001and welcome to the board of education meeting the board has already met an executive session and saluted the flag at this time at that time um so with that i think uh mr mclaughlin could we please have a roll call mr salmon here miss schaefer here beckman here mrs white here mrs mckeon i think she might be frozen here here can you hear me yes thank you is richmond here mrs corn here ms hearing here mr marcarian here mr scythe here miss fox here mrs craig here adam president thank you thank you mr mclaughlin and once again welcome everyone this is a regular meeting of the board of education at bernard's township notice of the time in the place of this meeting was provided and copies of that resolution were forwarded to the official newspapers
002as designated by the board of education and to the township clerk and a copy of the notice was posted on the bulletin board of the board of education offices in accordance with the open public meetings act due to the public health emergency in the state of new jersey as declared in executive order 103 the board will be suspending its normal meeting procedures this evening and conducting a virtual meeting directions for accessing the virtual public meeting were posted on the district website www.bernardsboe.com these same directions were posted at our intended but unavailable meeting location we very much welcome input from the public because this is a virtual meeting public comment will be handled in one of three ways public comment method number one which is the preferred method is the full video via zoom when you're
003ready to make a public comment join the board of education meeting via the zoom link posted on the district webpage www.bernardsboe.com please plan for your participation in the meeting by turning your camera and microphone on dressing appropriately maintaining a proper background setting i'm sorry background setting for your camera's view having a quiet space muting the youtube live stream of the board of education meeting when you are speaking so that there is no feedback with your participation in the zoom meeting you'll be placed in a queue and admitted to the meeting when it is your turn to make a public comment once you see that you are admitted to the zoom call it will be your turn to make your public comment please begin your public comment by stating your full name and address after making
004your public comment please exit the zoom meeting so that the next person in the waiting room may be admitted to make their public comment public comment method number two is the dial-in via zoom when you are ready to make your public comment join the zoom meeting using the dial-in phone number and meeting id posted on the district website plan for your participation in the meeting by having a quiet space and muting the youtube live stream of the board of education meeting when you are speaking so that there is no feedback with your participation in the zoom meeting you'll be placed in a queue and admitted to the meeting when it's your turn to make a public comment once you see that you are admitted to the zoom call it will be your turn to make
005your public comment please begin your comment by stating your full name and address after making your public comment please exit the zoom meeting so that the next person waiting may make their public comment public comment method three if the preferred full video method of public comment is not an option for you and the dial in method fails please follow these directions to submit your public comment starting at 7 pm email your comment to bt connect at bernardsboe.com or text your comment to 908 292-3047 use public comment as the email subject or start of the message indicate your first and last name and address this is required for your public comment to be included regardless of whether you use method one two or three please note that public comments are limited to a maximum of approximately
006three minutes if read aloud individuals are permitted a maximum of one public comment during public comment on agenda items and one public comment during the public comment on non-agenda items sections of the agenda public comments submitted via method 1 and 2 will be processed first then comments submitted by method 3. an individual's comments made using method 1 or 2 will not also be read into the record through method three the board of education reserves the right to limit the length of time allotted for public comment as we've been doing over these many months we're going to limit that to 45 minutes in the agenda items section and another 45 minutes if necessary in the non-agenda section no public comments will be accepted before 7 pm or after item 19 board forum of the agenda begins
007please understand that public comment portions of our genders are not structured as question and answer sessions but rather they are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board of education the board may or may not respond to public comments any board responses to public comments will generally be addressed during board forum ordering committee reports however all comments are considered and will be investigated and addressed as appropriate please be courteous and mindful of the rights of others when providing comments comments may not be abusive obscene threatening or irrelevant please understand that students and employees have specific legal and privacy protections the board is not permitted to respond in public to comments about students and employees please also understand that the board will not be responsible for the content of comments made by members of
008the public members of the public are cautioned that they are commenting at their own risk and any personally directed statements they make may be subject to legal liability to the affected individual if it is necessary for the board to go into executive session at the end of the meeting we will provide an estimated length of time for this session and whether any action is anticipated to be taken upon returning to the public session and with that very long introduction we are up to the student representative report juliette hi uh hello so as the weather begins to warm up and things are starting to return back to normalcy um i think school's been going really well uh these past few weeks there's been really great success for the ridge forensics team uh in particular ridge won
009the u-pen tournament and numerous students have qualified for national tournaments like the tournament of champions and the ncfl tournament like other school organizations some members have asked about the possibility of clubs meeting in person and if that could happen going forward um additionally there was some concern about the drop-off situation where kids at ridge complained about being unable to reach their first class in time because they could only enter the building from 7 15 to 7 35 one thing i definitely know that the seniors are really looking forward to is that senior prom is beginning to be planned which is very exciting it's nice to know that there's still some key events to look forward to like any other year thank you does anyone have any questions for juliet we appreciate you joining us juliet
010you're most welcome to stay with us or if you've got things you need to do we understand as well our next item is the board presentation we have um our assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction and our director of school counseling here to take us through the um post-secondary report for the class of 2020. uh miss fox and ms smith thank you thank you mrs gray um mr syett is going to do the honors of sharing his screen for us tonight and we will uh get started without delay so good evening everyone as ms gray said i'm kristin fox the assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction and i'm pleased to be here tonight with miss stephanie smith the director of school counseling to present to you the annual post-secondary report we will be sharing a significant amount
011of information with you tonight and providing you with our analysis and highlights please know that we will post the full presentation tomorrow morning so that you can review it in greater depth you may want to write down your questions so we can answer them at the end of the presentation and with that i will turn it over to miss smith to get us started thank you miss fox so tonight we've organized the presentation into four main sections you'll see on the screen here that we'll start off with standardized admissions testing specifically the impact that covid has had on the ect sat and ap testing as well we'll then discuss college admissions data for the class of 2020 as well as career readiness as it pertains to post-secondary preparation and then we'll end this evening with
012a preview of the ap exam schedule for this spring 2021. so our first section as i mentioned is standardized testing for the s a t a c t and the s a t subject tests and before we get into detail about the actual data for the class of 2020 it's important to keep in mind the context that the pandemic has and the impact that coven 19 has had specifically on the sat act and even our ap testing as well but the pandemic needless to say has had significant impacts on standardized admissions testing across the country whether it be test cancellations limited access for students difficulty in registration online and actually having cancel canceled test dates as well so we did have our number of students last march 2020 mostly juniors who were still able to
013test but of course many were impacted by the cancellations last spring we continue to see the fallout of the pandemic as it relates to s.a.t and act and this is something that as a school district we continue to monitor to keep abreast of any of the changes that are currently unfolding as well as anything that might be on the horizon an example of that is that the college board announced just this past january in uh 2021 that they are not continuing the s.a.t essay which was previously optional after the june 2021 and test administration on the screen here i've also included several links to test optional policies so this was a widely popular shift as a result of the pandemic seen at colleges and universities across the country adopting a more test friendly test flexible
014test optional there were several terms that were used but needless to say hundreds of schools adopted this type of a policy for this class and so we'll continue to see the impact of that over the next several years when we talk specifically about sat and act there are one or two key differences between the tests and so i've just highlighted some material related to the test content timing whether or not there's a penalty and the actual scoring procedures but generally speaking students tend to do better on one or the other and different colleges have different preferences next we'll take a look at our testing trends so for our testing trends you can see the graduation cohorts over the past several years so specifically this presentation relates to the class of 2020 and so you can
015see the comparison between the number of students in the class of 2020 who took an sat test and those who took an act test and so similarly to the class of 2019 the sat wins over the act for participation this does mirror the national trend and then you can see in the screen here that it also mirrors and reflects the trend within the state of new jersey for the s.a.t the mean scores for ridge for the state of new jersey and the national mean scores for the graduation class of 2020 are on the slide here so you'll be able to see that ridge scores well above the state and national mean scores which is consistent with prior years next we'll take a look at our comparison district so our peers and colleagues in districts nearby
016this list is in alphabetical order by the title of the school district and highlighted in darker green is where ridge places on that spectrum so you can see here if you take a look at the numbers that we fall in fourth place for reading and fourth in math and you can see the distribution of scores from our peer schools how this data is collected is through the school profile so the school profile is published each year for the class that is applying to schools and so some districts do not have their profile information either updated for the class of 2020 or pub published publicly online but those that do we've included in this chart moving on to our act scores this is a lot of information again but as ms fox said that we'll post
017this presentation so you can take a deeper look but we're trying to just highlight for you some key trends and some of our overall analysis that we have so looking at the act we just took a look at the sat mean scores and so for each of the sections of the act you can see the ridge mean score as compared to the new jersey state mean score there is an increase in every category this year and higher numbers in every category than the state average as well the average composite score is up by 0.4 and we are higher than the state average by three whole points when we discuss act it's important to keep in mind a metric that they use which is the benchmark and so the benchmark is the minimum score needed that
018indicates to you your likelihood of earning a certain grade in the corresponding college course and so if you were to earn a benchmark score in any of the test sections you have a 50 chance of earning a b in the corresponding course or 75 chance of earning a c so i'm showing you these benchmarks because we'll take a look in a moment at the next slide of where our class of 2020 falls the class of 2020 is compared to the classes before in meeting that college readiness benchmark that the act has established for in all four testing areas overall these benchmarks are higher than last year and ridge is higher in all testing areas than the state percentage next just like we did for our neighborhood districts we explored the scores of our peer institutions
019here and so you can see compared to others again some of this information is not published on school profiles but those we have we have alphabetized this list and highlight few where ridge falls you can see that we are very similar to a lot of our colleagues and we are tied for fourth place on the list but still well above the national average which is 20.8 and speaking of those national averages the national s-a-t and a-c-t score comparison is on this slide here and so the average composite score and the approximate equivalent so how that's determined is through the concordance table so the college board produces the concordance table i've linked it here if you want to take a look at that but the last report was published in 2018 and it essentially refers to
020a relationship that they have established between these scores and the measures are are not based on identical constructs because the tests themselves are very different but it does provide a type of imperfect prediction on how a student would perform on on either test and that's linked in the presentation there next we'll discuss the sat subject tests which i will turn over to miss fox sorry i had to unmute thank you so i'm going to share the class of 2020s sat subject to scores but first i'd like to share some additional changes announced by the college board this past january they announced on january 11 that they would be eliminating entirely the sat2 subject area tests in addition to the essay test as mentioned by ms smith earlier their statement included here says that it was
021done to adapt to the changes in the college admissions process and help to reduce demands on students i've linked i've included a link on this slide to an article that goes into more depth on this decision but for the current school year these tests were only made available to students through the december 2020 administration as ms smith mentioned last year's school closure impacted our students ability to take these assessments so when looking at the scores we do need to keep this in mind although you'll see that the scores are mostly consistent with previous years we typically have a small number of students who take each of these tests note the larger numbers though of test takers in ecological biology and math 2. students are permitted can take these tests in any grade so depending upon
022when they choose to take it they may be more or less prepared depending on how it aligns with when they took the comparable course for example if they take us history in their senior year it would be two years after they took the course as a sophomore unless of course they're in ap u.s history so it varies quite a bit for these scores you see for ela and social studies they dipped slightly from last year but remember we are looking at small population of students 23 in ela and 21 in you in us history and this certainly may have been impacted by the school closure in math one and two there was a small four point dip on math 1 and a 10 point increase in math 2. math 1 was taken by 15 students
023while math 2 was taken by 78 students in science there was an increase in each test score except for ecological biology the increase in the chemistry score was significant at 50 points ms smith all of the ridge students have access to method test prep 2.0 so method test prep is a program that the district provides for students free access through their naviance account and so students can practice with an sat or an act test and receive feedback on their performance so the usage rates are very similar to years past and so the statistics are on the screen there but several students logging in number of logins and over 40 hours of time on task which again is similar usage to last year but this is one of the ways that we support our students with
024having free test prep i know that the pto at ridge and the class sponsors also coordinate practice tests and test events um as well so next i'll i'll speak about our students participation and achievement in the ap exams in the spring of 2020 the college board had to respond quickly to the ever-changing crisis we found ourselves in not really knowing how long we'd be out for quite some time after it began this left the college board little time to adjust their testing plans however within two months the tests were completely redesigned to accommodate the virtual environment the biggest change was the elimination of content that most schools would not have completed by mid-march this means that entire units were eliminated in in many courses while this would certainly be helpful to most some teachers or
025schools may also have changed their course sequence before the year started other changes included the elimination of the multiple choice and long essay type questions the tests were 45 minutes in length and they were all taken online at home they were completely open note and the college board provided three lessons that were live streamed over youtube prior to testing they also offered students full refunds if they did not want to go ahead and take the test while there were reportedly significant technological issues with testing worldwide the problems were of a somewhat limited scope for ridge students next oh sorry the annual analysis of scores does need to take this situation into account at least in part and will need to be considered really for the next few years as the college board transitions back to
026more traditional in-person uh testing so the ap courses that are offered are the equivalent of an introductory college level course we offer 25 of the 38 that are available scores range from 1 through 5 with the 3 considered to be a passing score note however that the passing score to earn college credit does vary by institution and major you will see that most of our students who take the course also take the exam despite the fact that we do not require it in order to earn ap credit on the transcript the great news is that 94 of all of the exams taken in the spring of 2020 earned passing scores so i'll report next on student participation and achievement on the next several slides there were some changes in enrollment and i am noting those
027which saw an increase of more or less than 20 students in a course in an ap course in most cases these declines represent one year changes last year for example psychology enrollment was down but has come back this year the same is true for calculus a b macroeconomics and microeconomics were down in 2020 but are back up again this year to to 123 students nothing that i see here represents a trend at this point one of the other reported statistics is the percentage of students in the course who also took the exam some districts requ require students to take the exam in order to earn ap credit but we do not so our very high participation rates are not because it's required i make a note of participation rates here when they are more or
028less than 80 percent but note that the courses in bold actually had greater than 90 participation given the circumstances that's quite impressive next over five years you can see that our participation rate has always been high and last year in 2020 dipped by only 3.3 percent still being higher than the previous three years these next two slides include include the data supporting my analysis for you to examine later the next several slides review student achievement on the ap exams the ap equity score is designed to measure student access to exams and to assess both the equity and excellence of our school's ap program 61.1 percent of ridge's entire senior class who scored a three or higher on an ap exam at any point in high school is shown on the right additionally in the middle
029you see that the percentage of ridge's entire 10th 11th and 12th grade classes took and scored a three or higher on at least one exam in the spring of 2020. in this calculation students who scored a three or higher on an ap exam are counted only once regardless of how many ap exams they took and were successful in there's no therefore no way to inflate this percentage by restricting access to ap students who earn ones or twos on ap exams neither increase nor reduce this percentage in addition by showing the proportion of the overall population not just the ap classroom we are better able to determine the extent to which our overall population is receiving access to advanced academics in high school when looking at information about passing scores the college provides us with multiple
030ways to understand how our students are doing on this slide um yeah so here we look at the total number of exams taken and the percentage of the exams that earned a passing score we had a total of 1 657 scores take exams taken in 2020 and 94 of the exams earned a passing score while in 2019 96 of all of the 1 579 exams taken earned a passing score so that represents a 2 dip overall in the number of student exams earning a passing score there were you notice a fewer total number of exams in 2019 78 fewer to be exact and so what you see in the next slide mr side it might be the next so i'm sorry can you go back one what you see here is a breakdown of the
031fives fours and threes that were earned on exams over the past five years so while you see you do see a smaller number of fives in 2020 767 than there were in 2019 you also see a greater number of fours and threes in 2020. what this also tells us because there were a greater number of students taking the exam is that we saw an increase in the number of ones and twos i would suggest that this might be explained to the changes in the exam and the virtual environment sorry now you can go to the one back i'm sorry i think i had them out of order we also look at the percentage of unique students on this on this slide who earn at least one three on one exam which means that 96 percent
032of students taking the exam earned at least one passing score this number is within one percent over the last five years in ela we offer three exams english lang is taken by juniors english lit and composition is taken by seniors and seminar is taken by seniors as well the top graph is the total number of test takers and the bottom graph is the percentage of test takers with a passing score you can see that the total number of english language and composition test takers has increased each year while the number of lit students has fluctuated seminar was a new course in 2019 and that number went down in 2020 but is back up in 2021 with 24 students enrolled the percentage of students passing on the bottom chart has remained fairly consistent with a dip
033last year in lit that can likely be compared to the dip in test takers as well as the learning environment given that that course is composed of all seniors the breakdown of passing scores this shows threes fours and fives on each of those exams are shown here note that seminar was introduced just two years ago so this is this year 2021 will only be the third year we are administering the exam in mathematics we offer exams in calculus a b calculus bc statistics and computer science you see that the total number of test takers increased from 2019 to 2020 significantly the green being 2020 in every course and the percentage of passing scores for each exam is at 100 percent for each course except computer science but note that with computer science those scores have
034increased over the last few years this is the breakdown of passing scores representing the fives the fours and the threes in each of those courses the one on the first one would be calculus a b and the second column would be calculus bc in science we offer ap exams in seven subjects biology chemistry environmental science physics 1 physics physics c mechanics and physics c electricity and magnetism the number of total test takers fluctuates over the years as you can see by the bar graphs on the top graph you see that there were increases in bio physics 1 and environmental science but decreases in decreases in the other courses physics 1 the number there of 123 does include some students who are not enrolled in the course but took the exam on their own the percentage
035of test takers across all subjects is very high passing i'm sorry is also very high between 95 and 100 with only environmental science seeing fluctuation over the years that course like english literature is consists of mostly seniors as well certainly may have been an impact last year here's the breakdown of passing scores in the science courses showing you the fives the fours and the threes the enrollments were much lower in the physics c courses but nearly all of the students in both c courses earned fives in social studies we offer seven exams european history us government and politics human geography macroeconomics microeconomics psychology and us history the enrollments were up in every course except human geography i'm sorry the enrollments were not up across the board but they were up in most of our courses
036um one of the things i wanted to make a note of is that the shift we see in government and politics where you note that that course is up to 188 test takers from 169 the year prior and then in macro and microeconomics we did see a decline in the number of test takers what happened over the last couple of years is that we redesigned the course and what used to be all combined into one course both economics courses and the government politics exam has now been divided into two courses so we think some of those fluctuations might be explained by the changes in those uh three exams and now two courses note that the scores the percentage of test takers passing the exams is quite high where they are nearly 100 in all courses
037you'll note that the scores in government and politics did decline by 5 from last year which again like i said might be explained as well as in micro and macro where they also saw a little bit of a dip might be explained by the change in the course sequencing noteworthy is that while psychology had a dip last year they have recovered this year um it's really noteworthy i believe that the percentage of passing scores in european history increased from 88 percent to 100 percent despite the pandemic here's the breakdown of passing scores for social studies exams in most courses the number and percentage of fives is higher than fours and threes in world languages we offer courses in french spanish italian and latin students have also sat taken the chinese exam uh the last the
038past few years while the japanese exam has not been taken since 2016. the number of test takers increased in all of our courses and just make a note of the fact that we offer the latin exam on alternating years so that information is only showing you for 2020 2018 and 2016. the passing scores are all at 100 for every subject except italian which did see a dip to 91 percent but note that that exam was taken by only 21 students this is the breakdown of passing scores for the world language exams in fine arts we offer three exams three ap exams studio art drawing studio art 2d and studio art 3d these are portfolio-based exams enrollments fluctuate in these courses and you'll see that just one or two students take studio art 3d a few
039more take studio art 2d but within those courses we have an extremely high passing rate of 100 almost every time on this chart you notice we are not sharing the results of the studio art 3d to protect the identity of the students but this is the breakdown of fives fours and threes the next three slides is the supporting information for that analysis that you can take a look at when this is posted tomorrow finally this summary slide shows the courses that saw an overall increase in scores on the right an overall decrease in scores on the left and the courses whose passing rate remained flat from 2019 to 2020. so there were big gains as mentioned in european history but also computer science a b calc latin us history physics c e m english english
040language and composition and biology the courses that saw a decrease in the passing rate include environmental science italian english literature macroeconomics microeconomics physics ii psychology us government and politics and human geography in summary our ap courses are highly enrolled with some annual fluctuations across specific courses most of the decreases we saw last year have recovered this year the majority of our students do take the ap exam despite the fact that it is not a requirement and most impressive is that 94 of all exams taken earned a passing score and 96 of our students passed at least one of the exams they took when looking at the breakdown of scores most of our exams have a high percentage of fours and fives as well although we did see a shift in 2020 with a lower percentage
041of fives and a higher number of fours and threes we would certainly attribute that to the way the spring unfolded and we would look to see if that continues next year when we or this year when we return to a more traditional full-length exam ms smith thank you miss fox the next part of our presentation will focus on college admissions data specifically trends in applications acceptances and matriculation for the class of 2020. so this is a snapshot of the ridge class of 2020. you'll see there were 456 graduates 95 continued their education the breakdown there is that 88 attended a four-year school and that includes non-us colleges seven percent attended a two-year school and five percent expressed to us that they were pursuing an other path other may include employment military unknown undecided or a
042gap year compared to last year the four-year school rate decreased by three percentage points and the two-year school rate increased by two percentage points the other category increased by one percentage point compared to the class of 2019. as we take a look on the next slide at the class profiles for the previous years you'll see a number of different categories the graduating class and the average scores as well as some application information so as you take a look at the class of 2020 you'll notice that the class size is slightly smaller than last year the gpa is slightly higher psat and sat averages were lower but act was higher the number of applications submitted was lower by about 160 applications but the average number of applications per student is about the same even for the
043smaller class so that metric there is steady from last year the percentage accepted into universities is higher for the class of 2020. two categories that i added this year out of interest were that the last two the number of schools that the students apply to in total and then the number of schools attended so when we talk about the information that we previously saw how many the percentage of students who have matriculated to a two or four year school how many schools does that actually represent so you can see in those bottom two lines there that students in the class of 2020 apply to 427 total schools and attended 125 total schools compared to the prior year class of 2019 students applied to 403 schools and then attended 152. so we'll continue to report out
044on that category for the years to come this slide shows the class of 2020 application trends so what we call the increased interest and the decreased interest it's important to keep a number of factors in mind when you look at this information first the total number of applications can still be high even if there is a decrease from last year so specifically on that decreased list take a look at cornell's example it's on the decrease list from compared to the class of 2019 but you can still see a high amount of applications are are in cornell also keep in mind that the total applications for school on the increased list can be on that increased list but overall can actually be lower in total than a school that's represented on the decreased list specifics there
045are the university of florida versus lehigh as examples the information here are based on the initial applications not the net applications so your initial applications are those that the students initially um initiate in the beginning of the year and the net is where they actually end up applying and have not withdrawn or changed their mind other thoughts on this information you can see clemson in the increased interest so you can keep in mind that they were the national championship school northeastern trends is a mirror here with what northeastern is reporting so if you look up admission stats on various different websites or the actual admission site of a college or university itself you can see if these trends are being reported similarly on their admissions websites and in most cases they are you can also
046see a lot of peer institutions on this list some examples wisconsin and ohio are similar types of schools and so that alone may push some of those schools to be on an increased list because students are seeing them in within a similar lens teacher letters of recommendation so overall 73 teachers wrote for 690 students so remember that there were 456 total seniors in the class but some of them are writing for more than one student so that's what that total number of letters column represents keep in mind that the school counselor is right for every senior on their caseloads that's about 60 letters each but that's not represented in this data this is strictly the teachers and so the range per teacher is anywhere from one letter to 40. 40 i will say is a
047high outlier right immediately below that is 33 so that's the distribution graph that you can look at at your bottom right hand corner of your screen there were only six teachers to put in perspective that were writing for more than 25 students 13 teachers wrote each only for one student so that kind of gives you an idea of the distribution the majority 44 teachers write for less than 10 students on the left hand side of that screen is the department breakdown so the pie chart will show you that 26 of letters are written from the english department 22 from science and for the class of 2019 last year science was the lead math then follows with 17 and social studies is 15 and the rest are the other departments now this information on this entire
048screen does represent only the letters and that's what the asterisk is indicating only the letters that are sent via naviance e-docs so the e-docs platform is our mechanism by which we send information or secure submission of information to uh colleges and universities and so that's how we're measuring there are certainly teachers who write and mail postal mail letters our college comparison slide shows you the percentage of ridge applicants that are accepted in various categories of colleges so all of this data is also pulled from naviance reports and the selectivity rankings here are based specifically on baron's profile of american colleges so the exact metrics to determine which colleges fall within each category is typically privileged information but that's how the information is is reported out through naviance and so the acceptance rates are determined based
049on the total net applications on this screen so previously i described the difference between initial and net applications so here we're looking specifically at those net applications so the final number of applications after students may have changed their mind or withdrawn in application you may notice a drop in acceptances from the 2018 class for the ivy leagues but that does represent the overall drop in selectivity for ivs and ridge does stand basically at or slightly above the national average selectivity rate at the ivs itself the category is most competitive and highly competitive you can see the high numbers there for the class of 2020 how many are accepted which represents uh our ridge rigorous curriculum in our next slide we have the class of 2020 top 10 colleges that are attended so you can see
050there are many schools in the top 10 that are tied with one another to get their spot within that top ten the right hand column will show you the actual percentage of students that that top 10 number represents and so keep that in mind just for general context when we talk about the top 10 but notes for the class of 2020 are that rutgers and rbcc are still number one and two respectively just like classes of 2018 in 2019 many of the same schools are in this list but there may be a variation in rank order per per each year there are more ties in the top 10 this year than there were in the class of 2019 in fact seven of the rank levels are tied this year uh and there were only four
051last year the top four schools send more than 10 students and the number one in two schools send three times more than number four so you can see that reflected in the percentage of students again context for for this information rank levels five through ten all send less than ten students each and then you can remember earlier that i described that students are are attending more than 100 different schools across the country so we do have a distribute distribution of schools within our class of 2020. schools that are beyond the top 10 have typically less than four students attending each the top ten schools represents 66 schools which is about 53 percent of the list the total list of attending schools and the top 10 schools also represents 256 students which is 56 of the
052class of 2020. so all of that information provides the context when you look at that actual top 10 report the ivy league colleges this is a report for the acceptance rate of the class of 2020. this information is based on the net apps so in 2020 there were 150 net apps and nine were accepted that's 60 less applications than the prior cohort class of 2019 and four less accepted than 2019. as i mentioned ridge uh ranks either at or slightly above the national selectivity rate which is extremely selective at the iv level cornell is number one and pen number two which also happened to be the same as the class of 2019 and as i as you may remember from the previous top 10 slide that cornell was actually in the top 10. next we'll
053take a look at our matriculation data for the class of 2019 by type and by state so these two categories by type you can see the distribution and i touched on this when i opened up this section of the presentation of four-year two-year non-us and other categories so the non-us schools are included in the four-year rate as i mentioned earlier on the right-hand side of the screen you could see matriculation by state and that is the top ten you'll see some ties in the top 10 as well compared to the class of 2019 some analysis here for you there are 10 less students for new jersey schools 20 less in pennsylvania however new jersey pennsylvania and new york the tri-state area are still the dominating states massachusetts sold fourth place again with 10 more students
054and 4 percentage point increase than the class of 2019 virginia dc thai and both knocked out maryland out of fifth place this year compared to the class of 2019. florida south carolina took a rise in the chart uh north carolina took a slight dip and new in the top 10 from last year is ohio and california there are ties with four states virginia the district of columbia florida and south carolina while we're talking about matriculation on the next slide we will take a look at ridge alumni data and transfer statistics so typically the in a collaboration between naviance alumni tracker and the national clearinghouse data there is an outreach to students in their second semester of their freshman year to collect alumni data and transfer statistics typically and generally speaking there's a low respondent rate
055when it comes to this information and this has been of interest for a couple years to really work on this and develop a homegrown way of receiving and keeping track of this information so we're looking to make this piece of our naviance portal a bit more robust and also we developed a survey for the class of 2020 at the end of the year in june the seniors when they when they provided us with all of their matriculation and attending school total application school information that i just shared we asked them the students if they would be interested in sharing their personal email for a follow-up survey at the at this essentially this point in their freshman year of college so their second semester and we did administer that survey to any of the seniors that
056indicated that they would be willing to to accept a survey and although we saw a low respondent rate we do have some information that we wanted to share from that winter 2020 survey particularly for this class we asked the students if they did in fact attend the school that they indicated in june 2020 they're as they're attending school did they in fact matriculate there in fall of 2020 most the vast majority said yes and some students did in fact defer which i think is important to note in in the time of the pandemic we also asked students if they did transfer so of the group that was that responded to this survey they the majority did not some said they did and we also asked out of curiosity particularly for this year if the pandemic
057had an impact on their decision for actually where to attend and uh about 68 said no 26 said in some ways and less than 10 percent uh affirmed yes so again this is a homegrown survey we'll look to uh keep this as part of this presentation so that we can track particularly transfers uh transfer statistics are important and our alumni data as well so this is the goal um to keep doing this for future presentations as well overall when we really take into consideration all the data that we just looked at there's some general news and context that we like to provide in this presentation so although we're looking at the year prior for the class of 2020 the current trends and what we saw and last spring are important to discuss and so you'll
058see on the screen here just a list of some trends that are provided by the school counseling department from colleagues various articles um admissions insiders information and publications by the national association of college admissions counseling knockok so to highlight a few key points in terms of admissions trends we're seeing a lot of activity on the virtual front which comes as no surprise in the pandemic so a significant rise in interactions via virtual tours college fairs college rep visits there's a larger capacity and a reality to visiting schools and vice versa schools visiting with students that otherwise may have been too far or representatives may not have been willing or able to travel that distance from their to represent their university so this is a positive thing and it's there's a positive experience being reported on
059both user ends colleges and students so we're anticipating that there would be some sort of continuation after the pandemic and and we'll see how this virtual uh experience changes that landscape self-reporting trends continue self-reporting test scores we highlighted or earlier in this presentation the test optional very widely popular uh trend that we saw increasing significantly again due to the pandemic as well as test optional policies increasing uh total applications and so students who are interested in applying may not have otherwise due to test scores there's we're seeing overall publications announcing an increase in applications upwards to even 20 percent by some institutions so naturally there there the average selectivity rate may decrease due to the steady growth and application volume and an increase of waitlist action as a result so heading to the waitlist earlier
060deferments earlier due to a bigger pool pool to review this year for admissions representatives early action activity is being reported as continuing bridge gateway programs especially for larger institutions and a focus on mental health so just like the secondary level the post-secondary level uh even the ivy leagues have different collaboratives miss fox and i have discussed our interest in stanford's um challenge success program and like i said a number of the ivy leagues and other highly selective schools are focusing on mental health as well so that kind of gives you an idea just to highlight some trends of college admissions news to keep in contact with all of the data and graphs and information that we previously viewed on the next slide for those of you that are a visual or have the artistic flair
061this is a representation of that uh top college's slide that i showed you earlier and so the photo courtesy goes to dr mary jane mcnally so the school media specialist who produces this as a result of the matriculation and attending schools rate for each of the graduating classes so this was the image the wordle as it's called a word a world cloud a visual representation of the colleges where the class of 2020 has attended so we just wrapped up the college admissions data but this presentation is about post-secondary preparedness and so miss fox and i definitely wanted to include a section on career readiness and preparing for the post-secondary world of work so this is another piece that's directly related to post-secondary we know that one of the district goals is to provide students with
062a greater opportunity to understand how their personal strengths and interests align with 21st century career pathways and so to that end that's why we decided to add this section as we're continuously looking at ways to enhance those experiences and come up with different metrics we can use for to include in this report so that being said what i'd like to share here is that in regards to providing kids an opportunity to align their personal strengths and interests with potential career pathways all sophomores complete a naviance career assessment it's called the career interest profiler and so this is based on holland's theory of career choice and so it matches the students personality type and interest with potential career clusters that may fit them from the results of this survey students are encouraged to explore the naviance
063platform and investigate different careers that may be of interest to them so the curriculum has been updated over the past couple years to include a debriefing of the assessment what it means to discuss the career clusters and a naviance tour as well so naviance the organization has also announced some enhancements specifically to career exploration as it relates to post-secondary preparation so these enhancements are a new announcement this spring ridge high school has been participating in a pilot program and all naviance users will be able to use the new features in fall of 2021 so i anticipate that there will be more to report out on on those features and how we intend on having students take advantage of them of course another career readiness opportunity our students have is through mr john brown the amazing
064coordinator of the senior internship program at ridge high school our students have two pathways either the year-long pathway for a portion of their school day or a concentrated pathway for may and june where for the full school day they are working in an internship or apprenticeship uh position with a local organization business or school whatever is really of their interest so mr john brown coordinates that program and provides those students with an opportunity to really be hands on and to get experience in the real world their senior year miss fox and i also share the passion for uh this this part of post-secondary planning so we love this career work and we have worked together to pull together a group of um teachers and counselors to form a program evaluation committee so this group is
065formed with k-12 representation as i mentioned and the purpose of the group is to determine what mr brown calls the state of the state so we're assessing our current state where are we with career exploration k-12 and what er what's some preliminary research out there what are other districts doing when it comes to programming what's the university level doing when it comes to career preparation so we have work so far this the past summer uh summer of 2020 we met with our program evaluation team and this past fall we've been in touch with them to establish questions and to create initial surveys for staff students and parents as a part of this career development program evaluation so what to take from that tonight is that the future focus of that group is to make recommendations
066in the fall of 2021 for program improvements over the next five years so ms fox and i will continue to report out on the work of that committee looking to expand career development and career readiness for post-secondary preparation so this is our summary slide for the first three sections if you recall i mentioned that the presentation is divided into four sections we have covered everything tonight to recap for you for the class of 2020 standard standardized admissions testing ap scores subject test college admissions data and career readiness so all of that falls under the umbrella of post-secondary preparedness but specifically for this year because we're here in this moment we wanted to take the opportunity to update you all on the ap testing plan for the spring of 2021 considering the significant changes um to
067the plan that we have and to the college board's announcements that they have in terms of ap testing we wanted to provide that information for you all so without further ado i'll turn it back to miss fox thank you so as i mentioned and described earlier the college board responded quickly to the crisis last year and completely redesigned the test to accommodate the virtual learning environment worldwide and to recognize the impact of interrupted and remo interrupted education and remote learning on all of the courses i i would be remiss without saying what uh the extent to which the teachers and the students went to to continue their coursework and to prepare for the exams and do as well as they did is commendable and outstanding now for 2021 the college board is offering both in-person
068exams and digital exams but the digital exams this year will look very different than they did last year so if you go to the next slide mr science the um the characteristics of the digital 2020 exams are in the right column and the characteristics of the digital exams for 2021 are in the middle in blue last year as i said the emergency exams were shortened to 45 minutes they only included free response questions with no multiple choice students were submitting their work with photos and handwritten responses they were certainly dependent upon their computers and their own internet at home and in more languages only the speaking skill was assessed for 2021 these digital exams will now be full length so so around three hours they will include multiple choice and free response in most of
069the digital exams they will not be submitting photos of exams but completing the exams on the computer finally for the world language exams we don't we don't offer the music theory but for world language this exam is only offered in the digital format primarily because student access to online translation tools would not allow for a secure and fair assessment of the reading and writing skills in world languages so they will only be permitted to take those exams in person in school so on february 4th the college board released their exam schedule and we have spent the last few weeks analyzing their guidance and finalizing the 2021 rich high school exam schedule the college board is providing three different test windows and essentially four different test platforms so this includes the traditional in-person exam the digital
070at-home exam the digital in-school exam and the world language exams that are in-person and computer-based not all of the exam formats can be given in each of the three test windows in fact in test window 1 those exams can only be given in person test window 3 can only be given in school or at home digitally and in the second test window there is a combination of digital and in-person exams but they are not the same for each course very complicated so on this slide you can see by course how in each test administration window there is a different there's a variety of formats which the college board is offering and allowing districts to implement this spring so for example if you look at ap biology in test window number one the assessment can only
071be given in school paper and pencil and in administration window two it can only be given in school digitally or at home digitally cannot be given in school paper and pencil and in administration three again it is also a digital either in school or at home exam so that looks different for each exam next there are two links here for anyone interested in reading about the guidance and the schedule provided by the college board i will warn you they are several hundred pages long in order to determine our schedule we gathered input from the teachers of each course who also spoke to their students we then worked with the bridge administration to map out the schedule found on the next slide including here later so with the input from all parties we believe we've developed
072a testing schedule that is in the best interest of the students in each course and that we can logistically manage given our unique circumstances the college board has provided a tremendous amount of guidance and flexibility for students and districts in response to this public continuing public health emergency but it has ultimately left the determination of the testing schedule entirely up to districts what we considered were those two things one what's best for students by course in what terms of what they are prepared for and what logistically can be managed in the high school while we are also working to increase in-person instruction for all students so this is a picture of the exam schedule for 2021. i this will be sent to students and families in the morning with a letter describing all of the
073details and the parameters that students need to know but from this you can see that we have by course determined which test window and which platform we will be implementing there are three categories exams that classify the way exams in each category were scheduled and help understand the way we've organized the schedule the first category includes all of the world language exams as i mentioned they're required to be taken in person they all include a computer-based component since there's no digital version available for this exam to be taken at home or in school or to be taken at home off-site the ap coordinators will be contacting students individually to determine whether or not they would like a refund of the registration fee the second category of exams on the next slide are exams that we
074are scheduling for the in-person paper-based format in one of either test window one or test window two some are in the first window and some are in the second based on the way the college board is offering them we are recommending this format for these exams as we feel it best aligns with the preparation the students have had for the course in the exam for any students who are unable to come to school for any reason they will be asked to complete a form in genesis requesting that they are scheduled for the alternate alternate digital version of the exam in the very next test window for some that would make the that would move the test to the second window and for others it would move it to the third test window we do encourage
075students to consider carefully making this request and realize that the teachers are preparing students for these in these courses for the paper-based exam in most cases two weeks prior to when the digital exams are then given in the third category of exams we are scheduling each of these exams for the digital version of the exam in the second test window these are full length exams taken at home teachers who recommended this option decided that the differences in the exam platforms did not outweigh the benefit of gaining additional instructional time despite that if any students would like to request the ability to take the in-school paper-based exam they can do so by making a request to the appropriate supervisor they're listed here and they will be in the letter i send out in the morning these
076requests will be considered based upon our ability to administer them in school safely so it will depend entirely on the number of requests and our available spaces for scheduling in-person exams please know that we will practice all safety protocols for the in-person exams that we are practicing every day in school there is of course the chance that a student will become ill or quarantined before they take the test they are scheduled to take in fact an entire class might even be quarantined in any of those cases the college board is providing ample opportunities for students to make up exams and that information will be shared with students if that happens we are working on some specific cases where students are scheduled to take two exams at the same time those students will be contacted by
077their teacher and or the ap coordinators to resolve those conflicts conflicts so this is quite a lot of information to take in so remember that all of this information will be emailed tomorrow morning to students and families and it will be posted on the district and the ridge website on the next slide i'm also sharing information here that will be in the letters and on the websites about two open zoom meetings so as you sift through this information and think about the exam schedule and any questions you have if you look on the next slide we do have two dates where we will answer questions is there one more slide mr science now ms fox this is the last slide oh well there are two dates one is march 23rd at 1 pm and the
078other is march 25th at 7 pm that will be in the letter tomorrow and it will be on the website and we will communicate that as it gets closer it's intended to give you some time to look at the schedule hear from your teachers maybe ask their um for their input and then if you have more questions you can attend one of the open zoom meetings for um clarification that does conclude our presentation for this evening at this time um you know there were a lot there was a lot of information presented but we would certainly be willing to answer some questions of the board mrs beckmann ms beckman thank you uh that was a lot of information um so i have just a question so if you're a you're requesting people to do in
079person whether they're virtual or in person the test is being scheduled that way but they will simply have to let us know that they will be taking the exam digitally and they will then be scheduled for that test which is in the next test window okay and do you get to a point where there's too many people in person and then they'll have to do it virtually not the way we've scheduled it and as we are planning it the only area that is that we have to take case by case are the exams we've scheduled digitally at encourage students to consider carefully making this request and realize that the teachers or myself for some reason do you have any courses for the paper-based exam that's really weird i don't know i don't know oh is
080that you okay well i don't know that was really weird to hear myself talking um but right the one category that we are going to have to see whether we have the capacity for is where we are offering the digital at home exams if we have any requests that students would prefer to take it earlier in person we will only be able to accommodate that if we have you know space a room a proctor for whatever number of requests we get for each exam okay but certainly any student who is um needing to or preferring to take it digitally will have that option okay all right thank you you're welcome anybody else thank you thank you i just want to say um yay about the program evaluation focus group for the career readiness i think
081that's amazing and wonderful and i'm so excited that you are doing this and um i look forward to seeing what the results are so thank you for that for the entire presentation by the way thank you you're welcome any of the board member questions i see jen corn's hand i was wondering how many i was just curious how many people um of last year's graduates that um i think it was stephanie you reach out to who said and how many of them responded can you tell me like how many it was a number instead of just a percentage just i'm just curious how many would have um so the percentages there represent less than 50 students so what we would consider a low respondent rate i don't see any other hands anybody else okay i
082guess you answered all the questions in the presentation thank you you're welcome with that i think we are up to superintendent's report mr merkarian sorry mouse died i couldn't unmute luckily had another mouse handy uh so yeah who would think the uh superintendents report one simple item uh under superintendent's report is our board of education meeting schedule we had a couple dates that we needed to tweak uh one in the summer moving back a week in july from the 26th to the 19th uh and the other item that we needed to address was our public hearing on the budget which in order to be consistent with the requisite uh budget calendar for submitting a school district budget we needed to be able to have a meeting on may 3rd we were scheduled for may 10th
083so we backed it up a week to may 3rd so that's all this is just a couple of tweaks to our schedule for meetings that's all thank you very much um [Music] okay so then we are up to public comment on agenda items so um i'm sorry madam president maybe we could just get a show of hands at least on that on that item for the uh changing the schedule for our board yes of course we can i'm sorry all right can we have a show of hands is everyone comfortable with that i see i think we're good i see everybody's hand took me a minute to scroll through in our zoom view here thank you for that appreciate it sorry about that um okay so now we are up to public comment on agenda
084items and uh we'll check in with miss fox do we have anyone waiting no we do not we do not have anyone waiting uh and mr syat do we have any um email or text comments nothing on agenda items no okay all right thank you then we will move on to the approval of minutes so can i please have a motion uh mr salmon and mrs white and then a roll call please mr mclaughlin simon yes ms schaefer yes ms beckman yes this is white yes mrs richmond yes this is corn i'm gonna abstain since i wasn't there miss hero yes mrs mccoon yes mrs gray yes madam president thank you thank you with that our next item is the finance committee report mr salmon uh there's just one item on the agenda which is
085a standing item and we are meeting next week so no report yet okay thank you very much can we have a motion please i'm sorry i'm toggling so i apologize for the delay um ms richmond and ms mcewen and then a roll call please mr mclaughlin mr salmon yes ms schaefer yes ms beckman yes mrs white yes mrs richman yes mrs corn yes miss hero yes mrs mccoon yes mrs gray yes madam president thank you thank you okay our next item is the personnel committee report and we will be tabling item seven this evening so mrs mccune um personnel has not met since our last meeting so i don't have a report and i think we're meeting next week pretty sure okay so could could we please have a motion a mr salmon and miss
086corn and then a roll call please mr mclaughlin mr salmon yes is schaefer yes miss beckman yes mrs white yes mrs richman yes this is corn yes is hearing yes mrs mchugh yes mrs gray yes madam president thank you thank you mr mclaughlin um our next item is the policy committee report uh mrs corn do we have a report this evening no we just met today so i'll report out the next meeting okay but we have one thing on the on that is there there's one thing on the agenda it's the um first reading for the for the calendar for the um 2021 2020 no 2022 2012 21 22 calendar with the changes for on the starting of school so it doesn't land on rosh hashanah so can we have a motion for that item
087please a mrs richman and mrs beckman and a roll call please simon yes newspaper yes is beckman yes this is white yes mrs richman yes mrs corn yes ms hero yes mrs mckeon yes mrs gray yes madam president thank you thank you mr mclaughlin uh our next item is the curriculum committee report mrs white do you have one this evening oh i sure do uh curriculum met on on march 5th we began with a update on the music program mr fackelman began with a review of the current status of the fine and performing arts programs which have been limited thus far currently visual art classes are taking place in art rooms at wams and ridge a k-5 staff are teaching virtually as their rooms are being used as needed space for relocated classes at ridge
088strings and orchestra are currently taking place in the orchestra room band students are not playing instruments in person although when the weather was warmer students were able to do so vocal and choral students are not singing in person and the focus of classes have been music appreciation with singing taking place at home at wham's music ensemble classes are taking place virtually cycle music classes are taking place in person with modified lessons to eliminate singing k-5 music specials are taking place virtually as of march 1st instrumental and strings began receiving in-person instruction and lessons continue to be offered virtually the school survey provided by the county arts administrators was reviewed to get a sense of how other districts are handling music programs not surprisingly a variety of offerings based on differing schools number of students size
089of classrooms and ventilation systems was found utilizing the covid19 handbook volume 1 strategies for safely opening elementary and secondary schools mr falcon presented possible options to begin the process of returning to teaching performing arts k-12 in the traditional manner the proposal for the music program is to resume in-person instrumental and choral instruction utilizing evidence-based mitigation measures to reduce aerosols in some buildings music teaching spaces have been reallocated for other uses at ridge some classrooms may need to be flipped in order to address the issue of proper ventilation when classes are back-to-back such as the case for choir held 8th and 9th period 8th period could begin in the choir room with 30 minutes designated to singing and then the next 30 minutes in the pack for other activities to allow for air flow in the
090choir room before the start of ninth period and then the same schedule could be followed for nine period a proposal for visual arts is to remove resume instruction within the confines of visual arts rooms with safety protocols required in all other classrooms such as social distancing sanitizing desktops and proper ventilation it may not be possible to do so across the board at all the elementary schools as some built in some buildings the rooms are not available for use and in-person teaching may then need to resume via teacher on a car is also suggested that in the future facing a return to the visual arts classrooms by grade level might be an approach used as a way to limit movement while cautiously moving back to normalcy for normalcy when possible for example at schools where visual
091arts rooms are available have k-1 return to having specials in that those classrooms with grades 2 through 5 remaining with the cart system initially performing art students will continue with regular studio instruction at williams and ridge for dance and theater electives ed ridge extracurricular dance and drama club have resumed with limited times using njsia protocols a spring musical is planned at the pvp amphitheater and will use the same protocols as the fall productions the scheduling of the spring dance showcase is currently being explored a brief update was given about k-5 special area recommendations and we'll have a detailed more follow-up will be provided in personnel a recommendation to make a shift in specials will depend on stat on staffing the tentative recommendation is to restore two technology teachers so there is an additional teacher in
092each elementary building as opposed to the current model with two tech teachers each responsible for two elementary schools by doing this three issues will be addressed one it is not ideal to share a tech teacher and this will be eliminated two quests will be improved if all students have blocks of time and no longer pulled from their classroom and three the shifting the staff shift will provide additional support and mathematics in each building the program will be more flexible and allow for differentiation for identified students technology media and quest curriculum will need to be rewritten to make this happen identified quest students will have opportunities for differentiation with the media specialist technology teacher and or quest teacher as needed this added teacher would also provide enrichment for a greater number of students while planning for
093the 2021 22 school year exploration of the quest program has begun therefore ways to provide an enrichment special area program for all students as well as increased math support are being explored and the final recommendation will be made in the spring we discussed the new ap schedule that miss fox reviewed earlier this evening so i will not repeat the same information we had an update project lead the way in 2016 the academy system with the biomedical pathway computer science pathway and engineering pathway was implemented project lead the way at the time of implementation offered students ample opportunities such as dual enrollment courses preferential college admissions and scholarships provided through partnerships with the ap college board but these opportunities have dissolved the academy model has been abandoned but some of those courses are still offered as
094electives project lead the way is also costly as there is an annual licensing fee and course training that's necessary for teachers and it's possible that two teachers would be needed next year in order in order to continue offering the program many of the opportunities and benefits that were provided through project lead the way have dissolved therefore changes will be made and will be implemented for the 2021-22 school year as it makes most sense to eliminate project lead the way and create our own program utilizing the materials we already have it will allow more creativity for our staff and allow flexibility and staffing and room use when developing the ridge master schedule it was proposed to eliminate introduction to engineering design as we have ample parallel tech head offering such as advanced architecture cad 1 and
095cad you and condense principles of biomedical science human body systems and medical interventions into a single course anatomy and physiology and potentially offer cp and honors options concurrently rising juniors and seniors who've taken any of the courses in the biomedical science pathway will be eligible to take the new course in its place dr lasmik gave a brief update on national honor society due to covet opportunities for community service for students have been limited and the 10th grade requirement was waived this year this impacts the community service requirement for for national honor society standards for community service are still being held when considering applications but flexibility is being provided next year criteria for consideration may need to be revised but decisions do not need to be made at this time in regards to how kobe 19
096constraints impacted qualifications for induction into national honor society beginning in the twenty twenty one twenty school year each school district will be required to incorporate instruction on diversity and inclusion in an appropriate place in the curriculum for students k through 12 as part of the district's implementation of the new jersey student learning standards the district will be moving forward with the development of a district-wide diversity and inclusivity committee as part of the district's plan mr syeth miss fox and mrs smith will work together to look at diversity and inclusivity issues as they relate to curricular programming personnel and professional development and student services miss fox will follow up with the student government to resume discussions that began last spring miss smith counseling department will be participating in the diversity equity and inclusion specialist training a
09750-hour certification course offered by asca a presentation on the burners township big sibling program was shared the goal in the creation of this program was to provide opportunities for rich students bigs to mentor and have relationships with elementary or younger middle school students littles for the purpose of meeting academic organizational and socialization needs of younger children while providing meaningful volunteer opportunities virtually the program began this year for students identified in grades three through five who were not receiving services but were thought may benefit to having a mentor some of these students needed to feel a sense of belonging and connectedness that was missing due to the pandemic students engage in a variety of activities via zoom such as reading aloud practicing math facts playing games such as uno and social interaction biggs participate in training
098it's a very successful program and those involved want to continue to participate during the summer at wams and ridge the rti response to intervention team formerly referred to as the 504 team has been addressing what can be done to help identify disengaged and struggling students that they can be successful students can be referred by parents teachers or counselors to rti due to concerns such as those related to academics behavior issues or even problems with executive functioning students can be identified from data collected on attendance grades changes in grades over time and changes in a student's profile the team is made up of stephanie ohr assistant principals guidance counselor teachers and nurses and meet every eight to ten weeks about students to set one or two goals for each student interventions are ongoing and therefore can
099get tweaked as necessarily as necessary a counselor meets with students regularly some of the things worked on may be breaking down assignments learning how to use genesis how to check work for completion learning how to better follow rule rubrics self-advocating skills and learning how to use notes to study they've seen a lot of success since rti implementation we had a brief update on marking period blended versus virtual grades following working period one data was looked at to compare the performance of virtual students versus those in blended learning the same was done following the completion of marketing period too the outcome was essentially the same there is no major discrepancy that demonstrates virtual students are performing or receiving higher grades than those in blended learning within departments there may be one or two courses where there
100is a two to three point discrepancy sometimes favoring blended learners other times favoring virtual but once again there is no consistent pattern once again the distress has been charged with submitting data between march 15th and no later to april according to the new jersey department of education we will be required to report on student performance on local assessments in ela math and science the template needed to complete for submission is not going to be released until march 15th and at this time it's unknown what will need to be submitted time is being spent now looking at what can be used to determine students whether they are above grade level on grade level or below grade level and assessments administered prior to february 19th cannot be used to be to determine this uh we had a
101brief uh update on summer interventions uh we're working on program offerings for summer interventions and we'll have a recommendation finalized by our april curriculum meeting we need to be careful about what is offered it needs to benefit our students and not make matters worse if being in school in the summer will increase student stress or disengagement we want to create a summer experience that is positive for all students who are invited to participate as reported at previous meeting the kindergarten program that was run last summer will be offered again and extended to first grade currently under consideration is whether expanding this to second and third graders with a focus on word study and phonics is needed an additional program being looked into is a is called cadence which is a five-week ela and math program
102questions being explored are is if this is the type of program that we want to purchase for first through eighth grade do we not have enough staff to run it and will we have students interested in participating and could grant money help fund it and then lastly there was an update um on planning and faith phase two a major consideration in planning how to go forward with full day instruction is the number of students currently attending in person in addition to those students whose parents choose to make a shift and how they attend school for the next park marking period impacts on social distancing will need to be considered parents will be asked to make a request in genesis beginning friday march 12th with all decisions submitted by march 19th parents can choose for each
103child to remain in the program they're in or to change from virtual to in-person or in-person to virtual the default if a submission is not made is to remain in their current mode time is needed to plan for any change as increased numbers of students impact sections groupings classrooms but this information in addition to considering health conditions will determine the timeline and if we're able to move forward added added outdoor seating such as picnic tables at ridge and elementary schools is being looked into for the spring wham's currently has some outdoor seating so that students could have a place to gather and potentially eat if lunch is added back into the school day our next curriculum meeting will be april 9th does anybody have any questions i know that was a lot of information any
104questions mrs corn um the test the the nj does like um it sounds like a crazy whatever their crazy plan is this testing thing are they what what what are we using our own assessments right and then who is it for is it for like the same grades that the so all grades like second throughout their the memo we we did receive was uh very specific and more broad than the um nj sla testing so for ela it was grades k through 10. um for science it is k through 8 and bio physics and chem and earth sciences so there's a long list and it essentially covers all of the students in the district right so um the other piece of that i was going to clarify is we have to use an assessment that
105was given prior to february 19th so we have to have already administered it right which already passed but can you use a map testing can that be used for any of that um i don't really know because like i said we haven't had further guidance and we're awaiting a template that would certainly potentially assist us with some of the students but not everybody listed uh to be reported on right because not everyone takes the match right we're certainly looking into different things but well i'm sorry that you have to do that because it sounds like a real big waste of our time when we have a lot of other really huge things we're trying to deal with number one getting our kids back to school um the memo did indicate you know it is tied
106potentially to some of the grant money that has become available and potentially to the waiver that the new jersey department of education has requested for standardized testing so it could be related to both of those items what does that mean so you know that the new jersey department of education submitted or is requesting a waiver from the njsla this data may be related to that waiver request so if they get the data they can get the waiver meaning kind of like kind of like that i know i've seen some people make a request to use local assessment data instead of the njsla i i'm speculating but that is certainly a possibility so you don't really even know what kind of data you'd have to like we don't know the template or the format right we
107don't know and what kind of we don't know if it's for every student or if it's for groups of students right because would it be each class who gets the same test or how would you compare the tests or i mean it's a lot of um right so we're waiting they are doing a pilot right now and that's basically what we're waiting for they're piloting it in some districts and that's why they aren't sharing with us the template so today's march what eighth okay so they want you by the fifth april 15th they're gonna give you this thing that they're testing on march 15th correct sounds crazy i mean it's crazy what the heck is the rap more with these people i mean do you know that you have other jobs to do i mean
108um well all right well let's see how that goes sounds like a crazy new jersey state plan so we'll see we'll keep you posted any other questions from mrs white mrs beckman just a quick question on the the bernards township big sibling program is that still open for for kids to join either as the or as the big or the i mean the answer is yes there is a process through which the program students are being recommended on both ends there's a vetting process for the mentors right and then there are students being recommended for it and so they have to be paired you know when you have matches but they are certainly looking to expand it because it has gone so well okay if if someone's interested how do they how do they get
109in touch or are they just chosen by the teachers so it's a are you talking about at the high school level like to be a mentor um i i think i'm actually going to have to find out and let you know i i know that like this has been a vehicle for students at the high school to participate in some community service right during the closure and because it is virtual so i know it's being shared that way internally but i can certainly look into how it's you know where it's posted whether it's available to all students or not and i can get back to you okay thank you okay any any other questions for mrs white all right seeing none our next item is the wellness committee report miss schaefer wellness met about a
110week and a half ago and miss smith and i will get the minutes out to the board of ed tomorrow and we'll report out next time thank you very much okay then our next item is uh liaison committee reports uh anyone i don't have a report yeah and i don't um ces he didn't report did it mrs richmond i mean meat sorry no we haven't met yet but i think um next week we're supposed to meet or maybe this week actually no no next month april all right um that's it i think on the liaison committees so that brings us to a public comment on non-agenda items ms fox do we have anyone in the waiting room yes we do there is one person there i will let them in it says adrika shatters hello
111audrica hi hello hi how are you i'm good so you can you can um you know introduce yourself and share your comment okay great so hello um i'm adrika chetraj and i live at six wharton way and i'm the president of the rich forensic speech and debate team at the high school um our team has been so lucky to be able to continue to compete and excel on the state and national level we have won the yale national tournament the george mason university tournament and the u-pen tournament and we have 38 members qualified to the national catholic forensics league and 19 people qualified to the university of kentucky tournament of champions saying all that i can also quite honestly say that i haven't competed alongside my teammates in literally a whole year so with our
112state season soon coming to a close we would just like to ask the board of education for one thing and that is a chance to let our members to compete at the high school for the new jersey state tournament on march 20th i hope that the school could approve this and allow our team to truly feel the camaraderie that could really bring us to the next level thank you thank you thank you for your comment we have someone else i will let amy hwang in hello amy you are muted but you are in the meeting so if you want to unmute yourself you can make your comment awesome sorry hi y'all i just realized youtube stream is on a delay so yeah i was a couple seconds behind no problem hi my name is amy
113huang i'm at 18 grander drive i'm in basking bridge obviously and i am the vice president of bridge forensics to continue what audrica was saying earlier i just wanted to add that over the course of this school year we have done everything we can to try to replicate that feeling of competing in person but there really comes a point we're asking our teammates to get on yet another zoom after spending hours debating and delivering speeches it's it's honestly just it's not possible at that point going through all of the photos from years past and seeing the smiles and camaraderie at both local and national tournaments i see the experience that's being taken away from a lot of the freshmen that have recently joined as a senior i got nearly three years of weekly competitions bus
114ride sing-alongs pre-competition vocal warm-ups and cheering awards ceremonies but for many of those on the team who have just joined this year they have yet to fully get that experience i believe there is one more person in the waiting room oh you're all finished yeah thank you thank you very much we have two more people um so i'll let rippy carter in she's next hello hi miss fox and thank you very much board of ed members your meeting tonight has been extremely extremely useful the topics discussed i feel like i need to go back and re-listen to this session it's been really wonderful i'm here tonight rippy carter 58 independence drive i'm here to support the bridge forensics team to ask the board to sincerely consider and respectfully consider their request to have an in-person
115session at the school similarly to what we afford the sports teams and other clubs and other sports uh clubs or sports teams we'd like for the for i'd like to see the forensics team be able to hold a session in person at the school where they are utilizing their masks one student per classroom with their masks on and where they're able to compete and discuss strategies to further their initiatives and further their advancement in their individual competition it's been a very year for the forensics team and they've made great strides under their coach and their coaches and their advisors they've made so many they've sacrificed so much and these kids are extremely talented as we all know the rich forensics team brings great pride and joy to bridge ridge high school and i do think
116that we should really think about how we can support them better so that the seniors who are graduating the juniors that are rising up to be seniors can achieve the goals that they've set for themselves rather than being home and being virtual and being in a situation where it's not really a competitive environment where they can thrive and succeed they all need to be in person at the school mast according to whatever the rules set by this board of ed whatever you all think is appropriate but they need to come in and they need to be able to make their speeches or have their pf debates or whatever their events are they need to do them in person in the school using the guidelines that have been established for other clubs and also have those
117applicable in an equitable manner to the rich forensics team they are absolutely amazing they bring great pride i'm so incredibly proud of this incredible club they achieved so much and each and every student on that club brings it their whole heart and they've done so incredibly well during this time i think it is a very small ass i asked the board of ed greet the rich forensic team as they treat any other club and any other sports team and thank you so much for tonight's um presentation it was actually very very helpful and i just really also want to take this time to also say to miss fox you are absolutely amazing you always reach out to the parent everything else make us feel supported and i personally appreciate that thank you thank you thank
118you all right we have one more person in the waiting room michaela carter morocco hello hi my name is michaela cardamrock i live at 58 independent drive basketwood new jersey and i am the current secretary treasurer of the ridge forensics team i know you've all just heard from my mom audrica and amy and i'm here to continue that conversation mystery chemski our head coach and advisor submitted a proposal back in february to allow us to compete in person however it unfortunately was rejected the bridge forensics team is simply asking the board of education to allow us to compete in person on march 20th for our state tournament this tournament is a big deal for our team and we feel that being in person will enhance our experience masks would be worn in common areas such
119as the atrium and cafeteria as well as social distancing protocols will be followed students will only take off their masks in in their individual classrooms to compete for the duration of their performance and students will not be allowed to under uh enter other classrooms we simply ask during this time for equality as many sports teams have been allowed to participate in their activity but we have not we need a sense of team camaraderie right now and we hope this can be achieved through in-person competition and of course thank you all for everything you've been doing for the school district during this time thank you that is the last person in the waiting room mrs gray thank you miss fox mr syed do we have written comments yes we do the first public comment is from
120mark at erazo 29 dispenser road we all recognize that this school year has been a challenge since the beginning of the school year parents have asked repeatedly for details on what the boe's plan was to get students back to 5 full in-person days despite repeated requests we have not been provided with a comprehensive plan containing estimated timelines milestones contingencies discrepancies etc no planned documentation link of google doc was provided to publicly view the detailed plan we know that there was a plan as the students didn't just arbitrarily go back in person there was a reason why such as the cali score going to yellow which led to all grades back on february 22nd and the current rumor is five full days after spring break we can look back in hindsight and piece together what the
121plan was but knowing in hindsight is not helpful we should have had that we should have we shouldn't have to be detectives to determine what is going to happen with our children's education as parents we need to be able to prepare for the things that are going to impact the children and our lives we need to set our children up for success which we cannot do if we are kept in the dark or only given 10 bits of information during voe meetings or sos express letters telling us what decisions have already been made we need to see that flow and decision tree of what the potential decisions are that might get made and when and why with all alternatives this way we can see what might be coming and set up our own plans and
122be able to pivot based on the outcome we cannot do that if we aren't always aware of the plan throughout the boe meetings we have heard we members make the following statements when the community is asking for a detailed plan uh we are moving forward and we should all be happy there is a plan in motion we have a plan moving forward good news should not get lost and go over people's heads the plan is we are moving forward in the next phase and it's important for people to hear that we are moving forward these comments with the boe which we have heard repeatedly are very patronizing and shows that the boa is more concerned with the criticism of planning versus actually sharing the plan that directly has an impact on our children more important
123than knowing you have a plan is actually seeing the plan we know that there is a plan we know we are moving forward but there is no comfort in patronizing words or ignored requests much of the community would like to see the plan for the next school year it is beneficial to see the plan thoroughly documented and publicly posted currently you have the btsd cover dashboard publicly posted for all those numbers which is great but we also need the same public access to the details of the next school year's plan while the point may have passed to post publicly the current year's plan i strongly request and urge you to post for public viewing a comprehensive covert plan for this uh next school year please comment on the possibility of this happening next public comment
124is from barbara geary 66 driving road in light of the social and emotional struggles all children have faced this year due to covet and homeschooling what is the district's plan for our counseling department will additional school counselors be hired for each building adding more staff will be essential to address the going needs of our students as a cedar hill family we have been lucky to have and and have had mrs molly mooney for chs at the for the past five years her guidance insights and dedication have been valuable i have always thought that one council for student body of four to five hundred at chs was too much for one individual i hope we will be adding additional staffing in the counseling department for all buildings as we continue to deal with the pandemic thank
125you uh there is an additional comment from the same person that submitted that first comment so mr crew i'm not sure how much time we have on that but it's from mark matarazzo again uh i'll read this this one too this is the only other comment we have can someone comment on why snow days have turned into virtual days for in-person students both by children or in person and that is the best learning environment for them they thrive in an environment with physical peers and teacher through the other classmates they see the same success and struggles that they're going through but are encouraged by the fact they are not alone in their needs when in person the teacher is also physically right there and can visually see what each student needs for that day and
126pay better attention to them for students who are accustomed to in person that is not something that translates to a virtual environment where your peers and teachers are little rectangles on the screen and where student focus is diminished going virtual was an emergency solution to emergency situation uh for those who you know what i just realized this comment somehow got bundled from february 22nd i'm gonna stop reading it i apologize it was it was grouped into that same original email my apologies that's all the public comment we have thank you mr science um mr mark i don't know sorry is that everything that is it is okay um i don't know if you are planning to respond to anything but i apologize i cannot help myself i cannot understand i don't know the particulars but
127we have students wrestling and playing basketball without masks i'm hoping we can find a way to help the forensics team uh meet this request and as i said i can't presume to know the particulars but i'm confident that with all the hard-working people that we have we can do something to support this request i think it's fairly reasonable and i just in light of what we have going on with athletics it just seems like confounding to me miss hira i see your hand i i just want to piggyback off what you said and basically say that if there's anything that we can do to get them back in in person on march 20th for their statewide competition then i would like to support that and encourage it i know i jumped ahead of you and
128mr mark hearing so if you'd like to respond to any comments this is great can i answer mrs beckman's question from before i forgot but i have had some text messages telling me that the person older students can contact is kristen mrs kristen thorpe at the high school and i should have known that thank you miss fox [Music] so uh let's see here um as far as there was a question about counseling staff um we will be talking about um staffing when we get into our budget presentations in march and may at this time i don't think we have any requests for new counseling staff uh planned for in the budget um we're not gonna go back to the snow day comment uh the question about uh public viewing of a plan for next school
129year um we've talked about this quite a bit in terms of what we want next school year to be the plan is to open up next school year full time in person for everyone that's the plan um the only thing that would stop us from doing that is if we get some type of executive order that says that we have to do something different um uh as far as forensics goes i'll be happy to meet with dr lazvik and take a look at that sure thank you mr marcarian [Music] so our next item is board forum board members ms beckman i just want to agree with you uh regarding forensics that has got to happen at school that should be that should be simple i i say that without knowing all the background of it
130but that should happen just like sports and other things do miss shaffer i saw your hand as well i am fully supportive of the forensics team's request i also think we should consider all the other activities that are meeting virtually and it's very difficult for a lot of these clubs to not meet in person and it's not even just the camaraderie it sometimes functions so you know i would like to explore that can we make that happen in the afternoon hours things like that in in socially distanced ways anyone else i want to say that i'm also you know i think the forensics team they're so impressive i mean you know they really they work super duper hard they put hours and hours and hours of time so they really do deserve to do their
131best and have that camaraderie and i love what the girls said that they were really thinking about the younger kids they give them their experience and i love that because that just shows how much they care about each other so you know we should help them out anyone else i do i just want to kind of piggyback on the last two comments and add that i i agree that we um my understanding is that there is a process in place for clubs to present a plan for how they would or clubs or activities to return to an in-person experience um if there are ways that we can help to support that i guess maybe that's what need be explored at this point um but i certainly do support that all right i don't know if
132anyone else has anything if not then we are up to adjournment can i have a motion to adjourn in a second mr salmon and miss schaefer all in favor that's everybody mr mclaughlin thanks everybody thank you great night good night thank you good night