001my apologies I have a little cough but uh so be with me tonight um this meeting of the ma board of education is open to members of the public to be physically present members of the public that attend will be asked to follow the same procedures as all other members to our schools these procedures can be found on the agenda page of our website Additionally the board meeting will be live streamed for viewing purposes only anyone wishing to view the meeting May do so via Zoom webinar ID is 872 4103 and the required password is 1 95108 okay call the meeting to order Mr bleer W call please Dr Park here miss aone here miss davano here Mr dilva Mr Denise here Mr Gall here Mr Hughes here Mr kesari here and Dr Mory here
002adequate notice of agenda of this meeting has been provided to the Ridgewood news and the record specifying that the MAA Board of Education will meet on October 18th 2023 in the administrative offices 60 Ridge Road Mawa New Jersey copy was filed with the township cler salute to the flag Dr Park would you lead us please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States America and to the Republic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for [Music] all all right uh we will not require an executive session today in the beginning of our meeting so let us go on to uh number n appointment of the superintendent of school I have to I have to open and close because we have a hearing all right so we're going on actually
003to number seven all right which is motion to open the meeting to the public this is specific uh to the hearing on the superintendent's contract uh Mr karski and second by Mr Gallow uh all right so at this time and pursuant to njac members of the public may ask questions or make comments regarding a new employment contract between the mamao Board of Education and Dr Michael Doro all right thank you very much seeing uh no one coming forward at this time uh motion to close the meeting to the public Mr kisari second by Mr Hughes um now Mr pleer we're voting on this separately this appointment corre okay so um I just actually wanted wanted to share something before we take this vote because I was not at the previous meeting when uh this was
004uh discussed um so uh we're actually voting today it's on today's agenda for the appointment of the superintendent of schools and uh the new employment contract uh retroactive to July 1st 2023 so I just wanted to make a statement actually um I've known Dr Doro since he began in this District as principal of JK my daughter actually started in the fourth grade and he that was a firsttime principal there at that time I was president of the MAA schools foundation and worked with him in fundraising and uh grant writing and awards of Grants I then worked more closely with him when he served as director of curriculum and instruction and at that time I was a member of the Board of Education and I was on that committee um and then I've also served uh
005as chairperson of the committee and worked with with him um recently in the last two years I've worked very closely with Dr Doro um as board president um while he's been in the position of superintendent uh that involves a lot of phone calls a lot of contact uh Mike Dr dor I talk actually quite often Dr Doro is energetic supportive a strong leader good collaborator and is very strongly committed to the MAA schools and promoting excellence in our schools and with our students his first priority is always the student and what's in their best interests he is a good listener and well respected by his staff and administrative team um I'm very excited about this new contract um I think it's a win-win for the Board of Education here and Dr Doro um and I
006think we're going to retain a very highly regarded and respected superintendent um here and I think his leadership is going to provide us with a great deal of stability secur security and the Contin continuation of achieving our goals from the Strategic plan so I'm very proud that we could come to this conclusion and I'm delighted that Dr dorro uh has committed to stay with us for five additional Years thank you all right so let's vote on the appointment of the superintendent of schools um I need a motion I think uh Mr kisari and Mr Gallow any other comments from board members before we proceed okay um all right Mr ler Dr Park yes Miss aone yes Miss davano yes Mr Mr Denise yes Mr Gallow yes an enthusiastic yes Mr Hughes yes Mr kmari 100
007times yes and Dr morthy yes congratulations Dr Jor thank you very [Applause] much you sure you want this it's done now too late now all right agenda questions please limit your questions at this time to resolutions and new business on this agenda as a matter of fairness you asked to limit your questions to no more than one and your remarks to no longer than three minutes if you are here representing a group please identify yourself the group and your position in the group if you are here as an individual please give us your name and address this section of public participation will be limited to 15 minutes please specify the resolution you're referring to in your question all right another motion to open the meeting to the public Mr kisari second by Mr Denise all
008right we are officially open to the public okay seeing no one coming forward let's uh motion to close the meeting to the public um Mr Hughes and second by missone all right um our newly duy superintendence report Dr Doro thank you um just before I get started I just wanted to say how much I'm I'm very grateful uh to serve as a superintendent here in MAA uh Ma's extremely special place we're we're very uh proud of the work that we've done collectively and I'm so glad the administrative team is here uh because it's a ton of work for them ton of work for the teachers and um as a collective group we've done some pretty incredible things um and I'm really excited about the things to come so thank you very much for the opportunity
009um as it pertains to my report as I shared at the last board meeting um we are going to be doing our Equity audit during the November 15th meeting because the state has required us to do our new our testing presentation today so again our d uh our Equity audit will happen November 15th and we're going to be doing our testing presentation today so I'd like to introduce our testing coordinators Miss Danielle paway and Mr Dennis Jarvis is going to be sharing information about from a number of different assessments good evening uh tonight we're here to present the district testing results for the New Jersey SLA and the dlm which were administered in the spring of 2023 my name is Dennis Jarvis and I the supervisor of science for grades 6 through 12 and integrated
010design and Engineering for grades 9 through 5 good evening my name is Danielle pway and I'm the supervisor of mathematics great 6 through 12 this first slide uh speaks to the different assessments that we'll be reporting out on this evening um but before we do that we would like to express our sincere appreciation to the board to the teachers the students the families all of the administrators that are here today uh for working so hard to be able to get us to the point that we're at right now um tonight we're going to talk about two different state assessments uh that are given yearly and they're the njsla were the New Jersey student learning assessments and the dlm or the dynamic learning uh Maps the assessments for njsla were given in the spring of 2023
011um and they test proficiency towards standards the njsla are Statewide assessments that are reported out on math Ela and science um in ela we test students in grades 3 through n in science the students are tested in grade bands but at the ends of grades 58 and 11 in math we test by grade level 3 through 8 but then we also test by course level in the High School courses we do have some Middle School that students that participate in those High School uh student those High School assessments special education students with significant learning challenges are the students that participate in the dlm and they participate in those assessments for ELA math and science the first tests that we'll we'll speak about tonight are the dlm so again as I mentioned before um the students
012that are taking these assessments are special education students who are instructed and assessed on what are known as essential elements these are specific statements of Knowledge and Skills that are linked to the grade level expectations that are identified in those New Jersey state learning standards um the purpose of these uh DM map essential elements is to build a bridge between that content in those standards to the actual academic expectations for these students that actually face that are facing the most significant cognitive disabilities Ela and math are tested in grades 3 through 8 and then again in 11 science is again same as njsla only tested at the end of the grade bands so the science will be dlm will be given in uh end of fifth grade 8th and 11th the assessment ratings for the
013dlm are merging approaching at Target and advanced this table shows us the participation rate this year for the dlm as you can see um we wound up having a total of 16 students participate in the DM and it's worthy of noting that 16 students May consist of students that are out of District placement students and also in District five students participated in the DM for Science and 16 students participated in the DM for Math and Ela this slide shows the number of students who were at Target were Advanced Target for Math and Ela as you can see 10 students in math and nine students in ela either hit the target for their assessment or were Advanced past their their targets for science since the total number of students who were tested um did not meet
014our threshold of 10 students we were not able to report out on the science all right so um not only tonight will we be reporting out on the results of these different assessments but we'll be reporting out on okay so this is what we have and what are we going to do about it now okay so in terms of our intervention plan for our students that participate in the dlm teachers and the child study team continue to work together to meet specific learning goals for individual students and also to adhere to their IEP process using data from that dlm along with school-based assessment data the team is able to develop these different intervention strategies to meet these needs and we meet these needs through functional and performance-based learning opportunities that again are aligned to those
015Essential Elements we've added different assessments from the General Ed setting um such as the Dibbles and the f&p to gain insight into different um foundational uh strengths and also areas to grow on We're utilizing the academic coaches to support the teachers um in different Center based instruction for students we provided PD for the teachers on foundational reading programs such as Edmark and um the Orton Gillingham program and there's opportunities that are continuously searched for and also implemented um where students are integrated into the Ed the General Ed settings and they can um go from morning meetings to the different specials and any other extracurricular activities Dennis Jarvis will share with us the ELA scores and interventions in the spring of 2023 the njsla for English language arts were administer to students in grades 3 through
0169 the njsla ELA focuses on reading comprehension skills and writing competencies the types of tasks for writing are literary analysis tasks research simulation tasks and narrative writing tasks for reading comprehension students are asked questions on non-fiction and fiction texts scores range from 650 to 850 and then a reported as performance level LS listed from one through five as described on the screen this slide shows our percentage of students at each performance level for each grade level of ela uh level five is exceeding expectations level four is meeting level three is approaching two is partially meeting and one is not meeting when we are looking at this type of slide we ideally want to see the greatest percentage of our students in the purple and greenish blue colors on the right side of the bars that
017said we'd like to see an increase for proficiency for all of our students uh especially the light blue red green bars as well points of Pride across the grades we ranged from 67 to 97 or 79% of students at level four and five which is meeing or exceeding expectations on the right hand side of the screen you'll see a number of valid test scores rela the total number of students um the differences in the numers we basically associate with a number of different factors here one is for ML students who are in District for less than a year they do not take a test um some students take the DM as an alternative assessment and some don't take a test for either test refusal or other extend circumstances this slide represents maa's Ela scores in
018comparison to the state of New Jersey for grades 3 through five Mawa shown in blue and the state of New Jersey is represented in red Mawa outperforms the state in grades 3 through five with a difference over the state ranging from 25% to 29% and this is always something that we like to see this slide shows performance of our K3 schools in comparison to the district average of third grade scores light blue bar indicates a percentage of passing scores for Betsy Ross George Washington and ly Meadows in comparison to the district average of 71 all three schools are over the state average of 42% this slide shows you the year-to-year performance in ela for grades 3 through five please note this is not a cohort cohort comparison but rather comparison of the scores for the
019last two years in a specific grade level that said we do see increases across all three grads this next slide is valuable because we were able to start tracking our students progress over a year-to-year basis showing student growth over time uh this is our grade three through five cohort comparison in the first cluster of bars you'll see the class of 2033 are sitting fourth graders there was no test given second grade but their third grade scores are shown uh from last spring in the middle of cluster of bars you can see their improvement from their third grade scores to their fourth grade scores for our current fifth grade students in the last cluster on the right hand side you'll see the scores for our current sixth grade students showing an increase from their fourth grade
020scores to their fifth grade scores now we're shifting our Focus to our grades 6 through n Ela scores this slide shows our percentage of Mawa students meeting or exceeding expectations as compared to the state of New Jersey of course we always want to see our M students outperforming in state so we're happy to say that we're doing just that with scores ranging from 17% to 23% voting to aage this slide is our year-to-year comparison for grades 6 through n again please note this is not a cohort cohort to cohort comparison you can see that there's consistency in grade performance looking at this year gear comparison allows us to evaluate programs and curriculum to ensure our programming is maintaining similar outcomes year after year this next slide shows our 6 through n cohort comparison we're happy
021to see an increase especially in our sixth to seventh grade scores showing a 12% increase we do note that there is a drop from our fifth grade scores to our sixth grade scores we'd like to see our students increase proficiency year-over year as you see in the other grades and we'll discuss different intervention strategies on subsequent slides that are being utilized to support this it's always good to look at historical trends normally we'd like to see five years in order to do this however we have two years where students did not take an assessment but we wanted to provide you a glimpse at a historical Trend chart going back to the njsla in 2019 for those grade levels who took the test at that time as you look at the scores you will notice in
0222019 we were around 80% meeting or exceeding expectations and after not testing students for two years there was a slight decline however we are extremely proud of our students and staff as we now start to see our sporing train increase once again this slide represents the disaggregated data for the ELA assessment for our ma students in grades 3 through n compared to the first line of data which is the overall proficiency for our for the district uh the numbers represent the percentage of students at each performance level as a reminder we would like to see the majority of our students in the blue and purple areas on the right side of the screen you will see that there are subgroups which stand out in comparison to the district proficiency specifically our multilingual Learners MLS and
023our special education students uh I want to everyone want to keep in mind for our ml students these are students who are learning English and their level of proficiency will greatly affect their ability to engage in these assessments that is why we use other assessments that gauge increased proficiency such as a weita access assessment which will be reported on back in August for our special education students is worth noting that students in the subgroup have individual educational plans which outline individual goals that they are working toward and grade level standards maybe more difficult for them to attain with the modifications and accommodations provided during testing we will speak to the interventions and this slide here um so the slide outlines interventions grouped into two different categories General supports for all students and supports that intentionally
024address subgroup demographics um so for our Ki Ela intervention plan uh we're going to be utilizing the I already diagnostic along with my path for immediate and strengthen skills utilize the diagnostic data from the IRA to intentional group students based upon learning needs use our my path for personalized learning in grades K through 5 um work on aligning words with prefixes and suffixes from open court with content vocabulary and science and social studies provide PD for our teachers on instructional strategies connected to Wy rubrics where students score below uh meeting expectations utilize table activities to strengthen and GAP skills and then work with teaching students on how to refer text during literary analysis and research simulating tasks why stay while staying on topic with respect to our subgroup supports provide explicit instruction on Contex specific
025vocabulary for non-fiction text and on frequently used vocabulary for fiction text provide push and support during core instruction periods for intensive intensive speech instruction supplement our reading just right level text with grade level text connected with instruction on close strategies in the spring utilize the digital item Library exposed to on Level standards as they the njs njsla test questions uh provide pull out support with the reading specialist for students performing low expectations usei English program for our multilingual learning students um you know it should be noted that a program for our multilingual population has been updated to provide question support and pull out supports for students with lower proficiency uh and then provide tutoring for our Ela that runs December through May with respect to our 612 uh Ela intervention plan our general supports are
026going to Target instruction using IR data my path and guided lessons provided by Ira with support from the literacy coach continue to develop instructional practices and the work with vocabulary context with main ideas and build upon that work um in strategies for informational and literary texts provide a skills based test boot camp the week before the State Testing going our start of school year um provide professional development to teachers on utilization of small group instructure rela subgroup supports we're going to re-identify students for lit lab and College of arus to include I ready link diagnostic results based on student individual performance and then review student placement and support level in collab classes in order to ensure a fit based upon performance in the areas of identified deficits next Daniel P will share the results part
027of mathematic scores from last so as I mentioned earlier um the different grade level assessments were given to the students in the spring um we have also uh have seventh and eighth graders that are participating in an advanced math program so they would be participating in the algebra one geometry njsa njsla assessments as of last year in the high school only grade nine students in mathematics will be sitting for um that njsla so whatever course those students are in Algebra 1 geometry or Algebra 2 that will be the assessment that they sit for these tests um are measuring the students uh abilities to apply skills and Concepts um understand multi-step problems that require some abstract thinking lots of abstract thinking and modeling real world applications there are uh two different sections for for the tests
028one uses with calculator and without calculator and then one is with all calculator the scores range the same as Ela 650 to 850 and those performance levels are also the same as we run through these next slides for all of the math scores they will mirror what Ela also portrayed for us um so I won't go into it as in depth explaining the different like uh introduction to the slides but I will be specific to the to the math part of it so this slide in particular shows us the percentage of students at each grade level for the njsla math test you'll notice at the bottom even though I mentioned that we had students that participated in the algebra 2 assessment we don't have any scores listed there and that's because we had under the
029threshold of 10 students take that exam in the nth grade so we're not permitted to report out there as Dennis mentioned in a slide like this we're really looking for and our our goal is to have students sitting in our purple in our um light blue or teal blue bars to the right hand side you'll notice there for grade 8 um into Algebra 1 and geometry and I'll speak a little bit more about this later about the numbers of students actually sitting for those different grades according uh different tests according to the grade level again also on the right we've reported out on the number of valid scores versus the total possible test takers for each one of those grade levels or those courses and the same reason that Dennis gave before as seen reasons
030for the differences in in the numbers the numerator and the denominator of those fractions will hold true this slide shows our um scores for grades three through five for the number for the percentage of students that are meeting or exceeding expectations the blue bars represent our MAA score scores and the red bars represent the state scores and as you can see and we're proud of we are um High we are definitely above um that thresold line for the state scores this slide depicts our year-to-year comparison for the grades three through five math scores again please note that this is not a cohort to cohort but it is a year-to-year comparison so it's same grade level but different students and as you can see the scores have increased from 2022 to 2023 across these three grade
031levels this next slide again is for grades K through three it's our school comparison to the district the lighter Blue Bar represents the amount of students who met exceeded the expectations in each one of our K through three schools the darker blue represents the students who matter exceeded those expectations in the third grade as a whole and all of the schools you notice here outperform the state average score of that 46% this next slide depicts our cohort comparisons this slide again we represent as being really valuable because we're able to start following students again as a year over-ear as their cohort using the same test in that first cluster of bars you'll see that class of 2033 who are our current fourth graders where there was no test given in the second grade but their
032third grade score is shown there the next cluster of bars that you see are the scores of our current fifth graders and their scores basically remain consistent from the third to the fourth grade in that last cluster you can see the scores of the current sixth graders and they show an increase of their scores from their fourth to their fifth grade scores so we'll we'll now move to the next um grade band or the six through eight grade band this slide shows our scores compared to the state for the percentage of students who are meeting or exceeding the expectations um once again the blue it's the same color scheme the blue are the MAA scores and the red are the state scores again we proudly say that all of our Mawa scores outperform the state
033but what's really important to represent at this point and really to note is that the scores in the blue bar in grade 8 are not representative of all of the uh students in the eighth grade that actually sat for the njsla in the eth grade this blue bar represents the um scores for students who took the math njsla but if an eth grader took Algebra 1 or geometry they would have taken the algebra 1 or geometry njsla and their scores are represented in the next couple of slides this slide represents our year-to-year comparison from 2022 to 2023 again this is not a cohort to cohort but rather just a year to year for the last two years in a specific grade level this slide is valuable to us because it allows us to take a
034look at curriculum um and allows us to evaluate program we're really proud of the work that's been done with this upward Trend in these year-to-year scores this slide does show our cohort comparisons showing the data for the same groups of students from 2019 to 2023 the first bar cluster shows students who are currently in our seventh grade and those are their scor from their Fifth and into their sixth grade year the next set of bars the middle ones are for our current eighth graders showing their scores from their third grade year then to their Sixth and then into their seventh finally that last set of bars shows the scores for our current ninth grade students so our current freshmen showing their scores from their fourth grade year and then into their seventh and their eighth
035grp this last set of of of bars is a little bit it's a little bit tough to look at um one thing to remember is that it doesn't represent a true cohort right the those students the the dark blue bar that's all the way on the right hand side over there represents our students that are sitting for the njsla math remember that we had students who are participating in accelerated math program so those students are not the same students that took their fourth and their seventh grade test okay they're not in that those scores this slide represents our cohort comparison this slide does not represent our cohort comparison this this slide represents our the the scores comparing um MAA to the state okay in each one of these high school um um courses and when
036I say High School courses algebra one is considered high school course but we do have middle school students participating in that course and as such those middle school students will sit for those exams so the first set of bars that you see there are the scores for our middle school students um that are sitting for their Algebra 1 seventh and eth gr the seventh and eighth grade are sitting for the algebra 1 Test okay the next set of bars are grade nine students that are sitting for an algebra 1 Test next set of bars is the all of our geometry students whether they have been in the eth or the ninth grade and the last is the ninth grade algebra 2 students we exceed the state averages in each one of these assessment categories um
037except for one we're really proud about exceeding the state we recognize that there's some work to be done in one of our courses in the algebra 1 geometry course um and we're ready to hit that head on and I'll talk about those interventions that um will be employing this year um to help us to make a comeback and because that's what we're going to do all right so this slide shows you the year-to-year performance in math um for the district Algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 again this is not a cohort to cohort but it's a year to year and even though I just said that this slide is not representative of a cohort to cohort I do think it's important to compare at least one kind of a Cort so in 2022 we had
03821% of the students that met exceeded expectations in the math 8 njsla this group is represented in the high school algebra 1 data that's shown here in that second cluster of bars so you're looking now at that that darker uh blue Algebra 1 number in 2023 those students increased their scores to the 24% so we did see cohort increase in that specific set of students this slide represents the percentage of students um who are represented in our subgroup data um as Dennis mentioned already before we're looking for students to be in our purple in our blue um some of the sub groups are not there yet in and in addition to that something else to note is that some of the students that occupy seats in some of the subgroups actually double in some of
039the other categories so they might be the same student that's actually sitting in a couple of these groupings um I will definitely share and be very specific with the interventions that we'll be using this year to assist all of these students um that populate these subgroups and here they are so here's our intervention here's what we're going to do about it so we are we are proud of where our students are but we know that there's you know there's some room for growth um again we we organize these supports in terms of General supports for our students and also specific supports for some of the students um that might be struggling in our subgroups so for K through five we'll be utilizing the diagnostic data from I ready to intentionally group students based upon their
040learning needs the math coach is being utilized to provide support to students students in the area of math Workshop uh the scope and sequence is being revised for instructional experiences that will include fraction work to occur before State Testing and not after the State Testing um in our data teams there's focus on multi-step word problems and how to infuse that concept throughout the entire year the plc's at the four to five level the grades four to five level are focusing on these interventions in the win instruction period or the what I need now instructional period for our subgroup supports we have um new push in that goes along with our pullout supports for the with the mass specialist U for students that are performing below those grade level expectations there's an increased use of manipulatives
041to provide concrete instruction um to complement the abstract notion that students are expected to um to be proficient in there's a use of myMath and other supplementary materials that align directly to the standards that are more concrete and accessible to the students in resource room and self-contained settings we're using programs such as Lexia and Magic School AI for translation purposes and Scaffolding purposes for ML students there's tutoring for mathematics that will run from December through May for the ml students um and we're using a guided math approach to support increased small group instruction um during core time on the 6 through 12 level the general supports for our students include also using the diagnostic data from I ready um in grades 6 through 8 and with that limited use in grade nine as we spoke
042about before with the need for the algebra 1 so um we are using that in that algebra one with the that cohort students we're also using the L the link benchmarks to intentionally group students based upon their learning needs to give them what they need for small group instruction we're using my path for personalized instruction in grades 6 through 8 and as I previously shared for our high school algebra 1 scores we we recognize that um we need um some intensified prerequisite skill remediation which is um necessary for found ational successes in Algebra 1 so our specific cohort this year of CP Algebra 1 students took the I ready over the link it and this date is going to be supporting their targeted instruction in our lab and our regular um classes for individual students
043for those students that are now in Geometry from last year to this year we're intentionally creating a spiraled approach of those Algebra 1 scores to include in the geometry so that they have one step and two-step equations multi-step problems and Analysis of graphs um coordinated with the geometry there's a refocus on major and supporting standards in type one questions um and we're using the digital item library to guide our work with that we're continuing with the tier one interventions from last year that spoke to vocabulary acquisition and using cubes like strategies to solve multi- um step problems and lastly for all students we've Ed the grade 6 through 8 curriculum to create opportunities to integrate those geometry standards throughout our 6th 7th and 8th grade curricular to expose students to material that otherwise may not
044have been considered as priority standards through um our C coid learning experience as per um the state with their priority learning um documentation in terms of our subgroups in addition to all of the um the core interventions will be working with students again through Lexia at this level and Magic School AI where pre-teaching prequisite standards were appropriate um as determined by prerequisite reporting needs through the I ready and the link data we're addressing those prerequisite skill remediations in math labs and CCR courses uh we're utilizing the individual learning plans or the ilps for MLS to plan instructions according to their can do statements and there's explicit instruction on academic and content specific vocabulary um to make sure that students um are are living in the right world with the vocabulary that they need to use
045in terms of explaining so next Dennis will s share with you the information for science in grades 5811 the njsla for science measured student Proficiency in scientific and Engineering practices in the context of crosscutting Concepts and disciplinary core ideas as with the other testing content areas students demonstrated their acquired skills and knowledge by answering selective response items and constructive response items not there's a few key differences with our Science assessment again is tested only at the end of the grade van standards in grade 5 8 11 um the scaled scores do not run from 650 to 850 like math uh it's on a 100 to 300 scale and we have one less proficiency level going 1 through four not one through five this slide represents our ma students that either met or exceeded expectations in
046the 5 8 and 11 R exam as compared to the state of New Jersey as you can see here with MAA represented in blue we again outperform the state uh in students meeting your exceeding expectations in all three testing grades uh you can also see that we increase proficiency over the state as we move move from grade five to grade eight and finally grade 11 this slide represents the percentage of students that fell into each performance level for 2023 in comparison to 2024 given that the Science assessment doesn't have a direct year-to-year cohor comparison like Ela mathematics does um this historical data allows us to see positive movement in Greater detail relative to our instructional strategies as you can see the shifts in performance Lev of the 2023 assessment are modest but they are moving
047in POS POS Direction with higher percentages of students in the purple and green and lower percentages of students in the blue and the red Additionally the slide includes a column to the far right of the screen to show you how many valid scores were reported out of the total number of students that could have been tested um this comparison slide represents our percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations for 2019 2022 and 2023 um the 5ifth 8th and 11th grade assessment um just note 2019 was the first year of the Science assessment within this slide we get to see a couple of class ports and their testing results um at the conclusion of the respective grade band standard so if you look at the orange boxes this represents the graduating class of 2023 you can
048see their performance in grade eight on the left hand side of the screen uh I'm sorry in the middle in 2019 um in in grade 11 from their 2022 on the right hand side of the screen looking at the Yellow Boxes this is a graduating class of 2026 you see their performance in grade five from 2019 on the left hand side of the screen and then again in grade 8 in 2022 in the middle of the screen um as they are currently sophomores they will take their last njsla Science assessment at the end of next year the spring of 2025 while we see modest improvements in our scores uh over the last two years as a whole we're going to discussing a number of interventions to help us significantly improve these scores this slide represents
049a demographic breakdown for our students in each of the three tested grades relative to the percentage of students at each performance level um something you keep in mind as you look at the results um again these demographic percentages are only representative of the student population in grades 58 and 11 um and as Danielle spoke to before some of these demographic groups May overlap depending upon which groups the students fall into um that said our goal continues to be the Improvement for each student in every subgroup and to address that we're going to speaked to the plan interventions in the next two slots for our grade four five um interventions due to the subgroups needing you know across the board need to Improvement everywhere um we are we're going to lump them into one one General
050support that every student will be exposed to so for we're forming a 4 five science committee to look at alternative programs the current program is online um so so we're looking for a program that's far more Hands-On and is based in experiential learning we're going to be focusing on aligning words with prefixes and suffixes in open port uh with content vocabulary in science and social studies we're going to analyze our current practices scheduling for science as we're looking to create more cohesion for Science teaching time in the current rotation in the past we usually pull our students out for ESL Services during science and social studies time so it's not to take them from pool this year we created a pushin model for our ml Learners where ESL teachers will push in during this time
051to support vocabulary acquisition uh and application we're utilizing Lexia to support I'm sorry to help support vocabulary acquisition mathematics and we're using Magic School AI for translation and Scaffolding purposes U we're leveraging our existing maker spaces and maker space process to prioritize uh the foundational understanding of the engineering design process the scientific method um and the science engineering principles that are intertwined with our standards at our 612 level uh we broke them down again to General supports and subgroup supports um for our general supports we're utilizing our I ready data in conjunction with our Ela math counterparts we're adapting the IR teachers rules for instruction in both reading and math uh for science lessons at the appr appropriate achievement levels we're going to provide structured and Target review for respective three-year grade band content in
052life Earth in space and physical science prior to the njsla assessment in Spring um and the respective science courses we're going to continue to focus on learning experiences where students utilize sentence stems as a strategy for problem solving those ngss style threedimensional questions we're going to continue to utilize close reading and reading annotation strategies particularly for informational text and data analysis uh we're going to look to provide some vertical vertical articulation between our grade five and grade six teachers to help better Bridge the shift to our secondary science standards and skills relative to our subgroup supports we're utilizing I ready and linked data to identify individual students represented in the categories uh and their current science classes for our purposeful grouping and small group instruction and utilizing that same information we're going to Target specific
053skill and content instruction with these students um we're looking to pre-teach content specific vocabulary for ML student population uh and utilize our s of trained teachers for professional development to best assist our teachers in instructing our ml uh student population so over the last 40 slides we represented our students through a lot of a lot of verbiage a lot of data a lot of numbers a lot of shks um we wanted to put a face to the to the to the data to the to the kids um give an inside view of the instructional experiences an AC um the picture on the far left of your screen the upper left hand corner there um shows students at GW following their my pth on my ready um the second picture from the left shows students in
054small group phonics instructions to meet their specific student needs the bottom right picture shows our middle school students doing station work to extract context cludes about domain specific vocabulary uh and lastly the upper right hand side um students in grade six were working collaboratively on an assignment where they were practicing their use of mathematics content vocabulary that that's all I have for my report um are there any are there any questions right sure so um so a couple few in I start off with my normal same question from every year is this these tests were done last year results come in sometime over summer early beginning of school year school year is now two full months in you know where where do we overlay the intervention for kids that have already moved everyone's already moved
055up a great every's already moved on teachers have already been doing their great job of what they do with these kids kind of how does how does the intervention work um in terms of going forward secondly you look at algebra specifically and ly Meadows versus the district instead of aside from Intervention are we asking ourselves what the heck happened and why is it like that and what occurred let alone the intervention I get it looks very robust but what happened like how does algebra get that bad how does lopy drop off from a district that bad it's unfortunate but it's just do we know why you know obviously the intervention plan is the intervention plan those are all great things I think we would throw at the wall because we have to we need to
056leave that plan but is that are those steps coming from a position of why it happened so I'll do I'll start with the interventions and l Meadows and you jump in for out um along the lines of interventions we we've we've spoken about this at a couple meetings along the lines of the assessment and the information we get from the state assessment um and how we can apply any sort of information that they give us and we've talked about the struggles along the lines of the way that the njsla information is shared and how we can um act on that information that's why um the team has engaged in work with i as well as linol what I can tell you is um last year at the end of last year we started the spring
057in the spring administering the I ready assessment I'm very happy um and impressed with the information it's giving and how we can uh address it immediately um this year we just gave the fall assessment and we're already underway taking part in data meetings it's not even just the dat dat that they give us uh they break it out into subgroups uh they allow us to see the overarching picture of proficiency but they also allow us to see the various skills within those subgroups that we need to attend to because in in the grand scheme of things when you talk about what are we going to do what we need to understand is not just proficiency levels but also what are the deficiencies so we can build them up to make sure that that proficiency levels
058gain so that work is being done uh currently over the past week into next week along the lines of looking at grade specific and subject specific data along the lines of that is not just identifying where the proficiencies are but also creating intervention plans aligned to what the need is so as of right now they are building their tier one intervention plans which addresses the overarching need for the entire grade or the entire class or the entire department but simultaneously they're also working with other data points within their class not just I ready whether it's benchmark assessments in the in the secondary level or uh Running Records On Demand writing and things like that so that work is currently being du with the data that we have in house so that's the first piece would
059you like to talk about the algebra piece and I'm glad you asked that question because we were asking ourselves the same question what the heck happened so I we've done um a really deep dive into um the standards that were taught over the last three years in particular during coid learning there were priority standards that were just not priority were standards that would normally sit in a major an additional setting of the way that the standards are broken down that were not considered priority standards in addition to that learning took um learning took its now again this is where we think we went wrong so this is why we're putting the interventions in place that we're doing right so um there was let us get to as much as we can in a shortened amount
060of time as a result the deeper um practice where we don't know if it was really done appropriately right so now at this point right now what's being done for the program that's sitting in the high school right now is what we just talked about that subgroup that sits in those scores that are a little bit lower from last year that actual program is being addressed with the I ready so that we can appropriately pinpoint prerequisite skills that need remediation to have students be more algebra ready to um be to be able to access the algebra content at that time the students that left the algebra 1 High School course that are now in Geometry we have now since um developed um like a a miniscope and sequence that's sitting within and spiraled into that
061geometry course to make sure that the the geometry units and standards are including the algebra St the algebra standards that can naturally be spiraled in there to make sure that we um remediate that content at the same time so don't really want to say this uh specifically but it's like an Al it's like an Alo an Alia Alo Geo course right this year so that we can make sure that we we get that covered um just a followup question to the Lenape results I just I can't remember do we do breakdown um per School of the um you know sort of disaggregated data per because I'm just wondering um also are there um more um is there more diversity at lape than our other two schools and does that perhaps have a contributing factor as
062well I don't think we we didn't probably look at that but I'm just I'm just curious if that's something um and I know I was just going to say you presented this to instruction curriculum and I didn't think to ask at them but it's just something for perhaps for future for us to look at individual schools and because I mean you know that's a conversation that has been longstanding right that l Nae may have um some particular needs that the other two schools do I it's just something for us to think about let me kind of just give a little frame of reference uh this is the first time that we're actually breaking out by school at the elementary if you remember correctly we've always done K3 as a collective group that's how we've reported
063out in the past that being said there's a lot of there's a lot of great work that's happening at l Meadows specific to analyzing the data with with with the students in which we serve in each School um so what I can tell you is what's going to be a focus for every single school is to identify where our students come in and what their proficiency level is the interventions that we're putting into place and what and tracking the growth so our our Focus along the lines of any school is to take a look at our fall assessment scores put our intervention plans in place track them so I can definitely report back to you along the lines of in January where are we at along the lines of the growth specific to that grade
064three grade four it doesn't matter but that's going to be a focus point along the lines of when they walk into our doors what is their proficiency level what is the intentional work that we're doing specific to what they need and then see how they track over time um so that's the work that we are currently doing what I can tell you is programmatically we're doing the same programs across the board what I can tell you along the lines of um effort and and and value of the teaching that's taking place in all the schools there is great teaching that's happening across the board so what I I I can't give you an exact answer along the lines of where we're at along the lines of walking in uh proficiency level because I don't have
065that information in front of me right now but what I can tell you is we will be tracking from our fall Administration to our winter Administration and then ultimately our spring Administration and then I can report back along the lines of what are those growth scores over time for this year so if I understand correctly and I just want to make sure have this right there can't hear you is it on no hello right um what I'm what I'm getting from your comments I want to make sure that I'm right we are able to track the class as they move up right because obviously you know comparing this year's fifth grade to last year's fifth grade really is irrelevant so we do have a way to track as they go that the individual class they
066move right you're absolutely correct so we we're able to track cohorts we're able to track individuals so the value of this this assessment is when we have them on intake of when they take the assessment whenever they come into our district at because we have a commitment to this program over time we're going to be able to see what that progress takes place uh from the individual level to the grade level and for you know for instance we're talking about algebra and in high school so those 11th graders obviously are getting the hybrid class you know in the following year I'm assuming we're able to kind of extrapolate and and preemptively put some of this stuff in place for the current 11th graders and we don't have to wait till these results for next year
067right say that one more time I'm sorry so in other words the the NJ njsla for this group of 11th graders okay okay now they're 12th graders so as 12th graders they're taking the hybrid Al nth grade was nth grade was algebra okay so now those are sitting 10th graders okay so now are we able to kind of take what we learned from um from these results and kind of extrapolate that and preemptively start doing some of the stuff for the eighth graders the eth grade class exact we are that's exactly right and what's be what's in addition to that preemptive piece is the information that we have gotten from our already from the first diagnos first diagnostic that specifically speaks to those prerequisite skills that we need to grow in in order to be
068algebra ready for the ne for the next grade um Dr Park um just a comment uh specifically on the ELA scores of economically disadvantaged students so uh one of the most important interventions is just simply getting more books into the F of kids um and that means weekly checkouts from their school library um economically disadvantaged students have the least access to books at home their parents are the least able to be able to get out to Mawa Public Library um and so one of the most important interventions is them to be able to check out books from their school library as often as possible um again it's my understanding that that still isn't happening um so more opportunities for book checkout especially for the younger kids um it benefits everyone to have more books around
069it especially benefits um economically disadvantage students um Mr G I think Ben asks the same question every year at these presentations and I think one of the things that was so exciting for me last year is when we approved the IR contract Dr touched on it but it puts us in the driver's seat of admin tests getting the results virtually immediately and in addition to sort of pinpointing individual student um strengths and weaknesses it also has the feedback to give our teachers like this student requires this type of intervention on the on the teaching side so it's it's a two- per tool um and and when I saw Dr bino at the start of the meeting she looks so so tired because she's been going through those spreadsheets on the I read data but this
070is a re this will re she's working very hard that's very hard but it responds to what Bennett has been asking for years and I think we're not you know we might not see it this year but we will start seeing some buildup to this and are we doing a presentation in January on I ready no is that what you mention or no I'm saying we can track it track it yes we're not and it goes to Brick's question of longitudinal Data Tracking which has been my predecessor who was asking for seven years ago um and it's it's going to be revolutionary I think the way we um what we know about our students the intervention how we craft our interventions I think the intervention plan that we have here I mean it's very robust
071but I know there's probably 10 times more stuff that's actually happening in the classroom than what's here but these are the top Focus areas that'll be um that our teachers will be exposing our students to so um the NJ njsla is by its very nature as Ben points out sort of a rearview mirror look and what we're looking at is hey we have these kids this year we have them for maybe another two three four five and if they're younger or longer what are we going during that time that we have with them and that that's I think um the exciting part of Ira is really gives us tools we haven't had before um and I I think with this presentation too I think um the interventions we've not had that I mean it this
072is a very very and we a very comprehensive um report so thank you very much and we as instruction curriculum um were we had the um you know privilege of H hearing this already before but um I just wanted to also um give um Mr Jarvis an opportunity because there was a very robust conversation about the science scores which again of concern that um no subgroup uh made it over 50% and I just wanted you to have an opportunity because you provided some good feedback to us um at the committee level about what we're doing and what you're doing but again the interventions the strategies um what um you know Mr Gallow speaking to about the fact that we have I ready and we have this New Jersey tiered support system I mean we have
073put in and this District um thank you to the administrative team to Dr bino I mean there's so much now that we are really looking at it looking at kids individually looking at cohort groups and I mean it's it's just amazing stuff so I think we're going to have uh continue to have more and more um you know uh valuable reports going forward with very good information so thank you but I just want to give you that opportunity because it was a very robust conversation about science thank you um you know and I know you know from the science perspective I think the biggest Boom for us is going to be linoln um because it is a standards based it's a skill-based um you know benchmarking um that we can Benchmark in each of our
074individual content areas we get that immediate feedback like we do we have the three benchmarks throughout the year so we can track that growth as well across all sub groups um whether it's a general or the the sub groups themselves um and you know it's it is not predictive in nature yet in terms of what the ngsa scores will be but we're working with that um as part of that process to to you know I guess to develop that algorithm for link it um but but it does provide us that that you know rock solid evidence that you know these are the areas we need to strengthen and specifically more so for our subject area it's more so the skills our standards speak more of our skills um than they do in terms of our
075content all right thank you very much genone else uh thank you Dr bino because I know and and you look you look beautiful Dr and Mr Char and Miss pway thank you very much for all your time and Dr dor would like to I I just wanted to take a moment to thank the administrative team for all the work that we're doing specific to whether it's data whether it's everyday tasks and and responsibility so thank you so much for coming out and supporting your colleagues uh being present for this work and thank you for continued dedication to our kids you guys are more than welcome to go if you'd like and you're always welcome to stay no no pressure anyway thank you very much for you want to mention will be on the the presentation
076will there there you go Mr G uh this presentation will be posted on the website um on Dr Rino's curriculum instruction website all right is that all talk to thank you very much um Mr bleer do you have a report this evening no no report this evening okay thank you very much uh Dr fa report this evening I didn't have one originally but I'm just reviewing the agenda and I just want to make I just want to point out a few things because we have a um a series of appointments of new par professionals so we just recently had a par professional job fair here in District which yielded um a whole host of new staff joining joining MAA schools so I just want to welcome them officially and uh we're excited to have them
077and that's it thank okay excellent thank you very much um okay my report um all right so um and see this is why they always leave and then I have nice things to say about MAA high school and um so ma high school was recognized by the college board and named to the AP advanced placement School honoral earning silver distinction so MAA high school offers 24 AP courses uh we had 52.5% or 104 of the seniors so this was from the class of 23 take at least one AP exam during High School 87% of our seniors scored a three or higher on at least one AP exam which is really remarkable uh the average score for the class of 2023 was 3.8 out of five and lastly I mean these are like rock stars 12.6%
078or 25 of our seniors actually took five or more AP exams so um again congratulations to um Mawa High School uh for earning this distinction um and uh to all our students who continue to excel um academically um also we have uh from the class of 2024 uh National Merit Scholarship semifinalist uh merik T sharp um which is uh an incredible thing to be um a scholarship semi-finalist um among all so these are these are based on the results uh when they took the 20 uh the PSAT in 2022 so we have merri TP as a semifinalist and then we have several commended students um in the class of 2024 including uh Matthew salum Peter a kaya graa vishak Menan David kobobel Andrew TR John wo Iran Aman lakita palu Nicholas Franco Christina Wang and
079Anthony L so um again being named a commended student these are all students and our um scholarship semi-finalists who have demonstrated outstanding potential for academic success so congratulations again to all our students um and again another example of how MAA High School continues to uh just demonstrate academic Excellence um also wanted to recognize our marching Thunderbirds who won first place I mean amazing with a score of 88.89% all oh and the last thing which will come up again later but I just again want to highlight the Mawa schools Foundation Thunderbird run which is on Sunday I think the weather is going to be okay so um this is this Sunday the 22nd uh the 5K starts at 8:30 the 2-mile walk at 8:35 the kids run 10:15 now if I noticed correctly registration and tonight
080it said the 18th I think 11:00 p.m. so go to the website Maas schoolsfoundation.org and again uh because of uh all the efforts of the Mawa schools Foundation they uh continue to support the board and all the extra things in the schools and we thank them very much and we wish them a very very successful Thunderbird run all right that's all I have now let's go on to board committee reports who do I have this evening Mr Gallow uh the finance committee met uh on October 11th we did a very preliminary review of enrollment in September um this is the first time I've seen a total District count go up we were up plus two overall District but there was uh there were a couple of other Trends inside the data um it seems like
081our kindergarten class got very small this year uh the pressure at Betsy also was take somewhat taken off um so that means that kids must be coming in from other movein to the town in the Middle School grades um but the official numbers will be done in October um but this is the preliminary look of what is happening in September we also reviewed um our health plan and prescription benefit plan it looks like for our budget plenty purposes we're going to be okay in 2024 based on the rates that we received from the state um we reviewed current balance of cap Reserve maintenance reserve and emergency Reserve um these Reserve amounts will be finalized once the audit is closed for 2023 um I think in the future we're going to be reporting on the status
082of those reserves be our Capital needs um there'll be issues coming up with that um there was no update on the rod Grant these are state grants to help pay for capital projects in the district um no we haven't got an update on the official list of projects were're going to be approved for but we did learn that we have an indefinite amount of time to spend the money which is good um project updates the uh Pro the uh grand stand project was has been completed final payment for that project is on this week's agenda um the HVAC project over GW the uh change order that we talked about last time uh is on there's a resolution to move money from cap Reserve to the budget to pay for that for that change order but
083the change order has already been implemented and GW has Heat which was the the aim of that um due to savings we had in our Paving program we're going to undertake a drainage Improvement project had here in the parking lot um which is also on this week's agenda um we also briefly discussed USAC and the implications for finan facility areas uh we look like we're in good shape the business office has taken some proactive steps to assess uh where we are on um facilities uh qac indicators um and and the other project that we sort of have in our mind we've been talking about for a long time is the lighning be between the area of the grand stand and the concession stand currently the practice is to get a portable light generators from Mawa
084police thank you and illuminate that area and we're looking at ways to do some permanently thank you very much Mr Gallow and thank you for your committee minutes that went out to the full board appreciate for having me do them um any other board committee reports this evening Miss davan um just a quick highlight of some events going on around town for those who had not heard M day is rescheduled again we're going to try on 10:28 to host ma day the longterm forecast actually shows rain for that day right now so why it just is what it is uh we should just do it in the rain and have a good old time um so that will be on 1028 also happening on 1028 at Ma School the film Arts and Music committee from
085town hall is hosting a stranger things comes to MAA event so carono from stranger things and The Sopranos will be there to answer questions have conversations with the audience etc etc so this will be happening 10:28 at 7 p.m. you can buy your tickets online she's the mother from stranger things my daughter clarify that's who she is in case you didn't know CU I wasn't sure in you don't watch as Prima mentioned the Thunder Run is the Sunday 10:22 fingers crossed for really nice weather after raining Friday and Saturday uh looking forward to that event as always this Friday is homecoming at MAA High School um our Middle School cheerleaders will be there as well so we are looking forward to a very fun evening in the rain but that is what we're used to
086at this point uh 10:25 there's an grade open house being hosted at Baba high school at 7 p.m. it's a great event for 8th grade students and their families it's just a first a first open house of many that will happen during the year um but it's good to get that started now um an email came out this week from Dr Doro about our newest Thunder partnership called blessing baskets so as a district we are collecting um full Thanksgiving meals to then be distributed back out to families in MA who really could use that support and help um all the details are in the email that went out to the entire School Community um the Google form to be able to register and then the shopping lists that are available whether it be canned goods
087produce Etc or just shop right gift carts that can help any family that's in need this year to make sure that they also have Thanksgiving dinner on the table um drop off for that will be on 11:15 from 4 to 7 at the think tank um when I mow is hosting a very special event called a pumpkin blazs this year on Friday 1027 so they're inviting the community into the school um you'll have the opportunity for students at that school that carve their own pumpkins they will be on display outside um they're making paper lanterns to illuminate pathways through the school and outside and I think it is a very fun Community event um $5 admission is required you can buy your tickets online um all proceeds go to funding The wape Meadows hso I'm
088not W Nae parent anymore but we will most likely be there because it's such a cute event um in your $5 ticket comes with apple cider and donuts and who does not love apple cider and donuts um 11:15 kicks off American Education week um so details will come from Individual schools but essentially we open our doors to our parents and Guardians to join us in the classroom see what your students are working on um be a little bit involved in the classroom um each School handles this different so just look for the emails that will come from your building principles on which days you will be invited in sorry um 10:24 there is a program being hosted at the Mawa senior center it's a b smart gun safety presentation in conjunction with the m Police
089Department this is a really great event that will just talk to families and to community members about gun safety in the home how would you safely have guns in your home how would you keep Kids Safe um so I think that this is a really great event that everybody should be open to attending um I think that is it for me today thank thank you thank you Mr avanir and uh I I'm sure you just missed it but November 12th is the volley this year for I don't want to take your thunder but our next meeting is like the 15th I think so happy Dali to all those who celebrate Dali on the 12 I I'll bring snacks I think on the 15th perhaps for the volley um all right so um just quickly on
090instruction curriculum unless did anyone else John did you have anything to okay um so our September meeting um um Nikki van s came to speak with us about the team's partnership for 2023 uh that sounds stands for empathy equality entrepreneurship Mission um it partners with our 11th grade coursework on contemporary issues which is a semester course um multiple schools actually in the local um area are involved with there about 30 schools and a preliminary area Focus um might be the war in Ukraine um and fundraising for that but the kids eventually decide um once they're in the course um the uh prek uh curriculum um Don savastano came and presented to us um about their reviewing of the four state approved prek curriculums um looks like we're going to continue with the creative curriculum it's
091called um it's an updated version um of that and that just includes the newer version has Family Resources four-week guided units uh hard copy and digital access and new com uh content as it becomes available so um again similar to what we had but just a newer version of it um Parent Academy calendar uh I know Dr bino uh has been very excited about the turnout thus far at our uh we've already had three parenty at this point um and uh we've had some really terrific turnouts so thank you that's been wonderful uh the next one is November second screen agers uh which is um more for Mawa high school students in rampo Ridge um and it's more of kind of a a focus on safety issues um February 8th there's advanced math and gifted
092and talented programming uh for third grade parents March 5th uh there is supporting each student emotionally where they are and that's for all student levels um the other thing we got an update from Dr Fair on our mentoring program program um so as required by the New Jersey Department of Education Any teacher who's working toward their teaching certificate is required to have one year of mentoring um so we have this year 15 mentors and 15 mentees um assigned to each other based on content area grade level Etc so um they've made some changes to the program under uh do Affairs uh guidance and Leadership um and so again a good program to ensure that we support our new teachers and help uh address any issues so that we can um again retain the best teachers
093in this District um and that's it that's what I have for instruction curriculum all right thank you very much uh let's go on to um old any sorry board um member remarks additional comments yep so on October 3rd John Mike and I attended the meeting of the school year of the berbon county school boards Association the guest speaker was Lester Taylor of the Taylor law firm and his topic was parental rights in public education specifically parental rights regarding curriculum and instruction special ed HIV and student health and attendance and his second topic was equity and education the second meeting will be on December 5th the topic for that night will be branding and Communications highlighting proactive engagement strategies to educate the public excellent thank you for attending all three of you um Mr DVA real
094quick I want to follow up on your comments on the marching band Yes so did I missp speak well no no they yeah they just got better oh okay right so they yeah they're they're in first place for season so far but this uh competition this past week okay was the second competition in a row that they not only won their division but had the highest score of the show so that was not on the Twitter feedback so Contin with their their scores are getting are increasing as they go so well just amazing and thank you Mr D Silva for further information on that thank you and congratulations again to our marching event I mean it's just amazing we have academic Excellence we have sports Excellence we we have arts and I mean tremendous tremendous
095stuff going on in our district all right any other board member remarks all right let's go on to Old business um minutes from September 27th meeting I need a motion in a second um Mr Hughes and a second by Mr Gallow thank you Mr bleer Dr Park yes Mr yes Miss davero yes Mr Denise yes Mr Galla yes Mr Hughes yes Mr kmari yes and Dr morthy abstain Mr TVA is here now Mr Excuse me uh Mr DVA yes thank you all right let's take new business um I have A2 g g this evening okay I need a motion Mr kisari and second by Dr Park Mr bleer we have full roll call this evening Dr Park yes missone yes Miss deanera here I'm sorry yes Mr DOA yes and I'd like to recognize Z
096and AA we have um donations in the amount of $250 from the ton family and a $2,500 donation to music program for anous thank you Mr Denise yes Mr Gallow yes accept on 20a I'll be abstaining from checks 13103 and 13206 thank you Mr Hughes yes Mr K I am yes on all except I I a no only in that I still believe that Frost Valley should be a fall field trip Li Liberty Science Center Is Not Great worthy for a great five that Dr in there's something to be said also for having it in the spring yes so I I feel the camaraderie that's that's developed in the fall throughout all six through eight so noted Mr kmari all right let's move on to new business Personnel let's take A2 JJ this evening we
097need a motion Mr Denise and a second by Mr dilva all right Mr bleer Dr Park yes mrone yes Miss davero yes Mr D Silva yes and I'd like to uh recognize and thank our Volunteers in i i and JJ and also recognize uh GG and HH Isabella and tan Barat I said that right for representing MAA in independent rowing and fencing competitions very cool Mr Denise yes Mr Galla yes Mr Hughes yes Mr karski yes and Dr morthy yes all right let's move on to public questions or comment public participation at board meetings is in accordance with bylaw 0167 at this time members of the public may ask questions or make a comment on educational issues or School matters of community interest it's a matter of fairness you're asked to limit your questions to
098no more than one and your remarks to no longer than 3 minutes if you are here representing a group please identify yourself the group and your position in the group if you're here as an individual please provide us your name and address this section of public participation will be limited to 15 minutes all right so I need a motion to open the meeting to the public Mr Gallow second by Mr Hughes and we are officially open to the public good evening everyone um I just wanted to say uh thank you after just looking at the test results um it's nice nice to see what you guys have done we just need a name and Justin Jacob sorry y just the name you can put the address down that's fine but just the name if you
099wouldn't mind sorry thank you um yeah I just thank you for the work you've done as seen with the test results um you have high standards uh for my and I I appreciate that academically that's that's why I moved here um however I'm just afraid of the direction we're going to go in um particularly as Dei andal goes up um we've seen this all across the country as you guys are aware um and in other school districts academics have gone down as the have gone up so um I just want you guys to continue the hard work you're doing stay with common sense please and uh I hope you're not pressured by any other groups uh I know there's a few woke loud that are here but please just stay with the common sense I
100mean I appreciate that what you've been doing so um I love that my kids are growing and I just hope that you just continue to stay on course with that thank you thank you Dr George right correct is it Jacob oh thank you oh you said his okay all right thank you thank you good evening L theodoro um I have a question about the 8th grade U Math and Science I've asked before um but it seems like there's a new seems like it's new the the I ready um stuff and then um I have an eighth grade daughter um who's in obviously M and Science and concerned about the specifically the science as as a person of science um one of the targeted um supports mentioned um using I ready data um and then the
101second one was um providing structured and targeted review of of um three areas of science is the review going to be part of class time or is it is it an add-on to their um actual science um day and um can you speak to what the I ready is and how it'll help the students um and I'll turn it over to Dr Doro in just a minute but I have been speaking about it in my instruction curriculum report so just if you um have gone had maybe go to a previous uh board meeting but we'll let Dr dor also clarify but I have talked about it um because we rolled it out this year go I'm going to ask you your second question let me I'll answer the first one with I ready and then
102I'm going to ask you again to repeat your second sure so along the lines of the I ready what I'm what I'm um I'm happy to to share with you is it's not just the Math teachers it's not just the ELA teachers that are looking at the data as you know being in the Sciences there's a lot of crossover um skills that are needed in order to be successful in The Sciences so what we were able to do is create these data teams that our math and science teachers look at the the scores and start to look at what are some of the skills that are deficient in our math scores that will definitely in hold them back from being successful in science so there's that conversation of what does it look like in the
103math department and how can we parlay that into our science department so really building up those skills so they can be ready to to to be successful there there's the one piece um along the lines of the the second question so specifically they they um they mentioned a review a generalized review I'll took a picture of it CU like it was quick but a generalized review respected to um life Earth and space and physical sciences um Prov structured and targeted review got it is that part of the curriculum that that's already in place is it is an add-on is it in school or in and and drino please please you can just throw something up you in correct that is more of a curricular review okay so what that is not something that's going to
104be taking place during the instructional time what they're looking at is currently the way that it's structured they have the different sets of science throughout sixth seventh and eighth grade as opposed to sixth grade science gets uh a sampling of all the Sciences in sixth grade then there seventh grade then they they build on that in seventh grade so what they're saying is it might take what what we're wondering is because we have isolated science in six um let's say life science I might I'm I might be wrong which one it is and then a different science in seventh and a different science in eth because they're tested in all of the Sciences each grade there what's what's we're concerned about is that they're missing pieces in order to perform on this specific assessment so
105they're looking at the curricular makeup of the programs and deciding what should be a proper adjustment long term it's not just ma clearly because you do better than the state in almost every area but it seems like eighth grade science is in crisis um do you have a feeling for why that is Statewide not just in my I I you know I I can't you know I can't speak that I've said this to you in previous meetings even though we're above the state I'm still not I'm not satisfied with this I'm um what I can tell you is you know my expectation is that we do some serious work looking at the curricular side of it um you know there's if you go to other meetings there's going to be people talking about the Dynamics
106of the test I'm not going to even ENT that conversation because it sounds like a cop out um but what I can tell you is I think there's there's opportunities for growth in all of the Sciences K through 12 um I think there's opportunities at the K5 level to build the base of understanding proficiency I think uh which was detailed in the in the slides you know we have these opportunities of maker space and steam experiences that we can build in the scientific method and that experiential uh experimental process and build that language that can par year over year to to to Really grow that proficiency but there's opportunities for us to look at it as a holistic um subject K through 12 and work needs to be done thank you uh thank you very
107much Dr Theodora Michelle salsman um congratulations first on your contract I feel like we've been on a very long journey together for the years um my question is kind of broad so we received numerous emails and there's a lot of posts and there's a lot of excitement over all the awards we win and they are expensive at K through 12 in numerous different areas and I'm always happy when I get them because I have kids in many different grades um my question is and this just may be because I'm not privy to how metrics work how do you um justifies as the wrong word but correlate that with our less than optimal njsla scores what data points are used to determine we want something when we are clearly not doing so good in several core
108areas what different data points and metrics are used I'm glad you asked that so I know I just on the last the last answer I said uh we're not going to talk about the test Dynamics but what I will share with you is a lot of these accomplishments are not based off of one assessment and to be quite honest with you a lot of them are national International accomplishments so they look at different different um categories or offerings so some of them look at what is your course catalog what how is it made up what are your AP offerings and what are your AP scores what are your SAT scores they look at a number of different things so we would go through those different things so the international Steam School of Excellence that's one
109of them I I share with you some of the categories and then also that specific award talked about Partnerships along lines with communities and things like that so that's the one piece the Future Ready award that that we uh won last year um that's something specific to what programs we're offering K through 12 um what are the resources that we have that we can provide to our students um and I don't have the the criteria off the top of my head but those are just some of the components the the the singular test of njsla is not the the indicator for these specific Awards and I'm happy to report um in a previous test presentation a couple weeks ago the SAT scores the ACT scores all those High School achievement tests have gone have significantly
110gone up as well as AP offerings and AP averages um what Mr Pascal shared in the past is it's three is the passing so we took a look at all of the courses that offer AP um and we were able to track year over-ear and we were able to see the positive gains year over year for those AP courses yes I'm not disputing those scores and that I was just wondering how when someone goes to ask that question you say these are our data points here yet we want all of these things and they just don't sometimes add up thank you for answering thank you [Music] mman Susan Steinberg 96 Armor Road um those are great reports um it was great to see the numbers and see how well the school's doing I have one
111comment though about the presentation about cohort analysis in math doing comparison for the eighth grade and nth grade since such a large number of your students are doing well and are taking the advanced math courses in seventh and eth grade they they fall out of that sixth grade cohort so when you start looking at the numbers it looks like there's this massive fallof and it's really because truthly the top students which are a sizable number are coming out of the database so when you present that data there should be a secondary number in there which is an actual student of the actual cohort of students of where they were and eliminate those students who are in seventh and eighth grade that number whatever that number is their scores from the comparison cohort from the younger
112grade do you understand what I'm saying yes just because that fall off and I could just I saw the numbers and I saw I was really imp impressed with how many kids were taking the advanced math classes in seventh and eth grade so I think that that would make it a much clearer and much fairer comparison of how the kids are doing you can keep the total but you should have that other one because it's really not the it's not a cohort because you have a different group of students as part of it um on on a secondary note I had the benefit today of taking a class offered in um this is my other haton for Mawa Pride as a director of Mawa Pride that there we have a number of families in this
113District who have two mommies or two daddies or a grandma or various other family configurations at home and I don't know what the policies are in MAA um for just something as simple as paperwork do we have it listed as parent one parent two or Guardian one Guardian 2 or were we specifically saying mother and father on our on our our student our student database I believe it says parent one and parent two i' have to double check but I'm almost positive that's what it is I don't okay great I I I don't know what the the answer is there are actually policies out there there is a more than 80% of kids surveyed and this is a another study that was specially done for family who are lgbtq with the were the Guardians the
114parents are lgbtq and more than 80% of the kids surveyed that this is aged 14 and up in high schools across the country um were coming up saying that they were bullied that they were threat harassed by not only students but also by teachers and faculty members and they had various issues coming up when they brought up things that had to do with the fact that they're did not come from a mom dad family um so I just want to make sure that I just don't know where we are so I'm not asking you to change anything I just kind of want to understand where we are What policies we may have to make sure that we have an equal playing field for the families no matter what their situation may be thank you thank
115you m Steinberg good evening good evening everybody Vicky Gallow congratulations Dr Doro thank you for your leadership thank you for all the work that are wonderful teachers and administrators to in MAA um I've had the benefit of working as a substitute teacher for over 20 years and I think there is an event happening tomorrow with ESS I got a letter about it so I just wanted to do a shout out to the community if anybody's interested in working as a substitute teacher uh it's just been a great part-time job and um you know great positive work environment love working with kids um and I just also wanted to thank um Miss davano for pointing out that there is a great event coming up on October 24th called be smart for gun safety it's going to
116be at the Mawa Senior Center 7 p.m and it talks about safe storage of weapons so I just wanted to invite the community by all of you and parents and Guardians to come and um join in the conversation thank you thank you thank you thank you Miss Gallum and you sound like me all right um oh she's coming back I forgot to sign oh okay all right uh seeing no one else coming forward at this time uh motion to close a meeting to the public Mr kmari second by Mr Hughes um we are going to I need a motion to go to Executive session and we will journ from there um Mr Gallow second by Mr D Silva everyone have a good night thank you for coming this evening