Cedar Grove Board of Education Meeting 9-26-2023

001stand for the flag swoop I pledge allegiance and to the Republic the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advance notice up and to attend the meeting of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the Cedar Grove board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be advertised by having the date time and place thereof posted on bulletin boards in the district published and or transmitted to the Verona Cedar Grove times and the Star Ledger newspapers tap into online news filed with the Township Clerk and posted on the district's website roll call please Mr Grande here Mrs Keegan yeah Mr Paddock here Mr marzullo Mrs Dora here okay good

002evening everybody sorry that we're running a few minutes late tonight I appreciate the patience okay um I'm gonna start with public comment um I did not see anyone sign up for any public comment for items on the agenda so if I don't anyone else doesn't want to speak at this time I will close that section session and we will move on to the next part we're going to change the order a little bit we have a couple presentations tonight so we'll do the presentations first before we get to committee reports I do want to introduce our new student liaison Miss Ava jablonski welcome [Applause] um we do have the presentations but I'm going to let you do your report first a little bit out of order so that you don't have to sit here a

003long time so hi um my name is Ava jablonski I am the co-president of the all school council and the other president is Bobby Kelly so we'll be alternating and giving reports so I don't really have much to say for the first one just because we're still getting started and everything but um we did have a really successful Club Fair a few weeks ago where we had a lot of excited freshmen which is actually really exciting because as you probably know in the past few years we've been having a little bit of trouble with student involvement so the fact that they were so excited was really great and we also had a really successful fall pep rally which was great we were really really excited about that we have our senior sunrise on Thursday which

004this is the first time we've done senior sunrise in September so we're planning on doing a sunrise in September and then a sunset in uh June so that'll be exciting um we have our first meeting on Thursday so I'm just excited to get everything going and go over the events that we plan on doing throughout the year so yeah do you feel like there's a new vibe in the air like start of a new year yeah I mean I know a lot of you every year we start out with like big excitement and hope for a lot of the events but with a we have a entirely new board this year with a lot of new people and we're all really good group we're we've been friends for so long so especially with the new

005freshmen being excited I feel like we're going to be really successful with our events well you know you have the board support thank you if there's anything that we can do certainly reach out to your building administrators you know your principals and they'll relay the message to superintendent Grosso who eventually will get it to us thank you we love this relationship we look forward to keep working together thank you thank you very much thank you you're free to stay or you can go it's completely up to you you will not be offended if you choose thank you okay um so now we're going to jump back to our presentations tonight we have two presentations are we gonna do the njslas first or Lego okay we'll do Lego first thank you and don't forget your hmm

006you want to stand in the front I'll stand right here we'll just we'll take turns we'll we'll adjust good evening everyone my name is Janine Barbosa this is Katie danieli last summer we launched Lego summer build it was we we piloted it it was a small it was on the small scale we had about 40 to 50 students involved and six or seven staff members and it just magnified by over five times its size this past summer and we are here to share just a little bit of what we experienced with Lego summer build just to start Lego by the numbers and I we did calculate this exactly because we're math nerds so there were 558 elements that includes bricks circuitry hubs that were used in the program over 225 students 24 staff members 12

007Middle School and High School volunteers and we were happy to say that a lot of those High School volunteers will be back next summer in a paid capacity because they will have their working papers and one amazing steam Adventure foreign so this year we were able to add a brick Q Prime the 10 plus the spike Prime 10 plus we also started to incorporate daily challenges within the camp itself we started to do BattleBots which took on a life of its own and we also included stop-motion movies where the students would take pictures of each brick and then put it speeded up so it would look like they were moving on the screen and then bionics some students were making hands and needs and our Focus for next year is to have more of a

008steam Focus so we'd like to add the a including arts program in it we're going to create a course catalog where students can pick exactly the course and Legos they want to do so if a younger student wanted to do robotics they would be able to move throughout the program we'll continue to do BattleBots 2.0 link will it start an engineering design and we'll also have a separate station for just for free builds that include Legos that are Incorporated within the program and then just other Legos that we have so okay so we just we were also able to launch a new uh new Lego summer website um and we'll just show you that real quick and then after this we'll show you just the here we go this is our new website that we

009were able to launch for this camp in particular so the parents can go on there and get some more information and to sign up and to see videos and pictures of what's Happening which in which in each class and then finally we'll just show you a short little snapshot of some pictures of the camp that was designed by Victoria Tedesco one of our colleagues so we thank her for that and then you can just enjoy this short film that shows the highlights of our summer it might seem crazy [Music] all right so now you're driving to do it a few more times and think about how you can improve the design to make it go faster and further whoa look at him go look at him go [Music] come back [Music] because they really oh

010thank you I appreciate it thumbs up boys really nice girl it's a fantastic job awesome really cool look how big our fire feelings look awesome I'm ready [Music] woohoo yes [Music] nice I love it [Music] [Laughter] okay [Music] thank you I love it can't happen [Music] this is some ocean [Music] uh this is great oh wow [Music] thank you one quick thing I wanted to add is while this initially started as just a summer program a couple weeks now three full weeks this past December um and even more so for the staff who had had some training we've had this in every single classroom in North End and south end and it has just evolved and what's happening is the summer program we expanded it to K-8 so we had even more middle schoolers in

011there and now we have these 10 plus kits in fifth grade and what's happening as a trickle-down effect is it is basically inspiring the steam teachers in the middle school and high school to up their game because we're now bringing it um up the ranks from the bottom and just supporting our steam students thank you designed by one of our high school students is it currently just offered to Cedar Grove students is it just Verona and Caldwell or is it they're the only other towns that have reached out yeah like is it but then we also have some teachers so if a student from another town other than the two that you mentioned the parent inquired would that be something you'd consider obviously you have to cap it at some point but we did in

012fact there were students um who had moved in the middle of the year to another school district but we still have them come back other states it's actually International it's all over the world Lego education it's booming and it is in some other states great thank you look forward to this summer okay so we're going to move right into our data presentation good evening my name is Barb Pearson I'm the humanities supervisor for grades K2 I'm sorry grades 5 through 12. tonight we are going to be talking and go walking you through the data involved in the state mandated testing for the district so just a quick outline of what's going down we're going to look at the report data reports both districts and students we're going to look at grade level charts and graphs

013in terms of ela Math and Science and moving we're going to go through how we're moving forward as a district what initiatives we're taking and grade level 70 area plans so what is njsla it's a state mandated test in ela math and algebra and geometry in grades four through nine as well as a science test in grades 5 8 and 11. thank you the next few slides that we're going to share are just a snapshot of some of the information that we get back we don't just get a percentage we get a little bit more information uh sub scores and a breakdown of the questions and standards we do not see what the actual questions are we just see charts like this and some of this information is what helps us as curriculum directors speak

014to the rest of the administration speak to grade level teams subject areas in order to dig a Little Deeper about what these results are showing us this one is an Evidence statement analysis this blue trend line is the state average you can see that in this snapshot most of our scores and this is this is indicative of a lot of our reports a lot of the questions each individual line is a question a lot of the green dots you could see are above the state average and each line and each question leads to a standard so what we do when we sit down with the staff is we look at hmm which standard are we not proficient in this year and the other thing we do is we go back several years to see if

015there's some sort of common pattern there are always multiple factors when looking at scores but this evidence statement analysis allows us to really Target a specific skill maybe the skill is something that comes at the end of the curriculum and maybe the teachers are working to expose students at you know late late in the game can you press that but more specifically what it does is it can tell us what question type it is because maybe it's not the content maybe students are getting thrown off by the choose all that apply or the drop down type of question it also shows us how many students in the district had the question because it's not everyone so we might see we don't have this as a specific example but there literally might be a one there

016indicating that one student in the district actually had that one question my name is Kristen masato I'm new to cgdci I am the supervisor of preschool through fourth grade the elementary schools just for your reference we wanted to talk about the fact that Mrs Barboza mentioned types of questions so in terms of English language arts there are three types of questions that students have to have to answer the first is evidence-based that's a part A Part B question so they select an answer and then they have to have the evidence to prove it the second is a technology enhanced so that's where they have to drag and drop or they may have a drop down window and have to select an answer from that and the third is a prose constructed response where they're doing

017one of three things they're either writing a um a narrative type response they might be doing a research simulation and they might be doing a literary analysis I know I introduced myself before but my title is 512 supervisor of math and science um in terms of in the other slide with the math types some of the math types are direct content where students might have to solve an equation or do simple basic mathematics maybe two digit multiplication the second type is process and reasoning and then the third type is multi-set problems where they might have to apply it in a real world scenario like a word problem in the last couple of weeks families received individual score reports these score reports share what the students performance level is with a specific score and on the

018second excuse me the back of this this piece of paper for each of ela and math there's a little bit more information provided it might be sharing specifics about the four domains whether a student for example in math what are their reasoning skills what is the direct content additional and supporting content modeling application so it gives a little bit more information about the types of questions that the students are completing for this test so we're going to start with our Baseline data this these numbers are representative of both north end and South End School as elementary schools third grade sets the Baseline they are there's no way for us to compare cohorts because there's nothing that comes before them but we can compare State and District scores and we can look at those grades over

019a couple of years which we've done here so in 2022 the third graders in ela met or exceeded at a rate of 72 percent this year or this past year this past spring the third grade in ela Metter exceeded at 79 percent and you can see those numbers are well above the state average in mathematics in 2022 68 meeting and exceeding we had a very slight fall off here at 67 percent in 2023. now our fourth grade has the opportunity for us to compare cohorts of students and also year over year so we can do both here in ela 2022 there is a 63 percent of our students achieving meeting or exceeding expectations they took a really big leap in 2023 our fourth graders had a 76 achievement but when we look at that third

020grade class from 2022 and we watched them go to fourth grade they've done exactly what we hope they do and they would they've grown so you can see they had 72 percent in 2022 but 76 in 2023. and in math we also enjoyed growth the 2022 students and the 2023 students big difference in that percentage however we also see again where our third grade students from 2022 grew as fourth grade students in 2023 and that's you're going to hear us talk a lot tonight about our are looking at growth which is really what we want to see when we're talking about student achievement going on to ELA in grades five through eight so in 2022 as you can see um fifth grade as a as a class we're at 75 percent and fifth grade and

021223 was at 71 percent but the important number here would be the 63 that these students had when they were in fourth grade so we see the development between uh the 63 they had in fourth grade and then the climb to 71 percent in while they were fifth graders which is an increase of and I wrote it down but I can't read my own hand how much does that increase by Gene I'm sorry nine percent I'm not going to pretend to do math as an English language arts guy um so move on to the next one okay number six uh grade six in 2023 they were at 62 percent meeting and exceeding expectation um which is 13 over the the state average of 49 percent percent grade 70 La um for 223 uh 72 meeting

022and exceeding and if you look at where they were in a sixth grader in 2022 there were 53 so we had some our largest development overall in language arts and Middle School in this grade level and they grew by uh was that 17 which is pretty impressive growth to move on to grade eight grade eight um they work 63 percent of meeting and exceeding which is an increase in eight percent from the 59 they showed the previous year in grade nine for two 22 they had 57 meeting exceeding and with last year at 223 they were at a 52 percent meeting in the city thank you grade 5 math we have seen some growth from the grade four cohort to grade five and there is a a a very noticeable difference in the achievement percentage

023from grade five to grade five over the last year in grade six we are seeing some growth from uh grade six into 2022 compared to 2023 and in grade seven this is an important um slide to highlight is that our our cohort from grade six to grade seven in math grew 17 percentage points in grade 8 math and in Algebra 1 and geometry the next three slides I will explain why we do not have a cohort comparison we only have year to year and that is because in grade seven when students are in either grade 7 math or grade 7 accelerated they are following a similar curriculum they all taste they all take the same assessment it's grade 7 math when that group enters grade eight the cohort splits so our accelerate students take the

024algebra 1 assessment and our grade 8 math students take the grade eight math assessment so to compare the grade 7 cohort to the grade eight cohort you're not comparing the same group of students so that's the reason that we did not have this in here same thing goes for algebra one we are at the same percentage from year to year with algebra one slightly above the state average this past year and above the state average for both 2022 and 2023 with geometry for our Science assessment we only test science in grades 5 8 and 11. something uh to note obviously we have the scores up here 24 percent meeting and exceeding expectations in grade five eighteen percent in grade 8 and 11 in grade 11. this assessment is designed to be integrated there are there's

025life science physical science chemistry lots of different topics within science and that is what is taught in fifth grade and very much in eighth grade by the time students get to grade 11 most of the students taking an assessment in biology and chemistry perhaps a little bit of physical science might be focusing in on environmental science course which is different and there's work to be done in this area which we will talk about briefly the NJ GPA is basically our graduation assessment it tests again English and math and it's aligned to the 10th grade standards it's given in 11th grade but it's based on 10th grade standards and similar to the math it's done on Algebra 1 and geometry so in the end of GPA which was last year was actually the first year that

026it was a graduation requirement according to the state 97 percent of our 11th grade current 12th graders are graduation ready in ela in math 74 of our students in who are our current 12th graders are currently graduation prepared graduation ready um we are doing remediation for students who did not fall within the 74 that's uh being done in the math classes that they have it's also being done in algebra labs in a couple other place so we have a couple other programs and so we'll talk about them at the end this chart shows the last several years of AP courses sponsored by college board we can see that in this past year we had 135 students take AP courses which is a large increase compared to the the other years with our averages and 227

027tests compared to let's say in the 180s 170s and we had 54 of our students pass with a three or better for those who are unfamiliar an AP test is is a five-point scale five being the highest possible score and once again we will be discussing plans for moving the AP program forward when we discuss it foreign directors we always want to explore as many factors as possible because if we identify different factors that could potentially contribute to Student Learning then that means that something else that we can support an area that we can we can look at and so we were interested in looking at parent and student investment we were able to extract from both the link it Parent Portal and Genesis grading system what percentage of parents or Guardians log on to

028the system a minimum of one time on June 2nd we provided an email with some information about accessing the link at Parent Portal and from June 2nd to September 14th we had at the high school 30 percent of parents access it 48 at the middle school 56 at North End and 49 at South End looking at the Genesis Parent Portal we looked at the date from September 1st 2022 all the way through September 14 2023 and saw that 64 percent 66 percent 87 and 76 respectively at all the schools were accessing Genesis at least once to check on students grades the other thing that we want it to look in because it became a conversation when we were talking to teachers in the district is we were wondering what is the attendance rate because we

029know that that would eventually impact student learning as well so we went in to link it and just like it categorizes performance just like the state does meeting expectations exceeding approaching expectations we saw that link it categorizes attendance and the percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations for attendance are listed in this chart none of them are above 33 percent now what does this mean what does 33 percent meeting exceeding what what does this mean so I'll just look at grade eight 14 percent that means that on average the entire eighth grade on average missed 13 days of school then we went a little further because we were interested in seeing is there a correlation between performance and and attendance and we saw that there was a little bit of a pattern students that did

030not meet expectations on State Testing and Link it students that were partially proficient on these tests we went back and looked at the data and their absences range from 16 to 25. for a school year there were some students that their absences went into the 40s 50s 60s and 80s and so this is something that we found interesting because there is a correlation and we're sharing this because we're on the same team we want to work with the community and the parents and the students in order to meet the same goal to raise the expectations for our students and we're going to talk about how we're going to do that so how do we move forward because that's the only direction to go in right is ahead this evening the superintendent Grosso is going to

031present the district goals and you'll notice that we're very focused on using data for one purpose and that purpose is growth for all of our students um one you know I'm not gonna read all of these slides but two things that I think are important to highlight here is our focus on response to intervention district-wide and we'll talk a little bit more about what that looks like and the second thing that we want to highlight here is Edge elastic this is a platform that we're going to be using um in the elementary schools right up through the high school and it is a warehouse of test questions from standardized tests that will help children practice the types of questions they will encounter on the test it'll familiarize them with how things are asked before they

032actually get to that test so that the day that test comes it's like any other day it's like any other assessment that they've taken so we're excited about that as a way to help our students understand how those questions are asked because oftentimes it's not so much your understanding as it is how you're being asked the question um at the elementary schools again I'm not going to read every point but the one that I want to highlight is the wind time that has been put into the daily schedules wind standing for what I need this will be a period in the day where not new instruction is taking place but rather we're working with children based on standards and skills that the teachers have identified through our Link at data warehouse and their own classroom

033observation and assessments where they'll be targeting instruction based on specified skills and we'll be looking to help children who are striving to understand something as well as enriching students who might be you know Flying high in achieving additionally what's highlighted here is that we have a full portfolio of supports in our district now we will have the win time during the school day we will have interventionists who are working with our students at all tiers as you can say all students and going up to that tier three where people need individualized intensive support as well as Pathways which is an after-school program that supports our students who need just that little extra bump to help them realize their full potential foreign support for 512 Ela again I'm not going to read that huge paragraph that

034we have up there but I think the two most important aspects of ways to better prepare our students the first would be an emphasis on standard base and skills align instruction and this goes both in in terms of text type both narrative and informational non-fiction texts as well as really looking at the data that we've collected on each of our students to see what skills what standards and really what type of text they are most struggling with when we target those we Target and we move towards it's the progress progress to proficiency practice for a proficiency and that's what we're looking for to hit the proficient level and that'll be most apparent when we look at in terms of NJ GPA the other really important aspect of it would be to concentrate on student writing

035um writing especially academic writing really does show the way our children think the way our students think we want to put an emphasis on it not just in the ELA classes but in all the classes and I know there's teachers who teach in discipline such as social studies they do almost more writing in their classes and research-based you know material than the English classes do to get a full effect of what our students arriving should be we have to hit them in every single subject area and every grade level writing comes across as probably the most one of the more important skills that they have when they leave any educational institution and that's the one that I want to highlight the most across the board if you're a good writer in English you'll be a

036good writer in social studies can the teacher in social studies look at an essay objectively and say that's written well I believe they can we all went to college I think we all have a background in what that is the idea is to bring that out that would be overall probably the biggest Game Changer in terms of written education thank you we are going to have continue folk continued attention to the math curriculum every year we look at data formative assessment what teachers are doing in the classroom now we have Edge elastic link it Delta math there's a lot of systems that we use to support this and we're going to make sure that the standards and the skills are aligned when we recognize that there is a need for something a need for change

037we look at all the possible options and we say do you know what yeah I think we need to make a change somewhere for many years we've had the connected math program and we made the decision over the last year to look go in another Direction and so the sixth and 7th grade classes this year the grades are piloting in Vision it's Envision it's been around for for a little while but this is the 2024 version and a lot of the approaches and philosophies is are the same as what we're trying to do at the elementary school so it will be a great point for consistency math strategies to mirror Pathways for ELA math strategies is available at the middle school for grades five through eight hopefully families have seen the the communication that went

038out about intervention and and support for our students in the district it's mentioned in there and we really are are going to look at foundational math skills and use those math practices and make our students really think like mathematicians over just doing math at home reviews and that speaks to something I mentioned about the the families which which we'll talk about um again like I said Delta math edgelastic and in terms of science we're going to be reviewing the science standards across the the grade levels not just looking at tested grades the Next Generation science standards are are three-dimensional there's the disciplinary core ideas engineering practices and cross-cutting Concepts and they there's a Common Thread with a phenomenon inquiry based approach to science along with a model of claim evidence reason reasoning that helps support

039verbalization and explanation to mirror what what Mr Pearson was saying about the writing so that is going to help support students retention and understanding in science for the AP program this year we're doing something new at the high school we are looking at the AP program and it's as its own cohort of instructors and students it is almost a specialized area and very often an AP teacher is an Islander there's one AP psychology teacher there's one AP Calculus teacher there's one AP Physics teacher in a small District so sometimes it is challenging to have that collaboration so by putting all the AP teachers together we can have conversations on how to really create successful exam preparation and approaches for our students whether it's analyzing multiple choice free response questions it's about training them using Google

040classroom and setting a high bar because these are supposed to be college level classes and we want the students and the instructors to have we want them to raise the bar absolutely we have a student expectation agreement that outlines a lot of things and the other thing I want to mention is that we listened as an admin team and as a staff we listened to the students who bravely step forward at the April 25th meeting and talked about some of the pressures that they're feeling and so what we're doing is we are inviting Donna laffoon the student advisory council at the high school to meet with us and the AP students to talk about time management how to challenge themselves and set high standards while finding a balance so that they can manage the pressures

041that often are associated with AP courses uh sometimes when things don't exist you have to create them themselves and we're very proud that cgdci has created the New Jersey AP Consortium and in a matter of hours after putting a Google form out to our Ela supervisor group and math supervisor we were able to connect over 50 school districts that want to be part of a network for supporting students and instructors in rolling out an AP program what are we doing with it we're going to plan roundtables sharing of resources discuss different elements of an EP program entrance procedures perhaps even different ways to schedule full-length practice exams so students can really experience and endure a three and a half hour test sometime before they actually take the real one so there are a lot of

042things that we have planned for the AP program when I share the information about the parent portal and Link it and student attendance I just want to share the idea that when it comes to these scores there is there is never a blame game or pointing fingers we are a team and we want to present the idea as of families as partners as in education while we can very simply say yeah we want people to log in more we want students to pay attention we also want to provide the parents with a little bit more information I know as a math person I'm I'm always hearing from parents ah I didn't learn multiplication that way I can't help my student what do I do so we want to provide them with that one example is

043actually Envision it has an entire site for parents for helping them increased opportunities for engagement informational sessions more announcements and transparency from us in order to support parents and also um we want students specifically at the middle school and high school level to have more investment in their own learning process because if you can be reflective and know what you know and also figure out what you don't know with that self-awareness that's how you can move forward and Achieve and so we are going to give students the opportunity to look in Genesis the student portal communicate with their teachers via Google forms in in a way that allows them to evaluate what they're doing academically and also analyze their work habits study what helps you learn more what have you discovered about yourself as a

044student so once we have that information it's empowering and then everyone can move forward of course we just want to acknowledge our Educators I've heard Mr palix say many times the teachers do yeoman's work and we wanted to thank them for continuing to learn and adapt and putting our students first I think that's thank you very much [Applause] thank you it's very thorough um before we move on does anybody have any questions or anything or we just want to bring up any questions as we move forward I'll handle that part in in our curriculum report yeah that's what I figured okay um geez I'll figure out where we are at this point all right uh Community reports all right you will start with um to my right Mr marzulla thank you I had the opportunity

045to attend the Personnel committee and record board advisory committee Mr palik is going to speak on behalf of the Personnel committee I attended the rec board meeting Miss landolf he announced that a contract was awarded to resurface the basketball courts and realigned the tennis courts DNL contractors were issued that that contract which requires them to resurface the playing area down to basketball courts fixed drainage issues install four adjustable Hoops the tennis courts will be stripped and relined so our students you know will have access to those facilities in addition to um Community Park is going to be renovated they're going to replace the natural grass with artificial turf will be converted which will include a full-size soccer field that will be lined for field hockey and baseball fields which will be playable from 40 60

046through 60 90 Fields so that that would you know allow our baseball team to have an alternate site to go down in case our field gets rained out they have a place to go play uh in practice the Town Council has been very Cooperative with the Board of Ed and I think these facility upgrades will definitely benefit everyone in the community lastly I want to just announce the Ninth Annual real Panthers wear pink walk will take place on October 19th from 6 to 8 p.m at Panther Park all proceeds will go to minnett's Angels I would like to encourage as many people as possible to go it's a great cause it's a great event great time food vendors music and just obviously for a great cause Miss along land off he's done a phenomenal job

047raising for cancer awareness in October which is cancer awareness breast cancer and that's about it Mr palik thank you Mr start with our curriculum and instruction committee meeting which we help on September 20th and uh it was truly an outstanding meeting and I'd like to thank our supervisors that that spoke this evening Mr Pierce with barbadosado you did a great job in in helping us get to where we needed to go and having said that um they did an excellent job in crafting District goals that you're going to see later this evening it was a result of several meetings where we had drafts we made suggestions we we moved the the goal so that it was more quantitative and it was also one that would have reporting intervals throughout those of you are familiar with

048smart goals it was they were more aligned as a smart goal I think that will enhance our presentation to you the public showing what kind of growth we're making at various intervals throughout the year and these goals are based on the ELA data and also our map data so as we get to that where they're then building goals that are working off those District goals so now everything is aligned the building goal is working off the district goals which are also working off our board goals which we path during earlier in the school year so last year excuse me so we're in a good position and this is for one of the first times I've really seen us to be in a position where we as a district are unified and we can move together

049move forward together trying to attain the same type of growth and again as the supervisors indicated we're talking about growth the ultimate result will be achievement but you have to have growth intervals to get to achievement and so that is one of the areas we're working on they're they're testing presentation was outstanding as well but as you should be aware it is mandated it's mandated that every school district do this presentation prior to November 30th based on the results of the previous year and what I've always liked to tell people is that think of the testing data if you were going to the doctor as the diagnosis the date is giving us a diagnosis and then when we begin to work on the goals and so forth that is the prescription or the remedy and

050this is how you you need to look at that these results I think if you look at them and analyze them we'll tell you where our needs are where our experience are whether it's been growth but where there is still some significant work to be done and that significant work to be done and understand that the results that you saw this evening where it said meet an exceeding expectations are based on state averages not the proficiency on the test so that's where the cohort in the state fell and so therefore I think it's very important to understand that when you start to analyze those results now I do believe also they did an outstanding job and a lot of times when test results fall where they fall we want to all of a sudden blame

051our instructional staff and that is not the case usually when you're dealing with standardized testing Things fall in one of four areas and they touched upon them you know and and very simply put does the curriculum we have match up to the tests that we're using the second thing becomes is what being taught is what being asked on the test does that happen in your classroom are the students and you did a great job of explaining the students test aware that means are they aware of the types of questions that are going to be asked on the test so that students can quickly ascertain what that question is asking them and be able to answer it appropriately very often students will know the answer to those questions but not understand the question and so therefore

052that's a real critical piece and then finally this is something that the supervisor have been working on is the pacing of the students in the class and in the previous grades meeting the needs of the assessment that's being given and that's something that that we we need to look at but the supervisors have done great work in this area I commend them on it and I really do believe we're going to be moving in a great direction thank you very much for your efforts and the principles as well for getting us those goals get a good personal sure why not all right I'm Gonna Roll you're on a roll for IT personnel Personnel is a standard operating procedures within the district this evening we do have some important things I do want to make note

053that there is a large number of approvals in regard to CGA members for Staffing salaries and so forth that is a result of the newly negotiated agreement and therefore since that agreement has been ratified all the new salaries need to be approved in all those positions need to be approved again tremendous work by the Association and teachers union to get this agreement done and we as a board are committed to attracting high-level candidates for our staff for all positions and making sure that more importantly we continue to build and mold the culture so that we can maintain that staff and that is something that we're truly committed to but thank you very much that was personnel thank you Mr power Mrs Keegan you're up okay on um September 19th Mr palik and I attended a

054policy committee meeting with Mr DaVita and Mr Grosso and we went over the three policies that you see on the agenda tonight the emergency virtual remote instruction program attendance and the HIV policy thank you and they'll be up for resolution tonight yeah and last and always uh finance committee so we we had a finance committee last uh last Friday it was a relatively routine meeting we discussed a handful of matters including uh going through the bills listing which is on tonight's agenda Mike addressed several questions that I that I had um we discussed the payment applications for the high school boiler project and the boiler at lrp which is also on the agenda for tonight the high school boiler project seems to be moving along uh on schedule which is good you know we were

055a little concerned um about uh potential backlog of supply chain several months ago when when we were first uh you know looking at that project but that seems to be moving along which is is good news we've touched upon the the rod Grant application for the HVAC systems at North End and South End gyms as well as for electrical upgrades as well and then lastly we discussed the the children's internet protection act certification which will get approved tonight as well all right I have a couple things I just want to add um I don't want to do a lot of repetition but um I want to wish a happy National Hispanic Heritage Month we will be celebrating that and it's been exciting to see all the um the artwork and student work that's been up

056in the classrooms in the hallways back to school night I heard at the high school I don't have any more high schoolers so I did not attend but it heard it was very well received well attended a lot of positive feedback Thursday night is Memorial Middle School's back to school night and the North End and South End somebody help me out I don't have any little ones the following Thursday thank you um so I look forward to hearing some feedback about that you heard tonight that we it was a very busy couple of weeks lots of committee meetings um so I want to just start by thanking the board for taking the time that they put in this the every day but essentially this last couple of weeks it's been very busy so um thank

057you I appreciate your effort and time I want to add that Mrs Keegan and I attended the town council meeting last night and um in October 3rd is that the day we decided and the meeting we'll be meeting the board members Mr Grosso and the Town Council will be meeting to talk about some shared services with like facilities and things like that so I look forward to continuing to grow that relationship with the Town Council a couple of shout outs I already shout out one the back to school night thank you to all the staff the efforts they put into that that was well done a shout out to Mr Paul Ayanna cone who organized the 911 tribute for the football game on Friday night that was a beautiful tribute and I appreciate him including

058the Board of Ed in the ceremony as well as the Town Council so that was really a beautiful night a shout out to our director our athletic director Mr gogirdy for creating a positive culture amongst our athletic programs and receiving the njsia sportsmanship award for 2022-23 so I just want to read that because I think it's important every school year the njsia honors its student athletes schools coaches and officials for their achievements sportsmanship and dedication to Athletics this past Wednesday which I think was the Wednesday before Cedar Grove High School was awarded with the 2223 njsia sportsmanship award for the first time since 2017. this award is a test them into our student athletes our coaches staff and Community for promoting prioritizing and keeping our athletic events and competitions extremely competitive positive and most importantly

059Sportsmen like so shout out to everyone who's involved in that um and my next shout out is to our department of curriculum instruction who worked in tandem with our building administrators to create building-based goals that you will be in a resolution tonight Mr Pollock spoke a little bit about them I thought it was important to just reiterate a little bit about the we constantly talk about the Board of Ed having goals and last year we created um what we thought was the direction we wanted to see the district go quick review academic achievement fiscal responsibility accountability special education and communication and as you either read through the agenda or I'm not sure how in depth you're going to go into the goals you will see that the building the district goals and the building base

060goals are aligned with those goals and like Mr palik said that really provides the direction that the district is going and it starts at the top and it filters down into the building so I appreciate the time and effort that was put into seeing them seeing them to completion and they will focus on increasing the academic rigor providing effective resources and development to the staff holding State all stakeholders accountable we heard a little bit about that parents students accountable Board of Ed accountable staff Administration everything is all aligned with the board goals and the building-based goals and so we'll hear a little bit more about that I believe when Mr goso gives his yes on that note I'll hand it over to you three specific goals the first one is Instagram you need to use

061them oh it's easier sorry yeah thank you very much um you okay uh this the first two goals are are specific to the academics and when we look at these I'm going to share with you that tomorrow you will see the district goals how they will be achieved timelines Etc will all be available online to you so you'll be able to look to to view that in in its entirety into in depth but tonight what I'm going to do is give you a high level overview of these goals and how um how they came to be so first one is to increase student achievement and Proficiency in the area of mathematics by an average of 13 percent as measured by multiple standardized measures of assessment that number is not just arbitrary the number is specific

062it's based on the presentation that you just previously saw by the three supervisors of the curriculum instruction Department it is very clear is very decisive it's very direct sending a clear message to our staff to our students and to our families on what is expected and how it's a benchmark for us to attain it's not again not these numbers aren't arbitrary they're based on mathematics uh of what we were able to decipher from the assessments how do we do some of these things well just to give you an overview of this we we look at establishing routines that um are targeted targeted to skills we look at centralized and pinpointing various uh PD we look at evidence-based instructional strategies and dissecting those as well as taking cross-curricular approaches these are all things that we just

063heard previously with the uh the um the presentation and then supporting multiple cognitive levels of processes of students now this is specifically towards math this is a K to 12 initiative if we look at goal two goal two is to increase achievement Proficiency in an area of English language arts by an average of seven percent as measured by multiple standardized measures of assessment I want to just note notate to you this is an overarching District goal this is not specific to school-based goals I'm not going to go over the school-based goals um this is something that is that is very unique and pertains to each School individually the principal and the team as well as the department have have come up with these goals that are very specifically geared towards the students in their building

064but the numbers that you're looking at here tonight are specific to the district as a whole and how we can achieve that together collaboratively the third goal I'd like to share with you and this is very very important it is to increase participation of students and families in fostering academic success over the K-12 journey by 10 percent the middle in the high school and by five percent at the elementary levels if there's anything that you walk away with tonight you have a lot of information that was presented to you but as families watching at home who will later watch this presentation her family's sitting here right now caregivers families be very close attention to the presentation that was given that dealt with the family part of this I think Janine said it I think Barr

065and Christian both they all said this to get any of this work completed it cannot be lopsided it can't be one-sided it has to be a team effort it has to be collaborative and that means staff students and families and I think some very unique data points that were presented tonight was when we looked at link it and we looked at Genesis and we looked at the participation you have this information at your fingertips no I get it I understand that sometimes this information is is obscure it's very difficult to look at and to decipher and that's okay that's okay that's why it's important for you to question the staff it's important for you to question the teachers and say hey I don't quite understand this walk me through this hold us accountable the other

066piece of this is is looking at the attendance that to me would probably was the most eye-opening piece of of the entire presentation in general it is no mystery that for Progress to be had is extremely important for children to be sitting in front of their teacher absorbing the content collaborating with their classmates to be successful if they're not there they're not only absent physically or they're absent of the process and they're missing out on that and therefore that does bleed into the progress that each individual student will make as well as the progress of that cohort as well as the progress of the school and District as a whole so it's very very important we can't gauge when our children get sick we can't gauge when there's emergencies that happen that is life but

067we can if we have various things that happen that perhaps can be taken at a different time those are things to consider because those numbers that Janine presented when we're looking at okay we're looking at a 10 but when we get into the 40s and we get into the 60s we go to school 184 days a year those are large massive numbers that are very very effective it affects the progress of the child so this goal is done by several uh by accomplishing several things and and that really is the collaboration of the district and yourself and I I think we all the board the administration the staff as a whole we welcome suggestions from you say Hey listen we need some help here we need we need some more information on this we don't

068quite understand this as well as you are expecting us to understand it and your suggestions for workshops for um presentations those are very very important to send to us and you can send them directly to your um building your child's building principle that gets us or send it directly to us and we'll look at that but it's done through forms of student growth we look to provide those to you this year and in the future what does growth really mean how does it affect your child how do you become a participant in that we look at varied levels of support for students um that's the whole child not just specifically looking at a particular area but looking at the whole child and how do we how do you and we work collaboratively together to address

069those issues looking at guidance and counseling now this year we have a new position here in District that position is the director of guidance and counseling we look to utilize the skills and the abilities of Ms Alvarez to help us and help you and opportunities and and um the um the supervisor said this opportunities for self-assessment this is very very important we talk all the time your children hear this all the time from the staff it's about being self-reflective that is how you truly grow and I'm not talking about the mistakes that we make but I'm talking about where we are does the student whether you are in kindergarten or you're you are in 11th grade are you truly self-reflective of the process that you are participating in and able to identify the needs that

070will help you grow and be successful in that particular content area or the tools that you need in your toolbox to be successful in life we look to give your children the students of this District the opportunity to do that and these three goals that have been presented to you tonight as the board has shared it is cohesive and collaborative and we look to address those goals no no is this thing that we're going to achieve these goals in one year perhaps and then perhaps not perhaps we fall short a little bit and then we have to be self-reflective as a district to say what's our next step or perhaps we surpass that and that's great but we're always self-evaluating who we are what we're doing and how we're going to get there and again

071this the the overarching action plan will be on the on the district website tomorrow and you can certainly contact your children's um building principle to really look and dive into your your building your building goals thank you very much so maybe something to consider for the building-based goals that the principals could maybe push out in FSA meetings absolutely so we've talked about that and I think um I know that North and had their FSA meeting last week and I know um principal Dyer she actually started talking a lot about the expectations um she had all presentation and where she wants to you know she and the staff want to lead their students in the district as a whole so they started to do that I know South and has one this week as well tomorrow

072you're right so um that's a great idea and they're really starting to follow through with that oh like Mr Patrick said there's a lot on the agenda a lot of it is um routine stuff so bear with us here under the business administrators report can I have a motion for G1 through G11 please okay any discussion roll call please Mr Grande yes Mrs Keegan yeah Mr Pollock yes Mr marzullo yes Mrs Dora yes on page nine here under the superintendent's report just general Administration can have a motion for H1 through H7 so move second discussion roll call please Mr Grande yes Mrs Keegan yeah Mr Pollock yes Mr marzullo yes Ms Dora yes page 12. under human resources can I have a motion for i1 through I-26 but before we do that on i7s we

073are all going to vote but we will abstain from our portion of i7 it relates to the school School Board conference that the board will be I think I think I think what you want to say there is that uh the minutes will reflect how the minutes will reflect thank you Mr that's what I mentioned the minutes will I wonder 26 please discussion roll call please Mr Grande yes Mrs Keegan yes Mr paddler yes Miss marzullo yes Mrs Dora yes age 35 curriculum instruction can I have a motion for J1 so move second discussion roll call Mr Grande yes Mrs Keegan yes Mr palick yes Mr marzullo yes Mrs Dora yes under special services can I have a motion for K1 through K4 second discussion real cool Mr Grande yes Mrs Keegan yeah Mr palette

074yes Mr marzullo yes Ms Dora yes all right at this time we opened the meeting to public comment the Board of Ed recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interests public participation shall be governed by the following rules please preface comments by stating your name address Municipality of residence and group affiliation if applicable please be mindful of your statement length and keep each statement to the three-minute Limit participants may not speak more than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on the topic have been heard please direct all statements questions or inquiries to the presiding officer the presiding officer May interrupt warn or terminate a participant statement question or inquiry if

075it is too lengthy or is abusive obscene or may be defamatory the rules may be waived if necessary to protect privacy or to maintain an orderly operation of the board meeting Okay so Mrs deliva good evening I'm sorry it was a long meeting this is worth it don't worry yes it is okay hi Heather Rosetto deleva 242 Ridge Road Cedar Grove so back in ape I'll try to make it quick back in April April I met with Mrs pignatello I was preface by my son Anthony is in seventh grade and out of District so back in April I met with Mrs pignatella and I wanted to create like a social club for the Middle School for Children who had IEPs 504s anybody who needed kind of social skills while my son plays football there's no

076like real life social skills going on um like in sports and a lot of the kids I noticed don't aren't involved in sports so they didn't really have a way of connecting so then I went to the FSA and I was going to create a position on the FSA but they need they need to maintain an uneven amount of people for voting so they created a subcommittee and I created what is called Champions the special services Social Club I was unable to connect with Mrs pigmenteller until August and then I'm still unable to connect with her so I went through Mr de court and he approved the flyer for social media and to go out to the parents so it's a monthly meeting we met on Wednesday Wednesday September 20th at 6 30 at Esposito's

077the kids sat at one table the parents had another I think it was kind of cathartic for the parents also to get together and realize like I'm not alone my kid needs to socialize the kids loved it they lasted about 45 minutes grades K through seven were there and it was about eight families right so it was good considering the flyer literally went out like two days before so I'm hoping to get more kids and parents involved our next meeting is October 25th um probably the same place right now I'm kind of involved in football with heavy so maybe like November I'm planning to do more like activities besides once a month to get the kids acclimated with each other but how do I who do I go to who do I connect with if

078Mrs pigmento is unavailable or takes such a lengthy time I think I think my first question would be like where what are you looking to where is it where are you looking to go with it like that you would require she told me she was having like an administrative meeting at some point and she was gonna get all my because I have all the dates through January I mean through June also that is something I didn't mean to interrupt that I apologize but is this something that maybe can run through our district cpag I think we call it realize um this is separate yeah so but is it maybe that's something to consider doing it through but if you choose some keep it separate no it's it's separate because it's just for the middle school

079and it's a pilot program and it's part of the FSA so it's okay they said if it's successful we can move it to Elementary and high school but somebody else obviously I can't run at all so somebody else would have to it's always a volunteer to chair is that what you're looking for like the school I need like where where do I who do I go to to get like approval of things like didn't Mr ducort give you approval to for the first plier yeah to send the fire out okay I think that's something that I could shoot so I think it's a great idea I think it's great um it's inclusive um I any information that you would want to send out would have to go through the superintendent's office okay so any flyer

080that goes out any Friday fold a piece we sign off on it we date it we stamp it making sure that it was all approved anything that you do specifically within the middle school would obviously need to get Mr to Court's approval if you're doing it through the FSA you'd obviously have to go through officers and get their approval yeah you're piloting this right you want to see how this moves and I think you're gaining some great steam with this I think you're you're getting some great involvement in this you want to keep that momentum going ultimately you have a bigger vision of say maybe just spreading this out to the elementaries and to to the high school so let's talk later on in in the year um and it's something that we can it

081wouldn't be a bad idea for you to even present to some of the other fsas you know to really start to to involve that and and you Pi if you're piloting it at the middle school share that the fsas it's a community right apt is a community so share that with them we're more than happy administratively here in the district we're more than happy to support it if it's if it's like I said if it's being inclusive and you're getting um a great response from families and from students we'll we'll look to work with you so I would say start focusing on um the middle school with Mr de Court I know he's very receptive to this and then we can kind of move forward and see where that can take us as a district

082so can I just ask them so if she follow if Mrs deliver forwards to Mr de Court then he will forward it to you that's how that's how the process goes yeah so you give anything in your school I'll give you a great example like sometimes Girl Scouts right they'll go through Mr Matteo or Miss Miss Dyer they sent it to us anyway and and it goes to um actually Angel to post on the website into the Friday folder but it goes through the superintendent's office first to First for sign off because sometimes we get things and we can't really put some of those things out but this is something that we would definitely would want to support so send it to Mr to court foreign and the second thing is is I posted it

083on the Cedar Grove Verona parents page and I actually had two people from Verona one person from Roseland and one person from Little Falls interested in it but I don't like I had nobody to ask well like when you're ready to expand Beyond Cedar Grove yeah that's okay okay I mean that's not a big decision that's a Mr grosso's decision but I certainly I personally will certainly help okay spread it to because I don't want to make it too big and like lose the the socializing portion of it like I have questions on the table and the kids play the game and they read questions and actually talk to each other and stuff like that so I don't want to lose that if I'm including so many different other towns and it gets out of

084hand good point all right thank you you're very welcome thank you thank you appreciate it appreciate that okay next we have uh Jason Minot did I say that right oh so you did sign up yes come up to the mic state your name and your address please okay okay Miss Jason Myatt y and um basically I didn't put anything on a topic it's my first time at the meeting so uh I just want to find out as far as the uh the gold initiative those three gold um like where is the like source of the data um in in achieving this goal you know how we're basically going to um you know from the start in you know from goal number one how are you going to get to the goal number three or we'll

085like to see that outline it's a great question and welcome to the board the board meeting thank you for coming um as far as the answer to your question I think a lot of what you're asking will be posted on the website tomorrow it's outlined so superintendo Grosso talked about the goals but the outline on how we're going to achieve those goals it will be posted on the website tomorrow am I correct in interpreting what you said yes it's the action plan and it's in a very it includes timelines it includes participants uh and then it breaks down to subcategories so you can really see how all that will be addressed and one of the things that we did um include is periodic checks throughout the year right there's no sense of making a goal

086and not assessing it until June because if you didn't need it then you've missed all that time so there's periodic checks throughout the year uh benchmarks of where we want to be so that if we need to tweak the goal or do some you know do something different we don't want to be in a situation that it's the end of the year and we're like wow we didn't make that goal we should have fixed it you know six months ago but that will all be outlined and specific to each building as well okay all right thank you okay next we have Jason okay great thank you you got it right bigger because I just can't see it um Janine Patel 87th Stephen Avenue I had a question of March now for the AP exams my

087son came home from school and the teacher told him that they'll be charged 90 now instead of the 45 is there a reason that the board is not covering that or is it not true to speak today sure that that is your the charge for for the exam as a whole one of the things that um the district and the board has agreed to that if your child takes the exam or exams and scores of three or higher on it you will be reimbursed for that couple of years in one test so I'm just like if you should have received the check I did but if this is a year later from when I paid for it right right because there's some sort of exemption for certain students no there isn't an exemption for students

088but I will tell you the reason why you would you would have gotten paid so much later is because those results don't come until later in the year so I know they don't come to right right I know that right so that so that that is that is our procedure for AP that if a student's going to be taking that they would have to pay for the tasks themselves no I'm not paying the 45 I didn't know that was being brought back up to 90 again this year and my son was told it was because so many children failed the test last year don't know if that is how I will look into that response for you um that was the first I'm hearing of that and I would want to clarify that um so

089I appreciate you sharing that with me but um will reach back out to you to give you a clarifying piece on that um I have to look into why why that was sent to you not to me to your child to your child sure [Music] you said something about a policy that you passed tonight about the emergency virtual schooling can I understand the reason for that is that because of Kobe coming back and is that are we planning to shut down that I worked in did it in August yeah I was just curious we're not planning so this is something that um we put into place and it's done throughout the state if there was an emergent situation where we would have to close down no school district in New Jersey wants to be placed

090in the same situation as they were previously we've lived it we've done it now let's be prepared and plan for it and that's really what that plan is is here the plan is actually available online on on the website um and it's updated every six months so um that's really what that that's for and now there's a policy on that and that's usually what happens when instances take place it becomes so huge policy is created on that okay all right sure hello Romani Beckett Rockledge Place Cedar Grove let me just recite Mr Grosso because I loved it teamwork staff students and parents so let's put on the line here on their families right I was looking at um recent action about policy that meant policy enforced by the state 5756 right I believe it was

091implemented in our district back in 2015 revised 2017 and another revision 2019. um in the light of what transpired since then I went over on the district red read our policy and the family Bart I have an issue here because 5756 States if your child decided to transgender then his parents or her parents or whatever does not get notified so that's taking the family out and I have a problem with that all the time when the parents are natural when the parents are not kept and you know and light and kept in the dark so I would like to see a couple things about it I believe recent recent actions uh Hanover Middletown malpur District to name a few came against it Hanover is being sued by in litigation by the Attorney General of the

092state of New Jersey the Attorney General of the state of New Jersey spokesperson said it's not mandatory policy 5756 is not mandatory I think most of District if not all relies on a vendor called Australia similar to our district I believe we rely on there it turned out there are only three this company is only three people that works I believe from Toms River and get subscription fees I believe five thousand dollars per District 570 plus district and they are misleading certain you know let me recite from an article um vice president of the town of Middletown Jacqueline tobacco said we absolutely were told by strands it's made that this policy was mandatory and she came back and say the whole job of a school board is to make policy that's why we are elected

093tobacco continue and I quote but we don't have to do what the state says unless it's a law and by the Attorney General spokesperson it's not mandatory so and when you read the policy Vice Charles Esme 5756 says we are not going to notify the parents because we don't want to out the children but at the same when you read our district policy about the bathroom so if a boy transgender is to a female he can go into the girl's bathroom how is that that's contradictive in nature I don't want to out the transgender child but then at the same time he or she is going opposite bathroom that's out and why are we holding that information from the parents it's a minor if the going through a gender identity affirmation procedure that's Medical I

094think we're putting the district In Harm's Way if we are applying such policy so I would like you know you know anyone that knows about again I understand some of you were not here on the board it's 15 17 19. but I would like if this gets Revisited and review it from a legality perspective again the article I read on patch.com explicitly states on the Attorney General spokesperson it's not mandatory what are we doing in the meantime if there is a transgender going into the opposite sex bathroom I'm looking for the safety for the children including transgender children's itself okay so don't take me wrong here if a boy goes into the woman you know girls or boys if it's a girl goes to the Boys Room what is being done currently what's in place

095to ensure the safety of each child including the transgenders himself so it's couple points not notifying the children the parents and the safety of that shop regardless of their sexual orientation so if anyone can respond to that I would greatly appreciate it learns a lot a lot of things to respond to the legal aspect I'm definitely going to defer to Mr Edelstein sure I I can I just say one thing before whatever you start you know you made a statement about and I want it for clarification please that who's going to protect the children when a transgender child goes into a bathroom I said it for both for the transgender and for the you know I'm worried about both and side not just the one so I my question I guess to you is isn't

096it the same when a non-transgender child goes into a bathroom it's the same what's the difference I'm not really sure I understand well if you look why there needs to be if you're looking okay if you look at the trans so I would assume you we want to go to unisex bathrooms instead of opening it you know because you don't have control over it so everyone can feel old the children can feel safe going into transgender non-transgender regardless right because I'm worried about a transgender that goes in and everybody you know it could have right um for example if you go to Virginia I believe in one school district a girl was raped um the parents were not notified and then that child that raped a girl was moved to a different district and he

097repeated the same action read them second term so I'm talking from a safety perspective here I'm not taking side I'm making sure I don't understand but I'm just I do what I don't understand is that specific situation example you just gave that doesn't necessarily happen because somebody's transgender it could happen unfortunately with anyone it's a I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from the legal and I'm going to defer to Mr Edelstein but I want to reassure you and I've had multiple conversations with uh parents because a lot of parents have concerns over this the the position that the board takes when a child goes to a staff member sharing some private things whether they're transgender or whatever it is the law tells us one thing you may differ you have a different opinion

098on what the law is stating Mr Edelstein is going to give us some background on what the law is stating today what we're obligated as a district to do but I will reassure you as I reassured all the other parents the direction that our staff gets is not to tell your your children our children don't tell your parents that is not the direction that they're given the policy no that is not how the power the policy does not say you I could recite it the policy does not say that a staff member is to tell a child do not tell your no you're right about that let me finish please sure the position that the district is taking is that if a child does go to a staff member and share that or anything the

099position the staff member is to take is to always first and foremost encourage that child to tell their parents it is something that the child needs to do with the family it is not our role to help a child be transgender or be gay or anything else that's not our role our role is to support that child to help them become confident and secure enough to tell their parents so that this process whatever it may be transpires with the help of their family that's not our role okay so I want to reassure you and everyone else that's listening that is not the rule that we are taking first and foremost always support our children and help them come to a point if they're not comfortable coming out to or sit or approaching their own family

100with that helping them get to the point of being able to do that whether that's in a shared meeting whether as we've had children come to us and say can you please tell my parents okay I want to reassure you there's so lots of controversy here and I'm going to defer over and I'm sure we'll revisit this again when the the law allows us to revisit but I want you to be assured that that is the role that this board and the and the superintendent the administration the messages that are getting to are staff members who are involved in this on a more regular basis and even our extension our teachers as children create relationships with their um their teachers their guidance counselors whoever that may be coaches the message is always how do we

101help this child become comfortable and confident enough to speak with their parents so that the family can go through this process whatever that may be okay the policy was is written differently it's it's it stimulates I understand that what we all do we have spent hours revisiting this but I'm talking from the policy perspective here yeah I'm not talking about you know okay okay thank you so much of what you said is correct some of it isn't um so the lesson here is don't believe everything you read in the papers okay um in 2018 the Department of Education issued what it called guidance on many of the issues you're now discussing the law from the Department of Education and the legislature comes in three different formats guidance regulations and statutes statutes are the most binding

102regulations next guidance isn't binding at all uh nonetheless and you were completely correct about this Strauss Esme took that 2018 guidance and turned it into what it described as a mandatory policy and sent it out to all its districts and stress asked me frankly does a pretty good job so almost everything they send out is correct this one was debatable and just this year earlier this year the New Jersey State Board of Education which has the power to amend regulations which would be one step higher up the legal chain addressed equity in the way school districts handle gender identification they encourage the use of Equitable rather than equal they incur in language and policies they encouraged non-specific policies so rather than to say students of both sexes they incur the policy now the regulation now

103requires that a district or policy referred to students of all Sexes so they made language changes that they believe reflects the legislative policy to protect the gender expression of kids based on all that a number of school districts Marlborough in the lead and others following including Middletown including Hanover did one of two things some of them like Marlboro repealed 57-56 it's what stress asked me sends out of policy everybody gets the same number so if it's policy 5756 in Cedar Grove it's policy 5756 in Marlboro so Marlboro tried to do what you're talking about they tried to revoke policy 5756 and replace it with something else so the real position of the Attorney General I don't know if the newspaper account of the person who said it's not the law although that is certainly a

104truthful statement because the 2018 guns was not before it was Godless but the actual position of the Attorney General was to sue Marlboro and to request and obtain an injunction to prevent them from repealing the policy and the timing of this is that there is an action that began in June at the division on civil rights to answer the question of what school districts are permitted and not permitted to do that's going to take a while to resolve I'm sure it's going to take years or more because it will wind up in the appellat division somewhere what the judge in Marlborough and Middletown said was to was that the board is enjoined and restrained from not giving effect to policy 5756 until such time as the litigation or the Jersey division on civil rights is

105completed and there is a ruling and in his accompanying decision the judge in that case said the hearing was also to determine whether each defendant so the defendants here were the school districts whether each defendant should be preliminary and preliminarily enjoined from amending modifying or superseding any portion of policy 55 756 and he decided that they were permanent well preliminarily enjoined until after that civil rights litigation is over Hanover took a slightly different approach Hanover passed some other policy entirely which essentially required the school district to notify parents of their child's gender identification choices they called it parental notice of material circumstances that was the name of their policy different judge different County was also also ruled that that policy could not be implemented until after the Civil Rights litigation is completed in both of

106those instances actually in all of those instances because there were more than two the The Entity pushing this was the Attorney General's office so if those newspaper articles left you with the impression that the Attorney General thinks it's okay to revise this policy at this point in time they left you with a false impression the attorney general has gone out of his way to litigate the question and obtain court rulings saying that it is not okay so even if this District I have no idea I'm just a lawyer I don't make policy so I I have no idea if the board were they free to do so might choose to revise 57 56 or might not I don't know it's not a discussion that can really be had at this point in time because it's

107absolutely clear that the law won't allow them to do that if we had this discussion a year from now maybe the world would allow them to do it so I hope that clarify our fun yes I think the district that's in the litigation that you mentioned are going after a spouse is made for the legal expense just an FYI one more yeah one you know I think the one point that's still open is how are we insurance the safety of the children in the bathroom are we doing I should I should tell you that it has been the prevailing law of the state of New Jersey for a long time long before the real transgender issue was on the table that students gender identity can go to the restroom for which they gender identify yes

108this is nothing new yeah I noticed from the district policy even it started 2015 which yeah and that that is across the board in New Jersey no I appreciate the the lengthy explanation and going over yeah I didn't mean to be boring no no no no no no no no no thank you I appreciate it um again for the one comment I want to make respect for everyone I think Strauss is made like you mentioned to do a good job but on one case or whatever so I think we need to be vigilant when the push policy on on the any Edition thank you for your time I appreciate it thank you sport hi Donelson 43 Greendale Road I just wanted to make a couple statements uh Mr Powell talked about our staff and how

109valuable they are and how they're really it's really important to create a culture where they want to stay and not leave um one thing I would like to see added is when you talk about attendance to break it down in both student and faculty attendance because losing a teacher mid-year May really impact those scores the second thing is back to school night I would have liked to have seen the vice principal talk um I haven't heard anything so I just felt like it was a missed opportunity and I would love to know a little more about the vice president great point I appreciate that and I will certainly uh pass them on okay I'm going to close that portion of the meeting close my papers here so I gotta get back to where we were

110announcement of future meetings our next meeting will be October 30th at South End it's 30 for closed 7 30 for a regular meeting and then following one November 21st same time 6 30 for close 7 30 for regular um maybe can I have a motion to adjourn all in favor meeting adjourned good night everyone thank you