. That's a really big deal because education is one of the biggest players if not the biggest player in the state budget. So when you think about education as the biggest player, it will inevitably be impacted. The question we don't know yet is how much, how fast, and which which budget cycle. Will it be for the 2627 or will it come on board more for the 2728? Um, but no matter what, it's coming because the one big beautiful bill was signed on the 4th of July on July 20 uh July 4th, 2025. Um, and that goes into effect over a 10-year phase out of 930 trillion billion dollars or just under a a trillion. Um, and that is in law. Um, so, uh, stay tuned for that. That is something that
047people need to be very mindful of whether it's at municipal government, whether it's, uh, at district government, um, school districts. Um so uh elections matter and uh hopefully everyone goes out and votes in next in the first week of November. >> Thank you Dr. Adold. And now we will move on to uh Dr. Gold and Dr. Pearson for the district's testing report. Good evening uh board members and members of the community and our students. Um Dr. Pearson and I uh will be sharing with you tonight uh the district testing presentation, the annual presentation to share with you a report of all of our testing data for the district from 2024 to 2025. For tonight's agenda, we'll first uh review the overall demographic data for our district, the overview of our high school graduation pathways and
048proficiencies, as well as our New Jersey graduation performance assessment data for NJ GPA. Then, Dr. Pearson will talk about our New Jersey student learning assessment data or NJSLA results. We'll specifically focus on English language arts, mathematics, and then science. Next, we'll um take you through the data for dynamic learning map or and our access testing as well as our AP data or advanced placement, our ACT, SAT, and our SAT data. So, lots of information for you to think about and consider this evening. And then most importantly, we also want to talk about some of the strategies that we utilize as a district to help support all of our learners and their growth. And at the very end, uh we will do a little bit of celebrating and um highlight some of our strengths as well
049as a district and showcase some of the great things that our students are doing. So to start off, uh we'd like to share a little bit about our demographic data. So here you can take a look at our overall student population by race and ethnicity. I do want to um highlight the fact that this information is based off of the October 15th submission to the state. So every October 15th we have to submit to the state data around our student race and ethnicity um categories. These are federally uh set categories. So we report out exactly what they ask us for. And so these are the categories in terms of race and ethnicity based on last year 2024 25 um demographic data for race and ethnicity. The next piece of demographic data that I'd like to
050share out is our group of students uh by program. So again, um this takes us through our students on the population of students on free and reduced lunch. Um students receiving support through section 504, which is based off of our disabilities act, as well as students receiving support for our multilingual learners or formerly known as ELLL um or ESL. And then our students um receiving support through special education special programming. are students with disabilities. And these are our percentages of of our population receiving support through those programs. And then lastly, we are also required to report out our demographic data by um gender categories. And here we have our population based off of the October 15th submission. Okay. Now we will move into the first category of assessments that we will review which is our
051graduation pathways in the state of New Jersey. Um all students are required to take the New Jersey graduation performance assessment in order to be eligible for graduation in English language arts as well as mathematics. They must receive a score of 725 or greater in order to be eligible for graduation in both mathematics and um English language arts. There are other pathways. So if ai student does not meet that criteria, several things can happen. The first pathway is that they have an opportunity to retake the assessment in the fall. So they take it in the spring of their junior year. And then if they're if they do not meet that, they can take it again in the fall of their senior year. Another pathway would be that they would be able to meet proficiency through an
052SAT or an ACT or we also use another assessment called ACUPPLACER. We've actually had a really great success utilizing ACUPPLACER as one of our pathways for our students um in WWP who have not met the graduation proficiency through uh GPA or um the assessment and um also the other thing if they are not able through any of those possible pathways they can also submit a student portfolio and they can go through an appeal process to the New Jersey Department of Education. So now we'll take a look at some of our data around um NJGPA or the New Jersey proficiency assessment. As I mentioned, students are there are really only two categories. You are either ready to graduate and you've met proficiency uh scoring 725 or greater or you are not yet ready to graduate and
053then we explore those other pathways. Here are district percentages for both um English um language arts as well as um mathematics in comparison to the state. As you can see, um WWP outperforms um the state in both English language arts as well as mathematics with um 97% of our students in English language arts meeting proficiency and about 89% of our students um in mathematics meeting proficiency. And here on this slide you can see the same information um as represented before but um as a visual representation and in comparison to the state. On this slide you could see um graduation readiness in both English language and English language arts as well as mathematics for the last three years. So 23, 24 and 25. So I will note um and you may also notice you know in
054in English language arts it looks as though we've pretty much remained consistent in our graduation readiness and our pathway. And in math it looks like um for the years 24 uh 23 24 we were pretty consistent and then in 25 we had a slight dip. Um so that's something that we are keeping a watch. It's important to note though that you know when we're looking at these assessments and we're comparing yeartoyear there could be cohort variability meaning two different groups of students are taking the assessment. It is something that we will take a look at though and we will keep continue to monitor and make sure that you know it isn't a pattern because if it does become something that's a pattern then we need to take a look at our curriculum. We need to
055look at our instruction and see um is the curriculum aligned with the state standards? Are there adjustments that we need to make in order to ensure that our students are prepared? The math specifically is based off of algebra 1 content as well as geometry. So those are two courses that we very specifically monitor in terms of their alignment to ensure that our students are prepared to take the assessment. On this slide, you can see our student performance by district demographic in terms of race and ethnicity and their readiness for graduation. And here um the district demographic by program in terms of readiness for graduation as well. And so when we're looking at these specifically by um dem demographic groups, you know, some of the conversations that we have as an administrative team and also our
056supervisor teams with our teachers are things like thinking about, you know, reflecting on this data and looking at what are the areas of growth and how do we help to ensure that all of our students are making meaningful growth and that they are ready to graduate. looking at our programs um looking at the levels of support and Dr. Pearson later on will talk a lot about what programs and what specific supports we have for individual students so that we can ensure that all of our students are making adequate growth. And now I will turn it over to Dr. Pearson who will speak um and share a lot of data with you about the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment um which is NJSLA and lots of our students take that and so she will um share
057some information with you about that. >> Good evening everyone. We're going to take a look at now as uh Dr. Gold said looking at our New Jersey student learning assessment which measures proficiency in English language arts, math and science. We're first going to start with the English language arts portion of the assessment. This slide provides some detailed descriptions of the NJSLA language arts portion of the assessment. The NJSLA ELA assessment is administered to students in grades three through nine to measure student proficiency towards acquiring the skills of the New Jersey student learning standards in English language arts. It emphasizes the importance of close reading, synthesizing ideas within and across texts, determining meaning of words and phrases in context, and writing effectively when using or analyzing sources. The NJSLA ELA is measured um on five different
058levels of proficiency with levels four and five meeting expectations and exceeding expectations is passing. This holds true for both ELA and mathematics. This slide has a lot of information on it. So, we're going to spend some time looking at this slide here. This slide shows our ELA performance scores for students in grades 3 through nine for the last three years. The data shown represents information about the same grade level and also different cohorts of students being tested. When we look across multiple years performance data, it is difficult to compare progress directly because there are different cohorts of students that are being tested each year. It's like comparing three different uh different sets of people's scores on the same assessment. As an administrative team along with teachers, we look for trends and patterns both across and
059within cohorts. If we take a look at the eighth grade line, for example, and we look across levels four and five, we see that there is a dip from 2023 to 2024 when looking at the combined scores of meets and exceeds expectations. As different teams take a look at as administrative team and supervisor team along with teachers, we take a deeper look and at at this information determine areas in our curriculum that need to be revised and also provide where we need to do some professional development. We know that the ELA middle school curriculum was rewritten and teachers have been receiving ongoing professional development and we see that that dip rebounds in 2025 go moving up to 87.3% where students are meeting or exceeding the expectations. Another example is to look across uh the elementary
060and looking at where we've addressed significant changes in our literacy program at K5. We continue to work through a multi-year pro uh plan to implement Orton Gillingham methodology which is a structured literacy method of teaching phonics phmic awareness and morphology which is the study of parts of words and their meanings through IMSSE training for all of our K5 teachers in reading instruction. If you look at that third grade cohort as they move through elementary school, it looks like there's a dip of three% at fifth grade when you look across that fifth grade line. But if you look at the growth of the cohort, you see in 2023 59.3% of students passed and then as a cohort they were passing rate of 65.7%. And then last year that same cohort ended at 73.5% which when you
061look again across the fifth grade it looks like there is a dip but as a cohort they've actually grown 14 points in the last three years. As we look then at we look at this information in different ways. This also isn't the only information that we look at. So, this is just one test looked at in multiple different ways for us to be able to start thinking about what needs to change if changes need to be made. And they're not made in isolation of just one test. On this slide, what we're looking at is the uh same grade across the last five administrations of the NJSLA assessment. 2018 was the first year that that assessment was moved from park into NJSLA. And then we had a break because of COVID and then we started again.
062And you can see we haven't quite rebounded um back from where we were pre-COVID, but we do see modest gains from there. Other ways that we look at the same data is looking at compared to the state with the district. And really what we want to look at is that level four and level five is on the next slide where we are for the most part exce above the state in each each of those different places. is when we look across the different different grades and or different grades in different years of information of of the different grades and the different um looking at 25 and above. So here we see this at level five and above here for the last three years again for the most part we are above the state averages on
063this and this is where we this is again a passing exceeding expectations just like we looked at with GPA we then start to break it down by demographic information. And when we look at this first slide here, this slide shows disagregated demographic information by race and ethnicity. In comparison, the state level of passing across levels four and five is 53%. The demographic data here demonstrates that overall as a district, our students are achieving at levels four and five greater than the state, but there is still work to be done uh in addressing different areas and we do this through our strategic goal work. Another way to look at the same information is then looking at that across the different the last three years. And when we look at it across the last three years, we
064do see that there are modest gains across most of our demographic uh areas. And again, this comes back to the work of the strategic goals, particularly our equity work in looking at and recognizing the importance of including all of our students, cultural references, and all aspects of learning, including classroom experiences, making sure we're increasing access and challenging biases that that contradict a belief in every student's capacity to achieve at high levels. It is a continued focus for the strategic goals, and it continues to be a need in our district to ensure that all learners reach their full potential. Another way that we look at this data is the same as Dr. Gould discussed when we're looking at GPA is through programming. Uh and we look at this by the data suggests again that we have
065places that we need to improve upon to increase our student achievement. And a little bit later we'll talk more about what it is that we've done through different title funding to support growth and achievement in ELA. Again looking at the information then AC across the last three years when we look at it again by program the last three years we see that we're making modest gains ac across most programming. The exception there we can see is with special ed we see a slight decline in our special ed programming which is something that we will look at and continue to look at as we look at these patterns and look at other data that we have. We also can look at this uh by gender and uh we don't report information out when we have less
066than 10 students. So you'll only see uh females and males here in the listing. But you could see that by we have a passing rate of about 81% uh for females in ELA and for males at 74%. And then when we look again like the last three years, we see that for females it's holding steady at the 81% mark. And then we see modest gains um for males after a slight dip in the previous administration. The next part of the NJSLA assessment is mathematics. Uh this is given to students in grades three through eight along with students taking algebra 1, algebra 2 and geometry. It assesses students abilities in relations to counting, cardality, operations and algebraic thinking, numbers and operations in base 10, fractions, measurement and data and geometry. Just like we said with ELA,
067this is also uh looked at across five levels of performance with levels four and five being um the passing rate that's the meet expectations and exceeds expectations just as we saw with the ELA section of the uh NJSLA. It's important to note here that unlike ELA that in in uh middle school we start to see various pathways for uh mathematical sequences and this impacts the way the results are displayed and we also should note that we have uh less restrictive pathways for students to take algebra in middle school than other places. So you'll see that come up as we look at the data for mathematics. So, we're back to this uh big slide again that we looked at same as what we looked at for uh ELA. Again, we show math proficiency scores for students
068in grades 3 through 8 along with algebra 1, algebra 2, and geometry. We see MS and HS delineating between middle school and high school on the algebra 1, algebra 2 assessments. Uh again, when we look at this, it's important to note that a relatively small percentage of students take the math 8 assessment. That's where you see the eight going across. We only have 86 students across both middle schools enrolled in math 8, which is about 11% of our population of students in middle school taking math 8. When we look at uh trying to look at some of the trends and patterns in here, we have the same thing that we look at when we look at ELA. We look across and also down the cohort. And we can see that when we look at the
069third grade cohort starting in 2023, we see that they had a passing rate of 65.2% and then 66.3% the following year to this past year of passing rate of about 71% in this past year. Additionally, when you look across that fourth grade cohort, we see an almost fivepoint gain from the previous year. Despite what's been reported in some publications this year, a plan has been in place to review performance data on the NJSLA. Teachers have received professional development. We have updated curricular resources. We have systems in place even as this new test comes in to be able to make sure students are prepared for the new test. And teachers have worked hard to have more students exposure to test questions. And we have done this in a way to not oversaturate with a focus on
070test prep, but rather on problem solving. As we move through looking at this data, we're going to look at it again in the same ways that we've looked at it with the ELA data. Again, looking again from 3 through 8. And then we have the algebra 1 listed here along against the other grades. Again, same thing NJSLA pre- pandemic to after pandemic. We again see some growth coming back into that. This is unfortunately the last year for NJSLA comparison because we do have a new test coming in in um in the spring this year. So this was the end for the regular NJSLA test as we know it for this for this with this administration. Again, when we look AC across at our levels four and level five for the most part with the exception
071of looking at that math 8, we are at above the state state levels. And in looking at this along also, you'll see a dip too with the algebra 1 high school. We have less students that also take that course where the bulk of kids are taking algebra 1 in middle school. And then we do the same thing when looking at the level fives. You see the same trend happening with the level five information where we are for the most part above the state proficiency. Again, seventh and eighth grade students have a variety of pathways. Uh again, the eighth grade students, we only have 11 about 11.4% of our students in math 8. 35% of our seventh graders and 51% of our eighth graders are enrolled in the algebra 1 class with an additional 36% of
072our eighth graders are enrolled in algebra 2 which you see reflected in the way that these scores are presented. And then same thing as we did with ELA, we look at this broken down by uh race and ethnicity with our different demographic groups. The state passing rate for mathematics is about 41.4%. Again, it shows that we do have some work to do uh in in with our different demographic groups. And again, it all comes back to making sure with our strategic goals that we are making sure that students have access and rigor for all of our students. And then when we look at that same data across the three different co uh three different years, we again see uh some either modest gains or some pretty good gains among our different groups when we look
073across the three years. So again, we're seeing that growth. And then the same thing when we look across programs, this shows that we do have different work to do. When we look at our different programming, when we look again at free and reduced lunch, section 504, the disabilities act, our multilingual learners or L students as it's listed here, our students receiving IEP support through special education, and then we have that last column that is comparing it to the gen general education. And again, we do have we know that we have areas that we need to work on. The green that is shown is the passing rates on that. And then again, if we look at that by looking at across the last three years, again, we either see uh a hold steady or making gains
074across the different dem looking at our demographic groups through programming. When we look at achievement by gender, we see that it is uh about the same performance level in looking at who's passing. And then again when we look at the same information, well it's not the same, it's it's 2025 versus now looking at 23 to 25, we see again that we're students are making gains, modest gains across the different um in in the last three years. NJSLA science is another test that the students take in the spring. We again it's a grouping of science and engineering practices looking through investigation, sensemaking and critiquing. This is different than the other assessments because we only look only students in grades five, eight, and 11 take the NJSLA science assessment. The other difference with NJSLA science is that
075the proficiency levels are at a scale of 1 to four rather than one to five. Passing is levels three and four for the science test. Looking at the achievement levels across the last three years, we see that there is a dip in 11th grade, it's just noted that uh the 11th grade science test, unlike the NJGPA, is not a graduation requirement, but we also see gains in fifth and eighth grade and overall we see a modest gain in performance. The state level of performance hovers at about a 26.7% passing rate. So we are above that when we look at our data and again looking at the same same set of crit or same different bands of uh disagregated data. First we look at this by race and ethnicity and we can see that the levels
076are pretty even on this with the exception of our black students and Hispanic students that we again recognize that we have work to do in in making sure that all of our students are succeeding. Again, when we look across the different the last three years, we see for the most part some modest gains, we do see a slight dip, but it's it's a it's it's not a big dip with our Hispanic students. But again, these are places that we note and then think about how we can make improvements for all of our students. Looking at it again by looking at this by uh different programming. We can see here again the passing is the green. Uh again there you know there are some questions here around how to support our multilingual learners and our students
077um that are in special education with the results. And then we see some of that reinforced here. we see some gains, but then we also see some places where we have dipped. When we look at the results by gender, they're uh the pretty close. We have 56% of our females passing versus 61% of our male population passing the assessment. And then again when we look at that over the last three years we see some uh pretty we see some gains pretty modest in the gains there again with looking at that but we still see growth. I'm going to turn it back over to Dr. G to talk about DM. Okay. So DM or dynamic learning map um is an alternate assessment to NJSLA for students with disabilities who require a different type of assessment. The
078assessment is adaptive and questions are presented to students um based on their previous response. So there are three components to DM. There's English uh language arts, mathematics as well as science. And DLM is taken um in grades three through 11. And science is taken in grades 5, 8, and 11. Proficiency levels as reported for DM are um similar to our science with levels three and four being at target or advanced. So here you can see both on the left hand side of the chart you can see the number of students in our district that have taken the DM. So in mathematics we have 44 students that took the DM last year as well as English language arts and then we had 19 students take DM in science and here are the results uh for those
079students who took this assessment. Okay, the next assessment that I'd like to talk about is Access for our multilingual learners. So, Access um is an assessment that's given to all of our students that are multilingual learners. And it is a required assessment um that measures students proficiency in both reading, writing, speaking, and listening. It's mostly administered online. um some of the components, especially in the earlier grades in kindergarten and first grade, um need to be administered one-on-one. All English language learners, even those students that have declined services must sit for access and it's taken annually. Teachers use multiple measures in order to ensure that students um receive services as well as to determine the cutoff scores for the access assessment. um to make sure that student to see whether or not students can exit from
080programming. So if students score an uh combined score of 4.5, they are eligible to exit from multilingual services or or ESL services in the district. And here are the proficiency levels. So, it is leveled based off of six levels with, as I mentioned, 4.5 being kind of that number that we're looking at as a combined score in order to determine whether a student still receives services or not. I did want to mention, I know Dr. Adhold had mentioned before when we were speaking about um enrollment and how our multilingual uh learner enrollment has increased in the district significantly in the last couple of years. And so you can look here again this is based on the October 15th submission of last year. So we have increased even more since then. But here here are our
081numbers. So we had students in 2023 by October 15th and then last year as of October 15th we were at 428 students. So our population of students needing support for multiling our multilingual learner students um have increased. And here's kind of the breakdown of where students um are in terms of our district. And then here you can see their proficiency levels based on their access screening. And now we are going to move on to some of our college board assessments. Um we will start with our advanced placement assessment or our AP assessment. So, College Board um and our AP assessments are used by educational institutions, so colleges, universities in order to evaluate a student's preparedness for college and to make decisions about admissions, course placement, and the potential of earning college credit. Uh the specific
082content and skills that are measured vary among the different exams that are taken by students in AP courses, but they are all designed to provide like a standardized and objective way to measure a student's performance. These are our course offerings as a district. So, here is a menu kind of of all the different AP courses that we offered last year in our program of studies that were available to students to enroll in in order to be eligible to also take the assessment. As I mentioned, um AP exams are standardized. They are measured um on a fivepoint scale. So with scores of three, four, and five being the scores that qualify um and the scores that you want to earn that colleges are looking at in order to determine whether a student has met like proficiency
083in that particular course. On this chart, you can see all the different assessments that were taken, the total number of assessments that were taken by students in our district um for both high schools and also the percentages of their performance in each of the different um subject areas are noted here. So overall about 94% of our students score levels three, four or five um in in our district which is which is like a significant achievement as a district that that high level of students are able to earn a three, four or a five. And some of the courses you can see are or are or some of the subject areas even higher than that. And we had 3,635 AP exams administered in district which is also a significant number. On this chart you can see
084the same information but just in a visual. So you can see performance with the green, blue and the purple being our threes, fours and fives. And then on um the bottom you can see the different content areas. The other part that I wanted to share was our enrollment um in terms of how students are enrolled. So total percentages at both high school in terms of population in comparison to enrollment. Specifically here, we're looking at our demographic group of race and ethnicity. And then here you can see performance by demographic group broken down um specifically in this particular distri distribution by achievement levels by demographic group. And as you can see, it's relatively consistent among students of different race and ethnicities. in terms of their performance for qualified, well-qualified and extremely wellqualified almost like identical. The
085same is true for gender and also for um student achievement level by program. You can see that performance in terms of qualified, well-qualified, and extremely qualified. Student performance is relatively si similar in those categories, which is what we want. On this chart, you can see specifically High School North for the last five years. um and the percentage of students at high school north that have earned um a score of three, four or five. So for this particular year 2025 la last year um 96% of students earned a three, four or five. And you can also see the number of students that took the assessment as well as how many assessments were admin administered and then the same information for high school cell. Okay. Now we will move on to the ACT or the American college
086test. So the ACT is one of the two major standardized assessments uh used for college admissions in the United States, the other being the SAT. Many colleges accept both the ACT and the SAT. Um and students often choose which one to take based on their preferences of which test they prefer, also based off of the college or or university that they're looking at and what they accept. Some students take both. So, the way that the SA uh ACT is scored, reading and math is scored on a scale of 1 through 36. And then writing specifically is scored on a scale of 2 to 12. And some students just take the math and reading component and they do not take the writing. So, as you will see on the chart that's coming up, um you may
087see more valid numbers in some categories versus the others. So, on this chart, you can see you will notice that our student performance has remained relatively consistent from 2021 to 2022 through 2425. there isn't great variability in our performance as a district um across both math, English, and writing. We're relatively consistent in the ways in which our students perform, which is pretty they perform pretty strong on the ACTs. Now moving on to the SATs or this scholastic aptitude test which is the other assessment that students take um for college readiness and entrance and is accepted by many um colleges for admissions and this is there are two components reading and writing and then there's a mathematics section. Here's our SAT achievement comparison since 2019. And as you can see here, we again have remained pretty
088consistent from year to year. Um, you may notice like slight dips here or there and then, you know, a slight change in from one year to the next. You know, it's important to note that variability may happen. There are lots of factors that can influence that. um the different test takers that have taken the assessment, the number of students that took the assessment, the change in test content. Sometimes they completely change some of the questions, right? um as well as other external factors. But as you look across, we are pretty consistent in terms of our performance and our averages. Here is a comparison of how we do in comparison to um New Jersey as well as total group ELA total group u math meaning total group meaning the in anyone who's taken the SATs period.
089So nationally internationally whoever has taken the SATs. So, as you can see, we outperform both New Jersey as well as anyone who's taken the SATs and their averages. And then this is just a little bit of a fun fact, like what do our students like to do? Do they prefer to take the ACT or the SAT? And as you can see here, um, overwhelmingly our students still primarily take the SATs in comparison to the ACTs. Some take both, as I mentioned, but most students um, still take the SATs. One is not better than the other. It's just a preference. And now I will switch uh back to Dr. Pearson who will talk to you about our multi-tered systems of support as well as some of our title funds and how we utilize all of those
090different components to help to support all of our learners and um make growth. So we're going to talk a little bit about our MTSS process or multi-tered system of support. It is a proactive program and model that we use. As a district, we have implemented a number of steps to support students and increased student achievement. MTSS incorporates foundational practices for addressing equity and education through data databased decisionmaking and evidence-based tiered support to address and prevent academic and behavioral issues. In a multi-tered system of support, data collection, early intervention, progress monitoring, and early early identification, and early intervention are at the core of supporting individual student growth. MTSS implements universal screeners and secondary screeners in order to identify students for early intervention and targeted support in order to utilize students students strengths to mitigate gaps in
091learning or skill needs. Two years ago, we piloted a multi-tered system of support structure in five out of our 10 schools. We saw huge progress in the way in which students and teachers were supported and grew. Last year, we had that moved to all 10 schools. Now, we are in our um in our second year of having all the all 10 schools in a full MTSS program. When we look at the this is one way to kind of visualize looking at multi-tered systems of support. Uh we're regarding mostly looking at math and reading at tier one. We're looking at high quality instruction, core instruction delivered with fidelity. Tier one is where all students receive highquality instruction. Teachers receive ongoing professional development to imp to support that strong implementation of the curriculum. We have dedicated teacher
092resource specialists for intervention and instruction. We call them our interventionists who provide tier one coaching to teachers and they support students in tier 2 and tier three. Uh when we use again a variety of data points through universal screening and secondary screening to be able to determine which students we would move into that proactive tier 2 and tier three model. Generally speaking, uh we use uh the NWA MAP assessment, growth assessment to to identify as is is our universal screener and then we use other assessments like acadians and some of our internal assessments to make decisions about who needs tier 2 and tier three. Tier 2 support looks like about two to three times a week of supplemental support based on students needs for about 20 to 30 minutes of time. When students move into
093that tier three, it becomes more frequent, which we're looking at then about four to five times a week based on student needs. And again, a duration of 20 to 30 minutes again in that supplemental way. When we look at again just reinforcing what some of those universal screening processes are, we have in place for our we use the NWA map at K8. 912 looks a little different. They look at attendance behavior and course performance for that early identification. We progress monitor and use a data decision based data decision-making process when we're making decision. The tiered supports are pull out. It's supplemental. So if you're in um a if you're receiving math intervention, you're not missing more math in order to you're getting a second dose of math or the second dose of reading. And we're
094also working on integrating more of our digital content and looking at we have Dreambox K5. Otis is a data visualization tool. Again, we mentioned map and Aadians and other measures to make sure that we are being as proactive in looking at all of the different ways to meet our learners needs. Some of the other strategies having a good strong core curriculum in place is important. So, revisions have been made to ELA, math, and our ML program over the last couple of years. We've had uh training in Orton Gillingham, which we mentioned earlier, math recovery training at K5 for our interventionists. We've also had uh sheltered instruction observational protocol put into place as well. We've again um looked at changing the ML program so that we have more push-in opportunities for students at levels three and
095four and increase literacy pullout settings for students in levels one and two through science and social studies content. We've increased and targeted professional development to support teachers directly aligned to strategic goals and main initiatives especially in the areas of literacy and math. That's uh the structure sheltered instruction observational protocol or SCOP is to support instructional practices for our multilingual learners. We've also leveraged more and more supports for students through our title grants. We've used them in the a variety of ways. For example, title two grants paid for the Orton Gillingham training for our K2 teachers in the foundational reading skills. Title three funds paid for summer camp for our multilingual learners. And we um were also able to provide busing at no cost for students. Title four is helping support students on free and reduced
096lunch, taking dual enrollment courses at the high school level. And again, uh, with the staffing, we have our teacher resource specialists for CNI and also interventionists at all levels supporting students and teachers in our tiered supports. And I'm going to turn the last part of this back over to Dr. G. So lastly, um I'd like to end this evening's presentation with a little bit of celebration. Not only, you know, we've shared lots of highlights and positive things that we're all we're doing through our testing and our student achievement and our performance, but I want to just highlight some of our additional excellence as a district because our students and our community and our teachers and educators work really hard to ensure that students have opportunities here to be the best versions of themselves. And so
097here are just some highlights like the this is like a very short snippet of highlights that I wanted to um share with you tonight. As I mentioned earlier, you know, WWP students consistently outperform the state and and their national peers with SAT averages of 647 in both reading and writing and six 61 in math with ACT composite scores of 29.1 which is just remarkable. um in 2024 this actually should say 94% so we will change that but AP exam scores of three or higher and 24% of our seniors are national merit recognition which is a really big deal and a really large number um in 2018 through 2024 664 WWP students graduated with the seal of bi literacy and that number is just going to continue to increase especially with our dual immersion program slowly
098and surely um getting into the high school with our cohort now being in seventh grade. Um, additionally, 97% of our high school students graduate in four years with 100% of our students graduating last year. So, every single student graduated and met graduation proficiency through one path or another. um over 96% of those graduates pursue higher education, 93% of them in enrolling in a four-year college or university. We have a number of our students attending and participating in Mercer community technical schools and also Middle Sex uh technical schools enabling them to tailor their experiences to their areas of strength and to their areas of interest as well and pursuing um those opportunities for themselves. 21% of our high school students are enrolled in some level of music course at the high school. Uh 20% are enrolled
099in a visual arts course. We also received in 2024 um WWP was named the NAM Foundation best communities for music education for the 11th year in a row which is also a big recognition. 24% of our students at the high school level are taking a course in computer science. Also remarkable. Most most high schools don't have that many instructors in computer science to be able to um offer that many courses to students. Our robotics team is internationally ranked and has gone to the world championship 12 years in a row. And our culinary arts program has just expanded tremendously with an increase in enrollment at the high school level by 41%. Which is remarkable. So, we're very excited to be able to offer all of these different opportunities for our students and and different opportunities that
100pursue different pathways as well based on students strengths and interests. And so, I wanted to just thank you all for your time this evening. I know this is a long presentation, but as we look to the future, you know, in WWP, like we're reminded of all of the work that we continue to do, which is centered around our mission and our strategic goals. Um, and we want to live that out every day. And we're always looking and reflecting and thinking about not only our data, but the students that are in front of us and how can we continue to be better for for them so that we could really offer them every opportunity to be successful. So, thank you. >> Thank you so much for the presentation. Um, I'm gonna open it up to the
101board for any questions, Dana. Um, I have a bunch of questions, but I think many of them were answered as you say live. But, um, um, the initially um, what was the the October 15 submission that's on here? Is that 23 24 or 2425? >> It's the 2425. >> Okay. Um and then I think you answered this one, but the 7.3% who did not make the score for to be graduation ready. >> You said that everyone was able to graduate. So they went through the other the other processes. So they had the opportunity to be reassessed >> um and or they met the requirement through either ACUPPLACER, SAT or one of the other pathways. >> Okay. Um and then just jumping to multilingual um you know as you've mentioned it's increasing a lot um from
102year to year. What percent graduate from the program each year? Like I know it's not consistent because it's not the same cohort, but >> when you say graduate, >> I mean they move into they move into general education. >> So they're all in general education, >> right? But they don't have the support of MLO. >> Oh, in terms of um going into not receiving supports for for multilingual learners. That depends on the year. I would say around we looked at this last year. it was around 21% of our students were able to meet that proficiency of 4.5 and no longer need services. It's very dependent upon what how much prior language proficiency they have, what levels of support they've had, whether they're, you know, coming in as a level one student, meaning they have no
103language proficiency or they're coming in with some language proficiency. So, it's really individually dependent. But last year about 21% of our students were able to have enough proficiency to no longer need services. >> Okay. Um and then jumping to AP tests. >> Sure. >> Um so it looks like there were uh 30 3635 um tests given. Did you does it say in there, you know, how many students that was that took that number of tests? I I don't know. Maybe you had it in there. Um, and then just as an observation, it seemed like more males were taking a P test by >> Oh, interesting. >> Kind of significant, you know, like 1975 versus 1639. >> So, we had 1,394 students take the the >> 1,34. Okay. >> Across both high schools, >> right? So
104it's of course across many grades because yeah um >> primarily juniors and seniors we do have um one AP course now that's offered to sophomores. So we do have some sophomores who take it >> as well as we have some sophomores who take um an AP >> test in their um language as well. So sometimes we have that. >> Mhm. Okay. Um, I don't know if I I just said something about noticing that more males are taking APs. It looks kind of I don't know. >> I'm not sure why. >> Yeah, 1975 versus 1639. It seems like a kind of a lot. And then I just also another observation was just that the AC act ACT participation seemed to be it was already low, but >> it seems to be dropping over the ne over
105the last, you know, two to three years. So, >> so anyway, thank you so much for your report. Um, appreciate all that. >> Any more questions, Paul? >> Wow, what a uh comprehensive report. I would have loved to take a deeper dive. Um, slide 26. >> It appears that uh every cohort had a dip in 2024 uh but then a recovery in 2025. all but special education which has continued to decline. What's your feelings on that? Have we had increased enrollment of uh kids that might be more greatly impacted, but what are your thoughts? >> That's a complex question. Um we certainly are always looking at our programming across uh one of the things that we've started to focus on more recently is how we can really communicate across general education and special education in
106terms of our programming and ensure like alignment with our MTSS process with our special education as well as we transition students from you know special education programming back into general education so that they're more successful. uccessful. So that's something that we started to look at and alignment of that programming. Um I'm not sure if it's because students have more need. I think that uh we have to continue to look at you know what we have to dissect this further in terms of like is it specific grade level cohorts? Is it specific um needs of individual students? you know, are there particular curricular aspects where we need to do more training with teachers in terms of supporting them in helping students make more progress or accessing um the grade level standards differently. So, we we definitely
107need to dive into that further. >> And just one more uh thank you for that answer. Um you mentioned the alternate routes to graduation a couple times where you heard ACUPPLACER. Can you just tell us what that is? >> So, Acupplacer, I think one of the reasons why we've had such success with it is because um it offers like almost immediate feedback to students on where they need to improve. So, for instance, they submit like their writing and then it offers them feedback of why they were or were not like successful and then they can practice. there are a lot of like practice sessions that they could do immediately in order to improve for the future. And so we have utilized it uh for that purpose. It also supports our ML students because they can
108take components of it in the language that they're most comfortable in. And so um for instance, the mathematics component specifically can be adjusted for a different language. and um therefore it it gives access while still measuring the skills in terms of graduation readiness and so that has been very helpful as well. So I think because of the immediate feedback, the ability to do like tutorials to help them make progress as well as access for students like our multilingual learners um has really helped us to have success with students that maybe NJGPA they're not as successful with. >> Thank you and thank you both for the presentation. >> Sure. >> Any other questions? Louisa, >> can you just remind us when do the students take the NJSLAS's because we're judging them as meeting grade relevant or
109not? So I think when they take them is relevant. >> Yep. GPA um takes place that's the graduation requirement one that takes place in March and then NJSLA takes place in May, April, May. Um, we have field testing happening right now for the new NJSLA adaptive test that's happening now. And then that'll be administered in the spring, March, and May as well. >> Okay. So, the students that are approaching grade level still realistically have a shot of making grade level by the end of that grade level, right? But the ones that are far off are obviously far off. Okay, great. And that's something that most recently uh especially recently we've really been looking at that cohort of students that are approaching and comparing that to some of our internal measures where we look at our
110MAP assessments and looking at what specific skills can we help to, you know, really facilitate in the classroom and teaching teachers how to also look at those assessments and be able to identify those skills so that we can really target that more intentionally. and focus on that so that we can prepare them to be ready for the following year. >> And also GPA, the NJGPA, the kids that take that in March, they have the opportunity to retake in October if they did not pass. And then any new seniors that were not here and had not taken it also have that opportunity and that was an earlier in October. It will be interesting with the new assessment how we will think about historical data in comparison to how students perform next year because we really will
111not have a comparison to what the adaptive test or assessment will tell us about our students. So we really will also rely a lot on our internal measures to ensure that students are growing. >> Thank you both for the presentation. Um I was just wondering if you could share in addition to these annual tests, how is the district measuring progress throughout the year um and using data throughout the year to um you know address curriculum? >> You can start. Go ahead. >> How are we not? >> Yeah. Yeah. So there's lots of levels to what's happening with assessments. So we use the NWA map. We give that three times a year. So we just are wrapping up that administration now of that for both ELA and math at K8. And then we also for mathematics
112at K5 we have our um unit assessments and we have this um unit assessment and also number corner which is a component of our foundational resource bridges. We give that five times a year to students so that there's checkpoints along the way around major content in um ELA at K5. There is also um with the IMSSE training there are instances throughout the year where students are actually there's weekly assessments with that and teachers are taking anecdotal information daily. So you get more of that observational piece to go along with some of these bigger measures that we have. Do you want to speak about secondary >> at at the secondary level besides students grades? Um many of the different departments are also incorporating common assessments and teachers have uh half day or full day release days
113where they come together and they take a look at the common assessments and make comparisons in terms of student achievement and then set goals for like the the next administration of those common assessments. Um as well as we look at other standardized measures like PSATs um you know we look at um SATs, APs, like every single possible assessment that we can think of to see how students are making progress. We talked a lot about assessments in terms of their academics, but I also want to mention that we have ways to make sure that we're providing supports for students. And this was mentioned earlier when Mrs. Sinca gave her presentation that we're also supporting students in a tiered way through their seal as well. Um you know both at the tier one level which she spoke
114about our different programs through a second step you know through our counseling services as well as tier 2 and tier three through our small groupoup instruction with our counselors and our UBHC clinicians at a one-to-one level with students. like there are lots of tiered supports for SEAL2. We didn't talk about that in our presentation because it wasn't as relevant and she mentioned a lot of those supports, but I want to make sure that our you know it's shared that our MTSS encompasses both supports and behavioral supports as well as academic supports. >> Thank you, >> Liz. Thank you again for your very super comprehensive um report especially so late in the day. Um I'm just so um appreciate what you just the comments you just made about the overall uh support systems that we have
115in place. >> Um I just wanted to know how do we >> let parents know about the availability of those type of additional support systems especially as kids are preparing to take the SATs and all those other kind of standardized tests. what's the approach taken for students as well as parents >> and then I have a second question. >> Sure. So all of our and and this was actually something that was also reference in um some of those publications that there isn't a transparency. Our parents have access to all of the assessment data is available to them. We have parent reports that are sent home for every assessment that we administer as a district as well as if we identify that there's a specific need through our universal screening whether it's at the secondary level
116where we're looking at academics behavior or attendance and um students are re receiving a tier 2 support because of one of those reasons. We are reaching out to parents and they are part of that process and that conversation as well as if we we determine that a student needs intervention K8 parents are also notified that their child is receiving intervention. They meet with the interventionist. They're given progress monitoring. They know exactly how their kid is doing, what the goal is for their particular child, what the need is, and how they're making progress towards that goal. Um it's measured honestly their progress is measured um every other week or every week depending on the frequency in which the interventionist sees the student and everything is shared. All of our assessment is also shared in Genesis under
117the assessment tab. So parents have access to it there as well. So there is lots of information that's shared from the district to parents as as it pertains to assessments and what's administered and the results as quickly as we can. >> And then in terms of in terms of uh supports I meant more like uh financial supports. Oh sure for like because in this community where a lot of people have access to tutoring and all these different types of courses and not everyone may be. >> Yeah. So um through title funding we also many of the schools have um title one tutoring or tutorial tutoring. So as students are identified for additional supports they have tutoring available after school both at the middle schools but some of the elementary schools do as well. students qualify
118though based on need and so if there is a particular need um the counselors or the administration will reach out to a parent and let them know and then tutoring is available through our teachers and it's free of cost um and parents are notified that their child is eligible but we do have to ensure that you know it's based off of need. So we do take our students that have the highest need first and then we provide services for them um and and notify parents accordingly. >> Sure. >> Thank you. Thank you doc. Oh >> Sorry. Um just a comment actually to begin. I'm so thankful that you guys highlighted the um >> on slide 20. Oh, excuse me. I can't read the numbers to uh slide 19 and 32 um highlighting the uh grade
119three I guess in 2023 as they um take the NJSLA ELA and math uh each year and just the progress with that group. Just a reminder that that's the group that's because many of us have asked about this that there were kindergarteners when COVID hit. So when these exams came out and we looked at the numbers, we're like, "Oo, that's a little um" but just watching that cohort um grow really in both ELA and math. I mean, I think it's a credit to parents, the district, and everyone, you know, putting in an all um effort to to help those students. Um >> I believe it's also the cohort that's been called out in the publication. So it just shows how that cohort has grown over time from third grade through fifth grade. >> Yeah. So,
120um really I I love seeing that. I just um I know with our um race and ethnicity um looking at those graphs and I know it's like five to five or six% with our black and Hispanic students and I appreciate the slide with um showing year to year the study growth is I guess my go question is to continue that growth and maybe a little bit um maybe not quicker but just to help those students um get to kind of the same picture graphs as um our other uh cohorts. What I know there's a lot of work going on. I just I wonder if you could just talk more about like how we can help um those students specifically. >> Okay. Um so we do a lot of that work through our MTSS process, right?
121So both with our interventionists and the training that we provide to them that's targeted through specific instruction but also our beliefs around you know high expectations for all learners to make um progress and how we set specific goals for individual kids right so looking at where is a student uh in terms of their needs and where are their skills and then how do we set a goal for accelerating that especially if their skills um need more growth and you know how do we help to support them individually and we have been working really specifically and very hard to do that and then to progress monitor to make sure we have the right program the right instructor sometimes right the right frequency so if the frequency is not working or needs to be more or needs
122to be accelerated we need to make an adjustment with that so we monitor all of those things and if kids are not making what we deem adequate the growth in a certain amount of time, then something needs to change. Whether it be the program that we're using or whether it be, you know, the frequency or whether it be, you know, maybe it needs to be a different individual that needs to administer the intervention. So, we're constantly looking at that and we really do try to focus it on individual students because we want to partner the intervention with the student and what they need. Thank you so much. Um and just a curious question. I know you the NJSLA um 123 is not meeting expectations or at least three is approaching expectations and four or five
123is passing. And I'm just curious when when um students qualify for multi-tered um support is it like a benchmark three and one one two three or do you look at the NJSLA um along with the uh in internal data with map testing and like how do you kind of make that determination of >> do you want to talk about that or I can go ahead I'll start and then you can fill in. >> Okay. Um so we use um the NWA map as the foundation for that universal screening. So everybody takes that and then we look at students that fall in the 40th percentile and below on MAP and look at from there what's some secondary screeners we could look at. So a cadience is a secondary screener that we give that's also a universal
124screener, but that gives us some more information about um whether or not students the way that the scoring comes out from that is whether or not students should be successful with the grade level content. So when we do the universal screening, we look for two pieces of confirming data to say yes, there should be an intervention or not. And sometimes we look at the NJSLA if it's we don't but we only have that information for third grade and above. We don't have that for K12. So we don't necessarily use that as that benchmark. We want something that everybody takes. So that's why we use the NWA map first. And then for mathematics at K5, we look at the um map and then we look we then we screen if kids are 40th percentile and below.
125We look at the Aadian screener and then we look at at um the number corner benchmark or baseline and checkup from there because that gives us some classroom data. So, we want we don't want to over test kids, but we also want to make sure that and we're also using things that kids are already doing in making those determinations. And we don't want any of the any of these decisions to based on on one data point. So, that's where we come in with, >> you know, look at MAP and then do we have another piece of confirming data to say yes or no on whether or not that inter intervention should take place. It's hard to use on JSLA because we don't get the assessment back for a very long time and it's only once
126a year, right? And so it's helpful to look at it for patterns in terms of like our curriculum. Like for instance, we we noticed um when we went back and we looked at one of the grade levels and I can't remember which one, but one of the grade levels we noticed that many of the students were not proficient on one of the particular skills. I think it was like uh putting fractions on a number bar. It was third grade. Okay. So, we it's helpful for us for that particular thing, right? To look at okay, we need to incorporate more practice with that. We have it in our curriculum, but obviously they don't have enough practice with it. So, it helps us to adjust like curricular things, but for individual student decisions, it's not timely. It
127doesn't give us like on time information. That's why MAP administration three times a year gives us more what's happening with students more like right now as well as the Acadians assessment as well as other benchmark assessments through math and through literacy so that we can have a more we have more we're able to set more smart goals more goals that are on target for those particular kids and to check to make sure that they truly need intervention and then what's their goal >> and just one last comment um because I had a son who went through who just graduated last year, K through 12 through the district. Um, and I'm not surprised with the SAT and AP AP scores cuz I saw the materials that just well as much as he would share um when
128he came home with the the work that the teachers do in the classroom, especially for the AP classes. It's amazing the what what they get through in a year. Um, and so I'm not really surprised with some of the scores and the SAT testing. And just as a credit, I mean, every parent I've talked to who has had a kid that's gone through the district and they're in college or whatever stage is next, they always say the district really prepared them. That's a really common, oh, they're really, really prepared. I actually had a friend tell me maybe the district prepared him a little too well because he's a little bit too much free time in college because So I was like, okay. But I mean just kudos to um you know the staff and and
129the administration for for getting them to that point and you know kicking them off as they start their next stage in life. So thank you. >> Thank you Dr. Gold and Dr. Pearson for the uh report. I know during our committee meeting we had a very robust discussion as well when we previewed this testing report. said, "Thank you for answering a lot of my questions then and the rest of the committee's >> questions as well." Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Now, we move on to the first opportunity for public comment. The board invites thoughts and reactions on agenda items and items of concern from members of our community who are present. Each participant is asked to give his or her name and address prior to making a statement, which will be limited
130to three minutes in accordance with the board policy 0167. All statements shall be directed to presiding officer. This public comment period shall be limited to 60 minutes. >> Thank you. Uh Neil Lewis, Plainsboro Township Committee. Uh I first of all would like to say thank you very much for a very informative and impressive detailed report uh of the accomplishments and also the challenges that the district faces. But the the great accomplishments and the record of detail is is very impressive. Uh, I'd like to thank the district particularly for its uh, attention being paid to the nutritional challenges that are being faced as a result of the very bizarre and inattentive effects of what's going on in in the federal system right now. Uh, I'd also like to congratulate uh, everyone on the progress being made
131in the energy uh, energy progress that's happening right now with your efficiency of the system. Uh, thank you for the hot tea by the way. the efficiency is also assisted with that very much. Uh but I would like to make a general statement that Plansboro Township takes a great deal of pride in celebrating the accomplishments of leaders within our community. And in particular, uh we we like to at least acknowledge the people who exemplify excellence in service, education, and civic engagement. And on behalf of the township committee, we would specifically like to congratulate Dr. Adherold on as being the recipient of the Earnest Boyer Outstanding Educator Award for New Jersey. And uh I share that from all of my colleagues on the township committee. So thank you very much and thank you for all you're
132doing. Okay. Hi everyone and again uh Dr. Adherald, congratulations. My name is Ashley Rectenwald from West Windsor. We've been speaking via email. Um, so good evening. I know it's getting late, so I'll keep this brief. Uh, again, my name is Ashley Rectenwald. I am a mom of three children in this district, each on a different bus, which means three separate stops at my home. Every week on Village Road West, we witness stop arm violations where drivers are illegally passing stop school buses as children are getting on and off. These daily incences are why we launched the West Windsor Plansboro School Bus Safety Initiative, now supported by nearly 100 parents across our community. Our mission is simple, to make sure no child's safety depends on driver luck or community vigilance alone. In just a few short
133weeks, we've seen incredible momentum. Our mayor and police department have introduced an adopt a bus program to increase enforcement, and we've begun working with the West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance, the Allen Vorhees Transportation Center at Ruckers, and the New Jersey Bike and Walk Coalition, all eager eager to support local action on school bus safety. I have also been in communication with Dr. Adhold who has been very supportive of our efforts thus far. I understand that legislation is critical to long-term change and we are actively communicating with our state legislators including state senator Shirley Turner who has personally expressed her support for bill 2624 which would allow cameras on school buses to ticket drivers who illegally pass stopped buses. Finally, I spoke directly with Dr. from Masimino, superintendent of Woodbridge, whose district implemented bus patrol,
134a free safety program that identified nearly 3,000 violations last year. He called it a home run, citing strong privacy protections and valuable data to inform prevention and policy. Our hope is to work handinand with this board and the district to bring similar safeguards to West Windsor Plansboro. The violations are happening every day right in front of our children. Together, we can move from reactive enforcement to proactive protection. We ask we are asking to consider this education flyer that I have here to be posted where adults and parents entering the school as well as with the school's uh weekly newsletter so that we can better educate our parents and school staff in general. I'm happy to share this digitally or I can share this right now. So, thank you for your time and continued commitment to
135student safety. That's it. >> Thank you. Any more for public comment? Well, that closes the first opportunity for public comment. We will now move on to the board of education committee reports. Uh administration and facilities committee report first with Dana. >> Okay. Um, good evening. It's pretty late now. Um, the administration facilities committee met on October 13th. First, the committee heard highlights provided by the athletic directors from both high schools. Sports are nearing the end of the fall season and several teams have hosted charity games, including the Serve Up Hope game, which is a charity game between North and South girls volleyball teams, which raised over $1,200, and the red card soccer game between North and South South raised over 1,500 for the American Cancer Society. The committee reviewed the district's uh self-evaluation and responses
136in the district performance re review which is the DPR a required component of of CUSAC process while the discussion encompass all areas. The committee focused its review on operations and governance. The committee recommends approval of the state of assurance submission of the DPR to the county superintendent's office. Next, the committee was joined by Dr. Jessica Smmedley, director of counseling. Dr. Smemedley provided an overview of the counseling services provided by the district, including some of our new initiatives within the district such as Second Step and Wayfinder, which we heard about tonight. Um, and our partnership with Ruter's Behavioral Healthc Care and our collaboration with outside and community agencies to provide support to students and families. The committee will next meet on November 11th. Thank you, Dana. Next, the curriculum committee. Ly, >> thank you, Puja. Uh,
137the curriculum committee met on October 16th. We began with Dr. Gold who reviewed the annual testing report which was just presented uh to the board this evening and uh she received feedback from the committee on the presentation. Uh then Dr. Gold shared the NJQAC indicators for instruction and program uh with the committee as part of the NJQAC process. Uh on the agenda to for voting tonight, we have first up um the curriculum committee recommends for a tuition agreement an agreement with Mercer County Technical School District for placement of students as needed in the alternative high school program at the um Rabbino Academy uh for Thomas J. Rabbino, excuse me, Academy for the uh this school year at a cost not to exceed $1,950 per month per student. Uh, next, the committee recommends approval of the
138listing of community education fall, winter 2025 and spring 2026 adult, youth, and afterchool educa enrichment programs, excuse me, listed um, which are all listed on the agenda. Um, and then lastly, field trips. The curriculum committee recommends the following um, overnight field trips for approval. first with High School South, the Science Olympiad uh team to Cornell University from November 14th through the 15th. Um the cost of that trip is approximately $350 per student. And then uh moving on to High School North Model United Nations to Princeton Model United Nations Conference Ivy Conference Ivy League, excuse me, experience in Paripony from November 20th through the 23rd. The cost of this trip is approximately $370. And then last but not least, new uh our music students for North to New Orleans uh from the 26th 26th of March
139to the 31st. And the cost of that trip is about uh 2500 per student. Um the committee will next meet on Tuesday, November 11th. Thank you. >> Thank you, Ly. And next we'll have the finance committee report. Louisa, >> thanks. The finance committee met on October 13th. The committee reviewed um the financial reports for the month. The administration certified that no expense lines are overexpended and that there are sufficient funds to complete the year. The percentage of the budget spent is tracking very similarly to prior years. Um there are motions on tonight's agenda to approve the following. Health and safety evaluation of school buildings checklist statement of assurance. Renewal of Brown and Brown as the district's healthc care broker of record. Renewal of Benard Services as the district's prescription drug benefits administrator. Renewal of Etna
140as the district's dental service administrator. And to authorize the business administrator to use competitive contracting to procure community education enrichment programs for the 2526 school year. for construction updates. The administration shared that they are still getting pricing for some additional lighting for the north auditorium using the funding allowance from the electrical panel upgrade project for the energy savings improvement programming pro project. The programming of the controls for the Hawk HVAF project continues. Delivery of the youth rooftop units for GMS is expected any day. These units were delayed from their expected delivery date in the first week of September. Regarding the 2425 audit, staff reported that the audit continues with the auditors and administration discussing closing and opening entries to accounts. As to the budget, uh staff reviewed the budget calendar. The preliminary budget calendar was
141shared with the committee. More dates will be added as meetings occur to develop the budget. For the annual health and safety evaluation checklists, the administration has completed the forms for each building and they will be submitted to the county office of education. A sample was reviewed uh with the committee. The M1 and CMP comprehensive maintenance plan have been completed and will be submitted to the county office of education for review. The administration provided a copy of the documents for the New Jersey single quality accountability continuum. The administration shared the district's performance review checklists with the committee members. I know our committee sounds so exciting, doesn't it? Okay. For cafeteria, the administration shared that the number of breakfasts and lunches increased year-over-year for the month of September with the two comparative months having the same number
142of serving days. The number of breakfasts served increased by 609 for the month and the number of lunches increased by 2,649. The number of lunches served to students that qualified for free reduced New Jersey income eligible increased by 24% year-over-year. Average daily lunch participation increased by 197 lunches per day or 10%. In the six elementary schools, the number of breakfasts served per day increased by 10 and 70% of the students receiving breakfast are eligible for free, reduced or New Jersey income eligible. Lunch will be served during half days at Hawk this week as part of a pilot program for serving lunch on half days. These will be bagged lunches expected to be eaten in class prior to leaving the building. If it is successful, this may become a normal practice. SFE, our food service vendor,
143is at full staff. Amazing. Under transportation administration shared information regarding the submission of a grant for six electric 54 passenger school buses with the help of Highland Fleets, Inc. Once the district is notified of the results of the grant application, a feasibility study will be provided to determine the financial efficacy of accepting the buses. Highland Fleets offers national buying power of the buses, a maintenance and service contract, including tow including towing, installation of the chargers, and the cost of the electricity to charge the buses throughout the year. The cost of these services must prove to be feasible for us to continue with the process of accept accepting the grant to procure the buses. In other business, the administration shared the latest hourly rate chart showing the increase in minimum wage to $15.92 per hour. This
144increase is for the few hourly positions that are not covered under a negotiated agreement salary guide. The administration shared that the band boosters want to purchase a shed for the high school north campus to store marching band equipment. The administration shared that we'll have a meeting with an entity on Wednesday to discussable possible grant to install outdoor gym workout stations at each of the high schools. These would be primarily funded by outdoor corporate outside corporate sponsors. The committee will next meet on Tuesday, November 11th. >> Thank you, Louisa. We'll now move on to the voting portion of our meeting. Can I get a motion for administration items 1 through eight and the purple addendum? Liz and Ly. >> Man, I haven't spoken in so long. >> Oh my gosh. Here we go. All right. Okay,
145we'll we'll start we'll start with Miss Chenniera. >> Yes. >> Miss Maliga? >> Yes. >> Miss Krug? >> Yes. >> Miss Ho? >> Yes. >> Mr. O'Brien? >> Yes. >> Miss Shetty? >> Yes. >> Miss Bonso? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Can I get a a motion for curriculum items one through three? Dana and Paul. >> Okay. We'll start we'll start with Miss Krug. >> Yes. Okay. Mr. O'Brien, >> yes. >> Miss Maliga, >> yes. >> Miss Shetty, >> yes. >> Miss Chenniera, >> yes. >> Miss Ho, >> yes. >> Miss Bonsel, >> yes. Can I get a motion for finance items 1 through 12? Schwea and Louisa. >> Okay. We'll start with Miss Shetty. >> Yes. >> Miss Hoe. >> Yes. >> Mr. O'Brien. >> Yes. >> Miss Chenniera. >> Yes. >> Miss Krug,
146>> yes. Miss Maliga, >> yes. >> Miss Bonsel, >> yes. >> Can I get a motion for personnel items one to one and two and the green addendum? >> Also, just wanted to point out that you have a hourly rate chart that was it's a slight revision from what you had in the pony. So, just so you know, that's what you're voting on is the the one that's on the table. There was a little format change. >> Thank you. Um, so the motion, uh, Dana and Ly. >> Okay, we'll start with Miss Krug. >> Yes. >> Miss Maliga, >> yes. >> Miss Chenni, >> yes. >> Miss Ho, >> yes. >> Mr. O'Brien, >> yes. >> Miss Shetty, >> yes. >> Miss Bonsel, >> yes. >> Now we'll move on to the approval of our
147board of ed minutes. Uh, can I get a motion to approve the minutes from October 7th? Paul >> and Dana. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any abstensions? And do we have any board of liaison reports? Board liaison reports. Go ahead. Um Liz, >> just real quickly that uh Ly and I have been communicating with the different PTSAs and working with them and participating keeping an eye on some of the concerns and things that have been raised or vetted to us. So that's really helpful for us with our partnership with the administration. I also just want to make a comment with regard to the um ANF committee minutes and just a very deep appreciation to Miss Sankada and Dr. Medley for their extensive time and effort with explaining all the range of
148uh counseling services and the robust programs that we have here in uh within the district and looking forward to more outreach with the parents in the community to make everyone more aware of what's already available and how to go about to access important services needed. >> Any other leazison reports? any new business. Now, it brings us to the second opportunity for public comment. The board invites comments from members of our committee who are present. Each participant is asked to give his or her name and address prior to making a statement, which will be limited to three minutes in accordance with board policy 0167. All statements shall be directed to the presiding officer. This public comment period shall be limited to 15 minutes. Do we have any more public comment? Seeing none, I'm closing the opportunity
149for public comments. And I think we are going to adjourn the meeting now. >> Thank you everyone and have a wonderful Halloween for those who are >> Oh, do I have to make a motion to adjurnn? Oh, a motion to adjurnn. Okay. Can I get a motion to adjourn this meeting, >> Liz? and Louis and then do I >> all in favor? >> I that's it. And now that adjourns our meeting.