001Call the meeting to order. Roll call, please. >> Mr. Akamando, Miss Borali. Mr. Archello, >> present. >> Miss Einelo, >> present. >> Mr. Laantino, >> present. >> Miss Roloff, >> here. >> Miss Torbick, >> present. >> Mr. Traverso, >> here. >> Misselli, >> here. Please rise for the pledge of >> allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. glasses. Adequate notice of this meeting has been sent to all members of the board of education and to the bargain record in accordance with the provisions of the open public meetings act chapter 23195 student reports. >> We are going to do the student reports and then I will do my report and then that
002will lead to our presentations where I'll ask our board members to transition to the seats. Okay. >> All you guys Okay, I got it. Uh, for high school updates, we kicked off the year strong with grade level class meetings to review expectations and get everyone on the same page. Picture day rolled through quickly. Lots of students hoping for their one and done shot. Back to school night brought great energy as families connected with teachers and got a glimpse into the year ahead. As a senior, I have to say senior sunrise was unforgettable. Watching the sunrise with our class was a perfect way to start our final year together. Our ninth graders recently watched 102 Minutes that changed America as part of our 911 education. It was a powerful experience that brought history to life. Counselors
003have been visiting senior English classes to support students through the college process and started lunch and learns, a super helpful way to get common app help, especially for students feeling the pressure. And finally, homecoming tickets are on sale for this Thursday night. Students are already buzzing with excitement for the dance and all the spirit events leading up to it. Thank you. Now, I will give a rundown about what is going on at our preschool and elementary schools. At Washington School, all of the classrooms are filled and they have a full PTO board eager to plan fun events and fundraisers for the community. Washington School has also welcomed a new teacher, Mrs. Roselli. At Long School, the beginning of the year is going great. They will hold their first assembly of the school year on Friday
004to celebrate their summer reading projects. Also, Long Memorial is looking forward to holding their back to school night on September 24th. September as a whole is off to a smooth start at Franklin School. They thank their amazing staff, PTO, and the board of education for supporting them. Franklin School is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month as well as literacy during their upcoming assembly. Finally, Smith School is busy welcoming the new kindergarten class and their families as well as getting all students acclimated to their new classrooms. Smith School has also implemented their Smith motto. S for start with kindness, M make good choices, I include others, T take chances, and H have a positive attitude. Overall, the beginning of the 2025 to 2026 academic year is off to a strong start amongst all of our schools. Thank you.
005Thank you ladies. >> Okay, you're going to do your report. >> Thank you. >> All right, I don't have too many things. I wanted to remind everybody that our homecoming is tomorrow night at the high school. Also, Friday night we have our second home game at 7 p.m. Friday night lace vers Butler and the theme is neon to wear neon. Wanted to remind everybody that we're closed Tuesday, September 23rd and October 2nd. And our SBA walk-athon is Friday, September 26. The SBA is the Saddle Brook Education Association and they are a group of people that really care about our schools. They collect and they raise money and they ask our school administration and our staff what is needed and they give to each of our buildings. So they're a wonderful organization and we love that
006they run this event and we ask everyone to participate. In October there will be a bunch of dress downs. We have week of respect so the principles we will be sending out the themes for the dress downs for that week and unity day and red ribbon week. So there will be a bunch of um dress downs and theme days for the month of October. As always, after our board of ed meetings, typically usually by Friday, I will be sending something out to the community, updating them on everything that has happened um over the last few weeks. And now at this time, I wanted to make sure our board members, everyone got their card, right? >> Make sure you take that. Okay, >> you might want to keep this one. >> And then at this time,
007I'm going to ask Mrs. Dabonis to come on up. I'm gonna have our board members please go to the chairs. Thank you. Stop. So, we are very excited to honor Sabrina Bunet who is here tonight. Before she comes up, I just want to share a little bit about what she is being recognized for. Um, so we received an email that in our world went viral from the counselors to my office to Miss Jenkins to Miss Vietti, Mr. Mish, and we were all a buzz. We got a an email from college board letting us know that Sabrina was selected for the college board um big future ambassador for Saddlebrook schools, which means that she applied and received that award. So, let me tell you a little bit bit about it because we were like, "This sounds
008amazing, but what is it?" And now we've all learned. Uh so so what Sabrina is now charged with is this amazing leadership role where she is going to be sharing events and updates and everything that College Board has to offer with her peers using social media, word of mouth, anything that she can do, any forum that she can um grab the audience of her peers. Um, so she's in charge of sharing resources, leading initiatives, receiving support from counselors, and she's already made a meeting and met with Miss Jenkins, which is amazing. Um, and personalized outreach. So, we are just so incredibly proud of her for the initiative. We didn't even know this existed. She applied and she got it. And we just are so incredibly proud of you and the leadership that you have in
009yourself. So please come accept this award from the board of education. [Applause] You sure? Okay. So, a little snapoo with you can't convert a Google slideshow into PowerPoint. It gets all wonky. So, access for L's our annual presentation. Um, I am actually really excited about presenting this to you because you will absolutely see the growth um and the real hard work that our um ESL teachers have been doing with our students. So, access for L's is the assessment that all students that are um that qualify for English language services receive. Um the state a few years back changed it from um being an ELLL an English language learner to now they're consider we the term is multilingual learner. So if you hear me saying ML throughout the presentation that's what that refers to. So they
010take this test every spring. That is the only way that they can exit the ESL program. In order to exit they have to get a 4.5. Um this is what a score report looks like. And basically what it does is it breaks down the four areas that students are tested in which is reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Um it breaks it down. It tells what a child on the bottom is capable of doing. And then we've gone a step further in our district and we have what we call fingertip files, which we'll talk about a little later, but really gives the teachers the the classroom teachers an idea of what are realistic expectations for that student at that language level, which has really helped. So this year, last year, last school year 24-25, we had
01170 students test. The year before we had 76, so our numbers went down a little bit. Um, our participation rate for spring of 2025 was 100%. So 70 out of 70 students and this is my fourth year here and every year we've had 100% participation, which is amazing. Okay. So, um, by law, we are unable to present anything under 10 students. So, you'll see because of our population, while we have 70 students, they're scattered throughout the grade levels. So, most of these are below 10. Um, so if you look on the bottom, you'll see all grades. Slow down. Okay. All grades. And you can see again, um, where our students are. And what we want to see is that our students are in that 56 range. And I know the numbers are super tiny, but
012the bar graph in the next slide will show you what I'm so proud of. So you see that this is 23, 24, and 25. The these first three bars are K through five. Then we move into the 68 in the middle and the 912. And what we want to see are those top bars growing every year. And that's absolutely what we're seeing. If you notice in 20 um 2022 2023, especially at our high school level, which by the way, when students come to us as language learners in the K5, they pick it up like this. They're in and out of the program. They're like little sponges. When a child comes to us in 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade, it is really hard for them. Especially our students that are coming to us and their
013alphabet is completely different. So our Spanish speakers have a little easier time than our Arabic speakers because now they're learning to read a different way. They're learning a brand new alphabet. So it is very difficult. So we are so excited to see these higher bars, those that high green on the top. We're seeing those levels increase every year. And that means that we are doing what we need to be doing in our multilingual classrooms and in our gened classrooms for these students. So you'll see that we have to report achievement level all grades. This one is showing you our Hispanic level versus um Caucasian students. The reason it does this is because our Hispanic population is the highest in our demographic for ESL. That is our largest language. However, we still are underneath that 20
014mark. Um at 20, we would have to offer bilingual services. We're not there yet. Um this graph is showing female verse male. You can keep going, Tony. Okay, this is the good stuff. So family engagement is what it's all about. Getting our multilingual learner families involved in the community. And every year we've done something that has been the the the showing of parents and family members and community members that come to these events has been amazing. So last year um we did a cultural event in the gym during one of our parent partnership nights. And our students are so proud of their heritage and they're so proud of learning to be in our community as well and embrace that and they did such an amazing job on these projects and and telling everybody about why
015they're proud to be who they are and why they're proud to be in Saddlebrook and it was really just an amazing amazing night. So what are we doing to make sure our multilingual learners have everything they need? So the fingertip profiles that I was talking about before, it basically takes the scores and it tells teachers these are realistic expectations in a classroom. So a student who is probably a 3.2 is not going to be able to give you a five paragraph essay at this point, but they probably could give you a really solid introduction paragraph. So maybe that's what we focus on, right? let's meet them where they are and then continue to increase what they can do. Um, so those fingertip files have been fantastic. We actually just got them. So now my next
016role will be meeting with all the teachers to talk about what these reports say. Um, and data analysis. We're always looking at linkit benchmarks. We'll talk about that stuff later, but all of our data points and how our students that are considered MLS are doing in those areas. Tissole training. So our um ESL teachers are a part of TE-SUL which is an organization that really specializes in the teaching and education of not only ESL teachers but gened teachers that constantly support our multilingual learners. So we have sent our teachers to a lot of professional development. Um we've also done things virtually with them and it's just an amazing organization. Programming. One of the things we did last year because we're we really believe that the more that we can get families involved um the better
017the the children will be and the more acclimated they will be in the school district quicker. So we started this program called hellos in all the buildings and basically it means helping everyone learn to love our school and what we do is when we have a new registrant that we know does not speak English we have a system set up where we take them in first day we meet them at the door with kids their own age that probably speak their language that help them navigate the building they're buddy for the day they're their buddy at lunchtime time at the elementary grades. They're their buddy during recess. Here they walk they leave we let them leave their classes a couple minutes early and they help walk them to their classes and they stay with them
018for about the whole full week until they're ready to go on their own. And what we've done with that is we've given them a network. They're coming in. They don't know the language. They have no peers. And this has really helped them feel like they're a part of the community so much quicker. So we're very proud of that. Um, these students work with our multilingual students, help them acclimate to our schools. We've also implemented a new leveled approach to our ESL program at the high school because again, those students struggle so much more than the lower grade. So now at the high school, we have a beginner, an intermediate, and an advanced level class. This way we can really support what they need and help them move faster to proficiency. And then lastly, student support
019and family engagement, which I talked about. We are trying everything we can to make sure these new families to Saddlebrook and our L ML families now feel like they're a part of the community. It's hard when you don't know the language to get involved in PTO, to get involved in events. And we're really trying to get them the information and make them feel very comfortable when coming to the buildings. That's it. That's it for that. >> Any questions about that? Yes. Is that something? >> Okay. So, I started creating it, but now the link team that we work with, I send them our access scores and now they do it for me and spit out the information. I'll be honest, their reports are much better than my hand ones. Um, so that that's what they
020do. They take those scores and then they give us those reports and it's individualized. Every child has their own report and it's broken down by what the expectation should be in the classroom for everything related to language, reading, writing, speaking, and listening. So, even in a math classroom, even though it's not tailored to math um skill, it's letting the teacher know where their writing skills are. They may not be able to write the numbers yet in a 10th grade classroom because they're they don't write American numbers, English numbers. Um it may be that um you know, they're still in that we call There's a period of time where students get really silent and they won't speak at all in in when they first start school, right? That's because they're not comfortable. If you threw me
021in another country, silent, which I know sounds bizarre because I'm never silent, but that's what would happen, right? So, those fingertip files have been nothing but helpful to our teachers. So, our principles and the counselors have worked together to identify students that want to be a part of this. um last year I sat in on the first couple of times that they met to really un have the students understand what the expectations were um what their role was and to be honest those most of the kids that wanted to do this were kids that were in that boat once they were those kids so they completely understood it um and it it really has been fantastic we do our assessments that day we meet with the family that day and it's it's really been great
022it's been a great transition piece piece for these kids. Yes. >> To the fingertip files. Yes. We upload them into Genesis. So everything that it would be an assessment piece is is tied to that student. >> Yeah. Yep. >> Yeah. >> Right. Right. >> Yes. is that >> so Tissel membership we pay for for our ESL teachers. We use title three for that. Um but then what they get a certain amount of workshops with that um purchase of the the U membership and then there's obviously other workshops that they can get. But it's it's been phenomenal for them. It it's really been great because to find for our ESL teachers to find workshops that are actually worthwhile for them to attend, it's it's not easy. So, this is for them by ESL teachers and it
023it's been great. Even for myself, it's been great. They have really great stuff for, you know, program design and things like that. Yes. >> Yes. Yes. >> So, um the beginning of the process is the home language survey. So, when we have students come in and register, they fill out a home language survey. From there, it gets sent to me. I look at it and we determine if we think that a student should be screened. That's the starting off point. Most times we automatically screen. It depends on how old they are. For example, if we have a kindergartener whose birth certificate says that they were born here, but it says that they speak Spanish and English, I'm going to wait on screening them because the problem with our the problem with ESL on a whole
024is that the only way out is by passing the test. So, we have some kids that maybe developmentally aren't there yet, but they're not really ESL students and then they're in they're in for a long time. And sometimes we find those are students that may be dyslexic and that was the why, but now they're ESL and also needing special services. So, it really depends on the kid. We really look at them. We have our ESL teachers go in, have conversations to make sure, and then we screen. The screening process then tells us their level of language and again reading, writing, speaking, and listening. And then they begin the ESL program. At that point, that's when we contact the parents. We go over what our results are. A lot of times we use a company called
025Album for translation, but we also this year are going to start using those headsets we bought a few years back for these meetings. um so that the the administrator that's in those meetings or the teacher that's in those meetings has their headset headset on and then the parent also has their headset so they can communicate back and forth no problem. Um that's where it starts. I will say out of the 70 kids we have we have 72 total in the program to our parent refusals. So they technically are still by the state labeled as ESL and they still have to test every year but they do not actually receive the services that we could provide them which you know sometimes those services are stigmatizing to some families and and I understand that. I understand that.
026>> Yeah. So by law, if we have, let's say we have 20 Spanish speakers in the high school, they're in one building, we would have to provide now the high school would be its own thing. Elementary, it depends on the grade levels. Like we could do it if it was 35 20 kids in one building. So if there were 20, let's use long. there were 20 kids at long three through five, we would have to offer bilingual programming, which would mean instruction that's given in both English and Spanish because that's our high highest language. So, a math classroom that's both English and Spanish taught in both. >> We don't We're not there. >> We're not there. >> That's by law. Yeah. Every year I have to file a waiver for our district >> because our
027while we have 20 Spanish speakers in those 70, they're spread out throughout the district throughout different buildings and locations. So we can't offer that because it does it's not feasible for for us to have that program yet. >> I plead the fifth. What do you mean? It's three to It's K to2 3 to 5 6 8 912. >> Yeah. >> So, the first time I've ever in my life gotten questions about access for L's. This makes me so happy. [Laughter] >> Thank you, Mrs. Deonus. Look, first of all, may I point out gold and blue, blue and gold. Second of all, um, Mrs. Dabonis is not really doing herself justice. When she started, she literally took the results from Access for L's and she copy and pasted into documents, individual documents for every single English
028language learner and prov this is like her baby. So, thank you, Mrs. Dabonas, for all the work that you're putting with this. Sure. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Now, I'm going to introduce Mrs. Jenkins. So again, when I talk about my team of directors, this is two of them. Mrs. Collie is not here, director of special services, but they are like behind the scenes non-stop. The amount of um work ethic that our directors have is really it's it's absolutely amazing. So Mrs. Jenkins has to she's our district testing coordinator. She's also been taking the lead in Genesis, which is a whole lot um amongst a million other things. So, I just want to while they're here, just say thank you to both of you for all the hard work that you do for our district.
029I would not be able to do this without you guys. All right. So, now Mrs. Jenkins is going to report on our NJGPA and our graduation performance from last school year. I'm excited about this first presentation. Um, and I embedded in one flowing document, but they are posted on our district website under our uh district assessments under the curriculum and instruction pages. Um, so last year, um, I added these slides to this presentation and we talked about how the state of New Jersey mandates that our students their junior year have to take the NJGPA. And through that, uh, the results of those tests, um, they have to, uh, have passing scores within one of these three ways in order to graduate high school. So, uh, for the class of, uh, 23, 24, and 25, this
030has been the mandate since 2023. Um, so to score a 725 or higher on the NJGPA means you graduate by the first pathway. Our goal is that we have as many kids possible passing through our state testing. The second pathway assessments could look like PSAT scores, ACUPPLACER scores. We try to maximize every opportunity. If the students u like our students right now for the class of 26, if they didn't have a 725 or higher in ELA or math, they get to take it again one more time in October. Um some of them we already know have that second pathway score. The majority of them already do. But when they are sitting there right at the edge and they look like they only missed it by one or two questions, we really highly highly suggest that
031they and I'm going to show you the data as a result of that and the work that we did with the kids last year. So what we're really going to talk about is um the class of 25 where do they land in this spectrum? Okay, I'm a little light. I'm so sorry. I might have to make that b a little more bold when it hits the internet. So, what you're going to see here, and I broke it out by some of our subgroups, um, our total amount of kids, our special education students, white students, Hispanic students, and, um, our free and reduced lunch uh, students, economically disadvantaged. So, you can see where we were in 2024 uh, in first pathway. So, if you look at the total numbers, 82% of the students in 2024 graduated
032by first pathway. And then in the class of 25, 91%. You're going to see jumps across the board in all of these charts. Our special education is a huge students for the class of 25 is a I'm loving the looks on your faces. I know. I feel like Jose is I almost wanted to put fireworks on this. I didn't, you know, implode blow it up and celebrate um the special education huge uh gains in special education and um also for economically disadvantaged kids and our Hispanic kids. And you talk about the long-term programs and what we're doing, you know, what Nicole just presented on for our multilingual learner students, like you see the results here in the first pathway scores. You also see a jump where the I know it's light on the screen here
033but in the in the third pathway where the numbers just are dropping. Those are the third pathway or the students who have to submit a portfolio in order to meet graduation requirements. Those numbers drop drastically and they what they do is they move into some of them those numbers will move into second pathway but you also see movement from second pathway into into first pathway. So this is the ELA and then you'll see it again. So by every single in every single subgroup across the board we have high in ELA and math we had more students from the class of 25 but your achieve uh test scores by first pathway as opposed to the class of big Q gate. We knew this was coming this time last year because we reported out on some big
034gains, but we also weren't done testing them, right? Some of them were and we also had some students that were um new to the country last year. So still they still had to take the NJGPA for the first time and then we also had to give them ACUPPLACER as backup score. So we were it was we were chasing it and uh really trying to push to get everybody to pass by first pathway. So I thought it would be fun to share some other information about the class of 25. So uh what was what's next for them? Where are they right now? So 60% of them are in a four-year college. 25% of them are at two-year colleges. And we know for some of our families that's an economic decision, right? They're going to go to
035Bergen Community for their two years and then they're going to transfer to a four-year school. So it's smart choice. you're looking at somebody who made that choice when I was a first generation college student in my family. Um 4.8% of them were at technical schools. Some of them went to the workforce and we have a certain percentage 3.4 went right to the military. And this slide shows you where they went to college. I had a little suspicion that it seemed to me like the class that the class of 25 had students more students go farther away to school like not just they went out of state but it seemed like more of them went a greater distance. So I looked at uh this slide and I compared it to some of the uh school counselor
036reports that we do from like five years ago. What I wanted to see was, you know, was it just because there's some couple of them are in Florida and and and was I getting that impression? But it's really doubled. And so I looked at it as um if you have to take a plane to get there. So there's they've doubled the the amount of students who actually have to take a plane to go to college. So I think that speaks to ambition. I think it speaks to confidence. I think it really has to speak to family planning and financial planning and everybody's investment in their students success and achievement and then really pushing them. We know it's hard to let them out of the nest like that, but to see twice as many having to
037take a plane to get to college is I thought pretty impressive. And uh this really just really speaks to the members of the class of 25 and all of their honor society accomplishments, but also the quantity of dollars that they received in scholarships for college. And right now I have here is our increased projected graduation rate. So at the end of the summer every year, we report out on our students graduation and uh our four-year graduation rate. Now, we're we're never going to see 100% here, and we shouldn't because some of our students are going to go on to 18 to 21 services through special education, and the way the state the state counts them as a non four-year grad, right? So, there's always going to be we're a little off of 100%. But you
038also see that we're up by 3 point uh 3.3. And what we also know is that the majority of the students that we did not that did not graduate with us isn't because they dropped out of high school. They moved out of state. So those students aren't in that count at all. So that's really a tre I think a tremendous figure. Okay, let's talk about state testing for the class of 26. These are our current seniors. This is the quantity the state requires that we report the quantity of students that participate. ate a 100% participation rate. Like I said, we did have some seniors that were new to the country last year or new to New Jersey had to participate in NJGPA. Um, but they did that in the fall and uh this data just
039has you look at it across time and you'll see that the year before we didn't have uh we didn't have enough seniors to report. We really didn't have any seniors participating in NJGPA for the first time the year before. And this is just a general overview. Uh I recaped some of this already, but just it's a state requirement for graduation. It determines their graduation readiness. It's the ELA component, math components aligned to 10th grade standards, algebra 1, geometry standards. And I just want to make a note that this is the last year that NJSLA is going to look like it looks right now. Right. the state is introducing a new NJSLA adaptive which is going to be uh student driven and it's going to be paced to the stu the students it'll progress as the
040student progresses so we don't know what the state reporting will look like that but this is really sort of the end of this benchmark cycle and I think we're going to start with a with a new uh baseline next year and this talks a little bit about those pathways that we mentioned already and um here's some intervention strategies This is a lot of the work that's coming out of uh Mrs. Deonis' office. She's been working with our elementary schools and our high schools on uh schoolwide funding for our title one programs and our basic skill teachers that we put into our students lives. We've re revised master schedules. We analyze those every single year. Tons of curriculum analysis, tons of professional development. Um a lot of work on the evidence statements and where the students
041achieve and where we need to help them grow. lots of lots of department meetings um and professional development aligned uh to help uh the district achieve its goals and also obviously the students. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nicole edit this hyperlink. >> This is what we put in place this summer when we have our uh summer leadership. I'm gonna sound so corny, but they're one, it's one or two of my favorite days of the year because our leadership team comes together as a think tank. We get to debrief on the year and see where we need to go. And our biggest takeaway was we have all these incredible assessments. Great. Then we start looking at feedback from staff because Mrs. Vilet always asks for staff feedback. How can we do better? And over and over
042and over again you heard from them more focused PD more time everybody needs more time right so what we came away with was okay how do we do this and we predetermined what the year of PD is going to look like to provide the time. So what teachers were saying to us is we give these assessments, we have zero time to really sift through the data and make it actionable and use it in the classroom like we want to. You know, we look at the kids that we know are really low so we know how to help them, but everybody else it's like really hard to sift through. So now we have these days built into our calendar from we started already from um September 4th through January where we have focused activities where teachers
043are going to be looking at data and sifting through data. And one of the things we started this year which we think is so important is the idea of this interdisciplinary eye looking at the data. the math teachers and the science teachers need to work together. That science assessment they take, it's really an ELA test, but it's really looking at graphing and understanding and analyzing data. That's what it's all about. So, math and science need to work together. ELA and social studies need to work together. So, we've built in those days and that time for them to do that. And our teachers so far have been very happy with that. They know what's coming. they know what to expect. They know they're going to have time to look at the linket data. They know they're
044going to have time to pull through the evidence statements and then not only look at the evidence statements, but then figure out ways they're going to use those in their classroom. So, we're very excited to see how this goes this year and then to see how we can make it even better for the following year. Okay. So, here are some of our notable achievements. And a lot of the things that we talk about here um is I'm going to be able to talk about things that we did it last year and we did it again. So, the class of 26 cohort outperformed the state average in and NJGPI ELA and math. Again, um when breaking out our subgroup data, we think it's important to do that because every in any given year, our numbers may
045look a little different for our subgroups. And I think the real tough work that we do, you heard Nicole's work on that with our multilingual learners for example um is it's a small population when you take it just for like uh like one particular grade level for NJGPA in particular, but we had even though it was less than 10, we had twice as many ELLL students in the class of 26 compared to the class of 26 compared to the class of 25. And we see a lot of numbers like that. uh uh increasing within our demographic groups. Um the class of 20 uh so regarding that our general but really like let's if you look at it from a general education perspective 97% of our general education students are graduation ready in ELA and 82%
046of them in math. And I think that uh that 97% in ELA in particular is extremely impressed. It's nearly 100%. and our uh our demographic groups are growing. So where in year when you look further in the slides when you have more time and and you really look at the charts you'll see we in the past we've maybe had less than 10 where we can't report out on that for student privacy reasons. You'll see now where we we have more than 10. So we are reporting out on that. Um, but what is really impressive within that demographic data is that it's the second year in a row where you see us close the achievement gap for some of these subgroups. Where we need to do more work is in our special education population um in
047particular uh in in ELA and math. And we also see in the class of 26 that our female students are outperforming their our male students when you combine across all subject areas. And um we in particular we saw an increase in math achievement in our class of 26 for the girls. The smiles. I appreciate the smiles. Um and then uh you can click through all of these slides. I mean they're they're already up on the district website. Um you'll see you know where we u we've made some achievements. We hold strong in certain areas. Uh we continue to grow or maybe we're just two or three kids off from the year before. Um nothing that's drastically significant. Um I broke out the state data averages here so you could really like dig in by subgroup
048to see how our subgroups compared to the state averages. Um and it's kind of fine print. It's kind of light on this screen, but all of this data, I mean, there's there's tons of tons and tons of charts and data, and you could see where um we compare from one year to the next. Some of it's trend, and some of it's just uh standalone data comparing, you know, males to females by gender and all the way through. >> That's a wrap. First off, thank you for bringing us through this again. I remember last year you did a either the same or similar presentation uh showing the data from the year previous and obviously it's great improvement year-over-year, right? So, I guess for for us, uh, could you just talk a little bit about why you
049think the success has happened year-over-year and how we can help sort of advocate for the community to kind of bring this data forward to show the show the community the great success that we've had, >> right? And I would tell you that in in any any field or any or any topic, word of mouth marketing is critical, right? So, uh, part of it is the work that's being done with Nicole's leadership from the from the curriculum office and the work that she's doing with the teachers. When you saw that professional development calendar, Nicole is a master at scheduling, not just a master schedule in a school, but scheduling across the entire year. So, the teachers know what's going to happen, where our guest speakers are coming in, and schedule time to do that work. So,
050and I think that the work that the teachers have been doing in curriculum analysis, in the evidence statements, I think that's where we're making the biggest impact. I think in the years in the past, we just may not have been teaching um authentically to the standards. The state standards are rigorous. There's a reason New Jersey is one of the top performing states in in the nation. If you look at the national assessment of educational progress, uh, which we participated in in 2024, New Jersey outshines multiple states across the country that you would think that, you know, we might just run close ties with, but we're we're doing really well in that. So, it's also because our standards are so high. Um, and in Saddlebrook, when you see our the numbers are showing, that's why I
051was so excited about the pathways because more students are graduating by that first pathway. I really felt that if we emphasized the importance of that, you know, retake that we would be able to push the kid because they're so close. And I think the greatest thing that we could really do as a community and we've all heard Mrs. Violleti's importance on school attendance and being present matters, but also being engaged matters. Being authentically concerned for your own achievement matters, right? As much as I'm excited that our girls are out achieving our boys in the class of 2006, well, we really got to motivate our boys, right? So, every single one of us play an important role in that. Whether it's our coaches who expectate have high expectations for their for their athletes achievement. Every single
052one of us we has has has a role in um in all of that. >> Thank you. Another thing is that since the day we became a director team, we kind of we all believe in the same thing. Our teachers need voice and we kept saying to our teachers through meeting after meeting after meeting like we see what's going on in your classrooms. It's amazing. But that's not what the public is hearing. Numbers speak volumes. And I think they started to buy in. We pushed prioritized and for a while there not just here but in a lot of districts after COVID the tests were like right they weren't prioritizing that and we kept saying to our teachers through PD and meetings we are you are teaching to the test the test is aligned to the
053standard. So that old rhetoric of don't teach to the test, you have to. It's the standards, right? And we started to meet with our teams. There's some teachers here that no, we meet with our teams and we talk about what are you doing? How can we make it better? What do we need? We've brought in new programming. And I feel like when you give teachers voice and you hear what's going on in the classroom and you give them the tools they need, you're only setting them up for success. And to hear our staff, we've all heard, did we get the result yet? Did we see how we did? They're excited to see this is a major change in culture. They're excited. They want to know how their kids did. Um, and you know, two years
054ago it was like, "Oh, we have to listen to the we have to talk about the test." Like, it's over. Now they want to know because it really does it it fuels what comes next. And it's it's awesome. I It's very exciting. I would also say that the board of education also supported us. When when you talk about cur new curriculum materials, you approved that in the budget. When you talk about additional staffing for basic skills teachers, you put those teachers in the kids' lives to help their achievement. So, school budgets matter. Parents supporting the schools matter. Parents supporting their kids matter. But really, the it's a it's a multi it's like all the ingredients in a great recipe, I think, is what we have going on in Saddlebrook right now. Um, I mean, just
055the pride is in our schools. You all know that, right? We all stood together when we opened up the football field on the 5th and we all had tears in our eyes when we're on the field. And that's how we feel about the kids and their athletics. And then we all feel like that also about when we see their achievement. And this is numbers, but when we look at their numbers, like Mrs. a bonus and this is violating like we know the names of the kids, right? So if there is a dip by maybe three or four percentage points, I know exactly who that is and I ex I know exactly what they need and if they're not coming to school enough, we do whatever we can with the school counselors and our data teams
056to really look at why and how can we help them more. And that's how invested we are in your kids because we think that they're our kids. Any other questions? >> So, I want to say thank you very much for the PD because there is nothing worse than going to a PD or PLC with data and not knowing what to do with it and say, "Okay, now what?" So, I'm reviewing it. So, I'm really happy to see that you are putting all of that data to good use and explaining it and working on that. On that note, how many days of PDS? I noticed seven. Was it seven? >> Okay. So that's what I want. So those half days, the teachers aren't just not doing anything. They're truly working on reviewing this what has been
057done. So that so you're also making that a meaningful afternoon. And you also the board also negotiated with the teachers contract to relieve them of some for some faculty directed time on Monday's afternoons. So we're not bringing them to faculty meetings that could be a memo or could be an email. So when they're coming together with us, there's some type of professional development. That's our goal this year. But they also have Mondays that they're here in with with us in the building, but they might be having a grade level team meeting or some other type of self-directed work on projects that support our students achievement. >> I think looks great. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Okay. So, at this time, I invite the board of board trustees to return to their seats. Thank you very
058much, Mrs. Jenkins, Mrs. Deonus. Great job. First time you walked in, I was like, >> look at that. Look at where we have come >> in 10 years. Congratulations, Sabrina. >> Congratulations. No, >> it's been open. Okay. Um, we're going to do the uh business administrator report, please. >> Just quick, I gave a more detailed report about projects on Monday. We had a meeting today with the uh contractor that's working on the front and eventually the back athletic field. and the front will start winding down, but uh probably like another month, like midocctober, you'll see a lot of that gone. Maybe another few weeks to get the um the sign up for the high school and and do some other stuff. But it's pro it's moving along and the Monday the 22nd, they're going to
059start doing the back athletic um front entrance. Wash at the windows, like I said, Monday will should be done by Friday. and everything's progressing well. And I I I I got to make a just a statement quick that, you know, thank the public, the board for not only this referendum, the one in 2004. Um we're doing a lot of stuff here facilitywise. They're they're large sums of money for these uh upgrades. Uh whether you place a roof, uh windows, but the 2004 one was a lot of things that the public can't see, like the roofs. uh they did see some of the bathrooms where students see them more than the public, but a lot of this stuff that we're doing now is is a lot of visual that the that the public is seeing and
060I think everybody is liking. I mean, I'm I'm really happy that um all the stuff that we're doing. We're finally making a huge dent in uh the buildings and it's great and I and I thank everybody. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. [Laughter] I said thank you. >> Okay. Can I have a motion to open the meeting to the public for agenda items? >> Second. >> Okay. >> All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Does anybody want to speak? Okay. Can I have a motion to close the meeting to the public? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Thank you. Okay. So, we're going to move on to uh board act board action items. Sorry about that. B2526.12 to B2526.16. Can I have a motion? >> Second. >> Thank you. >> Does
061anybody have any questions? >> I provided information on these on Monday, so I won't I won't repeat myself, but if you have any questions, please ask. >> Okay. Roll call, please. We'll start with Miss Einelo. >> Yes, >> Mr. Lorentino. >> I'll vote yes to all but abstain on B2526.12. All three of them. >> Miss Rolloff. >> Yes. >> Miss Traverso. >> Yes. >> Miss Zerelli. >> Yes. >> Mr. Oello. >> Yes. >> And Miss Torvick? education and curriculum. >> Miss At the recommendation of the superintendent, I make a motion to approve the following items. E2526.15 through 2526.25. >> Do we have a second? >> Second. >> Any questions? >> I'll highlight the field trips. I just want to state again that the kindergarten classes as part of their curriculum. They're going on the community
062tour again. That's where they go and they visit the police station, the fire station, the library. um it's part of their curriculum and it's very wellreceived and thank you to the community for accommodating our kindergarten students. I believe each school does it a separate day. You'll see the updated curricula that's listed and then a delayed opening for middle school high school only on October 22nd for PSAT testing. >> Thank you. Anybody have any questions? Roll call, please. >> Missel? >> Yes. >> Mr. Florentino? >> Yes. >> Miss Roloff? >> Yes. Mr. Traverso, >> yes. >> Merelli, >> yes. >> Mr. Archello, >> yes. >> Miss Torb, >> yes. >> Budget and finance. >> Just before you take an action, I did send an email to the board members like I was stating Monday I had
063to remove um the revised June report and then also the July reports. I'll have them for next month. And then I added um we approved the uh items I think it was back in June. June and or August. Um that's the stuff that was in the budget where we bought a vehicle, some power equipment, um the digital signs and scoreboard. Um maybe some other various computer equipment, the awning that's going to be at Smith School. So this is on that five-year lease financing. So this is in the budget and this is an action I need to process that paperwork. >> Okay. At the recommendation of the superintendent, I make a motion to approve the following items. BF2526.15 through BF2526.22 Second roll. >> Missello. >> Yes. All but in B F2526.15. I am going to abstain
064from check numbers and 501 and then in hold on just in BF2526 I am going to abstain from ID number B O E I'm sorry. BOE4 and number 23. Yes to everything else. >> So when you're all going through it, if you have your sheet up, there are several of you that are on for the board of ed workshop in October. So if you could just flip to that sheet and like as I know did I'll try to pull them up. >> I got it right here. Who's next? >> Oh, you got it already. Okay. >> Mr. Florentino, >> I'm going to say yes to all, but I'm going to abstain in BF2526.15 checks number 4612. 4770 and in all substain BF2526.16 number 23 and BOE5 rolloff >> M traverse So >> yes to all,
065but I will abstain to BF2526.16 BOE number 8. >> Misselli, >> yes to all except I'm abstaining on BF2526.16 BOE 9. >> Mr. Oello, >> yes to all except BF2526.16 BOE3. >> And Mr. Yes to all except BF2526.16 BOE7. >> Thank you. >> Okay, got it with me? >> Okay. Facilities and operations. >> Excuse me. At the recommendation of the superintendent, I make a motion to approve the following items. F2526.2. Any questions? >> Second. Need a second. I need somebody to second. Second. Thank you. >> I heard somebody. >> That's what I heard. >> Does anybody have any questions about that? >> No. >> One day I'll have a question >> and I won't be prepared. >> Roll, please. >> We got to work on that now. >> When professional wrestling comes to town, you
066guys are gonna have questions. The >> Zelo. Yes, >> Mr. Lurentino. >> Yes, >> Miss Roloff. >> Yes, >> Mr. Traverso. >> Yes, >> Maderelli. >> Yes, >> Mr. Oello. >> Yes, >> Mr. Tor. >> Yes. Policy. >> At the recommendation of the superintendent, I make a motion to approve the following items. PL2526.2. They're all on for a second reading from PO173 to P1648-15. >> Stop. Sorry. Thank you. >> Any questions? >> I'll just share the um for the parents student use of vehicles on school grounds. That's going to be updated to read students in grades four and up to ride bicycles to school. Currently, it says grade five and up. And then the student sun protection that was mandated by govern by the governor's office and it just states that students will be permitted
067to bring sunscreen to school. Staff will not be applying the sunscreen but they are permitted to bring the sunscreen. >> Thank you. Any other questions? >> Roll call, please. >> Missyello. >> Yes. >> Mr. Laurentino. >> Yes. >> Miss Roloff. >> Yes. >> Mr. Verso? >> Yes. >> Misselli? Yes, >> Mr. Oello. Yes. And Miss Torbin. >> Yes. >> Um I guess I'll do this one. >> Sure. >> Uh negotiations. Uh at the recommendation of the superintendent, I make a motion to approve the following N2526.1. >> Second. >> Thank you. Any questions? This is a sidebar. There were two um club proposals at the middle school high school. So this is to add the stipen for the two that presented on Monday to the board of education um to be included in the contract. >>
068Thank you. >> Chair, do we know what the stipen is? >> The 861 which is the minimum within their contract currently. >> I will also say that there there were five or six clubs that ran last year that are not running this year based upon the evaluations that were completed last school year. >> Thank you that information. Roll call, please. >> Miss Einelo, >> yes. >> Mr. Florentino, >> yes. >> Miss Rolloloff, >> yes. >> Mr. Traverso, >> yes. >> Misselli, >> yes. >> Mr. Archello, >> yes. M. To >> Yes. Personnel. >> At the recommendation of superintendent, I make a motion to approve the following items. P2526.9 through P2526.15. >> Can I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. >> Any questions? >> I will go through. We have a power that resigned
069then some leaves. The appointments are um number one has reached the 90 days. per the contract. He's relisted an OT who is replacing Kim Ferando who uh recently resigned a lunch aid and a substitute custodian. Number four has been working with us for the last two summers and he will he uh requested um he showed interest in being a subcustodian which would be really helpful for the district. Then we have the stipens salary revisions. Our mentors are being approved for our new staff. And point 15 is a college student to complete speech language pathology internship in the spring. >> Any questions? >> Actually, I do the chair. >> Sure. >> Just out of curiosity, the student did the student reach out to us or do we have something some kind of connection with? the student
070reached out to us. It's actually the daughter of one of our staff members. So we try to accommodate someone um who is part of our you know related to our staff and also residents of Saddlebrook. So we partnership with Ramipo College and that's where most of our student teachers are clinical interns are from but then we also when there's a Saddlebrook resident that reaches out to us and they want to complete their internship with us or a family member of a staff we try to accommodate it if we're able to. >> That's good to know for the future. Thank you. I did my internship here. Okay. Um, roll call, please. >> Miss Eel. >> Yes to all, but I'm going to abstain in P2526.12 item number two. Yes to everything else. >> Mr. Lurentino. >>
071Yes. >> M. Roloff. >> Yes. >> Mr. Verso. Yes, >> yes, >> Mr. Oello. >> Yes, >> Mr. Dorva. >> Yes. Committee reports. Anyone? >> No. No. Committee reports. >> Okay. >> Leaison reports. >> You don't even have >> for what? >> Leaison reports. I have two of them. >> I have PTO's. >> Go ahead. >> All right. Uh, let me start with Franklin when I get it. Okay. An update on Franklin PTO from the meeting Monday night. They had their first PTO meeting on 9:15. Uh, in new business, they welcomed their new PTO treasurer, Katie Garrison. The PTO website is constantly being updated and including links for upcoming events, spirit wear, and details on their 2025 tricky tray. This year, their Tricky Tray brunch uh their Tricky Trays brunch and bubbly. It will be
072held on November 15th. Donations are being collected and ticket sales tickets are on sale now. Parents received a flyer on September 9th requesting contributions. $15 for a class party and a $20 donation towards the tricky tray to make baskets for each class. The flyer also outlined a year at a glance calendar of PTO events. The PTO president, Diana McCarthy, spoke last night at back to school night and shared a QR code for PTO signups and gave an overview of events plans for the year. The fall book fair is October 8th and 9th. Picture day is October 21st. Halloween events are in the works, including the second annual spooktacular on October 28th. Mr. Robinson reported on summer school updates, including new tiles, benches, the sixth grade rock garden, and new staff hires. He also announced a
073reading assembly scheduled for September 19th. And finally, they're seeking sixth grade committee volunteers. Their next PTO meeting will be October 7th. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> I have Washington. >> I have high school, too. But you I'm sorry. I forgot you had >> I thought you had forgot you had two. >> Um, this year's off to a great start at Washington School. All the preschoolers are settling in well and acclimating to their new routines. Uh, seventh classroom is up and running. uh and they welcome Miss Reli um as as the new teacher this school year. They're also in the process as Mr. Karate said of replacing all the windows and they look amazing. Uh teachers along with the PTO are in the progress of in the process of planning many fun events fundraisers
074for the year. More to come on that. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any high school middle school? >> They had their first PTO meeting tonight. It was actually an inperson one, the first one since co Um, they're going to have future virtual, they're going to have future meetings virtual, two for middle school, two for high school. The fundraisers that are planned are photo night and pocketbook bingo. Uh, they provided breakfast for teachers after back to school night. They're providing the water for homecoming, which is tomorrow night. They also plan on raising funds to give out uh scholarships again. And they concluded their night with raffling off some great prizes. Thank you. >> Go ahead. >> School's first PTO meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 7th at in the cafeteria. For any additional updated
075informations at any time, please visit the LMS PTO website, which can be found off of the LMS main homepage. Previous programs, our annual kindergarten playd date was held on Tuesday, September 2nd. The incoming kindergarteners were warmly welcomed with popsicles, water, jitter, glitter, and a poem. and colorful sidewalk talk as they met their new classmates and teachers. The LMS faculty and staff started their week, first week of school with a special treat, coffee and pastries to kick off the new year. PTO membership forms will be going home this week. The fall book fair will be held on Wednesday, September 24th through Thursday, se oh and Thursday, sorry, September 25th and Friday, September 26th during school hours. We will also be hosting an evening book fair taking place during our back to school night on Wednesday, September
07624th. During back to school night, we invite the LMS families to stop by the PTO's table to meet members of our executive board and volunteer for our upcoming PTO events. Our annual David's Cookie and Cheesecake fundraiser will be taking place September 19th through October 3rd. October's orders will be delivered before Thanksgiving. Please consider ordering from an LMS family. The annual trunk or treat event for LMS families will take place on Friday, October 17th. Volunteers are needed to decorate trunks. We look forward to a wonderful school year. Thank you. Anybody else? >> For um the uh NJ SBA meetings. Just wanted to remind everyone that there is a meeting coming up on Monday, September 29th at 6 PM at the Holiday in Hasbrook Heights. You could either attend in person or go virtual. And the topic
077is AI 2.0 in education navigating the next wave together. So if we decide that we want to go now that for us >> sign us up. >> Yeah, I'll go. You want to know now? >> Silia said yes. you join us. >> Yes, I am >> for the NJSBA. >> Yeah, for two days anyway. >> No, not the conference. >> The regular meeting that's here. >> Okay. If you want to go in person or virtual person like the person >> it's a Monday. Is that hard? >> Okay. We'll let let you know. >> Okay. Are there any other reports that need to be done? Okay. Um, okay. Correspondence. >> No. Oh, I didn't know you old business. >> Yeah. Some quick old business because the Hall of Fame uh committee is old business. No, you
078can do it, Tony. Sorry. Uh, next meeting is going to be September 30th here at 7 PM. Um, we're going to start now the process of actually inducting members and things like that. So, if people want to show up, we will be here. Great. I have a question on that. How many are do you plan inducting? >> We have not determined that yet. >> Okay. >> That was old business, right? New business. >> Okay. >> Can I have a motion to open the meeting to the public? >> Thank you. All in favor? I >> opposed. Does anybody want to speak? Just checking. Okay. A motion to close the meeting of the public. >> Give me a second. Thank you. All in favor? >> I >> opposed. Okay. We're not going into closed. >> Okay. >>
079Can I just say one thing? >> Sure. >> Okay. >> Um I just wanted to give a shout out to the cheer coaches. They're new. Taylor and Angelica. They are amazing. I'm shouting them out because my daughter's on the team, so I know firsthand how well they're doing. Um, we did a halftime, a battle of the halftime in Wallington, which was like really nice to see the girls doing like competing against like a competition and they're all our regular cheerleaders. They're not competition cheerleaders. So, that was really nice to like they just >> felt the vibe of being in a competition setting. So, that was awesome. Um they're such good good cheerleaders um for our cheerleaders and uh >> they were great in game. >> Yeah, I'm very I'm I'm happy to say that they're
080doing so well and I want to just thank them. >> Their halftime routine was really good. >> The halftime they hold up signs. They get the crowd going. They actually cheer to what's going on on the field which makes me happy. >> Right. >> So just wanted to let you know we appreciate you >> through the chair and sorry in the in the same breath Mrs. lab and her other her the other coaches, I guess that's spirit cheer, right? Were at our pep rally uh in town supporting our younger cheerleaders. So, thank you to them for coming out and sort of showing showing them that, you know, they're waiting for them to come in future years. So, that was really cool. >> That was to the chair. I will say that I was quite impressed
081with their routine at um at the uh game. I actually thought it was our competition cheerleaders. I I was impressed. I didn't realize our cheerleaders were that did so well like that. So, it was very nice. It was >> good for all of them. >> No, it was great. It was great routine. Okay. Anything else? Anybody? Can I have a motion to close the meeting? All in favor? >> Opposed? Thank you so much everybody.