MTPS Board of Education January Voting Meeting (01.27.26)

001Call this meeting order. Uh adequate notice of the meeting is provided for sending such notice to the Asbury Park Press Middletown Patch Middletown and public school district website and the posting of such notice at the August T minor administrative offices and each elementary mill and secondary school in the district. Welcome >> Mrs. Minise >> here. >> Mrs. Gaspy >> here. >> Mr. Mr. Sarowski >> here. >> Mrs. Tobacco >> here. >> Mrs. Torres >> here. >> Mrs. Winsky >> here. >> Mrs. Ray >> here. >> Mr. Capone >> here. >> Mr. Anita >> here. >> Now motion to go into executive session. So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? I >> now therefore be it resolved by the Middletown Council Board of Education that the board enters into executive session to discuss the following

002items. Confidential matters per statute of court court order collective bargaining matters, personnel matters being thoroughly resolved that the items discussed in executive session may result in board action when the court reconvenes in public session. To the flag of America, the republic stands one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Okay, we'll now hear from Jason Woods from High School. >> Hi. So Jason couldn't be here tonight, so I'm here in his space. I'm Rashi Miger. I'm a senior at North. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about what happened in January at Miltown High School North. The following students placed top 10 at the regional DEA competition at Keen University. They will represent North at the state competition in March. Santiago Bermudez, Rashi Hopsiger, Stella Cutler, Olivia Pulski, Caitlyn Bronstein, Minos,

003Mia Mincson, Emma Gomez. Student representatives from our GLP, business, STEM, and arts pathway met with the freshman class to talk about all the wonderful opportunities that are offered by joining a pathway. Scheduling for the 26 27 school year has begun. Scheduling will be taking place through March 13th. All students will have individual appointment with their guidance counselor between now and mid-March. The curriculum department hosted an advanced placement and dual enrollment fair for interested students on Wednesday, January 14th. The freshman for a day program started January 13th and will run Tuesdays through Thursdays until mid-March. MHSN Diversity Club proudly celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day, honoring Dr. King's lasting impact on our nation and his continued influence [snorts] on society. We hosted a cla information session for 10th and 11th grade students interested in the Kingsburg

004Law Enforcement Academy. Congratulations to Cameron Uncle on breaking the school record in the gold ball with a jump of nine feet. The boys wrestling team improved to 103 on the season with wins over Madawan, Allentown, and Penny. Senior Kevin Ben Danny Benbrook became the 16th wrestler in Middletown North history to reach reach the 100 win milestone. The girls wrestling team competed in their first short conference tournament. Freshman Real Kosvvic took third place and teammate Amelia Ricardo placed sixth. This is the first time Mid North has ever had a girl place at this short conference tournament. The boys swim team picked up a 70 7164 victory in a match up against Long Ridge. An impressive first place finishes helped secure the win. At the Mammoth County Championship meet, both relay teams finished in scoring position and

005sophomore Jonas Salvador placed top 10 overall in both of his individual events. Sophomore Ryan Smith finished 11th overall in 500 freestyle. The girls swim team celebrated division victory over Longridge, making their record 4. The girls placed first and second in all three relays. They also swept to the 200 free, 200 individual medley, 100 fly, and 100 back. First place finishes earned in every single event by Maddie DeFranco, Olivia Embro, Juliana Embro, Nina Veroni, Emma Gomez, and Riley Luma. The team also had a division victory over St. Johni with first place finishes grabbed by Juliana Enra, Emma Gomez, Maddie DeFranco, and Ryan. Nina Verani and Camila Barza contribute to a clean sweep in 500 free. Thank you. [applause] >> Okay, we'll now hear from Jessica. Nice. Okay, >> we'll move on. Um, now we're going to

006have the presentation announce facilities utilization school boundaries by Royal State Assistance. >> So, I'm going to um introduce um Mr. Haber and Mr. Aean in a second. Um tonight um we are getting the long awaited results of our um facilities util utilization and school boundary study. Um I just want to remind everyone that this is one piece of information. Um they are recommendations. Um these are things that the board has to consider in moving forward. um with at with the strategic plan. Um and certainly um any recommended changes or um alterations are going to be taken under consideration. Um and certainly uh feedback will be listened to from the school community. Tonight it will just be our presentation. Um we are not going to do a Q&A because we want everyone to be able to

007absorb the information, really dive into it, and then we want to get you accurate um responses and information. So, we've done a couple of things and will do a couple things moving forward. Um, we have set up an email account for questions related to the study to be emailed directly to that email address. Um, and we're going to create a um running document with responses that will be updated live. Um, and then we will also um be asking u Mr. Habler and Mr. Aman to come back for a Q&A session. Um, but we want tonight about the board, the administration, and the community being able to just absorb and listen to the information. Um, and then certainly giving them and everyone the opportunity to ask questions about the study, um, and about the results and

008ensuring that we get accurate information to you in a timely manner. So, um, that's the framework. Um, so without further ado, I'm going to introduce uh, Mr. Ross Haber and Mr. Tim Hen. >> Yep. Get down there. Get back members of the board, members of the Middletown community. Um, tonight we're going to do an initial presentation of the demographic and boundary project that we began about 6 months ago. Over the past six months, we've gathered data, lost through the school buildings, spoken to administrators, reviewed a large number of data, waited till October 15th to get the um the official the official enrollment in the state of New Jersey for Middletown so we could project on actual numbers. Um we downloaded and geocoded hints so we can locate them at residences. So when we made arrangements,

009looked at things, did calculations, we had them at address points on the map. And tonight, um, we also incorporated the existing school boundaries, um, on a map of the district. And tonight, we're going to give our initials an initial presentation of a draft. So, I'm going to turn this over to my colleague Tim to send you through the report. >> Good evening. Thank you all. Um I think one of the places that we would certainly want to start is just at the beginning in terms of what what was it that we were looking at um ultimately this is a combination of looking at supply and demand as it relates to the schools. The supply side of things is looking at projections and trying to understand how many students that we are going to have in

010each of the individual grades in each of the individual schools over a period of time. And then looking at how that matches relative to the existing facilities and where and in what instances whether it is either at a building in general or at particular grade levels where we may or may not have imbalances between the count of students and the available space that we have. uh and if we do have scenarios such as that, what the consequence of of that might be and what are some potential opportunities to mitigate or to resolve any of those any of those concerns on a go forward basis. So, what you'll see tonight is a combination of conversation about enrollment projections, a combination about available space within individual buildings, how those two things match, and then what we would

011have to do in the event of any impacts. So with that, I think this is something that everybody's probably familiar with, but I think it's always a good thing just for for folks who are very aware of potentially what their own school community might be, but not necessarily um as familiar with with the rest of the district generally. Um what we have is an opportunity here to sort of see the full scope of of what we are trying to manage and what we are trying to deal with. Um as Ross mentioned, one of the things that that we do as part of this process is to try to digitize the existing school boundaries in order to understand um within each individual area, how many students do we have within each individual neighborhood, how many students

012are coming out of those neighborhoods and then if and and when we would need to think about any sort of a boundary change. um what are the implications of that from a student count standpoint across not only just the macro student count but across the individual grade levels as well. So we do that by by again digitizing the the individual school boundaries and then also geocoding all the students so that we can match um student addresses to their school location uh and to their and to their school of attendance if those two things might be if their school of of residence from a boundary standpoint and their school of attendance is different. we can see what some of those changes are um in order to try to ensure that when we are looking at the

013impact of any potential boundary change we've tried to consider the full scope of what that what that change would be. So with that uh again I think the place that we always start is we always start with the students and the count of the students that are available. What you see here is the is both a history and the projection uh for enrollment. We uh start in 2020 for the 2020 2021 school year. Um and then we obviously carry through to 2526 for for the actuals from 26 on out to 3031 are the projections. And I think the first thing to just pay attention to um is we have a relatively stable top. Ultimately, what we see is over the five-year projection period, particularly out here, there's there's some slight growth in in the projections

014um indicating more students within the district, but overall sort of peak to trough, it's relatively stable over that year. Um so so what that means for us is when we're looking at where the growth is. So when we look at for example the growth in the elementary schools or we look at the growth of the middle schools it's important from our perspective to understand where that growth is coming from in order to understand what schools are likely to be most impacted as a consequence of the 26 through 3031 school years. And when we do that, one of the things that we would want to assess is what is the degree to the sense that we have any imbalance in the schools um of the the scope of any moves we would need to make from

015from a boundary standpoint. And so the enrollment projections obviously provide the baseline for that because underneath these macro grade level perspectives are all of the individual schools and all of the individual grades. So, we are looking at this at at a kindergarten through grade perspective all the way through the the five-year projection period and then looking at that at each individual school level. And you'll see some of that as we go forward. Um, if we take the existing projections as they are as they are established on the previous slide and we and we apply them to the current school setting with the number of classrooms that have been identified um as available in each of the individual schools, we end up seeing a challenge at particularly two schools and a little bit of a challenge

016in addition out in some of the outy years at River Plaza. um where we have a shortage of capacity. What does that mean? That means we don't have enough rooms for the projected number of students that are supposed to be in. So what does that say to us? That tells us that we need to be thinking about in some way, shape, or form how to rebalance the enrollments at those individual schools to take advantage of some of the surplus capacity, which are obviously the numbers in black. um in order to try to better balance the not only the demands at each individual school but across the schools in general. So what what we see and this this is where this process becomes highly dependent on the details. Um what we see is we have in

017the aggregate we have a surplus of rooms across the district. However, at some individual schools, we have a persistency of a shortage. So, from our perspective, one of the things that that means is that means we need to find a way to relieve some of that shortage at at Lindra. We need to find a way to relieve some of that shortage at Harmony. we need to be considerate of some of the outear challenges at River Plaza um in terms of how to try to balance the ultimately that is the process of looking at at boundary revisions. And so when we do that, the boundary revision process we recognize is is one that um creates attendance at meetings. Um, and so one of the things that as we're thinking about this, we know the commitment that

018folks have to their school community. So when we're looking at at any kind of a change like this, there are ultimately, I think, three guiding principles. Um, in the end, what we want to do if there has to be a boundary change is we want to move as few students as we possibly can. We want to ensure that in doing that the number of students that we move addresses any of the challenges that we have from a capacity perspective for a long enough period of time that we don't have to do these changes on a regular basis. Right? So we're looking at the the number of students that we have to move. We're looking at the sustainability of the moves once they occur. And if we do have to move students, the other component we're

019looking at is trying to move students in clusters where they are aware of, friends with in groups with students that they belong with. So that student being moved into a new school potentially doesn't know anybody, right? That there is some clustering. And so this the revisions to some of the boundaries that you're going to see are principled on those ideas. they they are principled on moving as few students as you can moving them in clusters and and moving them in order to try to support the long-term sustainability of the boundary and in doing so from our perspective I think as we you know just to to revisit what the problem is and looking at particularly at um at Lindra and at Harmony um what we end up looking at is starting from a baseline of

020saying students should go to the home the school that they're bound to So that's our starting point. All students go back into the home school. Secondly, once we know that, what does that do to change the the values essentially the counts of students in the schools and across the grades and what does that do to any of the shortages from capacity perspective and how do we resolve that? How do we mitigate that? Um the solution that you're going to see tonight um ultimately has a total of five areas being moved. Those five areas include 119 students. They are uh addressing six individual schools. They do they do two things in some cases. They better shape the boundaries that are existing right now. um in other instances and and across the the district in general, they

021also help balance the enrollment. Uh and what you see in the table in the bottom is essentially the it's the puts and the takes that come >> Sorry. >> Sure. >> Yeah, certainly. Um so the table at the bottom incorporates the six schools that we've mentioned. The six schools that are identified are are Nutswamp and are Middletown Village, Lindra, River Plaza, um Ocean and Harmony. And from you can look at this as sending and receiving schools. Um the sending schools which are schools where enrollment is being reduced um is are our Nutswamp, Lindra, River Plaza, and Harmony. The receiving schools are Middletown Village and Ocean. And so you'll see in the table across the grades the number of students that are projected to be projected to be moved under these uh initial proposed options. And

022again totals the total is 119. We have a couple of moves from uh into harmony. Um and we have you know in each of the individual counts you'll see the count of for each of the individual moves you'll see the count of students by grades. So the first um and the area being moved is this area up here. It's a little tough to see in the purple. Um and this is this would be a transition from the current Nutsw boundary to Middletown Village. Uh it's a total of 12 students and you can see the distribution across. Again, just in case it's difficult to see the table, uh it's a single kindergartener. It's it's three fourth graders, it's uh one second grader, two third graders, three fourth graders, and two fifth graders. And ultimately what this

023does is help create some capacity at at Nutswalk and it uses some of the existing capacity that exists at Middletown Village. We have another move which is also into Middletown Village uh and that's from River Plaza. Again, the purpose is the same. Um trying to create some of the existing capacity. Uh and that's a total of 29 students where the distribution is five at the kindergarten level, five at first grade, two three at second grade, seven at third grade, three at fourth grade, and six at fifth grade. Um there's also a small area in here where the existing boundary is sort of a nub going in. Um, and in that [clears throat] that portion there's there's actually one steel in that area that's incorporated into this one as well. The next one that you'll see

024is in is down at Lindra. Um, I think as you had seen in the initial table, one of the challenge schools that we had from the long-term perspective was was at Lindra. So the the area that's being proposed here is the areas across the highway um to better both structure the W crop boundary and to take away some of the existing pressure on the enrollment. Um a total of 15 students are being moved there including two kindergarteners, two first graders, four second graders, four third graders and three fourth graders. Um, so this this pro the move here is from Limra to Plaza. So, so if you remember, essentially what we're doing is we're moving some students counterclockwise um in order to both better use capacity and to utilize the existing capacity in some of the

025schools. Uh another the of the last two um these are the ones that are moving uh from Harmony again taking advantage of some of the existing space that existed from Middletown Village. We have this portion of of the Harmony boundary um that that would be moved. It's a total of 26 students. Um of that there are four kindergarters, six first graders, one second grader, four third graders, five fifth graders, and [snorts] six fifth graders. And then finally, uh, we have a portion moving from the Army Avenue to Ocean Avenue. Um, this is actually a total of 37 students and includes seven kindergarteners, eight first graders, five second graders, three third graders, nine fourth graders, and five fifth graders. Um, again, purpose here is we have uh some long-term pressure at Harmony that we're trying to

026relieve. Um, we have capacity in Ocean Avenue. We're trying to use That's the imbalance between um and so in doing so um again that that's the total of the 119 students. Um and so the implications of those for the schools subsequent to the moves. One of the things that we look at when we look at the capacity of a school building is we look at it in two dimensions. The first dimension that we look at it, we refer to it as vertical capacity. That vertical capacity is essentially the difference between the number of students actually in a room and the target class size that we have for those rooms. So that gives us some understanding of of what existing space we have. So for the sake of argument, if we have a a grade where

027there is a target class size of 25 students and we have 20 students in there, that means we have available space for five additional students before we would have to think about adding an additional section at that at that grade level. Right? So that is the vertical capacity question that we're looking at driven obviously uh overwhelmingly by looking at and understanding class size relative to the target. And so you'll see some exhibits on that. The other dimension that we look at it in is horizontal capacity. Horizontal capacity is essentially the spread of the rooms across the building. So when we look at for example uh room a school that might have 15 rooms in it and we are currently using 13 of them for the sake of argument that would mean we would have two

028rooms available to us from from a horizontal capacity perspective. If we had an average class size or a target class size of 25, that means we could have 50 more students come into that building before we had to worry about any sort of minimum, right? Because that doesn't take into account the the class size difference as well. So when we are looking at trying to balance enrollments and balance capacity at each individual building, we are trying to understand and balance both of these two factors. We are trying to ensure that we are not having substantial impacts on class sizes, but we are also trying to ensure that we have sufficient capacity in the building to accommodate all of the students that are enrolled within that boundary. So when when we look at the combination of

029those two things, um we're going to start here and I recognize that you can't see all of the detail on it. we'll you'll you'll see it in the in the hard copy document of this, but but one of the things that's important to note um here is this line represents the target class size that's 25. And so what we're looking for is instances where across the grades across the schools, we may have one of these vertical bars that is up around that that target class size. So for us, what we're trying to consider at that point is when we're thinking about moving a neighborhood or moving a cluster of students, what we don't want to do is move a group of students that would end up causing this bar to go up above the target

030class size and require an additional section if you don't have space for that in the school. So, so the balancing act as it goes on as part of this effort is understanding class size, understanding facility capacity and trying to understand which how best to trade off both of those as we are as we are looking at at the projected enrollments across all five of the years because what you'll see as we go forward is we we'll map this out. This is so this initial is 2627. Uh this is for 2728. One of the things that you'll see again is we've got different clusters up around the target class size bar, but then we have some clusters where there's uh notable difference between the average class size and the target. Right? So, and you'll see this

031pattern um of some variance occur throughout the five years of the projection period. So if we look again here at 28 29 uh we see the peaks um change in in certain locations but in all instances across all five years we have stayed under that target class size value. And so here is the the 2930 values. And then finally in in the outyear um the 3031 period um you can see that we do have some again in and around that that 25 value. So when we look at this vertical capacity, we then have to try to balance it against some of the horizontal capacity. This is the section counts um that are occurring by school. So section counts are determined by looking at the enrollment in a particular grade. So for the sake of argument,

032we have 100 students. If we've got a target class size of 24 25, that would mean we would need four classes, right? We would need four sections. 100 divided by 25 is. So we look at individual enrollments that are projected across all grades at all schools for all five years of the projection period. And that's where you see for each individual school cluster where the section counts are. And we see general stability across some some are perfectly stable across. You know we have a little bit of volat uh volatility here. um at Bay View, we've got a little bit of volatility at Lindcraftoft, and we've got a little bit of volatility at Nutsoft, but but not a tremendous amount. Um and so again, some of this is because we are absorbing the differences in grade

033sizes through that vertical capacity. And so our horizontal capacity, meaning the additional rooms that we need, you know, we don't we don't end up changing that very much um throughout any one of the given years of the of the 5-year projection period. So what does this mean in the end? Ultimately, when we combine those two things, when we combine the horizontal and the vertical, um we see what we end up with from an available capacity standpoint at each individual school, right? and and what we will what we have based on the 119 students that are moved across the the five areas. Um what we have is we have some surplus capacity and in some cases we have as many as three rooms available um at certain schools for and it's pretty stable across the um

034across the entire projection period. We still have a little bit of a challenge here at Lancraftoft. But one of the things that we did not do at Lcraftoft is the resolution of this one classroom shortage is driven by the fact that the projections indicate that would be we would be one or two students over from a class perspective in every given year of objection. So by by 203031 we have nine too many students. And one of the things that we know that happens is you all are managing that on a on an annual basis anyway. And for us to accommodate this to for us to accommodate those nine students in 2031 would have required us to move in the neighborhood of another 50 or so students in order to just accommodate those nine kids five

035years from now. And so one of the ways that that these considerations around boundary changes gets used is it gets real life tested against what you would actually do. It's very likely that in some instances what you would end up with is one section in the school that had 26 kids and the other three that had 25. And you would do that because you wouldn't want to create an additional section and have a demand for an additional room for purposes of Wednesday. Right? that that's happening on an annual basis where we're looking at at the balancing between schools anyway. Um and so so rather than try to find 50 additional students that we should move um I think we recognize that there are some some existing management processes that would begin in year two um

036that would likely resolve that challenge that's been identified. So all of this spills over ultimately right because we have talked about in depth is the impact on the elementary schools. Um one of the things that we see from a secondary school perspective particularly at the middle school level um they don't do a lot to negatively impalance to negatively impact the existing balances between the secondary schools the middle schools in particular. However, it's also recognized that the middle schools are already imbalanced. So, so one of the suggestions certainly that we have as an outcome of this effort is once the decision is made on any sort of boundary consideration from an elementary school perspective, it's going to be necessary at some point in time to also be thinking about um the imbalances that exist at the

037middle school level and thinking about the human patterns that are associated with that. Um and so the and that doesn't get fixed as a consequence of any sort of rising fifth graders. So the the number isn't isn't adequate given the relatively limited number of changes to fix any of the imbalances that exist at the middle school level. Um so in the end um I think from a from a summary perspective we have stable and slightly growing enrollment over the next five years that are projected. We have limited uh instructional space issues around where where the existing projections relative to the existing schools identify a couple of schools that need some resolution, some mitigation to their to their what would be an overcrowding problem. Um the opportunity to resolve that with a limited set of of

038about 119 students is available um in order to balance it. it is available with some additional mitigation that would have to get done at Lindra starting in the 2728 school year. Um and then I think the sustainability of that solution over time would extend beyond the five years of the projection period. It's just for for our purposes the projections are only carried out to to 3031. Uh and then lastly, I think as we mentioned, there would need to be some consideration also of secondary school impacts um as at least an element in the conversation of this. So with that, that is the that is the introduction to to this to the proposed boundary revisions. Um I think as was discussed there'll be another opportunity there's opportunities to submit questions and to to the email address

039which um you know certainly we need to be responsive to as well and then there'll be another opportunity now that folks have had a chance to see this um to come back and and to have another forum uh to talk about whatever questions that we have. >> [applause] >> Check. Okay, we're going to open it up to public comment at this time. There's two. >> There's only one session. >> Oh, there's only one session. >> I make a motion to have a second one. >> It's one public comment for everything. >> It's on the agenda. Yeah, >> there should be a security person that said they were going to help everybody. I don't know where it even uh Dr. Alone, did you get when did you receive the >> I'm sorry. Would you please state

040your >> Oh, my apologies. Amy, my name is Ashley. Please state your name and address. >> Yes, that's what I'm doing. Thanks. Ashley Stud. I live in Miltown. >> When did you did you get the slides before the meeting? >> These I just saw these. >> You just saw presentation that they prepared for this. Yes. >> Um, and then just a comment. Uh, I've been looking at the spending like I like to do and there's still like quite a few things that don't seem safety related that are quite big. So, I'm just, um, I can send a list if you want, but just asking to keep focusing on, you know, making smart financial decisions for the future. Thank you. >> Hi. Um, Sue Griffin, I have a question based on that. It's not directed at

041that. It's really more of a budget question. If I overstep, please let me know and I'll I'll follow whatever procedure there is uh to to answer my question. Um if I understood what they said correctly, we are supposing that there are uh we're we're basing this on the vertical capacity of having 25 students in a classroom and also the horizontal capacity of having 11 elementary schools. Do we have the budget in the future five years to maintain that? and I just planning forward. Um that's what what I understood to be presented would that would be that all of those schools would remain open. That's my question. Um I don't expect an answer right now, but moving into the budget cycle, I would expect something to to come from that. Thank you. Hi, Vera Piki. Um,

042I drive Middletown. Sorry, there's a computer here. So, I have I don't usually use notes, but uh um just first off, I know everybody keeps asking whether you've seen the slides in advance. And quite honestly, I feel like the administration should see everything in advance because what I just saw was really disappointing. um because from a baseline it assumes that the special needs classes are all staying as is which means those kids will continue to zigzag across the community. So I would hope the administration would talk to them about what their plans and goals are. Um which was to eliminate that to a certain extent as much as you could. you can't you can't have a special needs class in every school. But um so I I would have been very happy to have you

043guys talk to Haber in advance. So I'm not quite sure why everybody is upset about that. But um anyways, as something separate um completely um nobody else may be interested um but um just something that I've been raising up the chain of command and I'm hoping the board would um listen and and maybe make a ch change. It probably will not impact my daughter at this point, but I think it may help others coming up um the road. Um, currently in the high schools, all teachers are assigned duties. Um, should have brought my reading glasses. Um, during blocks three and four. Um, what used to happen in the past is there were some open welcoming classrooms where kids could go um if they didn't have anything to do. um the the those classrooms don't exist

044anymore and it's exacerbated by the fact that seniors leave blocks three and four which leaves a lot of kids behind. I know Mrs. tobacco made that point when you were voting on it initially. There are kids being left behind and although I appreciate the individual efforts they are trying to make for my daughter who is lonely and sad um and sitting alone a lot um I think it would be very helpful if we could at least have one teacher have a duty to have a welcoming classroom. Um, just I did a little research and I asked I have some quotes from graduates. An overachiever athletic academic got a full ride to college. Quote, "Miss Castner's room saved me. When the pressure was too much, I could go and decompress." Another quote, LB, but light bodies

045room was where I went when I needed someone to talk to and get away. Coach White's room was fun and gave me something to do. She made sure I wasn't lonely. That was my daughter. That room doesn't exist. Um, an existing art student. There's nowhere to go. I usually leave school or just walk around. Um the LLD program at North used to sit in Mr. Hoff's classroom and they were able to socialize and a lot of athletes would come in and socialize with them. That doesn't exist. They now sit in the cafeteria which is loud or some just wander around. So they would also like a room even if they socialize with themselves amongst themselves. Even Mr. Colin when I spoke to him mentioned how Mr. Hoffman's room really helped him when he was a

046principal at High School North. So again although I appreciate the individual efforts that are being made for my daughter um quite honestly I considered quitting working and pulling her out every blocks three and four because she was so lost and alone. Um the district is now paying for a par to help her during blocks three and four. She doesn't need it for academics, but she needs it for the social time because she's so alone. So, again, I don't necessarily expect it to help my daughter, but I do think that's a big loss. And um I think um it's very distressing to sit in an IEP in my unit at South and talk about your child being in crisis. >> I don't mean to. >> I'm done. I'm done. But listen to to administrators talk about

047the need to cover bathrooms and parking lots. Thank you. >> Thank you. [applause] >> I have a question. Question. Does that I'm not sure. Are you saying that there's no teachers having advisory classrooms open? >> It's not for advisory. teachers have office hours. >> Hi, my name is Jacker. I'm a Middletown resident. Um, I just had a question. A lot of us are really interested in tonight's data because of what happened last March with the proposal of school closures. During that, there were two elementary schools and a middle school and a proposal of redistricting for the high schools. Was that data for the middle schools and high schools not looked at as part of this analysis? Is that something that I know that we're not commenting at this time on whether or not this will

048lead to any sort of school closures, but if that was ever proposed in the future for anything at the middle school or high school level and there was no data available, that would seem like a big gap. So, I just want to ask why the data or why that was not included in the analysis when overcrowding was brought up as a reason for some of the school closures last spring. Hello. Uh Jason Mus Middletown. Um, I have four questions that don't necessarily need a response right now, but uh I was part of a different conversation talking about classroom sizes just the other day. So, we were waiting on this study uh quite anxiously. So, uh I have four questions. Um my first one was uh there was talk about moving children in clusters to keep

049them with their friends and not alone. But I was looking at the numbers and I saw a couple times where it looked like just one student from a a grade level was being moved. Uh I'm just curious if there would be clarification on what that means as far as clusters versus one because it's been a while since math, but one does not seem like a cluster. So, um like some clarification on that. Uh number two is there's been talk of schools closing. Um and as informative as this report was, uh will there be a new report done if schools start to close? because I feel like that would change the analytics of availability and uh what rooms would be available for more students versus not having them if schools start to close. So, would there

050be a new study if we do see schools closing in the immediate future? Um, number three, uh, will the report be available to the public? And number four is are we going to have access to the raw data that was used to um assemble the recommendations in the report that we just saw at the presentation. Uh because it would be interesting to see the raw data as well. Uh that's it. Thank you. >> Hi ACT Middletown. Um, I really had no intent on speaking tonight, but I have to say I am extremely disappointed with that presentation. Um, I don't know if if I'm the only one that was expecting something much more robust. Um, I was under the impression that there was going to be multiple solutions presented to us, including redistricting, but also the

051potential to to close schools and how that would impact the district. Um the overcrowding in Thompson was not addressed at all. Um I we've spent a lot of money for this. We waited a long time for this. And again and also to echo you talked about moving clusters of kids. We're talking about moving one, three, five. Like I'm extremely disappointed with this presentation, how long we got to see this information. So, I would like to note it it it sounded like what was presented to the community that there was going to be multiple um uh scenarios presented and it seems like the redistricting is only one. So, I'm trying to understand where that gap is. Um, we just kind of pivoted from closing schools to now to now this. And if we're going to close

052schools, where is that data coming from? How are we understanding how that's impacting? We didn't talk anything about like facilities, costs, upgrades to schools. Like, I don't understand what's going on. Honestly, I'm very disappointed. Ambry Las Middletown. I also just want to echo I'm sitting out there and to my understanding in last April when the strategic committee started that this and I understand Dr. Alone that this is just one piece of the puzzle but my understanding was that you hired an outside company to come in and look at our district. What I'm seeing tonight is that they looked at our elementary schools for six months. That's not our district. our district. That's onethird of our district. And my math isn't may not be right, but it's one-third of our district that they looked at. They

053didn't look at the middle schools. They didn't look at the high school. So, I guess I'm more upset. I'm not nothing against the company. They did, I guess, what they were hired to do. But I'm upset over the cost that I don't remember right now the exact cost, but I know that it was a large amount of money that was given to them to do this. and they only looked at it out elementary school. So, I'm not sure how that is fitting into our strategic plan for the upcoming year or the five-year plan of what's going to happen to the middle schools and the high schools. In five years, my kids will be gone it. But still, it's I don't understand how as a board you can submit this to the public without taking account

054in the rest of the district and and say it's a district creat. So, and again, maybe um with that I misunderstood what their job was or what you said their job was going to be last April. I might have misunderstood that, but I understood it as a district, not just as at the elementary level. >> Hi, Kristen Rooney Middletown. Um just the amount of money we were talking about, it's $24,000 that was paid for the report. Um, my question was just about procedures of the meeting. As far as the public comment, is that just going to be for tonight that you're limiting just to one or is that going to be going forward? Cuz it seemed like not everybody knew that there was going to be just one. >> That's the way the agenda was

055created. The first >> Okay, we'll address it though. >> Okay. So that's not going to be how it is going forward. >> I would hope not. >> So how does the agenda who makes the agenda? Who makes the agenda? >> Sorry. >> Business office. >> Okay. So I'm hoping that was a mistake. But do you want me to send an email to follow up? >> No. >> Okay. Thank you. Scott McFersonson, Middletown resident. Are we going to get the PowerPoint put up on the website tomorrow? >> Yeah, I'm going to talk about that in my superintendent tomorrow. And and are they also going to produce an actual report that's going to be made available to the public? >> This is what they're providing to us as far as I as far as I know. >>

056That's the the PowerPoint. That's it. >> Yeah. From what I from what I understand. So, >> but I will seek clarity tomorrow. This is what we received. >> Now, I've looked at many other school districts that have hired Ross Haber and Associates to uh do these types of reports and they produce an actual report. So, I would hope that if we spend $24,000, we push them to produce an actual report, not just PowerPoint slides. So, with respect to the parents of students that are impacted by what was presented tonight, I feel the way you feel. I felt it last March when my children's school was going to be closed. We cannot allow the fact that there was two schoollo two schools slated for closure, three actually, sorry, three schools slated for closure last year versus

057what was presented tonight to stop us, the public, the parents from coalesing together and coming together. [applause] It's not us versus you or you versus us. We're all in this together because the point is for us to make a better life and a better education for our children. Let's not forget that important goal. Thank you. [applause] Katie Middle Page Middle. I just have a quick question. Um, just on logistics how it works. So, um, when the public was upset that there was only one uh, opportunity for public comment tonight. I heard Miss Manu's say or Mr. want to say I mot can't miss manually say motion for a second public comment tonight and Mr. Sakrowski said a second, but then there was no vote. Is Is there supposed to be a vote when a board

058member puts a motion and another board member seconds it? >> Yes, there is. >> I never heard a motion, but >> the mic is open now. You can speak with to whatever you want. I'm not telling anybody you can speak to any topic you want. So, the mic is open. >> I think the the So, that didn't answer my question. So, can you first answer the question? If a board member puts forward a motion and then a second board member seconds that motion, is there supposed to be a vote? >> Yes. >> If the chair recognizes the person speaking, there's motion to second. Yes, there should be discussion. But I will tell you that I did not hear anyone make >> Could everyone raise their hand if they heard? So, >> so I'll make my

059motion again to have a second public comment. >> This is public comment now. So, we can talk about >> and you can make your motion after Mess. >> So, Mr. Burns, you said that if a board member is recognized by the chair and then a second board member seconds it then there by policy there's supposed to be a vote. >> Yes. >> I would just like us to follow the policy instead of what you want to do. [applause] So, >> I can't hear anything you're saying. >> The motion has to be made once the public comment section has closed. >> This is public comment. You can speak to it. >> It has to be made or can't can I'm I'm just asking because I don't know. I'm just a member of the public. Can a

060board member at any time in a meeting make a motion for anything? For anything and a second board member second it and then there is there a vote or what is the policy? I don't know. I'm asking >> typically motions are made during new or old business or they're part of the agenda that was already written. This is not a portion of the meeting that generally motions are made by members of the board because this is the public's opportunity to tell the board anything that they have concerns about what's going on in the middle count or anything else. But generally motions by the board are made either pursuant to the agenda or during old or new business. That's generally when motions of the body are made. >> I understand that that that's generally but I'm

061asking to us to follow policy. Well, that that's generally the policy of how meetings are run. That >> is it the policy or is it generally the policy? You understand? You're you're speaking very murky terms. >> I don't understand the difference, but I can say >> I think I'm not alone on this. I hear the crowd. We are This is a public meeting. I just want us to follow what policy. Can you show me a policy? Are you versed on it? Mr. Revea, you are the president. I would hope you would be versed on policy as the president to take your role seriously. Mr. Burns, you are the attorney. It seems like you do not know what the policy is. >> No, what I stated was is that the body makes motions either pursuant to

062the agenda or during old and new business. That is how meetings are run pursuant to Robert's rules. This is neither an emotion on the agenda that was pre-written. It is not old business. It is not new business. This is public comment. If a board member would like to make a motion following public comment during the business section of the board, they have the absolute ability to do that. >> She did that. >> Yeah, she made >> We're not going to have any shouting from the audience. >> She made the motion. >> This is not Excuse me. This is not public discussion now. >> Public comment. So, >> see, now that's also murky because I don't know. We've been able to do question answered your question. >> No, after the public comment, He did not answer

063my question. >> Motion. Did you not hear him? That's what he said. >> Well, that was very rude. Mr. >> Thank you. >> I would expect more decorum from a board president. >> You have three minutes. Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak on any issue, topic, comment? No. Thank you. [clears throat] Hi, uh, Rebecca Lara, Middletown resident. Um, I'll keep this quick. I wasn't sure if I was going to say anything. Um, the presentation, I I think some people have touched on it, but I'm questioning how that's resolving the issue that started all of this, which was the budget and needing to close schools. Um, so if that could get discussed or touched on at some point, that would be great. Um, outside of that, I just have one other request. Um, it it's

064about the school lunches. They're just they're really bad. Um, I have to pick up my daughter from the school probably once every two weeks because she eats the school lunch and is sick. Um, I I can't handle it anymore. I try to pack her lunch, but she gets the cookies. She's in third grade. Why does she have open access to cookies? I don't understand. Um, so it's just I would really like if there could be some sort of discussion, some sort of committee or some someone looking at it to not give so many junk food options to little kids. >> You can actually email uh Jessica Ritz. >> Jessica Ritz. >> Yes. And that you children, you can have her put a restriction on your child's account. >> Oh, I have no idea. >> Yes,

065I bet you [clears throat] >> so you can order five cookies. >> Yeah, she'll eat three cookies and so you can definitely email her and she will place that restriction on your childhood. >> Okay, Jessica Ricks. Okay, thank you so much. I'm sorry, Ambry Las again. I just have one comment question. I don't know if it can get answered or not. So, last April, we all sat here and we were all told schools were closing. Everybody got an uproar. Schools didn't close. The strategic plan came into a place. Now, we're in the end of January. We're seeing this first presentation of what the plan is or data for a plan. Again, I might be murky on my understanding of what's happening, but are we I guess my question is, are we going to be in

066the same place in April that we were last April? or if there is going to be some sort of massive change, whether it be redistricting or whether it be school closings, are we going to find out before April or should we assume it's status quo through next year or because I think finding out in April again is really poor planning on everyone's part because I thought that this was supposed to alleviate all that, but we're at the end of January. Fanuary and everybody here and people who aren't here still have lots and lots of questions of what's going to happen next year due to the fact of what happened last year. So I'm just wondering if there is going to be any sort of explanation or any idea of what may be happening with our

067schools prior to the end of this school year leading into September. Anyone else? >> Nothing. President's report today. Uh, superintendent report. >> Thank you. Um, a couple of things that I just want to touch upon um, from a couple of the comments that were made. This is a piece of data as I mentioned earlier. Um, you know, this is predicated on some of the priorities that we shared with Mr. Haver on the front end and it was communicated loud and clear by the community that that community schools were valued. So we asked him to frame out his recommendations based on that factor. So that that is a really important piece of the puzzle um because as you can see this was based on maintaining 11 elementary schools and that was from a communicated priority that

068we gave to him. I also want to address the middle school situation. the middle school, you know, it's always we always try the path of least resistance, right? And that is what this his proposal showed. A path of least resistance, moving as few students as possible. Certainly, you know, some of that data in regards to moving one, two kids per grade level um is a recommendation only, right? So, we have to take a look at that because the board and the administration um with community input has to determine is this the best plan, right? Is this viable? Now, based on our population, yes, it will help to to correct some of the inequities that we're seeing and create more logical lines. And the question of well, why didn't anything with middle school happen? Well, by

069default, two things. If you If you take some of those recommendations and you put them in place, some of those middle school feeder patterns eventually change. However, the one recommendation, if you notice, it came on, I think the second to last slide, is they are making a recommendation for us to re-examine our feeder patterns out of fifth grade going into sixth grade. And that does start to address those inequities in middle school, but that will take time because all of those feeder pattern changes, if you make the change from fifth to sixth grade, grandfathering in seventh and eighth grade, have to roll up over successive years. So this was important because your elementary population because you're incurring new kindergarteners, new prek kids, really more so kindergartener for us, that sets the foundation for your population

070moving forward. You know, you don't get tons and tons of kids organically moving in year after year year. That's going to increase your volume so drastically. um even with the new developments that were taken into consideration because they do factor that in um they consult with the township on those housing projects um but they only project out five years that any good demographer only projects out five years. So, I just wanted to address those things that when we initially met with Ross Haber, we took the feedback from those forums in regards to what people value in Middletown and we asked him to frame this through the lens of that. So, um I just I just wanted to kind of give you some perspective um on on why um this data was presented in the way

071that it was. Um, the other piece is we're in a really different position than we were last year financially, right? If you recall, well, rewinding, I don't like to rehash the past too much, but we were in a budget deficit deficit that um we were able to fortunately um get some relief from. So, that puts us in a different position to make decisions moving forward. um that presentation that he gave will post on the website tomorrow. We'll also put the um email address for people to answer questions so that way we can start that process. As Mr. Haber said, they're going to come back and do a second forum. We want people to be able to go look at this data, digest it, ask questions. Um we're going to reconvene strategic planning and our subcommittees.

072The first meeting will be um February 18th. I'm going to email the subcommittees by the end of this week giving them that information um because this will be an important piece of data that we use for those conversations. So I just kind of want to give the overview of the framework. Um we are still on good track to you know get that strategic plan completed hopefully by the end of the year and the five years would obviously start with the next school year. Um, now for my regular update, I just want to kind of give that overview. Um, I just want to thank everybody for again their cooperation with the large amount of snow and ice that we received. So, thank you for being patient. We tried to make the call as early as possible.

073Um, hopefully you had a nice snow day with your kids. Um and uh again this morning with the delayed opening, we always, as I said last time, will air on the side of caution while making sure that you know we get kids to school when we can. Today having it delayed, we wanted to make sure that we could get all of our staff. We have over a thousand people coming to us and also ensure that our kids had enough time to get safely into school um and not in the dark and with ice. and it gave our grounds people and the township a little more time um to get things up and running. Thank you to our grounds people who worked really hard this weekend. They did an amazing job for the amount of snow

074and property we have and also to the township. I was on calls with them all weekend um you know kind of planning how we were going to move forward and they were providing us updates on you know their efforts to ensure that the roads were clear and safe for the community and how that impacted schools. So, thank you. Um, you know, unfortunately with snow comes the loss of one of our days. Um, we have two snow days built in. We're going to see what happens before we make any decision on which day, you know, and there's been some discussion over, you know, should we do the Memorial Day first and then um Easter Monday? We're supposed to get another snowstorm this weekend. And I'm not going to jinx us, but um we're not going to

075make any calendar changes until we kind of wait till the lion share of the winter is over, but just know that one of those snow days we've already used. We have one more left, which means anything thereafter would extend the last day of the school year, but we'll continue to communicate about that as we see how the rest of the winter plays out. Um, our district calendar for next year is going to hopefully be on our February agenda. We have our calendar committee meeting on February 3rd. We have asked the buildings to make some recommendations for parents to sit on the committee. We have union representation, board representation, admin representation. Um, and we will start to hammer that out so we can get that out to the community in February for planning purposes. Um this

076month we also held two superintendent roundt meetings, elementary and secondary. These meetings include students, staff, parents, administrators, and board of ed members. A variety of topics were discussed and the sessions were valuable. Again, our kids are great. They are very, very willing to talk and share about their experiences in a room full of adults. So kudos to you parents for, you know, raising kids that are self- advocating and certainly wanting to be part of solutions. So um we had we had two really great sessions. Um due to the district having been closed on Monday, the high school uh midterm exam schedule was adjusted. We communicated that early on so that our high school students had the kind of plan in place so they knew how to budget out their time and continue to prepare for

077those midterms. So, um, thank you to Mr. Cullen for getting that up and running. The last thing that I just wanted to share briefly, um, and Shannon, if you could just put up that, um, onepage document, that two-pager that I shared with the committee reports. We heard from the community from multiple members that you know would committee m minutes be shared um and we were trying to find a way to do that and also accommodate the if I have a question or how do we get those questions that are being asked out to the school community. So what I've drafted and shared with the board um and I'm going to share with you now is um a front and a back document. That's all it would be. Um where we have a bulleted kind of

078synopsis of each committee minutes. Um that way you know what was reported out on the community knows what what was reported out on. And then the second page would be a your questions answered section. Um I have Mr. Cullen who's going to be my stenographer. He's going to be writing down the questions and this will be published sometime during the week after the second board meeting because we need to get through the workshop and this meeting. Um, and then we'll bring hard copies. It'll always be a month behind for the hard copies, but to the meeting so people can have them, but we'll post them on the website probably within a week because we need time to finish preparing it and get the questions framed out. But um hopefully this helps to accommodate some of

079those concerns and requests that people had for information. So um it's a first pass. So if you have any suggestions, feel free to email me. >> And that's all I have. >> Thank you. >> Moving along. I need a motion to approve uh A through D. So second >> discussion >> I I have to abstain from some of them. Can we do them like >> I have to abstain from some of them because that was an ethics meeting. So can we do like the January ones together and the separate ones together? >> Just say which one you're >> What is on your >> I'm abating from A and B and No. A, B, and C. Actually, >> yes, I have to abstain from A. >> It's A and C. >> A, B, and C. >>

080Thank you. >> All right. Motion to approve. >> Yes. lunch. Second motion. >> All in favor? >> I >> opposed. >> Abstensions as not. >> Thank you. >> Next, I need a motion to approve item 9 B. So move >> second >> discussion. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Abstensions. Need a motion to approve 10 A through K. >> Second. Discussion. All in favor? >> I opposed. Extensions. We need a motion to approve 11A from Jet. >> Mr. Anita, we were going to do a roll call vote on B and C. We were going to do a roll call vote on B and C. >> So then we'll do a motion to approve 11 A. and then V through J. >> So move >> second. All >> in favor? No on letter A. No.

081Yes. Yes. No. >> Yes. Amy, are we doing vocal? A, B, and C? No, >> just B and C and C. B, and C. >> Yeah. I need I need a a roll call on 11B. >> We need a motion. >> Motion. Second and a roll call. >> Mrs. Minions B. Mrs. Salassie, >> yes. >> Mr. Sabarowski, >> yes. >> Mrs. Tobacco, >> I'm abstaining because I was on here for the appeal. >> Mrs. Torres, >> yes. >> Mrs. Weinstein, >> yes. >> Mrs. Wright, >> yes. >> Mr. Capone, >> yes. >> Mr. Aita, >> yes. And a motion to second on C. So second. motion. >> Mrs. Min, >> yes. >> Mrs. Scalasi, >> yes. >> Mr. Sabrowski, >> yes. >> Mrs. Tobacco, >> I'm standing up with a fair. >> Mrs. Torres, >>

082yes. >> Mrs. Weinstein, >> yes. >> Mrs. Ray, >> yes. >> Mr. Capone, >> yes. >> Mr. Aiva, >> yes. Need a motion to approve 11 K 1 through 17. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Opposed? Extensions. >> Okay, moving along. Uh, old business. Yes, I would just like to reiterate um what Dr. Alone said about the snow removal. I think um our our custodians maintenance department did a great job. And I also would like to commend the township for the job that they've done a lot of complaints. A few issues where people said it was a little, you know, not enough, but I think today with the sun coming out, it helped a little bit. But I think we did a great job. There's a lot of stuff. >> And I'll just reiterate

083with the public comment, I do believe it was just simply an oversight. I it was not intentional at all by any person at all. So, um we apologize. We will rectify it for the next meeting. >> Anything else for old business? new business. >> Last week, uh, our our meeting came up about dynamics and I had a few parents reach out to me to say that they were told by Mrs. March, >> we can't hear September. So, >> sorry. I had a few parents who reached out to me to say that they watched a meeting last week and regarding Loft Annex that they had been told by I think Mrs. Granger that it was going to be open in March and uh we have not been given that target date by facilities yet but we

084can find out but that has not been communicated to me. >> Okay. Um, I also like to make a request for the meeting videos of the board of education. November 25th workshop voting meeting, the December 16th voting meeting and January's workshop meeting is still not posted on the board of ed website. If we can get that done soon as possible, as well as tonight's meeting, I would really appreciate that so that community can go back and see what was discussed. We'll check in tonight. Yeah. Anyone old business? >> New business. >> Yes, I have new business. Whether there's anybody that would like to make a comment or not, I still would like to make the motion to have um second public comment tonight. [laughter] >> All in favor? I >> I opposed abstensions. No, other

085new business. I I would like to um let the community know of a few school events that are taking place and I'm hoping that we could like get together and support each other's school events. If anybody out there has any um that I'm not mentioning because I don't have everybody's, please feel free to shoot me an email. But it would be great if we could get our community together and support each other. our PTAs that and PTO's and PFAS that do these events. They work hard and the money goes to our kids and a lot of it goes to um educational programs, trips, anything that enhances their education. So, I'm going to be letting you know on April 24th, Beayshore is having a gift auction at 5:00. If you're interested, you can email bayshore gift

086[email protected]. On April 25th, Bay View is having a casino night and gift auction. You can get information from them uh by going on the the Bayiew website. On April 30th, Thorn Luck Lion will be holding their annual gift auction. uh on April 30th, Lakeside Matter. It's a sitdown dinner. For information, you can email PTA Thornne Middle [email protected]. And there are a few elementary schools that are having um raffles the month the month of February and March. It's $10 a ticket and they're raffling gift cards every day of the month. And they are Leonardo, New Mammoth, and Navasync that I have right now. anybody and beayore. So if anybody's interested, you could go to those school websites and get the information. Um it's good fundraising. The money all goes to the kids. And again, if anybody

087else has their information on their events, please don't hesitate to email me because I do like to participate. And I'm sure some of the other members would like to also. And it also for the people that are watching at home, they get the information and maybe we could really boost these fundraisers up because it does all go to our kids. >> Thank you. >> I have two topics. >> Sure. >> Um just coming out of some comments that I've gotten in the meeting from sitting up here at prior um actually in the meeting tonight. I think that it would be time for us to do a review of our food service provider. Not only um the type of food that we're serving to the children during the day, making sure that it's providing top nutrition,

088but how they're kind of setting up their options to make sure that if someone is buying or buying something on the healthier side, it isn't going to make them sick. Um hopefully we can work with who we have, but if not, it would be great to our provider that might have better options for our kids. Um, secondly, and this is something that I've been hearing a lot, not only from parent population, but teachers as well. I think we need to take a really hard look at the I Ready program this year. Um, I am failing to see how the cost warrants any type of benefit. Um, I think especially at the younger grades, putting children on a computer that to kind of go through topics that don't align with their day-to-day curriculum where they're not

089having any help from the adults that they're sitting with, but rather have to move forward on their own. Um, and also are being benchmarked not really based on necessarily what they're learning in the classroom is not super helpful. Um, it's also not inexpensive. So, I think that, you know, we have very competent teachers here that are capable of benchmarking their students without a screen. Um, and I would love to see us kind of pull back on some of those additional valuations that I think are taking away from the last time. So, I would like to focus on seeing if you would be able to possibly remove that from the budget for next year. Um, I'm sure the money can be put to better use, keep the kids off the screens for what seems to be

090somewhat unnecessary. >> I would second that. >> Thank you. Was that was that a motion? >> Do I need to make a motion? Can I write on making a motion >> for both? >> Yes. For both. One for the food service and one for iating. >> I would second the IR one. >> Can we start with the first one? What was the first? What are we doing? >> Review and then potential subsequent RFP. >> If I if I can make a No, go ahead. >> That's not technically a motion. That was just a direction to the administration to start reviewing it and then then you move forward the street. >> Yeah. I mean I think the first step would be to meet the food service committee which I think that will be the first step

091and we can discuss from there. >> Yes. Yes. >> We'll discuss it in committee. >> Anything now we're done with the food service. Can we go to the ready one? What do you want to do with that one? >> I believe we need to make a motion and we have a second so that we can >> No, I can't I didn't hear the motion. We did. We just need the motion to remove [clears throat] from the school system and better use the funds for something at the lower level that is not on a screen. >> I think it was discussed at the curriculum committee meeting that they are pursuing other things um and are looking to potentially not have it be present at the lower grade levels. I do I I think that was reported

092out by Mr. >> I think the main thing is that we want to get away from having kindergarters, first graders, second graders, third graders on computers getting assessments from it and then that one day of assessments or two days of assessments they're judging their schooling career on it's time to take it and teachers hands. >> It's not a it's a benchmarking tool. So benchmark demonstrates growth. It's not finite data in the sense of um judging or or making any it's information to help inform decision making um based on growth over time. So um we we are required to have some kind of benchmarking tool um in place and not does that doesn't necessarily have to be um digital for our youngest students but certainly um when we get to our third grade and above. There

093is a certain amount of data that teachers need at their fingertips and we do need to have a digital component. Um we are investigating other alternatives that aren't as screenheavy um as I is. They have a requirement for the amount of time kids should be on you know in the platform practicing um and we are looking to break free from that. But um that is being talked about in curriculum. I know that for a fact. >> I have a clarifying question. >> Can I let me clarify the motion because >> No, it wasn't because there's I understand you can't hear >> and Mr. Birds you need to speak in your microphone >> to clarify the motion. The motion is to remove I ready from the 2020 6 2027 budget. That's what the motion is, but

094it has to be pended on contract review for the board members motion was to remove I ready from the 2026 2027 >> and we have a second >> if he understood that motion. >> Yeah. Now let's continue with the discussion. Yes. >> Yeah. Yeah, I have a point of clarification. I'm not trying to prejudge anything, but um when we discuss this in the curriculum meeting, as Mrs. Alone just stated, we're reviewing I Ready and perhaps moving to a different benchmarking platform. My clarifying question is do you just want to move it completely or are you upset with the added component of doing however many minutes it is of I ready at home? I think these are two separate things, right? At some point, we're going to have to grapple with the fact that if I

095Ready is not what we determine to be a suitable benchmarking program, we need some other type of benchmarking program to then assist and drive individualized instruction. That's what we spent a good amount of time talking about not only in this past curriculum meeting to which I think we are now moving towards evaluating others, but in last year's curriculum meetings as well. I think that's very different to what we've been hearing from parents voicing concern about the fact that when students are coming home, part of their homework is also then to do so many minutes of I Ready in ELA and math. So, I'm a little confused as to what we're actually voting on here. I think our component is just one piece, but also um from feedback from educators that I've received that the benchmarking

096doesn't feel accurate because it does not align with what they're actually touching and they're concerned about children being benchmarked on screens when they don't have the ability necessarily to use that platform properly for benchmarking purposes. So the idea is if we are required to constantly benchmark students in addition to dibbles and then the actual tests that they take based on what they learn, it would probably make sense that it was aligned with the actual curriculum and off of the screen. Something that I think that we could actually probably have teachers build themselves because they should know what the students should be learning and they sit with them all the time. Um, so I think overall the program in general seems like from feedback not only from parents but also staff members that might not be

097comfortable sharing that information is that the whole program has been somewhat of a failure. Um, and it's actually also taking away a lot from instructional time. Um, so I think overall I understand that we're looking at new options, but I know that I writing was also still in somewhat of a consideration set and I just don't believe from what I've heard from multiple sides of the fence that it should be. I mean I would say at this point a share of curriculum I think it needs to go back to curriculum at this point to continue discussing this instead of making a very quick decision because then it leaves us again with no benchmarking program. I understand not everything's perfect, but I think that based on what we discussed and what administration is telling us is

098that this is way too preliminary to figure out what other program we're going to move to. So instead of making what I would consider at this point too rash of a decision and then handcuff us into something that we're not ready to move into a new program, I think we need to continue discussing it. What if we were to try to focus on getting some sort of a handwritten assessment ready for next year? >> Getting getting a a handwritten assessment for next year. Something that's done on pen and paper. >> So for K through two, we are investigating that for grades 3, four, and five. They will take a digital assessment with the NJSLA. Therefore, I think it would we would be remiss if we didn't provide them the opportunity to have some kind of

099testing experience online. So, our plan um is to re-evaluate our K to2 to get as much of that with paper and pencil as possible and then also have that become actionable for the teacher because that's the other piece is yeah, you can collect all this data by hand, but then what are you doing with it? How are you taking that data and using it to make decisions not only for individual learners but for grade levels, classrooms, etc. And also how are you tracking growth over time and allowing that data to move with the student year after year. So it's not just as simple as saying you know we don't want students to be on screens. I agree with that for our K to2 learners and I think we got away from that because of the

100co era where everybody was forced to be there but we are recognizing the fact that K to2 we want human interaction assessment but for three four five and above um it would not be my recommendation to move away from a digital benchmarking tool. Yes, maybe a digital practice tool in the way that it's framed now, but a benchmarking tool um that would I I believe speaking from experience become a hardship for our teachers because they wouldn't have data at their fingertips and we would also not be preparing our kids adequately to perform to the best of their ability having an electronic testing experience. That that's my recommendation. >> Do we not have other digital options so that we're reviewing? I'm just wondering why I can't be removing the considerations if we have a couple of

101other options. Some digital and some not just >> I'm sorry I feel like this is right here in my place. Um I thought that we were looking at other digital options. So is there a way that we can just pull them out of the consideration set so that we can find something new and better that replace them that doesn't seem like it has been working very well for us? >> Like like I said, I think or as Mrs. Wright said, I think it's preliminary right now. there are a limited number out there um that are adaptive and also provide the data that we need for small group instruction. Um you know we are piloting a second tool which is much less costly and also does not have the time recommendations for practice outside of the

102benchmarking tool. So that's a viable option. Um but I think you know we also um have a contract with linkit because they do our data warehousing. However, their assessments currently are not adaptive. That is the one you know feature that um is a pretor. So like Mrs. Wright said I think we can bring this back to the curriculum committee for further conversation and nothing is set in stone in the budget. We haven't approved anything. So right now there's basically a placeholder for some type of digital tool for benchmarking in the budget and we are investigating all kinds of options. >> So can I just correct me if I'm wrong? um from what I understood with the curriculum committee that they were already very aware of discussing the issues with I Ready both from the parent

103and staff and child point of view and that there were things in place to replace it and that that was looked at for next year. Yeah. So I would respectfully try to hold off if we can on the motion just to get more information from the committee. >> That's right. We could table it and bring it back into committee. I think the idea is just to remove it from the consideration set, but it's fine to me. >> Yeah, we can we can discuss it in committee and then we'll bring about the next workshop to discuss it further. >> Yeah. And I'll just add like based on our conversations with kids at our superintendent round table forums, we hear them loud and clear. They don't love it. And while I think the benchmarking tool is is

104is okay, it's the my pathway and the minute requirement that's causing a hardship. So we're looking for a tool that doesn't have those features and also in the process save money. >> So just to be clear and then the person moving the motion agree to a volunteer or referral to the committee. Does the person Seconded. Agreed to >> here. >> Yes. >> Withdrawing. >> So the motion is withdrawn and referred to committee. >> Any other new business before we move on to public comment? Okay. Uh now we'll open it up again to public comment. Hi, Kristen Rudy Middletown. Just to piggyback off of the I already conversation, um I would say definitely from kids perspective, they don't like doing it at home, which you know. Um and I would just also say to parents, um

105if you have an area where there's a concern that your child might need help in a certain area, it's very good at pinpointing that. Um, so I would be afraid to lose the ability to do that. Um, because kids kids will suffer. Um, and if there's something better, sure. Um, I also think we have to recognize modern technology and that not everything can be on paper, but I agree that most things in school should be. Um, but just having had meetings and had to ask questions about different things in math, while I don't love that they can't go back and see the specific questions because that's something I think that's intellectual property with I Ready. Um, they are able to go and pinpoint and say, "Yes, this skill that you were taught in third grade,

106like you can see now that that's still an issue." And that is very, very valuable for students who need it. So, I think we just need to think about the gamut of students that are maybe, you know, some don't have an issue and then others do. So, I've seen where it could be helpful. Um, but I would just have to say for my daughter that she does not want to do it for homework. So, thank you. Have a good night. >> Good evening, guys. I just want to wish everybody a happy new year. Welcome to the new board members. Welcome to Miss Mr. Rita. It's good to see you back. It's good to see you back as president. Thank you for your service. So, this is just a simple process question. >> Yeah. Can you

107please state your name? >> Mike Majipinto B County Boulevard. Um, how do you plan on doing Mr. Rita open sessions for future meetings? And what I mean by that is, is there going to be a give and take where the person at the mic can actually ask a question and get a response back? Um, you know, I know previous boards have done things differently. So, I just want to know for future reference how you want to set it up. I know that there was a slip up just with the way it was printed on tonight's agenda and that's fine, but I just want to know and I think we would all like to know just how you want to set it up for the future. >> So, question should be directed to me and then

108I could defer them to Dr. helpful or someone else or if we cannot answer them at the meeting, we will get we'll get back to you and we'll we'll answer the questions. >> Okay. >> At a later time, either independently dependent on the question or publicly. >> So, there will at least be an attempt made to answer the question at the time it's asked. >> Yes. >> If I understand correctly. >> Yes. >> Okay. Very good. Thank you very much. >> You're welcome. >> Hi. Good evening. Jeff Foreshaw, Middletown. Uh I just would hope that the board and the administration would get some clips uh provide some clarity on terms of the paper report uh the deliverables um what we paid for. Um like someone said earlier, you know, I reviewed a bunch of other

109similar reports they did for other districts and there was a much more robust report provided. Uh, I think having a better understanding of the assumptions and methodologies used in the report would help the board better assess um the analysis that was provided as well as the underlying data. If we can get that as well, that would be super helpful. I'd like to um prevent Bernie Daws from having to back into all the numbers uh that were provided. So, if we can save him some hours of his own time, that would be appreciated. Thank you. Hi everybody. Uh Daniel Juel, Valley Drive Economics. Thanks for coming tonight. Um so had a few minutes to digest the uh HR report. Um awesome work. Great job. 10 out of 10. No notes. Actually, no, I did a few

110notes. Um, first starting with so there's 15 some odd tables and charts in this report yet lots of numbers in those charts. Not a single one of them has any units on it. So you're kind of just the reader left to assume what are we exactly talking about here. So just if they could add some units I think it would make it a lot easier to understand. Um, and then there's the problem statement slide which seems to me a little illprepared. Um it once again shows a bunch of numbers that don't have units that seem to be the surplus and deficits of class numbers per school based are projected 5 years out into the future. But um there's no definition of the assumption of what a class size is. I think they're assuming that my

111assumption is correct. That is the number of classes that were deficit or surplus on the next 5 years. How big are those classes? Um, and we're projecting 5 years out into the future. There's presumably some error in those estimates. Where's the equivalent of error bars on those numbers? Doesn't seem to be any. Also, what's the So, if we're rounding up class size, right? What is the cut off for rounding up or rounding down to get to the to get to the numbers that are shown? Paul just seems to me a little little prepared. Um especially based on the amount of money that we paid for those. Apologies for all the cynicism. Um, and later on in the presentation where we get to the uh proposed solutions, I mean, some of them I kind of can't

112help but feel a lot of empathy for some of those kids involved. There's a couple of instances where you have a individual second grader being moved from one school to another. And I mean, can you imagine telling one kid, "Sorry, we have an arbitrary cap on the number of kids per classroom. So, you're going to need to move schools and find all new friends. I mean, that just seems seems me. Um, I guess that's it for my notes on the the Hammer report. Just one last comment on I Ready. I do echo the comments about the u the Ready curriculm to be misaligned with the curriculum. I mean, I only have a sample size of one, but it does seem like where you can have your child selling in school and then maybe not so

113much in the I Ready. It's like where why where are we misapplying? Why are we teaching the things? They're being used they're being used as benchmark. Um, but I did want to push back a little bit on the screen or the the screen time aspect of our writing. I mean, kids freaking love uh screens. Why not hijack that to increase their engagement and give them the best chance that they can have at, you know, do doing good job on the assessment. Thanks for your time. >> Hi, I'm Angel Fawson, 318 Woody, Neptune, New Jersey. I am regionist at Behore. I just came to see the um report university up here, but then the eyewing came up. Um, so I probably look at I rating I rating data more than most people um here. It's really

114my job and uh I think that's one point out this is right point that the my path the instruction piece the like weekly thing is very different um from the three times a year when you're taking a benchmark. Uh in the past many years we had just the benchmark and I would love to like Mrs. Weinstein or Mr. Soi um I can email you. I would love to meet with you like any time to give you more insight on I Ready. The one thing I want to say is there's lots of different benchmarking systems, but when you keep the same one long term, the value of seeing one child's score from kindergarten through 8th grade, it's massive. Even if you could find another one, they're like, I kind of like this better, like or math.

115I'm familiar with all of them. You're starting from there's just so much value. Like when I have a kid coming in, I'm looking at their scores and their growth over multiple multiple years. When you get another one, they're they're not exactly the same. So like on Iring, my kid might get this score of my children. And then they also take ISL and it's slightly different. The important part is the growth. Um but that's my job and I love to talk about it. So I I will be happy to reach out and like talk about it more. But I do want to say that once we've had it for multiple years, the value is a lot and you have to think about losing years of data that has followed a child. Um, and that's totally separate

116from the my path which is like do it 45 minutes a week which is completely separate and I think it actually costs a lot extra to do that part. So maybe just as a benchmark, but um just wanted to say there are like some teachers who are specifically like reading teachers or development teachers and interventionist teachers and I would be happy to be a resource for anybody um cuz I also don't like teaching with screens and things like that. But uh there's a little bit more nuance to it. So I'm sorry I'm very nervous but I was like oh no don't get rid of it right now like before we talk about it. So thank you Hello again. Uh Jason Music, Middle. Um seems like four is my lucky number today. So I got four

117more points that I'd like to talk about today. Um uh the first is going back to the uh I Ready and uh the screen time. Um I don't know if screen time is such a terrible thing even at the K through two levels. Um, as we continue towards a more digital future, I don't think that uh screen time should be wrapped up into this uh nuanced giant uh catch all that it's a bad thing. Um, you know, watching my kid watching YouTube versus doing something on I Ready screen time, but vastly different definitions of what we're doing with that screen time. So I I I just think we should be careful on what we label labeling screen time is such a bad thing. Um number two is I think benchmarks are important. I don't think

118we should be abandoning the idea of benchmarks. Um if you don't have them, then how do you know if we are succeeding as a community or not? Um, I also don't think we should be putting too much faith in whether a six or sevenyear-old is saying I like this or don't like it when it comes to school things because there's a lot of things I didn't like when I was a kid and they turned out to be incredibly important now that I recognize them as an adult. Um, number three is going back to the report. Um, I'm going to follow up on the uh the raw data request. Um, not because I don't trust a 15ish slide PowerPoint. Uh, but cherry-picking data is a real thing and I would feel better about seeing the actual

119data of a $24,000 report. Data versus information are two wildly different things. Um, and four is a positive uh thing is that I'm really enjoying that this board is doing a little more of a back and forth with the people out here in the stands. Um it was a lot colder I feel like in previous sessions and this there seems to be a lot more interaction which for me uh very much appreciated actually hearing from the board what they're thinking when we are uh raising our concerns. So thank you for that. Thank you [applause] Belfford. First I want to thank Miss for sharing the school events. Um, I really appreciate it. Um, I'm a little concerned because last spring when we were talking about school closures, we were told that we have all this available

120space in the district to move students to and we were going to close schools and close a middle school. Um, on today's report, he didn't really talk about middle schools, but it is blaringly obvious that we don't have space in middle schools. And it just concerns me because maybe we have money now, but if we didn't vote to raise our taxes an insane amount, we would be intentionally overcrowding students based on a rash decision. And I don't think that that was educated at all. And considering we're the board of education, I feel like we should have thought that process through. We were given a lot of bad information last year and were spoken to like it was fact. And now this year we get this report and it doesn't look like any of our elementary

121schools really have all that room that much room in there to close to and move however many hundred students into other schools, let alone close a middle school when one middle school already has 900 kids in it. Like that's crazy to me. Um the fact that we're not talking about if we're going to close schools or not yet is really concerning because we're going to be back here again in April and we're going to say are we going to close middle schools? Are we not going to close middle schools? Are our fifth graders who are buying beayshore stuff to get ready for their last year? Are they not going to go to Beayshore anymore? Are they going to go to Thornne? Are they going to go to Thompson? Like we don't know. And that's really

122scary like for our kids and for the parents. Um I think we really need to push this forward a little bit more and think about this because last year we were about to make a huge decision based on really bad information and that really scares me. That's all I have. Thank you. [applause] >> Anyone else in the vote? >> No. Okay. Feels like a motion to adjourn the meeting. >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Andy L Paige Middletown. I just wanted to clear up um when I spoke when I came up in the first um public comment section, my point wasn't that I was upset that there wasn't two public comments. My point was that I just wanted clarity on is it prohibited for a board member to make a motion at any point in the

123meeting or are there certain times where that's the only time a board member can make a motion. So, I just wanted to clear that up and see if that can help me get a clearer answer because I still don't understand how I don't I still don't think I have a clear answer. So, is a board member permitted to make a motion at any point during the board meeting for anything? >> I'm going to try to answer this as clearly as possible. There is an agenda that is put out by the administration with the approval of the president that has the specific order of business of the meeting. During certain sections, board members do not typically make motions because that that is not the business section of the meeting. Namely, public comment presentations or stuff as

124somebody would be making a presentation like behavior report. It would be really different for a board member from from whatever chairs they were in to make a motion in the middle of his report. That just doesn't make sense. So motions in the order of business follow the agenda. Board members are absolutely entitled to make motions during the business portion of the meeting which is typically outlined in the agenda and specifically for anything not on the agenda. That is during old business and new business. >> So I heard you say the word typical. My question is may a board member make a motion at any point during the meeting? >> Yes or no? I've answered the question three times. I do apologize that you do not like my answer. >> I'm just asking for a yes

125or a no >> because I I'm a member of this is a public meeting. Everyone the nine board members here are also members of the public who are sitting here unpaid as volunteers. So this is this should be a collaborative meeting. I I'm only here for my children and also for all of the children of Middletown. I want what's best for them. And so for that, I would like to feel like this is a collaborative effort. So that's why I'm just trying to have the clarity. I'm I I'm trying to speak to you, Mr. Burns. You're not even making eye contact. This is not collaborative. >> You don't like >> It's not that I don't like, I'm just asking. May a board member make a motion at any point in the meeting? Yes or no?

126>> If that if the question do you think that let's send it to you, you know, we we'll have to get back to you on that. All right. Obviously. >> Is there a policy that can be sent to me or >> We'll get back to you. >> Okay. >> Do you have a question that you want to ask? >> That was the question. Okay. >> Um, >> we'll get back to you. >> I'm feeling very disrespected as a member. >> Excuse me. I'm feeling very disrespected as a member of the public who took time out of my day to be here and continues to take time out of my day to be here. And I'm again as I said as >> can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting please? >> Wow. >> Second.

127>> All in favor? >> Opposed? >> How many opposed? >> We have four opposed. >> Who's I'm sorry. Who is opposed? Please it's hard for me to see. So Mrs. Torres, >> Torres, Miss Minuise, Mr. Sabarowski, and Miss Wright all >> five of the five are in favor. Motion passes. Good night everybody. Thank you very much. I think the public