001second all in favor aye can we please stand for the flag salute okay okay so Dr Valley do you want to go straight into your superintendent's report so we have a packed agenda so I will be brief our school year starts really soon we are welcoming our new teachers welcoming in our new teachers in two weeks and then our entire teaching staff the following week students will be in our hallways on the 30th and we are so excited to begin this school year in the past few months we've had a great deal of retirements and resignations tonight on our agenda we have our director of special services Michelle Gardner will definitely be truly missed she is such an advocate for children and we wish her well in her new Journey with njcie as a last
002minute Edition we also have a resignation from Mike scarra who is with us this evening and Mike I wish you the best of luck in your new position and in addition tonight we have James Finley on our agenda he will be the new principal of Mary Kay McMillan Early Childhood Childhood Center it is so exciting to have someone who has been in our midst all this time take on a key administrative role while we will miss our staff who are leaving us we welcome our new members with open arms and now I'll ask the GL senior class representative to come forward and discuss open campus yep good evening everyone uh thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak to you all today my name is Jack rogowsky and I am the class
003of 2024's class president and on behalf of the class I'd like to ask for the privilege of open campus for our senior year now over the past few three years the class of 2024 has gained two very vital skills those being the skills of discipline and responsibility and overall these skills are very very important in any adult life and especially in college life an open campus allows kids to exercise those skills in a way that that's enjoyable and benefits them students have to be able to get themselves to and from school on time and make sure that they don't miss any class and by doing this they further grow those skills of discipline and responsibility now of course students understand that this is a privilege as I stated before and not a right and this
004can be taken over this can be taken away at any time due to poor attendance or to Breaking school rules and students will of course be respecting these rules in order to keep this privilege that they have now thank you very much that's all that's all I have to say if you guys have any questions at all I'm free to answer them do any board members have any questions yes through the board and anything I would say would be sarcastic so thanks thanks for representing the class yes thank you thank you so much Mr Nixon do you have anything to add to this nope so do we do we don't vote so you just kind of like yeah I believe the board are all in approval it's improved yeah thank you so much for waiting
005for us we apologize for being late today sorry thank you hello okay I am on all right very good so Mr Nixon and I are going to present the New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment this is for our current this will be this next year's senior class how they performed on the assessment and I am getting ready and so I'll turn it over to Mr Nixon foreign thank you Dr barley uh so as Dr barley stated this is going to be an overview of the results from the NJ GPA test that our junior class took this past March um this test is the current State graduation proficiency assessment some interesting points of note here that um over the recently the State Board decided to change the voted on the cut score if you remember from last
006year's and this is an important piece of information to understand as we get into tonight's presentation the cut score for proficiency on the assessment the prior year was 750 and the cut score was 725 for this year for both Ela and math individual score reports were sent home to students and their families in July from the district and you could take a look at the New Jersey assessments Resource Center website if you want to find some more information regarding State graduation assessments and some of the various options that are available to students there uh so first things first are here is a representation of our results uh from our junior class this past year um you can see a nice uh nice job by our students 95 proficiency and Ela and 82 percent Proficiency in
007math um something important to note here as you take a look at it you might you might initially see that there's um there you know is a little bit lower of a proficiency rate in math but if you were to take a look at the state proficiency rates in both language arts and math you can see um our students at a really really nice job on the math profit on the math assessment um overall that's above 49 percent better than the state average and in language arts we also did a very very nice job at 95 percent overall proficiency which is 17 better than the state rate and taking a look at how these results compare to how our students performed last year you can see uh in both language arts and math our students
008performed uh better than they did the previous year in terms of proficiency rate that said the couple factors go into this the factors that go into this are the change in Cut score like I mentioned from 750 to 725 but also going into the second year of this assessment they found that there were some um you know updates Corrections changes things like that that needed to be made to the assessment one of the really interesting and odd pieces that came out in last year's analysis is that for some reason across the state males scored significantly lower than females did in language arts which which was really really odd we looked at 20 representative other school districts that we'd like to compare ourselves to when we're trying to measure how we're doing and 20 for 20
009males were lower than females in ela last year so I think they took a look at some of the test questions for bias and some other things like that the state will continue to move forward and take a look at these results and update their assessments and I think these results show a combination of a change in Cut score an update in the assessment and also um you know the work that we're doing as a district to digest the information that we get back and update our programs and give our teachers the resources that they need and allow our teachers to do the great work that they do with our students to get these these fantastic results um if you take a look here this is just a bar graph that that shows similar information
010the uh the graphs on top is what's representative of our school district as opposed to the state which is the the bar graphs along the bottom you can see the green and these represent a passing proficiency score uh and the red for uh represents not passing so you can see all the way to the left is grade 11 Ela and the middle is grade 11 math and to the right is all results summarized together and again that's gl's results on top and the state results on the bottom and taking a look at the differences between males and females overall between the two years you can see uh much closer uh now that the test has been adjusted a little bit um with females uh passing out a 92 percent rate and male students passing at
011an 86 percent rate so here is a similar graph that just shows you um in color what it looks like as far as passing and not passing amongst the male and female groups we um also as a requirement by the doe we must disaggregate our data based on race and if you have fewer than 10 students they do not in a certain racial category they do not um count that score they count the scores but they do not count it in the percentages so um our Asian population with a 96 percent our Hispanic was 76 and our white population was 89 and as you can see um the black population was suppressed due to the number of students that's comparative to last year as Mr Nixon stated that um they made some adjustments to the
012cut scores and then um modified some some of the areas to account for bias so then you can see the same information here um just in a bar graph with our 96 Asian our 76 percent Hispanic and then our 89 white students um you can also look at our categories we have free and reduced lunch 504 special education ell and general education again we have those part two two of those populations suppressed due to the number of students and you can see um in uh 2022-23 we had a 64 with our free and reduced lunch our 504 with a whopping 98 um special education 54 and then our ell population was suppressed due to the number of students and then our general education at 96 passing one thing I do want to say if a
013student does not pass they have other Pathways to graduate the SAT the ACT there's a portfolio assessment and the accuplacer correct am I using that correctly so they have other options to pass and graduate so if you can see here you can see our this is in a bar graph with our free and reduced lunch our Section 504 our special ed and our general education students now moving on to the Wida pop the Wida exam this is the access for Ells these are our English language Learners that they must score above a 4.5 to be tested out of the English language learner program as you can see our zero to two years in District we had 29 students tested 14 scored out of the program and then from years three to four we had 80
014percent score below the 4.5 and 20 percent Rose above and are now exited at the program what you find what we've found that a lot of these students have already moved well not a lot several of these students have already moved out of the district but these students who do not meet the 4.5 cut store content cut score continue with the ell services and now it's time for questions from the board guessed it I see 29 plus five so this is more than the 10. in the last page we don't have any data is this the same population or different this is so this is the entire District this is K to 12. so that one was different yeah so what you see for the NJ GPA is just for the junior class I realized
015that there was a difference I realized that there was a different cutoff but if you were to look at the data with the same lens with the same cutoff as it was last year what is that Trend looking like I know we spoke about this it's it's a similar it's um do you remember um you want microphone yeah if you looked at it with the same cut score there was still a little bit of that anomaly of how much lower male students scored on the grade 11 Ela um so it's kind of hard to say would take a look at what would the passing rate have been last year if um you know if the cut score would have been 725 it would have been similar slightly better in math and language arts is just
016hard to say so I would say math improves slightly when you look at the cut scores um you know if you made the cut scores the same as last year Ela it's hard the female students can be back up to those slides uh which slide would uh this one here yeah maybe just this one here so what I'm trying to figure out is if the threshold was still 750 which I think was for the 2021-22 right yeah we were at 55 percent if the threshold was still 750 how much better would be like this is a massive jump but then things have moved just in the evaluation so I'm curious if you have the raw scores if you were to kind of um do the math here would you would you see 55 going to
01775 or would you see 55 going to 60. I'm trying to figure relatively how much have been improved yeah I know you guys so I didn't look at it in the direction I looked at any other not the direction that you asked I looked at in the the opposite direction um so if you took a look if I was to break this apart last year and you took a look at the 77 for math uh males and females were roughly both about 77 and when you took a look at Ela females were also roughly 77 percent but males were like 40 so it was it was a really very different number um which kind of makes it hard to to look at it in that direction um we obviously could and we could tell you
018but but what we did was if if last year's cut score was moved down to 725 is the way we looked at it and and math was similar slightly better this year um and Ela it just would have been hard to tell because the male score was so low it would have still been lower but I don't think it's an Apples to Apples comparison does that make sense that's I'm trying to get to the Apples to Apples and start lowering the score because truly if you want to see the proficiency you would want to see it at you know at the higher level you'd want to see it at the higher level than at the lower so yeah I have it I just don't I don't have it now but we get the number it
019gets broken out the numbers of so it scored one through five so you have you know how many the percentage of fives fours threes and you know threes fours and fives are what's considered proficient ones and twos are not last year it was only fours and fives that were considered proficient so um maybe that's something we can include in the future is is the breakdown of one twos threes fours and fives well so I was just saying that um this is the state made this decision right because they said that this this evaluation wasn't appropriate at 7.50 so it's not like we did something wrong by not looking at that number right like correct this is the state saying that we need to change this number because it wasn't right and the biases were were
020in there so they had to reload whenever there's a new assessment um especially that last year was the first year of this assessment there's always a review there's always adjustments there's always discussions it's part of the reason why um last year's graduating class wasn't held accountable for the graduation proficiency assessment um you know to meet a certain number in order to you know qualify for graduation because it was year one of the test and they understood there would have to be um you know an evaluation of how was the test was the test Fair where the question is good did we have the right cut score so over the course of a couple years they work to try and get it to the right so you're getting to my next question because we know that
021students who care about these tests however this test does kind of count so students do care about this and they work very hard at it as you can see from our scores do you think there is um last year because they knew they weren't going to be held accountable do you think that that also maybe played a little part in that as well it's always possible yeah it's always possible and you know and when you have Smart students they they know where they stand yeah with a lot of things as well and you know our students take uh certain assessments you know starting their freshman year they have the opportunity to take the PSAT they take that 9th 10th and 11th grade and you know there there was a point in time where over 75
022percent of our students in language arts and math had already met a graduation proficiency by November of their freshman year right they know exactly where they stand um but you know what what we did this year along with Mr Finley and Mrs Bartlett um we met with all of our student groups prior to the tests that they had to take and we we do the best we can to make sure they are aware of what this means for them not only for a graduation proficiency and the the ability to graduate and meet you know meet that requirement but we want them to understand what the test means for their District and for their school as well and the importance of that you know when colleges take a look at different school districts next to each
023other what makes your transcript look better next to somebody else's transcript and we did the best we can to try and make sure that students understood that you know Not only was you know this assessment important for them in graduation and even if you've already met your graduation proficiency there's a lot of value in doing the best that you can on this test on top of the fact that you're taking it do the best you can on everything you can do all the time anyway yeah it's it's important so you know we we had class meetings um you know prior to testing to go over all of those different items with the students and um we hope they understood the message we think they did Rob do you need to pass boa and math separately
024because obviously the scores very or is it is it what we're looking at is just the Aggregate and that's that's passing both separately so and one of the things that we do with this information and and we spent you know a lot of time you know taking a lot of this information but all the information and and creating spreadsheets that we have a grade level through a spreadsheet Mr Finley is excellent with spreadsheets if you ever have any questions on that give them a call at Mary Kay and I know I'm going to um and still have his email so we're good and and what we're able to do is we we take a look at every score that students have and we we lay that all over the top of each other and and
025we see which which are their alternate Pathways uh what students have never demonstrated proficiency on any of the assessments they've ever taken and uh we went ahead and we redesigned the way we Implement our math and language arts strategies program for this year as opposed to having it be a class that's within their schedule it's going to be um some a class that's in a teacher's schedule but it's going to take place over half of a lunch once every rotation um so this way it's not part of their transcript it's but rather it's it's an extra support half hour once every four days um you know with with excellent teachers and and what that's going to be designed to do over the course of the first semester any seniors that didn't meet a pathway yet
026or demonstrate proficiency yet that we need to get there they're going to be working with one of those teachers working on developing their portfolio but also preparing to retest with the PSAT in October um and then also to prepare for the accuplacer which is also one of the alternate Pathways and then the junior students um we took a look at how they did on the njsla as freshmen the year prior and we identified the students that didn't meet a proficiency based upon the NJ SLA but also we didn't try and use that test as a one-off we took a look at how they did on the PSAT as freshmen we take a look at the grades they got in class also and we kind of identified a cohort of math and language arts students that
027and for 9th and 10th grade that we're going to offer that same program too for semester number two so we're going to Target Juniors and seniors for semester one with the hopes of preparing the Juniors for the NJ GPA which will happen in March and for seniors to meet um a graduation requirement which is kind of on a rolling basis for them and then ultimately prepare uh you know the freshmen sophomores to take the Freshman to take the NJ SLA later on in May and then the the sophomores to start developing some of those core skills that they need so that they can hit the ground running and be successful their junior year so we're trying to use the data uh see what the data tells us and and address those specific proficiencies directly thank
028you so Mr Nixon just to be clear this is taken by all our 11th graders this is mandatory yes and I think you just answered my other question about what steps are we taking to help those who haven't met proficiency yet you did a good explanation on that and then the third thing I have is is the state still going to be looking at that gender bias I would I would imagine so although on this year's assessment the gender bias didn't you know appear to be uh similar to what it was the previous year but my I think my expectation would be that every single year the test should be taken the state should be taking a look at the results um on every level taking a look at it in terms of gender taking
029a look at it in terms of race taking a look at it from from every aspect that they can to make sure that they have the most fair and Equitable assessment that they can okay thank you you're welcome any other board members have any more questions no all right I want to thank you so much Mr Nixon for all your help with this very good job thank you for our junior class I think we have 18 National Merit Scholars coming up this year is that right for our incoming seniors is it 18. very proud of this group of proud of all of our students but very proud of this group and I will turn it over to miss Reese yep so um thank you Mr Nixon so yes um Mrs Reese uh Patricia Reese is
030the New Jersey school boards Association representative and we talked quite a while ago about putting together some board goals and she has agreed to come and help us um establish them but when I spoke to her this week we we had a couple of conversations and we met and discussed we she just she suggested that the best way to do this would be divide into two sessions uh tonight she would would be look at this evaluation that we all did the board self-evaluation um it's working board self-evaluation and look at that and maybe we could look at some of the areas where we didn't do so well that you have some suggestions on what we can do better and then the next one we're going to put together a meeting where she will come and
031she will talk to us about actually setting the goals and talking us through the process of actually putting goals together so I will let you go ahead and take it away thank you as Mrs Pena said when we talked earlier this week I reckon I saw your agenda and that you have a rather full agenda so in I'm sorry oh sit step closer to the mic oh all right I mean I could hear that it was out there but thank you I can't hear what's out there um and um so in recognition of your full agenda um we thought that tonight would just be better to to for me to help explain the board self-evaluation and help you process that and lay the groundwork um to get your thoughts moving towards what kinds of board
032goals you would like to um have for the upcoming year um and so this is going to be a short presentation I don't have a copy of this and I apologize for each of you I can email it to you when they printed it today they printed the wrong charts uh so I didn't want to give it out with the wrong charts this the the presentation has the right Ike charts I can email that to you um uh tomorrow thank you so board goals are the foundation of improved governance they have provide or have an Avenue for effective communication and um accountability thank you there are several categories that a district can have for goals tonight we're really going to focus on the board goals which is the highlighted or the bolded version um sentence
033there and the board goals are set to improve the processes that are owned by the board and then you evaluate them in conjunction with your um or self-evaluation on a yearly basis so these are only regarding board processes not District you have District goals which your superintendent updates you on periodically that the board agrees to as well these are simply for board processes so we start with the board self-evaluation uh and this chart which I think you you have um I I think I handed that the last time um but just to explain what this chart is the number the bars in Gray are what the board members who completed the self-evaluation the value that they place on those um the the processes down below the first five uh processes are um our tasks task
034areas and the last four are relationship areas so the the board places a high value on those different tasks and those different uh things listed below the dark blue represents how the board as a whole feels the board is doing in accomplishing those um and and we generally like to see where there were where they're closer um but that you haven't done the sports self-evaluation you haven't had board goals so this is a process of starting and moving forward and this chart shows the relationship between how the individual feels they are doing and how the individual board member feels the board is doing uh and and again anything above a three is really um considered an effective of an effective functioning board so you have several task areas that you might want to think about
035moving forward um in in establishing a board goal I will say that we recommend no more than three to four board goals a year because any more than that just becomes unmanageable um and three you know three is fine anywhere between three and three four five and before I go further does anybody have any questions if they've had a chance to read the evaluation uh board self-evaluation if they don't that's fine hopefully this will have some pointers on things to look for I just had a quick one uh thanks Patty on the prior side can you just clarify it are you are you suggesting that when we get to the point of thinking about goals that we would only take on you're saying three or four of these categories or tasks at one time essentially
036yeah yes or or more specifically something in that category when you read um when you read the evaluation which is um and the comments in the evaluation uh you will see um things might jump out at you that or will be a task area that you could accomplish some things that jumped out at me were Communications and board planning but again these are your goals um and so it's helpful to read those comments and I will um yeah so the board did get well apart from the fact that they actually did the evaluation they all did get a copy and time to look at it and you know take a look at it for tonight so they've had a little yep so when you drew the board self-evaluation you know the next several slides are
037talking about um questions to consider when I'm not looking to for you to answer these tonight uh these will be um questions to things to consider as you're looking moving forward to about what kind of goals what goals you would like to establish so as you read through your read through the evaluation again um what what was the most interesting observation that was that was contained in the evaluation um are there any strengths that the evaluation did point out uh you know for your team the team being your Board of Ed and then is there one area in the evaluation that you think should become a priority for board development again these are questions to think about as you process through and then when we we get back together again um hopefully we you'll have
038your creative juices going so are you saying that looking at these These are what we should be looking at basing our goals on sort of asking ourselves these questions the woman potential I mean these are just they're not the only questions you should look at but I'm just trying to give you some ideas on how to focus your thoughts towards what you're looking at and and moving forward with goals so Patty this is the first time that Berkeley Heights has undertaken this uh board goal evaluation and getting bored goals for us so correct now that we've done the self-evaluation we've got the data back and we're looking at it now our next step before we meet with you is to to dive into those three areas that we possibly want to prioritize this year and
039come up with goals or will you help us come up with those goals well what I what I'm suggesting is yes I will help you come up with those goals but that you individually dive into them and see if there's anything that you see as as a focus area for board goal uh in moving forward and then through a discussion and a consensus building we'll reach uh and you know three to four or five goals that you you your board you board you you as board members feel would help move from your board forward and since we've never done this before and this is new to us you looking at this evaluation and obviously there are there any suggestions that you would consider based on some of the stuff you've seen that maybe areas we
040should be potentially looking at I I did and as I said I saw Communications uh crop up on several different areas Communications amongst the board Communications between the board and the public community relations those things came up and then um board planning was another one that jumped out at me as you can see when I went through it I I highlighted and I put uh markers where I thought things um that jumped out at me but what really Communications and board planning were I saw several comments throughout in several of the different task areas um that might be a potential and then and then when we come back again we'll vote well if that's something that that you agree with um or whatever you agree with will narrow it down so that's not you know
041sounding all-encompassing you want something that that you can that the board can work toward a task or an action plan that the bore board can work toward to be and be successful at it so just trying to understand is would you suggest that the board get together prior to meeting with you to hatch out some ideas of concerns or is this something you would prefer to do with us you know I'm just trying to figure out what would the best way to do this so that we are all sort of aware of where we feel we need to be going right um it would have to be a public meeting because this is not does not qualify as an executive session discussion okay um I mean and there's another thing here um that that is
042confidential of any any sort it really is helping the board um function better function more collectively and cohesively and just so we can prepare for it how much time would you suggest I know you mentioned last time but over an hour potentially maybe more just to make sure that we have enough time to do this no I understand I would suggest minimally an hour okay um that's it and that's if everybody starts thinking now and kind of making notes to themselves when we come together and you know hopefully there will be some common threads that that several see and and the the process of it getting to the board goal is a process of by by consensus um so it's not like it's my way um on the board of leadership it's my way or
043no way um the board majority it's our way or no way it's it it's really a consensus building operation which which also helps the Board start to function or not sort continue to function well as a team Patty are these goals yearly goals like from September to September or are they long-term um yearly more than yearly goals they can be both you can have a a an overarching goal that may take a year or two to accomplish or it could be something um or it's an overarching goal and then there's parts of it that take a year or two to accomplish and parts that can be accomplished in a year and then Patty do many school districts in our area do this uh board self-evaluation and make board goals many do the board self-evaluation by
044no means all unlike the CSA evaluation the board self-evaluation is not mandated it is however considered a best practice in for in in boardsmanship I think we're looking for that best practice as of course yes just to clever you said no more than about three or four three three to five tops okay I mean you can certainly do three it's um I mean if you can only come up with two this is your first year doing this so um two would be fine as well okay um that everybody can agree with so it's um you know it's your first year doing this and we want to start with this process this year reach some goals and then move forward uh Patty I'm very grateful for the New Jersey School Board Association for giving us some
045guidance on this as a new board member here this is uh I think it's an important thing for us to do to really self-evaluate and look forward to what we're what our goals are for our community and our district so thank you oh you're welcome you're welcome and I remember when I was a board member um and we did this it was helpful it somewhat was sometimes was eye-opening based on the comments that that board members read and when you work over if you've read through it or when you read through it you'll notice that you don't know who said why any name in the in the compiled report any name is removed you will also notice that there were some um comments redacted that was done with the advice of your attorney based on
046the potential that they were evaluative in nature um again that was done with the advice of your attorney so so you know again a starting point where do you start the question is what can our board do to be more effective in your areas of responsibility whether that be policy development oversight and monitoring Communications and just a series of essential questions and I'm not going to read through all of them in recognition of the time but really what professional development that that you feel as a board would be helpful to you um in moving forward and improving your governance skills and that professional development is something that njsba does provide and like coming tonight it's it's part of your dues so there's no additional cost but it's by no means the only you don't you
047don't have to use New Jersey school boards if you have other ways to do that but as I said we do provide that service we do come in and it is part of your dues so I just listed a few examples two slides of examples um but but just to go through a few uh establish some of you know for borgels established goals for each specific committee review your bylaws to make sure that they reflect um your your current practices uh read commit to reducing the distractions and increasing the efficiency of our discussion Communications to all stakeholders develop an effective Communications plan amongst the board for professional development achieve board I'm not sure if you're aware of this but achieve board certification through the njsba's academy program within two years that means you've committed as
048a board to um and and to training a certain amount of training within two years and then you get a certificate that say you're a certified board that you're can hang in your board office that's just one one potential goal then there's some general you know hold a workshop some general governance schools holder Workshop session with no one with no action once every two months with a focus on proactive planning um Provide support for continued achievement promote the district goals by providing the support and resources necessary to achieve the goals and so as you're we're as I'm winding down when you go through this consider the strengths and uh recent achievements of your board um what did you do well what could you improve upon what um can you focus on that will um increase
049and enhance your performance as a board when you get through to doing the goals when you're when you um determine what goals you'd like to do you develop an action plan this is what it looks like and I'll bring examples next time of what it with of what exactly goes in each of those columns and then the the next steps as we're as you're moving forward is to have another meeting hopefully um to set a date to uh for board discussion on establishing the board goals and once you do that you move towards the set developing the action plans you implement the action plans and then you provide uh periodic feedback to your community on where um you are with your board goals and lastly ending with a quote um about serving roller students nothing
050and we mean nothing is more critical to the future of this world than rapidly and constantly improving systems of public schooling that serve all the students and with that I open up for if there's any additional questions so thank you Patty um can we get a copy of this the PowerPoint Absolutely I'll send it to you tomorrow morning okay and um so we're going to look at I think the suggestion would be and I'll talk to the board of having just a special meeting with nothing else on the agenda so that we can purely focus on setting deciding and setting our board goals so that we have really just the meeting set for that so there's there's nothing other that we need to worry about so I'll reach out to the board and find out
051a mutually respectful time because everybody's busy to see if we can set a special meeting okay and I'll reach out to you to see what works with you as well okay sounds good quick question um are there Patty outside of what we'll do as a group are there any sessions built into the uh October school boards convention that we might want to just circle as individuals when we go to kind of reinforce what there likely is but the list they're still called cultivating that list so I don't know the full extent of that yet I think it'll be available I'm guessing sometime early September okay there's there's definitely lots of um there's always lots of different sessions that would focusing on board governance for sure thank you does anybody else have any goals for Miss
052Reese see I'm thinking goals any questions all right thank you thank you very much appreciate your time thank you hey do we have any comedian liaison reports please no yes yes um sorry I yes okay um uh for the Town Council the community held a flag raising ceremony at the Town Hall the flagpole on Wednesday the 12th uh to recognize the beginning of the Feast of Mount Carmel and the reasoning of the Italian flag the town continues to work on improving and updating the sewer treatment plant which is our priority and the town is currently in the process of Paving and referring to the town website for additional Street Paving which is coming up and other library and community events in terms of the recreation committee which I am a part of also the summer
053activities continue they're coming to an end next week but they continue to thrive they had an enormous amount of participation this year um for the other committees I have no update unless Mrs Stanley who did go to the the use ucesc a meeting for me uh this month yes so I have to give Gail a ton of credit because she does so many of her Liaisons and when she sent me the Union County Educational Service Commission uh agenda I was like there's 30 something attachments to this so you really have taken on so much and this is only months in and I really really appreciate all that you do and you take it very seriously um they had a very simple meeting um because it's the summer um but their biggest thing right now is
054that they're struggling to hire staff for Teacher aides and paraprofessionals um and so I we're most of the districts agreed that we're all in the same boat in that area but it is something that they desperately need and they have a lot of students who have one-on-one um needs so if you know anybody that wants to reach out to them and then they talked about their summer activities and you know all the ways that it's helping our students their students form bonds with not just their friends but also with their families and then they were talking about the opportunity to take their students to the movie theater and how many of these students don't go to the movie theater with their family because they haven't had a chance to do this before and it's a
055new experience for them and how much their families struggle because they want to do fun stuff like this and so it's having that time to finally do some of these extra things that can help them just bond with their families so it was a really great meeting and I thank Gail for all that she does every time she goes so it was an eye-opener on how much work it is um and then I just want to talk briefly about the curriculum committee we haven't um uh had a regular session and liaison reports since June um so we did have a meeting it was a two-hour meeting we had multiple administrators there um I believe we will be seeing this presented to the public in September um so just a brief overview most of you have
056seen the minutes and the attachments um we talked about you know supporting the students um and trying to balance that with the numbers um we talked about how our special education students and our students with um other needs behavioral needs um anxiety how all of that plays into these numbers um especially when it comes to attendance you know you don't want to ask a student to come to school who is struggling um right we have to find ways to support them and so some of it we talked about ways that we have done that and try to bring students back into school by maybe giving them an area that they can come in that's private for them to do their work and be in school and be in session we talked about how we want
057to support our students who go beyond four years but how that affects our graduation rate and how the Department of Education knows this and they're working to you know work on this and improve the system so we did talk a lot about the numbers as you can see one of the numbers we talked about was this report that we didn't have yet but how other years um other years that it has affected us and ways that we are trying to encourage our students like Mr Nixon said to come prepare to do their best um so those those emails that go home asking your children to get a good night's rest and eat a good breakfast they are important and we also talked about the importance of the parents mindset about the parents saying this is
058an important test and you need to take it seriously um because we know over the years there have been um and since this is where parents didn't want their children to take these tests but they do matter and they do make a difference and so we'll ask for the community's support in that but yeah I um I encourage everybody to listen in next month and to hear our administrators talk about it and you'll find that their love for the students really shine through so I'm really proud of them um and that's it for my committee and liaison reports yep can you hear me oh excuse me oh my gosh um just a big um accomplishment partnering with the bhaas the the contract was ratified and we will be um uh voting on that today so
059shout out to Mr Nixon in the back and every and Miss Stanley and Miss Dr forger um as we worked together to come you know to a an agreement with the BHA um so you know thank you to everyone and the dedication and the time spent um to get it done so thank you um we also had the finance and Facilities committee had a couple of meetings over the past couple of months um a couple of things that we have been discussing um include um there's a safer watch app donation that that was being considered and there was some legal review that was happening and we were also made aware of an alternate app that our insurance company will offer um uh one aspect of it free of charge so we're starting to you know
060after being made aware of that we're going to take a look and do a comparison since our insurance company um promotes it and or you know knows that the the company um has um has presence in New Jersey area um and there's uh neighboring districts that we're going to reach out to as well to understand their interaction with that particular app so just wanted to make folks aware with that um and we also had an had to have an emergency meeting with regards to bussing um because there was an emergency busing situation due to a lack of drivers there was hope that there was going to be the hiring of a driver and that did not happen which resulted in the elimination of a subscription bus line now that's not part of the evaluation that
061the group is doing with regards to overall busing that was just strictly not enough people to perform the work that the transportation team wanted and they had provided the the community or the parents that were impacted that that La that date of if we don't you know have someone or have drivers by that time there's you know your busing is in Jeopardy and so unfortunately the transportation group had to uh you know let those parents know that that was not going to happen um yeah Joy can I ask a follow-up to that because I think it's subscription busing it's definitely a hard button and I think just the impact on the daily lives of everybody parents and students massive not to mention the traffic not to mention a whole other thing my question is have
062why can we not re-evaluate all of the bus routes we are I mean they did that there was so and I'm we really would it'd probably be best to have Kelly but she that's the lead of Transportation there was how do we you know is there opportunity to revamp um some of the bus lines and and really it was timing like the way that the the let out of the timing of the different schools the overlap which would mean students would be waiting or you know it would be very long and so you know a decision they they did just didn't have enough to provide the the um busing in in the Mana that they thought was appropriate so but does it mean that they have stop going down that path of trying to figure
063a solution no I think they're still look they're still actively pursuing but right now there's just not enough drivers to to do the to the bus line and we can I know that Kelly's been in direct contact with impacted parents and so she's having conversations but it's I you know we still need drivers I know she was asking for drivers that's just some of the communications that came back that I think she's like there's and I'll do a plug for CDL someone with a CDL with passenger school and air brake endorsements are needed desperately and if we can get them you know maybe there's a change but at this point we don't have enough bus drivers to do that so do we have a sense of how many students are directly impacted as a result
064of the subscription busing route not happening yes I have the number 25 I think it was that I believe it was 28 28 students and part of my just I've been trying to just get a better understanding of the data and I haven't been successful in even getting a simpler representation of how many kids get courtesy busting by school subscription busing by school and just ones that are eligible to get buses and I know that Kelly we said during one of the meetings that we were going to like I think September do a deep dive because we knew we couldn't make changes you know for this coming school year and anything if there was any changes or adjustments it would be not until next school year um so that evaluation we as a committee still
065needs to happen this was just strictly there's not enough drivers so that's what now part of I think the evaluation it will be okay is two I think it's two that were down it's two really what we need is it more you know like what is what does it really look like to be better so I know that was a commitment that after getting the bus routes and everything finalized that in September after the first couple of weeks of school the finance committee was coming back together to finalize and review all of that in detail so thanks if you remember Deputy with some of the conversations in the findings meeting the committee has committed to making sure that we will reevaluate it all you know when we had the discussion over the budget season we
066we determined that we would need to take a deep dive and look at it but this this was separate we will still be doing that and the committee's still going to look at that that's it thank you do we have any more do we have any board communication thank you we received uh 13 Communications from community members one um regarding the curriculum committee and school rankings one regarding educator Year Awards three community members were saddened to hear that the district had to let go of one of the music teachers one Community member invited the board to attend a flag raising and support for pride month another Community member wrote about this salary guide placement another one requested a proficiency analysis for the district and another one stated some concerns concerning matters that we're not happy
067to see throughout the district three members inquired about the Oprah process and one Community member had bussing concerns thank you thank you um let's see where we are okay so we are now at the public coming section on agenda items so I will just read this uh during can you hear me is this working during this portion of the meeting District residents and staff are invited to address the board education on agenda action items only the board requests that individuals State their name and town of residence or School of attendance for the record all comments should be directed to the board president and depending on the nature and complexity of the question it may or may not be answered during the meeting by the administration if so the response would occur after the public portion
068of the meeting has concluded although the board may not respond to all items raised during the public forum all public comments will be considered the board asked that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding Personnel matters are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participant statement continued disruptions may result in removal from or adjournment of the meeting each speaker's statement will be limited to three minutes in duration if you
069please come up stay tuned anybody who would like to Republic hello Natasha Jolly 16 Orion road so this is a question regarding the update for the finance committee and the subscription busing so I'm a little confused if we said that changes cannot be made in September I think Joy said that to the to the routes right so isn't subscription busing a change to busing and if we report the number of students who receive um courtesy busing to the state which I think was 337 at the last report why if we can eliminate subscription busing can't we eliminate um can't we eliminate a courtesy bussing they're not for kids that are not paying for it and maybe that would free up some routes like how do we not have a handle on who exactly is getting
070courtesy busing and I don't understand why that can't be changed given that subscription busing was eliminated and then one other question sorry this is with respect to the curriculum committee update at the last board meeting this is agenda items you you do have the right to come up and speak but at the end my apologies I don't realize you so sorry to just to clarify anybody who has comments on agenda items could you please come up okay Charlotte Williams Berkeley Heights actually I don't know if this is allowed but I had a question for Mr Nixon if he's still here um do we know what the uh PSAT and SAT scores are for the GPA I know it's like not exactly agenda but if that's available to be a kitty 146 Robins so on the
071agenda item I think we have approved appointment of assistant superintendent for curriculum I see the dates for the contract say August 16th to September 10th 2023 so is it just for like less than a month that's the first question and also on I believe this appointment was done at a special board meeting on June 29th so can the community get some input on who were on the interview on the interview process who were on the panel and how many board members actually interviewed the assistant superintendent and if the community get get some update on this that would be great thank you also um just a feedback is if you give the liaison reports ahead of the public you know questioning period it's just a suggestion it feels like it's part of the agenda so community
072members can come up and speak so if it's not part of the agenda and we cannot ask questions on the updates then just give them at the end that way it saves us time too thank you anybody else would like to come up and speak on agenda items no um it's questions um for the psatsat Mr Dixon Emma those haven't come in yet just wanted to know if we knew we're just overall hours foreign thank you um the exact cut scores I don't know specifically off the top my head but there's a link on our website that tells you all of the um different graduation Pathways and what their cut scores are there's a lot of them so it would take a while to go through them but you can see it there thank you
073thanks so much Mr Nixon as far as the assistant superintendent contract we initially wrote his contract starting September 11th because that was when um we have initially considered that he would be able to start however his board has released him early so his start date is August 16th in order to do that it's not as simple as amending just a start date you have to issue another contract for that time so that is the reason it is less than a month his other contract will kick in on September 11th as far as the interview process we had a parent we had board members we had one board member we had two two board members two board members we had administrators teachers um and I think that's it it was a very well-rounded stakeholder group for
074the assistant superintendent interviews and that's it no I got him thank you I think it works um so I would like a motion to approve the minutes resolution H will members and this is for executive session minutes from June 5th 2023 regular session minutes from June 5th 2023 executive session minutes from June 29 2023 and regular session minutes from June 29 2023. do I have a motion so move second any discussion can we have some Roku please Lisa Ms Bradford yes Mr chinchuli yes Dr Porter yes Mr Hyman um yes to the June 5th dates uh I'm abstained for June 29th I was not in attendance for either of those Mrs Khanna same yes for a and b abstain C and D because other than that Mrs Stanley yes Mrs Young yes and Mrs Bennett
075yeah okay adoption of policies curriculum guides and textbooks uh may I have a motion that's resolution a through D or board members may have a motion to approve that so moved second second uh do we have any discussion yes um on the textbook list I was looking at it today and um we noticed in the math area there were a lot of books actually some from the 1990s and 2000s and I thought gee we can't be using books that are that'll and at least I hope or not so I decided to look into it and I took Algebra II honors and it showed in the textbook list we're using Advanced algebra UC SMP well that's the old Chicago math I don't think we use Chicago math anymore author is sync from 1992. so then there's
076another one Algebra 2 by Dr Charles Randy it's also on the list from Prentice Hall 2004. so then I decided to look at the curriculum guide for the course and that has Ultra Glencoe Algebra II by John Carter from McGraw-Hill education 2014 electronic so I don't have confidence that this list is actually up to date so what I'd like to propose is that uh maybe we come back in a month and and make sure that at least the math ones are up to date and I'll help you with that if you want so what's Robert was this a policy no no this was not so so um the last time we approved curricula uh textbooks and curriculum this same issue came up and we talked about how we don't take away resources from our teachers
077um that doesn't mean they're your current textbooks but that if they ever wanted to use these resources they had them we had this exact conversation the last time we had this around so I think that's why you're seeing these is that we never want to limit the teachers and their ability to go back and use a resource from those textbooks but yes we don't currently use those differences well I I have to say that this is these are the resources that are listed for the students okay and then there's a separate section for teacher resources I didn't get into that and I certainly wouldn't have any objection to moving you know things off of the textbook list that we're showing and identifying them as teacher resources but I thought this was a list of these
078are the books that we actually use for the students and I'm not asking you know for the entire list to be redone that'd be wonderful but just just to make me happy just to get the math ones right there is an entire process that you have to go through to abolish a textbook it you have to contact the doe you have to put in all this information and then they have to come and check your inventory if you're abolishing a textbook so I know teachers are they find something that they like in one textbook and they may keep it forever and they may actually hand it to a student it doesn't mean that it's a part of the curriculum it's just a textbook that they can have access to and I we did discuss this
079last year as well we do not want to take any way anything away from them that they use to help students learn better no I'm I'm not asking for abolishment of a textbook I mean I'm just asking to have an accurate list of what the students are expected to use for a course this is I'm not talking about teacher resources here I'm talking about student resources so if we don't approve this you're saying that we don't have those textbooks we will be starting political year without Texas no no you certainly have textbooks you have you have Facebook you have to prove it you have textbooks that are adopted as part of your curriculum this is just a compilation of what the curriculum shows it's just not an accurate reflection of what those curriculum docs would
080say this is no yeah I I was I was trying to reason with you but if you want a motion then we'll say let's table this for a month and come back to me in a month can I ask just can I ask a question just before you do that yeah question number one all these textbooks is it reasonable to say that they are available for the students in the schools or are we publishing this list to the parents to say here are the textbooks that your children need to refer to for the course of the year this is a list of textbooks that students and teachers have access to it does not mean that they're actually using them the curriculum textbooks the ones that are newly approved Etc are the ones used now but
081they're there as a resource if a teacher or wanted to give something to a student to use this entire list though is for the 23-24 school year and you as a board approve it or the teachers don't have textbooks coming up in on August 30th so I mean I just that we had the same discussion last year nothing's changed it's still the same answer the textbooks I'm not questioning whatever was done last year I'm just trying to better understand the implication of approving this what what am I approving am I approving a list that will be published to parents that says go get these textbooks for your kids no this is a list that is internal that the supervisors and directors keep um our ongoing list of textbooks that have been approved books library books
082except not library books but classroom library books Etc this is not a published list this is an intern but these are these are books that are if you're if you're saying that if a book is not on this list they can't use it then you have a whole lot of books that are in that are adopted as part of your curriculum there's curriculum guide specify books you're saying though because they're not on this list those books can't be used so hold on so Dr volley is there a list of books that are being used this year that you could provide for talk so because I think he's getting Thomas come in and looked at a lot of books um but I assume the supervisors I mean it's a waste of their time to go out
083and get books to bring for him to look at like there is something to trust our professionals who put this list together okay but I mean we can do it I can ask them it's just the list but I have not come in and looked at a lot of books I haven't looked at any books no when last year I looked at geometry you've come in I've not come in and look at anything guys guys please let's have some decorum here um so let's let's talk about then let's take a roll call I all right if you want a motion then let's table this for a month just come back to me with an up-to-date list that's all I want that shouldn't be so hard I just received a message that what you're looking at
084is an outdated source that there's a the new list just has resources they don't break it out anymore with students or teachers it is a resource list I don't even know what I'm approving then I have a list from uh last year you're approved you have a new list every year the list is updated yes okay so we're gonna vote on a list that we haven't seen is that right you have to trust the professionals who would put this list together yes so are we are we going to table are we voting we're going to vote you're asking me to vote on a list you're seriously asking me to vote on a list that I've not seen Thomas if we're not tabling it then if you don't want to vote I just thought no I'm
085moving to table it yes okay do I need a motion to table second what's the implication of the of the motion to table does that hinder the start of the school year I'm that's what I'm trying to figure out they will not have the resources that are on this list in what way will they not have the resources you have to approve their access to these resources that's what this this agenda item is for resources that are online the ones that are on the list the textbook list the classroom libraries Etc that is what this list is you were you would be in effect hindering the teachers from beginning of the school year my interpretation of the resolution language it says recommended that the Board of Education adopt the textbooks since it says adopt the
086talks the textbooks and not necessarily adopt a list it mine just in reading the language of the resolution it appears that it's the textbooks that you're authorizing the teachers to use this upcoming school year if we can get the list and you know for whatever reason there is a new one that gets added to the list is that an amendment that happens I'm sorry I I'm doing this for the first time no I understand but I think this resolution is not that you're approving a list this resolution reads it's a it's recommended that the Board of Education adopt the textbooks as noted on the official textbook listing so it seems like you're actually authorizing the actual resources not just a list of them so if we don't vote on this thing they don't start the
087year with this book you can't have access they can't have access to them okay that's what you're saying right Jeff that's the resolution reads okay so we need to take a vote then I'm I'm pretty concerned that people can people campus meeting unprepared to know what they're voting on right like if they didn't even know what D was like that's that's it's extremely troubling right like because that's part of the job we need to move to the vote can we please move to the vote are we moving We're Not Gonna I don't know Tom motioned to table do we have a second so if we don't have a second then we move on to the vote so let's move on to the vote because we don't have a second am I on okay Ms Bradford
088yes to all resolutions a through D Mr chinchuli yes to all Dr forger no Mr yes to a through C no on D a to c yes Mr Hyman yes to all Mrs Connor yes to all what the condition that I'd like to see the list if it has been circulated with the rest of the board members as has been brought up I would like to get that because I didn't get the list Mrs Stanley yes and no there was no circulation Mrs Young yes and Mrs planner yes okay it's very confusing all right Administration uh I'd like to approve emotion resolutions a through K or board members still moved to have a second second do we have any discussion I had two two quick questions um for uh this is on a policy side
089first for 9140 citizens advisory committees would you mind just maybe just explaining it or maybe giving an example So like um are we talking about is this just a word change of citizens replacing essentially what was public before or is an example like that could be a Dei committee that was that was is that an example could be it could be like Dei it could be the green team that we're going to uh adopt this upcoming year things like that okay okay that makes sense and then I was going to ask um for the abolishment uh under C of 9100 is are we is that infused somewhere else yeah that's in policy 9120. okay got it and I'm sure there's other uh policy policy questions but the only one only other question I had was
090under G um my recollection from an Athletics perspective is we've traditionally just used Jag is SD game day is that like are we do we know and maybe this is an end question we can come back on but is this like equally waiting um wherever we need sort of backfill from a training perspective between those two are they just backing up Jag they're just backing up Jag okay got it thank you any more discussion yes I have two I'll go with the the first question is this is item C abolishing policy nine one zero zero I believe we've gotten the name incorrect it's not public relations when you look at this on the policy page 9100 is school community relations goals this is not the right policy public relations is actually policy 9120 so that's
091Point number one um Point number two when I read the policy um I couldn't figure what is truly the business reason if I can call it to abolish this policy when we saw the self-evaluation of the board I think there were two scores if you scrutinized it there were two scores on that list uh on a scale of one to four with four being the highest the self-evaluation score was an average of 1.9 on a question that said our board with broad Community input established a district-wide mission and a multi-year plan for Education we scored ourselves 1.9 the second score with an average of 1.9 was in the board and Community section of the evaluation so this just seems um sort of at Cross purposes of what we think our board goals are and us
092abolishing a policy that incentivizes or actually says we need to get community input um as a way for the board to function better so I'll let's get through this I have another policy question so 9100 I think we have the it's just the title's incorrect um oddly enough so um Strauss Esme did post that as public relations it is on there um but they also said in their alert that this is replaced by 9120 so 9100 for us may be a very old policy that um was never updated by Strauss Esme but 9100 is absolved in 9120 which you you do have we already have um approved let me see what day that is that we approve that thank you can I ask about policy committee chair did you receive any questions about this prior
093to the meeting did you have this conversation policy committee last night after the community price last night was the first time okay it's right in our attachments though it's just wrong on the actual agenda this is what we're saying or incomplete I guess okay so it's just wrong on the agenda yeah okay all right any more discussion yes I'm just going to read you from uh what it says number two to invite the advice and counsel of the people of the school district at all times and especially at regular meetings of the board and number three to solicit the sound thinking and studied Council of the people through advisory committees selected from the community and appointed by this board to consider those problems which vitally affect the future of our children I don't see that
094language in 9120 I agree with the intent of 9100 so that's why what about 90 I don't have it open but 91.40 with the citizens advisory committees I I interpreted that as the way to come together like getting the community and getting other people involved in in so when I saw the abolishment of that pr1 I thought the advice this the citizen advisory committees would take over for what was lost in that so I I believe part of it would but it sort of puts the onus on again a committee 9100 just seems like a broad policy that seeks input from the community and it just seems to be counter intuitive to why we would abolish that I can just I was gonna say to ask the question again did you have this conversation in
095policy committee or no some clarification okay let me let me read you what stress Esme says in the um they provide sort of an announcement or alert uh 9100 a district may have policy guide 9100 public relations this is how it's referred to in their policy manual which includes similar language that's included in a certain section from the New Jersey code and policy guide 9120 I know you've mentioned 9140 this says it could be similar language in 9120 which I believe we have um that mandated language in the code is already in 9120 therefore they're abolishing 9100 because the mandatory language we need is in the mandatory policy that we have in 90 uh 91 20. that's it in a nutshell it doesn't I I just want to say if it's communicating with the public
096is something we already have a responsibility to do hopefully there's not one person at this table who's going to do it only because it's in the policy and not do it if it's not in the policy of course now I know but I think it's it's thought is just making sure that it's our foundation like it's part of our foundational language if anyone needs it in the policy book by all means if that's what people need well the other thing is if you 9120 covers I I didn't look at 9120 I just saw the I was thinking this other one the citizens one yeah I'm okay if you needed to see it in the policy book in order to communicate with the public I'm fine with Alvin this discussion could have been having policy committee
097and um on the edge on the minutes I did link the alert that has that in there that tells you that it's a 9120. at the bottom okay so that was 9100. um I have a question on 1 55 I think it's a first reading 155 the first one the board committees so I think when I read the text for 155 it basically said um a committee cannot take action on behalf of the or on behalf of the Border they're not authorized to take action I'm curious what action means here as an example basically vote where where committees are not a quorum so right so we can't take board action like a vote would be taking action so I'm curious the whole subscription busing I I thought I read on email that the decision was
098taken by the committee does that sound like a recommendation by transportation that they couldn't fulfill it and so we were made aware of it and now we're sharing like that it was more of a consultation basis that was not an issue we didn't vote it was more I mean it was an engagement for them saying I don't have enough drivers I mean we said okay understood and but but I think changing changing everything like we would have to the next step of really evaluating that takes the whole vote this was more of we have a situation and we don't have enough drivers in making the committee aware and then sharing it out because to me there were sort of when I read the policy there were two pieces when we take away the subscription busing
099there's a certain Revenue that's associated with in the budget if we are if we are going to take that Revenue the 28 students if we are going to take that Revenue away from the budget um it's sort of we're so would that qualify as the finance committee taking action of the business because this actually wasn't changed in that policy at all like that that sentence is not touched on so this should be under a new business not under I'm happy with this with new business I'm trying to understand the definition of the word action what constitutes action it's not it's not defined I've always uh maintained that action would be uh something like a vote or making a decision you know top down taking action this was not that's not what committees really do nor
100have the power to do so that I I'm not sure I see it the same way I don't think this required board action or Committee Action I think we were consulted and sort of told and it's a way of communicating from the administrators in this case our transportation supervisor to the committee and then you know on the agenda now that we can discuss it out with you um through the committee chair so I I don't think anyone took action okay can we if we don't have any more discussion can we take a roll call please Miss Bradford yes to all resolutions a through k Mr chinchuli yes to all Dr Borger um yes to almost all a through k no to C Mr Hyman yes to all Mrs Khanna yes uh to all except C
101no to see Mrs Stanley yes to all Mrs Young yes Mrs Pena yes okay education assistant no it's not working yeah there it is okay um did I get a motion yeah so moved second any discussion can I just get I I want to email you the the open under M the open Syed field test District agreement this sounds really interesting I wasn't sure so um at the end of last school year uh Mr de goonis and Mary Beth kopez all they joined together to write you want to help me with this because I know enough about it to make me dangerous but they um wrote a grant for this open Syed and now I'll turn it over to Mr Finley um yeah this was a program that we brought into the middle school a
102couple years uh ago um something that's piloted by the state um as well as um some different University constituents that are working together to provide an open source science program that's all Hands-On we were able to get in on the pilot back then um actually Tommy Clayton is one of our lead teachers he helps design and write the stuff with the state now and runs trainings um so we were we applied and were asked to continue that relationship with the state um very prestigious we're gonna get uh free training uh with the state they'll the teachers will be able to offer feedback and guide the development of these resources there's statements stipends associated with it so it's a great opportunity for both our students and our teachers yeah it sounds really exciting it's also at
103the elementary levels too though this year right right it extends to the elementary absolutely yes just checking okay any more discussion no real cool please Miss Bradford yes to all resolutions Mr chinchilli yes to all Dr forger yes to all Mr Hyman yes on items a through k Scana yes to all Mrs Stanley yes Mrs Young yes Mrs Panna yes okay Personnel like a merchant to approve resolutions a through a A or board members the resolution a b to a l okay do I have emotions I think it's AI is it II AI so moved second any discussion one quick question for me uh for s uh as in Sam are we the transition coordinator is that a role that we're going to replace eventually or soon yes yes it is we've already posted for
104it cool and I also just wanted to quickly while we're in the S and Tu area say just thanks to Mike Scara again officially for 17 years we got that right of service so thank you again and I know she's down here but also thanks to Julie got for um for her time and all of her help over the last year yeah Julie really has done amazing work for us the last two years um I the budget that she's had to deal with this year was incredible and I really do thank you for everything so I'm sad to see her go even earlier than expected um but I'm I'm sure that they're excited to get her before the school year I also want to thank Michelle Gardner our our district is so much better because
105of her and all that she has done for our special education students and our program um we really wish her the best in her future and we know that she's going to go on to do great things um there was was there someone else Mr Finley is he under the front too yes yep all right then we're really excited for Mr Finley um he's been working really hard he's one of our our great administrators so we're excited for him and his future so I too just want to say on behalf of the board Mr Philly welcome aboard we're very excited to have you um so congratulations I'd also like to say thank you to Mr scarra for all his hard work I've known Mr Scott a long time and he's been in the district a
106long time and I also a special thank you to Michelle Gardner I've known Michelle Gardner since my son was about three not only have I worked with her as a parent as a liaison a special ed and she is going to be solely Miss GPU she absolutely is an absolute treasure to this district and we will miss her dearly so I wish you well in her retirement so thank you all congratulations to Mr Finley and we'll miss you Mike scarra yes congratulations Mr Finley and thank you to Michelle Gardner to those um and Mike cascara and of course the Julie Cott um for Emily's position um we're going to replace that I hope we're going to replace that as a full-time position because she's only part-time so that was something that we brought up and
107that's something that depending on if we can fund the money in the budget it's something that is going to be considered thank you discussion can we take roll call please Ms Bradford yes to all Mr chinchuli Yes except on why no to Toby Marcus Dr forreger yeah just all Mr Hyman uh yes on a through double A Mrs Connor yes to all Mrs Stanley yes Mrs Young yes Mrs Penna yes okay we're at business resolution you need a motion to approve resolution a through t or board members and U through V Berkeley Heights second uh discussion I have a question on um I think it's p which is the data warehousing Navigator analytics services yes can you maybe talk about what are the services that they will provide what's the deliverable what's the benefit what
108are we getting out of it so um link it is a program that Mary Beth brought and I think her first year here it does um it handles we used to have something called forecast five which basically gave us information that we could have Googled um and so Mary Beth brought in Lincoln and Lincoln houses our data our students go in and take Benchmark exams they take mid-year exams and it compiles all that data and then it Compares it to the njsla as well as start strong as well as the NJ GPA Etc it's a it's a program that has really helped us get get a handle on all of our data okay that's helpful and then just an overarching question because I see a lot of uh contracts and and whatnot in this list
109this was a few months ago while Dr Greer was still here I remember there was um an audit activity that was initiated I'm not sure if we actually saw the official report that came out of it I'm curious how do these contracts sort of you know stack up against the findings and you know what do we learn out of that we are going to go over the findings on Monday Dr Giordano and I have a meeting with the company to get their final report and then we will present that report to both the technology committee as well as the finance and Facilities committee um I just want to thank um the Highlander booster club okay good that was I didn't want to forget that this is a pretty awesome I was I just wanted to
110thank the Honda boosted club and uh I think it's Smith Chiropractic Foundation well their awesome donation of 2 500 so thank you very much for that we appreciate it any more discussion oh I I forgot item T the agreement with the YMCA this is them using our facilities yes before and after school yes so that is that the Oasis program yes okay thank you thank you okay so we have no more discussion can we go to Rocco please Lisa Ms Bradford yes to all Mr chanchuli yes to all Dr forger yes to all Mr Hyman yes on items a through t en Mrs Connor yes to all Mrs Stanley yes Mrs Young yes Mrs Penna yes okay Finance resolution I need a motion to prove resolution a through D or board members so moved I
111did the Bills okay super second second do we have any discussions if there's no discussion we'll move forward to Raw call please Ms Bradford yes to a through D Mr chanchuli yes to all Dr forreger yes to all Mr Hyman just all Miss Connor yes to all Mrs Stanley yes to all and thank you Joy I know August is the long one I did it last year Mrs Young oh yes Mrs Penna yes okay so we will move to the public comment section on any items so miss Jordy if you wanted to give up huh um your uh can you hear me great okay so getting back to the busing question so how um if we were to eliminate um courtesy bussing right which is essentially free busing could not not potentially create capacity to
112keep subscription bussing right when that capacity and there's and and to me it boggles the mind that we have no way to identify or maybe we do because we do report those numbers that uh of students who are you know courtesy bussing and so you eliminated subscription busing without taking the whole picture into account because that could have created some capacity um I wanted to say thank you to Mr Nixon and Mr Finley they're over there for making a comment that um you know they encourage their students to do well in exams no matter what exam it is because that's why I encourage my kids to do as well and that I don't think we should look to kids not caring about exams as a reason for you know uh declining scores or scores that
113are not up to par because our kids are no different than any other kids in any other district and we see different results so finally getting back to um May the 11th when Dr forreger asked for the superintendent to do a presentation it was taken into committee June 6 there was a committee meeting where a report a document PowerPoint whatever was presented June 29th Miss Stanley told me no after numerous emails that this document does not exist it is a quote it is on camera I have it you know there's no secret document no document is available no such document on July 13th I received this document via Oprah request so I think if we're going to call out members for not doing their jobs I would like to you know have an explanation for
114that and hopefully it's not semantics about what a report is versus a presentation versus a document so thank you okay Shauna Williams Berkeley Heights it's a real shame that Mrs Patricia Reese is not here because I distinctly remember her saying at one of her presentations that any board member is free to bring up items in the public that they feel it is important for the public to hear that they do not need to be asked only in committee that is straight from the person who trains you I don't ever want to hear any one of you ever say again that it is inappropriate to bring up something in public when you've been told otherwise by the person who trains you thank you Kitty so first I'd like to thank Mike skara and Michelle Gardner for
115their esteemed years of service um I wish you good luck and um I would like to ask some questions these have been in your inbox to the entire board and Dr warley since June 22nd I'll repeat uh I can read out the question here hoping I'll get an answer here because it's been more than I think a month and a half since blessing was one of the key issues highlighted during the 2023-2024 budget planning process and the focus on Equity of busing for all students I wanted to follow up on the topic of courtesy and subscription passing during the budget process we heard both Julie caught and Pam Stanley Pamela Stanley shares some numbers for Courtesy busing at the March and the April board meetings at the March 30th board meeting Pamela Stanley said there
116are 200 courtesy busing students out of which 144 students go to GL Governor Livingston the data submitted by our district to the New Jersey State Department of Education for the drtrs report which is District report on transported resident students were shared and it's publicly available on the doe website shows that we have 337 courtesy busing students we have seen in the community multiple emails from parents written to the board some of them were answered by Dr Worley and some were obviously just never answered by anybody including mine so a simple question is I looked at the doe website there's a process for uploading this information the district has to maintain a sheet a worksheet or an Excel sheet that has to be uploaded so why is it so difficult for the district to come up
117and give a clear answer on where are these why is there a discrepancy in what the board was telling us during the budget planning process versus what was reported to the state it's a difference of 137 students and we also saw the meeting minutes from the finance committee meeting from February 2023 where Julie caught said in the minutes iniquity in courtesy busing because and this is a doc it's your minutes these were published so the business administrator said there's inequity in courtesy passing so for this how is it okay for a publicly funded School District to charge thousand dollars per student for subscription busing while you're paying while you're making it free for 337 students that's 337 thousand dollars in Revenue it's like I think in Dr Wordly speak maybe three or four teachers so
118can I get a clarification on why is that a discrepancy also in regards to zero one five five the policy I heard Mr chinchuli say an action means a decision or a book so from based on the report that Mrs Young gave let me finish my sentence Mrs Young gave was a decision to cancel subscription mousing was made at the finance and facility committee meeting that's an action in my opinion that's a decision so how is it okay if your policy doesn't allow you yeah let me finish my sentence everybody has given three minutes we have to be consistent with everything is that anybody else because I mean to be consistent with everybody so please your three minutes are up appreciate your comments but your three minutes is up thank you if you have more
119questions or concerns please be thrilled to email the board like the email from June 22nd which you've never answered thank you yeah which is today is August 10th you've not answered an email from June 26 June 22nd and you want me to keep emailing you thank you thank you for your comments Mr Kerry thank you so much um I want to clarify when we were doing the budget process we talked about doing a proper survey and impact traffic study about all the busing so we're still going to do that so that is still on the agenda on the finance committee to do Steve grogowski Berkeley Heights four quick questions the board president uh first of all on June 2nd at Columbia the sixth graders were given a School climate assessment in which they were asked
120a variety of questions including sexual orientation gender identity religion and race I'd like you to comment on why that data was taken how it's being used and how that's going to impact our rankings in student achievement that's the first question second comment or question really is I looked on the website and I saw that there were 28 open positions for the district now I know some of them have been filled I'd like to know how many left are remaining to be filled and you know what's the impact on student learning as a result of all those vacancies that's the second question third one this New Jersey state has issued a guidance regarding transgender I'd like your comments on how the board has implemented that guidance particularly as it relates to parental notification and the final
121item is Mary Beth kopez had put together a wonderful program for word study for K-5 That was supposed to be implemented I suppose this September I'd like to know the status of that is it actually going to happen thank you you um you're able to answer those questions so as far as the school climate survey every District in the state of New Jersey is required to do a school climate survey any questions that the students do not want to fill out are optional there is nothing there's nothing mandatory as far as the um positions we have I couldn't say how many we have open we have Paras we have a new new some new teachers that we have to fill and we now we have to feel the director of special services the technology coordinator
122and I think and now an assistant principle so um we're having a little domino effect over here and as far as the K to two phonics program it is on target to be implemented starting in September we have training happening during new not new teacher orientation the staff in um staff training days uh the 28th and 29th you can find our transgender policy online the you do ask the questions to the board president but the majority of the questions will I need to be answered by obviously administration because a lot of the questions will relate to administration because so if if there's something that the board president can answer I absolutely will but majority of questions typically are they're directed at the board president but they are answered by the administration if we can answer
123them and if we can't we can absolutely find out the information and get back to you okay believe the policy hasn't changed so um I'd like to close if there are no more members of the public wanting to come up and make public comment um I'm going to close the public session we we're it's not in no no okay so we will now move on to uh I will close it and we will now move on to a new business anybody got any new business um can we later on we will take a um a survey of when we can meet for our board goals for that time okay I will reach out to everybody and see what appropriate time that everybody can meet and then I'll reach out to Patricia Reese and see what
124appropriate time she can read and based on you know Mutual convenience we'll set something up but it will be a special board meeting based purely on the board goals so that we can focus purely on that and have nothing else in the agenda all right any other questions any other business so if there's no more new new business I do have a point sort of going back to my favorite buzzing topic for the day I guess I'm just I'm trying to understand the decision-making process and how do we get to something that doesn't necessarily impact what seems like one school children in one school and if you've been on Plainfield in the mornings it's it's not pretty so I'm curious maybe through the finance committee but at some point you know we need to look
125at this with more urgency than what we had initially anticipated you know when we did the budget and I had made some consumption some of them are not you know falling in place as we have thought so I'm curious how we want to deal with this right it's a fact we've told parents and obviously it's like less than a month before school starts Beyond just the inconvenience it just I think the sense that I'm guess getting just talking to people reading the emails is that is this sense of there are some favored students families call it what you may the people that are paying the money you know nobody seems to be caring about them and I think we we shouldn't I would not want us to you know even the perception that there is
126something like that right because that's not our goal that's not our intention so I I don't know what's the the first step to doing that but I think we need to kind of push that issue expedient you know better than what we had thought before um do you want to I was gonna speak but do you want to speak go ahead you're not on sorry this may also go back to something someone else said as well my understanding I believe from one of the committee meetings finance committee meetings was the timing was such that people who uh had wanted to or attempted to sign up tentatively for subscription busing had done so got a tentative warning letter it sort of depended on whether we had the capacity or not and then follow so they had
127the warning and then more recently there was then the follow-up communication that confirmed we unfortunately as as we thought did not have the capacity so I think the idea was that they had a chance to be mindful and speaking of communication and the busing I think that was actually the reason as far as my perception is um in the case of subscription courtesy bussing I don't I think it would have suddenly been pulled for that from them without warning in that case which is I think the reason why the difference between and in terms of favoring if I were just looking at this objectively I would think we're favoring we would be more likely to do something to favor the people who were paying if we're trying to favor anyone so if we're not favoring
128those people it's probably not the case that we're favoring but I think that's where the disconnect is and it it's you can call it perception you can you can call it whatever I'm just just speaking from what I have heard firsthand right you everybody now in the district is aware that there is a group of parents families that are getting this service for free there is no stated criteria or reason right it's you you get the point there is no criteria established there is nothing right on the other hand there are parents who raise their hand and said I'm willing to give you a thousand dollars please have this service ready for my kid because I really need it and now you know I understand the reality of the driver and whatnot but it just
129seems like we are not doing enough for the other people who are impacted and that sort of going back to the whole inequity argument this is a glaring example I'm just trying and I know it's a problem I know you know getting drivers isn't easy I'm just asking you know ourselves as a board what can we do better sorry and I I understand what you're saying and I do um but I think the courtesy busing is part of a bigger bigger picture which is what we've discussed in finance committee meetings we've discussed we need to to do this we're all very aware of it and it was a big discussion during the budget season so we are aware but I think it's part of a bigger picture that we need to dive into more depth
130we we want to make sure that we do it properly this time I think Robert made a comment at the last meeting saying we don't want to do it just for the sake of doing it we want to make sure we do it properly and that that's the plan so and we we do have we we're we're in a situation right now where we have an interim ba so you know we have to also be mindful that we get these are discussions that need to be hacked with the new ba when we could bring somebody on board and this plan needs to get set into motion and although it's not official I've I've discussed and raised some issues on which how we can get some assuming we do continue at all with courtesy busing what
131would be objective criteria so that there is equity and that was discussed is it a plan is it in writing no but discussions have continued budget Seasons upon us that is is when it will be figured out for sure before I know right Transportation said it was like get past the first couple of weeks in this school year I said from my during the meeting it was my understanding after we get through the first couple of weeks of school when busing is a little hectic then that's like all in to be able to finalize what's you know what's courtesy what is the pot like I don't even want to use the wrong words because what's the right way to put forth criteria for it and that's what was committed to by transportation and that would
132be brought to and I think one of the other things that was discussed was that when we do it we don't want to do it over the summer when you're not getting a true interpretation of traffic and all that stuff so these are things that are going to need to happen during the course of the school year so that when we can figure this all out that was something that was discussed and preparation for the budget as well so you know these these were definitely and I understand where you're coming from these are things we need to look into in more depth and do it properly Angela okay I'm bothered by something I hope somebody can clear this up we were told there were 200 courtesy busing students and then the district reported a different
133number 337 to the state could we get even an accurate number how many are there surely the finance committee must have that number surely as part of your investigation what I thought you talked about this in finance right you must have gotten some numbers about what the I mean if you're researching a problem you got to have some numbers how many students are we transporting is it 200 or is it 337 or is it something else if you want us to just give you a number and not want accurate information but I think the reality is we need to get the correct information from the responsible coordinate all right could we yeah we can give it to you could we get we're not just going to throw out a number just a second no I
134wouldn't be prepared for just being hit by a random number let me ask a specific thing what I'd like to know is how many courtesy busing students to each school we have six buildings how many are being courtesy bus to each school can we get that for next time what yes yes okay so I've already had this conversation with Kelly and if we can let her get past building all the routes and doing all of those things which impact children let's do that first let's make sure the children are Tangled first and then we will satisfy your requirements yep any no more new business no okay I'd like to make a motion to adjourn I'm so moved