001to South. We're going to continue our board meeting with the rest of the superintendent report. I believe the architect is going to go through and give presentations. Correct. >> That's correct. >> Good evening everyone. Thank you for having me here this evening. I'm going to go through the projects that we just uh toured. I'll go through in a little more detail. As always, I'll limit my presentation to about three and a half hours per school, but I'll try to be a little faster tonight. Tonight, I have my glasses so I can see the screen and uh let you get this. See? There you go. I've been practicing. Um, all right. So, at Readington Middle School, I'm what I'm going to do is start at go through each one of the projects through each of the
002schools. So, this is this is the same on a per school basis. Um, so infrastructure and facilities maintenance projects. Um, we talked about the existing Federal Pacific or FP electrical service equipment and replacing those panels. All the panels that you saw if you went into the rooms uh will be replaced in common location with new updated panels that will have a new underwriters laboratory certification to which is very important. So I'll provide you with additional space uh as far as additional breakers and an updated underwriters laboratory certification. U replace existing fire alarm system. As you did see that fire alarm system will be replaced with an addressable panel. What you see is the panel. All the devices on the walls will be replaced which means all the horns, all the horn strobes, all the uh
003pull stations and all the wiring to each of those devices that encompasses a complete fire alarm system replacement. Right. The roof replacement, the front gym and the 400 wing. Um as you you can see the locations of those two areas. It'll be a complete roof replacement. Existing roof will be replaced down to the roof deck. new roof, new insulation will be placed um so that we'll have positive drainage towards all the drains and that you'll have uh no leaking after after that occurs. There'll be a 25year warranty on the new roof. Uh this way if there's any leaks after the roof is replaced, the district will make a call to the to the general contractor that the roofer did roof, they will make a correction at no cost to the district. uh existing boilers at
004the new wing. Um all of the uh the existing boilers will be replaced with a manufacturable air coal boilers. They're much more efficient. Uh they're smaller boilers and their operating costs are substantively lower than your existing boilers and they'll have a 20 to 25 year warranty on those as well. Similar to the roof, here's an issue. You can make a call. It'll get corrected. Place the classroom HVAC unit ventilator. So the unit ventilators that you saw there are the long um uh hor long low horizontal units. Those unit ventilators are heating and ventilating only H andV only. Those are replaced with HVAC heating, ventilating and air conditioning. In which case the uh compressor that provides the air conditioning similar to what's at your home will be located uh outside the building or on the roof.
005Uh so that they'll go from H&V to HVAC. 2004 uh HBAC rooftop units. These rooftop units uh provide a ducted supply and a plenum return uh to uh to to some of the existing spaces uh that you see. And those boxes will be replaced on the roof. They're called packaged roof units or rooftop units. The compressors are already in that box. We'll replace it with a new roof curb. Uh so it'll be 10 to 12 inches from the surface of the roof. uh and there'll be no issues with regard to snow snow buildup, drift, or anything of that nature. Once again, these new units will have a 20-year warranty, and they will have um better um they'll be they'll operate more efficiently. Therefore, your operating cost will be lower once you have the new unit
006in place. The place 2004 HVAC rooftop units for room 203 and the science rooms. My comments are similar. uh the box that you see on the roof will be replaced with a new more efficient rooftop unit. Similarly, it is a ducted supply and a plenum return. All the comments that I made on that are similar. Similarly, again 2004 HAC rooftop units for the 500 wing classrooms. Uh these will be replaced uh in kind with new units on the roof and provide will provide a ducted supply and a plan of return. So when you take a look at this room, what does that mean? You'll see the supply registers in the ceiling aso as opposed to so that unit there will provide a duct supply. So similar diffusers that are in this room's um ceiling as
007opposed to a unit ventilator on the floor. 2004 edition existing unit ventilator condensers. Um these are the um these these same upgrades with regard to H&V to HVAC heating and ventilating to HVAC. Same comments would apply here as well for the 2004 edition classroom airdale units. The air dale units are the vertical units. The vertical units the compressor is in the unit itself. Those will be replaced in kind of by HVAC with HVAC. Again, new compressors uh will operate more efficiently and the operating costs will be lower. 2004 HBAC rooftop units for the new wing. same common supply. New unit will place on a new roof curb u provide ducted supply and sun return. 2004 AC rooftop units with the classrooms in the media center. So you're going to start to see it's the same
008product. It just serves a different location. Okay. 2004 AC rooftop units for the cafeteria. Same same comments. Um again a new box on the roof. more efficient operating skill ducted supply planning term integrated building management system or BMS. So what the BMS does is it controls all the all the operating units within the building, all the unit ventilators, all the rooftop units. Uh they'll all be controlled by a digital building management system um that they'll be able to control by the director of facilities uh or the business administrator uh to make certain that the entire school is running at optimum capacity and uh and and operational efficiency. Right? So that's important. This is a wireless system. So all these devices are are put onto each one of your operating units uh so that they you
009can see what they're doing, how much fresh air taking in, what the what the ambient temperature of the room is, what the set point of the room is, all on one integrated BMS instead of going to an individual uh thermostat on a per room basis. That's the difference. BMS whole school, individual units are on a per room basis. Free pavement school. This was talked about. What's important is that when you see substantive when you see substantive cracking, we will have to rebuild the base of the existing pavement so that we can stop that cracking. For the most part, when you see uh cracking at the surface, what we're going to do is do a 2-in uh scarification and repave. So, we're going to remove existing pavement down to two inches and then repave that. In
010areas where the cracking is substantive, we'll do localized base rebuilding so that you won't have that new cracking again. All right. Similarly, they will be positively sloped to the area drains that are there. So, you won't have any any ponding uh or any freezing. Repay playground areas. Same comment. Um if there if the cracking not like that cracking, that cracking tells me that's a through and through crack, which means the base needs to be rebuilt. Um otherwise, you won't if you did a re if you did a scarification or repay for that type of crack, the crack's coming back again. So we've located the areas where we have to rebuild localized bases so that we don't have a recurrence of the cracks that you have now. So it's a combination of a scarification repave in
011a localized rebuild of the base to prevent new cracks. New pave path at the building perimeter. Um you can see the degradation with regard to the curbs in the center in regard to the cracking on the sidewalks. Um so all of those sidewalk panels and the curving will be replaced. Plus, we'll make we'll make it compliant with the barrier free or ADA accessibility requirements right from the from the uh on the path from the main entrance to the barrier free spaces and then along the path itself. Replace the existing PA system. Um same uh same same comment. This is in the main office. This will be replaced with an upgraded system um so that you won't have to use one phone in the main office to to use that system. It's a little bit more
012sophisticated than that. Um and it'll provide uh many more options to reach uh critical locations in the building and the entire building. The new mass notification system uh this similar comment uh with regard to the the system is there. Now three key locks sets interior and exterior doors. Um, we need to uh make certain that the entire building is on one master key system and that the keys are operating properly and safely on each one of those doors. New emergency backup generator. So, the backup generator is uh will be ex will be located in the exterior as close to the electrical room as possible. Um, we're looking at shielding that with an acoustic vents or acoustic barrier to minimize any uh any noise that the generator may make. It would be a um a natural
013gas fire generator. U so not oil, a natural gas fire generator. And it will provide backup systems for the school. So this is not an emergency generator will keep the lights on enough for you to get out of the school. A backup generator will um keep certain systems running like lights, like the heat, anything that's critical to maintain occupancy of the school in case of power outage. Right? So this is a backup generator so that you can can continue using the school and have uh and and the backup generator comes on within 10 seconds of the power failure, right? So there's no there's no delay, there's no lag time and that the district and the school can continue operating as normal and that there's no issue with regard to um fuel supply to the generator.
014It will be a natural gas. This is the uh the renovation the recess fields that that we talked about. Um this is a repaving and an enlargement of this area as we discussed. Similarly, we've been localized base rebuilding repaving on top of an enlargement of this as well and re and restriping for as many uh as many play areas as we can as as we can generate and you know they'll be they'll be overlapping but um it'll give the district uh more flexibility to use the space new athletic track. Um so I I saw some of the board members tried to run around that track and then make it back to the board meeting. Um so so the new track will be a new rubberized track. It will be a coarse surface. It will have
015edging on both sides. It will have striping of course on the track. Uh it will either have a combination of subgrade or perimeter drainage. Uh so that you want to have a scenario where you'll have a sheet flow uh drainage off the off the track uh onto the uh onto the low side. So that will all be accommodated and u we've met with the township engineer. So any of these projects that are outside of the buildings we will uh review with the township to make sure they are uh amendable to anything that is done here and uh it is code compliant and we'll execute those projects. So what so this is a new track all the way around that existing field the uh the media center renovation um ceiling uh lights uh flooring um HVAC
016that we talked about before and casework and furniture right so that's the extent of the media center renovation as far as what what that design entails I know we we have up the lights have been upgraded to updated LED lights uh but we're looking at new ceiling new lights and it can define find some some sub spaces a little bit better and have the students use the spaces kind of uh a little more efficient. Um new window treatments. So the window treatments that you saw in the school are um they're they're louvers. They're Venetian blinds if you will. Uh the treatments that you see here in this building are roller shades. Treatments that we are proposing are roller shades but they have but you can see through them. They're not blackout shades. They have a
017three to five percent opacity which means you can see through them. They reduce solar gain um and they and they reduce heat load in the inside the inside the room. So all those things are assets uh to those shades but they'll be roller shades similar to the ones you see here and not the blinds to the you know dissimilar to what you see. You furniture the instructional spaces. Um although I know I've tried to replicate the desk with the tennis balls on the bottom. Uh on the third picture, we're going to propose that the district do something different. All the furniture that uh that we've seen in new schools um is called uh it's actually like flexible furniture, right? That kids don't stay still, fidget. Um so most of the new furniture that's designed is
018designed to accommodate that fidgeting so that they can they the furniture can then enhance the learning environment. So, some of the new furniture that the district is going to review is going to be to enhance that learning environment for the kids uh and make it a little bit more comfortable to learn. I think that's the intent of an updated furniture. >> Okay. So, Jason, they skip through the not the referendum section. um bring up the Holland Brook presentation please. Okay. So this is at uh at Holland Brook replace the existing fire alarm system. Similarly the fire alarm systems composed of the panel that you see there. It'll be new addressable panel. What does that mean? That means when when the when when there's a location that is triggered, the fire department looks at the panel
019and they can find where the f where what what fire what device triggered the alarm. Right? It's called an addressable panel. So that's one thing that gets changed. All the devices, all the horn strobes and the horns on the walls will be changed. Pull station will be changed and the wiring to those devices will be changed. It be a whole fire alarm system upgrade. Right. 2000 uh replace the 2000 edition rooftop units. Uh similar comments to before new rooftop uh unit provide a ducted supply and a plenum return. We replaced along the roof curve as well. Integrated building management system or BMS. So now since I described the BMS before, I was going to quiz everybody, but uh so the BMS again is going to give is going to give the director of facilities and
020the administration access to all of the operating units, all the rooftop units, all the unit ventilators in one uh in one program. Uh and then you can modulate those temperatures um based on the season from one location. Uh repay playground areas. Similarly, it'll be a combination of a 2-in um scarification or repay with a localized base rebuild when we see substantive cracking. Uh we'll rebuild that base so you won't have new cracking. And then we'll have positive slope to the existing drains to make certain that you don't have ponding in the winter time that um rekey lock sets. Uh similarly, our comment is the same as the previous building. We want to make sure the classrooms are more safe uh than they are now. easy to lock in case of a lockdown. All classroom locks
021always have a freak out, which means when you're on the inside of the classroom, you always can get out without a key, right? Uh and but when the when you can lock the door um quicker than you than you do now with you don't need magnets. New emergency backup generator common dissimilar be located next to as close to the electrical room as possible. It'll be shielded by acoustic panels to to minimize any noise impact, any perimeter noise impact to uh any neighboring locations. Uh and again, as a backup generator, it will come on within 10 seconds after a power failure. You will not notice that the generator will come on. The power will continue as usual. Um and it will uh it will maintain your lights, maintain your heat, maintain all the critical items for
022you to stay and use the facility without interruption. Interactive whiteboards we talked about pretty self-explanatory in the classrooms. Um these are the the boards we updated to have be more current um with the technology uh life skill suite. Um something that I wish that my 14-year-old kids would uh learn and understand how to cook for themselves. So this is this is something that we are upgrading here in the district as well. the media center, uh media center, uh renovations, uh some some case work, u some ceiling and lights, some flooring, um to uh finish out some of the upgrades in there. It's a fairly newer facility, but there's some uh uh some work that's yet to be done. So, flooring, um some of the lighting, this Jason, um nothing. Right. So th those are the
023projects they have to less than three and a half hours. Those are the projects for both schools. Um see if anyone has any any specific questions with regard to any of those projects. >> Any questions from Thank you. So I'm going to see if anyone in the audience has any questions specific to referendum. If you have any questions specific to referendum, please come up to the podium, state your name, down your >> Okay, thank you very much. >> Very well. Thank you very much. >> While we're on the topic of the referendum, I just want to provide two reminders real quick. One, um, Tuesday, I think it's a Tuesday, October 28th, um, I will be here, Jason, our architect, will be here for an open public forum. any member of the public that wants to
024come uh to hear about all of the projects in the referendum, we can do a Q&A. It's not a formal board meeting, so it can be relatively casual. Uh we'll be here October 28th, and that'll be our last public forum before the referendum. So any if you're hearing in the community, any parents or community members have questions, um you know, encourage them to either reach out or if they can attend in person October 28th at 7 p.m. Um we'll meet in this room. Um, second reminder or or followup is um at the last board meeting um all board members had a challenge and each of you received 20 pieces of marketing materials to hand out to family and community members. Um and you were going to get a prize and I delivered. So I brought
025a prize. Um the problem is I don't know if I heard from everybody. I heard that one board member had almost all of their pieces of uh marketing materials out and another board member told me last week that he gave all of his out so sorry for the bag. This is the only one I could find. >> So you you have to share it. Justina and Paulo I think gave out their their uh all of their marketing materials. I have candy because it wasn't a trick. It was a treat. And uh I brought plates in case you want to share some candy. So I will give it to Paulo and Justina to start with the candy. And feel free to pass around and thank you for passing around because I trust everybody talked to at
026least 20 friends and neighbors and gave out their marketing materials. >> I confess I chickenened out at the barn dance last weekend. I I will admit it's not easy like to just approach someone and say, "Hey, have you heard about our referendum? Let me talk to you about it." It feels >> very unnatural. But I appreciate everybody promoting and talking about giving information about the Just keep going. So, I'm thrilled to be here tonight to talk to the board and members of the public about our sustainable Jersey program and recognize the hard work um of those folks that are here, many of the folks that are here in the audience. Um, sustainable Jersey for schools is a a voluntary program that provides a lot of resources to New Jersey public schools and to municipalities as
027well. And Redington Township um municipality is also involved in sustainable New Jersey as well. Uh, it helps us identify actions to become more sustainable. It gives us tools, resources, and we have received Jason, I couldn't I couldn't quote it, but I would say tens of thousands of dollars worth of grants uh if not close to $100,000 worth of grants uh from Sustainable New Jersey. But they also highlight school districts and reward our accomplishments uh for the uh work that we do in um creating our buildings, building sustainable communities, and looking out for the wellness of both staff and students. They also have a program called the digital star in this age and in this era of um students and teachers and folks being more online. Uh it encourages uh the mindful implementation of digital learning.
028Even today we had our our committee on AI and one of the things that came up when we were talking is about how we have to teach kids to really be responsible when they're online and and AI is here uh and they're using it uh and to be responsible and the digital star recognizes teaching digital learning and those communication uh skills in a really responsible way. Um Sustainable Jersey, we're you're one of 67% of New Jersey school districts participating. uh you can see that um there are only 64 schools silver cert certified. So just remember that number 64 schools um in the entire state and 305 are bronze certified and sustainable Jersey is celebrating their 10 years as well. Um and this is connected with our our strategic work. I know that we're going to
029engage in some new strategic planning this year, but we want kids to feel connected value. to look at those four words, a shared sense of community, an awareness of themselves and others and their environment and to ultimately understand the impact of their decisions. Uh so I'm I'm pleased to tell you um that these are our results. Uh all four schools in the district received the silver certification. Remember 64 schools in the state. We are four of those 64 which is our entire district and three out of our school four schools uh received the digital star. Um, it requires at least 350 points uh to be silver certified and you can see we have schools that are well above our 350 points. Um, and the digital star is a fantastic add-on um to this this recognition
030and this award. Uh, so we have some folks to thank uh from all of our schools. I know that not everybody could be here tonight. Uh but I just have some certificates um of thanks uh for our folks that work so hard. Um I wish it could be more like a bonus check or something like that, but unfortunately can't do that. Uh so when I call your name, if you could come up, grab your reward, and just stay up here. We'll grab a picture um before you all leave. Uh so Tim Charleston and Betsy Freeman. I don't think Betsy is here. Tim, come on. Um, Jen's here tonight. Mrs. Moody is here with us. Why don't you join us for the picture? I mean, you were in your first year with BP last year. You
031were like sustainable, but come on up at Holland Brook. Dr. Ross and Theresa Bridges School. Kristen Higgins, Tiffany Barka, and Ann Romano [Applause] from White House School. Dr. Ander Rosa, Emily Bangles, and [Applause] uh from the district level. Um Jason B, Dr. Stacy Brown, Sarah Pouch, and Don [Applause] Let's get a picture. Thank you everybody. This uh recognition really could not be possible without all of their hard work. Uh the sustainable Jersey application really does require um a ton of effort on their part. Um and there are others that are here tonight. Our green committee um chaired IBth um Pam and Rich sit on that committee. um we talk about our our our green goals all the time and then we have tons of folks from our um community that also sit on the green
032committee as well. Thank thank you for coming. We really appreciate it. Um what's really nice I think we all those of us who are one of the school boards, we received an email that we'll have a special lunchon and recognition at the school boards association uh next week as well. Uh so this is not just a district recognition. This is really a state level recognition. Here are some of our highlights from around the school schools I should say. Some pictures of kids, you know, weighing trash and um teaching other kids about recycling and even some of our outdoor spaces like the food trucks we bring here in March and our staff enjoying um you know a really nice professional development day. But uh with a thanks by having food trucks here. So uh that's everything.
033This is our sustainable Jersey award and thank you all so much for your hard work. Really appreciate it. Any questions from the board? >> You can clap if you want. Uh the next part of my superintendent's report is a uh state required reporting out to the board of education and the public our um NJSLA results from our administration this past spring and our district assessment results from this past year. I'd like to introduce uh Dr. Brown. >> Good evening. So, I'm going to walk you through the literacy assessments for the district starting with NJSLA. So, typically I'll stop at the end of each section for questions, but if you have a question about a specific grade level and you don't want to wait to the end, you just let me know and I will I
034will stop for you. So, this is our first NJSLA slide just as a review. Some of you have seen these in previous years. It's colorcoded. So, the darker the color, the better the proficiency level. So the purple that's almost black is exceeding and the dark purple is meeting. Those are what make up our proficiency um percentages and then the approaching partially met and did not yet meet are the ones that are considered either close to meeting but but not meeting currently. So our third graders this year have a 49% meeting and exceeding which is above the state but somewhat atypical for us. We don't normally score this close to the seat, but we'll talk about this particular score more when we see the longitudinal slides. Fourth grade is a very consistent grade level. They do
035well from year to year, and they um have a 75% meeting and exceeding, which is very similar to what they had last year. Fifth grade is another consistent high performing grade level with an 81% meeting and exceeding Sixth grade is above the state at 63% meeting and exceeding. And then they're um they're somewhat in line with where they were the year before. They did have some changes to their schedule. They had some changes to their curriculum, but they were hanging exact about where they were previously. Seventh grade did well with an increase from where they were yes last year with a 72% meeting and exceeding and a nice section of students that are exceeding the expectations in the grade level. And then 8th grade is at a 66% meeting and exceeding. This is an improvement
036from last year. We made some staffing changes. We had new staff in the grade level. It worked out really well. Last year they were much closer to the state line. So, they've made some nice improvements. They did have some long-term subs in this grade level, but despite that kind of disruption that comes above um having a teacher different than what you're used to from year to year, they did still make an improvement. This is our last NJSLA slide for the overall grade. Do you have any questions before I move on? So, then we'll move into the longitudinal slides. So now these slides are showing scores from one year to another. The light purple is the 2018 scores and then it moves to the right to dark purple which is our more current scores. Starting with
037third grade on the left and then moves through 8th grade as you move to the right. Now third grade as you can see here these scores are very atypical for us. This is about a 20 percentage points difference from what we typically see in this grade level from year to year. Um, sixth grade had a little bit of a decline, but they were in range of where they were the year before. And then fourth, fifth, seventh, and eighth all either stayed right in range where they were or they made some nice increases from last year. Now, these are different children as they move through the same grade. So this is a different cohort of children as they move through third grade as they move through fourth grade which is different from this slide which is
038also looking over time but this is the same students as they move from one grade to another. So third graders in the light purple as they move into fourth graders in the dark purple and the next one is fourth graders in the light purple as they move to fifth graders in the dark purple. And except for the one grade level, we have some really nice increases in scores. And I want to specifically point out seventh to eighth grade, that does look like it's a little bit of a dip, but if you compare this to last year's slide, this is actually better than they've performed previously. They're starting to close that gap. So, our new hires in that grade level have been doing a really nice job and it's um trending in the right direction. Do
039you have any questions about the longitudinal slides before I move on? These ones can be a little complex to look at. Okay. So then we'll move to our sub populations. These are our scores separated by the subop of race. And for the most part they've they've hung right about where they were in previous years, which is a good thing. We do have a decline in one area, but it's important to look at the percentage of the percentage of the district that the sub population makes up. If the sub population is very small, a handful of students can make that number swing a little wildly in one direction or another. So, for the most part, overall, we're we're trending in the same area for these subopuls that we were our previous years. These are our scores
040by gender. This is very typical for us. This is very typical for schools across the United States. This is very typical for schools in multiple different countries. What is interesting about this as as students move into young adulthood, this separation from girls doing better than boys in literacy starts to reverse itself and it evens itself out as they move into young adulthood. So although currently our girls are doing better than our boys, research will show us in the United States and I believe in England they have a tendency to reverse that as they become older. These are our proficiencies by program that the ELLL population is what we call our MLS here and except for um a few of these subopuls they stayed about where they were before. Now, the ML population is a little
041tricky to track. Um, and that's because as students become proficient in English, we pull them out of this program and put them in the general population and their scores become part of that gened population instead. So, you're really not going to ever see a very large passage rate in the ML population because we would have removed them and put them into regular classes because they wouldn't have paid the services anymore. So if you look at our gened population where all those students generally are counted and they move to it has an almost 80% proficiency rating. So as they move out of that ML program they are finding success in the classroom. Do you have any questions about our subops? >> Just have a I have a question on the slides that we've been looking at.
042It seems like the percentages for 2018 to 2019 seem to be higher in a few of them. Do you can you pinpoint that to >> in which particular ones? Because like in this one by programming they they're not higher. You know what in particular you're looking at? >> Um if you do the male and female if you go back to um even all grades for um for race some of them seem to be >> I'm just noticing a little bit of a trend here. So I'm just curious if you know evenly you're going to see this trend across the United States because the 201819 school year was the year before co then you have a break. You'll notice that the 19 2019 2020 school year isn't there because that's the year that we were not
043here for COVID and then the school year is the first year back. So then what you're seeing is an is a recovery from that COVID experience. So like here the males in 19819 were at 67% and then in the 2022 23 school year they were about that same percentage again. Um looking back here at our Asian and our um and our multiple races those all were at lower proficiencies in the 20189 school year than they were here. So it depends on the sub population that you're looking at. I'm not necessarily seeing a trend all the way across all populations or all grade levels as of right now. >> I mean, I'm just looking at the slide, slide 10, ELA achievement and growth. >> Which one is it? >> Um, slide 10, I believe. ELA achievement
044and growth. >> Grade three, grade six, grade seven, grade eight. It just seems like >> So, >> yeah, not this one. >> This one. >> Yeah. >> So, if we're looking at this one, grade four has made an improvement. Grade five has made an improvement. Grade six had made an improvement on that 2018 score last year. They just haven't made it this year, and they did have some disruption in their program and a decrease of instructional time and a new curriculum. Seventh grade is almost exactly the same as they were, maybe a percentage or two off. And grade eight we've been focused on for a while as um having some curricular changes and then some staffing changes. So again, I'm not seeing an overall trend of making pocket pockets in some areas more so than
045others. >> Stacia, I think you bring up an important point. So there's there's a lot of factors that we might not be able to account for. It's sort of like the world looked very different pre-COVID, postcoid, but one of the things that we talk about constantly in leadership is changes in staffing. Um there have been a lot of staffing changes since since the 201819 school year. Uh we have a relatively newer staff. We've had some um transient staff. We've had some maternity leaves in certain grade levels um that created disruption and it's getting harder to fill positions, especially long-term sub positions where we might have um you know a teacher in there for two or three weeks and then another teacher stays for you know three or four months and then you know another teacher
046might come in after that as well. So I think some of our retention recruitment efforts are going to be really important but I think some of this comes down to some some things in staff as well. Again, I agree with you. There's like there's a lot of grade levels that we've seen improvement since 1819. Um, but in the grade levels that we've seen maybe not as much of that upward trend, I could point to some significant changes that happened at a grade level potentially in staffing. >> Anything else? >> Yeah. Could you comment on grade three? And you said we were going to talk about it. What's striking me is that it's both lower than the prior year and it's also lower than the year after we return from COVID. Uh so I'm just curious
047what your hypothesis is about what's happening and what do you think the district should do to address that? >> There's certain things that occur in highly successful classrooms across the district. I'll point to like the fourth and fifth grade that they're in the upper 70s, high 80s. And and in those classrooms, um the teachers are retained from year to year. They're a really solid group. They're familiar with the curriculum and they've made like adjustments. They really know what works best for their students. They work really um closely with the instructional coaches. So, they're using all the resources the district provides them. They follow the curriculum very closely as as it's written with enough professional choices to make it their own, but still have a very consistent approach from classroom to classroom. And those are the
048things that we're seeing in the most successful classrooms in the district and that we're looking to ensure are in the other areas as well. >> So you had turnover in the grade three. I just I'm looking for what's the hypothesis of why is it lower versus the prior year and also lower versus the year that we came back from CO. >> We've targeted that to a specific area. It has to do with some changes in staff. Okay. >> And it has to do with how closely the the teachers are following. >> Thank you. >> Uh I had a related question. Do we have other data points from when the grade three was in grade two or were there other tests? Is there other information that we can confirm it wasn't? a a testing issue or
049a problem at that time. It was it is related. >> This wouldn't be a testing issue because we have similar tests in other areas that aren't showing this issue. If it was if it was an overall district issue, you would be seeing it everywhere in Vermont. So, we do have we do have information from these students as second graders and at that point with what we have, they were not performing the same. I I have some of that data that I'll share in edtech in our next that was one of the requests from edtech was to look at some longitudinal data. Now, we don't have NJSLA prior to third grade. Third grade is the first time they take it. But we do have I Ready. So, I'm compiling some other data to just look at
050that cohort of students as they started in kindergarten and then move their way forward through third grade as well. >> Anything else? Um I did want to ask for the cohorts what percentage or number total number of students do we say is too low to really look at the data because we have some 2% 4% of the population seems you it goes more with number of students when you look at anything I believe that has 10 students or more that's why when we do our subopuls we do them by district and not by grade level because we don't have enough in some of these populations in order to look at it by grade level. A larger district would have a slide like this for every single grade level to look at. But we wouldn't want
051to present this data if you only have maybe two students in the sub population. So all of these are over 10 students. But as you can see, some of these populations are very small even. >> All right. So you've already removed any groupings that would have been too small to be meaningful. >> It's not that it would be removed. It's just we're looking at it as everyone all in one pot versus the smaller pots per grade level. And that's how we presented to get away from identifying any specific students. >> And what um is the percentage standard deviation that we can expect would be statistically equivalent? Something like you know 80% to 82% would be insignificant. I'm just curious if you like what you consider equivalent. a standard deviation away from >> from from point
052to point that are we looking at we can say that 79% is equivalent to 81% we wouldn't consider that a a significant change. I'm just curious if if based on all of this data, we've got some idea of what the the normal variation we might expect. I mean, from group to group from group to group that yeah or yeah, as we're looking year to year that we might say if it's within 5%. We don't consider it significant. it's within but if it's outside that then yes we are seeing >> I I don't know if there's an actual number that like is standardly used but when I'm looking at this like information if it's fluctuating around 2 to 3% I would consider that to be like a cohort issue and then that doesn't really end the
053conversation there then you have to kind of follow the cohort you look backwards you look forwards to see if this is the way they typically typically behave which is where something like this would be come into like effect. So like the sixth the seventh grade into eighth grade, I knew that that co that grade level had had an improvement from the year before, but they still weren't moving in an upward trend. So then I looked at the year before's information to see is this any better than it was last year or not? So that couple of percentage point number is kind of what leads you to investigate a little further. I mean, to me, anything five or above is like really, really significant. And at two to 3%, that's something to keep an eye on.
054If it's in the upward trend, that is a good thing to keep an eye on. And if it's in the backward trend, not necessarily cause for concern yet, but definitely something to watch for. And then anything within about like 10% is the kind of in range with with with the previous score. Anything else? >> Okay. So then that's the end of the NJSLA data, but we have multiple other district assessments that we use. The NJSLA is just one test on one day. So we have these other standardized tests or district assessments that we use to kind of layer on top of the NJSLA to see if they can give us any more information about our student progress. The one thing to remember when you're comparing this particular test to what you just heard about the
055NJSLA is that this is only a reading test. NJSLA also includes writing. So, you're not going although you can find a pretty decent correlation. If you have one grade level that's doing particularly well here, but didn't do as well in NJSLA, that may be related to the fact that this doesn't include writing. So, these are our growth scores. The I Ready Diagnostic has a really nice feature of showing us how much the students grow, which the MJSLA does not. A student did not pass the NJSLA, but have made years worth of growth between one grade level and the next, but you won't see it there. You'll be able to see it someplace like the I Ready Diagnostic that provides a growth score. Now, in this particular chart, you want to be in that upper right
056hand quadrant, which is a high performance, high growth area. So, not only are they performing well on grade level, they're also showing a lot of growth from one year to another. So, all of our grade levels in this particular um assessment are in the high performance, high growth quadrant except for eighth grade. Now, I'm not particularly concerned about eighth grade because at the midyear point, they were way up by seventh and sixth grade. So, when I talked to the teachers, they attributed this to eighth graders moving on to the high school, they were not particularly focused. They felt as at this assessment, they had just taken the NJSLA, they had just taken other district assessments and there was a little bit of assessment fatigue. Um, normally this would be caused for a concern because they're
057hanging out there all by themselves. But because mid year they were fine and this is an anomaly, we'll keep an eye on this group, but it's not appearing to have the same problem as we go into this year's assessment. This is our growth as a district K to 8. So I Ready was um NJSLA was just grades three through eight. This includes kindergarten through 2 grade. Now the bar on the left hand side is your growth score. In order to make a year's worth of growth, you want to be at 100% by the end of the year. At the end of the year, we were at 155%, which is about a year and a half's worth of growth. Now, this isn't an average, it's a median. So, what the system will do is take every
058score in the entire district. They order them from the highest to the lowest, and they find that middle number. And the reason they do a median and not an average is because that stops all the the swing that comes from a very low score or a very high score and it's a little more accurate than an average. So our median is 155. That's 5% better than last year. So our students are not only for the most part making a full year's worth of growth, they're also closing gaps. That's that extra 55% is students that were not on grade level getting closer to on grade level. And for a student that's like in the intervention program, this is exactly the number you want to see for them. So this is a median, which means we have
059students that are more along the lines of 100% growth. We also have students that are making 300% growth. This is our median, which is reflected in the current placement distribution, which is how the students scored on the test. So the dark green is students mid or above grade level. The low the lighter green is early on grade level. And then the yellow is one grade level below. There's red that's two grade levels below. And the striped red which is three grade levels below. Those numbers in the parentheses you see on the bottom is where we started in September. So in September we had 26% midter on grade level. We ended the year with 58% midter on grade level. So we have a 78% proficiency where students are within the grade level band. And the numbers
060in the yellow, red, and striped areas are reduced about by 50% or more as the year goes on. And those are the trends you want to see. The green growing and the yellow and red shrinking. These are the scores if you separate them by grade level. So, kindergarten had a 91% proficiency, first grade had an 87% proficiency and so on. So, for the most part, on average, most grade levels were scoring around that 80% close to it mark with a few exceptions. >> Yes. So in this case, is grade eight all grade eight students regardless of where they fit in honors or it's math or anything? >> Yes, it's not separated. >> Okay, >> these are every student in the grade level took this assessment. >> We've looked at different timing for it. It's really
061it's really hard for the kids to be taking it in June, but it's a benchmark assessment. It has a certain time frame that has to be given. You can only give it three times a year and there's a certain gap of instruction time, instructional time that has to happen between the first one and the second one and the second one and the third one. If you give it too early, it's not accurate. If you give it too late, it's not accurate either. So, we're bound by those timelines and sometimes it does interfere with um first grade and like they've got NNAP testing, eighth grade has benchmarks, right? This year we're going to have all of the um all of the extra assessments to pilot test questions. So there can be at some point some test
062taking fatigue. Not to mention it is June and depending on when the teachers give it, they may have had a field trip. But for the most part, the students are showing really really good growth here. So despite it being a little tougher to do it at the end of the year, we are seeing growth from the first one to the second and the second to the third just as we should. >> I know you you mentioned that eighth grade, your hypothesis was that there was testing fatigue, but didn't all the other grades also take the tests at the same time. Is there another hypothesis? Because the testing fatigue is difficult to accept, especially with such a a low score here. it is that the rest of the grade levels were at the same point they
063were last year. Eighth grade is the only one that dropped. The when I talked to the teachers, they said that they were watching the students take it and they just weren't taking it seriously. That we did even reset it for certain students because it's got a flagging process where it'll flag them with a yellow flag or a red flag if they've rushed. there was a very high number of rushing through that particular grade level on this particular test. We're also trying to give it in June and if you have an eighth grade student, there's a lot of really special events in June. I'm not entirely certain how focused they were. The teachers did ask me if we could change it to maybe earlier in May, but then it runs into NJSLA testing and we're running
064into the boundaries of the timeline for the benchmarking. This generally hasn't happened in the past. So, we'll keep an eye on it this year with the testing windows or with the special events and see if we can find a different like if we can maneuver the time a little bit more to see if that will work better. But since they did not have this problem three months before, it's unlikely that they went from up by the sixth and seventh at the very top of the chart all the way down there after three months of instruction. And even where they are, it's high performance. They just haven't shown a lot of growth necessarily from the second diagnostic to the third, which wouldn't be in line of what the teachers were saying if they weren't giving the
065test their full attention. >> Just to uh clarify, the eighth graders do take an additional day of testing science for the NJSLA. >> I just sorry um I said the eighth graders, the fourth and eighth fourth and eighth graders additional days, >> two additional two additional days of testing for the science portion of NJSLA. So, they do have that extra. >> Yeah, that's helpful. And I think we need to make sure that we're consistent as a board. This test either matters and we're going to take action or it doesn't matter as much and we should stop giving it. I I struggle with um explaining away some of the data and and I fully recognize at the same time that there are extenduating circumstances that we need to consider. I just um I I get concerned
066when I see uh this score for the eighth graders and the third graders. And what I'd like to hear more is the urgency of we recognize this is something we need to take seriously. We're going to put action in place. I just wanted to share that with you because I I have some concern here. >> I don't share your concerns right now. This is one data point over the five or six years that we've given this test that's looked like this. We've given this test for many, many years. We've tracked this data on our growth charts. We've never had this happen before. So, I hesitate to put a lot of action plans in place when this particular data doesn't match the other data that we have and it hasn't shown that way before. So, in
067my mind, this is something for us to keep a close eye on and to monitor and talk to the teachers carefully, but not to make a whole lot of changes right now when we're in a a moment that we may not have as much information we need to act. So, it's not not taking it seriously as much as making sure that we have what we need to not disrupt a program that's working by pulling out pieces that are helpful in an effort to fix something when we're not really pinpointing it yet. If it had looked like this year after year, that would be a definite problem. So, looking at our I Ready scores now, this isn't seeming to be an issue with this incoming group. And it's the um the growth scores or the the
068proficiency levels are looking like when we get our growth scores in second diagnostic, that's when they come out when you compare the first one to the second one, that this should not be an issue. Now, if it is, then we'll have to make some some choices and we'll have to put together somewhat of an action plan. But one data point isn't necessarily where you want to make big changes yet. It's just more of an investigation. >> Just to follow up with that, so it's given every year in June to eighth graders. Eighth graders would have the same distractions every year. So what made this group of eighth graders different than the previous year than the previous year? Than previous years could be something else besides they're distracted in June because they've taken it all cohorts
069take it in June with the same distractions going to high school. >> They do, but they don't necessarily take it at the same time. Now we've tried a couple of different testing procedures. We've tried shutting down the building with like an early dismissal or a delayed opening schedule where they take it all at once. We tried this past year of the teachers kind of giving it more on their own the way they do in the elementary school where they're giving it class by class and we're just informing the parents that it's going to be happening at some point this week. Now, that may or may not have been helpful. So, we want to look at how that's working. The teachers like to give it that way because they can work around their classroom schedule. So,
070like for an eighth grade teacher, if they've got a kickball game or some sort of dance, then they can try and avoid those days. They could have been giving in on the same time that they had other tests and other grade levels and I'm sorry, other subject areas. So, those are all things that we're investigating because you're right, it's not something that happened before. So, it need requires a little more digging before we make any changes. >> A similar question, but um how what is the testing day like for this test, this benchmark test? Is it an all day test? Is it like a an hour compared to what they're doing in the entire >> It can take some students longer than others. So, some students will be done in a period. Some students are
071working for like three periods later. Um, it's untimed so they get as long as they like. Most students will finish it in about two periods, but this was the first year that we had that double walk and then single walk the next day. So that may have impacted some of them badly because they wouldn't be able to have finished it on the second day. Normally you'd have two periods, then you would have another two periods, which is how we've given it in the past where they've had like a a day where everybody kind of takes it all at once. So now they would have maybe this is extending into like four days for them to finish it and that can feel really long. Now, it didn't impact sixth and seventh grade that way, but if
072they had to stop in between because they had a special event, because there was some disruption in their schedule, that may have caused a problem where we didn't have one before. So, those are all things that we're looking into. And we do have a consistent teaching staff in um in the classroom in 8th grade. Now, how you present this test matters a lot, too. um how important the teacher makes it seem, how they prep them can be very different from classroom to classroom to teacher to teacher. And with all of the long-term subs in there, if we had a group of students that's a long-term sub, they would present this in a way that made students feel like there was some urgency to do their best, that also could have affected the scores. But now
073we're talking about like a lot of different variables, and we can't pull them out and change them all at once because then we'll figure out what it is that went wrong. So, we're in the process of kind of testing one at a time as we go through the test this year to see which ones may have an impact and which ones may not. But again, this is one data point over the year and one data point over many years of giving this test. It's not caused for concern just yet. It's just something that we want to watch to make sure that it doesn't become an ongoing problem. Do do we have uh access to the this class as they're now taking their ninth grade standardized test to that data? Are we allowed to get that?
074>> We can request it. What we'll get is basically their um we can get like their grades and how they're performing each of their classes while we're at high school. >> Where do you want to see? >> I'm just thinking another data point after this to see like was there special cause that you know interfered with their test taking? Did they all just go screw over time or and and did it bounce back? Like can we get that data fairly quickly? >> I don't know how quickly, but I I can talk to the high school and find out the data. They they may have we've shared in edtech in the past. We've shared PSAT data and where our students have performed on the PSAT. Um I don't know. I don't know if it's required in
075nth grade that they take it anymore. I think it is. >> And we might be able to get that. I'm pretty sure they just took a standardized test last week. >> I I'll mention um just because I want to make sure that we address Michelle's question. I agree with everything Stacy has said and I want to let you know that behind the scenes the data is used in a very different way than presenting to the board of education. So, just know that in the fall, I mean, in the summer, we're looking at the data. In the fall, myself, Sarah, and Stacy are meeting with all of the building principles to review all of the data that we have, not only NJSLA, but I Ready data. You'll hear from all the principles tonight. Each building has
076a focus area. Um, something that they're going to look at over the course of the year. Beyond that, every administrator um develops their own quantitative goal based off of data points. Whether it's I Ready data or NJSLA data, the data is used for tangible action steps and meaningful growth in terms of percentage growth and um meaningful achievement for students. And then the last thing I'll say is we started talking in March of last year when we get the midyear ready data. we have a meeting together as a leadership team and we talk about what is what is the beginning of the year data and the midyear data telling us and can we do short-term interventions between now and the end of the school year to make sure students are achieving where they need to go.
077So it may feel as if we're we're I think our job tonight is to present to you the data and give you some of our hypotheses. I want you to know that among the administrative team and then the leadership team with the teachers are looking at the data to really drive instruction and you know we're not giving you some of the details because specific students may be involved in some of the action plans that are happening or subops or students that have qualified for intervention programs. So I want you to know that we use the data in meaningful ways. Um, and every administrator in the room has a goal that's tied to some piece of the data to move forward forward for the rest of the year as well. >> I don't know if that's
078helpful. I I don't want to give you the impression that >> that is helpful. I appreciate I'm discuss nervous when you say either we use it or we don't and we should just not be giving it. If we don't, I'm like, no, no, no. We use it. Like this is this is meaningful work for the teachers and for the >> because when we're presenting information and then we're we're explaining why it may not matter. One could without having that context, one might perceive that we're dismissing it. And what I'm hearing you say, that's not the case, which is helpful. So, thank you. >> I think that the administrators in the room will roll their eyes on how much I ask them to look at the data and create meaningful action steps to make sure we're
079addressing student needs. >> Yeah. Right. >> So, that's the end of the I already data, which is focused on reading. Do you have any more questions before we move on to writing benchmarks? Okay, so the writing benchmarks, we have three here. Every grade level takes them. They're in the genres of narrative, informational, and opinion writing. In general, narrative usually comes first. It's the easiest of the three writing benchmarks to respond to because it's fiction writing um and is more of a creative writing. These scores are generally in line with where they were last year. They usually start out a little bit lower in the beginning of the year and then they climb as the year goes on. And the reason that that happens is because there are many different skills in writing that are applicable
080from one genre to another. So they'll learn things in this narrative unit that they're going to apply intoformational. Then they'll learn more and they'll apply it into opinion and argument writing. So these scores are pretty typical for us except for third grade. But third grade lines up with the performance on the NJSLA data. So if you remember their scores were pretty decent in the writing in the reading for I Ready and then this writing piece when you combine them together that would give you a similar result to what they got in the NJSLA. So our all of our district assessments are lining up with the NJSLA assessments. Then students take generallyformational writing next. You can see that these scores have climbed from one assessment to another, which is exactly what we're hoping to see because
081students are applying the things that they've learned from one genre into another. Informational writing is really important as an adult. This is the type of writing they're going to do for the most part. So, we like to see how well they're doing here and how the scores typically climb to the point where they're really well performing by the time they leave us and go to PE school. Now the last assessment for writing is the opinion or argument writing benchmark. Now this these scores generally stay in the same range asformational writing. And the reason that that is is because this is much more difficult in my opinion than theformational writing. It's taking thatformational writing piece. Now you have to have a claim. Now you have to have evidence. You have to rank your evidence. You're looking
082for strength of evidence. And those can be very tricky. Um, and it transitions really from like third into fourth grade where you're going from that opinion writing to more of an argument where you have to have claims and counter claims. Those can be pretty technical. So, the fact that the scores say about the scene means that the students are applying what they know about writing in general and then they're starting to master this particular genre of writing. And then as they go through grade levels, they're a little higher in kindergarten and first grade because you're looking at an opinion. And you can have any kind of opinion that you want, but when you're really doing argument, you have to have a claim and you have to back up your claims well. So then that's where
083they start to kind of change a little bit and then you'll see the upward trend as they get into eighth grade. So we're sending them off to the high school prepared to do all three genres of writing. Do you have any questions about the writing benchmarks? This is something that we're working on. The middle school has all new writing benchmarks this year. can work with the teachers. We have put them in um a link platform so that now before they kind of would get lost from one year to the other. They were attached to the student, not necessarily attached to the teacher or a class. Now they're going to be for the middle school in Lincoln. So, we'll be able to look back at them at any time, which will be super helpful for any
084students that need special services or as any student that we need to look back over time to see if their um their educational journey is is um moving in the right direction or not. So, we're excited to put those in place there and then we're looking to see how we can move that down to the other three levels. So, that is the end of the literacy assessments. Do you have any questions before I hand you over there? >> Just a quick one about how these are rated. It seems like it would be a subjective rating by experts. >> Writing can be very very subjective. It's very difficult to score them. The the best thing you can do is make sure you have a really strong rubric. Um and we put some things in place that
085we're starting at the middle school to ensure like some interrator reliability. So, um, what's really exciting about Linket is that you can make the writing pieces anonymous. So, when the teachers score them, they don't nec it's got a number. It doesn't have a name. So, they don't really know who in their class is scoring. And they have an option that they can they can trade classes and score with another teacher should they choose. Now, the elementary levels, um, you can trade between classes. It's really best not to score your own class because you have your own biases and your own understanding of the students and you want to make sure that you're scoring exactly what's in front of you, not what necessarily you know they can do previously. We have really specific rubrics so that
086um you you really have to mark down what the students have done and it gives you really specific things to look for. or a general rubric can leave a room for a lot of subjectivity. >> And is it rated by more than one person? >> Generally not, just because there's an overwhelming amount of writing work for the teachers to score. So having to score them twice can be difficult. Although some teachers do score them with coaches, especially when they're new or when they're trying something different. the coach will score and the teacher will score and we'll do it that way so that they can learn the process and then periodically we'll talk about the scoring process, adjust the benchmarks, um do some sample scoring with like a student sample. Our program comes with a lot
087of student samples with it. So we could we could do a scoring on even a um a writing piece that didn't belong to any students just to see how we all scored that. Are these writing um assess assessments only for gen ed students? >> No, the special the whole district takes them special ed included unless they're in something like an LLD class or um like a self-contained then they then they would not take this. If they are taking an alternate assessment to the NJSLA then I would say they wouldn't take things like our running records or um I ready or the writing benchmarks but students in a resource group would. Anything else? >> All right. So then the math assessments are next. >> Thank you. >> Good evening everyone. Um I'm Sarah Houch, the math
088science technology supervisor, and I'll be walking you through um our scores for district and state assessments beginning with NJSLA grades three through eight. Um we had a very nice performance this year with um the majority of our grade levels showing improvement. Um as we look uh at starting at third grade as Dr. Brown had mentioned, we're looking at a um five performance levels started with the highest being exceeding in the darkest color and the not yet meeting expectations in the lightest color. Um here for third grade you can see that we are above the state performance with uh 61% and this is a slight decrease of 4% compared to last year's third graders and we'll see that um in our longitudinal studies as well. Looking at fourth grade um we are at uh 29% higher
089than the state average and this is a 13% increase from where fourth graders were performing last year whereas the state only showed a 3% increase. So, that was a nice jump to see with our fourth graders um meeting or exceeding expectations at 76%. Continuing to fifth grade, we have our fifth grade students meeting or exceeding at 71%, which well outperforms the state average of 44% meeting or exceeding. In sixth grade, we have 51% of students meeting or exceeding um which is above the state average. And this is only a 2% decrease in how sixth grade typically um uh uh performs from year to year. Looking at seventh grade, this is where we don't have our entire population um of students all taking the same test. Um here we also have 51% of students meeting or
090exceeding expectations um compared to 39% with the state. Um this is a 14% increase from last year when the state only showed a 2% increase in performance. Roughly our top 10% of students are um removed from this population and take algebra 1. Um when we look at all of our seventh graders as a whole regardless of what test uh they took, we had a 54% um meeting or exceeding rate. Looking at 8th grade, we have a um increase of 17% or excuse yes, an increase of 17%. So that we have 38% of students meeting or exceeding um compared to 21% with the state. The state average showed no improvement um while we showed uh the district showed a 17% improvement um compared to the year before. Um you can also see that there's only 80
091students um taking this assessment because in eighth grade we had not students not only removed um for algebra 1 but for algebra 2 as well. When we look at 8th grade as a whole regardless of what test they took the passing rate for the grade level was 53%. Um so we have a total of 148 eighth graders and only 80 of them sat for this assessment. The rest were in the high school level assessments for algebra 1 and algebra 2. Looking at algebra 1, you can see we had a 91% meeting or exceeding um the expectations and that was 59 of uh of our students took that assessment. Um this is actually a slight decrease for our district. We were 3% higher last year. Um but the state also had a decrease of 3%. So,
092um it's it's looking like that was a a typical thing um across the board. This is also to keep in mind that our algebra one students are a combination of our seventh grade honors students as well as our eighth grade advanced math students. And this uh these students are being compared to any students who took algebra 1 including high school. So, when we're looking at our 91 compared to the 38% of meeting and exceeding the state, um that's really outstanding because the majority of those students would be high school students taking that assessment. Um and then then in algebra 2, um we were of course thrilled to see 100% in meeting or exceeding. Um and that was our students who would be the honors eighth grade students who took Oxford 2. um compared to 73%
093of the state who took algebra 2 um regardless of what grade level they were in. Can I provide any clarification for any of the grade levels? Okay. Can you comment on the eighth grade mathematics with less than half of the students meeting and exceeding uh expectations of just trying to understand what the hypothesis might be there and is there any relation to that and the um I reading maths whether you want to talk about >> I do have additional information for eighth grade that um it does paint a slightly different uh different picture um and some of it is looking at eighth grade as a whole whether it's eighth grade algebra 1 or algebra 2 and then we also have our um cumulative assessments which are paper and pencil assessment that does show it paints
094a different picture for our eighth graders. And it's also um it it provides a little bit it's more consistent with what we see for marking period grades as well as the information we're provided with um from the high school that shows how are they performing in their 9th grade math class which shows they are being successful. Not 38% of them are being successful but a majority of students are are being successful at the high school. So, and so scroll back um if some of the other uh data points don't clarify that for you. Next, we'll also take a look at our longitudinal studies where we can see um growth over time. Looking at this first slide, we have um by grade level, the same grade level but different students from year to year. so that
095we can see uh trends um what's typical for a grade level. Um with third grade, it we are looking into what is what is happening at third grade because that's the one of the only grade levels where we see a consistent step down. Um and we want to make sure that we're addressing that and that the teachers have the materials they need as well as covering the correct content so that we can see improvement there. Looking at fourth grade, you can see our last year's fourth graders outperformed what's been typical for the grade level. As well as fifth grade, they they outperform what's been typical for that grade level. Looking at sixth grade, there's also steps down that that they're considerably smaller than it's only one or two%. Um, but again, we want to make
096sure that we keep an eye on that um and that students that grade levels are performing consistently. We had a very nice jump um in seventh grade um that where students have outperformed what we typically see as well as eighth grade. We had a very nice increase where eighth grade students are outperfor last year's eighth grade students outperformed what we have seen for year-over-year. Um algebra 1 has remained very uh consistent over the most recent years and algebra 2 had a great jump up to that 100%. Um however the the difference in that 20% was the difference in five students. So when we have a smaller group every student counts a little more significantly. And as we look at our uh district as a whole all the grade levels together we can see that we've
097had a nice improvement um compared to previous years. >> Can I just ask the question? If you go back to that other slide, there's a if you look across all of the years, there's a clear downward trend as the uh students are advancing from one grade to the next. And I'm curious what your thoughts are and what's causing that and is that an area of of focus for the district over time? >> I believe it's mostly tied to the content and the mathematical content becoming much more abstract. In um third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, we're looking at addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, but largely of whole numbers. In fifth grade, we start to add in the fractions and the decimals. As we move to sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, the concepts become much more
098abstract. We add in variables. There's equations and um uh you solving equations, which again, it's it's far less concrete mathematics and much more abstract. and it's the the content is extremely more sophisticated than it is in the lower grades. We would certainly want to um continue to see this upward trend. >> So I have a question for that. If if we were to look at other districts, we would see that same trend. They enter high and >> yes, definitely looking at other districts, third, fourth, and fifth grade tend to outperform the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders in general. question. I know last year when it was 21% for eighth grade math, now it's at 38. So that was a big improvement campaign. You guys had implemented some steps. Maybe you could explain what those steps
099were that close to being >> Absolutely. Mr. Charleston, I'm sure I'll address that a little bit as well. The increased instructional time at the middle school I believe is a major factor of those students having a little bit more time where they might have be been on the cusp of grasping one of those abstract concepts and now with the additional time they were able to um retain it and apply it in a different way. We also worked with the seventh and eighth grade teachers looking at um the evidence statements where the state provides us um specific information on what kind of questions were asked and whether our district performed how whether we outperform the state or perform below the state and any of the standards where we perform below the state. We um worked with
100our middle school math coach as well as during our math departments and looked at how can we address those? what what can we do so that we know that those seventh graders struggled in these skills, they're now moving into eighth grade. How do we help them with those prerequisite skills so that they can continue to move on? And we found that incorporating kind more of a spiral review for the students um so that we could keep moving instruction forward, but we kept kind of going back to some of those more difficult concepts so that it September wasn't the last time they saw it. so that they saw it a little more recently moving into the test and it helped prepare them for the units that were coming at the end of the school year. Um,
101so we found that providing those cumulative reviews very beneficial as well as the additional time to build that in. >> And I have a question about how many students from year to year are we pulling out of the regular math instruction and putting into algebra one either in seventh or eighth grade. So that that remains fairly consistent. It does fluctuate from year to year because it's different groups of kids. Some years we have larger um groups of students and others smaller. But if we look at um when I look at the eighth grade numbers, we can see that um 80 students took the on grade level assessment and that's out of 148 students total. Um, so we're almost at a 50-50 split for on grade level math compared to algebra 1 and algebra 2. >>
102So other hands, anybody else? >> I I just wanted to um I know that you mentioned the increase in instructional time, but I wanted to just circle back to to let the board members know the reason for that was um the negotiating the teacher contract and that happened three years ago now. Is that right? So, um, it was negotiating terms to have more student contact time and less prep time for the teacher. So, they gave up personal prep time to have more student time. And so, I just want everyone to make sure that you're all aware of that and you know that. And so, it's actually a huge thank you to our teachers for um, being willing and to to do that for our districts. And I I mean it's not just the only thing,
103but I see huge results in that in that. Um I mean the data is speaking for itself because so last year was the first full year of instruction with the new uh changes to the the schedule and so that's what we're seeing there. So I just wanted to make make sure everyone was aware of that. >> One last comment. It was mentioned that this goes down from sixth, seventh, and eighth grade as it gets more difficult. Have you looked at the same cohort of students? Is it the same sixth graders are struggling in seventh and eighth >> and are you actually oh it is next it is how you're addressing that cohort. Okay. >> So we'll definitely we'll take a look at that now. Um it is just from one year to the next but
104we do look at this every year so we pile them up so that we can we can see as as we go. Um and the first group is our um the students who were third graders in the 23 24 school year all the way to the left. And then the darker bar is how did they perform as fourth graders in the 2425 school year and we can see that nice increase from third uh the third graders and then they improved their performance as they were fourth graders. Looking at the next group, we have how did our students who were um the fourth graders perform as fifth graders? And we have another nice step up. We do see um a step down for fifth to sixth grade. It's definitely something that, you know, has caught our
105attention. We want to make sure we focus on that. One of the things that jumps out right away that could be part of the variable is the um change in building and going from the intermediate building to the middle school. It it's a it's a radical schedule change for students. Not having a home room teacher that they stay with all day, switching every single period, learning to manage extracurriculars as well as academics. That could be a piece, but we're certainly looking at all all aspects. Um when we look at our cohort of sixth to 7th grade, we see a nice step up there as well. um are that the bar that reaches all the way to the top there, those are our honors sixth graders and they never take the seventh or eighth grade test.
106They immediately move into the algebra 1 test as um honors students, seventh grade honors students um because that that's the trajectory that they're on. And if they're in an algebra class, they're required to take the algebra um and JSLA. The next bar shows the improvement of the um seventh to eighth grade. So we can see that not only was that improvement um seen in the in the 38% increase for eighth graders passing that that clearly surpasses how they performed as seventh graders, which is really great to see um that they're they're closing some of those gaps. Whereas only 14% of the student same students um who took on grade level 7th um had meeting or exceeding they were able to bring that up to 38%. The next graph shows seventh grade to algebra 1. So
107those would be our advanced math students. >> Thank you. My question is slightly different in that I have a certain number of students in sixth grade they may not be needing. Then when they go to seventh grade they may not be meeting and eighth grade they may not. not the improvement, the ones that improve, but the the cohort that continues not to need. Just how are those being addressed? >> Can you say that again, please? >> Like is it the same students that don't do well in sixth grade, then seventh grade, and in eighth grade? Not the ones that improve, but the ones that continually don't do well. What's the plan to address them? >> Yes. So, that is that's where we lean on the teachers to provide individualized instruction as well as small groupoup
108instruction. Um in NJSLA we may see that a student may have progressed from one performance level to another. This is where we find I ready data much more useful because it targets what are the students doing and what should their next steps be. Um so that the teachers can utilize that and look at and say okay maybe their students scored for example in I ready if they scored in the yellow and they score in the yellow every year but that's when we can use the growth report and say okay they still scored in the yellow but they continue to show growth from year to year because we may have a student who never makes it into the green but looking at their growth report we can see okay their their color didn't change But they're
109they're showing growth and they are closing that gap and eventually they will make that make that jump. Um so it's the growth reports I think that the teachers get the most information because it's the students sitting in front of them at that moment. Whereas this information there are the students that have left them but then we do go back and look and say okay so what does this look like for the students who are sitting in front of you now? Um but the I Ready reports are much more um in the moment. Uh for our fourth and fifth grade students, you can offer advanced math which is the grade of two above. >> So advanced math starts in sixth grade. >> Oh, I'm sorry. The honors math. >> Yes, the honors math is is a
110grade or two advanced. The students are taking the test with their peers at the grade level even though it might be material we haven't seen for years. >> That's one of uh one of the kind of sticking points for our advanced and honors uh classes. there are times where they're taking an assessment on material they had a year or a year and a half to two years ago. So there and the goal is always to retain it. So we're hoping that they're going to do just as well even though it was material that was presented significantly um before they took the assessment on it. And that's why it's always interesting too to look at that sixth grade one because they go from taking grade level six to algebra one. They never take the seventh or
111eighth grade assessment. Um and the rest of uh the last not the last one but second to last shows our um honor students who were algebra 1 as seventh graders and then algebra 2 as eighth graders and the final graph shows our district as a whole that we are on an upward trend. Can I provide any other information on our longitudinal studies? Next, we have our sub populations. Um, as Dr. Brown mentioned, we're required to report out um by race, and we need to do that as a district so that we have something to report. If we had it by grade level, our end counts would be too low. Um we do see that for all of our um sub populations by race, regardless of their size, we're seeing an improvement across the board that
112they're steadily moving up, which is nice to see. By gender, we can see that our um male and female students are performing um very well, also on an upward trend overall. And um it's interesting to see that we do have almost a 50/50 split in our population. Um it is typical for um males to outperform females in STEM areas at some of these grades. And here we're spot on, which is really which is always great to see. We also have our proficiency by program. So we have our um labeled as ELLL but our ML students um and that population fluctuates gra greatly as we had said as soon as a student is showing um grade level success they're removed from the program so it's hard to keep um it's it's definitely a different population from
113year to year. Um we also have our free and reduced lunch 504s, special ed and gen ed which are all have shown um some improvements. That was it on sub populations. Can I answer any questions there? All right. Next we have our district district cumulative assessments and that was um you know brought up uh I think I think will answer some of the questions that was brought up before. Um so we do have students take cumulative assessments um in grade levels um at the midyear and end of year. And what's different about these um compared to NJSLA or the diagnostic is that this is a paper and pencil assessment. Both NJSLA and the diagnostic are digital assessments. One of the things that always comes to mind is when we see on those digital assessments that
114measurement was an issue, my immediate reaction is it's really hard to measure on a screen to move that digital ruler and line it up exactly where the computer wants them to have that. And if students can do that with paper and pencil, then yes, they obviously can do it. Sometimes it's an inputting issue for the students on those digital assessments. So I do want to have a separate mathematical point that is not tied to a computer in any way. Um so the teachers worked um over several years to design assessments that were not cumbersome or overbearing for the students to take so that it shouldn't impact instructional time too much which is also why we split it into two assessments. When we did a final end of the year cumulative assessment, it was, you know,
115possibly 50 questions long and took two periods to implement and it became too cumbersome for the teachers and the students. So, we split it into two separate assessments and then usually look at them kind of averaged together. Um, this is also administered by their classroom teacher. Um, and and again, I do think that the paper and pencil makes a very large difference because the students, if they read it, go not sure. They can't just click ahead to the next problem. Um, they can certainly move on to the next problem, but they're far more likely to spend some more time on it. um the two results that we have posted here and it is broken down by grade grade level and then when we get to the middle school separated out by course we can see
116what was the average score for those assessments and then the second column shows that what percent of students got 80% or higher on that. So looking at our eighth grade assessment, those uh same 80 students uh that took the grade level NJSLA, their average score was a 77, which is pretty which is pretty solid. It's certainly um you know within a passing range and six uh 54% of the students got 80 or higher. So that average you know more than half of the students got higher than that 77% average. And I think that's much more indicative of their daily performance than the isolated um assessments and the paper and pencil piece. Um, you can see that the algebra 1 and algebra 2 students, while they had phenomenal scores on NJSLA, their classroom teachers um had
117have had higher standards set for them than uh than what the state assessments are putting where the average scores were still great um but we didn't have 100% of the students scoring in the you know in a um 80% or higher um whereas our NJSLA scores were at a nice 100%. So it gives a different perspective about how the different assessments um how we need all of this information and not just one piece. >> Does this does this answer what partly what you were asking or No. >> Uh I think that math is something to keep an eye on. >> Absolutely. >> Yes. >> But it's helpful context. So thank you. >> You got it. No problem. third grade doesn't get the cumulative >> second and third grade um do and it was um I
118hadn't included it in years past but I have that I can certainly provide it and it is something that I'm looking at to compare to for the NJSLA whereas um where we are seeing some discrepancies it's another uh point to go past so I can definitely provide that information um we did try kindergarten and first grade for a couple years and it was just it was it was it didn't provide us with enough information to justify um an assessment of that sort for students that age. Um we do use um second grade because that's when we do begin to uh identify for the honors math class and we want to have that that piece there. Um um but we I just started with but I I I'll certainly provide the third grade information. um I
119Ready as our district benchmark and universal screener. We have our end of the year diagnostic growth and we can see that all uh grades including eighth grade were in that um high performance high growth quadrant. Um this is the first time um I haven't had an outlier or a uh we've always been in the high performance. It was the we didn't always make that high growth. So I was really pleased to see that every grade level made high performance high growth. Looking at those results, we have our um typical growth as a district and again we're looking to achieve 100% meaning students will have made their grade level expectation for that year. Um at 131% that means we have students closing gaps um which we're which we are always uh pleased to see. We have
12077% performing in the in the green which would be our um ongrade level expectation and that's a significant increase from the 39% at the beginning of the year. We are looking to um keep that trend of increasing the green as well as shrinking um the yellow and the red and especially looking at the students who what we might call on the cusp where they're you know they could tip one way or the other. How can we um identify that and provide them with the supports they need to to push them over into the grade level expectations? And then we have that breakdown for um I Ready by grade level. And we can see that we have nice secure um scores across the grade level. And again, these are um all students in the grade level
121regardless of at the middle school what course they're sitting in. So when we look at eighth grade, that includes our algebra 1 and algebra 2 students. Can I answer any questions regarding the uh district assessments? That brings us to science. NJSLA also has um science um assessments for fifth and eighth grade only. Um so here um they do change the performance levels. It's not out of five. We are looking at a four and we um what is considered um passing or meeting expectations are the students who are advanced proficient and proficient. Um looking at the state, we have a 30% um state passing rate, whereas our fifth graders are at a 56% passing rate. Um the both the state and the district showed about a 4% improvement in their scores. When we look at eighth
122grade science, we can see that um we have a 19% passing rate for the state and a 32% passing rate for the district. That's an increase of 8% compared to last year for our eighth graders and it's higher um than the state by 13%. The state showed no improvement in their performance from one year to the next. We can also look at these achievements as growth over time and we can see that fifth grade has stayed very consistent um at at across the board with a nice with a slight upward trend. Eighth grade bounces around a little bit. Um but we did have a um a nice uh performance this year. Um, it's something that I would like to certainly keep track of, especially with the change in um, uh, primary resources and using a
123different program that is more aligned to state standards. I would hope to continue to see this increase for eighth grade. In science, we also look at our breakdown um, by race, but remember this is just fifth and eighth grade average together. So we're looking at an even smaller number. Um so we will see wider swings um in some in some of those scores. Um the majority of students when we look at proficiency by race have shown an upward trend. Um and the percentages of of what percentage of our students make up that population are listed underneath. Again, looking at gender, we have um our male female split, which um is not quite at the 50/50 mark as it is it as it is when we look at other uh the rest of the district because
124again we're looking at just fifth and just eighth grade. So, we have a slightly higher female population, but again, you can see that the males and females are performing um equally across the board, which is always nice to see. Um we do look at proficiency by program. Um that it is possible that we had zero ML students in fifth or eighth grade at some point um in previous years. Um but we do have um a percentage of students um in our ML program. Free and reduced lunch has remained consistent. uh 504 um had a slight dip of 4% and our general ed students had um an increase of 6%. That is everything for science. Can I provide any more information in comments? I just want to um let the board know that the edtech committee
125will continue to look at this data. Um Miss Pouch and Dr. around uh go through surrounding districts and similar size districts as ours and um pull reports how we're doing compared to students in those other districts. And I think sometimes when you're looking at these percentages, Michelle, it's like 50%. We are right on par or better than a lot of the surrounding um districts in and similar size districts. So just something that will be coming. I don't know. I forget when we do that. I think like January meeting is usually when we have that information. So just more to come on that. >> We've started poking around other district websites to see if they've done this presentation yet. >> Um from here I'll talk briefly about some of the district interventions to um address some
126of the concerns as well as continue with the things that are working. Um so at a district level we continue to look at ELA curricular revisions across the board. Um each building does have a designated intervention time. So that allows us to provide uh the small groupoup instruction or additional support that students might need. We do um analyze quite heavily what's referred to as the evidence statements and that's where we can take a look at specific standards and see if the if the state outperformed us on that, you know, and we look for trends to see if that's if that's a standard that we consistently year after year fall below the state on. Um then that's program and instruction that we want to be able to circle back and look at. we're seeing the same
127skill year after year. That's something that we can definitely begin to address. Um we also make sure that the grade levels receive that information for the students. Um teachers receive that information to see how their students did that they had just taught. And then we are also able to provide that information to the next year's teacher. So that these are the students who are sitting in front of you right now and these may be their strengths or areas of concern. Um we do as Dr. Hart mentioned um base our administrative uh goals on this data that we constantly look back to. We make sure that we offer professional development in any of the areas uh uh to target for areas of concern. Uh we're very fortunate to have our wonderful math and literacy coaches which
128certainly um benefit the teachers in many ways. We continue to utilize I Ready the training from the company to make sure teachers understand how to use those reports and what information that they can provide. We do have a new handwriting program um for kindergarten and first grade this year. Um as Dr. Brown mentioned they're revising the u writing benchmarks in 68. We have updated primary resources for 68 as well uh mathematics as well as 48 science um to help um address student achievement. And um both Holland Brook and RMS have an AM homework room to provide students with support as well as a PM homework room um at RMS. And we're also reviewing our NTSS process to be reviewed for a multi multi-tered support services. Next, we have uh Mrs. Burns going presenting our information
129for DM. >> Have a great night. >> Thank you. >> All right. So here is um so DM is our alternative assessment for uh students with um cognitive disabilities. So every year they have to go through a participation criteria that's sent from the department of ed um and our child study team meetings at the annual reviews for our children review over the criteria to see if the child meets criteria annually. So this is a sample report that is sent home to the students that participate in the DM. Um during the 2425 school year, 15 out of our 921 students, so that's our grades eight uh 3 through eight. Um this is also inclusive of our out of district students uh participated in the DLM assessment. So that is roughly about 2% of our district population
130taking the alternative assessment. So here are our district rockwide results. They don't break it by grade um only because we only have 15 students that take it in totality. So they just provide us with the um assessment results from 24 to 25 comparatively. And then in the subject areas of ELA, uh math and science. Um again, science is only um assessed at the fifth and the eighth grade level. So you can see the line of p prof proficiency and just to keep in mind although you see growth from one year to another the other thing to keep in mind that one student can participate in this one year and then the next year they're not participating in the DM and they might participate in the NJSLA. So you really can't compare students to student. However,
131our teachers do receive the student data that they they look at the data individually and then they determine whether or not the child is going to participate in the following year if they've met target. So when we go back to the slide here, um I'm instructing my CST team to look at the specific data and if the children are meeting target, we're recommending for the students to take the NJSLA that following year. Um students are assessed on the essential elements. So they're not assessed on the state standards, they're assessed on the alternative standards, um titled the essential elements. Um some action steps just to consider. Um, again, when we talk about um the the students progress in the DLM, they're talking about that at their annual reviews and as a team inclusive of the parents
132to determine whether or not the child's going to participate for the following year in the DM. Um, a data dies are housed with our our teachers, our CST, and again, programs are adjusted based upon what data is presented. Um, it is different in from the NJSLA because it's an alternative assess, it's an adaptive assessment. So teachers go in in the very beginning and they identify the skill level that the students are at and based upon the skill level that's where the students enter the DM assessment. That's all I have. Any questions related to the DM? So building areas of focus. Dr. Higgins, >> excuse me. If the board would allow us you guys jump on to the next session. We're a small group of people who have very simple uh suggestion or request. I know
133it's getting late and it would hardly take two minutes. So, what we're going to do, we had talked about this earlier after this report which is almost done. We're gonna make the next public comments for on and off the agenda. So this way you don't have to wait till another half hour to go. So we'll have public comments for anything on and off the agenda very shortly. So we're just going to finish up this presentation and then you'll be able to make your comments in relatively short time. >> Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Hello. Um, I'm Kristen Higgins. I'm the principal of school and I'm here to present the White House data. Um, Dr. D. Roza apologizes. She is homesick today. Um, she's actually very I think I may have given it too much.
134So, I apologize. Um, so we're going to start with looking at the area of focus from last year. So this year right we're very busy looking at what happened last year and so we spent last year looking at the data from the year before and trying to make tweaks and uh you know focusing efforts to see if we can pull scores up. So for the 2425 school year, we started with saying that there is a challenge area in the operations and algebraic thinking in math and mastering the concept of inverse operations with multiplication and division. And that was something that we saw uh between the two schools and the teachers focused on the goal daily with the support and resources from the math coach as well as our IU program. And uh White House performed
135at or above the state level in all areas of operations and algebraic cleaning. And this is a celebration because those questions do tend to be uh categorized as more difficult. Uh also of note within the math program which is really a neat experience is two first grade teachers along with another district teacher and the math coach were invited to become Ire insiders and they had an opportunity that allowed them to connect and collaborate with other teachers across New Jersey on I Ready. It's really um in terms of English language arts from the year before. Our challenge area was reading informational text. That's synthesis and comparing one text to another text. We have found that to be very difficult for third graders. Um and the good news is White House performed above the state level in
136all complex areas of reading involvingformational text. Um now this year the areas of focus and action steps uh um said white house uh review the data with principle the coaches and the team and they said they have some more growth areas to concentrate on this year as compared to last year. And so they're going to enhance action steps to address areas of growth, curricular feedback, increase focus on specialized populations, and more utilization of instructional coaches and classroom visits for new third grade teachers. Also including vertical articulation um to identify gaps from grade to grade. Uh third grade at White House, there's actually quite a number of new teachers. I think four or five teachers are new to the grade level. So, they're going to have a a big focus on looking at preparing for the
137state test. Um, we're also going to be focused on diving deeper into data analysis uh at their faculty meetings and CPTs and engaging the coaches in more data conversations. Uh, in terms of English and language arts, they said their strength was understanding content and explaining the text with evidence when constructing their response. A challenge area is readingformational text. So that's continue synthesizing by comparing multiple texts. So that comparing the two texts again, it keeps coming up. It's a bugaboo. Uh describing non-fiction text relationships with historical events or scientific concepts in terms of time, sequence, and cause and effect. So that non-fiction reading with comparisons uh is something that they're going to be looking at. Um in mathematics, their strength was understanding and comparing fractions. right? Because that's a very hard concept for third graders. A
138challenge area is the modeling and reasoning and decomposing word problems and solving using models. So, they're going to continue focusing on that and using their CPT time and looking at the writing data to make sure that these areas are closed up and short up. three weeks. Um, so last year, uh, we've been looking at our language arts data and actually last year to this year's data that we're looking at are actually very, very similar. Um, and we were looking at researchbased questions and providing comparison and contrasting um, of key details presented in two texts of the same topic. So that's the same two text of them and we scored significantly above the state level in that area. So the year before we were below the state and last year when we took the test we
139scored significantly above the state. So that focus really did pay off and did a wonderful job. Um math our goal was working on division within 100 using word problems. So, it's multiplication and division with using factors less than 10 and creating models for the word problem. Kids had a really difficult time with that. Across the board on our reports the year before, we were below the state level. This year, we were 20 points higher than the state level. So, they really made a big adjustment and a focus and it was one of those recurring themes throughout the year because it is a skill that start early in the year. So, we're thinking maybe by the time the test came, they kind of lost some of their skill with that. So, we just kept bringing it
140back to them and they did a really nice job. Um, something else of great celebration at Three Bridges is that we are nationally recognized for being an I Ready super stretch school. So, 60% of the students across from K to 3 uh reach their stretch growth. So, we know that we want to reach our typical growth. And that stretch growth is like if you're below grade level, if you hit your stretch growth for two years, you will catch up. And um if we're already at grade level, that's great to get the stretch the stretch grow. And 60% of our students did that. We'd like to see more, but that's uh they say that's a really good achievement. So we're very proud of our teachers, our uh third grade team and all the way Cayman's community
141and our intervention teachers, their coaches have worked really hard on focusing in these areas. So now we say, well, we looked at the test, what are we going to do this year? So our areas of focus for this year um is that we looked at language arts and actually our scores were very very similar. I'm sorry very very similar um to the year before and we were above the state at all levels except there are two where they only tested 24 students. Now, when you're talking about percent of people passing, when you're only doing 24, you know, out of 70 some, right? That's doesn't really give you a good number. So, we don't know if that's really great data to use. Uh, but that was something based on description of characters and morals of lessons.
142So, that kind of literature based reading. Um, but when we were looking at the writing piece and typically Three Bridges does very well with the writing, we achieved at the state level a literary analysis. So once again, that's actually using two texts to form a literary essay. Now, if you think about when you wrote litary essays in high school, we're asking third graders to do that. Uh we scored just at the state level and we want to do better than that. So that's going to be our area of focus for this year. Uh for math, we scored above the state average in all areas, which is quite a bit significantly different than the year before where we had several areas that were below. The one area that we were below was working with fractions on
143a number line with using whole numbers or numbers greater than one as a fraction. So that one area was below the state level. Um we will work on that but we're also going to continue doing what we did to pull up the scores from any questions. I'd like to introduce Dr. Moss from HPS. Good evening, Dr. Hart, Mr. Bone, and board members. Um, before I get started in sharing my areas of focus uh from last year and talking about this year, I just want to uh take a moment to obviously congratulate all the entire Holland Brook staff. Um, just obviously as you've seen some of the results and being last year as my first year's principal. Um, I just couldn't have asked for a more dedicated, talented, and supportive team. Uh, and the hard work
144and commitment everyone puts into supporting our students truly showed in our results. uh these outcomes reflect the strength of our instruction collaboration and shared focus on student growth. So I just incredibly proud of some that are here tonight. So I just wanted to obviously acknowledge them uh and congratulate them because they should be honored. So thank you for that. So as I take a look um of some of our areas focused 2425 just want to highlight some important things. So to start out the school year, um we obviously took a look at our NJSLA data uh and put a shared focus of course at HPS. Uh last year was the first year where uh intervention was placed in all student schedules for 30 minutes. Uh so students uh that received those services uh were pulled
145out uh so they're not missing any sort of new content and instruction and those 30 minutes were utilized for students that were not pulled out uh for those sort of small group targeted instruction uh and where we obviously focus on a lot of things I'm going to talk about tonight um in regards to comparing contrasting texts uh and multiplication um during our faculty meetings once a week we have what's called uh cart projects and I want to thank obviously the coaches for this and they would come into our faculty meetings once a month. Uh they assisted our staff on these collaborative action research teams. Um so each uh groups of teachers kind of self- selected uh something they wanted to work on um and implement in their classrooms and a lot of their part projects
146uh were associated things that they wanted to improve on personally. Um they took more ownership because they were allowed to choose and then they shared with staff uh throughout our faculty meetings. Also, we created schedules uh for delayed openings and early dismissals. Um where we ensured that we prioritized instruction in math anyway, so time wasn't taken away uh from those subject matters during those sort of altered schedules and of and of course well we added special events as well for our ELA and math. Last year we focused on and you can see from similar schools uh the comparing and contrasting of two texts. Um, and I just want to share the positive news that all the evidence statements associated with that, we did see an increase in your above the state. On the math side
147of things, we focus on multiplication like I talked about and something really cool that we did last year. Um, and I appreciate Miss Winter being here and she was a big force in helping with this. Um, we did math in action. So, with our math coach as well, um, we did some assemblies and some classroom projects where we would tie in math to real life. Um so we brought in um like a shelter of of animals and there were these math projects associated with amount of money that the shelter made and how they donated things and we also ran fundraisers. So we were really tried to take math and tie it to real life and we're still working on those things this year as well. It's really cool to see the application uh of math
148to real life. So as I take a look at this year some things for Holland Brook. I'm really looking forward to this year. We started departmentalization of our fourth grade. Uh so last year fifth grade was departmentalized uh whereas fourth grade was standalone islands so they would have just that one teacher and this year I'm really excited that we are now truly one building where both grade levels experience departmentalization. Um, so I think this truly allows teachers to specialize uh in content and it allows students to start to begin that sort of independence that we're looking for at Holland Brook and experience uh to staff members uh allowing students to walk by themselves other classrooms I think is really cool to see. We also started Bobcat block this year. It prioritizes longer times lunch and
149recess. So, we added 10 minutes for lunch and for recess where we prioritize obviously the importance of student wellness. I just finished up some of them today. I had data chats with individual staff members on inservice days which was today where we take a look at NJSLA results and have conversations. And we're also continuing with the cart model this year for our faculty meetings for what we're focusing on for mathematics and ELA this year on the math side of things. um we were above the state um but we still saw a room for improvement on modeling. So we'll be taking a look at that this year. And then on the ELA side, even though we did well and we saw improvement, I still think there needs to be that focus on the comparing and contrasting
150of two texts. And as you can see, that was a conversation amongst other buildings. Questions for Holland? >> So the third graders that we saw in the SLA data are now fourth grade students. So what is kind of the plan of action? It looked like a fairly large group of students also. >> Yeah, absolutely. And that was a huge part of our data conversation chats especially with fourth grade um today. And I think the big thing here in talking about that departmentalization, allowing staff to really specialize in those content areas versus teaching all subject matters is going to help with that. Um and also here obviously at Holland Brook identifying students in the intervention and working with our two intervention teachers here today. Um their groups of students have grown so we've worked with ensuring
151that they're able to see all students and we don't um ensure that they're not pulled from missing new content. Um and then I just think those sorts of conversations ensuring that instruction is place is going to help. Thank you. I'll turn it over to Mr. Charleston and Moody for the middle school. >> So, I didn't stand on my back. I was pacing in the back. I apologize. Um so our focus for last year uh the biggest thing that uh we did last year is we changed our schedule pretty drastically at the middle school. Um it emphasized uh equal instructional time in math and language arts. Uh we also instituted some rotation in our day. Um so our morning rotates and our afternoon rotates as well so that students will see the same classes at the
152same time. It freshens it up for the students. And also uh the early um results back from the teachers is that they were able to um there was deeper engagement with the kids in their individual classes. Um we do have the opportunity periods daily lunch, recess and flex for our students. Um we have ELA and math coaches dedicated at the middle school level. Um so we have two of those. And last year we were working on sheltered English instruction. What that is, it's a program that our teachers engage with with 15 hours of professional development, best practices in uh teaching um MLS, multilingual learners for ESL students in their classes. Um the year prior was math and language arts. This year was social stud last two years ago was language arts and math. Last year
153was social studies. Um our biggest uh focus last year um was going to be on eighth grade math. That was the our focus and um we were happy with the we were pleased with the results that came in. So the the schedule and new materials resulted um in most areas an increase in math and language arts, not all. Um and most grades all grades in math showed high performance and high growth my years end and except for eighth grade. um who were still showing um high performance. They all showed high performance on my group as well. Um our we have a renewed focus this year on the uh intervention and referral service model through MTSS. So making sure that we are identifying students as they get into the middle school that had not fallen through
154the cracks at all. Um by the time they get to us that there may be some students that that were missed. We want to make sure that our our processes in identifying students and giving them the helps and supports that they need uh continues to be as robust as possible. Uh we're finishing up sheltered English instruction. All of our special education teachers and encore teachers will be getting this this year. That means that all teachers except for new teachers coming into the district would have been trained in this model. Um we have to shift our focus. We have a new adaptable field test this year um at NJSLA. So, the NJSA test is actually going to be new this year um for for students and there's a fall field test. So, um we have to
155get ready for that. Our window for us in Colin Brook is actually the next couple weeks. Um we have a very specific goal uh this year of making sure that we know every kid who they are and how best we can serve their needs. um by the time that kids get to middle school um it was brought up a few times or a couple of kids who have a self-fulfilling prophecy that they're not good at something anymore. So trying to break that habit with those kids and make sure that they understand that they are but they can learn um is a big is a big focus for us. Um and keeping kids in school. Um, so we've had absences have detrimental effects uh on students across the board. And when you take kids out for
156when two kids miss two or more days a month of of school, it adds up. Um, and that's misinstruction that's really hard for for them to to get back. So, making sure that we continue to promote a great learning environment for our kids. Um, math and language arts focus is never going to go away. We're going to continue to focus on that. We need to continue to make sure that we are addressing all of our needs. Um, systemically there is a transitional gap. If you look back over the course of the last couple of years, there's always been a transitional gap drop coming to the middle school. Um, from the 201819 all the way to now. So, we want to focus on that. Um, if you dig further into the sub population, there seems to
157be a bigger piece of evidence that that directly relates to our students who are in special education programs and trying to figure out exactly why they are not performing um to the best of their abilities um and making sure that we're really addressing the needs of them and we're connecting those special education teachers with our content specialists as well that they're getting the best professional help. Um, we have we're settling into the second year of our schedule. Um, and we're dialing in some of our new materials for math with edge gems and our new writing benchmarks. Thanks. Uh, this I think I'm correct. This concludes our assessment presentation. Um, so, uh, this is everything. Um, just know as a board, right, we talk about a lot of things. I'll be very brief, I promise. Very
158brief. Um, we talk about, you know, you hear discipline reports, HIV, we talk about absenteeism, you know, belonging for all of our subpopuls, how we have to follow curriculum. We work with teachers to make sure they're following the curriculum and implementing, seeking coaches and supervisors as support. I want to just remind everybody, this is where the rubber hits the road, right? when when we're sending home absentee and in letters to parents and they might be upset that they got their second letter. Just know it's because we want kids in school, right? Because we want to monitor staff attendance. We want them in school, too. Because at the end of the day, um these are the results. When we say we want the curriculum to be implemented and we want the teachers to work with the
159coaches, here's why. Because we get good results when those things happen. Kids are in school, teachers are in school, and uh everybody's learning and feels supported. We get great results. Thank you. >> Thank you all people that presented. Thank you very much for your time and presenting a very comprehensive report on the scores and assessments. Next item on our agenda is comments from the public. As I mentioned about a little while ago, we're going to modify this slightly. Usually it's only for items on the agenda, but we're going to open up it for any items on and off the agenda. So, if you have any comments, now's the time to make them. You can come up. Please come to the podium, write your name and town you're from on the attendance sheet. Please state it
160and you can ask your comments. The way public comments works is we're going to hear all comments and then at the end um we will either address or not address them in public or private afterwards depending on the comments. But we will listen to all comments first before we make any um comments from the board. So if anyone has comments, come on up. >> I guess I will do the honors. >> So my name is Shei. Good luck to anyone that can spell it. Before I make my comment, this is my first board meeting. Um I am thoroughly impressed. I think I speak for all of us that are here. A huge amount of thank you to all the educators, the teachers, the administration, Dr. Hart, to the go to bed team. This was truly
161an eye opener. We came for completely different reason and I'm going home with a completely different mindset. I really thought I I really mean it from the bottom of my heart. I I have a newfound respect for teachers, for principles, for administration team, for superintendents, for the board of education. I had a completely incorrect conception of what the board does and how you guys operate. So, a round of applause for all of you guys. Fabulous stuff and you make this material so much fun. I really I mean you know this is it was an island. Having said that we're going to resort to a very very personal request that we're bringing up to the world's attention. I have just moved into along with about 34 homes into Readington Township which is right off of uh
162White House White House Station basically. And our request is the school very very compared to what you guys dealing with it's very selfish of us to bring it. However, it does need address because to you you are dealing with district to us we're dealing with just our child and our community and our request. So here it goes. The school bus stops in front of our community. My home is about a mile in with peaks and valleys and I have a one-year-old like a first grader who goes along with a few other people who have similar situation. Our request is the bus come inside the community. It doesn't need to stop at all 342 24 homes. We have made stops. We presented to Dr. Hart with ample amount of data. He's done his best to support
163us as well. We've done some trial runs and what it's coming out to is an 8 minute difference from what the school is presenting to us to say, okay, if we stopped at these two stops, it's going to add an additional 8 minutes to the school bus route. And that is detrimental to all the other kids on the bus as well. However, our studies find it a little bit different. And without making personal attacks because that's not what the form is here for, what I ask the board as well as Dr. part and everyone else who's going to be in this consideration is to take a second glance at it because we feel it would serve best. Especially we had a lot of rain recently. There's a lot of puddles. Kids love muddy puddles. They
164want to jump in muddy puddles right before school. And despite what you tell them, you've got 24 kids who are like, "Oh, muddy puddle. Let's jump in it." Get on the bus and then came home to say, you know, the whole day I was wet. So, we think some of these issues can be addressed a little different if the bus comes inside. And then there's a whole safety issue as well. We're right off the 22. I know the bus stops on 22 as well on homes. Uh as far as the timeliness is concerned, we have done our own research and we feel like imagine all those 24 homes were actually on the street stretched out. The bus would be stopping at least two stops between those rather than, you know, just making one stop and
16524 kids are coming up to it. So I know I'm rambling on a little bit. I'm so excited with this stuff. I'm you guys got me the juices. So, with that said, again, thank you so much. At 9:00, you guys are here for our kids, my kid, and I'm truly happy to be here. I'm definitely going to be keep coming back because this is truly exciting. I'm going to pass it on to somebody else who may want to come up and make a comment. Thank you. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you. And thank you for making exceptions. >> Especially the call in I mean it would be impossible for all 39. >> The more names the better it is. >> You tried that once. We were all night conference room. I put up the
166same >> just sign. Yes, I will do that. So, uh with the fall coming and uh ice will be there, snow will be there and it will be hard for all like 24 30 cars to be on that road and park and uh drop the kids to the bus. It will be unsafe as well. It's also stopped the traffic on the old highway 22 as well. There are a lot of parking issues as well, safety issues and clearance for for all the kids to be. So think on that lines and see how we can maybe accommodate this request as see how it My name is Basra Kurati and I'm one of the um neighbors moved into that community uh consisting of 39 houses. Out of that 36 are done. I'm sorry 33 are done and
167another six to be closed. So yeah earlier when we reached out to our transportation department office there we were shut down saying that construction wasn't there. Now the construction is about to be closed in a couple of months and uh yeah as Dr. Hart helped us kind of take the trial run before uh you kind of uh open up some of the challenges and all that stuff pretty much like you know and uh uh explain and main thing is uh security concern especially like the middle middle school and the high school kids. I mean some of our parents like they go along with them or sometimes they let them go. So they all go uh to the main uh old route 28 but that's where the bus stops and they're all by themselves. So that's
168one of the things and now it's okay at least the daylight is there but with the winter coming in the first stop it's like 7:00 a.m. in the morning so which is like pretty dark out there. So unless a parent goes there then it's a challenging that's one of the another thing and u um also um yeah with the last my colleagues already mentioned about the rain and other stuff and also the winter uh coming up that's where we are more concerned about and bunch of us work in the city and it's kind of like a hard for us to kind of a balance between this uh dropping picking up from the top from there to there and uh especially when we have like an extended family, they can come and just pick up those
169kids right across our like the stops we proposed. So please uh ac accommodate our request and uh as earlier said like there are multiple stops on the road route 28 like a few hundred meters to 150 m apart. So which is like uh uh not fair or like our request is not fair. We have about uh total 19 students attending various uh elementary, middle and high school uh from that new community development. So yeah with the one or two stops at least we can grab about like 10 to 15 students right from there. So with a 5 minutes or like 6 minutes or 8 minutes adding up to the uh current lengthy travel of about 45 minutes, I don't think it's an unreasonable request. But I know uh whoever steps into that bus as a
170first child, he has to wait about like 45 minutes or 50 minutes. And definitely I think uh it may require like another bus that entire route to be split into two routes or something and add an extra bus or whatever needed and that way at least that whole thing cut short by like 30 minutes or like a half of that. So that helps everybody in the long run. So that's what I would like to suggest. And uh second thing is if that is not possible then at least optimize the route the whole route and see wherever you can cut short like minimize the uh timing for the overall um uh tour or like a uh bus and that probably um helps also in the current school year. I think that's pretty much sums it up
171from my side and thank you for the timing and opportunity and I'm not sure what products you guys use for all these data analytics but it's awesome. I would like to understand and see and learn about that and you we are on the technology side so definitely curious to know. Thank you. >> Any other comments from people in the audience? Anything else? >> Okay. Thank you. All right. So, that will conclude our open public comments for the first session. Um, Dr. Hart, did you want to address this at this point? >> Okay. >> I don't have an answer for you for you yet, but um I I appreciate your patience and waiting uh as we went through our presentations. uh as well. I'd like to say it was kind of part of the plan to
172have you be so impressed with our student achievement data, but uh but thank you for your patience. I want to reassure the board uh we have met and we have talked. Um and I want the board to to know a little bit of the background uh what we've done and then I'll make a recommendation about where we go from here and I'll just do it in in brief. Um I received Mr. Kotivati's and and neighborhood. Can we just say at all? Right. And there's a there's a group email that I received initially about um uh the Sanderson Court neighborhood. The bus stop stops at the edge of the neighborhood and all of the students come out um uh to the bus stop and board the bus there. Uh the request was to drive through the
173neighborhood and have two stops in the neighborhood to see if um you know we could go we could go through and then still have a decent reasonably timed bus ride. Uh so the first thing we did I think you all saw me uh was drive through with Marcy. So Marcy and I took a bus ride and we drove around some of the neighborhoods that were requesting some stop changes. Uh this was one of those neighborhoods and we timed it. And there were some concerns that I initially wrote to all of you about about it being an active construction area. Um the fact that sometimes when there was oncoming traffic with the construction zone, the bus had to stop and wait while oncoming traffic came as they went around the kind of the culde-sac if you
174will. Um so I initially I was like I don't think this is really going to work and then we met to discuss and we came up with what I thought was the reasonable solution is let's give it a trial run right let's let's take a week um we finished out we collected data right as you can see we're data people we collected some data to see how long the run was picking up the students at the current bus stop which is at the end of the street um and then we went into the neighborhood with the two proposed stops and you were all very great in ensuring that all the neighbors knew uh where to be. Uh so we did a oneweek trial run going to the neighborhood. The results were these. Um the bus
175ride is already a long ride. This is an approximately 45minute bus ride and it ended up being on Sundays as long as 53 minutes and the students. So that was data point number one. And then number two um was uh this the bus was getting to White House school just as White House school, you know, the bell was ringing if you will, right? They this was the last bus to pull in the parking lot. So I emailed the group. Uh I also had the police to stay at the bus stop too and watch as students boarded to see if there was any inherent safety issue um as well. Uh because of this uh I made the decision to go back to the old way. You all know we went back to the old way where
176the bus was back out on old old highway 22 and the students were boarding there to to make it safe and efficient, right? We were going back to the efficiency uh the part. So we went back to the single the single stop. Um this is a greater question and we talked about this in our meeting. Um we generally have buses stop on 22 old highway 28. We don't go into culde-sacs or neighborhoods. If you live in I think Lake Kushet we stay on Van Horn and everybody comes out and the bus stops along the route. If if the board I think the big picture here is the board wants to change practice uh we need to look at all routes and we need to look at our entire transportation operation. If we want to make
177exceptions one route at a time, we can do that as well. But the logic behind it was this extended the length of the route, making it longer for the students who were on it, making the bus arrive at White House, you know, 5 to 8 minutes later than the original time. So, there was some thinking behind the decision. Um, this is not the only request we had this year. There are other requests. My recommendation is to review this in much more detail in our finance committee. We work we we function as a board of committees. So, we're not going to hash this out tonight right now. we'll go into a finance facilities committee where transportation is discussed and we'll discuss this as not only your specific request but a larger district issue as well. So
178that would be my recommendation, but I wanted the board to have the context that um this has been I believe collaborative, right? I appreciate everything that we've talked about. We we made an attempt um and and every decision we make is a costbenefit analysis. Uh the benefit was we could accommodate going into the neighborhood, but we extended the route and whether that was fair or not to the entire route and to the students arriving at White House School eight 5 to 8 minutes later than typical was the question I wrestled with. So I made a decision right or wrong you know that that was >> I did want to take an opportunity to say this in no way shape or form was uh us against Dr. Hart us against the school he's been more than
179collaborative. I would say especially looking at everything you guys have going on right now I'm surprised he's been that collaborative. Had I been in his shoes I would have been like no I'm the superintendent. Having said that, the the goal here is and and as you rightfully mentioned, it's not just for us, right? It's not just there we're moving in and when I say we, I mean people are moving in. Uh there will be more communities. Ryan Holmes is building more. Uh our own community that I know of the developers, they're building more and as they build, people will come as the old saying goes. So the school's going to get busier and busier. And if we stick to this one, you know, policy of not going in, we're going to continue to have parents
180like myself who don't mind sitting here, you know, gathering all this in, have the same enthusiasm to say, selfishly speaking, I care about my kid and I want the best for him. And I'm sure every parent is going to have that, but not at the expense of having another kid have on 45minute bus route. But then having said that, guys, should there be 45minute bus routes? That's the that's the bigger picture as well for your next when you guys have that because I don't think a six-year-old should be in a bus for 45 minutes just to get to school and come back. So maybe we need to add more buses as bus mentioned. Having said that, it's not in any way, shape or form. >> You promised me more bus drivers by the way. I
181said you were going to recruit. I mean in fact they tried and the problem is I mean he's way up north. Yeah, there there we did try and again I will be here at that finance committee meeting meeting as well because I think we bring a ton of value of realism of what the parents are facing on I don't want to take too much of your time go home as well but just wanted to put that out there. Thank >> I'm just going to close out. First of all, thank you for coming and voicing your concerns. Dr. Hart, thank you for going on rides and checking out trial. That was um good to hear. But we will take this up in the finance committee as Dr. Hart said. Michelle's our finance chair and she'll make
182sure it gets added to the agenda and we'll work with the administration and then Dr. Hart will get back to you on any action items that might come out of it. >> Thank you for coming. >> And we do have great board meetings. So if you do want to come, we always have exciting agenda items. They vary every [Music] >> Thank you guys. Thank you so much. >> If there's no other comments, we're going to move on to the rest of our agenda. I I invite you all to stay as we go through our business, but you're more than welcome to come. [Music] Do you want to take a break or do you want >> Do you want to take a break? You want to just like We've been here for almost four hours. >>
183Let's just go. >> All right. So next >> okay. So the next item on the agenda is correspondence. We received one correspondence. It is on record with the board secretary. So we'll move on to board actions. Um the first is the approval administrative reports. We have two items. One is the enrollment joy reports and the other one is the board goals that we reviewed last month. So, can I get a motion for items 101 and 102 and then a second? >> That one. >> All right. And a second. Do we have any comments? >> Okay. Mr. B. M. Cassidy. >> Yes. >> M. Fury. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lopes. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Denser. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pieros. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Rad. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Depinto. >> Yes. >> Mr. Yes. >>
184Passes. >> Okay. Next item is the approval of minutes. We have one item, 2011. Can I get a motion and then a second? >> I'll move that one. >> Good. You got a second. A second. Perfect. Any comments? >> Mr. B. >> Miss. Cassidy. >> Yes. >> M. Fury. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lopes. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Menso. >> Mr. Pieros. >> Yes. >> Mrs. RA. >> Yes. >> Mr. Depinto, >> yes. >> Mr. Rosa, >> yes. >> Passes. >> Okay. Next is finance and facilities. We will have a read out um from the committee. But prior to that, can I get a motion for items 301 to 312 and then a second? >> Motion. I'll second. >> Okay. The finance committee report. The committee met on Friday, October 3rd. First topic was the referendum.
185The committee reviewed the referendum communication plan, dates for remaining school tours, and opportunities to inform voters in the district. The letter to registered voters, providing information about the referendum was discussed, and suggestions were made to enhance the content. The committee discussed scenario planning and next steps based on voter support of or lack of for the referendum to ensure clear plans are in place. Next topic, crosswalk on Readington Road and Roosevelt Road. The committee discussed the suggestion that an ADA ramp, sidewalk, and signage be placed on property adjacent to the school property. The estimated cost of this project is 15 to $20,000. The committee recommends not pursuing the suggestion due to financial considerations. Next topic is bank interest. The committee reviewed the existing interest rate for the district and interest rates from surrounding districts which are
186higher. We agree there is an opportunity to benefit from a higher interest rate and ask the business administrator to pursue negotiations with the current bank for a potentially higher rate. Next topic is a semi-corrective action plan. The district did not achieve the thresholds needed to qualify for reimbursement related to the semi plan which is similar to other districts where 90% of schools also did not qualify. The program thresholds are based on the number of students that are Medicaid eligible who also receive special services. The district will reassess opportunities to file in the future in the hopes of achieving the threshold, which is expected to be lowered from 26,000 to 3,000. Given the district missed the threshold, it's likely that the district may return the $5,000 in reimbursement to the state. Next topic, health benefits budget
187warning. The business administrator informed the committee of the state health plan 37% increase in January 2026, driven by both a 28% increase in medical and a 59% increase in prescription related expenses. While Readington Township School District is not in the state health plan, the increase is a signal that our expenses may also be in the double digits. These are unbudgeted increases that will create additional pressure on the budget next year. These expenses would qualify for a health waiver allowing the district to exceed the 2% cap, meaning voter approval is not required, but the budget pressure from these increases would remain. Next topic, lowincome student count. The lowincome student count has tripled over time and is now 18% of the enrolled population. The district expects this to grow given the recent approval of the new township
188housing plan, which includes low-income housing. The district has comprehensive support programs in place for families in need, including free breakfast, reduced or eliminated Chromebook fees, and donations to support book fairs, holiday shops, etc. With the anticipated increase in the lowincome student count, the district will need to re-evaluate some of these support programs to cover the increased expenses. No action or decision was taken, but the topic was discussed to prepare the committee for the upcoming budget process. It is likely the district will need to reassess how to finance field trips for low-income families given increasing field trip prices. The bill list was available to committee members for review and the next meetings were scheduled the first for November 12th at 8:30 and the second for December 3rd at 10 a.m. >> Thank you, Michelle. Any discussion?
189>> I just uh wanted to um make a comment on the crosswalk on Reington Road and Roosevelt Road. Um, I didn't get to connect with you about that what discussion took place in the committee, but I just want to voice support for that because I have been a pedestrian trying to cross at that exact intersection and whether we want to believe it or not, people are crossing there and if there is a way to make it safer, I feel like maybe this is something we can continually revisit. if there's a grant that's, you know, possible that we can apply for. Um, I I just I having, you know, for every Halloween parade, I park on that side of the road and have to walk because there's just no parking anywhere else. And it's very scary
190because you kind of can't see cars coming from the one direction. So, if there was a crosswalk and signage saying pedestrians in the road, I feel like would it would at least give me more sense of security crossing there. So, I just wanted to say I hope that that can be revisited in the future. >> Thank you. Any other comments? >> Okay, Miss Cassidy. >> Yes. >> Miss Fury, >> yes. >> Mr. Les, >> yes. >> Mrs. Denser, >> yes. >> Mr. Pier, >> yes. Mrs. Brad, >> yes. >> Mr. Brian, >> yes. >> Mento, >> yes. >> Okay. Next item on the agenda is our education technology report. Best will have a read out but prior to that we have three items to move 401 to 403. Can I get a second? A first
191and then a second. >> I'll move that one. >> Second. >> Um the edtech committee met on October 6th. The first item we discussed was the NJSLA and uh district assessment presentation which we saw tonight. I'm not going to go through my notes because it's exactly what you saw. Same thing with the dynamic learning map. That's for grades three through eight. Um, next we discussed preschool data presentation. Mrs. Dquisto presented on the student and program data that is being collected beginning to be collected sorry for the preschool program. Since these are new assessments for the district, there is no comparable or growth data to provide at the moment. It was suggested that Mrs. Does the quisto present any findings in the spring or when data is aggregated? Early anecdotal reports from kindergarten teachers are that
192students who participated in the preschool program have transitioned very quickly into kindergarten setting into the kindergarten setting allowing more time for instruction. Who is writing these minutes? Sorry, >> it's the time it's it's >> typing voice and then the speaking. Sorry. Um AI committee formed. Dr. Hart presented a timeline and process for creating an AI review committee to make recommendations on protocols or policy for appropriate use of AI in the schools. Committee members will include a principal, supervisor, technology coordinator, library media specialist, several teachers, paraprofessional, non-certificated staff, parents, and students as needed. The committee plans to make a recommendation to the board by June of 2026. a board member shared an article about creating an AI literate literacy framework that will be shared with the new review committee. Um and then we scheduled our next
193meeting for November 17th. >> Thank you both. Any comments or discussion? >> Ms. Cassidy. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Fury. >> Yes. >> Mr. Les, >> yes. >> Mrs. Menser, >> yes. >> Mr. Pierre, >> yes. >> Mrs. Rad, >> yes. >> Mrs. Ryan, >> yes. >> Mr. Pinto, >> yes. Mr. >> Yes. >> Pass. >> Next item is our from personnel. We do not have a committee readout this month, but we do have nine items to move. So we have items 51 through 509. Can I get a motion and a second on these items? >> I'll move. >> Second. >> Okay. Any discussion? >> Mrs. Cassie. >> Yes. >> Mrs. F. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lo. >> Yes. Mer. >> Yes. >> Mr. P. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Rod. >> Yes. >> Miss Ryan. >>
194Yes. >> Mr. Bindto. >> Yes. >> M. >> Yes. >> Okay. Next item is communication. We do not have a readout either this month. We have one item to move. 601. Can I get a motion in a second? >> I'll move. I'll second. >> Okay. Any discussion? [Music] Okay. Miss Cassie, >> yes. >> Miss Fury, >> yes. >> Mr. Wes, >> yes. >> Mrs. Benser, >> yes. >> Mr. Pier, >> yes. >> Mrs. Rad, >> yes. >> Mrs. Ryan, >> yes. >> Mrs. Pendo, >> yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Next item is unfinished business. Um, open up. Is there any unfinished business on Long Stories? Oh, I was just thinking last time we discussed the NJSBA workshop next week and I know tomorrow was the last chance for registering for governance training. >> Okay.
195>> During the workshops, I just want to remind everybody. >> Okay. Did you register for governance? >> I did register. >> Do it early. >> Anyone else? You said I could, >> but only I guess me and Linda or Richo would register. >> Well, for the governance too. The >> governance three is available too if people want to do it, I think. Right. Okay. I think we have till March, right, actually to complete it, right? Next year or is it April? When do we actually have to complete the governance training? >> Governance training has to be completed by December. >> December. >> Um, but you know, in your first year, you're supposed to complete by April. >> April. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. And most I think most of us are going
196to NJBA except for Paulo and I think Rich is not going right. I got one. Okay. All right. The next item is new business from the board. We have a committee read out from the green committee. >> Yeah. Um so the green committee met on October 1st. Um we discussed the strategic focus for the 2526 school year. Um which I had presented to the board earlier after our exe or executive committee session in the summer. Um for pillar one reduce environmental impact and costs. Uh Mr. Bone gave us gave the committee an update on the referendum. Uh we watched the video and shared the website. Um the sustainab the projects that we saw in the presentation were marked with a sustainability uh like little leaf logo in the bottom right corner if anyone had noticed.
197Um that was on suggestion from the um actually that may have been there is a suggestion. Yeah. Um the next thing we talked about under our pillar one was the capital projects. Mr. Bom also gave us an update on all the projects that were done over the summer. For pillar two, outdoor spaces update. Uh there was a grant that RMS uh received or will be receiving for 39,000 uh dollars and that's for trees. Um Betsy Freeman is working with community volunteers to figure out that project. Uh this grant addresses all sustainability pillars. It's a great partnership with many local entities. The tree planting will happen in the spring. Uh the other grant the district received was that 22,500 wellness grant that was with our health insurance provider. Um I'm just trying to go through quickly
198because I know you guys have heard all this. For pillar three, we discussed the sustainability uh sustainable Jersey silver status and digital star status. Uh for unfinished and new business, we discussed that green coordinator stipened the funds um from that was discussed in the finance committee. Um and the green committee is going to work to propose initiatives that we could uh spend those funds on. Uh the next item, food as a way to teach about different cultures and history in a healthy and fun way. Uh Mr. Bow said the HSA had reached out to see if the schools were interested in partnering in a food program of some sort. maybe along with Mashio's so details will be worked out for that. Um but it was suggested maybe uh have a partnership with Grow Row. I
199know the seventh grade students also seventh grade I don't know exactly actually what students go >> student council goes to grow. >> Yeah. Um and then we talked about the TBS Forest Hill Trail and Learning Woods. That's the piece of property that's behind Three Bridges School. And uh Mr. Robert Becker from the township's environmental commission uh had suggested maybe um making improvements on that trail so that the students could utilize that maybe in a field trip or walk through during the school day. Um and then Mr. Bone gave the committee an update on solar which basically financing has been secured. submitts are at the state. The financier and company say that all the approvals are uh we have all the approvals that are needed and the um the July 2026 is still the date that
200we're looking at for completion and the next screen committee will be on December 2nd. >> Thank you Beth. Any comments or discussion? council. [Music] The next item on the agenda is our second open public forum. No one's in the audience. Anyone online? >> Okay, so we'll close that out. Our last item is a joint. Can I get a motion and second? >> Mr. B. >> Mrs. Scazzy. >> Yes. >> M. Fior. Mr. Los. >> Yes. >> M. >> Yes. >> Mr. Bos. >> Yes. Mrs. Rad. Yes, >> everybody.