12-13-21 Denville NJ BOE Board Meeting

001roll call please mr cappello here mr cass here mr anderson here mr lure here mr kim here mrs gould she just stepped out yes mrs wagner here if we could all rise for the pledge of allegiance pledge allegiance 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 okay upcoming special presentations we have dr cullers presenting in january on the district test course and we have two board members tonight who this is their last meeting so we have a little parting gift mr thank you mrs gould is our other member who had to up here she comes right on cue mrs will thank you okay and now on to superintendent's comments dr forte thank you let's start

002off with a short recap and update on our district goals we have two goals this year one is under something i'm working on pretty much not that we're all not working working on all the same stuff but doctor kyles will speak about the other district goal in a minute the first one was to successfully transition all students and staff back to 100 instruction in person instruction so we had to create and implement a plan to provide services to the school community address learning and social needs that may arise from the pandemic the second part was to provide a robust summer program to address the learning and emotional needs of students and at this time we did we we were successful having everyone returned to school all staff and students and our summer program was completed

003there were um it was about double the amount of people that typically go to our summer program and um from what i saw and what dr kulas saw and from our staff it seemed like the children were very excited about it and i did see several staff members who said they were excited about it our little project update we have um the lakeview roof still a couple minor items but for the most part it's it's pretty much complete there's a supply chain issue with with a piece with one of the parts that that's needed um they're going to work on an alternate for that and we should have it done soon but there's still a couple things open the riverview hvac good news is the gym is reopened it did reopen on friday it is

004usable there are there's still some work being completed and the work the majority of the work should be completed over the winter break um there's some duct work that has to be done in the demolition of the old system in the apr but right now the heat in the gym is is working it's functional and the pal basketball is back in the gym today so covid we are last week was was a tough one we had 17 new cases throughout the week um as of friday we had we had 22 positive cases so we were we were scrambling to get you know coverage and doing all the things we needed to do but we were also concerned that it was going to um continue to grow so the good news is that the amount of

005new cases today was less than than was less than that came off so we're we're actually made a little bit of ground today so we went from 22 positive cases on friday and now we have we have 19 total cases we we did reduce our quarantine from about nine from 94 to about 84 right now so we're we did have some success this week we're hoping that we can still continue we did work closely with the department of health last week on a conference call to to go over our the how all these different cases and some of the questions i've received is is there some type of a percentage it's not about a percentage it's more about department of health is very concerned with cases that are not linked meaning like three different cases

006maybe from the same room that don't have an outside link that would mean that they would feel that it was spread in the class that's the biggest concern is to keep the spread of covet out of the schools it's been our goal since the first day in march 2020 and it's still our goal now is to do everything we can to reduce the likelihood that that covert would spread in the classrooms or in any kind of district activities so that's that's our main concern right now but a short-term win right now the fact that we we did have a little bit of a reduction over the weekend um hopefully we're we'll see that trend continue and maybe we will go back down stay positive um but again it's with working with the department of health

007working with the families the family's been great about communicating with the district and letting people know when there's when there's a positive case at home or when students have symptoms that's helped a lot our region activity too for the first time since last year our the entire state is back in the orange or high level and that does come with some changes so now the quarantining rules are different when you're in the orange level then they are in the yellow so that's all on our website and i include it every week in the in the friday updates also just to let everybody know our next board of ed meeting will be january 3rd it's our reorganization meeting and the regular meeting that's it for my comments thank you dr forte assistant superintendent's comments dr gullis

008just continuing on with our second goal which is to always increase achievement for our students that's a goal every year and we pick a focus area and this year our focus area is in math and we did purchase three new math programs to assist our students one of them is called dreambox it's an online program that students can work through their skills at whatever level they're at all the way up through 12th grade so it gives an opportunity for students to fill in some of the gaps they may have in math but also to continue to grow in in the different areas each area it could be geometry algebra counting and cardinality all of the different areas students can grow in differently in each one so is that opportunity we also are using math 180

009and fifth to eighth grade classes where students are showing a need to have significant growth before going to high school so that they're ready for algebra one so that is really our goal is to get all students ready for algebra one the high school has changed their programming and now all students no matter what level if they have not already completed algebra one in middle school would be would take it as a ninth grader that's about 75 percent of our students they used to offer programs that would run over two years but now they only have the one year program no what matter what level uh the student is at so we're just trying to really prepare our students to be ready for that change we did also purchase some additional manipulatives for our classroom

010so that each student could have their own manipulative sets and would not be exchanging with other students so that we did not have or we haven't had dr college just hold on a minute try to hold your thought uh we're having a little technical difficulty just hold your thoughts for a minute yep we're just going to give them another minute or two to troubleshoot and then we'll continue with the meeting guys thanks for your patience okay so we're going to continue with the meeting and um unfortunately it seems like people cannot watch live right now but um it seems like it is recording and we will post that recording as soon as possible and dr cullis we're going to go back to you for continuation of assistant superintendent's comments sorry for the interruption no problem

011so picking up with the dream box so we have that program from first grade through eighth grade we also have access to it for kindergarten if parents would like to have that they can participate in that and use that program at school and at home as well so you do have access to that and we have a goal of one hour per week of trying to use that program last year we did offer the dentonville et cetera accelerated learning academy and we will be offering that again this summer so we do have an expanded summer program that's again going to be six weeks and we're going to come out with the information probably late january so probably about the same time that other camps are rolling out information you'll get the information so you can

012make a decision if this is a program that you would like to participate in my other comment unfortunately is is not great news i just wanted to let people know that in recent months we've been made aware of a small number of isolated instances when highly offensive language and symbols were used around the town of denville and in our schools although infrequent even one use of a racial cultural religious or gender related slur in any form is unacceptable and does not live up to the values of the denville township school district our schools need to be a safe and welcoming space for everyone please use this opportunity to discuss with your children how words and symbols are powerful and when used inappropriately can be deeply hurtful to others and we will be conveying these messages

013in our classrooms as well this message will be also going out this week because i know that not every parent has the opportunity to watch the video or come to the meetings so we want to make sure that everyone is aware and that really there is no place for that i mean if that is happening you need to make us aware if you hear that this concludes my comments thank you dr carlos i'm going to take this opportunity to open up comments to the board um if anyone has comments on dr forte or dr collis updates and comments i actually have a question only because on my part of the agenda is um were the covet cases is that going to change the field trips that we're approving is it going to be planet by

014ear or are that they're on for now yeah the field trips are on for now okay thank you but i just wanted to thank dr callus for her comments towards the end not that we want to hear them but i appreciate the fact that the district is taking a um active role in changing what we've seen recently um i know we've had a lot of discussions both and not just related to that but a lot of um a lot more student concerns we've seen this year than we've probably seen in the at least the entire time i've been on the board so um i know the district is is there's a lot going on with everything but i appreciate the fact that we're taking an active role and very um not in standing up against

015either issues and making sure that our students have the supports they need to make sure they're making good decisions and become good citizens citizens in the community so i thank you dr collis and just let you know that you know as 107 and i should that could probably speak for the entire board up here that you have our support and we appreciate what you're doing this is really the work of the rpsc and we work closely with denville voices so i appreciate the efforts of both of those committees making us aware and having the opportunity to discuss the impact of some of these actions i'll just share that i have a few comments i was going to give later with the committee updates um if i can just say i'll save it for that if

016that's okay thanks thank you dr collis i also just wanted to mention that i think that um your statement kind of um in the work that the district has done well i think your statement summarizes the work that this district has been doing but i think that um it just accentuates like you have pointed out to the board when we've been concerned about seeing this um higher number of cases of incidents with um unrest among the students that it's things that we're seeing all over the town the state and the country and that we just have to continue to be aware of it but i think that what the work that the administration and staff has been doing has been in place this year last year and i want to thank you for those efforts

017okay on to business administrators comments mrs grosski no big comments but i just want to say thank you to mr lou or mrs gould for their dedication to the district and their service we really going to miss you guys and uh good luck in your future in diverse thank you laura i apologize can i just ask dr forte a question um dr forte i know we've had some recent changes with uh the state's cali score the covid activity levels can you just talk a little bit about what that means for the district as far as the changes that means in particular i think the quarantine timelines and really who who kind of sets those timelines and and what the guidance we've been getting from the local health department in the state has been sure um

018when we're in the yellow in the orange like we are now we have to go under different guidelines there's a document we posted on here a while ago to uh and we've updated it when needed and the big difference like you said is when the area is in high a high transmission rate closed contact should be excluded from school for 14 days rather than the 10 days we have before so our health department has already informed us that we need to move to the to the orange level quarantining method that we're uh that we're working on that as of today so i guess and i know this is not for you or our staff meant directed at but i have to say it is we've had zero cases of in-school transmission we've had zero cases

019that means of a kid being in our school that has gotten it from somebody in the school we've quarantined hundreds of kids for being in the school right and like once again this is not for you or the staff it's just when we follow the data and we look at it i hope that the local health department and the state could start looking at things and saying okay kids aren't getting it from being in the school they're not getting it from being on the bus and i hope they don't right i mean i want to be as precautious as possible but it is a little bit frustrating that we continue to hold kids out now even longer right so we've had once again we've had zero kids catch it in school so clearly the extra

020seven days we're holding them out doesn't seem like it's going to do anything either so it's unfortunate for the kids that have to be held out for an extended period of time but it's just i guess a little bit of frustration on my side when i look at look at the data and we look at the data and it doesn't seem like we're catching it in the places we're unfortunately having to quarantine kids but i know we're we listen we've got to follow the direction of the experts meaning the state and the health department local health department but i hope that that message can be conveyed to them that we would like to have them look at that data really closely and understand who are the kids we should be quarantining and staff and who

021are the kids and staff that we don't need the quarantine because it seems like we're continuing to quarantine a lot of kids and i want to be precautious believe me this is not meant to just say i want to be you know going against any cdc new jersey department of health or local health department but it is getting to the point where i hope we can get smarter in the way we're doing it and not just overarching and i feel like as we switch into this orange level i understand the concern i understand the levels we got but unfortunate the reality is kids are getting it in other places and including my family's been affected by it that has not gotten into school they've gotten it from being out with their friends sports other activities

022so um i hope that we can get smarter at the way we're doing it and like i said directed to the local health department when you speak to them hopefully we can kind of ask them for some more definitive guidance that makes sense so i did ask that specif the specific question has anybody gotten an art have you traced anything back to one of our schools and as of now they said no the i think what's going on though is if you look at that dashboard in the state there are now getting into the thousands of cases of in-school transmission at least that's what they're saying so and you know no another difficult thing is that there's different health departments for each town so some have dif use like interpret the guidelines in a different

023way um so yeah that's definitely causing some issues but mike i think those are good points and um you know i'm on the phone with the nurses all the time in the health department talking about the quarantining and how to keep the schools open and and i do hope that we get to a point where we start to you know figure out other ways like you said so i think at this point we are to the open public discussion for agenda items only so it is 7 58 according to my watch and i am going to open for our first public comment please note that this public comment section is for agenda items only so if you see an item on the agenda that you would like to comment on please come forward state your

024name and address for the record identify the agenda item that you would like to speak on and you will be heard and then i will tell you the purpose of our bylaw zero 167 public participation in board meetings is to recognize the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters in order to permit the fair and orderly expression of such comments the participants must preface comments by announcement of their name in place of residence statements may be made by a participant shall be limited to three minutes duration and no participant may speak more than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on the topic have been hurt all statements questions or inquiries shall be directed to

025the board president so it's 758 if you have any comments that are related to the agenda please come forward state your name and address and your agenda item number michelle zimmern 34 shawnee trail just a question with the quarantining the virtual one-way is not working my daughter was out for three three weeks they get far behind just having an hour of a teacher after school is not enough for them is there any way that the school is going to be offering tutoring for these kids outside of the school free of charge for parents to get our kids back to where they need to be thank you thank you for your question i will someone from the administration will get back to you does anyone have any other comments related to agenda items there are two

026in the email but they're both uh for a second session the agenda items the discrimination piece is part of that as well right the hibs okay okay i just wanted to clarify because last time i did have something that was on the agenda but i was told it wasn't i'll read this next donna marie cizinski 64 pr please hi sure absolutely go ahead discrimination i think has gotten absolutely worse it's disgraceful some of the things i've seen on facebook these kids are doing my daughter is complaining about the bathrooms being vandalized i mean one of the bathrooms was flooding it's the hallway um it seems like it's just really out of control and i think there might be a good reason behind it and dr kulas i think you might agree with me here we're

027discriminating against our kids in school you guys are okay medical discrimination panic anxiety we're supposed to be stigma free okay you guys are actually participating in the discrimination of our children it's got to stop it's got to it's not right you cannot sit there and only quarantine kids that are unvaccinated when the vaccinated not only get covered but spread covered thank thank you for your comments are there any other comments related to agenda items at this time i ask a question would that include any comments i've already been made any topics that were brought up already or no would that be the later period so if there are members of the public here who are looking to make comments on dr kullis's comments which were assistant superintendents comments letter g of the agenda please feel

028free to come forward now if you'd like and also dr forte's comments so any comments that have already been made were agenda items and if you want to make a comment about them please feel free to do so at this time you can also do it later as well there will be a second public comment section does anyone want to come forward now and be heard no okay so it is 803 i'm going to close the first public comment section and move forward with the agenda moving on to old business action to be taken mr capela would you move us on to old business please i would be happy to uh if there are no objections tonight i would like to move items a b and c a are to approve the reports from november

0292021 of the treasurer of school monies and board secretary b are to approve the education reports including report of student enrollment from november 2021 the report of the health office from november 2021 hib case uh vv 21 2202 vv 21 2203 uh lv 21 2201 and the district calendar for 2223 school year and finally we will be approving the minutes of our work session and executive session meeting of november 8th and our regular session and executive session meeting of november 22nd i'll second thank you mr cappello thank you mr cass comments questions we had a small we had a conversation mr luer pointed out that there looked like there were extra days in the calendar when we reviewed it in the committee i'm assuming that was a typo was that just a formatting thing yeah

030i counted the last day of school was not a day so it's fixed there's five there's built in five snow days and there's one extra day for the memorial day friday if we needed it so there's six days that could be used for for um for snow if we need to and also i did speak with all the local superintendents in our regional and it matches up to their contract that are pretty close not exactly but close as it usually does spring break is the same the major things like that are the same seeing no other comments roll call please mr cappello yes mr cass yes mr anderson yes mr lure yes mr kim yes mrs gould yes mrs wagner yes and on to new business action to be taken personnel mr anderson would you

031move us through that please sure if there are no objections i'd like to move under item number four new business a personnel items one through seven as a block those include our typical new hires resignations retirements employee leaves extra pay salary adjustments under item number one item number two includes the addendum to the contract for dr forte item number three is to conduct some training for ldtc item number four includes a leave of absence for an employee item number five and item number six are contract addendum similar to item number two but these are for dr cullis and mrs gorowski and then item number seven is substitutes i would point out under num item number seven on the addendum there is seven e is an echo f is in foxtrot and g is engulfed i'll

032show them thank you mr anderson thank you mr cass comments or questions seeing none roll call please mr cappello yes mr cass yes mr anderson yes mr lure no on number two yes on the rest mr kim yes mrs gould yes mrs wagner yes on to instruction and programming mrs goulds would you move us through that please sure if there are no objections i move items one through three noting number three is on the addendum to the agenda item one is workshops with expenses for virtual math workshops for that for lakeview riverview and retroactively approve using guided math to catch up students who have fallen behind for lakeview item two is approving the revised expo curriculum units for grades three to five and item three is approving the attached list of field trips requests which

033is a kindergarten trip to rizzo's wildlife center and uh grades six through eight a workshop on the arts seminar at the morris museum i'll second thank you mrs gould thank you mr cass and yeah it's virtual i'm sorry i didn't oh it does that's actually why i was surprised and wanted to clarify with the changes in covet cases so i apologize so other comments or questions i have a comment about the or question about the field trip requests i was looking at looking at the spreadsheet we previously approved the girls and boys soccer and the cross-country away games we don't seem to have done the same for boys and girls basketball or wrestling we should probably be consistent one way or the other yeah i saw your email we're on it thank you seeing no

034other comments roll call please mr cappello yes mr cass yes mr anderson yes mr lure yes mr kim yes mrs gould yes mrs wagner yes policy revisions many up for first reading uh mr lower would you mind moving us through policy please sure i would like to move i under policy item one which consists of two four six eight a large number of policies for first reading and four policies for to be abolished um do i have to read them or can i just say as per the okay as per the agenda second thank you mr lure thank you mr kim and just for um the folks who are hopefully watching this recording later on and the folks who are here tonight dr forte where can um these policies be found on the website currently

035under under the district board of ed under policies there's a there's a that's where our bank of policies is where strauss esme and there's also a link that shows all the policies are up for review so those number of policies that mr laura was referring to you can review them at your leisure between now and the next meeting they are only listed here for first reading they will be read and adopted if approved during the second reading which would be at the following board of education meeting seeing no other comments roll call please sorry hold on a second i do have a comment um policy 8600 there's a sentence the one line says the board may provide transportation to and from school for public school students less than remote i i don't understand what that

036means can someone explain it to me i understand that that's what the recommended language per uh strauss esme but i don't understand it and i'm not comfortable voting for something i don't understand mr lure um those are recommendations from astros esme the policy company and [Music] basically what it says is that we are responsible to transports students there's a mileage involved it usually is two miles however denver transports everybody every student okay so the board may provide transportation to and from school for public school students less than remote i don't get what the less than remote part means i think gender for example has it's considered a hazardous um town and less than remote is two miles or less if but however then we'll transport every student in this district so if i may tamara

037so you're saying that remote typically in this setting means less than two miles but or more than two miles sorry um not remote as in virtual which maybe is where some confusion is so greater than two miles we consider remote is considered remote and we would transport them but within our district every student is offered transportation is that correct that is correct and that's what the language means i don't know if that helps the way i read that sentence was remote as in we couldn't get a bus there right like remote area of like which is dave's probably correct we could probably adjust the wording in there to be a little bit more descriptive or almost remove it since we our policy has been to transport all students i don't think there's anybody that's remote

038that we don't transport right it may not be that they don't pick them up front of their house let me put them up at a location that would be acceptable but this is the recommended language and it has been in place for many years and all the districts as well has the same language i did verify with a few districts and they all have the same language we can change it as a district however um it has been in place for quite some time now yeah so maybe i mean i'm looking at the language so obviously this is only required language if you provide courtesy busing which we obviously do so i think maybe if you can give us some clarity on the term remote that there's a definition that exists in in school transportation

039that's that's a thing i think that might help because then you know we understand we understand what that means are you looking at our old language as well because i'm wondering what our old language was that it was changed we'll look into that it's also a first reading right so we could make adjustments before second reading and adoption is that correct dr forte yes it is we'll i will look at it too mr laura are you comfortable with that it's probably right it says exactly what it says in our current policy it's just that if you want like if there's if there's if the board members would like us to we could define the word remote in the parenthesis or something so actually looking digging down a little deeper the word remote does appear later

040on and it says this the board will approve all bus routes each school year bus routes for all non-remote students who must walk to and from school along hazardous routes and goes on from there so i'm beginning to get clarity on what remote means here it does seem to mean a distance that you define from the school right i mean that seems fairly clear and it's usually remote it's more than two miles which we are responsible to transport in our case we transport every student so maybe for full clarity in parentheses next to remote in that policy we put greater than two miles from the building are we under a time crunch to get this one done no but it's not going to be done until january 23rd so we have plenty of time in

041the middle because the other thing too is is we don't approve bus routes anymore we get rid of doing that because the state doesn't require that so we need to fix that in here too because i used to get this 20-page report of every street that the bus ran on and no one ever looked at it so we decided we weren't going to approve things that didn't make sense so can we just let's make sure we clean this one up i guess i don't know if it needs to go back to transportation or it has to go there or if we could just clean it up outside of the committee but either way we should just clean this one up i think it makes sense we'll make sure it's all squared away by the end

042of the week so can we just pull it tonight from the can we make a friendly amendment i would be okay with such a friendly amendment mr cass i believe you were the second are you okay with removing it was mr kim oh it's mr kim i apologize so so we're going to remove that policy from uh being approved for first reading tonight p 8600 yes yeah i'm fine with that just to be clear that'll extend this one this one will then have to be first reading next time okay thank you everybody i appreciate you uh putting up with me uh being particular about stuff like this damaris are you good do you need anything else from us before we vote no well good okay all right if there are no other comments roll call

043please mr cappello yes mr cass yes mr anderson yes mr lure yes mr kim yes mrs gould yes mrs wagner yes okay on to finance mr kim would you please move us through finance sure i'd be happy to i motion i propose or i move that we approve section d finance uh num numbers one through ten as a block keep in mind that number ten is on the addendum on the yellow page where number one is the check the two checks listed on the agenda number two is the approval of the amendment to the agreement with uh delta dental forgive me number three is to publish the advertisement of sale of 632 chromebooks number four is to prove the attached quote from the command radio communications number five is to prove the settlement agreement for

044a student and number six is to approve the contract with ccl therapy number seven is to approve the contract with fund fit therapy and number eight is to approve e-rate consulting uh and their consulting services and number nine is to approve the change order for the roofs on lakeview i believe it's for the galvanized ladders and finally number 10 is to approve the settlement contract for another student i'll second thank you mr kim thank you mr cass comments questions just a quick question i apologize i didn't ask it earlier i actually just realized that i looked at this over the weekend and forgot to ask on the radio purchase i believe that's item number four um i noticed riverview and valley view were all listed on there is lakeview good with their radios right now

045is that why they're not purchasing more we purchased lakeview last year and this we have a cycle this coming year will be riverview and valley view and the future you'll be the garage transportation got it okay and and the numbers are correct right rearview has double the amount of radios that valley view does is that just what they have now they are ordering a few more uh especially riverview because they have two buildings two buildings okay make sense thank you the uh the chromebooks are the sale of the chromebooks is this akin to uh when we have previously sold uh laptops where they've where we stripped all usable parts from them and they're effectively non-functional these are these are these are the chromebooks that are not being used anymore due to just older so any

046ones that we wanted to take the parts from we did these are the other ones so we'll sell them some whole is this the kind of thing that's going to be uh basically offered as a block this isn't like we're going to be offering hey anybody who wants to come in can put a bid on a single chromebook and i hope not no it should be it should just be going out as a bid and people will come in and you know bid a certain amount per unit something like that it's a block sale for the entire finally have we we are currently providing a chromebook to anyone to everyone in the district am i correct about that we have enough chromebooks for every student okay so there's no nothing to be gained by holding

047some of them back for uh special needs or people who are in financial distress or anything like that these are red these are need to go for older chromebooks it might be uh it's probably a good idea to go into detail about the uh agreement with delta dental james do you want to do that or do you want me to oh you can certainly okay if i remember correctly and please correct me if i'm wrong uh damaris i think negotiated uh the broker did the growth insurance broker i negotiated an agreement where it would go up is it three percent this year it would be three percent for the next two years uh 2022 increased three percent and 2023 will be zero percent thank you sure seeing no other questions or comments roll call please

048mr cappello yes mr cass yes mr anderson yes mr lauren yes mr kim yes mrs gould yes mrs wagner yes moving on to operations mr cass would you move us through operations please i'm glad to under operations we have items to move on the transportation and building and grounds starting with transportation we have two items the first one is that the board approved to award truck keen international for the purchase of two 54 passenger school buses and the second one on transportation is to approve to award h a d heart sun incorporated for the purchase of one 24 passenger school bus under buildings and grounds the first item is the for the board to approve morris knowles high school to borrow the valley view middle school wrestling mat for the holiday tournament coming up in

049the middle of december it's great to see uh sports returned to morris knowles high school especially a sport like wrestling and the second item is to approve the rental of rubbery school for a kids to pros summer camp from june 27 to august 19th this is the uh first time that this organization is going to be doing a summer camp at our schools we discussed it in the operations committee the finance committee and uh they do stem which is fantastic uh have something like that in our town for the kids to do over the summer a second you beat me thank you mr cass thank you mr lure questions comments uh demires um these two uh for the purchase of the buses uh we're approving them today because we want to get them with those

050orders in early because of logistical and supply chain reasons but these will be in the budget for next year right no there will be in the 21 21-22 school year purchase okay so we'll be purchasing them with our funds um from this year so this was not something that we approved in the budget last year that is correct great thank you it might be important to just note that we're not actually going up in buses though is that right demario's like we're not we don't now have not gonna have three extra buses there's three that are that are aging out correct our buses expire but we can only use our buses 15 years and we have three buses that will be expiring in june 2022 254 passengers and 15 24 passenger we would like to

051get this order early enough because it has been a long time shortage of not just buses but everything in general including the radios and as soon as we can place this order we can at least guarantee to have them for the summer time seeing no other questions or comments roll call please mr cappello yes mr cass yes mr anderson yes mr lure yes mr kim yes mrs gould yes mrs wagner yes okay we've arrived at good of a cause committee reports correspondence and discussion items i have something to bring up before the board among my assorted duties in town i'm on the dental recreation committee and uh lo and behold we had somebody come to the public portion at our last meeting and that was to uh bring up the town doing challenger yogurt for

052special needs uh children and adults and as some of you know you know hub soccer does a challenger program in the fall it was very well attended and successful this year um but uh some of our neighboring towns do uh a lot more in this area i found out as a result of the parent that came in and pitched this to us that over in rockaway township they do football weightlifting as well as soccer basketball and of course you have morris county challenger baseball so um the committee was very receptive to uh putting something together so um you know probably be on a saturday uh mid-morning and uh the sponsorship is still tbd uh possibly pal possibly the library where uh adult yoga goes on it's been virtual during the uh the covets so i'm

053really glad to see that gaining some traction and probably you know we're all busy with the uh the holidays coming up but um you take a look what's being done some of these other towns um maybe that's something we could do in denville uh i know in rockaway they have a specific board of directors for those challenger sports so it'd be great if we could do something like that and denver and you know have the kids participate in their hometown thank you mr cass um i was able to participate uh at the hour of code that had occurred last week and i was fortunate enough to go to valley view and just to see the children coding you know right in front of our eyes was truly astounding i've seen kids create screen savers and

054and other code from minecraft or some other software or some games so i'm really encouraged to see how well that program is unfortunately i wasn't able to go to lakeview because my appointment occurred on the day that there was a power outage so um so i want to commend the administration and the teachers and the staff uh for running what i perceived to be as a successful hour of code campaign and i was being told that that also continues throughout the school year too for the children who are interested so again congratulations to everyone that was awesome i have a committee report for the rpsc the equity subcommittee a bit of a closing state of the term statement if no one minds putting it in here in november the committee responsive practices for student equity

055met denville voices for racial justice had requested to discuss what appeared to them to be a recent increase in the use of bias in the unbiased incidents and racial slurs occurring both in the schools and the committee community the committee spoke about policies and procedures in the district to respond to such incidents ensuring staff are adequately equipped to intervene and how to be proactive with the students denville voices has offered assistance if it's needed in any student groups organizations that may be appropriate such as in the student advisory at valley view i expect that this conversation will in the committee will will continue in the committee when it reconvenes in january as my term ends at the end of the month i want to thank this committee and especially my coach co-host from the board

056james mr kim for their dedication and their time i believe it's of great value to the district and community to provide a venue for group discussion between the two to better understand each other's viewpoints and learn what the district has done to ensure equity and how they can improve i ask that whoever's of the next board president and committee chair continues to have an open and honest conversation and i look forward to participating as a community member and as it's my last time up here i wanted to express my gratitude to the whole board and the district for the past three years this has been a very rewarding experience and i learned just why our district is so strong despite having different personal stances the board and district staff come together to focus on what's

057best for the students for their health safety and education it's been an interesting time the past two years with unique challenges with the pandemic and the awareness of racial based incidents in 2020 i applaud the district staff dr forte and dr kullis for an excellent excellent virtual program maximizing safety measures for return to in-person and keeping our students and staff as safe as possible i also commend them on the focus of racial issues being addressed last year in staff professional development and i know they have a strong interest in ensuring equity in our schools and i also acknowledge that as a district and a community we still have so much to improve i want to emphasize to all the parents and the board members there are paid campaigns spreading misinformation leading parents to demand that

058crt should be critical race theory should be removed from the curriculum when it is not taught in k-12 but in post-collegiate levels i want to encourage parents and board members to continue their education from reputable sources and to use critical logical thinking when making these incredibly tough decisions that affect the lives of our students and our community there have been incidents of bias in and outside of our schools involving school-age children using racial and homophobic slurs this is not acceptable and it's up to all of us to ensure that we are in fact a stigma-free community our children are watching and we are their role models we must acknowledge our part in this and speak up when injustice is being done racism exists in every community including our own we must acknowledge our privilege and

059lean in to support marginalized communities and it starts in rooms like these and with our friends and families none of us appear can speak to what a student experiences in the district when they have a very different background than our own to know where and when they feel supported or if they feel unsafe every child deserves to have a safe and secure school environment and it's essential for learning so thank you all very much and thank you uh i've just got a few quick comments obviously our last board meeting of the year and a couple things that come to mind i mean first of all i just want to say thank you to the parents it's been a it's been a tough year it's been a tough couple years but the patience of everyone in

060the district has been much appreciated by the board by the administration by the staff even as recently as just last week i guess it was we had a power outage at lakeview and i think called school closed at the last minute and i thought oh god i'm going to look on facebook and we are going to get just reamed up and down and there was so much understanding from the lakeview parents i mean it was it was a last-minute call on a quick decision uh just uh not something we could have probably predicted but everybody was really patient and um i think that that that's what makes this community great is that everybody kind of pitches in when needed i know there were families that helped each other and and even last week they kind

061of chipped in and said hey i can watch your kid today so you can go to work um it's not been easy and i can promise you that um this this board this district we don't always make the right the perfect decisions we don't always make the right decision but we do the best we can to try to do the make the right decision and we always correct ourselves if we think we're making the wrong decision and i agree with a lot of a tremendous amount of what katie just mentioned in her comments um i thank katie and dave for their dedication their service to the the community and the students of this this town i thank laura and dino for their leadership this year it's not been an easy year um and they've stepped

062up tremendously to uh to be here for the students like i said in the community so i thank everybody for for being here for us and uh hopefully 2022 brings a lot healthier and better year but i appreciate everybody's support throughout the year i'd just like to say that i have greatly enjoyed working with the people who are who have been on the board and in the administration over the last six years i won't say i've enjoyed the actual work but i've enjoyed the people a great deal that i've worked with so thank you very much um just a couple of comments um i actually met someone in town who uh does work for transportation companies he does large analysis of uh bus transportation for the likes of new york city he said that the

063recent infrastructure bill has a tremendous amount of money uh focused on electric buses and electric electric infrastructure for fleets uh something we should consider taking a look at there may be some there may be some opportunities to leverage our fleet into electric buses he says that's certainly the way the larger fleets are going and eventually it probably will trickle down to smaller fleets like one in denville so something we may want to keep an eye on i was also at the hour of code with james it was a lot of fun i always say with this is andreas's class i missed lakeviews as well for the same reason unfortunately but it's always great to see what the kids are doing i had a couple of kids in the class i was in that were doing

064independent projects just totally on their own crew decided to create a game and just went off on his own and just started doing it so it's very cool to see so and last thing is i do want to thank both of you um katie and dave sorry katie and dave um we make a joke we make a joke when you first join uh we tell you you're usually your families in the audience thank you for lending us your spouse for the next three years um that's actually true you spend a tremendous amount of time not only here but offline it trends amount of internet intellectual capital it is a commitment it's a commitment to the students of denville to the parents of denville to the whole community and it's not one we should make light

065of i also want to thank laura for being president for the last two years two of the probably the toughest years that i've been a board member so i appreciate your leadership and i appreciate everyone here uh you've done a tremendous job you know i'm honored to be a board member with you all and i want to wish katie and dave wall and whatever you do next thanks thank you dino and i want to say it's all your fault and i just want to echo um you know sentiments to which katie and dave well wishes and thank you for the tremendous amount of time that you've put in with the board and these last uh two three years have not been the easiest but thank you for your time and you know it'll be interesting

066to see what you do with all that free time so thank you and i enjoy to thank the members of the public coming to tonight's meeting have a happy and safe holiday thank you mr cass okay with that um we are down to oh do you want to do our highlights how is um dr khal's statement um mr lure mrs gould last meeting thank you for your service and the district calendar for 2223 has been approved i think those are great okay with that in mind it is 8 38. i am going to open up second public comment section this public comment section is on any topic that you wish um we're gonna can we try out this time right now we have a new timer um just so that everybody can see the time

067that we're keeping we ask you to keep your time to three minutes so bear with us as this is the first meeting using it and apparently mr cappello is feels comfortable with it to turn it on so that we're on the same page so if you have a comment for the board please come up state your name and address and you'll be heard we ask you to keep your comments to three minutes the paragraph that i read that's in the agenda still holds true and i just ask you to remember that this is not a back and forth session this is just for you to make a public comment if you choose to do so hi my name is kim luer um 9 wildwood terrace in denville and i just really want to thank this

068board for everything they've done not just during coved but over the last five years that we've been involved with valley view school there was quite a lot that happened in these years that i would have never expected to happen in this town going back to when we needed a new principal um and that could have been so much worse than it was and the quick action by this board to keep the media away from the children was amazing and i'm sorry i never got here before to say this but with our children's dance schedule and him being here all the time it just didn't happen but thank you for that because even through all of that i never had any doubts that the children would be safe and away from the media with all of

069that going on and through this entire pandemic i have friends in other towns in this county other counties in the state and other states across the country and any time we've discussed what the schools were doing every single one of them said oh my god i wish my district did that you guys really know what you're doing and the kids are safe and they're actually in the buildings and that's amazing because mine haven't left the house in six months eight months ten months twelve months whatever it was so the fact that you found a way to get our children back into the schools five days a week for the entirety of last school year and now back to full days in school this year um it just means so much to us um when the

070pandemic started our son would not go outside because he didn't understand how far six feet really was so he just wouldn't go outside at all and when we started talking about what the school district had planned for the dis and we finally pulled out a tape measure and showed him and when we told him the plans for what the school year was going to be he said oh no they're going to do that then i feel safe and i'm going to go and it just melted my heart that that was me sorry that was because of all of you so thank you from the bottom of my heart from everything you did and i that's pretty much it thank you mrs laura are there other members of the public that wish to come up if

071you do please just sign in and identify yourself name address we have four in the email three are from the same person let's just see if we have any other comments here in person first good evening name jeff heimbach ken wilson ave denville i just want to echo what everybody said you guys are doing a wonderful job keeping our schools open getting our kids to and from my only question is it's more i understand the close contact i understand the covet protocols what i can't wrap my head around and a bunch of my friends is the the bus quarantines you're telling me that we can be in the school with mast on safely away but as soon as we put those kids on the bus it's not the entire bus it's maybe the kid next

072to him in front and back but not diagonally i'm just i guess my question is where did the bus quarantine come from where did that guideline come from is that ours i haven't heard any other districts that are doing it just trying to explain it to my kids players everybody else that gets affected by it more or less is there alternate routes can we run two different bus routes maybe an a route and a b route who's taking attendance for those kids you know are we putting that on a bus driver that's a lot of stress you know as they come into school is the school nurse getting off hey watching every kid maybe i drive my kid to school in the morning but after school myself or my wife is unable to pick our

073kids up so they take the bus home you know i just want to make sure that that quarantine now especially we're going to 14 days correct so now that we're going from 10 days to 14 days you know your first comment was we want to keep the kids educated we saw that technology can fail and i know my daughter's been under one of the quarantines right now and everything is being done to the best of the teacher's ability in these trying times but you know when technology does fail as a sixth grader they really struggle you know their hour maybe hour 20 minutes and then it's like all right what can we do can we go outside can i get you some exercise you know email your teacher ask and it's not always the teachers

074they're under enough stress sometimes it's the uh the technology so i just wanted to know is the bus quarantine something that's going to continue i understand close contact in the school but like mr anderson said it hasn't been traced back to the schools i don't know if it's been traced back to buses i know there's been incidents where you know a child's on the bus or i'm sorry in school they've been tested positive and then we bus quarantine but i don't want to see this happen you know my daughter will come home and be like well that kid sits right next to me in class how come i'm not quarantined so it's just it they say trust the science i'm just i'm not seeing the science on that one so thank you guys again you

075guys have done a wonderful job thus far and i appreciate everything you're doing forward thank you for your comment dr forte do you feel like this is something that you can partially answer at this time yes um so the bus quarantine is is um basically the same as the in person in school except for the fact that the children on the bus are within three feet of each other so if you're on the same seat with somebody if you're in a seat behind or in a seat in front you are within three feet and that's where the three feet that's the three foot rule comes from that there is a there is a rule about 15 minutes though so i know i know you live pretty close to the school so if you're if your

076kids only go one way make sure the nurse understands that your child was only on the bus for maybe 10 minutes instead of 15 minutes i think from valley view you're probably 15 minutes but from riverview you guys are closer so you see what i mean like it's possible your your child might not be on the bus for 15 minutes and that's that's where the three feet within 15 minutes comes from are we saying 15 minutes round trip one way it's 15 minutes in a 24 hour period so just just for clarification it'd be the kid directly across directly behind directly in front but not diagonally not diagonally now we measured it all so it's it worked out to be three feet unless you're sitting next to the person or the seat in front or

077back one last question is there do we i know my kids sit together because they're family but i've heard from other bus routes that kids that are family members they're not in assigned seats and that's been kind of an issue so is that something that's looked into is there a sign seating on the bus and again i'd hate to put more on the bus drivers they got enough to worry about you know what what can we do my basic thing is is this really going to continue the bus quarantine or is that something that possibly you know we open all the windows or is there another way i know purchasing more buses is completely out of the loop but maybe like i said a second route i'd rather my kid miss 30 minutes of instruction

078because they got dropped off 30 minutes later then be out for two weeks yeah i understand let me let me give you a call tomorrow and maybe pick your brain a little bit okay thank you very much and happy holidays to you i just want to clarify that the the bus guidelines that the administration is following for you sir and for all the members of the public that are here are the same guidelines that have been given to us by the department of health and it's not i can't speak to what other districts are doing but it's it's no different than bus versus the classroom but like you said in the classroom those seats are measured specifically so um thank you for your question are there other members of the public who have questions or

079comments at this time please come forward identify yourself laura can i just add something while we have the next member of the public coming up just um with regard and i've had a lot of contact with dr forte about kind of conversations we've had similar questions from the public on on bus quarantines and whatnot um and just to clarify dr forte keep me honest here whenever there's questions about should we or should we not quarantine those are run through the department a local department of health right is that correct and that's typically where if there's any sort of question or anything and they're kind of the the ones that are setting the yes we should quarantine this person are not quarantined or what should be the policy as far as quarantining is that correct so

080we don't call them for everyone like for example we have 94 people quarantining their day but we call for like a news a new uh instance right like something that we didn't talk about before and then we also talk when when the things like right now it's we moved to the orange we called about that so we when in doubt we call them does that answer what you mean yeah when in doubt we call them but but for instance on the bus situation i'm sure in the beginning this was a conversation with the department of health and they said yes the if they're within three feet on the bus then this would be the case is that correct yes and i was on a few calls when that came up so even this last one

081we had last week that came up again we're ready for your comment if you're ready melissa kenyon 71 woodstone road and the last community update that dr forte sent out it said that the covid uh testing that's supposed to be on site was if i understood this correctly not for anyone with symptoms maybe you could speak to that if that's correct and why that would be that's all thank you dr fordy do you feel like that's a question you can answer at this time yeah it's it's a it's a surveillance screening so it's not it's not meant for people with symptoms to come in so you know we don't want to bring symptomatic people from outside into the school is there any possibility like for example my daughter went to the nurse she had a

082headache and said her throat hurt so then she had to quarantine until she got a negative cova test in that instance like is there any possibility that a student like that could get tested at the school facility i mean we had to wait three days to get test results back and that's just lost time of school go ahead yeah our our test results take at least three days as well so the it's not meant for people who are exhibiting symptoms to bring in people who are sick into the school is what we're trying to avoid but if you want i can give you a call tomorrow to talk a little more about it and it's only administered once a week it's it's good to remember that it's only administered once a week not a not

083on a daily basis yeah and just to clarify sorry if it's okay mrs wagner dr forte that that's not testing that our nurses do correct that's an outside company that comes in and does it so it's not something that any of our staff administer yeah it's an outside lab that the state set up for us with the uh federal money and it's meant for the staff we took the federal money so we had to open it up to students as well so it's for all staff volunteers and students if they like would you mind reading the comments that you have from online sure just to be clear because our online system unfortunately is not working right now but these were emailed in prior to the meeting i have three comments from the same person i'll

084read the first one and then you can open it up see if there's other comments this is from lauren jarger from eight thompson road denville why does the superintendent consider our schools to be just barely able to stay open is there a number of students or faculty quarantining or currently infected that would warrant a shutdown if so what is that number if students are fully vaccinated should they should there be an in-person option available to them so i answered the first part in my opening statements that we we were experiencing very high numbers last week but so far this week things are a little bit better there is no magic number but it is it does depend on how many are unlinked and possibly could be linked to the school and then if students are

085fully vaccinated shouldn't there be an in-person option available to them i'm not really quite sure what that means so i'll follow up with her and just for clarification that's from the same community member that was all in the same question so i have two more emails from her and do you want me to read the other two if they were emailed in and you know meant to be read if they were emailed directly to you for you to answer then no but if they were emailed to you to read during the public meeting then yes yeah they're in the board of ed meetings comment question email is there quarantine period still only for unvaccinated kids recently entire class at lakeview quarantined and had to go virtual what is the protocol for going forward now that

086there are fully vaccinated students so right now the guidance from the department of health is that if you're if you are vaccinated and you're a close contact you are a contact and you're asymptomatic you do not have to quarantine if you're symptomatic you do and then an entire class at lakeview quarantine had to go virtual there were a few cases in the one class can't really mention any more than that but hold on steve i just want you to pause for one second dr forte sorry but they're talking about a class at leakview i don't know and i don't know if anybody here recalls exactly when vaccinations for the younger group that became available started but fully vaccinated would be two doses and then two weeks so in all likelihood and you know they're not

087here to have the question asked to them but in all likelihood none of those students were able to be fully vaccinated at that time i really can't comment anymore due to some just privacy concerns there's one more from lauren jarger lauren jarger lakeview just had a day off because the electric and heat were not working and portion of the building did that count as a use of lakeview snow days i'm glad she brought that up because i had it on my comments i must have overlooked it so there was a power outage that it was different kind of power outage it didn't shut all the power off to the building it shut like half the power off to the entire building which i didn't even know could happen but basically instead of having 110 volts

088and everything we had 60. so some of the things could come on like a led light could light but like the furnaces and things like that couldn't light our technology couldn't work so because lakeview now is not in sync with the other two schools lakeview will have to make up a day the day that i have one of the day in my mind right now if we have a fairly mild winter i should knock on something we would when at the end when we remove some of the snow days when we when we give when we close schools to give back the days lakeview would have to do one extra day if that doesn't work they'll have to go on the friday before memorial day that's also a built-in day that can be used for

089snow and if we have to use all of those then unfortunately they'll have to go one extra day in june that would be the plan right now obviously as we progress through the winter i'll i'll make a final decision on that based on information with the principal and the staff but as of right now most likely the most likely scenario would be that that league view would have one extra day at the end when the other schools are closed for snow days dr forte this is a question off the cuff but can you remember in your time here with us that we've used all the snow days aside from maybe sandy so i was before sandy i was in verona at the time and we used a lot there and had to take some you

090guys had you had the same thing here um we did have a time here where we were we were used all of them um we've had some rough winters you know we could have the same thing again i don't want to have that in the back of my mind definitely like i want to take the safety of the students and staff as the most important thing and not worry about that too much um i don't want to say anymore because i think we're going to jinx ourselves hopefully there's a day that we can do and not have to add a day at the end there was definitely one year laura that we had uh there was a debate on saturday coming in i don't think we ended up having to do that but we used

091every single day i think there's other districts that there was a debate at one point on reducing the amount of snow days i know that was a very heated debate at one year going down to four snow days and we kept five in that the one year i remember was that ice storm that was the big one because we lost like two or three days from the ice storm and that was october so that stinks when you lose that many days in october yeah i'm pretty sure we had to take a friday of spring break once yes i know we did it i know i did it in verona but i think we did it here too my wife and parsippany went in on a saturday that was fun that was the same year let

092us know that denville didn't do that thank you there's one more comment this is from tyler barth of the tap he does not provide his address he's with the president he's asking an easy question we should talk about anyway but he's asking will the 1213 meeting be recorded the answer is yes it will be recorded and posted that gentleman emailed in during the lack of youtube live stream yes he did and he did it through the comments email wow that was very brilliant of him so yes um well not anybody home can see me but yes this will be recorded and it will be posted other yep come on up andre is a dulles three king hill court i have a fourth grader and a third grader at lakeview this question is really for dr

093collis so thank you for your opening remarks my phone just shut off thank you for your opening remarks regarding the incidents of discrimination here in denville could you expand on how this is addressed with the children i'm sure there are age-appropriate conversations occurring but if you can give an example greatly appreciated dr collins do you feel like that's something you can answer at this time i'm just to follow up with that if i do get that information through a phone call uh is there a way to share that with larger community or is there opportunity for for us to learn more about this absolutely we do have an upcoming series of workshops that will be starting february march and april and that will be publicized shortly we have a series of parent um one with

094dating one on um how to raise race conscious children and then one on um just it's another diversity workshop that i'm working on with mr stanton so we have a series of parent workshops we used to have a parent advisory for student success academy for student success and it would run every year but the last couple of years we have not been able to run it um i think we only had like the one meeting about the middle school it was the only past meeting that we had we used to run a whole series of parent workshops every year and so those are the three that we're planning on bringing back for this year in addition we also have um one on uh suicide so we have four no because i forgot about the rhine

095stories we have four plans coming up after the winter break now i can say that it is written into our curriculum but when you say examples i want to show you like what does it look like in kindergarten what does it look like in third grade because it does look different um from what obviously the middle school gets into and also where it fits in our curriculum so that i can definitely talk with you about that and make that public you know they can see our curriculum but also some of the neat things that we're doing right now in fact one of the activities the students doing the parents are going to do at one of those workshops but we wanted to not do it with the parents first because we really needed the kids

096to do it from the kids perspective before the parents talked about it with them because it really needed to be from the kids voice but i think you'll enjoy that one so that will be coming up i ken wemp uh 183 shangham wrote uh just to kind of follow up on that conversation um i commend the board of ed and the schools on doing the workshops and so forth uh and the comments that have been made about um denouncing you know uh discrimination and in bias and things like that uh but with respect to the things that have recently happened is the intent to make a public statement to the schools and the the parents that denouncing this that this is a you know schools safe school district that these things won't be tolerated etc

097i know we've kind of said that here but i don't know if that the intent is to communicate that um clearly and concisely to the students and and the parents so um first if you don't mind i'm gonna answer and then i'll defer to the administration um i think that first i think the curriculum here speaks for itself in denville i think that the partnership that the administration and staff has done with several committees to ensure equality and mental health is remarkable and i think that you'll see as dr cullis was speaking with the last member of the public there's many examples that that's throughout the curriculum and the children's day-to-day activities um the other thing is dr cullis's statement during her remarks tonight were for public and unfortunately they were not live streamed but

098they will be shared in the friday folder is that right dr forte yes they'll be sharing a friday folder and post it online so they'll be sharing the friday folder they're here at our public meeting and they will be shared online so as far as more public statement than that i don't know if you feel that that's satisfactory but um i think that that speaks a lot to where the district and the administration feels that this is important and those are the public statements that we've made to date aside from all the work that the district has done with the staff students and community dr kulas dr forte did you have anything you wanted to add i was just going to add based on our last meeting after that meeting i contacted the high school

099because i do have a social justice club so we're trying to work with them in contact with advisors at this point we're trying to organize something where we might have a panel from the high school to come down and talk with our middle school students that would really just be for middle school but we're trying to work out what would that look like particularly to send the message from a closely aged peer but older than them of how hurtful those comments and what those comments mean because a lot of our middle schoolers are just really not fully aware of the depth of what some of the things that they say and do and so we're attempting to get someone that they can relate to but could really just talk with them about these things so

100um that's from our morris knolls high school so that's what we're working on but that i don't have a date for that yet but that came out of our work from the committee thank you if there are other members of the public who would like to speak or be heard please come forward dr forte i'm assuming you're still monitoring yes and there are no further emails would anyone else like to be heard at this time sure there's no one else speaking so you're certainly welcome to speak again andre is adele's three king hell i just want to encourage the board to not view the curriculum or the way that things are going with rose-colored glasses i've been part of this community for the past eight years my children go to school here it is you

101know what you guys do is incredible and i commend you i it's not easy i know it's not easy um but i do want to encourage you to to take into account the the privilege of which you see sit and the way that the community is experiencing a lot of the discrimination and the effects not just on the children but on the community at large so yes denville is wonderful denville has done really great things the curriculum is is terrific we moved out here because of it we moved out here because of it but there are underlying issues there are incidents that occur and as leaders in the community you know i just encourage you to and i know you do you have the the doctor and the phds i know you do i know

102you understand this but um i really just want to encourage you to to take that into consideration when you are you know speaking with the public and trying to hear us i do appreciate that you're working with demo voices i do appreciate that the social justice group and the high school is also getting involved um a lot of that comes from the community members bringing that up so perhaps what i'm trying to say is if it could be a little bit more proactive in the types of way that we support marginalized voices in our community that would be appreciated and i just wanted to get that off my chest so thank you thank you sir feel free to come up and identify yourself um if you're both you know you can both be heard there's

103plenty of time my name is bob grant i live at 114 richard parkway east in the lake arrowhead section i just want to urge the board to look down the road a little bit there's been a couple of instances of racist graffiti uh in the town on the schools um there have been some folks who showed up here who were very unhappy with the the masking requirements and these people are beginning to organize and a couple of the towns around here have had a much more difficult time than danville in montville three incumbents came very close to losing their positions on the montford board of education because of the anti-mask anti-woke anti yeah in in my view anti-humanity point of view of these people um so i it's it hasn't really come to denville yet

104but i think you need to take a very aggressive stand as to what's taught in the schools what isn't taught in the schools and the the zero tolerance for any sort of racial epithets and derogatory comments the mountain lakes republican club has published a facebook page that is cherry-picking comments by various leaders around the country that seem to indicate that everybody that critical race theory is being taught in the schools that it's corrupting the youth and so forth and whatnot so i think it would be a very very wise move to look down the road anticipate the kinds of attacks that are going to come and kind of gird your loins for them thank you just to be clear the district decided to buy something called i scream clock so um i just want to

105say if we if there's a decision we made that wasn't right there was this one to buy this clock so i just want to say i don't i don't i don't like this clock at all uh jerome clark i live at eight king hill court um i appreciate your uh your statement at the beginning of the meeting uh dr carlos um uh with what's going on as far as the school district with the uh racist comments and and and writing on the walls um i guess you know part of my concern is is uh is this something that can be made as like a public record uh to be put out for the parents to see that these complaints are coming in um i kind of felt like uh i was hearing of these incidences

106going on and um if i wasn't in certain groups or around certain people i wouldn't even know about it i know you guys are going to put something out on friday um but is there something where we can keep like a public record to let parents know like transparency that these things are occurring and do and do occur um because that would make a conversation happen at their home um i do feel like the reason why a lot of these things keep going on around it is because conversations aren't being had and my daughter who's five to turn six actually asked me a question um why don't people like rosa parks was because she was black and i couldn't believe she has that at five so i tried to explain that in five minutes which

107turned into a two-hour conversation that i had to actually get a globe because questions just kept coming and coming and coming but um i think i think all this needs to be discussed um in uh homes with our kids um i think that if we i think that if we hear about this when it happens and and not later but like right when it happens but you know not months passed or um i think that will start to make a difference um it's it's uh silence equals compliance in certain situations and i'm glad to hear the board has no tolerance for racism um or any bigotry of any kind in our district so i just want to you know thank you for uh that that comment your statement at the beginning but i do have

108a question if we can get something like a public record to know that hey guys these things are happening go ahead and look for the parents to see all this is going on so thanks so i'm going to turn it over to the administration in one second but i think that the administration is going to have some answers for you about privacy issues so um and i'll let them speak to that but i just wanted to be clear that there are rules and regulations that the board has to follow for privacy issues for students as far as complaints are concerned so there's not always the um i think that sometimes it might appear that the board is or the district is attempting in some way to hide something but it's about following the rules and

109regulations that the board must follow and that has been set forth so to that i'll if dr kulas or dr forte want to um speak to that um please do so so i made a note to speak to dr calls about this tomorrow we'll have a conversation see what we're allowed to do what we're not allowed to do um typically if it's a discipline issue like where we know who did something we probably can't make that public because it's the student record but we'll have a conversation about it and see what what kinds of things we can do going forward is there an investigation involved in that like is you say there's rules and regulations is there somewhere where the parents well we can read the rules and regulations to see exactly what's being done

110because it doesn't have to be a student it could be anybody in school we that's nowadays you know it could it could be i don't want to say it but it could be like a teacher janitor whoever who wanting there wrote it and something was going on like like i i under uh understand that you can't speak on it when it comes to the kids but uh putting that out there we're not asking for a name i just think when it's an incident that happens i just feel like it should be taken seriously i'm not saying you guys don't take it seriously um that us as parents and myself um i would rather know what was going on in the moment than find out later that that something has been happening because if my daughter

111came home and you know she's so sensitive and say hey you know i was called this word or or or this word is happening um in riverview or lakeview or wherever i would be pretty upset so and i i think um a lot of parents uh you know need to know so that's what i'm saying so i don't know if this um specifically answers your question but there and i'm sure you're familiar with the harassment intimidation and bullying policy that the district has and that's statewide um and that outlines not only and correct me if i'm wrong dr forte dr hall is not only a complaint against it doesn't limit it to students but that would be a complaint of anything that happens within district buildings or as can be related back to students attending

112school so that policy is in place and is is available online for you to view at any time and those guidelines and there's also the reporting guidelines and the investigation and the timeline that's set forth and what is classified as falling into that category and what is not so that is something that the public can have access to and does have access to now i think one thing we can do at the elementary level the kids are pretty open about when they see things they say it and we can work more on encouraging our middle schoolers because it can go on for a length of time before we ever know about it right they're pretty good at you know covering things and not we don't hear about it until it gets a few people down

113the line but i think we can do more to really encourage them if again i think with that high school panel is going to show them it's really important to tell these things so that we can do something about it and not just they get really worried or they want to get our friends in trouble and so forth like i said the elementary they're pretty open about if they see things they tell it's starting to get to the middle where we don't hear about it right away and it takes a few people telling friends down the line before someone comes to tell us i mean we see it if it's written on the wall or something like that but it's verbal that gets challenging but i think there's work that can be done there with

114you know just encouraging to do that i appreciate that and just another comment along just with what we're saying we you know a lot of these things i just want you to know that we're working a lot behind the scenes that maybe we people don't realize and that's why we tried to share with the community even before the the committee was formed we knew what what some of the issues were just just the looking at our books about the number of own voice authors and who are the characters we knew and that's it took us a few years and we invested just this year 36 000 because we knew that was something important so we've been working on these for a few years behind the scenes again with the professional development their staff a lot

115on how to have these conversations because it's not as much as we'd like it to be just easy for them to have the conversations it's not always those words are not always there they don't know okay if someone says this do we just ignore it do we just say don't say that or how do we have the conversation so it has been it has been hours of pd on this because it is it's not just the racial it's also how do we talk about if a student has a homophobic slur how do they do it if they're religious there's a lot to it so we have been working on those things um and we have contracted for the next three years with these organizations so we've been doing it for last two and we have

116three more so we know that it's ongoing we're working really hard to get those conversations and really start where the bias starts you know we're trying to hit the the root of the issues and not just be reactive we really are growing these programs sometimes it is reactive because an incident comes up but we really are starting with kindergarten up with this you know we looked at all of our curriculum all of our forms everything it's just that maybe it's not as visible you know to the public yet lure can i make a quick comment just i think that the the last few comments i mean particularly mr clark's comment i think about hey we need to encourage families to have the conversation at home and i think that this is one conversation we're also

117having conversations about violent incidents we've had in the school hib you know higher hip reports and investigations than we've seen in the past a lot of these are tied together or maybe not tied together but the bottom line is i think there is a lot that we do on the board a tremendous amount even more that's done by the administration and i think sometimes we may not realize how little gets out to the public um and and i i understand there's a a line on privacy on on appropriate communication but i think it's okay for us to say hey guys this is what we're doing right and i think we probably it's probably a good time to make sure we're getting the word out but also more importantly this is what we need from the

118public we need them to partner with us to make sure they understand that we're all in this together right we're we are a great community like miss aidel said right we're a great community but we're not perfect and this is what's going on because mr clark i think his comment hit me because i think the reality is is that there's a lot a lot of people in the public that don't know this is happening and they need to open that conversation with their kids because they may not realize that their kids are either involved in it or hearing it and they can step in right if we've learned anything in the last two years on many of the incidents that's happened it's it's the people not just the people that are doing the inappropriate action

119it's the people around them that need to stand up and say something so if we can get that dialogue going so more people can have that conversation with their families both the parents and the family and the adults in the family and the kids in the family i think it's important if it guys it's not gonna work for everybody right and that's okay but if it works for one family i think that's that's worthwhile and i think it's worthwhile for us to have the conversation on how we can do that appropriately and how we can start a dialogue with the community a little bit more so i appreciate the comments from everybody mr webb mr clark miss idalis it's it's really appreciated it means a lot to me so thank you do you mind if

120i if i add on because actually mike you said something that kind of struck and i think you crystallized it for me from some of the comments and thank you everyone for making those comments um in a way i think we on the board you know not that we are the problem but i think to mr zadalis's point is that we have rose-colored glasses we all moved to this community because we thought it was incredibly accepting um you know a good community where everybody is kind to each other i think that's generally true but i think on the board especially when we've heard about these incidents we've all as a group been shocked by them and i think that shock hasn't really worn off so we felt like these are one-off incidents or these are

121isolated um they're not uh they're clearly not and i think to mr anderson's point is to put it out there what we're doing and the shock we feel and what we're trying to do and what we're seeing is important because it shows that this these aren't just one-off incidents they aren't you know isolated um they're more than that um and i think we've had trouble or you know again i don't want to speak for the board but i think i've had trouble recognizing that that there's patterns or there's things that have happened more than just one time so um you know i just want to say from my own perspective you know i want to try to do better there i want to try to understand that these are things that are happening maybe are

122going to likely to continue to happening and that we should try to do better to make sure that we interact with the community as you know as transparently as possible so that's all i have to say uh just one or two quick things um i just want to really recommend that you can approach the district staff without having to come to the meeting as well you don't always have to wait for this if you want to have a conversation they always invite questions you can call them or email them and the other thing i noticed about hip cases that we've reviewed is often if there's no witness it ends up it won't be hit because there's no witness and so they can't verify what happened so it's also important even if their kids aren't involved

123but it happens around them for them to speak up so does anyone else from the public want to speak no emails so it's 9 26 i am going to close the second public comment section and do we have a need for an executive yes we do four we have a need for [Music] public a private session due to legal matters so just to be clear we are going to vote to go into executive session there will be no voting after this so there will be no further public portion of the meeting so again thank you all for coming happy holidays and i'll take a motion to move into executive i would like to move to convenient executive session in accordance with section 8 of the open public meetings act the purpose of this closed session

124will be to to discuss legal issues minutes of the session we made available to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists second all in favor any abstentions we are in executive session at 9 27.