001we're gonna get started in a few minutes we're just waiting for our technology folks to um get the screen up and running foreign okay great good evening it's 6 42 p.m and I'd like to call the September 18th special meeting of the South Orange Maplewood Board of Education to order Mr Burnside please take the Roll Call board member Nubia Duvall Wilson here board member Regina Eckert here board member Bill Gifford here board member Alyssa malaspina board member kawi telesford here board member Arun vadimani here board member Courtney Wingfield here board president Caitlin whitlider here board member Johanna Wright present thank you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag to the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God the visible with Liberty
002justice for all I think please take note that adequate notice of this meeting has been provided in the following manner a written notice was sent from the office of the secretary of the board at 10 30 a.m on September 11 2023. that said notice was sent via email to Maplewood in South Orange Township clerks and the editors of the news record Star Ledger and the Village Green tonight is a momentous occasion as we come together to discuss the somsd Equity Auto report a critical step in our ongoing Journey towards a more inclusive and Equitable School District it is my pleasure to introduce Dr Fergus Dr Edward Fergus of Rutgers University whose dedication and expertise have guided the district through this transformative process Dr Fergus was hired by the school district as a requirement of the
003somsd and black parents Workshop settlement which was signed in July 2020. at the direction of the board Dr Fergus along with his remarkable team of researchers embarked on an eight-month journey to examine our school district systems concerning the diversification of advanced classes they meticulously collected data engaged in meaningful conversations through focus groups and surveyed our students their tireless efforts demonstrate their commitment to our shared goal of creating a more inclusive and inequitable environment for all the Equity Auto report has been a collaborative effort with our district providing valuable feedback to shape its final form tonight we present the culmination of these efforts and the recommendations made by Dr Fergus in accordance with the BPW settlement the board would like to extend our heart our heartfelt gratitude to Dr Fergus and his dedicated team for their
004unwavering commitment to this cause your commitment to this work has not gone unnoticed and we are inspired by your report and recommendations that will make a positive change in our school district this evening we are joined by familiar faces both on screen and in the audience Community Representatives have been invited by the board to participate in the meeting recognizing that achieving Equitable outcomes for somsd students is a community-wide endeavor these Community Representatives will be given the opportunity to ask questions of Dr Fergus directly after the conclusion of his presentation As We Gather here tonight let us remember that we have the power to shape our District's future and make it more Equitable for all our purpose tonight is not only to understand the findings of the Equity Auto report which will direct the district's implementation
005plan but also to enable the community to understand both the challenges and opportunities for the district as it carries out its Equity plan over the next three years together we can create a more inclusive District through the work we do within our respective organizations the board would like to extend a warm milk Welcome to our community representatives in attendance this evening if I don't mention you by name I'm sorry for that I'm reading from the list of folks who formally registered and will begin in alphabetical order based on the organization you are with so first I'd like to welcome the achieve Foundation we have Eileen Neary Christine houseworth and Shannon Kirk thank you so much for joining us we also have some ask members here principal Irby thank you for joining I know principal Butler
006is also planning to attend from black parents Workshop we have Mr Walter fields and Mr James Davis thank you for joining us from the Community Coalition on Race Nancy gagne Carol Barry Austin Jocelyn Ryan and Dr Diane Hughes thank you for joining us as well from our Maplewood Township we have Deputy Mayor Deb Engle on screen as well as mayor Dean dafus and from the mapsville Freedom School we have TJ Whitaker among some of our other Educators in somd and I'm sorry I don't have all of your names but thank you for joining us from CPAC we have Vicki Bond and will Meyer and from the South Orange Township we have Olivia Lewis Chang and Village president Sheena column thank you all for coming to see oh sorry and from Rocio Lopez thank you Rocio
007um and a big thank you to our community members who have joined tonight's meet meeting in person or virtually we really do appreciate you so with that we'd like to ask Dr Fergus to begin his Equity audit report presentation thank you Dr Fergus and your team for coming this evening to Enlighten all of us thank you so much shh thank you excellence all right let's try this again good evening uh school board members uh superintendent district leadership uh thank you for this opportunity for myself and my team to be here and present to you all uh this extensive work that we're excited to not only sort of share with you all but also have an opportunity to be in community with you all this has been an Endeavor obviously is um as uh your board
008president shared that it's been a long time coming in terms of the set of work that we've uh we've been doing in terms of supporting your efforts but in particular your continued commitment in recognizing that as a system uh the school district is Desiring and needing to continue to support the various uh set of Youth that are attending here so we are looking forward to sharing with you all some of the highlights from the report obviously we didn't cover everything the report is over 100 pages right and I'm sure you did not want me to share all of the great nuggets that are existing in there and we encourage you know as the report gets you know uh laid out that you all share sort of those other elements of it but here we're going
009to really pay attention to some of the biggest components of it um I also want to say we want to say thank you actually to the students who participated in this project can I just say that the students here were amazing to be amazing on several levels one to be brave to share their story two to be so poignant about how they describe their experiences and to be vulnerable to share that with folks that they literally were just getting to know us and we were offering Pizza right but they were and they were only hungry for the pizza but they were hungry to share their story you know one of the things that I think we kept hearing from the students was you know like nobody's asked us these questions nobody's asking us how we're
010experiencing what it's uh what it is to be a student particularly to be a black student or to be a student of color in South Orange Maplewood school district and many of them you know we talked primarily to middle school high school students um but they did their own retrospective with us you know they all told their stories of going back to elementary school so though that which they shared with us was primarily about their middle school and high school experience they all could give testimony to these experiences existing in their Elementary lives as well so we want to make sure that we thank the students for what they actually offered and to be honest they really gave us they boosted our energy in terms of what we were learning and gave us a bit
011of direction in terms of making sense of some of what we were seeing in the data um we also want to thank um the community members and particularly the um and I think some of the staff are here the school staff who were amazing in getting us access to the students the um you know your principles were amazing we definitely want to give a shout out to um to LIT oh there you are um uh the your access your availability your uh your uh your thought your thinking partnership was amazing um I I Miss Marcia is Marcia here yes Marcia Hicks amazing you were so great in making sure that we got to see and talk to all the range of kids that were that wanted to share their stories right and two the stories
012that needed to be shared right um You are an invaluable resource for them I just want you to know that that the students love you dearly all right um oh yes and Ramon Robles was also amazing in terms of the translation part because we wanted to make sure we had a range of families and kids who participated in this project it was an Endeavor to try to get as much information as we could in the time that we had to to meet the deadlines that you know we know we needed to to get to so we wanted to start there in terms of acknowledging sort of the Great Lift that everyone in the community sort of really provided and it gives a testimony to really everybody wanting to see the improvements right uh here in
013South Orange Maplewood and I see that as also a representation of you have an army of folks who are ready to roll up their sleeves and support and go along with you in terms of doing this work so with that said um I wanted to start with a little bit of contextualizing why this matters so much right I think there is a um you know uh one of the points you know in in talking very briefly with uh Walter fields and James Davis who have just been Monumental around uh in terms of from the black parents workshop and really sort of situating and reminding us that this is a long history of this work right particularly the need for us to desegregate and integrate schools for the purpose of ensuring that all of our kids
014have the greatest opportunities in particular or I should say with a particular Focus for our students of color who historically have not had these opportunities and so part of what I want to contextualize is reminding us of what we were striving for from Brown versus Board you know one of the things that Robert Carter who was who worked for the end uh legal defense fund and argued part of the case one of the things that he said at the Michigan law review in 1975 he made a point to say that brown you know was not a facilities case it was a case about ensuring that black people in particular had the opportunity to have full citizenship and that sense of full citizenship is a matter of social integration the need to not only just be
015in the schools but also to know that they have a sense of belonging cohesion in the environments that they are in and I always come back to this point that he made because that's part of the powerful element of Brown versus Board too often we Center Brown to just be a you know like oh let's make sure they get to the schools let's make sure they have an opportunity to get to the schools but it's much more than just that it is about making sure that those who've historically have not had the opportunities to be in our schools to get the types of resources and um and the resources that range from the adults sitting in front of them to the types of physical facilities that they also have an opportunity to be thought of
016as um as full individuals who can contribute and are contribute leaders to the environment and that's what we're striving for here as you all as a community is integrating right and I know we often we always to sort of do the adage of like but it is X year right it is 2023. how is it that well the reality is when we came out of not only sort of Brown versus Board but also the Civil Rights Act of 1964 we had legal Frameworks that removed the barriers but we did not have a social curriculum to know how to get along let's be clear we did not have a social curriculum to get along so which means we fixed that which we put into legal Frameworks but we did not fix the thing that gave permission
017for that legal framework to even exist and that's what we are striving for right so what we and the worry about that is we can easily slip right back if we don't contend with the social curriculum that is mightily important in the work that we do so we strive to do that social curricular work through some of the structures that we have existing in our schools right as a way to really reframe the ways in which we imagine supports right that we don't allocate support based on those who we recommend and not recommend or those who live on one side of town or those who do not or live on the other side of town we want to make sure that our students have a sense of full citizenship so um this work um that
018um that was being that has obviously has been brought forth Brown I want to make sure that I point this correctly now he doesn't want to work I guess yeah oh there we go now he wants to all right all right so um so I want to remind us that our in particular that our enduring challenge is we have to continue this charge around Brown versus Board and that involves us we're gonna have to tackle the elephants in the room right and I think everybody in this room is committed to recognizing and talking about the elephant it's different parts correct yeah okay I want to make sure uh that uh that this is a community that's ready to do this so I also wanted to sort of situate obviously you as you all know um
019I I've been in this community for about four years three four years now um in different um doing a variety of sort of reports for you all and I wanted to really acknowledge the the significance of each report and what it contributed in terms of understanding the Dynamics that are existing in your community right so the first report was really gave us an opportunity to we delved into um the structures around your Ela curriculum and in particular we also focus in on Intervention supports and your professional learning communities which is the ways in which teachers have an opportunity to really deepen and expand their um their teaching capacity our second report focused on the math curriculum and enrollment in particular um and uh and also a focus around curricular and learning climate around cultural diversity
020that report we particularly have an opportunity to talk extensively with um with school staff and as well as parents and getting their perspective around cultural diversity and this most recent report um we continued with our Focus around the math curriculum this time we actually had an opportunity to really look at sample curricula to really sort of ascertain where are the touch points in which we are seeing differential opportunity I'm going to share a lot of what we focus in on this report the disparities around special ed gifted AP and honors and discipline we're going to spend time talking to you about the school culture and climate with a particular Focus around black students experiences of belonging right what are the ways in which the climate of school our students are how all of the climate
021is landing on them right I always say that as adults we organize schools in ways that we think is best for the learning that kids can experience and then there's how kids experience it and we've got to take an opportunity to really do a temperature check us to really as to whether or not it matches what we imagine is actually Landing for kids in the ways in which we imagine and then lastly we're going to spend time talking about what we learned around your intervention supports right and each one I'm gonna I'm gonna explain what all of this stuff also means so let's jump in so we did a lot of um activities in terms of data collection um we uh we we requested from all of the principles to give us as much of
022these documents as they could make available to us um in the best timely uh ways that they could right so we asked for sample math curricula um we got an opportunity to also get access to um the superintendent was great in terms of making sure that we had access to the elementary math curricula so we can see what that looks like and how that pairs up with what we're seeing at the middle school um we had an opportunity to also gather from the schools um documents around how they do intervention supports part of um part of New Jersey state Ed department is a requirement to provide intervention supports what's called inrs inrs stands for intervention and intervention and referral services and that is a requirement that every District have an IRS process so we went
023uh specifically to look at what are those elements of inrs that existing across all the schools and what's the level of consistency we looked at culture and climate with a particular Focus around belonging and cohesion that students of color are having in in our various School settings and then we looked at obviously program enrollment in terms of special ed discipline and advanced courses we were able to do interviews with some School staff we did a lot of interviews with students which was amazing we we made a strong attempt to do surveys with with students unfortunately again we did not get the the the the the response that we really needed in terms of student participating in the survey um but we we we felt okay by that we didn't get the survey data from students
024because we got so many students that participated in the interviews and focus groups that we feel we actually got better data because we were actually able to talk to kids um and and honestly in some of the interviews that and focus groups that we did with the students where we said oh we're only going to take an hour some students wanted ended up talking for two hours it may have been that they wanted to not go to class but they still wanted to talk to us right um and so uh so that's some of the activities that we were able to do and uh so the data that's reflected here is reflective of all those that set of activities so um it looks like it's starting to load oh all right so I'm going to
025start first by laying out what are some of the patterns of disparity that are existing here in the community um uh early on we had a conversation with um with Dr Taylor um and as well as with your technology folks and data folks in terms of what's the best data point that we want to draw from to look at data to look at the patterns of disparity right and we decided on looking at the year before covid and the year after covet we did not do we did not include last school year 22-23 because it was still an active school year so they meet which means the data was still active so um I we never sort of collect data around discipline or special-led identification or enrollment and gifted AP or honors because it's still
026an active year right the the enrollment numbers can go up and down from one month to the other so we really focused on 2018-19 school year to 21 22 school year all right um I'm not going to go too deep into the layers of data that we did um but I will highlight a couple of pieces and I will start first by this there's three particular formulas that I use often in terms of looking at patterns of disparity um you know often folks will say oh you know I'm using the the Fergus formulas I always tell folks these are not my formulas these are the same formulas the Department of Justice uses the office of civil rights uses when they are um weighing in as to examining whether or not a school district is having
027a pattern's disparity these are these are types of formulas that are used in a variety of um not only legal cases but also the U.S Department of Education the office of special education programs also uses it to identify patterns disproportionality one particular formula is what's called a relative risk ratio and what I'll show you in a minute is I'll show you the relative risk ratio around special ed gifted AP and honors and discipline now the relative risk ratio allows you to be able to determine based on patterns of enrollment what's the likelihood or chance that that's happening for that specific group now the rule of thumb that we use is 1.0 is equal risk meaning we want to be as close to 1.0 within each group around in terms of the relative risk ratio anything
028above 1.0 is an elevated risk anything below 1.0 is a lowered risk all right so that's I want you all to keep that in mind and I will keep as I go walk through the data I will refer to that so all right so we will start with special education all right so the big headline around special education the findings are that um over the 2018-19 to 21 22 school year there's a persistent pattern of disparity in terms of who's ending up in special education with a particular attention to the fact that black students were consistently 80 to 90 percent more likely compared to all others to be identified with a particular disability categories right white students were between 40 to 50 percent less likely compared to all other students to be identified with a
029disability right right yeah so just just for folks of verification just so you all know in case you're wondering this is this is the data that school districts every school district has to collect and they submit to the State education department right so this is as you all know your own data right and we get an opportunity to really sort of do this analysis so to give you an ex to show you what it looks like so in terms of special education um all right oh this is going to be a little hard to see all right so this first Blue Line This Is Our Native American students in your school district so what you'll see and if you look over at the on the left hand side you see a red arrow the red
030arrow is to um to give you a frame of reference that that is 1.0 so remember 1.0 is equal risk right so we want each line to be as close to 1.0 and what you'll see from 2018-19 school year to 1920 school year to 21 22 school year that Native American students were above the 1.0 they were below 1.0 in one school year and then back up in 21 22 school year now that is partly due to the fact that you have a very small count of students that identify as Native American in your school district so you're going to see a lot more uh variability going from year to year because of that low number right when we look at other groups where you have a great a great deal of Greater of Greater
031stability of enrollment this next line here which is a bit Orange Line This is your Asian student population so if you look at each year 2018-19 2019 20 and 21 22 you will see that your Asian student population is below 1.0 meaning that your Asian student populations each year were less likely to be identified with a disability compared to all other students this next line is your black students you will see that your black students are above 1.0 and you will see that black students are actually close to the 2.0 line which means that black students each year were two times more likely compared to all other students or another way of framing it that they were they're close to 2.0 which means that they're a hundred percent more likely compared to all other students
032to be identified with a disability our next group is our latinx student population and you will see again your latinx student population was also above 1.0 in each of the years they were close to 1.5 in 2018 2019 school year 2019-20 school year they were at 2.0 and then in 21-22 school year they were around 1.7 again above the 1.0 so they had an elevated risk compared to all other students this next line this blue line that's at the bottom now next to your Asian student line is your white student population they were also below the 1.0 so which means that they were less likely compared to Wild leather students to be identified with a disability and then lastly your multiracial identified students were near 1.0 in terms of their equal risks meaning of all
033students that particular grouping had was closest to having the um equal risk or having equal chance of being identified with a particular disability during these three consecutive years all right a couple of additional patterns that I want to highlight is that between 1819 and 2122 school year that on average when we looked at the percentage of each group one in every black student that was walking in your school district one in every five students that's eligible for free and reduced lunch one in every five male students were identified with a disability each group was hovering around 20 percent in terms of ingested for a frame of reference the national average in terms of groups is 12 percent so you're having Within These groups you have layers of elevated risk that's existing and yes there are
034overlaps as we're thinking about these different groups but the concern is that you have such a propensity such a high propensity that these groups are ending up in uh being identified with a disability comparatively on average one in every 10 white students student not eligible for free and reduced lunch and female students were identified with disabilities so there was a layer lowered likelihood of being identified with a disability amongst those groups and then lastly the other additional pattern we wanted to highlight was that between these same school years again black latinx free reduced lunch eligible students and male students were at greatest risk of being identified with a learning disability LD and or speech language impairment those two particular disability categories were of great prominence in the data and and during these particular school years
035and I want us to hold on to the the um that information because it it's when we talk about intervention supports we're going to need to talk about sort of what is what is happening within intervention supports that could stem the pattern to which we're seeing these particular types of disabilities emerging and um the other piece I also want to highlight around special education is there is a great deal of opportunity that exists within what we offer in special education and so highlighting these pattern doesn't give is not giving a testimony about a problem with special education but the appropriateness to which we are seeing kids ending up in special education there's substantive research that has been existing for a long time that really highlights that it's uh that there are patterns to which there
036is inappropriate identification that emerges as a result of what um some researchers called curriculum-based disabilities meaning the degree to which kids are getting quality consistent and High Fidelity curriculum that may leave them at a loss and create a disability or what may appear as a disability when this child is brought up to the child study team so I want to make sure I make that point that this is not an indictment on special education this is a conversation about everything that's happening before that all right the next set of data I want to talk about is AP and honors um you know and particularly 18 honors not gifted because you all according to the data you did not there was no data around gifted there was the data was all around AP and honors um
037so the analysis in terms again these school years demonstrate that there's a pattern in which black and latinx students are the greatest likelihood of being enrolled enrolled in honors classes right I want to acknowledge the fact that that is a a significant pattern that you all are demonstrating during these years where you have is these two groups that have historically have been underrepresented in your AP and honors well I should say in your honors um you've made great moves where we're seeing in the data that they have the greatest likelihood of ending up in honors however they have a significantly reduced chance or likelihood of ending up in advanced placement classes and we'll talk a little bit about what we think the texture is around why that is happening from the stories that the students
038shared with us around their experiences being in AP classes meanwhile white asian students have an inverse pattern compared to Black and latinx students um and and the our Our concern is since we were looking at the data from year to year is that was honors is honors arriving at being the ceiling for black and latinx students right and when when we talk about recommendations a little bit later what we're what this data is not necessarily suggesting let's just put them all in AP this is a matter of we have to be more systematic around how we are supporting our students in the range of of of available resources in particular around AP and honors so I'm going to show you the relative risk ratio data by race in terms of honors and then I'm going
039to show you AP and you will see that sort of the difference so again same if you look at the red arrow that is reflective of 1.0 equal risk Native American student population you'll see from each year again you have a small identified population of Native American students so that's why you see that level of volatility our next group if we look at our Asian student population this is honors so in 1819 and 1920 school year your Asian identified students were below the 1.0 and then above 1.0 and 2122 school year your black students right um each school year you will see that they are well well above 1.7 or 70 percent more likely compared to all other students to be enrolled in honors classes your latinx students you see a trajectory in these three
040years in terms of their enrollment patterns where their likelihood is increasing you look at the next the The Blue Line is your white students their the white students are below 1.0 in terms of their likelihood of being enrolled in honors classes and then the same pattern with your multi-racial identified students so that's honors and for those just for a quick edification you know honors honors classes are the requirement or what happens in honors classes and AP classes very different AP classes or advanced placement there is a um there are a set of national tests that are tied to AP classes and there's an AP curriculum that is driven by college board so there is other Provisions that exist in terms of how AP is um is organized and taught then honors classes so I want
041to make sure just in case anybody has any wanted understanding between the two honors and AP when again we look at our data in terms of these three years you have the red arrow there to give you a point of reference in terms of 1.0 our Native American student population our Asian student population 1819 1920 21 22 slightly over 1.0 in terms of elevated risk black students below 1.0 in terms of their they so they have a lowered risk each consecutive year to be enrolled in AP classes um your latinx students have equal risk compared to all other students so they're at that 1.0 line your white students are hovering over 2.0 in 1819 1920 school year and right below 2.0 in 2122 school year and lastly your multiracial students are below 1.0 meaning having
042a lowered risk so again to the point that I made around the findings what we learned is honors was the place in which we saw the greatest um likelihood existing among your most historic your historically underrepresented groups particularly your black and latinx students however the inverse is happening in terms of AP right and it begged the question is there a ceiling that's existing and when we talk about the culture and climate particularly around what students were sharing um we have they gave us testimony as to what they're experiencing between honors classes versus AP classes some additional patterns um between 1819 and 2122 that on average two out of every three AP students identified as white right so the majority of students who were in AP classes around 60 percent identified as white one out of
043every two AP student identified as male so one of the patterns particularly when we looked at it by gender in AP and honors we saw a a pattern to which by gender there was equal risk existing for male and female identified students another pattern um on one out of every three honors students identified as black and one out of every two AP students I um or honor student I should say honor student I'm sorry uh identified as male so again male female identified was still consistent now when it came to discipline um uh we decided on only looking at one year because we obviously we had covered year right and there was no no disciplining that was happening obviously um that that ceased in March and we didn't want to skew the data by demonstrating
044a pattern of data that only spoke to you know six to seven months of the school year so we decided to really focus on just looking at data for 2122 school year so this discipline data is not a trend analysis unlike the other ones so this is just going to give us one moment in time snapshot of 2122 school year obviously we did not look at 22-23 school year because that year last year with the data was still active so um so some of what we I uh we learned is that among the black student population which comprised 25 of the school district enrollment they were 64 of the overall students receiving discipline right um You your numbers around students experience discipline and when I'm talking about discipline I'm talking about out of school suspension
045and in school suspension that though there was your number you don't have a significant number of students that are being that are experiencing out of school suspension or in school suspension according to the data right um though there's not a high count the majority of of the students experiencing discipline and if I remember correctly primarily out of school suspension were black students right so which as you can imagine means that they're comparatively your white students that are 54 of the overall student enrollment um they were um uh they were representing a much smaller number of students in um in discipline right so what I did in terms of this discipline data is um because we're just looking at one year I wanted to demonstrate to you all what it looked like by Race by free
046reduced lunch status and by gender um you can look you can see the exact same data points around free reduced lunch and gender in the report for special ed and gifted AP and honors because we had more years of data to kind of share but I did not want to bore you all with umpteen slides around all of those but for discipline because I'm just looking at one year I put it all into one slide so you all can um see the the rate of pattern around discipline again the one the red arrow is to signal that this is that's 1.0 now what you will see is I will bring each group up one at a time your Native American students have zero likelihood of being disciplined and that's because you had of the small
047number zero had experience discipline in the 21-22 school year your Asian students were well below 1.0 so they have a lower likelihood your black students as I mentioned represented the bulk of students that are experiencing discipline for those who can't see the number up top is 5.47 that's the relative risk ratio meaning that black students in 21 22 school year were nearly five and a half times more likely compared to all other students or another way of saying it is that they are 447 percent more likely compared to all other students to experience discipline in 21-22 school year your latinx students were slightly above 1.0 they were at 1.28 white students were below 1.0 they have a lowered risk multiracial students were right near that 1.0 line um this is oh your male students male
048students are slightly above 1.0 females do the same slightly above 1.0 your students eligible for free and reduced lunch status they are 3.8 or uh or nearly four times more likely or another way of saying it is that they're 280 more likely compared to all other students and your students not eligible for free and reduced lunch they were they had a lowered risk compared to all other students so here just to give you know this provides sort of a uh you know being a visual of understanding what are the various groups when it comes to discipline that are experiencing a particular um are experiencing discipline at a higher rate compared to Wild other students so the overall disparity findings are that black students students eligible for free and reduced lunch latinx students and male students
049more likely to be identified with a disability compared to all other groups and then white students and and students not eligible for free and reduced lunch uh more likely to be enrolled in AP classes compared to all other students right so these particular patterns started to obviously sort of allow for us to see the outcome of what we do in our school system so we needed to make sure that we looked closely to understand what are the facets of how School operate that play a direct or indirect role in this so we start first with the curriculum piece right so in terms of and then specifically we decided to look in on math because obviously in terms of the um the settlement agreement there was a notation around math specifically in terms of who's ending
050up in which math classes um and there's what we learned in terms of the data we talked very extensively in the report about this is that there's a disparity that is evident starting in elementary school that feeds Middle School and gets further exacerbated in high school right and in particular not just in terms of achievement but also patterns around reduced rigorous curriculum exposure for students who are in um I don't like to call it the lower track because they are the grade level tracks right they are the tracks that everyone gets is should be the standard of what is grade six or grade 8 math however as we will as we talk about in the report there is a diametrically different cognitive experience that's happening in those grade level math classes compared to classes that
051are uh more advanced but first I'll start with the math achievement patterns and what you'll see um uh these are the data points that we we gathered from New Jersey state ad Department data you I'm sure many folks in this room are very familiar with this data right um and you can see the diametrically different experiences in terms of math achievement by race in 2122 school year um in grade three four five each column represents a different grade level band um and you see you have your um you have white students black students latinx and Asian students and you can comparatively see as you look across each of the bars that each grade level black and latinx students have a there's a less a lower percentage of them as Tech test takers that are meeting
052or exceeding grade level benchmarks on the state exams meaning uh just to for uh for for example if we look at the blue bar for black students which is grade three um 23 of black students who took the test in third grade in 2122 school year met or exceeded the grade level benchmarks which means that um that nearly 75 percent did not right and if you look comparatively across other groups there is a diametrically different pattern of achievement that's existing among our students here in South Orange Maplewood starting in third grade when we looked a little bit deeper in terms of the um the curriculum itself we we probably I'll say this um as a team we probably nerded out a little bit around the curricula right um and appropriately so because we what we
053really wanted to understand is what are kids getting exposed to on a daily basis right one of the things that we wanted to particularly examine was depth of thinking or cognitive work that's happening in math classes right one of the frames that is used in education is what's called Bloom's taxonomy and those who are now familiar Bloom's work really focuses on higher order thinking skills so you go from remembering to understanding to apply to analyze to evaluate to create the intention around the science of learning that what we do in schools is to ensure that our kids are getting to practice higher level cognitive work right meaning uh kids should have an opportunity to not only get to remember and understand something you know those are the types of questions that happen in class that
054are like you know when um when was Thomas Jefferson born when was the Battle of the Bulge those are understanding remembering or recall types of questions right what we want kids to practice is analytic or evaluative types of question right where for example they get to compare you know um compare World War One to World War II you know what do you think may have worked or did not work in terms of how we engaged in World War One versus World War II we want kids practicing that that has to be a very intentional thing that we program in our curricular work so we use that frame as part of our examination in terms of the math units that we were looking at and so some of the elements of what we learned was that
055in grade six Math um the majority of student learning standards um particularly in the what's is in the great that grade six Math which quote unquote the lower track um the majority of the learning standards were in the understanding and remembering um quadrants there is few notations and mind you we were looking at just one unit right one I think it's one uh it was a four or six week unit so really understanding what kids were getting exposed to they were more often than not getting a lot of remembering and recall um types of questions um that was being planned for in terms of their learning right um the other uh when we compare to the grade six pre-algebra class right which is a slightly more advanced class that the majority of the learning standards
056that were were encouraging students to do much more reading and evaluative and Analysis type of work in those set of classes right so the opportunities for cognitive lift and exposure were diametrically different for grade six Math kids and kids in grade six pre-algebra and we bring this up and and I'll I'll make as a bit of a side note you know one of the elements that we identified in our second report was that and one of the pieces that we saw in the curriculum the math curriculum at that time was that uh particularly lesson plans that we saw were that there were um grade six Math students were getting exposed to um what's called um academic Behavior curricular meaning um they were having an opportunity to learn about how to do or be good students
057in classes which was something different from what this grade six pre-algebra students were getting meaning grade six Math students when we did that analysis two years ago that curricular unit that we saw there were 10 days that were organized for grade six Math students to learn about being good students which were not 10 days at the pre grade six pre-algebra kids had to do and I bring that up only to say that those are 10 days of differential um instruction that's happening right my curiosity our curiosity is that how that ends up adding up over time for our kiddos so the concern of what we and we and we go we go really deep in the report around the differences that we saw in terms of what is being planned for in terms of the
058learning exposure in terms of grade six Math and grade six pre-algebra demonstrates very different set of expectations around cognitive work and I say that and I'm going to keep repeating it because you can be in grade six Math and still do analytic and evaluative type of cognitive work simply because you are not in an advanced math and I'm not going to ask how many folks ended up in taking calculus or statistics right but you can still be a very analytic person you can be a very evaluative person even in in classes in math classes that are expected to be the math knowledge that everybody gets to have right you don't get you it doesn't have to be left only for the higher level set of classes and you know and this is some of the
059texture of what we have to pay attention to because the concern we are we were left with is how that ends up feeding and orientation around Lowered Expectations of students right if the curriculum gets primed in that way we end up behaving accordingly and so and I'll talk later about recommendations right that what is it going to mean for us to not only sort of it's not just about redoing curriculum but it's also undoing the nature of Lowered Expectations that has also come alongside what curriculum we have in front of our kiddos and this is just this is just math the other uh Dynamic that we also I we talk about in the report is that that math exposure ends up guiding the pathways of where kids are ending up so um this is this
060came from one of the math nights of information that's shared with parents that gives them a sense of where your kids could end up as a result of when they start in grade six Math right so I'm presuming that this is this is get this is being this is this math night is being offered up to the parents whose graduate whose kids have graduated fifth grade and they're about to go to sixth grade and they're excited about sort of this new Endeavor and as parents they're learning about the pathway that their kids are getting are about to embark on and as you will see if you look at the arrows um the quadrant above the top is grade six Math and what you will see is the arrows correspond to the patterns of courses that
061kids are expected to go to next as a result of starting a grade six Math below is grade 6 pre-algebra there is diametrically very there's diametrically different pathways that kids are going to the concern is the degree to which kids who may be in grade six Math that there's there may not be anything planned meaning organized within the curricula that gives them an opportunity to end up in Algebra 1 and grade 7. let me say that again you start in grade six Math and remember as I showed around the math curriculum they're not getting exposed to some of the higher level cognitive work that may get them ready for being in algebra one grade seven so we have to this this curriculum element is a very complex sort of web that we have to disentangle
062here and our concern is that um you know the manner in which these structures exist in our schools are long-standing they're also based on sort of presumptions that we may carry around cognitive lift or potential of kids and how that ends up living with the kids and when we talk to the students and we'll share a bit later the story lines that they understood the kids absorbed very well their understanding particularly the black students shared that they absorbed an understanding of having lower cognitive capacities as a result of the types of courses that they started off almost every student that we talked to could tell a story around grades six and seven math the other the the bigger picture and this you can't see this very well but this is the connection between Middle School
063pathway and high school pathway and the concern and we we put this visual up as a reminder of this is where the trajectory goes that it doesn't stop in middle school but it goes further into High School and again the concern is what happens when not only we have curricula that that primes our students to only get exposed to certain levels of cognitive work that what we end up doing is we we are ensuring that they stay Within These Pathways over time so our overall curricular findings uh math disparities by Risk by by race exist in Elementary grades and persist into Middle School grades math curricular outlines different cognitive activities based on core sequence and students in grade level course sequence have fewer opportunities to enter other levels of math courses and not just an
064opportunity in terms of are there counselors recommending them are their parents encouraging them but it's also the nature to which the curricula has actually prepared them for that next sequence right so the kids could be hungry for it but they may not have had the exposure and that's our work as adults we've set that up now we're going to talk about interventions right so part of making sure you know uh you know every school system in the country has to have some type of tiered supports meaning the work that we do in our curricula the work that we do in terms of our instruction is not always going to meet everyone's needs and so it requires that we have of a system to which we support students to address the types of difficulties particularly skill
065deficiencies that kids may have within our classroom this is way before special education right every school system has to have a tiered support process here in New Jersey part of that process is called inrs right and so what we identified in the review of your inrs process is that there are inconsistencies that are existing across your various schools we were very fortunate to have examples from every school in terms of the best of what they know how to do inrs they shared with us and I and I I give that as a caveat it is the best that they know how to do in terms of creating tiered supports because it is not an easy Endeavor to really ensure that all of your kids have the supports that they need because it requires a high
066level of planning meaning principals have to build master schedules that insist on interventions right if you don't have a master schedule that builds in time for kids to get supports that means that we're not giving we're not getting ourselves ready to provide additional supports for our kiddos we need to make sure we have the adults the interventions the curricula that actually is providing those types of supports so some of the bigger findings um in this report is one we we noted that the district has been paying attention to having to needing to rectify NRS the district was great in terms of sharing a memo that went out January 23 um highlighting to school leadership reminding them hey we have to address these gaps in inrs right particularly the gaps that uh in terms of building
067out consistency and uniformity in team compositions right part of the intervention process is you actually have to have a team of people meaning having a team of experts right who weigh in on what's the best ways to really support our youth we have to have a consistent inrs teaming schedule meaning we actually have to have a Cadence to how often we are meeting it can't be by chance there has to be intentionality there has to be a science to how we are providing supports uh creation of new and consistent IRS assistance forms part of what and I appreciate each School sharing their own examples of their inrs forms because you are required to have them but they were diametrically different at each School we're a small district and it was amazing to see that we
068had so many different forms right um uh schools need to one of the other pieces that was in this memo was that schools should share a uniform Google Drive on inrs process right and then lastly the district creates and provide a bank of interventions so so as a district you've identified we've got to do these things right and these things have to occur now they they have to be prioritized particularly given that your integration uh enrollment plan is that you're having students showing up at schools that historically have not been there with staff who are not versed on making sure that they know how to support all the needs that are showing up in their schools right and having and insisting upon a tiered support system is vitally important I remember in the first report
069that I did for you all there was a diametrically different pattern of frequency to which inrs was meeting at your South Mountain School compared to your Seth Boyden School right and and all and I always think back to that when I think about your integration enrollment plan because as you are having students um from different uh parts of the city that may have historically been a Seth Boyden or South Mountain who are now going across your city who are now entering these schools that may not have been readied to know how to support the full range of students in your in your school district um the other finding um was that um uh there was an uh there was an absence of this uniformity in the content of these forms I love the principles for
070providing their forms but the stuff that was on some of the forms one they were they were uh there was inconsistency in terms of how they align with what the New Jersey Department of Education laid out as part of the guidance around inrs so some of the expected components in these forms were not existing in some of the forms there were some um uh what I call sort of gold nuggets of school examples that we highlighted in the report to say hey if you want to start somewhere start with this example and try to replicate it across all the other schools we also identified that according to the data that was shared by some of the sample elementary schools now not every school does this and we appreciate the elementary schools that actually do this
071very intentionally they were looking they looked at their own data around who is participating in inrs and overwhelmingly the students who they had on their roster who were receiving these tiered intervention supports were primarily black and mail so and I bring this up and I'm connected back to your special ed data right that if there is inconsistencies to which how we are providing tiered supports meaning if we're not meeting consistently if there isn't consistent there's inconsistency in the interventions we provide right and when I say inconsistency around interventions meaning do we know do we have the rats right match between the need of the kid and the intervention right if a kid is demonstrating a need of um they they're struggling around decoding right in terms of letter sound recognition let's say then we should
072provide an intervention that is about supporting them to get better around decoding we don't provide an intervention with them around how to walk better right and we so so that intervention part has to be we're constantly talking about that we have to be scientists in what we are providing our students in meeting their actual need and and in particular because the worry is when we're seeing patterns like this of very particular groupings of kids is we have to consider that part of the difficulty that they may be arriving at in terms of a disability or whether it gets constituted as a disability may actually be a reflection of the inconsistencies of the systems that they've been exposed to um historically within the school district so that's the intervention part so I'm going to now turn
073it over to Dr hochman to share some of the highlights around the culture and climate examination that we did particularly our Focus was around a sense of cultural belonging to understand how are kids making sense of the social integration that's happening within their community why so um you know as we've just seen a lot of data and part of uh the work that we did was to uh speak with students and teachers to kind of um corroborate the data but also to add as Dr Fergus said some texture to uh you know what quantitative data shows so uh we did focus on uh thinking about a sense of belonging uh but also what were the experiences that students were having in their classrooms as Scholars as well as human beings who are part of this
074community so um you know as you can see well there are some students who experience the district as an oasis there are others who experience it as a place that's not really for them specifically uh that was Prime mainly black students who said that their experiences were one in which uh you know in addition to a feeling maybe of less social acceptance that there wasn't enough rigor in their academic Journeys and we really have seen that in the data so now we're going to talk a little are you going to thanks um so black students did not feel like they belonged uh in a few different registers so uh first black students perceived their experiences uh there they felt there was pressure to participate in AP courses um there was a sense of tokenism uh
075some we you know in focus groups uh some students spoke about being in an AP class and feeling uh you know various kind of layers of unwelcome so you know maybe there was a sense of uh sort of friction with an instructor maybe there was a sense that they didn't totally feel like this was an area where they wanted to give all of their academic energy but they felt a lot of pressure to stay in the class because they were the only black student in the class um and they there was an amount of pressure there um and then you know there was also sometimes a feeling of isolation in AP classes we talked to a lot of students who said you know I'm the only black kid in this class and you know given
076the first two elements that we talked about that didn't feel great that didn't feel safe um or supportive I mentioned that students felt tokenized and then often in um you know what we've kind of been referring to as the lower level or like but really you know they're the grade level classes um when students who we spoke to like in general higher performing black students felt that they were often given the role of caretaker for other black students who maybe weren't excelling academically in the way that they were and that in particular um students when they would exit like an honors or AP class really noticed um this cultural difference that they would be in an AP course where they were one or one of very few students of color in the room and then
077they would go to the grade level class and find themselves among a lot of students of color but be kind of um put placed in this caretaking role that wasn't always super comfortable for them because they are also students and kids her finding was that black students felt um they were sort of being weaponized in AP and honors classes so here's a quote from one of the focus groups that we did at the high school level the students that I feel like at some point it feels like they're desperate to have me in those classes and it's like they need me there to expand the diversity like at that point I'm not seen as a student if I'm seen as a weapon used to fight a backlash for like racism and junk and so you
078know this student is saying that they um they feel sort of a bit tokenized they feel that they're um presence means things to adults that it doesn't necessarily mean to them but also just that their experience of being a student in this District who's getting an education isn't uh always really about them um and their goals and building their strengths but being done to sort of please an agenda and we heard that more than once but that quote kind of really encapsulated what quite a few students articulated so another Finding was that different students sorry different opportunities were available for students of color as compared to White students um you know and this was based on factors that were related to um like Community practices as well as school-based practices so we heard a lot
079about um Kumon and similar entities so as one teacher reported white families would get private tutoring they would go to Kumon they go to Huntington while families of color often relied on the support that the school is offering and you know as Dr Fergus was talking about just prior to this about the inrs and tier one supports which are really you know tier one supports are really about giving support in the classroom so it's support that while you know the intervention might be targeted to needs that a lot of kids are demonstrating all of the students in the room are getting that um and students you know while they don't use the kind of academic language that we use to say tier one supports they often talked about feeling singled out even though there might
080have been a bunch of kids who are struggling but there wasn't that tier one support and that they found that their peers were often receiving tutoring outside the school therefore it seemed like obviating the need for the tier one supports but there was still a need um and so here's a quote from an educator they had an AP Saturday Academy where's the Saturday Academy for the kids who are failing how are you having an academy that's free for the kids teachers volunteers now teachers at the high school don't volunteer for anything where's the extra work for you talk about access and Equity so you know where's the support for students who are struggling as opposed to you know really boosting the students who are already flourishing and finally a lot of black students really struggled
081asking for help um they in particular we heard from students that there was sometimes a nervousness to ask for help because they weren't necessarily comfortable asking a particular instructor but also a feeling of um you know as I kind of spoke about before like why do I have to ask for this help when it's something that ought to be offered in class sort of as a part of the value additive in-person instruction so the student said why do I have to go out and get a tutor um why do I have to go out and get that help because they are not helping referring to teachers and when I first started at Columbia there were certain teachers that I don't want to go to them and I didn't want to say anything because I felt
082like I wouldn't get that help so this again this sort of tension of feeling that these resources aren't necessarily available so uh the teachers uh in the focus groups that we had with Educators in the district teachers um you know also bravely and you know we've talked a lot about how the students were really Brave and vulnerable and I you know want to say that the teachers also shared very um candidly with us and we it was very very meaningful to our work so thank you for that um and one educator said you know quote I do think that we're not encouraging our students of color I don't know that we're reaching out to their families and letting them know fully what the options are and I also believe that there's a lot of bias
083and even teacher bias and even when folks are trying even when they're really really trying to do the right thing there's still a lot of internal teacher by us when guiding students in certain ways that is not resolved so you know and this was also something that we heard from teachers that like even when they are putting in a lot of effort sometimes they just don't know what to do um and they are you know looking for tools that aren't necessarily available to help them address students equity equitably in classrooms um again we talked about this a little bit but black students feeling uncomfortable in AP classes due to teacher bias uh we spoke to multiple students and groups who said that they wanted to exit AP classes not just because it wasn't instruction that
084they were really excited about but also sometimes because of teacher bias and they feel like they just weren't going to be treated fairly in those spaces and so they wanted to exit and sometimes they would ask to leave and they were told no actually or really discouraged from leaving the class was the students that I had to email the head of redacted the department and I wrote this two-page letter just detailing everything I'd been through in this class and how difficult it was for me to stay in there because I also felt like I wasn't being supported enough um and again black students often are alone or one of very few students and they don't necessarily feel welcome and we spoke to a lot of students who said they kind of self-isolated and you know
085being in these focus groups with students who you know really wanted to share and had a lot to say and imagining that child self-isolating in a class um you know that was a pretty powerful moment um you know so I'm the only black girl in my class so I kind of sit all the way in the back um was one of the sentiments shared in our groups so Dr Fergus will talk about it yes you know so I really you know what the students shared and I have to this is where um one of you know the middle school students were amazing the um the max scholar students truly amazing in terms of what they were sharing but they also were sharing in a way where um in which they were recognizing that they the
086the few spaces that they could identify that they felt the safest wasn't that Max Scholars room and when I say the few I said that's for some of them it's the only space that they could find refuge in terms of contending with some of these Dynamics so I really and I say that just to really highlight this particular strategy that's happening the max Scholars that is a um you know it is it it Harkens to some of the strategies that existed in schools in the 60s 70s and 80s to contend with how desegregation was being experienced by students of color right because we weren't moving fast enough to do the level of social integration so there needed to be Affinity spaces for safety spaces where you did not feel as if you had to edit
087yourself because you worried whether or not that language that you chose to use was a reflection of your cognitive capacity and so I really want to highlight sort of that room that we had an opportunity to kind of sit in was we realized like that was their that was their Shangri-La and it was so heartening to kind of hear them kind of share this stuff and um and it's a space that we want to encourage that continues and expands so recommendations so got a lot of stuff in the report I didn't put them all in the slides right um but at the core of it is the recommendations are what they are but you have to build policy to institutionalize these recommendations because otherwise they are like um it's like going to a buffet that
088changes every week the menu right they will be the recommendations for the moment and when you when things change leadership school board members the worry is that the fervor and energy that is understood around the recommendations may also go and so one of the considerations that I want to place in front of you all as you all listen to these recommendations and have you read them in the report is that you also think about how do you build policy that institutionalizes some of these set of recommendations right so that you think beyond your roles that are currently here to ensure that these things stay because it's going to take a while to undo these patterns that have emerged here in the school district uh so with that said I'm gonna just kind of walk through
089some of these core recommendations so in terms of curriculum you know ensure that students in in lower track math classes again grade level their grade level math classes but they're lower because of the Lowered Expectations and the cognitive work that is existing in the curriculum need to receive high quality instruction to make students Better Math students what is existing right now is about keeping students in that track period it is not about growing kids into the next level of advanced math right and I get that some of us may sit in here like well I'm not a math person so just give me the the bare minimum but in that bare minimum I'm sure that you know how to do analytic and synthesis level of work we all have that capacity to do that level
090of of cognitive work and our kids deserve to get exposed to that in our curriculum um creating enrichment and acceleration opportunities for kids um and in this particular recommendations we have to recognize that um to undo the curriculum it's going to take a while means that also means to undo what kids have been exposed to is going to take a while so there's going to have to be a balance of how do we um supplement that which we have been missing out on providing for our kiddos who are in those lower math tracks which is going to involve a level of enrichment and acceleration when we talk about acceleration we're meaning that it's not enough to say we're going to remediate we're going to give you the stuff that you've been missing but it's also
091a matter of accelerating them so that they can catch up and have the potential of getting into the more advanced classes so those are some of the curricular recommendations you all know the curriculum section is much longer in terms of recommendations I decided to just pull two okay um in terms of intervention supports um and I'm just going to put them all up here the ones that you know we consider as uh truly um vital for your intervention work there you've got to develop a district-wide tiered system of support that includes defining academic and behavioral tiers I know that there was a a version of a guidebook that was developed about three years ago I remember seeing it I was excited by the fact that it was getting built that it was existing however three
092years later in terms of seeing the documentations that the schools provided it doesn't demonstrate that that Guidebook lifted off right it it experienced the level of implementation so there's a need for uh going back to that and or and a level of intentional implementation of that which is in there it's not enough to just do the thing and send it to the principals and say go do it the principles need support to actualize the implementation of it right um there needs to be a review of that implementation process guide that you'll have to see does it necessarily meet the needs of the kids that are presenting in your District um and then develop the tools and protocols for operating intervention team meetings part of what we were seeing in particular and and and we can
093note this from all the districts that we work with across the country is recognizing that though you may put together an intervention team of experts they don't always have a problem-solving approach to the work that they're doing with with providing supports for kids right meaning are they looking at data to figure out how to best serve kids or are they looking at data to figure out how to move kids to the next stage which may be referring them to special ed so there has to be an intentional way in which we are building the capacity of intervention teams to have a problem-solving approach um the last section that we have in the report is around developing an equity lens and a cultural inclusion adult capacity right um it's not enough it's going to be to
094Tinker around changing intervention supports putting up new curricula there's also a Dell capacity work that has to occur around developing the cultural inclusion lens that they are carrying forward right um you know we you have we know that you have staff that are well intentioned that have the um that speak to wanting the best for kids but also our existing in systems that give permission for having Lowered Expectations for kids as well so you can love your kids and at the same time have low expectations for them right and that's a dynamic we've got to disrupt so there has to be a way in which there's adult capacity building work that includes try doing professional development that focuses on cross-cultural capacity building right meaning you know the ways in which we carry as human beings
095we carry Lowered Expectations is because we all have shopping carts that are filled with um experiences that give permission for those Lowered Expectations right lower expectations just don't we don't pick and choose when we want them when we don't we actually are nurtured to have some of these higher expectations or Lowered Expectations and so we have to be intentional about how do we replace some of those set experiences by building up the cross-cultural capacity of staff um I I would also encourage that there be a close attention around Humanity's English language arts history so also look at culture responsive frames similar to how we were looking at in terms of math we focus in on math we wonder about these other areas as well um uh you know there needs to be a particular attention
096around teachers of color because I've been in this district for the last three to four years um and have walked the schools um particularly the elementary schools and the middle schools and the high school that there is a particular pattern to which we do see staff of color across the schools more often than not they're in Aid positions so we know that there is opportunities for students to see adults that look like them but we're also wanting to encourage the district to continue its endeavors on ensuring that they also have staff who are certified teachers as well standing in front of their kids as well right not just for the students of color but also your white students that they also get to practice the opportunity of seeing the full range of adults who demonstrate
097cognitive capacity to do this work right um uh build on the successes of your Affinity spaces for students of color such as Mac Scholars right we we there needs to be more of that as part of your process along the way right um uh and and in particular looking for those identity spaces at um we know that Max Scholars is primarily existing at the secondary level what are the elements of that can live at the elementary level as well because the students also shared in the focus groups when they were doing their own retrospective and when we asked them you know when was your first experience of feeling different all of them could give testimony to experiences in your elementary schools of not only feeling different right but being reminded of being different and for
098some of them they told stories of staying away from other students of color and spending more time with white students because they perceive their perception was and this is their own retrospective that those are the students who are seen as most capable within this in the district so why not hang out with them as well right um and with that those are the recommendations that we are sharing with you all today but again I want to reiterate these recommendations have to be thought about in terms of how do we institutionalize these pieces rather than them being a moment in time in terms of what we're providing students thank you well thank you so much I just want to give around Dr Jordan thank you so much and before we move on to the Q a
099I just also wanted to see if you guys could provide just your overall um summary about the integration initiative I know that was also something that you looked at and if you could just provide that context that would be really helpful I'm smiling because that's the one thing I was just sharing with Jessica and see so I was like I didn't include slides around integration there um so and so thank you so much again for the opportunity to speak on this and um I know over the summer I got a chance to look at all of the documents that you all have had um um with the uh and I'm I'm blanking out on the Consulting Group that's working with you all around the yes yes um so in looking at the um what was
100shared and the the data that they were also looking at a particular concern and I put this in a memo to you all is that um the distribution of enrollment that exists not just in your schools your schools that are your most diametrically different meaning South Mountain and Seth Boyden that what is apparent and you're starting to see it is that your students of color are experiencing the greatest level of movement across the district to achieve the percentages that you're seeking and the concern is in relation to particularly in relation to what we talk about in the report is so what happens to your students of color who are now entering environments where they are being the only one right I I applaud the the and the need for it the integration but I worry
101about the social transitions that are happening for students of color who are entering spaces that historically have not had students of color or that students of color have not been in those spaces at those particular volume right so that's one piece that I included in the report into the memo the second is um um also looking at the patterns of demography that was apparent in the documents that your consultant provided the concern one of the concerns I raised is is there a parallel pattern of integration in housing in your communities meaning and I think there was an example that I provided in there um and that I think the office group also talks about is that they're um there is a if I remember correctly there is a unit a building that's being that's being
102built or was built I can't remember that had X percent that is set aside for um uh lower income individuals who are eligible at that level that my concern is you if you do not have enough of a volume of individuals where they have available housing for them this plan will dissipate in five to ten years because you don't have enough people who will meet the criterias that you are looking for to attain the types of integration that you seek so and I think the point that I made in the memo is there has to be a parallel expectation of integration from the town as well it can't just be the school district that wants integration the community also wants needs to have and want integration right so South Orange Maplewood there has to be
103also a concerted effort and I I you know and that's as far as I want to go with that because I don't know what is or even even if there is a um a plan or an expectation you know for that at least in the documents that I saw I did not see anything to that effect but that's one of the concerns that I raised in the memo as you all are looking towards having this type of integration happen it can't just be the school districts that wants to integrate and if nothing else we learn from the desegregation and integration work that transpired between the 60s and 80s is that it quickly bounce right back because we did not have parallel communities that have the same desires that the school districts had right and that
104is um that's part of what we we have to contend with that we you all live here in this community your community also wants to integrate needs to want to integrate as well so I hope that answers the question thank you very much and before we move on to the Q a portion are there any students here because I just want to make sure I think there was one and they left and if they are here can we just give them the opportunity to just come and do a public speaks or they left okay I am sorry about that I didn't realize but thank you to them for coming so oh go ahead remember valimani uh I'm not clear about the uh the process I mean are we going to be yeah so the board
105will ask questions first so do do any board members at this time have questions for Dr Fergus and his team we'll start with Dr telesford board member Wingfield and I'm sure there'll be more and board member um Deval Wilson sorry thank you for that very thorough presentation and also a very thorough report um I guess I have two major questions um the first is I guess is on finding on paint page eight and to me the main concern is that backlash you talk about the of a uh if the community is not ready for something then no matter what structures or recommendations you have this report can just get thrown in the trash because they'll say no we're going to turn it back so I I guess my question is what kind of systems or
106structures would you suggest families that perceive they're losing something how do we change that attitude you're asking the question that we've been trying to ask for 75 years [Laughter] right that's Endeavor around versus Board is that the expectation that as the schools would make this endeavor the communities would come along right um I think one of the things that you know that as a community you all have available to you are non-profit organizations that are about doing some of this integration work you know my question is the degree to which you know not only sort of those organizations but other parts of a community do they also carry that level of commitment to integration particularly recognizing you know um that that adage um that uh clay Shirkey is sort of uh uh sort of recognized
107for is that when you're accustomed to privilege Equity feels like oppression right where we've organized a system in such a way that those who have the greatest means have been able to access it to serve the needs of their children every parent wants to do that right everybody has always wanted to do that the concern is the the ways in which the system has operated that has um heavily sort of provided greater support and or Allegiance or um uh uh or attention to that to to to to start paying attention to those who we have not requires that there is a um a level of honest dialogue that happens within communities and not in large group these are the small PTA meetings that happen in people's living rooms right these are the conversations that happen
108um uh amongst board members and within their own uh parts of the city these are conversations that happen at the football field right we have to remind our community that what we are able to offer is for all of our kids with a particular attention to those who've been historically underrepresented benefits everyone it has the potential for you know um you know you know recognizing that the need to feel like they belong for black students is also a need that white students want to have for black students as well right that we want to be a community where that we care about sort of the lived experiences of all of our youth that they're having and um so the work to do that I and I'll you know we work in schools our primary emphasis
109is around how do we support School staff to um to do the things that we know are much more Humane in terms of for all of our students the work that happens in the broader Community has to be something that is partnered up with with non-profits it needs to be something that you all pair partner up with your Mayors right like there has to be a a um a layered sort of um support that happens so that you all don't get the backlash by yourselves this has to be something that your Mayors also take on that your non-profits are also taking apart in encouraging this type of partnership to do this work and let's have a another quick um when I also the culture and climate section um it was like reading a biography because
110I went to the school system and there was one section where a student described doing work and then getting a lower grade than other students and I experienced that in eighth grade and I still remember it and so one thing I think is um you mentioned having more black teachers and I would say that sixth and seventh grade math was very important for me because I had black teachers in sixth grade and seventh grade and I think that was kind of like a core Foundation it was like that Oasis that you need to succeed so I guess that was one recommendation I thought was really important I guess what are other areas that you see within education where you have seen successes that this District can help I guess could try to replicate you know
111so part of it that there has to be and we're always trying to uh remind the districts that we support is that it has to be parallel work that's continuously happening right it's the um it's we are and I know it's a big lift for districts to take on multiple efforts at the same time but there has to be a um you know you can't just say oh we're going to fix interventions and math supports but yet your black students are still feeling isolated right like there has to be you can't tell the black students like just wait around we're going to get to you later for you to feel like you belong later it has to be simultaneous in terms of the set of efforts um and so part of what we've seen in
112in the districts that we've supported is that it has to be simultaneous like there's you know they're not taking this on one at a time now I have to say it's a a you know they struggle on multiple levels one is um uh the the people power to be able to do this work effectively to um the appetite that that staff have to do multiple things at the same time right because a lot of Staff will say I got enough on my plate I got too much on my plate we're going to add one more thing right and so there is a uh there's a times we see moments of reluctance to do some of these set of changes um but I I you know I think at the core there has to be a
113curricular restructuring at the core there has to be an intervention restructuring and at the core there has got to be a cultural shift that happens in all of your schools in terms of creating and creating not just Affinity spaces but the space of school has to actually take into consideration the cultural realities of the kids who are showing up in school and it's not just a matter of you know we got Hispanic a Heritage Month going on right now and we put up some nice juicy posters but it's also a matter of that as staff that we are also doing the the work around and developing the types of cultural belonging for kids and that doesn't mean asking kids so tell me about your people but that the adults do the work so that they
114can create those those experiences in school so that our particularly our kids who've historically been underrepresented aren't feeling as if not only they are isolated but they are culturally marginalized within the environments that we're in yes I'll just say that I didn't sit in the back of the class but I sat in the front next to the door so that I could get out quickly all right thanks Dr Fergus and team for the wonderful presentation uh I appreciate the level of precision and Clarity in which in your report and also in your presentation tonight that you have given us a call to action around the need to institutionalize these recommendations through policy uh you know I also am really struck by what you included in sort of the preamble to your recommendations and the final
115draft of the report when you talked about um the need to be able to shift the way our systems and structures in this District are organized so that they are more explicitly focused on tending to the needs of our black black latinx and free and reduced lunch students so something that often comes up when when a district is grappling with making this kind of shift is the the dissonance that that comes when you are met with what often feels like resistance because the adults that are surrounded and in care of this charge are not ready and so you know oftentimes we hear that from the perspective of well we need to shift hearts and Minds first and once we get that then we can sort of shift to the tune of making these big changes
116so I'm curious from your perspective you know what is your perception of the hearts and Minds peace versus the need to put pen to paper and make these changes and you know how do we continue to tend to the capacity that needs to be built ensuring though that we are doing our job to as you asked us to institutionalize these recommendations you know the so the hearts and minds work is um you know it is recognizing that all of us as adults who are in the education space come in with our own um Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot in one of her books she wrote she talked about that parents show up to school with the ghosts from their classroom experiences right I want to stretch that out to that Educators show up to school with the
117ghosts from their classroom experiences right and and I say that because recognizing that you know there is a uh there is a element of sort of human experiences that people are bringing into school and in particular human experiences that are connected to cultural diversity that we all haven't had as I mentioned early on we haven't had a social curriculum as a country to learn how to get along and in the absence of that and having had a range of whether great cross-cultural experiences or not so great cross-cultural experiences meaning some of us may have lived in neighborhoods that were of one racial or ethnic or language group right and some of us may have been raised in communities that were highly diverse some of us may have had our families our Guardians our parents who
118whose best friends or people who they hung out with who they brought to their house were of a range of racial ethnic sort of groups we get opportunities to develop those while and so part of what we have to reconcile is is knowing that all of us are coming in with those layers of baggage and that stuff shows up in school it shows up in one of the pieces of data that we we do a lot of data collection around is we um we survey climate of school particularly of adults in terms of the types of beliefs that they bring into school some of the most pervasive beliefs that we see existing in schools is one color blindness right color blindness belief is the idea of we're all the same there's nothing different about this
119and I don't see color right we know and and there was a purpose why we grew as a country to have that particular belief system because we perceive that that's the best way to avoid racism is that if we just don't see racial differences we will not enact racism I think we have learned now that racism comes from other stuff it's not about what you see or don't see right um we also note that there is uh patterns of deficit thinking belief right meaning Lowered Expectations based on where somebody comes from right the concern is how those pieces of beliefs exist for everyone as they walk into school and as adults and whether or not we actually are being intentional to unpack that stuff so that it doesn't get used for how we are revamping
120inrs for how we are revamping our math curriculum because what we don't want is those set of we know that the math curriculum had already built in their habit of lower expectations and if we are going to revamp that in what we don't want is to also have the belief systems that some adults may carry to also be the thing that they get to play out in the new math curriculum right so the heart's work has to be contended with but it can't be uh we'll do this first and then this it has to be at the same time part of it being and we have learned in terms of our work is recognizing that um not everybody wants to change not every adult adult work is hard adult learning habits are really difficult right
121because we we've kind of cultured ourselves to do the things that we like to do because we like to do them and to start to shift because to shift behaviors means that you're gonna have to change beliefs and that is tough work right you're telling somebody like the way in which you have may have seen the world where we want to help you sort of shift it right especially as we are entering different environments right you know uh we're we're in a moment in which for example in which we are recognizing the complexity of our trans community for as an example and schools are having such a hard time with pronouns with bathrooms right because they're so accustomed to their own Narrative of but this is how we've always done but isn't this how gender
122is isn't this how sex is right we have to be diligent about unpacking and replacing that stuff at the same time that we are redoing our intervention and curricular work it cannot be one first first and then the other we get to work with a lot of principals who will say to us no Eddie uh well let's just fix let's just work on their beliefs first and I'm like yeah but where are they going to practice the beliefs they need to have something new to practice it on so I encourage you all as you're as you're sort of assigning sort of these set of recommendations that you um that you Center not only sort of institutionalizing the policies around recommendations that are around structures but also institutionalizing the recommendation around what it means for you
123all to carry a particular type of equity lens here as a school district right one of the things that we see our districts do often is that they'll go through their own developmental phase of their first Equity statement is about diversity and inclusion and that's just where they are and then much later we'll find that two three four years later now their Equity statement starts shifting to anti-racism because they realize that diversity inclusion is a good starting point but the div what we've learned as a country is that you can talk diversity and still hold uh transphobic racist sexist sort of Notions right so so part of it is like as a community you're going to have to sort of evolve in terms of what's going to be your set of principles that are going
124to be the drivers for how you are going to stay the course around the belief work that needs to happen and the restructuring work around your curriculum your interventions um and your school culture and climate thanks hi thank you so much for all the work that you've done for this district and this great presentation my question is uh about parent involvement you mentioned parent involvement many times as a recommendation um which I think is great it's it's so uh necessary especially um for high school students and um so as I was reading your recommendation and also looking at how the district plans to implement some of these things it's not clear to me yet how the district is going to improve and track family involvement um for example one of your recommendations was parents being
125involved with maths course selection and their supports for their children and so I want to know if you have any best practices to share especially since we've heard antidotes back to school night at Columbia High School the AP classrooms filled with parents mostly white parents and then the lower level classes are pretty empty and that's where the bulk of our black students are so any advice you can give us would be great thank you so the parent piece is interesting because there's an element around for example um in the math selection the math right so that parents have a choice you know and I love that notion of choice but there's a danger in that choice because not all of us show up to the choice table having the same sets of tools to know
126how to activate the choice right so the idea of parents having a choice of being able to select which math courses their kids can be involved in is great for the parents who know and understand the types of math sequences that they want their kids exposed to for the parents who do not they just they're showing up to the choice table asking their kid hey which math do you want okay all right we're doing that math right they're not coming in and and this is not to um you know we have to be careful about how we play out this idea of choice with parents because we can't just presume that there's equality in choice we all are going to be activating you know and I think about you know as a parent myself when
127my kids they were struggling in math right I took them to Mathnasium and I learned what my kids weren't getting so I could go back and I advocated for something different I had means to go get Mathnasium I had means to know how to advocate for something different right and that shouldn't have to be the so my ability to enter a choice conversation is going to be very different from a parent who does not have those types of means and so I want us to be careful about sort of when we as we're talking about parent involvement and particularly parent involvement from a framework of choice let's not pretend like choices equal for everyone let's actually sort of create you know we have to be attention around um I am blanking on her name right
128now she's at Harvard she did all this research Karen map thank you I'm like Karen's going to kill me um so right Karen Maps work I think is amazing in terms of and and Karen's done this work for decades on what does good parent involvement look like but in particular for populations that historically have been ostracized from the systems right so the ways in which for example families are able to activate special education services because they have means to be able to know whether to show up with an advocate and that Advocate can be a lawyer at times get very different provisions and actions from a district than a parent who is walking in saying I'm relying on your scientific uh ex work to provide the best set of supports for my kids right so
129I think in terms of the work that needs to happen around parent involvement you know starting with you know the seven essential elements that Karen Mapp talks about you know she has 20 years of research behind that you know to really that could be uh that are blueprints to really do this work yeah um I'd also add that when so when I was working in schools I was um an AP for like School culture and so one of the things I pushed my school to do was to think critically about the ways that we measure parent engagement so if we're just using back to school night as the marker then we can it can look like parents are not involved or disinterested and so I think it's really important to really expand the ways that
130we're measuring that and to also Imagine new ways to engage families particularly connecting to what Dr Fergus was talking about in um parents really carrying the ghosts of their school experience so in the same way that students here are describing marginalization I would posit parents probably feel something similar when they come in there's something in the air if their children are experiencing that and they're also probably carrying those things home with them those stories they're in the report but they also are living in the homes in your community and so I think it's important to really start to try to reimagine okay I have three questions so the first is about the interventions um I believe it was in your 2020 presentation you talked about your time here in the district as a consultant and
131this predates the BPW settlement um and I remember you talking about what you just described as far as South South Mountain and Seth Boyden and the different interventions that are available um and so I guess my question to you is have you seen some nominal changes around interventions from 2017 to date where we're seeing more of a standardization across our elementary schools and then the interventions the tiered Bank of interventions that you reviewed as part of this eight-month project did it include like the most up-to-date tiered interventions that are currently available because you do mention some concerns about compliance or meeting the standards of the NJ doe and I just want to understand like where we get to a point where not only is it standardized but that we're offering effective interventions for our students
132and in your professional opinion like how long does that take so that's just my first question so um so in terms of the intervention you know so one um the uh in terms of seeing differences over time you know the I think the January 23 Memo from the superintendent I think was really poignant to kind of remind Leadership School leadership hey you've got to work on these things these are the things that we've got to make changes around and then we looked at those areas when we looked at the documents that the schools provided to us of this this this past school year right and and and really compared it to that memo to say well wait a second district leadership is saying we've got to make these improvements and then I looked we looked
133at the forms to see well are we seeing are we seeing um particular sort of improvements in those areas and there was inconsistencies between uh and maybe why the memo was so important right to really highlight remind School leadership you're expected to be making these changes but they weren't reflected in the documents that we reviewed for this report two in terms of interventions um you know one of the things that we we spent a little bit of time talking about it in the report um what in the few examples where we saw whenever we whenever we provide interventions there's a need that a kid has so let's say they're struggling with decoding again they're supposed to get an intervention the intervention should have a particular it should be a research-based intervention that is provided at
134over a particular period of time and we know who's giving it and there's a particular dosage to which that is happening those elements of information were not always available on those forms they either weren't asked for or they were not included which begs the question as to the degree to which um the system is organized in such a way that you're able to consistently pay attention to what do we give them how often did we give them and did it work so when a kid ends up on after six weeks of getting something we're not exactly sure if they got what they were supposed to get in relation to the need that they demonstrated because the documents didn't them themselves weren't asking or didn't document or carry that type of information and so it's those
135levels of inconsistencies that we've we've really got to shore up but they're all elements that are existing in the the njdoes guidance document that came out in 2007 is a 423 page document right it is Beefy right it's got a lot of stuff in there that can provide guidance around and just as a side note the department is coming out with a new guidance and updated guidance around inrs um uh to again to sort of provide uh further streamlining you know we've we're we we have a project with njdoe that is connected to supporting that set of efforts as well thank you um the next question is regarding instructional coaches so I think it was in 2020 your recommendation was to introduce instructional coaching to the district um and I think at this time now
136we've hired four which is great I just don't know if part of your research you had the opportunity to connect with instructional coaches and sort of measure the impact or see if it's aligned with what your vision was as far as the role that they would play in The District uh no we weren't able to as part of our inquiry this time to connect with instructional coaches I'm glad to hear that that is part of the um the of what's available to deepen the capacity of of Staff you know one of the things we're always very mindful around teacher preparation is that we don't prepare teachers enough to keep growing as in as instructors and it really takes it really requires the school districts to build in coaching to ensure that staff are getting better
137around their craft right so right well we didn't explicitly look at coaches there may or may not have been coaches in the focus groups but we can't disclose that so but yeah we didn't it that wasn't an explicive Point explicit point of research and then my final question is part of the three-year monitoring plan um there'll be quarterly meetings and one of you folks will attend are you going to have a standing person and if so who that would be or will it shift between the three of you or uh that will be me okay thank you okay great and that's all I oh okay we have two more do you want to go first okay foreign so I mean to me this was a pretty hard-hitting presentation because naively I thought all problems started
138in middle school or high school but when you presented data for third grade and how far behind you know groups are in math I mean that's that is pretty disheartened so so maybe we need you know Dr Fergus to come back every year and make this presentation to the ever-changing board so that way the forward that we and the willingness that feeds this board as you know does not diminish over time so that's like just a comment I wanted to make and the question I have for Dr Fergus is mine is more of a practical question right I mean so the board settlement with black parents Workshop you know has a paragraph number three that enumerates four points you know three a three B three c three D each one doing that and you have
139recommendations for that so my question to you is in your opinion have you provided appropriate recommendations for all the four line items um uh I provided recommendations around those pieces that were specifically um in the agreement my name was attached to so I made it a point to just pay particular attention to those areas I know that there's other pieces that were in there um you know one of the things I try to you know um I've had the the the opportunity to be involved in a lot of these different types of agreements and I've learned stay in my Lane so I've stayed within my Lane of the elements that were in the in in the agreement so yeah thank you yeah and I have a quick question for Dr Taylor I mean if you
140if you don't mind is given the same paragraphs paragraph three Dr Fergus has provided recommendations for does the district have implementation plans and approximate timelines for the four line items three a three B three C and 3D yes sir yes we do and um it'll be available to the public shortly thank you so you know thank you for both the answers so that at least in my view we are not compliant with the settlement terms that we have entered you know the implementation and monitoring phase so that's kind of a big achievement in itself and this is a great time to continue the partnership and ensure that the implementation happens the way we all expect it to happen right and also you know just talking to Dr Taylor I'm in the district along with the
141board created a one-pager which actually live you know has a very small limited scope that has these line items with the recommendations the implementation and the timeline all on one page so that way you know for the non-educators and non-lawyers you know like me it's easy to follow right and as he said he's made public and I also hope that the presentation and the audit report is made public thank you may I uh so we've asked Patrick just do one last review of it as soon as he's done it'll be on the access and Equity tab as well as the board presentation tab well thank you Dr Fergus I'm not happy to see you because that means some work wasn't done you're back and I'd really like to know um I have a few questions
142and I enjoyed your report I didn't I didn't feel good about it this is a horrible report you tried to put it as nicely as you could we appreciate that because here in South Orange and Maplewood we try to do the things that we need to do and I'm gonna tell you we come out with lots of things with beautiful words oh it's so lovely on paper and nothing gets done and as a result you're back again why are you back explain that to me why did we call you back I like to know um we are back because um there are elements of the agreement that weren't completely fulfilled from the last report um data that was we were unable to collect um from the last round and um if I remember correctly I
143think the the monitor requested that um that we are brought back to complete that um that's to gather all of that uh information that was um were uh we did not gather the first time around and um and ensure that every element of the agreement we actually had an opportunity to speak to right in terms of this this particular report so that's that's uh that's the reason why we we're back here again so we have six years to do a three-year agreement sounds like we're kicking the can down the road um my question to you here the second question is there have been a few news stories about improvement with the achievement Gap at Columbia High School what did your review and Analysis find regarding the achievement Gap challenges there um you know and so
144I've I've briefly read some of that stuff as well um you know our curiosity would be in terms of the closing of the achievement Gap is in um you know one of the things that you know in statistics we always talk about that average can hide a lot right and so being able to pull apart um where are we seeing the greatest closing of the achievement Gap because there probably is right and my curiosity would be is it in particular content areas particular grade levels right in which we are seeing those um the closing of the achievement Gap that is existing and between which groups right so make sure that as we tell this Testament of where we are seeing potential or promise of closing the achievement Gap that we understand where and how it's
145happening but also recognizing that there may be areas in which we are not closing the achievement Gap right and and I say that only not having looked at the data here in South Orange Maplewood but having seen this pattern and across a lot of districts that we have worked with is that um uh that there is there's always a level of ebb and flow in terms of where we're seeing the the nature of the achievement Gap that gets closed and um and so for example you know some of the areas in words that I see the achievement Gap closing are in Humanities courses in language arts courses particularly social studies but we don't see the same Gap closing in your math and sciences um right so you know I I it's I'm sorry my microphone
146you know what people don't like to hear me talk they just turn you know listen and we all need to stretch too we've been sitting quite a long time I don't know about y'all but I'm getting a little you know what I'm saying but what are we going to do about the math you know so math there there has to be a math curricular restructuring right and so and so a couple of levels one is that there has to be a um a vertical alignment of what exists so what does um what elementary is lining kids up for in terms of math has to um not just the line but complement what middle school is starting to do in terms of supporting kids and and subsequent moving into High School you know two uh there
147has to be a curricular audit that pushes and we talk about this in the report that we are expanding the essential questions the understanding questions and the learning standards that have been plugged in for the curriculum um for in particular at the middle school level if I remember correctly I think you all have you all are at you have a new curriculum at the elementary level right the Middle School curriculum which we paid particular attention to we that had some of the greatest levels of um as as we presented of lowered cognitive expectations and work and so the lift that has to happen is not in terms of that vertical alignment is Shifting the the standards the understanding questions and the essential questions which means then the instructional capacity has to then also match that
148because if we don't also build the muscle of the staff to know how to ask higher order questions to do higher order work that new curriculum is not going to matter or have an impact right so that just that curricular work has to pair up with strong instructional support work which in some ways this is where you know your coaches the work that you have or the coaches that you do have can be instrumental in being that scaffold for the adults because not all you know we you know we have learned we've we do a lot of classroom observations and there are times where we recognize that um part of the pattern of of higher order questioning right meaning um that sometimes adults ask remember and recall questions because that's their comfortability and so it
149may also involve that the professional development is about stretching the cognitive work of the adults that are working with our kiddos as well well thank you sugar thank you um Dr Fergus thank you for the presentation tonight the final report thank you to your team for the work that you've done and you know we'll have you for a couple more years um my question uh you mentioned and I I apologize I can't remember if it was in response to Dr tellersford or board member Wingfield but you talked about how do we support School staff the work needs to be simultaneous you know it's the people power and it's the appetite from the staff and in one of your findings I think it was Finding two there was a teacher that said you know even when
150they are trying they don't know what to do that they don't have the resources I'm just curious um you know if you have best practices to share as to how all that can happen simultaneously because you know at the end of the day thinking about from the board perspective we institutionalize all this in policy right but it's what happens in the classroom with our kids with our students that really matters the most and if staff isn't feeling supported and doesn't have the appetite like you said really what does it all mean so we'd love to hear more about that you know one of the things that we um Talk extensively with our districts is um is you have to Stage implementation meaning you can't start something new in September and expect to be at full
151maturity by December you gotta give it time because you have to consider the human factor meaning adult learning habits um and so part of what we are are constantly paying attention to is is the nature to which you provide professional development for staff has to be um and there's this great research this is this this research that talks about that if I'm I'm gonna make sure I get this correct that more often than not we do professional development for staff that is lecture based meaning what I call the spray and pray approach we spray a whole bunch of knowledge and pray that somebody does something with it right right that lecture-based approach doesn't work right and it talks about the it it measures sort of like there being about a 10 sort of um absorption
152rate that happens with adults and it goes down and basically says that you have you have to have a combination of professional development that happens for adults who are starved for wanting to do more who are starved for the resources so it has to be a combination of lecture modeling practice and coaching right it all has to be occurring for staff it can't just be we give it to them and say okay go do it we got to give them an opportunity to see it in practice to model it for you and also model it for others and and B and C models of it and as well as experience coaching right because it is a learning process that we're also having adults do and so um and there's such great exampling of of doing
153that now it is difficult work when there's so many different types of mandates some of them unfunded mandates that you will have to do then unfortunately you know uh principles are you know are are spinning their wheels at times because they're having to fit everything in and but they're also having to fit it in when they don't have enough time in front of their staff right when they only have 35 minutes once every couple of weeks to actually do any professional development with staff right so there has to be a balance to which we are intentional about carving or stealing the time that is most meaningful for adults to become the better the best instructional scientists in front of your kids right um for us to see the types of impacts that we want so
154we know there's there's great examples of doing it it's just a matter of do we have enough structures and resources to be able to bring it to fruition can I ask a question to follow up on that do you think that um um K-5 math and reading um intervention teachers working directly with students um would be more effective than the instructional coaches um I think they I don't know if it's more effective because they each play a different role like the coaches help the teacher be more intentional about how to be surgical about what they do right so the coach's work is working with the adult to be better with the kids right and um you know I would never you know but that always has to be appearing because not everybody is um you
155know and I learned this you know um recognizing that not every not every teacher is built to know how to provide intervention supports but every teacher can be nurtured to be better intervention supports for kids in their classrooms so we have to strike the balance of supporting and building up the competencies for those who need it the most who are in front of our kids who need us the most right hi Dr Fergus thank you so much for you and your team's work um like Dr Tellis Ford I am a product of the district and um you know and like him I navigated various levels I was in level twos where I was the only white kid and I was in level fours where there was only one or two black kids um you know
156and so you know to some um it would seem as if existing inequities are just messing up a good strategy right like we all we do learn uh at you know different abilities right like I just wasn't that good at math but I accelerated in English so varying ability right um to others though it would seem that it's working just as it was designed with to segregate our students right and I remember for a Sociology class I had this great teacher Mr Rodriguez and he challenged me to actually ask a teacher to sit in on one of you you know a level four and a level two and you know in the level two I mean he was enticing this this teacher was enticing kids to to read by giving them candy right and so
157there was this really low bar um and so I just wanted to know you know your your opinion you know is it is it unrealistic you know to like like you know when I see that we need to increase the rigor in the lower level you know I I'm I'm sure I I agree with that but is the is the lower level itself setting that expectation and I know I'm trust me I'm touching the third rail here you know what I mean um but but these are really questions that have lingered with me um I graduated in 2004. and you know to me it was very the the route was systematic right that we had a design in place that you know we put the low Achievers together and we put the highest Achievers together
158is that in and of itself enforcing you know a kind of uh de facto segregation or is it unrealistic to think that we can do it any other way you know so I think there's a it's interesting because part of what I think you're describing is also there's this sort of this Mantra that I think we exist in in particular in education is the you know kids who learn particular way let's put them all together right and it'll be easier for the adult but the reality is that it's not good for kids right it's not about so some of these Comforts I think you're alluding to are for the comfort of the adults but they're not good for kids right so to so if you think about you know the opportunities that we get where
159we have learned the best we've been in spaces where we get to interact with a range of people who think differently about stuff you know one of the things that I'm constantly sort of amazed by with the team that I get to work with is that we there's a level of we don't do group thinking right we're not thinking the same because we all bring different facets of experiences and I think what's what we need to be mindful of and not to be too worried about is that having heterogeneous groupings in classrooms um is going to be a lift for the adults but it's what kids need for their learning exposure meaning that which some of us have suffered through in terms of being segregated academically segregated because I think that's what you're describing academic
160segregation we want to do better for our kids so they don't also get the limited sort of exposure points of having that type of academic segregation quick example um the first time I actually engaged here in South Orange Maplewood was in 2017-2018 school year where the school district the superintendent at the time was part of a Panasonic Foundation project and I happen to be uh good colleagues with the president of Panasonic Foundation at the time and he invited me he said Eddie I want you to come on this equity walk that we're doing of Columbia High School I didn't know Columbia High School I knew nothing and I said I'd be happy to it's a good colleague so I show up and I joined the walk and and I'm walking with the superintendent at the
161time and we had our own each had our own schedule we walked into a classroom a um a French two class walked in I don't know French sounded great to me right it just so happens and I'm listening and the students are phenotypically black and I'm hearing them talk and I'm like are they Asian Creole right like I'm listening I'm like wait a second I've heard that accent before I'm like this is fascinating the next classroom we go to is directly across the hall during the same time block it's French to honors again they're talking French I don't understand sounds great to me they're all white my concern at that time was wondering how did we arrive at having that type of setup where you had kids who have a base a linguistic based that
162they're obviously able to converse seamlessly in the context of their classroom in French too or weren't in French to honors and I asked that question very directly to a superintendent in the hallway how did this happen because this is not accidental the ways in which we grew into students who have a linguistic base to be in French too and are not in French to honors but your white students at that time were in French two honors right so uh Mike you know we have to really consider and recognize that the improvements that we have to do in terms of integration that are best for our kids for the society that we promised ourselves 75 years ago that we wanted to create right that we need to do that work for them rather for the rather
163than the comforts of adults which is part of what may be playing a role in terms of why we all have stories of academic segregation I also think there's something to um I remember teaching and I remember um I would do a self-interrupt if students started talking while I was teaching I would be in the middle of a sin and students like no no Mr Barnes go ahead they don't want to learn and so I would stop and be like who said they didn't want to learn they just want to talk that doesn't mean they don't want to learn and so I think when we structure classes where there are students who are on a lower track and it's visible everyone sees it in schools I've worked at they've been like those are the red
164kids those kids are green and then the students like I'm in the red group so then they're like okay we're gonna change it blue and green what is it now and so when those things are visible to children when they're aware they then form opinions about the students who are not in their track four and they're like oh those students They Don't Care About Learning they don't want to and so I think that actually is something that's challenging because as you think about the Personnel recommendation you all could be your own Personnel your District could feed itself but if you're under serving historically underserved children how do those students then step into your classrooms and become the ones who are leading your District if we're chronically underserving them and so I think there's something to
165think about when we think about placement in that regard as well because then they're in the front of the room reefying A system that is hierarchical think I think the invited guests are Community Representatives if any of you folks have questions for Dr Fergus and his team um feel free to raise your hand and you can ask them all right hi thank you Dr Fergus and your colleagues my name is Vicki Bond I live in South Orange I am the VP of Dei for CPAC which stands for the special education parent advisory committee and I'm the mother of an autistic third grader in our district who has received interventions like speech and occupational therapy for years before I ask my questions I'd like to provide a bit of context from your report Dr Fergus so
166number one your executive summary States black students were consistently 80 to 90 percent more likely compared to all others to be identified with a disability in your presentation you explain that that's actually a hundred percent uh number two forty to fifty percent of the intervention and referral services referrals are transferred to the child study teams and they primarily involve black students and number three on page 117 you state that a positive perception is emerging among white families about special education resources while black families are stigmatized by special education classification because so many black children are receiving interventions in our district that you conclude in your report may not be adequate here are my questions what recommendations do you have for increasing Equitable family engagement in special education for the South Orange Maplewood school district for
167a black and latinx parents and caregivers and two what recommendations do you have for how the district can evaluate the efficacy and Equity of special education programming along the lines of race thank you Vicki for that question for those questions and for the context piece of it um you know first in terms of um you know what we did in terms of the data particularly to special education what we didn't do was we didn't dive into special education per se in terms of the quality of what's being offered in special education services right first I want to I want to make sure I say that um and uh mostly because we you know we had so much data that we had to look through we knew that that was an area we couldn't tackle right
168um and uh but it doesn't mean that it's not an area that also should be looked specifically at right um in terms of your question regarding sort of parent involvement in terms of you know how what are the touch points of improvement specifically around special education services you know they're you know there is um you know part of what transpires unfortunately is that there are and I'm trying to remember which report if it was the first report the second report uh maybe mixing things up now um but I do remember when we spoke to families because we it was the first no it was the second report I'm sorry um we actually had an opportunity to talk to families and one of the things that was apparent was that um that black families that uh
169talk to us shared that they that there was a clear um ways in which Services were being sought or extra Services were insured or a particular disability category was provided when families showed up with particular types of additional advocates um for example legal advice or or lawyers within those uh meetings that changed the trajectory of what happened so you had black families that shared that teachers also shared who were who could give um who shared that they were in some of those child study team meetings also talked about how um uh those with greater means and were able to provide or bring in additional Advocates had very different outcomes than families who did not and so the concern is that that we have to pay attention to um the those teams whether it's the child
170study team and I would even go as far as that the inrs team as well that how they are bringing parents in that there is an intentional habit of what we are asking and expecting for parents and offering them that is Equitable meaning that there is going to need to be a way in which we are in providing a hot um a more uh sort of adequate and extensive support for families who may not have the means to be able to have additional set of Advocates sitting in front of them right and supporting sort of the parents asking the questions right I've been in communities where um um one particular District that we're working with now where um uh they have um in and they have these Community meetings in in certain parts of the
171community where they train the parents on understanding special education before any conversation happens they talk to the parents about what is special education what you have a right to ask for and give them a script for when you if you are asked to show up for a child study team meeting or an IRS meeting these are the questions you should be asking us of us right um to ensure that that they were in that particular District they're arming the parents with a particular knowledge base to really support them in in being successful um and it's not um in that particular District they are targeting their black and latinx Community because um and you know um and your data speaks a little bit to this that there are different special education disability categories that white students
172are getting that your black and Latin next kids are getting different ones right so um so I you know so I recommend that part of the work that happens around the parent or involvement piece and uh particular special education is that there is an attention to making sure that we are building up the muscle of communities who don't um don't have the means right to have those levels of Advocates who know what questions to ask how to push for a particular set of services so I hope that answers your question yeah you're good Dr Ferguson thank you so much for coming and providing us with all this information and I'm happy that you came back again I am back again my name is Vicki Johnson Vicki another Vicki I live in South Orange and I've
173been living here for over 30 years and I attended a board meeting back in March to express my disgust and horrible neglect by South Orangewood School District concerning the lack of educational services for my granddaughter as a minority IEP student and at that meeting I was informed by the principal hello okay then my granddaughter is educational and psychological needs will be evaluated by the school district as of this date nothing has changed only the only worse with neglect for the South Orange Maplewood School District concerning my granddaughter as a minority and the IEP student as a summary of events for you from last year she was given marijuana brownies by several students who are a student at Columbia and was taking the Saint Barnabas Hospital and several students continued to physically and psychologically her harass
174her at school she was taken out of Columbia because of the Hostile and healthy environment and given home instruction the home instructor never received any communication about mandated course subjects from the IEP superintendent Susie or the Columbia teachers she was supposed to be transferred to an Allied District school but the IEP Department never completed the process and now she's been out of school for over six months six months from last year without any written communication by the school district concerning her educational status or transfer as mandated by law as an IEP student during the summer she did receive some limited home instruction but again based on the home instructors educational plan now Columbia's and still no communication between the home instructor the IEP Department concerning her core subjects and the standards of her grade level
175for September she's still out of school at this point and Mr Taylor the principal the iep's department superintendent and the supervisory staff should be fired immediately for neglect in psychological trauma that my granddaughter had experienced based on their incompetence and the board members or sent documents on a regular basis concerning all the incidents I have discussed now the question is before I leave before I leave tonight what is the resolution for my granddaughter thank you very much thank you so much Dr Ferguson um this part of the Q a is specifically for Community representatives to ask questions of Dr Fergus but what you spoke to is we'll put that into record as part of the public speaks and oh well I I would say you know I think it's you know I appreciate you know
176I hear your um the concern right as to your child getting the right set of services and I think you're you're right to raise the questions and and to continue to ask when is it going to happen um you know there is there are provisions and I'm sure the school board knows and the superintendent you know they're all trying to you know um they're aware we'll let Dr Taylor respond in public speaks thank you so much do any of our community representative uh Dr Diane Hughes hello um I want to join in sort of thanking you for the work that you've done here and for your very thorough presentation so um I've been a parent in this District I moved I have been here since 1986 and blah blah blah blah blah um and so
177one of the observations I have about the report you gave is that our district you know the story that you told about our district can be told about District after District after District after District across the country and can also be told about this District in 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 whatever and yet there are ways in which um you know we as a district see ourselves as being different than other districts you know um we have been working on Equity issues for decades we've had consultants in including your Mentor Pedro you know we've who've come with recommendations for things that the board should do and things that schools should do differently we are a district where people families intentionally move here because of its diversity the it's a district where many of the black
178parents not all of them but many of them are very well educated they're you know they've gone through Elite schools themselves and so um I really have two questions one is uh in your work um did you do you have any sense of what the prior barriers have been based on recommendations that prior Consultants have come that who've come in and done the same kind of work right do you have any sense of like any kind of barriers to change in a district that really is motivated to change um that might be different than other districts really I have three questions um the second is like are there any ways in which you see levers or points of change that are different for us than might be the case for you know uh Newark or
179New York City or other places where you may have worked and um the third one just slipped my mind so if you answer the first two maybe I'll remember the third question thanks thank you um thank you for your questions you know so in terms of the in terms of the barriers right you know part of what we see often is that there is um there is always a level of high energy around knowing the thing that we want to do but that's always balanced with having the right people sitting in the right seats to be able to do that thing right um and I know this District's had you know um you know have has had sort of leadership changes over the last five six years right and I think you know Dr Taylor's
180been here what four years now or so right I think there is something to be said about a stability uh Dr Gilbert's been here now a couple of years one year oh wow right um I know Adam bartner's been here but she's in a new role right and so my point being is like part of what happens around the barriers piece is you know we've got to have the right people sitting in the right seats and the rights and also the school board that is ready and poised to do the work and particularly institutionalizing it work right that no matter whatever shifts occur um you know there also has to be an attention to nurturing the appetite among the school staff who are the who are going to live this day in and day out
181right and um and and I know that the you know you know one of the uh benefits that I had around the first report was being able to walk classrooms with the principals at all the elementary schools and getting a sense of sort of at least a little bit of sort of what's the instructional energy that's happening what's the type of Engagement that staff have and I know that there is what appeared there was a great deal of sort of great deal of um desire right a great deal of will my curiosity was around the skill that exists right and in particular I think um there is a desire for greater skill development right so I think we have to be attentive to the types of that that is another barrier that we have to
182contend with that we have to take earnestly what it means to actually really build the skills of folks you know and as I mentioned before it can't just be lecture based PD for staff staff actually don't like lecture based they want coaching they want modeling right they want to see the stuff in action to know how to do the thing right um in terms of the levers right that to be able to activate I think there is um you know it's interesting South Orange Maplewood is a very interesting Community you're right it's a place where people want to go to I remember reading years ago the New York Times article about Maplewood right um and and I you know I was like oh this is an interesting place right that is that landed on the
183New York Times as like a this little um Shangri-La of cultural diversity where folks have their lawn signs appreciating loving diversity but yet having systems that maintain academic segregation right and so I think there is a lever of drawing on that desire for diversity to move it into a moral imperative of a system that serves everyone right that goes beyond the lawn signs but really encourages us to to support our the school board to to institutionalize this to expect that there be a level of institutionalizing to support your District leadership to move these pieces down much further than just a report because we've written we've written a lot of reports right and that I don't know I I you know um you know and and I did talk to Pedro years ago and I said
184oh you know I said Pedro your name came up in South Orange Maplewood right um and he's he vaguely remembered right you know um and you know and so the concern is always the we always have the concern that we can do these nice juicy reports and have these very poignant presentations but what's the next stage where people move where are folks moving around this I think it's important to add some context to to the question um what's different this time is that one we have Dr Fergus and his team who have to your point been here for years reviewing analyzing the data from this District so you know the Fingerprints of this District very well the second piece which has never happened before although we call your recommendations recommendations they're actually requirements by contract
185So based upon the BPW settlement with the school district every single quote unquote recommendation by Dr Fergus must be completed to the satisfaction of Justice John Wallace former New Jersey Supreme Court judge who will be the Arbiter of whether or not the school district is in compliance with the requirements of Dr Fergus and there will be quarterly meetings between the school district personnel and BPW to see how the progress is going so that is the biggest difference between then and now is that before it was a recommendation with some commitment partial commitment no follow-through some follow-through now there's a federal court involved so if the compliance piece is not completed we BPW have the option to go before a federal judge and request that the district comply we don't want to come to that which
186goes back to your piece Dr Fergus of do we have the right personnel with the commitment to make this thing work for the kids that's what it's all about if we don't we may end up back in court if we do you won't hear from us full stop thank you for that other principal Lynn Irby yes so I as always I want to thank you Dr Fergus for the work that you do it's a little disheartening because I'm hearing the sounds and the gasp as if this is new news we've been talking about this since I was a kid in this District I've been sitting at that table discussing the very same things um I just want to make one clarification with the idea of instructional coaches they are not what you think they are
187our instructional coaches no no I mean in the traditional sense of because I was a literacy coach before as a principal I cannot say this teacher needs work with classroom management so coach can you go in or she needs help with questioning and discussion techniques the teacher has to ask for that help so so often the teacher doesn't know what they don't know so it's it's it's a falsehood and you know I'm one of those people that are going to say what is um I thought I'm very happy that you brought up that all the people the right people have to be on the bus and the work has to be done by everyone so even the board that's sitting here has to be willing to as I always say confront the brutal facts and
188begin to say what is it because this is not new news and so to look at the faces of people as if this is shocking we have been failing black and brown kids for decades and it continues and it continues and until we're really so this report is incredible but unfortunately like you said it's not new news thank you principal that's yeah um Christine houseworth I'm from the achieve foundation and um we've been looking a lot at what can we do at the younger grades like what what ideas do you have because if they're failing I mean if there's such a discrepancy by third grade then you know we need to do something in pre-k so I'm wondering what ideas you have there um you know there's uh one of the things that has happened
189over the last 10 years in particular and probably most earnestly of the last five years has been an attention to what's The Learning Experience that's happening in preschool um and even going into sort of daycare settings settings right and from the vantage point of what are the types of exposure points that we are giving our kids right um that is about providing them the best footing for their next trajectory right um and we haven't always done that consistently you know and um you know I I learned um my wife during the de Blasio Administration she was Deputy Commissioner over all Child Care settings in New York City and one of the things that I learned from her was the amount of the the amount of sort of low quality types of settings that kids who
190and whose families met the poverty threshold were consistently exposed to not because they are of lesser cognitive ability but just how we have set up are the ways in which we do things right so as as gentlemen was describing is there a way in which we have created these processes to intentionally under resource right that I think we have to pay attention to uh improving that the quality of what our kids are getting that's being made available to them um in in those settings but in additionally um what's the goodness of instruction and who is it targeting in those early grades meaning if you have kids who are showing up to school where families have been providing levels of Kumon as they enter School what we may think is or see and I and I
191I can give testimony to because some of the other districts we worked with where um it what may look like oh kids are coming in here more prepared or this is what they should be looking like we end up comparing kids to to kids who are actually reflecting means of their families who are giving them additional supports versus noting where they are at in terms of where we are sort of The Benchmark sort of supports two the types of intervention supports so I'm going to go back to this you know um if we can't if we aren't getting it right within that K3 band particularly around math and reading specifically and I'm going to go even heavier on reading without ever looked at your reading data like that's one area we did not touch but
192a particular concern if you if kids aren't getting um the depth of reading capacities by the time they're in third grade then we are shortchanging their reading development over time in particular fluency phonemic awareness phonics and then comprehension we don't get particularly those first three rights right and that for me has a concern around whether the interventions we got because I want to presume that there is gaps but we've got to have interventions to Shore that up but then two what's the goodness of the curriculum that is phonics based right um you know for those who are aware of sort of the reading Dynamic that's happening in this country right that we're finally recognizing oh my goodness we weren't teaching reading rights we all knew that because you can't learn to read just by having
193a whole bunch of spelling words right you actually have to know how to decode and so what's concerning is families who have means we're able to Shore that up I did that with my my uh my oldest who's Now 23 when he was in third grade they were asking can we evaluate him because he's not reading well and I knew what the problem was they weren't teaching phonics so what did I do I hired a private tutor and lo and behold grades four five and six he met or exceeded the state assessment benchmarks for reading because I fixed the curriculum issues by having means my concern is what are the fixes that need to happen to ensure that we aren't creating that problem with our kiddos in that K3 or preschool to Three band so
194I've been sitting here just processing this all uh first of all I want to thank you for your work and you know your work validates our litigation we began this journey about four years ago when we filed this Federal lawsuit black parents Workshop and tonight I'm sitting here thinking about my daughter who is the reason why a black parents Workshop exists because as an eighth grade student she was tracked into a remedial Math course and she is now in her third year of Law School and public policy School pursuing a JD and a master's in public policy I've got a couple of things on my mind because part of what I am not concerned about is anyone's hearts and Minds we can't fix that I'm concerned about your responsibility under the law to educate black
195children and so I don't want anyone thinking that we're going to do some mind meld and try to change people's hearts and Minds you know who the biased Personnel are in this school district you know who the bias teachers are in the school district get rid of them it's not hard to fix this and yes this occurs across the country I am a school board member in one of the largest school districts in this country 136 000 students 20 000 staff 200 schools three billion dollar school budget and I chair the policy and governance committee and I oversee our Equity work you have to be intentional about this and what's happened in this community and this district for decades you have known this problem existed and you've allowed it to persist and so while I
196am thankful for the work of Dr Fergus and his team I didn't travel three and a half hours to be here tonight to simply walk away feeling good that you now have the evidence James was polite I'm not going to be polite we had a settled agreement for three years we've just extended that for another three years and I will tell you what will happen after the next three years if this is not fixed we will see you in a federal courtroom and I will ask for heaven and hell to Reign upon the school district because what has happened here is in the terms of what my grandmother used to say it's shameful how can you purport to be a community that is Progressive and that supports equity and you treat black children in the
197way that you have and if I if I sound angry I am angry because what I heard tonight is what we told you four years ago and everyone called us everything but a child of God because we filed this lawsuit and so tonight I just came I really came here just to vent I'm going to be perfectly honest I missed the opening of a brand new school in my school district we're opening six new schools this year and we've got six more new schools on the way I missed the opening of a new school because I wanted to come here and vent and that's shameful because I shouldn't have to do that we have got to get to a point that we're honest and what's been missing in this community is honesty every time we
198bring this up there's another excuse first you tried to blame the black children for not wanting to exceed and succeed in school then you tried to blame black parents you got to shoulder this one you have to take this hit because it's on you and it's on this entire Community it's on both local governments that have allowed this to happen it's on the Realtors who have also tracked people into neighborhoods in this community it's on former school board members who sat here and saw the evidence and did nothing about it it's about superintendents who sat in that seat and did nothing about it It's gotta end and if it doesn't end it's going to cost you because before we didn't ask for much we just said fix it support your own children people claim we
199were looking for money we looked for no money all we said was help the children that you are legally required to educate it's that simple so even when I hear some of the questions tonight I question if you have the courage to do this if you have the will to do this because it's not hard it's all there the data's all there and when I see some of the data it should make everyone in this community ashamed how can you have a situation where you have black students who are literally being navigated in a special education when you have students who are locked into a less rigorous class knowing that they will never have the opportunity to even think about going to college this is sick you got to do better and I know this
200was supposed to be a question but I'm sorry I'm taking privilege here as the organization that is responsible for this band being here and let me also clear something up he's back because we went to the monitor knowing that he wasn't getting the data he needed to complete his work that's why he's back and so if we're gonna if we're going to begin this we're going to begin it with honest discussion and and the last point I want to say we are not in litigation with the South Orange Maplewood School District that's over we have a settlement agreement so there should be no further issue of black parents Workshop communicating with this board because we're quote unquote in litigation we're not in litigation we have a signed settlement agreement and we should be at the
201point of constant communication for three years I kept hearing well we can't talk about that because we're in litigation that's a lie and you've even done it to one of your board members and so I want to be clear because I'm not coming up 95 again for this mess I'm leaving it to James but I will tell you you'll see me again in three years if Justice Wallace says you haven't met your responsibilities under this agreement that's all I gotta say thank you I think we do have um okay Jocelyn Ryan and then I think Sheena column a village presidency in a column and mayor Dean dapas both would like to speak as well thanks Jocelyn Ryan Community Coalition and race um I feel bad for myself that I have to follow Walter but okay
202and I wanted to point out in your special education data that I've been I've been a special education parent in the district for 16 years and I have noticed that as the special education setting becomes more restrictive it becomes less white and also over time and I have some theories as to why this is too um settings become more restrictive so you have inclusion classes in elementary schools that are pretty mixed racially and then you have pull out resource room and self-contained classes at the high school that are either almost or entirely 100 black and latinx so those are my comment my questions I wondered if you knew how the kids were being identified for inrs services and was there a commonality there and how they were being identified and then the other thing was
203in your learning disability data did you have any drill down on which learning disabilities like was it sld in reading and writing and math and I know you don't you didn't really look at reading but I wondered if that came up in that and or any commonality in the age at which kids were being identified as disabled way well I can answer a part to your question there's a little Nuance in the data around special ed identification but one of the anecdotal pieces from focus groups was around reading intervention and that there was a level of frustration from Educators who um you know were teaching in a particular way because that was the moment we were living in um there was a phonics free moment that's over now but anyway so there was a frustration
204around that but also you know and we keep bringing this up but it's really crucial is that inrs having a standardized process for inrs is so important um you know and especially to your question at earlier grade levels when there's strong tier one intervention in the classroom which means when there's support that all the kids are getting but that's you know targeted because a number of children are struggling with a thing that's really essential and when you exist in a culture of tutoring where people are you know providing these supports to their own children only outside the school there's this illusion that there's not a need for that but there absolutely is a need for that and so like I just can't emphasize enough how important the inrs process is that there's just a lot
205there's so many different nodes that that will touch but that in focus group data we absolutely heard from frustrated Educators who um you know felt that they were a bit hamstrung because they couldn't Provide support to students that they they felt would be very meaningful in terms of your question regarding restrictive settings right so no we did not look at placement data for a particular reason is because it is across so many districts um there's a level of messiness in terms of how the data's captured and for us to adequately sort of make sure that we know the level of restrictiveness however your point is correct in terms of what you are noticing because um and it's and it's a uh so the federal government so the U.S Department of Education the office special education
206programs has let State education departments know across the country that they are now going to be paying attention to how well they are working with school districts on their placement data because the feds are wanting to now they're they've looked at snapshots of data and they've identified the pattern that you're describing that as kids get older the more restrictive most restrictive settings are primarily existing with students of color and the concern is what is what is happening in terms of the access to core instruction and core curricular program when you get into more restrictive settings and what kids are being placed in restrictive settings for meaning um specific identification categories right that that that's happening so um and then to your question around specifically within LD no we did not we just you know we
207we worked with the the data point that they had in terms of that um around who was who had the identification in terms of LD but nothing specifically around sort of what areas so thank you wanted to say something and then we're just going to quickly go to two people on the Monitor and then we'll come back I just wanted to uh thank you that was great I just wanted to set the record straight about phonics in the in our curriculum and in the district we are still teaching Teachers College we are piloting a new phonics curriculum um so it is not changed uh district-wide I'm really happy that um through the work we've done with cni this board has made a priority for the district to look at the science of reading and the
208data and the research and the statistics and so um the goal is that by next year we will have an entirely new curriculum for reading in elementary school but it has not changed yet so just wanted to clarify that thank you Village president column and then mayor Dean Davis they're on the screen so they're just going to come over president can you hear me okay we can hear you all right um good evening everyone Dr Fergus thank you so much for a wonderful presentation um my first question I have a series of questions but um hopefully they won't take you too long to answer um earlier on in your presentation you had the special education relative risk ratio and you had reference curriculum-based disabilities that's a term I'm not very familiar with um I was
209hoping you could just expand on this a little bit more and my takeaway and I might be wrong do you feel that teachers are steering certain students towards special education through the way that they teach the curriculum yeah well so I'll say this in terms of curriculum-based disability what we reference in in terms of as a as a research term is um when there are um not when there are gaps and persistent gaps that exist in terms of what we have in our curriculum and how we teach what's in the curriculum the the concern is that the difficulties that kids are representing the skills gaps that when it rises to the level to which a child's being has an initial referral and it's being evaluated in the child study team the concern is that there
210is a um an inappropriateness in terms of what we are ex understanding are maybe discrepancies that are actually due to a the issues of the curriculum having gaps the curriculum and instruction having gaps and not necessarily a disability that exists with the kids what further compounds that issue is when you don't have good intervention data meaning if you have an inrs process if you have a tier 2 or tier three process that you have limited data to know what did the kid gets so that you can scientifically be able to discern is this a a disability that a child is experiencing or is this due to the fact that we haven't given them what their should have gotten at the pace in which they need it in order for them to be successful so that's
211what we mean when we're talking about curriculum-based disability thank you very much for that um next I was very keenly interested on the discipline um slides um correct me if I'm wrong because I know this is where numbers come into play here is that there was a total of 56 instances of discipline out of roughly 6532 students so that would say that it would suggest that less than one percent of all students are subject to whether it's in school suspension or out of school suspension is this number consistent with peer schools and schools with similar demographics to us is that a good threshold in terms of discipline you know so um you know the the concern in particularly in the discipline data I want to make sure that I highlight this is the disparity in
212it meaning of the 56 the majority are black students and that's the concern right that um we know that kids are gonna there's always going to be missed levels of misbehavior the kids you know uh that are going to involve some type of um consequence and the concern is that it appears as if that it's mostly black students given the fact that your black students are representing about 25 of your school district but yet representing you know uh more than two-thirds of the population is experienced in discipline but in terms of sort of representation around sort of patterns of discipline it varies from District to District so I can't even tell you you know what is typical or not right because each district has you know I have to say about discipline data discipline data
213is one of those areas of data that we have to be very careful full how the quality of the data meaning um not every principle is annotating the types of consequences that they're offering up to kids right um so they would you know um and because we were only looking at one snapshot of a year right so I can't I'm not certain if that's typical for South Orange Maplewood School District to have that rate in which suspensions are happening um is that comparable to previous years before covid um you know I can't give testimony to that particular pattern I would say I just wanted to point out that it is a relatively small percentage I recognize the discrepancy um there but um overall having less than one percent in our school district I guess we
214have to look at that discrepancy within the smaller subset um this is probably something for the board but um I know that there was a considerable time spent on disciplinary issues and I know that there was a suspension moratorium and there was also more consistency in the way that discipline was going out um needing the superintendent's approval on that so maybe at a future meeting we can learn a little bit more as to um how how that's panned out over the past couple years especially the consistency part um I did have another question about uh black students not feeling supported in some of the AP classes this went to the culture and the climate of how these students are feeling um and and one of the bullet points referenced whether the instructor makes it a
215welcoming classroom is there a mechanism for students to be able to report and is there teacher accountability when there is a climate issue that's occurring that is disproportionately impacting the students of class color in a classroom I'm not familiar how that process works or how we even identify when that's occurring in classrooms repeatedly now you raise a great strategy in terms of you know how do we contend with what's happening I mean we were fortunate that the students felt very safe they told us a lot of examples we chose to not include some of them just to maintain anonymity for the students and but it definitely raises a question and I think the students also pointed out that they weren't always certain um who they could go to um to advocate for or explain things
216that were transpiring and that it would be taken seriously right there were a couple of examples where students gave us uh details of things that transpired that um where uh you know they uh they at the end of it they felt as they they identify that um the adult could still behave in the particular way that they did towards the kid and the right and the student was fearful of reporting it because of retaliation right um and so there's uh but I think you raise a great point in terms of you know what may need to be a process that lives in the schools for students to share about what's happening in terms of the adults in terms of uh a sense of sort of bias that they're experiencing um now obviously that that is
217something that you know there has to be careful stop thinking through in terms of what that looks like and what that process looks like right um because you don't want all of a sudden you get all a whole mess of you know sort of complaints about things but I think there has to be a way in which that gets reported but also a way in which um administrators also respond to the nature of what's actually transpiring and um and heed sort of the stories that you know uh that's that kids are sharing about how welcoming they feel in these classrooms especially in spaces where um there is a history to which um they're new to yeah I I just have just a couple more thank you so much for that I I wanted to recognize
218board member vad lamani thank you for sharing that there's a one-pager uh because I was thinking the same thing is there just like a checklist that that the district can produce so that we can all keep track of what's going on here uh Dr Fergus you did have some recommendations on the towns and I want to let you know with our partners uh the Community Coalition on race who I see there we just hosted a town hall Forum on our housing strategies our affordable housing strategies and know that we're all over that we follow our demographics reports uh we are fully complying with The Fair Housing Act and our local fair share and housing element so I think you'll be pleased I know you're a busy man but uh would be happy to share the
219link with you uh it was very successful over 100 residents attended last week so I will pass that along and uh the last question is whether Dr Fergus or maybe somebody from the school district is that it seems like there is more than enough work going on um that when Mr Davis uh had said that there's quarterly meetings has the board uh considered having a standing subcommittee uh of the Board of Education that works on the compliance with the settlement agreement we heard from Mr Fields also talking about um the need for this to occur and I I think that if you get people around the table all the necessary people this should probably kind of come to the top of the pyramid given how much time and energy and resources are being expended to
220address these that's more comment question or maybe throw it to Dr Fergus is would this be a best practice for for stakeholders to meet more frequently and and go through the checklist and make sure everybody's in agreement so we don't end up back in court um no I I'm entirely in agreement it was a committee that I had proposed back in January um and at that time um it was it was voted down so I do hope that it's something that we can explore again because I do think it's so important that we have eyes and ears on this you'll hear in a resolution that we're going to read this evening that we will ask the district to conduct a public update every six months January and July um giving us a status update on
221the implementation of Dr fergus's recommendation that would include not only documentation but data so that as a board we can ensure that we are meeting the achievement goals and implementation timelines as has been presented to us from the district and that is aligned to what would be also transpiring with uh justice Wallace so um thank you for that idea I would love to float it again to the board and hopefully we can get buy-in to put something like that up for for the board to stay on top of all of this great thank you so much board president and members of the Board of Education and Dr Fergus and your team for a very uh an interesting night I'll say thank you foreign I believe good evening everyone can you hear me okay we can
222hear you fantastic thank you all for uh this eye-opening meeting tonight Dr Fergus uh what a comprehensive and folsome Report you gave tonight sir uh thank you to you and your team um you know uh Mr fields and Mr Davis called it shameful um yeah some of the data is shameful and I I thought it was sobering uh so we have a lot of work to do I guess some of my um individual content questions have been answered by but my big question overarching question is what controls are being put into place including some sort of oversight committee uh so that three years from now we're not uh the data doesn't show that we're underperforming I think that you raise a very good point and I think as a board we will consider that um
223going forward I know that the quarterly meetings and you'll see so for everyone's edification in the attachments in the resolution I think it's the very last document there is the full monitoring plan that's been signed by Justice Wallace and agreed to by the board so you can see what is required as part of the settlement there is the quarterly meetings on top of you know monthly reporting around things like suspension data Etc so um there is in terms of oversight we do have Justice Wallace which is very helpful but then as a board you know something that we need to talk about I do I agree with you we just I think would be great to have a committee yeah because I think even throughout the Academic Year from classroom to classroom from teacher to
224teacher from setting to setting there needs to be some sort of weekly oversight and Report uh so that you know we don't fail our students I mean this report is really damaging uh this data is you know it tells an unequivocal story and then the voices of our students themselves it really really uh is very upsetting uh uh I I wanted to also add that um as uh Dr furcus already mentioned in his report uh of course one of the contributing factors to educational segregation is residential segregation right uh this area of New Jersey if not the entire state has a long history of redlining uh in Maplewood and South Orange in modern times has a very long history of real estate steering uh thankfully uh that is not happening anymore and I can assure
225you that as mayor column said we too in Maplewood are doing all that we can to uh increase our socio-economic housing diversity through greater affordable housing through expanding or group group homes for households with special needs by providing uh first-time homeownership opportunity using our local affordable housing trust funds to first-time homeowners um and those homeowners have been non-white and biracial uh and working with the Coalition as well I'm a former Coalition trustee I'm a former residential Committee Member um so so this stuff is very personal and and we um we want to let the board know in the Community now and all the stakeholders involved in this work that you have very strong Municipal Partners here I think it was one of the principals who stated you have to have all the right people in
226the bus all agreeing to go to the same place and all working together throughout the journey I'm not going to share I can assure you that as mayor and as a governing body member of Maplewood we are your partner in this work and we look forward to staying engaged uh in all of the issues that were presented tonight thank you thank you mayor Davis from the community representatives are there any other questions or comments for Dr Fergus um we have two more okay good evening my name is Anita Mack and I was a teacher at Columbia High School for 24 years thank you Dr Fergus for that enlightening report um but I have to say just as um principal Irby and Walter Fields said we've been fighting this for over 30 plus years this has
227been going on my colleague here Bill Gaines uh was one of the architects of the discipline Review Committee that um made recommendations for the Montrose program that I was a part of that uh where students who were considered I feel the underbelly of this District were um sent so that uh they could succeed and Excel excel in more individualized instruction and more one-to-one instruction from their teachers um most of these students when I first went to the program which was recommended that it would be placed in another building because when it was at Columbia High School it was a half a day program and the kids were with us for about four hours basic subjects but then they went to lunch and then they were in the midst of the rest of the school with
228a lot of distractions happened and I know Mr Gaines will continue to talk about that and so then um it was decided to move it to macho school where um it was more of a situation where kids at all academic levels were there many of those kids went on to college many of those kids went on to trade schools or work and so my question is to the board why was Montrose let go why did this program that was being successful in the sense of kids excelling or at least feeling flexible in achieving what they needed to achieve at their rate why was this program uh disbanded and that disbanded there and then brought back to the high school where the kids were not successful so it's it's almost as if it was a planned
229it was planned that they would fail and so my um my comment to the board is this I had to write this down W.E.B Du Bois a system said a system cannot fail those it was never meant to protect and so I asked you tonight are you going to remain to be that system who continues to fail the historically disenfranchised student or are you going to put policies and programs in place where excelling and learning for students of color is a priority and not a rarity um thank you my steam colleague Anita Mack my name is William Gaines and um I taught in this district for over 30 years and let me just say a little bit about myself um I have been on the on the side in terms of not just being a
230teacher but in positions of leadership through 30 years and one of the things that really bothers me regarding this district and I've been retired for seven years one of these things that really bothers me about the district is the lack of institutional memory when I talk about institutional memory I'm talking about the fact that a lot of these things that you so perceptively pointed out Dr fargas has already been done okay and I'm I'm trying to wonder I'm wondering to myself why is it that people are upset about these statistics they've been that way for 30 years that have been in this District let me give you an example of some of the things that that I've dealt with and some of the things that continue to haunt us in this District today first of
231all let's look at discipline as Miss Mackin decaded um that there is a disproportionate number of African Americans who are um caught up in terms of the discipline system whether the number and I heard of the person on the screen talk about well the number was small it doesn't matter whether the number is small the matter is that there was a disproportionate of African-American students being targeted and let me just say this as for me as the number of African-American students increased in this District remember I came in in 1987 and there was maybe 10 12 African Americans at Columbia High School by the time I left it was about 35 percent so what be happened in studies indicate that the Lord once the African-American Community or the student population increases the discipline policy becomes
232more punitive and that's what you saw at Columbia High School the discipline policy becoming more punitive and African-American students particularly African-American males getting caught up in the system I happen to chair the discipline Review Committee which was a committee in which we were given the task of looking at the school uh the school district from a structural perspective we knew that there was a disproportionate number of African-Americans who were caught up in that in the system so what we did as Miss Mack receptively indicated what we did was we developed a an alternative program because there were a number of students who were constantly constantly in trouble in that school in at Columbia High School and so what we did was we put together the Montrose School with the model of one size does not
233fit all I'll repeat that again one size does not fit all which means that a lot of the students who were getting into trouble and and as administrators indicated being a drain on the system they were now at the Montreal school now when we put a proposal together that came before your board in about the year around 2001-2002. that Montrose School had a budget of over two hundred and eighty thousand dollars which was unheard of unheard of 20 years ago it covered the cost of books it covered the cost of teachers it covered the cost of just running the Montrose School we had a 98 success rate you can't argue with the statistics we had a 98 percent but now here's how it goes you see success and then success is taken away from you
234so then what ended up happening is the district traded the dollar for dignity I'll say it again they looked at the dollar instead of the Dignity of the program and so what ended up happening is even though the research indicated that there was a need for an alternative program and that the alternative program was successful they said no we're going to bring it back to Columbia High School well the research says that if in fact you're going to have a successful alternative program it must be separate from the general population you cannot put students who are having a difficult time adjusting back into the same system and expect success so what ended up happening is it failed because the district decided that they were not going to fully commit and so what I'm saying to
235you what I'm saying to everyone is that it is important it is imperative as all board members to go back and I don't care if you have to go look in the archives there have been so many initiatives done by this District that have been tabled and so it is no wonder why Mr Fields is upset because it's what we call a plan procrastination let's get through this and then it'll go away do you know that we had done de-leveling as early as 1987. we had proposed de-leveling they sent us away they spent thousands of dollars and then we presented a report to the board and the board said we're not ready and Dr fargus your point is so well taken be careful about de-leveling because if in fact students are not prepared with materials
236if they are not prepared to make that next jump it is going to fail so what I'm saying to to this board here because it is important and I think Mr Fields said it best either you're going to deal with it internally as a community when you're going to have to deal with it where the Lord says to you or the federal court say to you you were going to do it with all immediate speed now you have that choice one last thing that I want to say I fought very hard during my 30 years for in the African studies program and you wanted to know in terms of rigor and what have you and it's funding because I heard people really really bragging oh did you hear that Columbia High School or the South
237Orange Maplewood school district is in the top 40 or a top 50 it's number 40 out of 50. and I looked and I said wow how are standards have decreased because when I came here we were in the top five so when we talk about rigor and what we expect in terms of students somehow we've lowered the bar in this school district and I don't know where it happened but our greatness can come back again if in fact we understand that if in fact you expect a lot the expectations are high the achievement is going to be high along with it and let me just say I fought years for an African studies program and um in fact the community put pressure on the board and I don't mean you guys but put pressure people
238like Dr yam performer president of Essex County College came to meetings and demanded an African studies program okay I was trained by Dr lenworth Gunther one of the foremost historians in this country and in fact we had seminars even before the course was running where people were breaking down the doors to get in so you tell me that there's not a need for an African studies program and then I'm insulted by the fact that your board is talking about an African-American history course are you kidding me as I indicated the course was called African studies which started in Africa not in America talking about slavery to the present but it talked about Africa it went into the cave it went into the pyramids in Egypt it talked about the West African kingdoms and I'm insulting
239and I I really really bothered by the fact that you're talking about implementing an African-American history course when you already had an African studies course going back well over 20 years so when I say to you it's important that we have an Institutional memory you're doing great work but the work was already done and it's shameful I'm going back to what Mr field said it is shameful that we have to continue to go circular over and over again until we get it so maybe it may take a federal lawsuit for us to do it but we have always had excellence in this District it's very important that we indicate this I was a part of I'm I'm so sorry um just because we we were gonna close out okay can I just make one more
240statement which is very germane to this okay um as a part of of the rigor which you talked about it's extremely important that we get our children involved in activities that show their Excellence let me give you an example we had what was called the African-American history challenge poll Columbia High School was so good that they and this was sponsored by 100 black men Columbia High School was so talented that we ended up hosting the state tournament and we won the National Tournament three consecutive years that's what what I talk about in terms of Excellence we can get back to that but as a board I employ you to understand that there are things that we have done from de-leveling to discipline review to an alternative school that cannot be ignored and should not be
241ignored thank you thank you so much and thank you to all of our community representatives and thank you so much to Dr Fergus and his team we really appreciate you and we know we'll be seeing lots of you over the next three years um and I just want people to know that we are going to have public speaks we're just going to move on to the action portion of the meeting for you that may I make a comment on something that would say sure um what I wanted to do is uh just to say that there are no uh tier three uh intervention for reading at Tuscan Bolden or South Mountain nor is there a tier three intervention in grades K-5 for math so so you know thank you um Dr Taylor did you want
242to introduce the resolution for this evening thank you thank you madam president and good evening to everyone it's going back to the agenda the action portion of the agenda uh board members for your consideration we have resolution four five zero five is there a second thank you board member Eckert um tonight the board will be addressing a singular resolution for consideration as Dr Taylor stated resolution 4505 so I would like to formally present and read this resolution into the official record whereas the South Orange Maplewood Board of Education and black parents Workshop entered into a settlement of litigation in July 2020 calling for implementation of recommendations to be developed by Dr Edward Fergus a mutually agreed upon consultant and whereas the settlement designated retired New Jersey Supreme Court Justice John Wallace to monitor implementation of
243those recommendations over a three-year period and whereas Justice Wallace has proposed a monitoring plan to commence as of the finalization of Dr fergus's recommendations and whereas Dr Fergus finalized his Equity audit report in August 2023 and whereas the Board of Education expects Dr fergus's recommendations to be implemented according to the agreed upon implementation timelines and within the duration of the three-year monitoring period and whereas the Board of Education will require a public update every six months January and July on the implementation of Dr fergus's recommendations to include the documentation and data necessary to determine if she movement of the goals in compliance with the timetables in the Fergus plan and the integration plan and in the form of a Public Presentation and whereas the Board of Education will ensure that the district has the resources
244necessary to comply with the settlement agreement and now therefore be it resolved that the South Orange Maplewood Board of Education approves a three-year extension of the monitoring plan proposed by Justice Wallace with the monitoring period to commence as of August 2023 and to conclude in August 2026 we are now open for discussion on this resolution do any board members have questions or comments to share board member valamani I I think this is a great resolution in the sense that a lot of people I know have expressed concerns about what we did not do in the past I mean I wasn't there okay I'm sorry but the way I'm a natural born Optimist okay so the way I'm looking at it is that we're trying to build this very fancy house which is going to pick
245it's a matter of fact I mean so yes we've had delays in coming up with the architecture but we have an architectural plan and now we need to make sure that we build it implement it correctly and that's on us and the future boats that come by so thank Dr Fergus for coming up with the for the architecture and whatever happened in the past well I mean it happened in the past let's ensure that we don't fail our course and and just one additional point I want to throw in is that even though we may do everything that's required by here the outcomes data may not be perfect at the end of three years because outcomes are not dependent upon all the impacts so I just wanted to point out that very obvious thing that
246you know even with all the effort in there you know three years from now we shouldn't be saying that oh my God we didn't achieve 100 of course if you don't make progress then we're doing something wrong but uh anyway that's my two cents thanks any other questions or comments on the resolution okay seeing no further questions or comments we'll close discussion Mr Burnside can you please call the roll on resolution 4505 board member of adlamani yes board member telesford yes board member Gifford yes board member Acker yes board member Wingfield yes board member Deval Wilson yes for president whitlitter yes board member right yes motion passes thank you thank you so much that includes the action portion of the meeting we're now going to move on to the hearings of individuals and delegates school
247board meeting is the business and you guys don't you guys don't feel like you have to stay here thank you so much for everything sorry thank you again you don't have to set um the school board meeting is a business meeting in public and not a meeting with the public oftentimes it may appear to members of our audience that the Board of Education takes action with very little common and in many cases a unanimous vote before a matter is placed on the agenda at a public meeting the Administration has thoroughly reviewed the matter with the superintendent if the superintendent is satisfied that the matter is ready to be presented to the Board of Education it is then referred to the appropriate board committee the members of the board committee work with the administration and the
248superintendent to assure that the members fully understand the matter after the committee discusses the matter it is then shared with the other board members for consideration only then is it placed on the agenda for board discussion and action at a public meeting thank you for coming in person and dialing in by phone this evening the South Orange Maple Board of Education certainly respects that you've taken the time out of your busy day to address the board at tonight's meeting we value public involvement in our school district and we are eager to hear what you have to say each individual will be given three minutes to speak please do your best to stay within the time afforded to you we request that you please state your name and town of residence for the record so the
249first person that we have here he already spoke to um Mr field Authority's book so then okay so four people already okay so now we're on to an uh sudarshan funny foreign good evening um I will my name is I live in Maplewood uh I'm the father of two girls um both little Clinton Elementary one in kindergarten that just started a week and a half ago and one in second grade that's uh that started a couple years ago my second grader was the first year of the intentional integration program here um so this discussion might seem Petty in in uh coming after the the discussion that we just had and I'm grateful for the time that we just had but I want to raise the issue of uh of bussing and and the impact that
250it's had and and the impact of the integration program has had on those of us with children that don't live close to the schools that we are now assigned to I have no issue with Clinton Elementary my daughters are doing great they're however it is uh not necessarily close to us for the last two years with my older daughter we have not had the opportunity for busing and this year we do have the opportunity for busing which I'm grateful for however the busing is not adequate um the scheduled time for which my daughters get picked up is 7 52 a.m the start time at Clinton Elementary School is 7 58 a.m leaving six minutes between my bus stop and Clinton where we have to cross Valley and we have to cross Prospect driving down Parker
251passing Columbia High School you could imagine that six minutes is not necessarily enough time to get from that bus stop to Clinton Elementary in addition to that mine is not the last bus stop on the route there are additional bus stops after mine before the kids get to Clinton Elementary School I will add to that that the first stop that I know of on our route is at 7 22 in the morning this morning the bus arrived at Clinton Elementary School at 9 15 A.M this is not unique I am one parent on one route with two kids and I can guarantee you this issue is occurring on multiple routes with hundreds of children across the district I don't know what the solution is I suspect that rerouting combining bus stops and assigning different or
252more buses to the busing schedule might be a part of the solution but the the outcome of the busing situation today is that my children and many other children of many other families arrive to school late we talked a great deal about inclusion and equity and Dr Taylor you mentioned equity and resources in your welcome letter what this means is my daughter who just started kindergarten in this District a week and a half ago has not sat through a morning meeting with her kindergarten teacher yet not a single day this means that my daughter's kindergarten teacher doesn't get to know her she arrives well into the instructional time period this means that my two daughters arrive to school and there are disruption to class again I speak on behalf of my daughters but I know
253for a fact I'm not the only one there are many parents here with me there are many parents that were here tonight that have had to leave due to the lateness of the hour which is okay but just know this is not an isolated case and we are asking for something to be done about this thank you very much Adam cicada oh sorry about that oh okay thank you all right now the clock can start um I'm Adam Licata I live in South Orange we're on the same bus route um our daughter just started kindergarten Clinton Elementary we're pretty excited we were walking distance to Marshall but we think it's worth it especially after learning everything tonight in the history in the context behind the integration plan so even though we're four hours in actually
254uh learned a lot tonight uh with that said um Logistics is a nightmare we're eight days into Clinton uh starting Clinton Elementary the school year uh she's our only daughter and she just started here um her bus pickup time is 7 25 am and she arrived at Clinton Elementary today at 9 15 A.M and this is not unusual every single day they're approximately 30 to 60 minutes late the reason why we know that is because a lot of parents are putting air attacks in their backpacks because we don't know where the bus is and we don't know where our children are because they're showing up so late a lot of the kids are getting marked as tardy but not present in class luckily my daughter as a teacher seems to be understanding and she's giving
255my present every day so we don't have to correct the record unlike some other parents have to do anyways right now it's a it's an inconvenience but day to day that means I can't take the 805 a.m train from South Orange into the city even though my kids pickup time is 7 25 a.m because the bus twice now was over 30 minutes late so the parents had started carpooling because we live in a very loving and caring community and so the parents who look out for each other and take our kids sometimes to school even when the bus doesn't show up it is only eight days in and it is not getting better originally it said you know first couple weeks could be 20 minutes late completely understandable it's a new route it's a new
256system it's a new process everyone's trying to get used to it but 30 plus minutes late means that we don't know if the bus is even going to show up today and we have to rely on carpooling Etc uh it's a logistical nightmare and I'm going to yield the remaining one minute to the other parents we may have here thank you Adam um Anna satnikova no it's a handheld mic Madam president just one point of orders one point of order um the change in policy was that parents and folks can't see to one another I just want to make sure that you were aware that the board can allow it of course but parents folks can't give their their public speaks to other folks right yeah okay no no big deal at all but we're
257just keeping our order in policy that's all that's all see what I don't know hi in the interest of time I'll try to add to what the other two parents didn't cover my children are on the same bus so we've been experiencing a lot of the same things um last Monday the bus did not show up at all the my students oh sorry my name is Anna statnikova I live in Maplewood my child is a second grader so we're very grateful to have busing this year however the bus did not show up at all one day there was absolutely no communication from the district I love two voicemails I emailed to this day of not heard back two of those days my child got on the wrong bus because that bus stopped at the bus
258stop the driver in the aid insisted that my child belonged on that bus took the bus pass I only discovered that it was a different bus while talking to the other parents and realizing that they were describing a different driver thankfully the school confirmed that my boss was safe the point being is that the bus drivers have no idea where they're supposed to be picking up kids different buses are passing on the same bus routes which is just telling me it's not efficient at all so it's not really clear to me how it was put together kids are upset because they're late to school they're dysregulated my child ran back into the house and hid because he was so stressed waiting for so long my child doesn't I'm going to speak on behalf of some
259of the other parents that weren't able to speak here but some of the kids that were taking the afternoon bus the bus one of the days was took 90 minutes to do the route the kids were crying and sweating and the only response from the Transportation Department was to say you know you need to be understanding that's not really something parents can convey to their kids there's been absolutely no commitment to explain what's going to be done there's no bus tracking nobody knows where the buses are when our kids are getting to school what we're supposed to tell the teachers what we're supposed to tell the kids what I would like to hear from the Board of Ed and the transportation department and Dr Taylor is why there's been zero communication and the few parents
260that did manage to get in touch with the transportation department twice State spoke to the same person the second time the person laughed at them and said oh it's you again did not actually provide any kind of communication about what will be happening so I I know this meeting is about that but I want to hear some sort of plan about communication and bus tracking because what's happening right now is unacceptable thank you thank you Anna um Denise Gaffney I don't think Denise is here okay um Alex rosenblatt um hello my name is Alex rosenblatt I live in South Orange we live Three Doors Down from Marshall uh my first grader has been placed in Clinton again the fact that buses were introduced in theory should be a great help logistically to a very tough
261situation uh I I guess I won't reiterate what the other parents on the same bus route have said but I will add some new information we're all in the same boss Reuben we're pretty organized the same thing is going on on the other Clinton bus route the purple rad because I happen to know someone on the WhatsApp group over there and he has stated that the exact same thing is going on in fact those two buses pass each other in the routes um Logistics are hard uh I've taken a fair amount of logistics classes and uh worked with a fair amount of pretty Advanced Logistics uh professionally in half for a number of years it takes a lot of planning takes a lot of understanding of how to make these things work I think that
262some of the underlying things and again you know I don't know that it's my my place to fix the issues but I can definitely diagnose some problems that are going on under the covers is that the placement of students around the district has been made in such a way that it's very very difficult to find a way to get them all onto the same bus because it's everywhere and this has actually been detailed with a great amount of data on a Facebook group called soma for adequate busing but some of the additional problems that have also come with the schedule changes that I do want to highlight that are in addition here are that the crossing guard chain schedules have also changed to to the point where there are not crossing guards during times when
263students are crossing maybe not such a big deal right now in September but when it gets dark and because people are being picked up so early it might turn into a safety problem in addition to that we're one of the first stops you know the few times that my daughter's ridden the bus she's on for a very long time as I've studied before has gotten on uh has gotten to school quite late based on the way that the buses are now and the way that the students are randomly distributed around needing to be picked up for busing to work which I do hope it does work I don't know how without any major changes it's going to come to pass that students will be on time forever because that's just the way the buses are
264worked out unless the more bus routes are introduced the routes are broken down and more efficiency is placed in how people are picked up in order to make it to school on time um thank you thank you Alex can I ask a quick question none of you said which but which bus you're on I was watching when they catch that so we are on the Clinton grade bus I can assure you because I know I said Gray oh I'm sorry no the Clinton gray bus g-r-e-y yes and I I don't know that the parents from the Clinton purple bus uh organized to come out here but I know that very similar things are happening sit down thank you so much so that concludes our in-person public speaks but we have audio public speaks and the
265first person who has registered is Katie torn she's still with us nope okay um Natalie Peretti no longer with us Paola McFerrin and then Adam oh Adam you joined us in person so um that concludes our public speaks Dr Taylor did you want to respond definitely um first of all just to give everyone the same information and what I've said in in response is the emails from families like yourself who've reached out to me directly and I just want to share with you to do that right and don't be afraid to copy me on email concerns and things like that I can add urgency to what you're dealing with and um I can tell you that the tearing of routes to try and make them as efficient and make our buses as full as possible
266these are some of the symptoms of that and we're working with our vendor um to smooth that out our um coordinators working with our business office and the vendor daily all day long smoothing those things out a couple of the major challenges that we've seen is what occurs when we don't have our regular drivers um when there are sub drivers brought in we've seen some serious impact of that um it's their first time driving that route and it's not an excuse for them and we're holding the vendors accountable for that um I think that to make this more efficient we can just have a conversation you know away from this so I don't have to have a timer on me and the board and the time of of night that we have here so I'll
267reach out to you we have your names and for those other folks who are impacted don't be afraid to email me directly and we can start to diagnose what the concerns are that you are dealing with and those folks on the purple route they did that and I was able to give them more information so please feel free to reach out to me or we can reach out to you directly um sometime tomorrow um and I think on behalf of the board we just want to one recognize everyone at this horseshoe agrees that this is unacceptable and that we want to make sure that your kids all of our students are getting to school safely and on time fft has been collecting and documenting all the questions that have come in from our community members
268as well as from fellow board colleagues um we will be addressing as an fft committee to get responses to a lot of the questions that you have that we have as well and I know that the district is working furiously to rectify a lot of the challenges that your students are facing I know it's not fast enough um so I just want to say I'm sorry because I know that I can't imagine how disruptive it is and all of our kids deserve better so so that concludes the action or sorry the public speaks thank you all for coming uh we're going to move on to new business just a reminder new business is a time when board members can bring forth topics that are of urgency that they have to be dealt with in that
269meeting and not at the next meeting and for those who don't know our next meeting is actually next week I believe on September 28th so does anyone have new business for this evening seeing none I will close new business and I will make a motion the Board of Education will meet in public session on Thursday September 28th at 6 30 PM in the district meeting room 525 Academy Street this meeting will be the back to school board meeting night so please don't forget to wear your school Spirit Gear immediately following the opening of public session the board will move to go into a closed session in the superintendent's office as well as using an online video conference platform to discuss Personnel matters within the attorney client privilege legal negotiations and other matters that may arise
270and require discussion to be announced at a later date immediately following the closed session the Board of Education will meet in public session estimated to be around 7 30 PM in the district meeting room 525 Academy Street utilizing an online video conference platform which will include hearing of individuals action will be taken may I have a second okay thank you all in favor that appears to be unanimous so I would now like to make a motion to adjourn this meeting on Monday September 18th at 10 46 PM may I have a second thank you board member Wright all in favor meeting is adjourned thank you everyone and we will see you next week foreign