February 18, Oradell Board Meeting

001I'd like to call this meeting to order. Mrs. Norian, would you lead us in the flag salute? >> Certainly. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Sunshine Law statement. All requirements of the Open Public Meetings Act have been met for this meeting of the board of education of the Bureau of Ordinal. Notice that this meeting was filed with the record and all persons requesting such notice. Mr. Darian, would you read the mission statement? >> The or the Ordell public school district is dedicated to the ongoing pursuit of educational excellence through comprehensive innovative curriculum and instruction. The district is committed to providing opportunities for social, emotional, and academic discovery to foster

002curiosity, courage, and character. Our goal is to prepare our students to become lifelong learners who are self-directed, resilient, productive, responsible citizens. >> Thank you. Roll call >> on the ro. Mr. Delg Greco >> here. >> Mrs. Downey will not be here. Mrs. Genchi >> here. >> Mrs. Moran will not be here. Mrs. Norian >> here. >> Mr. Nutland >> here. >> Mrs. Walker will not be joining us. Mr. Dariion >> here. >> Mrs. Nichols >> here. At this time, we'll open to the public for agenda items only. Not seeing any. We will move to our auditor's report so he can get out of here since he's been here since a while with us in finance. >> There we go. Thank you. Each board member should receive two reports. The cleared cover report is the annual

003comprehensive financial report and the smaller report is the auditor's management report. Um the annual comprehensive financial report uh contains all the financial statements and our opinions on the financial statement and our opinions on your grant compliance. Uh our major responsibility after we complete the audit is to give an opinion on whether your financial statements are fairly stated, whether they're prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, and whether there were any scope limitations in performing the audit. Our auditor's opinion on the financial statements is unmodified. Unmodified means a clean opinion means you com you uh prepared the financial statements in accordance with GAAP. You had no scope limitations and they're fairly stated. We also have to give an opinion on your compliance with major federal and state uh grant programs. Our opinion is also unmodified

004clean meaning you complied in all material respects with those grant compliance requirements. Unmodified opinions in a financial statement audit and a compliance audit is an absolute must. Any modification means there's issues and exceptions uh to those financial statements or those grant compliance. Uh, one of the most important schedules in the report is the exhibit C1, starts on 71, ends on page 76, gives a line by line accounting of your general fund budget, gives you all your revenue accounts, all your expenditure accounts. um gives you what you originally the budget was, what modifications you made to that, gives you the final budget, and then what you actually did in revenues, actually did in expenses. And at the end on page 76 is the summary of fund balance. And the summary, it's the bigger book. The summary

005of fund balance is important to to you as board members because as in the process of preparing the 2627 budget, you want to know how much money do we have and what are those funds available to be used for. So I'm going to go through the summary of fund balance on page 76 um and go through the lines. uh capital reserve 1,781799 represents the funds that the board has set aside for future capital projects in a long range facility plan. This 1,781779 has not been earmarked for any specific projects. So going forward, if you have a project uh that's in the long range facility plan and you don't have money in the budget to do that, you can draw off these funds to pay for that project. You also had capital reserve of 500,000 uh

006designated for subsequent year's expenditures, meaning you appropriated uh 500,000 in the 2526 budget for a specific project. If you don't use the funds on that project, whatever is remaining will go back to the 1,781799. In total, you ended the year at 2,281799 of capital reserve. It's up about 101,000 from the year before. Next two items, maintenance reserve 4931 157 represents the maintenance reserve on hand at June 302 that you have not earmarked for any maintenance project. You also had maintenance reserve designated for subse expenditures of 150,000. That's the amount of maintenance reserve you appropriated in the 2526 budget. Um and if you don't use the monies for that purpose, it'll go back into the maintenance reserve for 493. Capital reserve can only be used for capital projects. Uh can't be used for operating expenses. Maintenance

007reserve can only be used for maintenance cost of school facilities. You can't use maintenance for capital. You can't use capital for maintenance. And you can't use either one for operating cost. Uh capital is different for maintenance is that capital adds value and life to your assets where maintenance reserves keep the assets in their current working condition, repairs and things of that nature. Uh the maintenance reserve total of 642,157 for the two numbers is the maximum you're allowed to have at the end of the year. So that's good. You got that 100% funded. You also had emergency reserve of 175425. Uh this is a very restrictive reserve. Uh it can be used to fund a a security project at the time you adopt the budget. So if you use those funds when you adopt the budget,

008you can use them for security projects or you can use them during the year to fund unbudgeted health benefit costs that exceed 4%. To use them for any other purpose requires the commissioner of education's approval. It's a uh reserve of last resort. very hard to get to use it for other than those two things. But a good reserve to have. The maximum you're allowed to have in there is 250. You're 175,000. You have unemployment reserve 25,717 represents the monies that the board has put aside to fund unemployment claims. The district is self-insured for unemployment. Um versus you're on what's called the reimbursement method. you pay for every claim that's filed. The claims come in, you look at them. If you dispute it, you file an appeal. Um, if you agree with it, you pay the

009claim. There's also monies that come out of the employees pay that's put in a different account. Um, and those monies are also available to pay the claims. That money actually gets spent first. These get spent last. Um being self-insured for unemployment claims is more cost effective than being on which the contribution method is where the money that comes out of the insure the employees pay and the the amount that you're supposed to contribute goes directly to the state and they hold on to the money and they manage it I guess for you. Um, this way is much more cost effective. Excess surplus, you'll see $200,000, $200,000 and then excess surplus designated for subsequent years expenditures of 200,000. Excess surplus uh is the result of funds that are on hand that are over the 2% you're

010allowed to have an unassigned fund balance. In New Jersey, uh there is a statute that says you can only have 2% of your budget in unassigned fund balance. That's the true surplus. Those are the monies available to fund future expenses uh as the board sees uh fit. Um when we close the books, we do the transfers into the uh capital reserve, maintenance reserve, emergency reserve, book all the incumbrances. Anything over 2% goes into the excess surplus reserve. These funds must be used the uh in the 2627 budget as a revenue source and they represents the amount you're over 2% at June 3rd through 25. So the next budget you prepare 2627 you'll see 200,000 of fund balance as a revenue source uh in that budget. It's the minimum amount of fund balance you must appropriate.

011You'll also see excess surplus designated for substitute expenditures of 200,000. That represents the excess surplus from June 30 to 24 that you're using in the 2526 budget. Those funds are financing expenditures in 2526. They're no longer available to fund future expenses on July 1. they're basically uh lose their distinction. Next to item year end incumbrances 15,884 assigned fund balance your end incumbrance is 35576 represents open purchase orders at the end of the year where you have committed monies and assigned monies to contracts that have not been completed and purchases for goods and services that you've not received. uh the money's earmarked when the contracts get completed and those goods and services get rendered. These open purchase orders get liquidated and the money is spent. These monies are no longer available to fund future expenses. Um

012and at this point of the year, these monies are gone. They have already been spent. That leaves you with unassigned fund balance 5588.21 represents the maximum you're allowed to maintain under the statute on June 3rd through 25 represents 2% of your budget of about 315,000 plus an add-on for unbudgeted extraordinary aid of 235 and about uh little less than $10,000 uh $10,000 of unbudgeted non-public school transportation aid. Um, it's the maximum you're allowed to have. It represents about 3.6%. Um, you cannot dip into the 2%, the 315. You can use the adjustment, the 245 during this school year. If something comes up that's unbudgeted and there's no money in the budget, there's no extra revenue, you can appropriate that money by board resolution into the 2526 budget. Um overall uh on the budgetary basis you

013had 4,136379. Um I'm going to say your fund balance is very stable. It's very comparable to last year. Um capital reserve went up 100,000. Unassigned went down 63,000. Um 2% of fund balance is not a lot of fund balance. >> [snorts] >> uh you have a budget of 15 million8 in the 2425 year and your unassigned fund balance the monies that you can use to fund the expenses that are not capital or maintenance is only 558,000. It is not a big number. It is unfortunately under the statute the max you're allowed to have. So but you're stable. You're in you you got the same amount of excess surplus. So you start the budget for 2627 with the same amount of surplus you had in uh 2526. If there's no uh questions, I'll go to the

014management report. Uh page 12, last page. Uh we had one general finding. Um we had no findings uh related to material weaknesses or significant deficiencies. Um those are would be considered severe findings. Um, we just had one general finding under financial planning, accounting and reporting, and it relates to a withdrawal of capital reserve that was put into the 2425 budget. Um, that was not approved by the board. Um, the board approved a resolution to appropriate 52,000. Um, however, 248,000 was appropriated to the budget. Um and the money actually wasn't needed. The extra 195 it went back to capital reserve but only the board by resolution can appropriate capital reserve, maintenance reserve, emergency reserve during the during the year. Um so next time we must you know board has to approve all appropriations of fund balance.

015Um the report overall is really an excellent report. One general finding uh un unmodified opinions, no material weaknesses, no significant deficiencies, uh fund balance that's stable. Um so I think it's a good report. The uh administration and the board had a good year. Good good report. >> Any questions for Mr. Bliss? what are ways that we can boost or you know pad that a little bit more. The only real mechanism um is to not budget for uh extraordinary aid. There's two aids if you don't budget for get added to that number. Um in the 2425 budget you budgeted 100,000 of extraordinary aid and you came up you got 348. So the extra was basically 2 248 or 245 actually. If you didn't budget that extra 100, that number would be 100,000 higher. That that that

016548 would be 100. >> That's really it. Uh the state really has tied your hands. Um and you see and you read in the paper the financial difficulties that uh districts are having. Um there's just not enough cushion in the unassigned fund balance to cover any significant unbudgeted item that comes up and with you know specifically with districts specifically with health benefits which are going up which in January one went up 30 28 to 32%. outrageous. >> Um, you're budgeting in you're budgeting now in 2627 for a premium that's going to you don't know what it's going to go up which is going to go up on in January of 27. And if you budget 10% increase and it comes in at 30, you're you're behind the eightball, >> right? >> You know, you that's

017a tough and that 558,000 may not cover you. 30% increase on your health benefits is 700 and change. 700,000 and change. It's a big number. It's unsustainable. It's unsustainable. and every district in New Jersey and every local government um is struggling with this health benefit issue, putting a tremendous pressure on the budgets. Uh and the the um the um what what districts are going to do is say use more surplus, use more revenue, and that's unsustainable. Because if you can't regenerate what you use, then you don't stay stable. You diminish. You diminish and you you get yourself in a position where there's no fund balance. There's no other revenues. And now the only place to go because state aid is usually flat is to go to the taxpayers. And you have caps with the taxes.

018and you don't want to get in the position where you can't raise the taxes to support the budget. So now you got to go cut programs. So you it's a very it's a really delicate situation on how much surplus you use. Uh the rule of thumb is use only use what you could put back to keep yourself even. And if you cut programs or you cut you say we're cutting expenses, you have to cut them because if the the critical mistake people make is we're going to cut this, we're going to cut that and then you know the budget gets passed and then July 1st comes and September 1st comes and says you know what let's let's not cut that program and now you put yourself in the bad bad spot. So it's it's the

0192627 budget is going to be uh difficult for all government entities, not only school districts, not only um and it's putting and the health benefits is putting a tremendous amount of pressure on those budgets. your presentation is the one that we should have had a packed auditorium for so that they can understand that when this rolls down, you know, another year and, you know, unfortunately if there's a chance that we have to make cuts, like understand that you're you're letting us know ahead of time, you know, and people don't understand how outrageous the health care system right now is. It's unsustainable. Not just for the state of New Jersey or a small town like Oridel, the country can't can't afford this. >> Unsustainable. can't go up 30% every year. And if you use all the

020surplus and you lose all the revenue, that'll be gone, but the 30% is still there >> the next year. So, uh, it's it's tough. I don't envy you. >> Thank you for your report. >> You're welcome. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you, Mr. Bliss. >> Okay. Thank you. Good night. >> Have a good night. >> Nice to have you. >> Okay. Um just a point of business. Our next meeting on March 4th, no on March 11th is when um Mr. Ayapelli will present the budget to the board. It's the tenative first run of the budget. It has to be um submitted to the county by March 19th, but I guess we found out that these state aid numbers are coming out late this year and they're coming out either on March 10th, 11th, or

02112th. So, we are going to postpone our next meeting a week to March 18th because we have to then submit it by the 19th and then we were going to push the 25th off, but I don't think we can because Mr. Dry Pell, we have to app go out to bid for the HVAC and we have to approve it by when? The 25th. >> We're going to have >> Yes, we will award it. >> What happens if we didn't do it by then? >> Well, then >> if we pushed it off a week, >> we're still we're already, you know, it's 24 weeks. It keeps getting longer and longer. It's not legal. It's not a legal thing if we want to get it done. >> Correct. >> So, probably we're going to have to meet

022two weeks in a row in March, but we'll see about the second one. The next one we're going to move to the 18th. Um, and with that, I'll turn it over to the superintendent. Before I join the administration at the podium to facilitate tonight's presentation, I wanted to draw attention to a few things. First of all, in your folders today is one set of minutes that I forgot. Those are your PR committee minutes from the last meeting. Additionally, there were several additions added to tonight's agenda and I wanted to point out um one that wasn't added but is new for us and that is our field trips. We've really been talking to our staff about exploring new field trips in the area and our first graders this year will be going to the Tilki Arboritum

023which is new for them. However, um some place that I have traveled numerous times on a field trip and it's a really small arboritum that I think could be a great asset to us in a very close distance for first graders on a bus. Additionally, the years that we do not have a musical has it's become tradition for our fifth and sixth grade choruses to take part in American Young Voices, which is an opportunity for the those students to travel to the credential center and to perform with choruses all across across New Jersey. They all learn the same songs and they bring in professional musicians that e that evening and they're on the floor of um the credential center and all the schools are lining um the seats and there are banners and there are

024shirts and there are lights. You can buy tickets to attend. Um I will be there that night. It is a really cool event. And finally, something that um as some of our more experienced board members have seen before, however, we have not done in a number of years is Mr. Butcher will be recommending some of his instrumentalists to audition for um the elementary honors band. So, he will be traveling um with them for that try out in May. Um, finally, the one thing that was added that I emailed you about is on tonight's agenda is um, a little over $22,000 worth of donations from the Oriel PTA. Each year, the Oriel PTA offers mini grants to each grade level and different departments. Um, we really encourage people not to buy the things that are in

025our general operating budget, but to say, "What else can I buy to expand um, a student's experience at Oral Public School?" So you will see a some assemblies there. Um the addition of some text because there's always there's always more books to be had. Um and a new grant this year that was provided to the special services department that will put some fidgets and self-regulation and noise dampening headphones throughout the building so that if students are in a setting that they are finding overwhelming, there are always headphones in that those spaces. So you could think of the auditorium during the assembly, the lunchroom, the gym, um places like that. And with that, I will move over to the podium. Last week, I the well last board meeting, the administration, the administrative team and I presented

026on district goal one, which was our academic achievement goal. And we combined that with the DFG factor group pre presentation comparing our NJSLA scores with the other 21 districts in the Bergen County I factor group. Today we're going to talk a little bit about district goal too. However, what I've been trying to do is link to these presentations something that I think will expand your knowledge as as a board and also the community's knowledge as well. So, we are going to talk a little bit about linkit because if you've been here for a long time, you've heard us talk about link it a lot. But if you're newer, um that's still a newer platform for you. So, district gold 2 spoke about improving district protocols and strengthening communication structures among students, families, staff, and the

027community. And that feels like a very fluff goal and there's a reason for that. This goal is huge and underneath it comes sub several different um sub facets uh we can talk about. So for example being clearer and more consistent in behavioral expectations. That's a clearer expectation for our students. That's a clearer expectation for our staff. That's a clear expectation for our families. So that hits all stakeholder groups. And sometimes that's what one of our actions will do and sometimes it's a little bit more specific to a different stakeholder group. Um part of what we did this year after hearing a lot of feedback last spring that our code of conduct had some flaws. Uh we really looked at it again and changed a couple things. One of the pieces that I always talk about

028that we changed had to do with um using racist language and what level offense was that on our code of conduct and is that a different level of offense at different ages. So you will see that that's changed the um consequence for that has changed in the code of conduct. Having a code of conduct in a student handbook is one thing but reinforcing it and making it part of every day in the school community is more important. So we started this year by having the administration reach out to every single classroom and talk about the code of conduct and review the code of conduct and review it in a way that the language speaks to that group of students whether that's a first grader whether that's a fifth grader because those are two very different

029conversations. I overall and I'm not up here all day long um probably sometimes up here too much for them as it is. I do believe behavior has been better this year. Um, from a quantitative data perspective, if I went and looked at the code of conduct tracker tracker that we do keep for every infraction, it is lower than it has been before. And I would like to say that it's because the code of conduct is not just something on a piece of paper. It's something we're talking about all the time and everyone has the same expectation for it. Uh moving on from there, one of the pieces that we talked about is no surprises with um academic progress with families. We didn't want families to get an email that their child needed extra um was

030being invited to be part of an intervention cycle without a teacher having a conversation that we're seeing some struggles in the classroom. Because as much as we want families to see every opportunity that we can provide as wow this is great there's also a piece that we want our families to be step in step with us on how their child is doing in school. So as you know we did revise our report cards to ensure that now in first marking period, second marking period and third marking period there are specific expectations. We are not evaluating a student across the grade level standard for the end of the year. We're saying where should you be at the end of marking period 1, marking period 2, marking period three. We've also added mid-marking period progress reports in

031grades five and six. And this feels very middle school, but it's a really good way to touch base mid-marking period. We did sixth grade last year. Um we added fifth grade this year. And we're in the conversation right now of does that move down to fourth grade um next year or not. We've also revised our protocols for notification of parents prior to prior to intervention cycles beginning. So we do have a flowchart of who communicates that with parents. How does that happen? Um the teacher must notify the AP that it has happened. And one piece that I'm going to add on to this and the admin team doesn't even know this yet. So they'll be happy to be here tonight is I did speak to linkit this morning and we will be moving forward with

032opening the parent portal in Lincoln this school year. Um, fun fact, it's free. I was almost shocked. Let's see if it's free next year, too. Um, and finally, we also, we heard from our working parents about this need for more advanced notice of school events. Planning is hard, and I know for each of you, you know, keeping track of committee meetings and board meetings with the context of your job and your families is difficult. So, the more information we can give to our families, um, the better. So, all parent visitations for the year, whether it is the kindergarten camp out writing celebration or fifth grade lead or my very excited favorite new event of the year, the third grade recorder concert and instrumental petting zoo, which will be happening in June, have been shared with

033all parents and are also on our website calendar, which I'm really hoping to get our parents to a spot where they know that everything's there all the time. And while people who have used the app have realized that the app's a really easy way to keep track because it shows some ways some things in a different way in terms of the whole week or the whole month, but really continuing to try to get people to use that as another site. I find it's easier to press on the button on the app to see calendar events than it is to log into the website from my phone. um district goal two when we talked about um parent communication and this one school district piece can be difficult. Um when do you go to the assistant principal?

034When do you go to the principal? When do you go uh to the superintendent and one of the things we've done this year and you have seen this as a board already is we put together a communication process flowchart. I have not blasted that out to the whole community yet. It is on our website and it will be in our student handbook next year, but it felt more like a start of the new year thing than a hey, it's February. Let me give you this new piece of information. So on the website for any topic, this is just the first six, seven rows of we'll tell you who to communicate with first. If you have a problem with the building after hours, you communicate first with someone different than if you have a problem with

035the building during the school day. Who do you contact if you have a instructional issue in the classroom? Um, code of conduct and that can be found on the district website under our school which is on the right-h hand menu and we have been working on this communication chart where the first step of it was to identify what are green communication events. What are the things that just happen every single day, every single year in a school district? And how are we going to tell parents how to know about that? Because I am sure uh when I was first an assistant principal here, my first meeting, I was incredibly overwhelmed with talking to the PTA president at the time because there was so much. And how can we give parents right off the start information

036on how to stay informed? So, those are those green communication events. However, what's underneath this that the PR committee and I have been working on are yellow events. What are those blips that are not typical and how will parents know about them? What are those red level events? Those events that are a possible threat to an individual, to a school, um to a group of students. So, this is something we have been continuing to work on and every time I think we take a step forward, we find something else out that should be on it. I I'm very grateful as you know to the board for um supporting my attendance at the national um school small superintendent PR conference and one of the pieces that comes with that workshop series is I can use them

037as a sounding board and so this is something that I'm also talking to actual PR people about because this is outside my realm it's one little part and my small school superintendent I talk about drain pipes one day um teaching reading the next day and communication the third day. So this is still an ongoing something that we will be work continuing to work on. Now this other piece and at first I was like does this go in here and I do believe it does. Communication isn't just what we do with the people outside the walls of public school. Communication is also and structures and protocols are what we do inside the walls of Orenell public school. And the reason this is so important is I like to leave you with one piece of new information

038each time. There's a man named John Hadtie. And John Hadtie is an educational researcher and John Hadtie looked at I think it's 350 metaanalysis of what impacts education and he was looking for effect size. What variable impacts student achievement? And we've used this sometimes when we've talked to parents. Anything over a point four, he found most things had a 04 effect. So things that were above that, he said, well, these have greater effect. Things that are lower have less effect. Reducing class size has an effect of 0.21. What has the greatest effect of anything at a 1 57 consistency and collective teacher efficacy. The more consistent a school district is in terms of their practices, their priorities, their structures, their routines, the more positive the effect is on student achievement. And so we talk about

039that a lot in terms of what do we believe for children? And that's one way to look at collective teacher efficacy. But you can also look at it through the lens of how is every single person in that community moving forward. How is every single person in that community using the same resources? How is every single person in that community using the same structures in their classroom? And to do that, one of the things that the administration has been doing this year is documenting protocols. So what happens during a wind cycle? What happens when we administer a benchmark assessment? So when we give the NJSLA, there's a handbook. How do you h what do you read? What do you do? We know there's a consistent implementation across the whole state. We now have that at

040Ordell public school for Lincoln. So that when link is administered in first grade in not first grade in second grade or fourth grade there's a set protocol to go through so we know that everyone is having the same experience. That one on the right over there is win period because that's been a real focus for us this year. How is the win period structured and what is our expectation for how that win period is structured. So that is part of the win guidance document that all staff have. So this is about internal communication and internal structures which are just as important as what we communicate outward because they all have at the core the same thing student achievement. Now I spoke a little bit about Lincoln and that's why I I lumped the link presentation

041to this. So the administration is going to give you an overview of the multiple uses of linkit at ORDL public school because linkit is one of those consistent structures even if you're not giving a benchmark assessment in grades K or one you're using it as a data warehouse. Good evening. So what is linkit with multiple data points to support instructional decision making in our district? It is a standard aligned benchmark assessment platform that includes diagnostic progress monitoring and sumitive measures. Lincoln assessments are aligned to the New Jersey student learning standards and consistently measures endofear expectations across each assessment window with consistent rigor. So with link it has three different forms. It has form A, form B, and form C, which we use in the fall, the winter, and the spring. So in the fall it

042serves as a diagnostic assessment and that's actually at the beginning of the school year in September of course and that's going to be pretty much prior to any formal assessment formal instruction that we actually provide all students because it's going to measure end of the year standards before they are taught. So it provides all of us as far as all members of OPS a baseline that helps us monitor growth throughout the school year for all students in grades 2 through six. Our form B which we will consider a formative assessment because it's going to be assessment for learning during an instructional period because of course we're going to utilize that and administer that assessment in January. It's going to function for progress monitoring. So, it's going to measure growth after students have received instruction on

043grade level standards from September to January. And lastly, our spring assessment is going to be a sumitative assessment which is going to be an assessment of all learning that has taken place from of course September until June. And what that will be is it's going to actually allow ops to really look at how have our students done from September to June. And it would allow us the opportunity to determine how students have done and to make instructional steps for the upcoming school year. So, as I mentioned before, OPS, we administer Linket to all students in grades 2 through six in both ELA and mathematics three times per year. But there's one thing that I really want to stress and note is that linkage uses different cut scores for each administration period. So a student score

044represents the likelihood and I want to really stress upon you the likelihood of meeting grade meeting end of year grade level expectations in ELA and math. So let me just give you an example. So when you may see or when we talk about a score that a student may actually receive, it's in a percentage. So say for example on whether it be form A, form B or form for form C, if a student scores uh 82%. That 82% is not like a regular score that one would actually receive on like a daily assessment or or like a spelling test where they got 82% of whatever the problems correct. That does not mean that. What that actually means is that it's an indication of 82% probability of meeting grade level expectations in in it in in

045ELA if we're talking about ELA or mathematics by the end of the school year. Does that make sense to everyone? I always like to check for understanding. That's the math teacher in me. Um so because expectations and cut to your scores are always going to increase at the with each of the administrations a student's numerical score may increase while their academic achievement level may shift. So this reflects the increasing rigor of each administration window and the higher performance performance because of course they're going to be learning more from form A all the way to form C. So that does not mean that a student is actually regressing in learning. Okay. So when we're going to look at the different academic levels with linkit there's going to be six achievement levels. Five are going to be

046the same as it relates to NJSLA exceeding meeting approaching partially meeting and not meeting. However, there is one that's going to be unique to Lincoln, and that's going to be the bubble. What the bubble means is that they're going to actually highlight the bottom 10% of all students within that meeting level. Why do they want to highlight that? That's for us as well as other districts that are going to utilize linkit so that we can actually progress monitor or really work with those students so that they can ensure that those students are supported whether it be during a win period or other supports within those districts or even our district so that we can make sure that by the end of the school year they're meeting end of the year standards. So link it as

047a benchmark assessment when we are actually providing and administering it three times a year. How long does it really take for us to be able to receive those results? It's going to be available to all of us within district immediately. When we receive that data, it's not only just the percentage that I was just providing that to you with, but it's also organized in standard skill, rigor, question type. So, we're able to do a deep dive of the that data so that we can organize it for by individual students, by groups, by class, by data, by district, by school. If we were more than just a one school district, we're able to utilize that so that we can analyze the trends so that we can actually inform instruction whether it be within our class, provide

048the different services for our student supports um as far as special education, TAG, our before and after school programs in order for us to revise our curriculums in order to support our students and across the grade levels PD you name it. endless. So, do we go to link it for a multitude of things? Absolutely. That's one of our things that we're always going to go to when we're talking with all of our parents in our parent meetings. So, um before I actually step away and Mr. Warner comes up to talk to us as a link as a data warehouse, what is actually held in our warehouse? You see it? um student attendance, our de dibbles data, our marking period grades, our benchmark results, our NJSA results, as well as some of our district assessments. So

049for each of our students, we have our plethora of our analytics that you see right here. So when we are having our meetings or even even if we're having our data meetings with our teams, the first stop is this data warehouse. So we can go we can pull the data right here and then we can have our rich dis discussions. So Mr. Warner is going to talk to you about data and give you the snapshot here. >> Good evening. I'm going to walk you through kind of like my dayto-day of using linkit because I use it pretty much every day of my life. Um, so we use link not only as a benchmark tool, which Miss Cummings kind of highlighted with you about form A, B, and C, but as you can see, there's a

050lot of data that feeds into link and that's what makes it such a powerful tool. So that's what we say data warehouse. So what data does it house? Like Miss Cummings said, you see the attendance, you see dibbles, you see their grades, their link, which could be other assessments on linkit, the link benchmarks, which Miss Cummings highlighted, NJSLA scores, and reading levels. Now, I'm going to show you how that kind of expands out because there's a lot of data on here. Um, you have a student in sixth grade, you have all their dibble scores, all their grades, all their link benchmarks going back to second grade. So, it's a lot of data. Um, and ultimately what this does is allows us to kind of see trends, uh, look at different lenses of areas that need

051to be grown and see strengths. So, I kind of filmed this quickly, so I'm sorry if it's going pretty fast, but this is what a student level looks like. So, we can review attendance reports to determine whether a student is chronically absent, which is very helpful. Um, we can also review grade level assessment datas. Uh, like you might have seen before, uh, the sixth grade does a big ideas mid-year assessment on linkit to validate how a student is doing in their math curriculum at that point in the year. Uh, in addition, as you saw scrolling through there a little bit, I'll replay the video real quick. Um, you might have seen that there's multiple years of data. So, this allows us to see a comprehensive view of a student's history. Um longitudinal perspectives are very

052important. Um an example is a student who might be experiencing academic challenges. It might be considered for intervention support. So we look at history, right? We want to see if there's trends emerging uh in a certain area, whether it's math or reading. So let's say a teacher comes to us and says, you know, Mr. Werner, a student really didn't do well on link form B. And I look at the history view of the student. We say, oh no, the past few administrations they've done really well. let's look at maybe some more data to see whether it's just this one administration. Sometimes students and just like adults, they have a poor test day. So we look at additional data points to see whether it's a trend or not. Um and when we look at data, we

053also can go into the data. This is kind of an overview perspective. We can go into it and see actually how the student did. So when we run class reports and what you're looking at is a class report. Um this is particularly from form B mathematics. This is a mid-year math uh report that a teacher would look at. We're looking for if you see the green right those are the areas that we're excelling in. You can also click on each of them and see well what area in that yellow area for instance right that green area we have a lot of students did really well we have one student in red two in orange right so that that one area which was numbers in base 10 that student might need more support in that area

054right and you can look at multiple categories um you saw just before an overview perspective of how they did on each domain Right? You can look at skills and standards. You can look at question type. So the last screen here, you're looking at how they did on multiple choice versus dropdowns versus text entry. So maybe as a class, if you look at that, wow, they they struggle more with fill-in-theblank text entry questions than they do with multiple choice and inline choice, which is drop down questions. maybe as a teacher I need to expose them more to those style of questions because they're struggling more with those types of questions. So it really gives us an understanding of how we can shift our instruction in our classroom and also what we can focus on more that

055they might have not learned yet and they need to maybe be something might need to be retaught to them or something that they learned already that we might need to just drill down a little bit more and help that student a little bit more because they didn't get that first time. So that was a class report. We can also run and this is like I always when I show this to a teacher I'm like we're going to walk through it because it's a lot of data up there. So this view kind of displays three uh assessments. Looks like four columns but it's actually three oh it's it's four different assessments. So on the left here you'll see this is the NJSLA for grade three. You'll see the reading fall assessment for grade four. You'll see

056the link ELA form B. That's their midyear for fourth grade ELA. And then you'll see their middle of the year dibbles. This is a lot of data. So I'm kind of walking you through here how we'd look at this kind of report. And why do we examine this amount of data? So if this is a current fourth grade student, the first thing we try to look at is their NJSA scores from the prior year. So, we have a lot of kids here who are meeting great expectations last year in third grade. Great. You might see on the column to the next of it that we have a lot of students who did really well with their reading comprehension on the OPS reading assessment. Great. But we look at their link and their dibbles. We start

057seeing a little bit discrepancies here. We see some students who might be bubble students, some students who might be on the cusp of meeting. And if we look at the one on the far right, then we start seeing their dibble scores. Now, dibbles is a good indicator because it can also show us students decoding and their fluency abilities. So, the other assessments don't really assess that area. Decoding, can they actually sound out what the words mean? And accuracy, can they act can they say it accurately and decode it? Right? And then fluency, can they read at a good rate of speed? Right? The other assessments might not show that data. So my point being is that together all the these assessments they provide a comprehensive view of a student. This is why we administer multiple

058assessments because they don't all show the same thing sometimes. And it's important for us to see any type of areas that we can improve upon with this with a child. And I know sometimes it's like well why do we do four different assessments across a year pretty much? That's the reason why because they all tell a little bit of a different story sometimes about how we can help a student sprink. Um, so taking all that data, linkit also offers us a component of intervention manager. And so with this, we used to use lots of different spreadsheets and we now are able to take our data that's in the data warehouse and pull it into our intervention manager. So staff can choose data sets to review. They can identify the trends. Kind of the same thing

059that Mr. Werner was talking about, but we do it in the intervention manager. And then we can assign weights. So we can might say form A you know is worth a little bit less than form B because it was the newer data from the beginning of the year and there's been some learning that has happened. Intervention manager once all the data is pulled in there and we give weights assign the weights it will help to create and assign tiers to the students based on the progress towards the mastery of whatever skill we've identified or standard we have identified. So here's an example. So if we pulled third grade data and we decided to use form A on link it form B on link it and the middle of the year uh dibbles [clears throat] once

060we sorry let me find this here once we have that in our intervention manager we would click on this um pyramid and that would take us into the intervention manager which is what you're going to see below here. So when we're looking at the catch up over here when we're looking at those data points we can say all right so let's give the weights to it. So in this case um doing the 0.5 or the 20% for form A and then uh 40% which would en enable a one or 40% for both of the dibbles and the form B. And then we can even drill down within intervention manager to say so within form A and form B let's look at main idea. How are students doing with main idea? And then in dibbles let's

061look at maze. So that's looking all at comprehension with a particular skill. Once all of that data is chosen, then you can build a grouping model by choosing that metric and seeing um what our focus is going to be. Step three up top here has intervention manager creating those tiered for us. So the green is tier one, the yellow is tier two, and the red is tier three. And if you look to the right where the little student the little students are here with that data that we put in there would be 94 students who are in tier one which is telling us just keep on teaching the good teaching that's happening with within the classroom. Tier two there's 18 students that would be during like that win time targeting these particular skills within the

062classroom during win. And then tier three, it's giving us that 5% or the five students in that grade level that would need additional support, maybe prerequisite skills for um being able to identify main idea within grade level texts. So in addition, we can use linkit for intervention and for our iron arrest process. So this first image here is showing where it's a student profile and in there you would see all of the documents that were created. So a tier one checklist which I'll talk about in just a minute or an RFA which is a request for assistance through INRS or INRS documents themselves or intervention plans. It will track all of the meetings and the meeting notes that we have in one spot. The file gallery is any kind of student work samples that we

063can upload. Teachers can do it um when they first start talking to the intervention teachers about a student having some concerns. We can uh track the progress there with the file gallery and keep that same place as we move forward in our process in INRS. And then there's a communication log where we can note the communication with families whether it's at the meeting or it's over the phone or in in person just you know conversation. the teachers can do that and it could be multiple teachers. So if we have a student in fourth grade who has you know two different teachers, pairs of teachers, they're sharing that anybody who's assigned to that student has access to this um all of the stuff that we have in intervention manager. So if we think about the student

064checklist, the tier one checklist. So here's our tier one checklist right here. This is something that if there's a student, if you're if I'm a teacher and I'm try trying some things in the classroom, um let's just say for building fluency and I'm kind of hitting a wall. I'm not sure what else to do. The teacher would reach out to the intervention teacher and they would create a tier one checklist. First off, they'd look at what is the child able to do well? What are the strengths? What are the areas of concern? And then what are some strategies that have happened already in the classroom? So this this bottom picture here, this image here is showing it's a bank of um strategies that can be taken place in the classroom and then the outcome. So

065how frequently are we doing this? What are the outcomes that we're seeing? And then there's a note section underneath because sometimes we might be doing something that the link doesn't have. However, if we have something, we can certainly contact our rep and they're are great to add. We can customize um our bank of strategies as needed. [cough and clears throat] So after we this intervention teacher and the teacher do that tier one checklist, check in on their strategies, do it for you know three to four weeks, they have another meeting which again would be noted in that same section that has all of our meetings. So that again when if I was looking at it and knew nothing about what had happened with the child, I can see the progression of the work that had

066been done after the second tier one checklist meeting. If some if the child is not making the progress that we want, we may bring them to INRS. And so the first start for that would be to like I said before do the request for assistance for a meeting which is usually done with the APs and then at the meetings when we bring the families in the parent comes in it's a team of teachers we create plans and so this is an example here of a goal that could be created. So for this student, by April 2026, the student will initiate tasks in math four out of five trials as measured by a teacher tracker. And so this would be our graph. There'd be sections in there where the teacher would put in the if it's

067done on a daily basis or a weekly basis, how the child is doing towards that specific targeted goal and monitor that for a 6 to 8 week period and then meet again uh with the family and the team to see did we meet that goal? Is there another goal that we should be uh taking place? If you look here, this green um when we put in what our target is and we give the number of progress monitoring dates, it gives you a target line. So the green is a target line. So this student, this is a fictitious student, but started at uh two and by the end of the duration of the cycle, we want them to achieve a four. Sometimes we do see data like this, right? We see they're this is where they're

068starting the baseline. They're kind of stagnant. They may jump up and then be stagnant, maybe up and down. And all of those give us some indication of, you know, why. There's a comment section next to each of the data point that we can kind of say, you know, maybe the next day the child went home sick and so let's look at the data around there. What's happening there? Gives us a picture um not just the snapshot of that day, but sort of over that period of time how that child is doing. So these are all things that link it in addition to just being a place where we can store our data, we can actually pull that data from one spot to the other and we can use that data to get a clear picture

069of how all of our children are doing. Linkit is very responsive uh to our needs. Um our rep right now if we have a question we can reach out and the next day I would get a video of how to do something if we weren't sure how to do a retest because a student was absent. you know, he he himself creates that video for us to watch and it's been very very helpful and we do continue to find ways to better our usage of the resource, you know, which is how we brought intervention manager kind of onto um the work that we're doing. So, thank you. For those of you who have been around for a while, Linkit has really grown and they are like, listen, they want to stay alive because more products are

070coming out like Linket. There's another one. Their biggest competitor right now is Otis. So, it does it's part of why they are very responsive because they want to keep districts like Oridel that have been with them for a really long time. They also are continuing to go out to other things. Remember when we used Panorama to assess uh student learning data like social emotional learning data? Lincoln actually now is doing that as well. They now also um are doing more with professional development um anything to stay ahead. But they really have grown and it's funny they started as predictability software. These big tests came down. Park came down as the first common core assessment and link sold itself on this is a really high stakes test and we're going to help you predict. The truth

071is of all of their products right now that benchmark assessment is probably the least one that's of value to us. It's really the data warehouse and the intervention manager. So with that, do you have any questions about tonight's presentation? >> Suppose yes. um question and every school does this differently. So fifth and sixth grade, do they offer a literacy support or um math support for maybe tier three interventions? >> Yes. During the win period. >> Oh, during the win period. Okay. So my question is this. At the end of the school year, we've got the form C completed. They've completed the NJSLA. So then the NJSLA scores come in in uh probably what end of July. September 1st when we get that information and we see that you know Chris Nutland is bel uh below

072bubble in math. All right. Are we going to put him and set him up for win September 1st for math support? >> We typically run first thing in the year a boost program. So, and the boost program does I'm looking at them to make sure I'm still accurate because >> we also >> Okay. >> But we call it kind of like instead of like a summer boost, we call it like a get into the school year boost. So, we're not looking at all our data points at that time. We're like, these are some kids we really maybe we've known they've had some struggles in the past, but we want to give them something right off the bat before we've even collected our September data. >> So, there's going to be no RFA at that point.

073>> No. >> Okay. we >> it's when if they continue to struggle as the classroom teachers are seeing then they're going to fill out the RFA. >> The other piece is that um NJSLA scores actually come in earlier. We just aren't allowed to share them. >> Oh, right. >> So, there are times that we actually will run a summer program. >> Okay. >> We use um either it's part of our explorations program or we'll use some title funds and run something during the summer because someone's on our radar. In the past, we've typically done that more in language arts because uh that's where we've seen the greater need. >> And if a kid was going to be in that class, um how many days a week would that be? >> It depends. We every year

074we kind of have to run it based on what what the child can attend. There are years we've done them remote. >> You know, we've done book clubs. That was during the uh Esser days. We ran like a summer book club where a teacher just met with them three days a week to touch base on a book that they were reading just to keep them reading and asking um comprehension questions over the summer. If it's an earlier grade program, we haven't had a ton of success with anything above I'm going to say fourth grade during explorations, but we have run programs because that data has come in and we have run a four-week program during explorations five days a week. Okay. >> It's very hard to get older grade kids because they're at camps, >>

075right? Okay. Thank you. >> I have some some questions. Um, so this is in regards to data and you know how we store our data. I know I've asked this before. I I don't remember. Um so it seems like you know as the years go by we're we're sharing well yeah we're sharing more and more data different types of data with linkit. So in terms of where that data is being stored can you answer is that all cloud-based or is it a combination of local and cloud or how >> nothing is local. >> It's not local. >> Nothing's local. >> Okay. Um and then in >> but I will say that when we share that data there is while it's pulling the attendance from real time it is not pulling anything else identifiable. >> It's

076not pulling like you know >> oh so it's like student ID. >> Yeah. >> Not the person and the name and all that. >> Well it is pulling their name. It's pulling their name but it's not like I think it's just the name. I don't think birth date's in there. Gender is in there. Grade level is in there. Um >> yeah. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. >> I don't actually even that's true. Even when you're a student in the district, you have two ID numbers. One is your state ID number, your student identification. Okay. The other one is your local. I'm pretty sure it's the local that is kept in Lincoln, >> not this the big one that travels with you for years. >> Okay. And then uh does the parents have access to this? >>

077That's what I shared before that um I spoke with link um this morning and as always they were incredibly responsive and have already started the process to open the parent portal. I have always been hesitant to open the parent portal. Um, and the team knows that I said that if we were to open it, it would have to be midyear because to open it in September when you've just given link a and people aren't doing well, >> it will it's going to cause such stress. So, um I I had a very productive conversation today with um the person that I was speaking with and they've already started the process. And then my last question is link talking about utilizing an AI tool or AI model to >> they call it Nav'i and >> and it

078and it's going to tell you ahead of time like proactive notification. Okay. So that's kind of cool. >> So >> as far as for us to be able to assess. >> What do you mean by district assessments? You mean selecting of the questions that we give the students? >> Yes. For example, we wanted to create a district assessment based off based off of main idea. We can actually ask to create a five question third grade assessment on Uh >> third grade on third grade >> or would Nav'i say hey you guys you need to create an assessment on the following based on what I've seen >> you can you can say that for for certain students based off of like >> no no this is the this is the opposite way this is Je's telling

079you I don't know if you've noticed but you know there's there's one area that you guys need to focus on and here is a you know assessment for you just to validate what I'm seeing. I mean, you know, AI can do that. So, um I'm just curious. That's all. I mean, I remember when we first were looking at LinkedIn when we were down at um >> schoolboard workshop and uh it was, you know, lifetime ago. So, I mean, they Yeah. I mean, when we were first looking to evaluate this, the CEO of the company came and presented it to us in in the library. So, I mean, that's how >> we were first. >> Yeah. So, it's nice to see it evolving. Um, and I'm sure it's it's doing it's helping out. So, thanks. >>

080This is Genji. >> Will we get a or the parents will they get a presentation on how to you access and interpret this information before this goes live? Yeah, I I've been thinking about whether I would do that um with a parent academy, but I think if I did it with a parent academy, every have to bring their own laptop. So, I think what we would probably do is do the video like we did for um the benchmarking of the report cards, launch that um then send the directions home for how to access and then possibly if we see the need do a drop at night. Thank you. Mr. Delgreco, >> I have a couple questions piggying uh piggybacking off of Mr. Darian's questions. So, um you mentioned AI modeling, right? That you is that

081a is our data I guess segmented to just us and including the model. So let's say they use AI and you start to say like you said your example create this test whatever is that data is that model just to or a public school or is that putting in a larger model where they can start to use data across other districts >> I can't for certain attended hey this is what yeah >> but they didn't get into all the level of specificity that you're asking right now what I can answer that question. >> Thank you. Because I'm more concerned about with, you know, data, right? Especially data ownership. >> They have now this pile of data across all these districts, right? What stops them unless it's in our use end user um EULA, right? That

082states that our data is ours, right? They can't use it for their marketing purposes, for analysis across other districts to then give it to the state. I just want to make sure like we own our data. That's our data, right? Right. And there's data residency for us. >> Thank you. And then my other question is that in terms of data now there are a lot of competitors out there and um in the tech world, right? So is this data exportable to the point where if we needed to take the data away from them like I want a copy of it a for either our own analysis, right, to say maybe we want to run your own model here or b we want to just take it and import it to another platform somewhere else. Is

083it exportable? Well, the fact is we've imported it with the exception of the linkit benchmark. we've imported it in. So we could always we have the so ecam or um dibbles when we put dibbles in there it's because we've imported a CSV file in so we still have that data >> okay >> elsewhere the only thing that I don't think there is a way to export but again I don't think if we were going to leave link it we would probably choose a different benchmark assessment so there are some districts that still use linkit for a data warehouse but don't use the benchmark assessments use maybe I ready and import it in. So attendance, it links to real time, but we always have access to our attendance. So that actually the the bigger lift would

084be the amount of data and us getting it into a new system, not could we okay just how long in the process it would take. >> Yeah. Because I see a lot of SAS providers like getting in the platform is really easy. They want you consuming as much as possible. >> It's always and I hate to put in this word like the divorce clause. like how do you get it out? Right? Some of them will rate limit you. Some of them will say no. Someone will say, "Well, it's our data legally. You have to give it to us, but we're going to make it very difficult." >> Um because the data really is starting with us. Uh that isn't concerning me. I am curious about the one alternate that I've heard of and actually one

085of our former assistant principles works in um a district that's using it. So, I've sent some another former assistant principal to speak to her because she wanted to talk about the two systems. I may just out of curiosity look at it just because I always like to see what else is out there. >> Thank you. Any other questions? Anything else to your report? >> No, thank you. >> Mr. Pell, >> it's just budget time and working on the budget um for the 2627 school year. Uh trying to refine it uh for the board. That's been uh my my day. That's all I have. Thank you. Moving on to minutes. We have the review of January 21st. Any questions or comments, please email Mr. Aelli. And we have approval of January 7th. Do I have a

086motion? >> Motion to approve meeting minutes from January 7th. >> I'll second. >> Second by Mr. Delg Greco. Any questions? Call the question >> on the roll. Mr. Delg Greco. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Genji. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Norian. >> Yes. Mr. Nutland. >> Yes. >> Mr. Dariion. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Nichols. >> Yes. Administrative. Mr. Dariion. >> Um, sure. We have I'll get to it. One administrative item. It's a HIV report for January 2026. I'd like to introduce. >> Have a second. >> Second by Mr. Netlin. Any questions? Call the question >> on the role. Mr. Delg Greco, >> yes. >> Mrs. Geni, >> yes. [clears throat] >> Mrs. Norian, >> yes. >> Mr. Nutland, >> yes. >> Mr. Dariion, >> yes. >> Mrs. Nichols, >> yes. Buildings and grounds, Mr. Delber Gbero. >>

087Yes. Um, prior to this meeting, Mr. Pell did provide us some information on the PSNG um incentive program or program right to replace potentially three HVAC units. Um thank you for getting this information to us Mr. Arelli. um you know just we went over you know the cost how much PSNG would provide to us you know 0% right and just implications of such uh we still have to review right um I think from land specs and whatnot um outside of that um I like to bring up uh B1 and B2 not just B1 large B1 I'll second it. >> Any questions? >> Is the blue and gold dinner or the fish and chip dinner? I'm just wondering, did they did the Boy Scouts finally get rid of the fish and chip? >> No, the fish

088and chip dinner is still happening and they actually recently called to confirm it. This is the one that used to take place at um a hall. It's the first time it's ever been here. >> It's actually happening now, isn't it? >> They should have had it today. >> I have a question. Saturday, >> Darian. >> Uh, >> building uh facility use item 7 >> 7:30 p.m. to to be to be determined. >> Is there a a limit, >> you know, in terms of time? >> Which number you on? >> That's the burrow's use of the building. The building. >> Um, I think that would be up to you as a board to decide. Um, >> okay. I I they did they only gave me a start time. Yeah. >> And so for the purpose of

089um charging them for the technical services, I [clears throat] didn't want to document an end time without knowing it. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Just wonder. >> Well, you know, if if I was a betting man, it would probably end by 10:30, but you know, these these meetings could easily go past midnight. So, I didn't know if that would be an issue with the with the school. as long as the board is willing to and if you need us to reach out to the town. Um the boilers are on, we do need to have somebody with a black seal in the building. So we would have to charge them overtime custodian rate. >> Uh we should we should note that. >> Yeah, we should note that >> in the event that it goes over uh a

090certain time. >> Sure. >> That we'd have to charge because it may easily go over. It depends on, you know, how many people want to speak at these meetings. And I don't want to be in a position where we would have to cut anyone short because of constraints. >> So, we're going to approve it with $50 per hour for technical services and also custodial time. >> Yeah. After whatever at whatever time we determine. Yeah. >> If that's okay with Ramy, too. He needs to be here. >> Any other questions? Okay. >> Call the question >> on the role. Mr. Delg Greco, >> yes. >> Mrs. Geni, >> yes. >> Mrs. Norian, >> yes. >> Mr. Nutland, >> yes. >> Mr. Dariion, >> yes. >> Mrs. Nichols, >> yes. Curriculum, Mrs. Norian, >> we have no

091report, but I'd like to present C1, approval of field trips. >> A second. >> Second by Mrs. Ganchi. Any questions? >> Call the question on the roll. Mr. Delg Greco. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Geni. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Norian. >> Yes. >> Mr. Nutland. >> Yes. >> Mr. Dariion. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Nichols. >> Yes. Finance. Mr. Darian. >> Yes. Tonight, uh, I have some items to introduce, but before I just wanted to, uh, give an update as to our last, uh, BNG meeting. Um, we had a meeting actually tonight, but we also had a meeting, uh, just before our last meeting, and the notes are included in your packet. Um, just a summary for the the public or anyone watching on YouTube. Uh we discussed um New Jersey Department of Education what they call

092approved adjustments to our budget. These are items that we could legally allow us to uh pass along to taxpayers that is in excess of our normal 2% uh budget cap. Um mostly you know pertaining to health insurance and things like that. These are extraordinary expenses that were able to pass along. So, we discussed them and and what their potential impacts would be. We also reviewed enrollment projections. You know, we're very sensitive to that in terms of class sizes and we worry about each year's kindergarten uh enrollment. Uh we talked about the um the financial implications and the requirements of uh bringing on a class 3 uh officer into the building. um you know we have some um lengthy discussions on what would be required in order for that to happen financially. Uh we we did

093a uh quick uh walkthrough of the line items in the budget. Uh we have a budget spreadsheet that we look through and um we were comparing our current year which is 2627 budget versus last year the 26th budget as well as uh the proposed budget 20 uh 627 versus 25 looking back two years. And we were comparing you know variances per line item and that led to um a lengthy discussion this time around. Um and then we reviewed the budgeting calendar and uh we even discussed that tonight. So uh that was uh [laughter] basically what we did at our last budget meeting. Uh this is budget season. So we had another budget meeting tonight and I'll u give a walkthrough of that our next meeting. So, with all that said, I'd like to introduce on

094the agenda tonight items D1 through D11 with a special note on D11 because uh this is a a bunch of mini grants uh from the Ordell PTA to OPS uh totaling almost $23,000. So, I'd like to thank them for all their continued support for the children of Odo. >> I'll second I'll second it. Any questions? I have a question for Mr. Pell. Um D8 where we approve the annual comprehensive financial report and the findings. I thought in the past we had to put in an the action to correct it like the corrective action as opposed to the >> I was adding it the next No, this is what we accept the audit and then I'm going to have the corrective action. >> Oh, you do it on the separate one? >> Yeah, I'll do it

095on a separate one. >> Okay. Any other questions? Call the question >> on the roll. Mr. Delg Greco. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Genshi? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Norian? >> Yes. >> Mr. Nutland? >> Yes. >> Mr. Dariion? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Nichols? >> Yes. Delegate report. Mrs. Norian. >> No report. >> Personnel. Mr. Darian. You want to take that? >> Uh, yes. I'd like to introduce uh item F1, which is our our personnel report. >> I'll second it. >> Second by Mrs. Norian. Any questions? >> I'll I know uh Mrs. Walker reached out to you about why they called facilitator and not teacher. Did she said to change it, but I don't know if that makes a difference. >> She actually her thing said to keep it as facilitator. >> I thought she said teacher

096facilitator. Does it matter the reason we're calling it a facilitator? >> Honestly, it was copied from a previous title post where they were more of facilitator role, but I have no problem amending it to say teacher facilitator. >> So, I know there's um a few people have mentioned it about having it before school. Um, if no one signs up, what do we do? Do we offer it after school? Like what happens? >> I would probably not have the staff to offer it after school. >> So, this was a staff decision. >> It was a dual decision. First of all, the every time you run a title program, you're supposed to ask for parent feedback. When we did this in about maybe 2022, parents asked for it before school because they had after school events. Um

097that was when we were running the u it was a specifically a first second grade reading program before the school day. Um so that's why we've been running them before school also because that has been very well received. >> We are running some after school. >> Correct. And sometimes it is also a teacher a teacher situation. Um, many of our teachers have private tutoring jobs and families they have to get home to and we just don't we can advertise externally. But >> so what happens if nobody signs up? Do we just >> Right now we already Well, we we already have people signed up. So I'm not worried about nobody signs up, we scrap it. >> Well, I actually wouldn't scrap it. I would go to the next tier of students and see if their

098families were interested in it. >> Any other questions? Mr. Delbero. >> Um, two questions. A, what's a sportsmanship coordinator and interal facilitator? >> So, um, hoops is a lot of students and so we were looking for a way to, um, use another facilitator and each year we do get title funds and one of those is title four and title four can go through to um, social emotional learning. So, it was a way for us to use the title four grants and put another staff member at hoops. So one of them will really run the games and the other one will be ensuring that if you've been part of hoops before that can we put the captains in that role but helping to coach the captains into supporting each other you know are you making sure

099everybody has a turn. How are we doing that? >> Yes. >> Then also just a comment thank you for you know putting a nurse at hoops as well. >> Oh we have had a nurse there yes for a long time >> now more than ever you know in the news right? I think it's wonderful that we do that. Yeah. >> So thank you. And then my last question is uh this dyslexia conference. So at that conference, are they looking at alternative ways to identify dyslexia? Like >> I >> um I'm gonna say isn't it through Wilson? >> Yeah. >> Um Wilson's pretty old school traditional. So I'm not necessarily sure. The reason I supported the um sending of that [clears throat] staff member is your LTC is actually really your dyslexia coordinator also for the

100school. So building up her knowledge in that I thought was important. >> Okay. So that's good. So building mention that and hopefully like trends or different ways to help identify it or as a district we can look at ways to help those students. >> Sure. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Just to let you know the second position in hoops is not a contractual position. So there's money for title one that may not be there next year because there's only one stipen in the contract. So it could go back to being single [snorts] next year how it was for the last I don't know how many years I guess. >> Thank you for clarifying. >> Any other questions? >> Call the question. >> Uh the role Mr. Delgreo. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Genji. Yes, >> Mrs.

101Norian. >> Yes, >> Mr. Nutland. >> Yes, >> Mr. Dariion. [clears throat] >> Yes, >> Mrs. Nichols. >> Yes, policy. Mr. Nutland. >> Yes. Hi, we um we had a uh policy meeting February 4th and uh some of the things uh that we talked about are um being supported by New Jersey school boards. Um so, we discussed the commencement duties of the president in their absence. Um we discussed removing language um from committee dissolvement um and that's going to be per um NJSBA. Um we revised the fees and the categories for the rental space of the school. Um per NJSBA um we changed employment uh policies to be in line with the legal uh updates that they have um put forth. Um, we've also set up some more clarity when it comes to challenging or

102concerning materials in the library. Um, we've worked on uh updating maps on who sits to review a challenge. Um, we've revised the uh sample pertaining to AI policy. Um, we're talk taking some more time before we put forth something uh, you know, a little more permanent. Um but it will make the first reading to make sure that uh it fits with the district tech goals because they have to line up. Um and then the uh we have uh agenda issue in terms of waiting for some court cases to come through before we put forth any kind of policies. Um and um NG Smart had some minor changes in their data collection. So with that report I present uh G1 >> and we do not need to vote on it this evening but we will vote

103on next time any questions are on the website and you have copies so any questions email Mr. Nutland myself and Miss Bzios um any questions on these tonight or no we don't know no uh public relations Mrs. Miranda is not here. I will give the update. Um, one of the things we talked about was doing another culture and climate survey. And um, it was suggested maybe instead of doing one really long one, maybe three separate smaller ones uh, to get maybe higher engagement, easier for the parents to take care of. Uh, we reviewed a document which shows it was tonight actually in district 02 that shows who's going to be notified or how you how parents will be notified for different things. if you saw it tonight, district calendar, whatnot. And then we were also

104discussing, you know, sort of discussion on who should be notified on certain events. You know, when we were talking about yellow or red events, um whether it's a um the whole district, a whole grade, just a specific class, just the parents of the students involved. There does seem to be an attitude sometimes in order to public that everybody has to know everything. And we're going to try to cut that down a little bit. like if your child isn't involved, you do not need to know, but there are certain things the whole school needs to know. There are certain things the whole grade needs to know. There are certain things the whole class needs to know. So, we're trying to kind of pin certain those down. And um I guess we'll be working on that the

105rest of the year. Um and with that, moving to special education. Mrs. Downey is not here. We had a meeting scheduled this past Monday. Had to be rescheduled. Was this past Monday, right? Um we're hoping to meet next week. We have some dates. So, we'll see what happens to that with that. So, at this point, open to the public. Uh, any old or new business? >> Mr. Darien, >> I I want to bring something up to the board just to get your opinions and it doesn't have to be your opinions tonight, but you know, recent news. Um I I don't know the best way to tee this up. I'll just come right out and say it. Um I'm interested in modifying the curriculum a little bit. that would modernize um or discuss modern exploitation um

106and and uh in order for prevention and and and what am I talking about? you know, in in recent developments with Jeffrey Epstein's network, um we continue to re it continues to reveal patterns of sexual exploitation involving invitations to private luxury properties, travel, and introductions to wealthy social circles. You know, this type of trafficking and exploitation extends beyond the stereotypical scenarios that we normally associate with like a stranger cruising around in a white van. So, modern practices involve grooming, emotional manipulation, social media, travel, fame, money, career enhancement, social status improvement, and personal influence to gain access to victims. I mean, I can remember people approaching me in a mall saying, "My kids look great. Would I be interested in, you know, photo shoots and stuff like that?" Come to find out that it's a scam

107for sex trafficking. So, um, you know, things that, um, I don't know if we cover in our health sex ed, but, you know, topics that we may want to include would be grooming and manipulation awareness, uh, power and influence doesn't equal safety, you know, invitations and travel safety. You know, I know we discussed online behavior and recruitment, uh, but, you know, there's a, you know, a twist to this that we could, you know, focus on. You know, refusal skills and consent. I don't know how much we spend on that. You know, pra p practical scripts for saying no to assertive behavior. Um, you know, reporting and and safety networks. So, these are just a couple of things. Um, you know, why should we do this? You know, it moves past the outdated idea of risk

108from unknown adults and vehicles. It reflects real world situations involving invitations, travel, social media, backstage access, and grooming. It prepares students for complex real exploitation dynamics seen in recent investigations and encourages critical thinking about adult influence, incentives, secrecy, and boundary violations. So, I mean, this really sucks that we got to talk about this. Um, but if you pay attention to the news and especially with the 3 million emails that have been released, uh, the the extent of this is global and it's from people you would never expect. So, and I'm not going to name names, but you know, we all know these individuals are very prominent, very wealthy, and it feels that more power, more wealth, more influence, the more you're prone to do stuff like this. So, I I think it would be something

109to think about and how we could improve our curriculum, you know, to protect our kids from this type of exploitation. >> I think we have some of it, some of it's in there already, right? Maybe not to this degree, but we should look at it. Maybe we could compare your list to what we already have and maybe take a look at what do you think in curriculum. >> You can put it on the curriculum agenda, but as I shared with Mr. Darian, this is addressed as far back as in second grade in the library where we talk about um grooming that occurs through Roblox, which that's when children start to play it. It continues in third grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade during the steam lab in the beginning of the year. And it is

110a whole lesson in our sixth grade curriculum where we also are bringing in the prosecutor's office this year to speak to our sixth graders. However, I do think we can do a better job informing our parent community because I don't think I think sometimes we're living in a polyiana world where we think our kids are really innocent and there this isn't going to happen yet. Um we have had instances in the past where things have occurred digitally um with strangers in the world. Uh which is why we are really trying to build up the prosecutor's um parent talk because our parents he doesn't want us video unfortunately so we can't stream. So any ideas that we have um to get more parents at that or or put more h information in their hands so this

111just isn't happening in isolation here a couple times a year because this is an ongoing conversation. every time your child puts on a gaming headset. And the fact is many parents are not paying attention to the age restrictions on digital tools. Whether it be Instagram, whether it be Roblox, no one should be messaging in Roblox underneath a certain age. It is right on their website and parents are giving them permission to do it because you need the parent permission to do it. um when you're gaming with someone online, these are the areas where things are starting. I have no problem though um putting this on our next curriculum meeting so that we can document better what we are already doing because it is happening in three different places. It's really not just in comprehensive health

112and physical education. It's in the library because we talk about some digital stuff in the library and it's also every year in the steam lab. So you can bring it to curriculum and break it down by grade with Mr. Delberco, you want to say something? >> Yeah, just a second on that, right? I mean, when you talk about grooming, right, a lot of it does happen on those gaming platforms, right? But even something as simple as kids posting up their own, you know, YouTube channel, right? And then people commenting on it. That's the number one place where grooming starts. Um, you know, even end user um end user agreements, right? You know, I have two kids. They ask me, "Can I have Snapchat?" I said, first thing I ask, I'm like, "Read the agreement." Oh,

113you have to be 13. I I can guarantee you there are way there are a lot of people under the age of 13 that use that platform. But what people don't realize is that what they're doing with the data. And then even now with advent of AI, it's very easy for somebody to say, "Provide me a persona of a 14-year-old boy from River Edge, New Jersey that um you know, when is the schedule for the football game and blah blah blah." And then they start to just interact with people. They look at location tracking on Snapchat to be like, "Oh, this group of people's at the mall." You know, it the the threats have gotten way more complex, but also way simpler to execute because of now AI and all the location tracking and all

114the I would say tools at the disposal of people. So, I would hope that as the I would say that the prosecutor's office is going to do I believe a good job, right? But they also do a job of scaring people to say this is the scary world that's out there. I would like an approach where it's more of an educative approach to be like look do you realize what you're consenting to right when you say yes to Snapchat. Do you realize what you're consenting to when there's a app called Locket on the phone where you can share photos? Do you realize what the implications are of that when you say yes like who owns the photo? Who gets to see the photo? Why? Right? And then the extortion theme schemes too, right? There's a

115very targeted extortion schemes going out, you know, between first it was males, now it's females about taking AI generated photos, right? There's a law and SVU episode about this. And I think that's a very valuable lesson in just taking random photos of yourself and just putting them either to a friend online or somewhere. So now photos of just even you clothed aren't safe anymore. And I think that we do a good job of the general, you know, basic education of it. But these things have gotten so sophisticated and so I would say easy to accomplish very quickly that I think we need to constantly evolve, right? The uh curriculum conversation. One thing I'd like to bring up is, you know, with uh Jeffrey Epstein and his little um place down in um Miami, you know,

116Galain Maxwell didn't find girls in the the local school to to traffic at at his house. He found they found other little girls who wanted to make a hundred bucks or 200 bucks and they would go out and and you know traffic their friends for money and their friends would come for money and it's that manipulation that I really I think we should focus on because yeah I mean we all know about you know the dangers of online people and you don't know and they you know people are posing as others and they have anonymous whatever and you're not supposed to meet someone you know, obviously in the, you know, middle of the night on a date that you never met, but you know, we're talking about, you know, someone's parent invites you to the

117Bahamas, you know, for an all expense vacation for Easter and you're like, "Yeah, me and six other girls are going to go, you know, well, what's the motivation behind that?" I think you should be, you know, we should be teaching our kids that um, you know, this could be um, you know, exploitation event, you know, so if your parents aren't there, I mean, you should be questioning it. So, and this stuff happens. I mean, people look at me like, you know, oh yeah, you're just, um, you know, you're you're you're you're exaggerating, but it's not. I mean, from what I understand, it's common place. So, um, and that's the hard part, you know. I mean, the talent agency that's legit 10% 15%, you know, is they're they're focusing on sex trafficking. The the the people

118traveling abroad to, you know, work a job, you know, turns out it's a sex trafficking operation, you know. So, what do you know, what do you do? And I'm not saying that we should be focusing all of that, you know, for our kids, but we should be laying the groundwork to let them know that, you know, I hate to be it like, yeah, I'm a New Yorker. I think, you know, if anyone's nice to me, I would automatically get suspicious, right? I don't think we should be treating our kids like that. But at the same time, we need to open their eyes to say, "This doesn't seem right." You know, it's kind of like, you know, during MAD, you know, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, you know, um if you get into a car with somebody

119who had one or two drinks, you know, you you'd have to think to yourself, is this a wise decision? When I grew up, you know, that wasn't a big deal. One or two drinks, you'd jump in a car and wouldn't think about it. So, it's it's that, you know, increasing the importance of stuff that in the past no one really thought about. And you know I you know I I don't have an answer for you. I'm just saying that this is stuff some something we should pursue in terms of expanding our curriculum so that you know even the you know the the CEO down the street could be just as bad as the you know the convicted pedophile who just got out of prison. you know, perhaps um the prosecutor's office, you know, maybe we

120we reach out to them and say, "Listen, you know, can you expand upon your presentation to our students to maybe include, you know, the fishing that goes on for our children?" And you're right, this is a way more pervasive issue than people want to understand. And it does start with our parents being more diligent with their children's online footprint. And uh it's quite remarkable how large our kids how their footprint is on the internet you know especially the ones who are have unfettered access to it and it's quite scary. >> Um just to kind of expand on what Mr. Del Greco was saying and Miss Bosios you were referring to doing like a parent education part of it. While I think it's super important to include this in our curriculum and make sure our kids

121are hearing about this in different like in school, additionally, this is such an important at-ome conversation in on top of it being in school. And I think that a lot of parents don't necessarily know how to speak to their children about this in a way that's age appropriate without actually scaring them or while simult simultaneously being able to drive home the importance of this because yes it's internet based but it's also community based. It's going to a friend's house where there might be other older kids there that you know have a sibling something like that. And I think if we could do some sort of parent education where we know how to speak to our children appropriately, especially if it's not a conversation you've been having with your kids from a young age. We have

122a book series at home that's like the ABCs of consent and other body safety books. So my kids have kind of always come up knowing that, but not everybody has had access to that type of material to teach their kids from a young age. And that introduction conversation is really challenging to have when you have young kids. So if we could, you know, provide resources to parents to be able to better have conversations that are effective with their kids, I think that could be really useful. Also, >> any other older new business before we go to close session? >> Yeah, I have just wanted to thank the DPW right during the last snowstorm. I you know I believed if I have this correct they reached out to Miss Boosezius like how can we help? I

123think that removing the snow and the mounds of snow around the building has provided a safer or a safe environment for the kids to get out of the car versus if there were the mounds of snow there they'd have to get out of the car, walk in the street, walk over the snow which would I would say provide a little more of a dangerous environment. So thank you. Um you know there is more snow potentially in the forecast. So, I'm hoping that that same reciprocation is, you know, it wasn't a one time, it's, you know, kind of the norm going forward. >> In the past, they always came and cleared off of our sidewalks. It was it was just a thing. Like, they came cuz even one year they dumped it all on Memorial Field

124and the spring came and the town was complaining there was so much snow piled up. Like, it was a thing that they just we didn't have to call. It was just what they do. >> We didn't call. It was a timing thing on our part. It was our supervisor's first storm. And perhaps what he should have done first, he didn't do first. So >> we should first we normally do the sidewalks and everything first. We throw it in the road and then DPW gets a little upset but takes it all away. >> Yeah. Because they're supposed to come by and go. >> We hadn't done our part when they had already come through. So now that we have a different system in place, luckily um Mr. Tagian as the council member in charge of DPW

125reached out and said, "How can we help?" Um, right now I am also going to be talking to them about possibly seeing if we can get that basketball court across the street cleared. We are really um in dire need of some outdoor recess and our grass is not going to be available for a really long time. We were able to clear off our basketball court. I did recently have a parent ask about closing down the streets. I don't think the Ordinal Police Department is going to be a big fan of that. So, the only other blacktop I can find is the basketball court on Oral A. >> Speaking um so speaking of you know police, streets and traffic management um do we have any sort of date in the near future on the public safety

126meeting? because there are some concerns I have of again just repeated U-turns on Center Street. Um non-compliance of people staying in the car versus, you know, they're staying in their car versus moving up. Um just I think the imbalance of students, the number of students. So you have a very large grouping of students on the church street side which is creating traffic havoc in the morning on Prospect on Ordle Avenue. And I just think we need to look at a better way >> that's doesn't come under the district safety committee. Typically district safety has always been about um really about >> lockdowns things like that. However, >> the street >> Yeah, the street. We have had other conversations. Um, I remember going downtown for a drop off, you know, brainstorming all the other ways we

127could drop off, but if you want to talk a little bit about that, we can reach out to the actual officer in charge of traffic and maybe make that a separate conversation also. >> That'd be great. Thank you. >> Anything else? Want to make a motion to go into close session? I make a motion we go into close session. >> I'll second. >> Roll call. >> On the ro. Mr. Delgreo. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Genji. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Norian. >> Yes. >> Mr. Nut. >> Yes. >> Mr. Dariion. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Nichols. >> Yes. No action will be taken after.