001feel this is the 12th time we're presenting, but it's going to be the best time. I promise. >> Every time. >> A Thank you, Mr. Silva. Um, first and foremost, I want to thank the administrative team for being present. Uh, the presentation we're about to uh share with you is a result of a a tremendous amount of work on their part as well as the the staff across the district. So, hopefully everyone here is as proud as I am uh for what we're about to to take on. Um, as you all know, if you've been at the five of the six back to school nights, we've been talking about our strategic plan. I've been trying to keep it concise. Some schools, yes, some schools, no. I'm going to do my best to keep it concise
002today. I'm not going to give you a time amount or a time aotment. Um, so if by chance I'm going to work, that doesn't work. So, let's just do that. Um, before I get started on our new strategic plan, allow me just a couple moments to talk about our previous strategic plan. everybody here had the opportunity to um experience um our end of the year strategic plan presentation. So, I'm not going to be as detailed as we were last year, but it's worth giving you a little bit of an oversight of the work that was done um from 2020 to 2025. As you all know, we broke the strategic plan into four frames. Uh one is curriculum instruction. Um, and within the curriculum instruction frame, we had a laundry list of accomplishments that we were
003able to um, reach between 2020 and 2025. Just some of the ones that I want to bring to your attention. Most recently, we have a new math curriculum K through five. Uh, we also have a new science curriculum for Joyce Kilmer School. Um, we also have enhanced dual enrollment at the high school and and that's really a point of pride to give our students an opportunity to continue to um, not only learn at a high level but also have a good footing when they get into uh, college. We've also engaged trade schools and created relationships with various trade schools. And as we all know because we talk about it at most of our board meetings, our career pathways and our internships and externship program um, has been a point of success. um we were able
004to showcase um our progress bars and as we all know the the work is never going to be done uh but the work has been tremendous for our curriculum frame for community connections as we all know in our strategic plan during our strategic plan meetings back in 2020 there was a large number of uh stakeholders talking about the importance of bringing the community and the schools together. Um obviously we're all in agreement about how important that is. Um so just some of the many accomplishments that we were able to um really experience between 2020 and 2025 is our Thunderbird partnership. Uh with our Thunderbird partnership, we have uh well over 200 um partners across not only Ma but across um the state of New Jersey and over the border in New York. Um within that
005Thunderbird partnership, we've been able to create internship and externship experiences for our high school students. And you guys all know the numbers. Three years ago there were three. Last year there was 25 and this year 60 high school students were able to take part in internships and ex externship experiences. Um also we were we always receive feedback about our emails. Um and what we tried to do at the elementary level which I greatly appreciate is our elementary team has been able to take on a platform called S'more which is a more of a readable document. Um and this allow allows us to share all the information with our community. Also social media we standardize across all schools uh using Instagram and it's a great way for us to celebrate the work that we have done.
006Again the progress bars. Next is uh social emotional learning. Uh we talked at length about this in the beginning in 2020 about the importance of really developing the social capacity of our students and understanding um that it's important for us to to work with them along the lines of all the different things that they come across in their schooling and even outside building friendships overcoming adversity really creating a sense of resilience um and grit and this is something that we've been focusing on throughout the past five years. um in K12. Um we've been doing PD across the district. We've been able to also add guidance counselors at the K3 level, which I think is extremely important. Previously, we had social workers/guidance counselors 4 through 12, and we felt like we were missing a major part
007of our K12 continuum. So, adding the K3 team is is a point of pride for us. Last, but not certainly not least, is our work on facilities. that's ongoing and will continue to be a point of focus for us. I'm extremely um happy and proud that the finance facilities committee's work in conjunction with our BA and our head of buildings and grounds in a very thoughtful manner um created uh a road map for a lot of the different projects that we have across the district whether it's HVAC windows roofs paving uh we able to connect with the town and work handinhand with them on uh contract support um so these are things that we've done across the district. Um depending on the schools, depending on the work um but there's still a lot of work
008to be done. So that those are some of the things that we talked about with finance and facilities. And last but not least, our JK Innovation Lab. Um hopefully everyone has had a chance to see it. It's something that JK is utilizing and something that we continue to look forward to experiencing with our kids. Now hopefully that was a was was quick. Um now is our new strategic plan for 2025 to 2030. Um very similar to our first strategic plan. We utilize the same model of of building this plan. We asked community members to come in on three separate meetings. First meeting we we talked about what are the points of pride and also what are the areas of focus. Second meeting we talked about what do you uh really envision MA looking like in
0092030 and last meeting is let's start to create goals uh on how we're going to get there. There were a number of ideas that that were gathered. What I was excited about is in the first strategic plan um there was one set of expectations and then with this strategic plan there was more of focusing on refining our approach across different different fields. Things like identifying and developing student leaders, things like continuing to evolve families and students in the educational program, looking to develop our abstract thinkers. Um the the third to last I really appreciate. Yes, we're extremely proud of our pathways program, but we also need to really challenge ourselves to say that might be helpful for the students who are collegebound, but what other pathways can we create for our non-olbound students? So, I
010did I do truly appreciate that type of feedback from our community and our staff. Um, and then last but not least is our uh state-of-the-art facilities. We talked at all the back to school nights except for Rampo Ridge about the need for continued work across our district. And that's just another example of what the community is asking for. As you can see, um, when you look at work that needs to be done in a school district, obviously we're going to continue to focus on our instruction. Obviously, we're going to continue to work on connecting with our community because there's always opportunities that we can tap into. Uh social emotional learning will continue um and really look to evolve that over time and facilities is in is a a goal that we're constantly reaching forward. So,
011what we're going to do now is we're going to invite up uh Miss Craft, our director of curriculum instruction, to talk about the curriculum frames for our strategic plan. >> My good evening everybody. So our overarching goal for curriculum and instruction is to foster intellectual curiosity and lifelong learning. Our first goal student is to sustain programs and instructional experiences that challenge learners at all levels while developing 21st century skills. We're committed to facilitating an academic environment that encourages intellectual risk takingaking. Moving forward, we'll continue to infuse inquiry based learning experiences that foster critical thinking skills and empower students to provoke their curiosities through project based learning. For example, at Joyce Kilmer, this year is our first year of our expanded science curriculum. Over the course of the next five years, we will continue to work
012towards strengthening that inquiry based work in the science classrooms and hypothesize ways about expanding those experiences at the K3 level. Like our dual enrollment program, we're exploring ways to ensure that all students have access to our AP courses. In addition, we're looking to expand upon our potential offerings such as offering AP research and AP seminar courses at MA High School. We're thrilled with the number of students at Mala High School who were able to experience internship and exter externship opportunities and will continue to explore and strengthen those programs. Our second goal is to increase connections with trade and vocational programs. Recognizing that trade and vocational schools are interested some of our students, we're working to strengthen our existing partnerships and build new connections with relevant programs. We're also committed to working with families and students
013about vocational training opportunities and career pathways. Our goal is to ensure that our students are fully prepared and informed about their options while encouraging them to stay at MA High School and take advantage of the diverse opportunities offered through our pathways. Bridging with Wings of Wellness, we are partnering to create opportunities that cultivate empathetic national and global citizens. Our world language courses foster connections with schools outside of New Jersey, broadening students cultural awareness and communication skills. Students in our gifted and talented program participate in national competitions, showcasing their talent on a larger stage. Additionally, we are growing the teams program to allow access for increased student participation and engagement. Our second goal is to expand the differentiated curriculum to support challenge and raise achievement for students at all learning levels by innovatively using technology and
014other tools such as AI on hands-on opportunities. So, we're committed to leveraging technology and innovative tools, including AI, to create hands-on learning experiences that enhance student engagement and understanding. We're hoping to start an AI committee led by our newly appointed technology uh supervisor not supervisor coach Courtney Neglia. We're exploring reasonable and ethical ways for both our educators and students to integrate AI into teaching and learning. Our work will include developing resources and guidelines to support the effective and ethical use of AI in education. And to ground this work, this neck and I are participating in multiple professional learning opportunities that will serve as a foundation for our efforts. And our last goal is implementing personalized learning and goal setting plans to raise student abilities at all levels. We're implementing personalized learning and goal setting to
015support and elevate student achievement by using our datadriven instruction through MTSS framework. Our MTSS framework leveraging platforms like linkit and I ready. We can tailor instruction to meet the needs of individual students. Teachers are engaging in data chats with students have meaningful conversations about their strengths and areas for growth. These discussions help our students develop personalized goal oriented plans focus on continuous improvement and growth. As student skills progress, we will regularly review and adjust the curriculum to ensure it remains aligned with their evolving academic needs. And next up, we have Dennis. All right. Good evening, everyone. So you can see here that the first goal of our flake calls which we formally reference as our community connections frame is to expand problem based learning opportunities for all grade levels with connections to real world problem
016solving. Um in our 2020 2025 MA blueprint there was obvious overlap amongst curriculum and instruction uh social emotional learning and the community connections frame as Mrs. craft. As already shared, we will continue our ongoing commitment to sustain and enhance our internship and externship program. Uh over the course of its inception four years ago, we have steadily grown those student placements from three in our first year to 26 to 48. Uh and that's recently grown this past summer to over 60 placements for our students, which we're really proud of. Uh we know though that there are more opportunities ahead for our students in connecting our career pathways coursework to the practical application inside the internship or externship setting. We've also broadened our Thunderbird partnership program, inviting in over 200 local experts to contribute to our curriculum,
017finding ways to bring our curriculum to life and to supplement our academic and extracurricular programs. We've concentrated our efforts on orienting our new families as a district, making purposeful strides as we've reported in previous presentations um and communicating with our our diverse families inclusive of implementing translation programs. And we've also realized through our work with the MA blueprint that we needed to make purposeful efforts to brand our thoughtful work both as a district team and through the assistance of our communications consultant which we've been able to achieve. So locally as Dr. Turo had referenced we've streamlined social media posts and district specific communications. We've also in introduced the Thunderbird Times which has been wellreceived by MA residents. On a grander scale, information about our programs has been published and showcased locally and nationally in educational
018magazines and shared through presentations from our teachers and administrators at educational conferences. So with our 2025 2030 strategic plan, flight calls will work to extend upon these presented points of interest. Resoundingly, through our most recent strategic plan process, we heard from our stakeholders about the need to inform our consumer, both our families and our students themselves. And this made sense as we closed our last strategic plan self-reflected progress related to our second goal, knowing that we still had work to do in guiding families related to the educational experience. In the five years ahead, our flight calls are planned to be ongoing to intentionally familiarize our school community about our vast instructional programs, but specifically how those resources can be accessed and when most strategically for our kids for a more personalized career pathway trajectory for
019our students. In fact, we already know that building leadership is dedicated to meeting with every freshman student at Mawa High School this school year to assist in this sort of personalized launch. To this end, we also plan on continuing to build our alumni network, tapping into alumni as resources to not only connect more regularly, but to utilize our former students experiences to inform our future practices and programs. All of this work we believe will most uh definitively shape the evolving profile of a MOA graduate, a student who is ready for their future with confidence and purpose. Now, uh, how do we look at all we have to offer our students and families to create a more customized flight path for a student's journey? Uh, you'll see here for our second goal, it's to educate and
020engage the community at large to be a part of the flight alongside us. We understand that there's a lot to this that we will be able to contextualize over the next five school years. So, we are moving from outreach and exposure of what the flight looks like to informing and understanding the flight's impact on our families and our students. We will continue to broaden and deepen programs that allow for this sort of connection, engaging and partnering with families, communicating regularly, and inviting our stakeholders to see our programs in action. And our task is now how do we educate our families on how our programs can have a unique impact on each specific students and their futures far beyond their experience here in Mawa. We recognize our strength lies in partnership. Flight calls promotes the engagement
021of families, fosters those opportunities to build community and allows for students to explore with collaborative direction. And as I shared, there's a lot of overlap that goes with our curriculum and instruction as well as our social emotional learning. Uh, which makes perfect sense why flight calls is right in the middle. So, it's my pleasure this evening to update you all on um our wings of wellness, facilitating a growth mindset that empowers student success in a complex future. Carol Dwek in 2006, a psychologist is accounted to have coined the phrase of um growth mindset. The overarching growth mindset is essential to the wings of wellness. It is a belief that our abilities and talents can be developed and improved with learning, hard work, and dedication. Furthermore, that our qualities are changeable. Rather than allowing students to
022run from or avoid difficulty, we are invested in opportunities for students to see that in themselves and in maturity they can learn with understanding that every experience they have is an opportunity for growth. Within our district, we're going to maintain the premise of the castle competencies, which are well known by all of our students and faculty. And in fact, our school-based opportunities will continue to grow our students self-confidence skills. with our SEAL coaches and additionally with our director of school counseling and guidance. We have begun the process of creating a cohesive K to2 experience with grade level and schooltoschool connections. We look forward to creating an opportunity where students can take risks and step outside of their comfort zone. Academic and social emotional activities with additional and newer curriculum-based experiences are available in all grades
023with teachers and co-curricular advisors ready to guide students to take the risk and experience something new. working to have students try something new and experience an opportunity beyond the typical or traditional. Using our Thunderbird partnership program is a great example where exposure to different and new can take place in a supportive and caring environment. developing grit, resilience, and perseverance. Through our strong connections with our students and families while using the predictability of daily routines, we are creating the moments during which we praise students for the process taken to do and to learn. Our encouragement is rooted in realistic praise and support for efforts to develop grit, resilience, and perseverance. Students will have opportunities in and out of the classroom to learn that growth happens when we face and overcome the hardest part. Even when we
024think we failed, when we get back up and try it again. for our students. We want them to know that they may not be there yet, but they will get there. And lastly, encourage healthy nutrition and active movement, a form of self-care. A healthy body supports our students by providing mental clarity and energy needed to tackle challenges and remain engaged in learning. Healthy bodies are better equipped to handle stress, remain positive, and empowered by their self-care. Our physical education teachers, our health education program, our recess experiences and extracurricular offerings are in line to support all of this wellness. 2025 to 2030 will emphasize creating opportunities for individuals to continuously adapt and respond with improvement. >> Up next is Dr. Doro and our future ready habitats. >> I'm the last speaker so I'll I'll stay here.
025Um so for our our worldclass learning environments um we talked about this very briefly and I talked about the importance of carrying over from 2020 2025 plan to 2025 to 2030 plan and as you notice up here there's still work to be done along the lines of building and maintaining innovative spaces as well as upgrading our facilities. Um as you all know we just took part in a comprehensive facilities audit across all the buildings um in the district. We use that as our road map and really start to tear and identify what are the >> sorry sorry >> sorry it's okay sorry >> I didn't even notice >> now I do um >> so we start we we use those to prioritize uh what we need to ident to to address first second and and
026obviously following that um but further we also talked about the importance of going out to the community specific to a referendum Um, obviously that work is starting and we're still in the beginning stages of it, but um, I just want to take a moment. I'm sure we're going to say it a number of times throughout this meeting, but since we have everybody here, um, on September 29th at 6:30 in the T3 building, we're going to have our state of the facilities. Um, there's an opportunity for the community to come together and give us their feedback on what they feel is a priority and what we need to focus on moving forward. We're going to gather all that information along with the information from our strategic strategic plan um feedback from the community as well as
027our comprehensive audit and uh administration, students, staff um and parents. So, as you can see, there's a lot of work still to be done. That's why this is uh another uh frame in our strategic plan. Now, I got Oh, that was great. Before we close out our strategic plan um presentation, as you can see posted up on the screens are our district goals. Um they're directly aligned to the work that's embedded in the strategic plan. Um our first goal is curriculum instruction. Uh we've been talking this about this at length over the past two years. Uh we're entering our third year uh specific to our tiers of intervention um across the district K through 12. I'm happy to report there's a commitment uh at all levels, all departments to ensure that our students are getting
028um supported at the proficiency level in which they are at. Um so that's something that we will continue to work on. We'll continue to dive into the data specific to the student and individualize our plans accordingly. Our second goal is finance and facilities. I just covered that in our in our last slide. Those are going to be our two goals that we are going to focus on across the uh across this year. Each school, each department will be utilizing that as their foundation for their goals for this year. A picture of our strategic plan. Um the next slide is uh as we have done in the past which I felt was extremely helpful for our community and our focus on transparency is that we will have a tab up for our 2025 to 2030 strategic
029plan. Um as we have done in the past we'll be reporting to the board uh throughout the years uh explaining the work that's been done thus far. We'll be updating that on the district homepage. That's that can be utilized by all of our community members who are interested in knowing the work that's been done. Any questions? >> When looking at the two different strategic plans, what do you think are some of the biggest differences that we're doing in this strategic plan that we may not have touched on as much in the previous strategic plan? along the lines of the frames or along the lines of the actual tasks that are going to be accomplished. >> The tasks that are trying to be accomplished. >> You know, it's funny you asked that, Mr. Hughes. It's something
030that we talked about as a collective group, just like we did going into the 2025 uh 2020 to 2025 strategic plan. We had a framework of what we wanted this district to look like by 2025. And individually, each year we started to really focus our attention on how are we going to get there. So, I can't tell you all the different accomplishments that we're going to have by the end of 2030, but what I can tell you is the specific goals that we have here. It's there's a lot of work that was done in the first strategic plan that still needs to be continued. Um, and also the work when you're talking about elevating from whether it's instruction, whether it's community connections, whether it's facilities or wings of wellness, all of those things, there was
031a lot that was accomplished in the first, but there's still a lot to be done. So, it's really a continuation as well. >> Okay. >> Say one thing. >> I've said this before, but when this board was hiring Mike, we looked at a whole bunch of candidates and we looked at the districts those candidates were coming from. And in every one of those districts where those candidates were coming from, there were strategic plans. strategic plan number one. There was no district that had strategic plan number two. >> And um it I think it's a great um achievement for our district to be committed to the work and to understand that it has real value for all of our efforts, especially our staff and our administrative and leadership team. Um it really focuses our efforts. And
032sort of to your question, Chris, is we learned a boatload in the first one and we learned some really strate um important uh foundational items that we're going to be building on in strategic plan number two um that I think everybody's really excited about continuing to pursue, but we have a very strong foundation to continue to pursue that. And again, just reflecting on the districts that have never done a strategic plan too, they basically ended up when their first strategic plan stopped, they went back to where they were, they might as well have never done it. Um, this is work that really is is um the district is committed to, the leadership team is certainly committed to it, the board's committed to it. Um, it has tremendous potential as we've already seen in the areas
033of success we have had. Um, but there's more to do and we look forward to doing that work and advancing our student achievement along the way. So, and the other little thing is which struck me when Lisa was speaking is, you know, it sounds like a lot of this is for like our high achieving students. It's not. It's a plan for every single student wherever you are on the learning journey. Um, we have programs and interventions for every student. there is nobody who's not on our radar >> and um so we're lifting all boats with with this tie. >> So it's it's really it's I'm very proud that that this group has done this that the commitment is strong and we continue to do it. So thank you. >> Very well said. Lots of work
034ahead but we've seen that before. >> Okay, let's uh Dr. Fair. >> Yeah. I guess >> um I just want to take a moment again thank you very much to the administrative team. Thank you for coming to support it. We know you all have families and you have other things to do. You're more than welcome like the students to stay but you don't have to. So please feel free. You can use that. >> Okay. It's not a test. >> Attendance will be taken. Christmas.