Monroe Township Board of Education 06.11.25 Regular Meeting

001Good evening. It is Wednesday, June 11th, 2025. This is the Monro Township Board of Education monthly meeting. Can everybody please stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Miss Allen, can we have a roll call, please? Yes. Miss Alvarez here. Miss Bora here. Miss Depay here. Miss Fabiano here. Dr. Pek here. Mr. Piro here. Miss Ratner. Uh, Miss Chararma here. Mr. Tufano here. Mr. Zikner. Yes. We have a quorum. In accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law, the Monroe Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published and electronic notice provided by having the date, time, and place thereof posted October

00225th, 2024 and June 6th, 2025 at all schools on the district website, Home News Tribune, Cranberry Press, and filed with the clerk of the municipality. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is our close session resolution. Whereas the senator Byron Mbear open public meetings act NJSA 104-6 provides that the Monro Township Board of Education may hold an executive session from which the public is excluded to discuss matters that are confidential or are one of the nine subject matters listed in section 12B of the act. and whereas that the board hereby declares that its discussion of the following subjects will be made public at a time when the public's interest in disclosure is greater than any privacy or governmental interest being protected from disclosure. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Monro Township Board of

003Education that the board shall go into executive session to discuss the following items. Additional items may be determined and announced as needed. Uh pending or anticipated litigation matters covered by the attorney client privilege. Matters involving employees and their terms of their employment and contract. HIP investigation involving students, uh, superintendent evaluation, Donaldson hearing, and settlement agreements involving students, uh, numbers are referenced on the agenda. Be it further resolved that said discussion may be disclosed to the public when reasons for discussing and acting upon it in close session no longer exist, action may be taken on any of the items stated above. Can I have a motion to go? Motion second. All those in favor? I I. Any objections? For the members of the public who are here, the board is going to be in executive session

004for approximately uh 45 minutes to an hour. No formal action will be taken in executive session. To the extent that any formal action is taken, it will be taken out here in public um at the conclusion or after the conclusion of executive session. Thank you. Okay. The board should return from executive session around a 7:15. Okay. The board has returned from their closed session. I would like to Is there a motion to close the close session meeting? Motion. Second. Motion by Miss Boris, second by Miss Alvarez. Questions or comments? All those in favor? I I. Any opposed? Okay. Now that I need a motion to open the public portion of the meeting. Make a motion to open the public portion of the meeting. Motion by Mr. Payne. Second. Second by Mr. Piro. Questions or comments?

005All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Um, I would like to make a motion. Miss Alvarez. I would like to make a motion to make Dr. Lee Mindy acting superintendent retroactive to May 6. Second. Second. Second by Mr. Dain. Questions or comments? I would like to table this motion till we've had the discussion on the current superintendent which is supposed to be at the tail end of this meeting. So my suggestion to the board is that this motion can be made at that time based on whatever discussions and actions are taken at that time. If the need is still there, we could make the motion to make. So that's my I would like to make a motion to table this motion. Okay. So, um, Miss Bora made a motion while a motion is pending.

006Second. So, the motion to table, so long as we had Mr. Tfano's second, which I just heard, the motion to table takes precedence over the motion that's currently pending. So, we're going to vote now on the motion to table uh by Miss Bora. There questions or discussions on the motion to table? No. Okay. See, so Miss Allen, please. Yes. Um, Miss Alvarez, no. Miss Bora, yes. Miss Depay, no. Dr. Peek, yes. Mr. Piro, no. Miss Ratner, abstain due to conflict. Um, Miss Chararma, no. Mr. Tfano, yes. Mr. Zikner, no. Miss Fabiano, no. Motion does not pass. So, now we're back to the motion to appoint Dr. Leman as the acting superintendent. Did you say retroactive? Retroactive to May 6th. Excuse me, Mr. Weiss. I have a question. So, this means when we appoint uh Dr.

007Layman, we're going to have to draw up a contract where he'll be be getting paid the same amount of money as Mrs. Chanley who was on paid leave. So, now we're going to have two superintendents with a high salary. Is that what we're doing? Not necessarily, Mr. Tufano. Um the issue is that the board has a policy that says that um when a superintendent is incapacitated that an acting superintendent should be appointed. In that policy the policy defines incapacity as um includes um a superintendent who's uh on suspension. And so, um, there's a school of thought that says that an acting superintendent should be appointed. However, kind of the contra to that is that in the um assistant superintendent's job description, it has a line item that says that the assistant superintendent is to perform

008the the role and function of the superintendent in the absence of the superintendent. So, it's my legal opinion that this motion is not legally necessary um because the assistant superintendent job description contains um that line item. Uh nevertheless, if we were to consider this as a belt and suspenders uh move, the the board certainly can vote to appoint Dr. Layman as acting. it would be a formality only uh because it's my opinion that he already serves in that capacity by virtue of his job description. I have another question for Mr. Vice. Madam President, um given my initial hesitation to put this motion at the end of the night. So now if something changes with the situation with Dr. Chanley, uh we've appointed Dr. layman as the act and at at the end of this motion

009how does that um does it automatically you know revert at whatever time Dr. Chan Le's back. Yeah. Um to Yes. The short answer to your question is is yes. Um because there would be no affirmative action of the board needed at that for that. I I would suggest that the board formally, you know, the board would formally reinstate the superintendent. And so by virtue of that, I would say that the acting superintendent title is extinguished. But again, if the board wanted to be doubly sure that there's no issue um when the board reinstates Dr. Chanley, it could at the same time uh and Dr. Layman's acting status, acting superintendent status. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay. Can we have a roll call, please? Yes. Miss Alvarez? Yes. Miss Bora?

010Yes. Mr. Payne? Yes. Dr. Peek? Yes. Miss Mr. Piro, yes. Miss Ratner, abstain due to conflict. Miss Chararma, yes. Mr. Tfano, no. Mr. Zeer, yes. Miss Fabiano, yes. Motion passes. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is the approval of our board minutes. The first minutes for approval are public board of education meeting minutes from May 5th, 2025. Is there a motion? Motion. Second. Motion by Miss Alvare. Second by Mr. Piro. Questions or comments about the minutes? All those in favor? I. Any oppose? Absentions? Okay. The next minutes for approval are the close session meeting minutes from May 5th, 2025. Motion. Second. Motion by Miss Alvarez, second by Miss Fora. Uh any questions or comments on the close session minutes? Okay. All those in favor? I. Any abstensions or recusals? um just absention on

011the portion uh where conflict exists. Okay. Okay. The next item on our agenda is our student board members report. And before we get started, I do want to recognize that um say Haj, this is your last meeting with us as our student board member. So I do have a plaque here for you that I'm just going to read what it says. Um wherea where whereas seahada has served with distinction on the Monroe Township Board of Education and whereas through her leadership the Monroe Township Board of Education has gained fresh insights into student com student looks like cut off um into student priorities and what is on the mind of young people in the community. And whereas she has further contributed to the community by serving as a valuable spokesperson sharing the student perspective at board

012meetings. And whereas Seah's exemplary commitment to fellow students and the school district has promoted her clear communication between the board district administration and the student body. And whereas Seahash has maintained a professional decorum at board meeting showed respect to the board members and strives to learn proper learn the proper etiquette of serving on the school board and whereas she has demonstrated a commitment to advancing the education of all students without neglecting her own responsibility to strive for success in the classroom. Now therefore be it resolved that the Monro Township Board of Education rec recognizes Seah Haj's dedication and commitment to advancing educational opportunity and open communication between the board district administrators and the student body. And further, be it resolved that the Monro that the members of the Monroe Township Board of Education extends their

013sincere appreciation to Seahage for her dedicated service to the Monro Township Board of Education. And be it further resolved that the members of the Monro Township Board of Education extend their best wishes to Seahage in all of her future endeavors. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I just want to say thank you all so much. I've learned so much by being on this board and it's really really been an honor and a pleasure to serve Monro Township. I can't wait to come back and visit and I know Siona and the future junior board of ed representative are going to be so amazing as well. So, thank you for giving me this opportunity and for treating me with such kindness and respect along the way. [Music] [Applause] [Music] And now your final report. And with that, let's begin our

014report for today. We're beginning with Barkley Brook Elementary School. Barkley Brookke held a tech expo in May that brought together students, families, and educators for an evening of hands-on exploration and innovation. Attendees engaged with interactive stations featuring tools like Lego we do, Osmo, Code.org, and robots such as Photon, and Root, which showcased the fun of coding and engineering. Thank you to the Barkley Brook staff who planned and organized the fun night. Barkley Brook students participated in unified field day events this May. One hosted for preschool students at Barkley Brook on May 8th and another district-wide celebration on May 27th. Both events were filled with energetic activities like relay races and parachute play. All focused on teamwork, joy, and connection. Thank you to all the staff members who designed and organized these memorable and meaningful experiences

015that celebrated unity, acceptance, and the power of inclusion. Barkley Brook second graders and Brookside fourth graders came together for a book buddies event filled with reading, conversation, and creative activities. Each student was paired with a buddy, building connections through shared experiences. The event helped ease the upcoming transition to Brookside and strengthen the bond between the two schools. Barkley Brook continued its partnership with Parker at Monroe as residents visited Barkley Brook for a special STEM activity with the first grade class. Together, students and residents explored the Osmo Monster, an interactive learning game that combines hands-on drawing with digital animation. Using an iPad and Osmo's reflective technology, their drawing came to life onto the screen, creating a magical experience that encouraged creativity, storytelling, and meaning meaningful intergenerational connections. Moving on to Brookside Elementary School, uh the third

016and fourth graders had great experiences at their field trips. The third grade attended the Six Flag Safari in Jackson Township, and the fourth grade visited Cornelius Low House, an old town village in Piscatoaway. The band and core students did an incredible job performing at the spring concert recently. The concert took place on June 2nd at the middle school. Brookside held its third annual Brookside Day on June 5th and the day was a huge success. Students from the different grade levels worked together on activities in the morning. And following these activities, the students had a picnic lunch and a pep rally to follow. Brookside held its annual field day on June 6th and the students had such a fun time. It was great to see them actively participate in all of the outdoor games. And lastly,

017Brookside's moving up ceremony will take place on Wednesday, June 18th. Congratulations to all of Brookside's fifth graders. And now, let's move on to Mil Lake Elementary School. Mil Lake proudly participated in two unforgettable district-wide unified events, uniting students from preK to grade 12 in the spirit of inclusion and celebration. They thanked the school district unified coordinators for making this possible. Their field days were filled with fun and teamwork. The school thanked Mrs. Lombard, Mrs. Nigel, and our the amazing parent volunteers for making them a success. They also celebrated the incredible third graders and all of their amazing students during this week's this month's assembly. Two outstanding student presentations were featured. One came from the stand up standup standin group founded by 8-year-old Mallerie Stanky with compassion and courage well beyond her years. Mallerie launched this

018powerful initiative to promote inclusion, kindness, and standing up to bullying. Mrs. Leang also had a fantastic recorder concert that showcased what's possible through hard work and dedication. A special shout out to the fabulous falcon Ila who reached the highest level of achievement. This month also showcased the generosity of Mil Lake. Thanks to Mrs. Walter and Miss Paparandry, we they raised funds and awareness for leukemia and blood disorders in an effort rooted in heart and human community spirit. Throughout the year, Mille Student Council focused on two guiding themes, inclusivity and kindness. Open to all third graders, the council provided opportunities for leadership, connection, and service through monthly meetings and schoolwide initiatives. Highlights included supporting childhood and breast cancer awareness months, creating a cereal box maze that led to the donation of hundreds of cereal boxes to

019local food pantries, and making heartfelt cards for senior citizens. The council also energized the school with spirit weeks, brightening the scrs by planting flowers in the Mil Lake garden and showing important summer sun safety tips. Thank you to the adviserss, Mrs. Lane, Mrs. Susan, and Mrs. Papandria. There is still so much to share, but the school also wants to take a moment to thank the and recognize the heartbeat of Mil Lake, the exceptional staff. Their unwavering dedication, compassion, and selflessness shown through in everything they do. Every single team member is deeply valued and and appreciated. Milik would not be the same without them. Moving on to Woodland Elementary School, the Woodland celebrated staff appreciation week in May. Students shared handwritten thank you notes expressing gratitude for the hard work and dedication of their amazing staff.

020Dr. Dr. Chedda also provided small treats to show her gratitude for the staff as the principal. Finally, the Woodland Mill Lake PTO made the week extra special with daily surprises and thoughtful treats that truly lifted spirits and brought smiles all around. Students visited the PTO sponsored flower shop where they selected beautiful plants and flowers to take home. Perfect gifts to brighten up their famil family's homes and welcome the new season. The lunch pair of professionals have been leading an engaging and healthy initiative, the walking club. Students are tracking their steps and reaching exciting landmark goals along the way. With each milestone, they can earn fun prizes encouraging both fitness and friendly motivation. Miss Hire and Miss Nunan, visual art teachers at Woodland and Mil Lake, coordinated an art show that highlighted the imagination and artistic

021talents of their K through5 students. The event celebrated cultural exploration through artwork inspired by a variety of places around the world. Adding to the evening's event, families were also treated to a beautiful performance by the Woodland School Chorus. The unified students had an exciting and memorable experience participating in field day at Muntown Township High School. The event brought together students from across the district for a day filled with fun, teamwork, and inclusive activities that se celebrated friendship, sportsmanship, and school spirit. The talented band and chorus students recently took the stage to perform their spring concert for both the students in the school and families. This year they had a special performance showcasing the school's musical talents for the rising fourth graders when they visited from Mil Lake this month. Mr. Schultz went above and beyond

022to organize a fun and engaging field day filled with a variety of exciting activities. His thoughtful planning and enthusiastic leadership helped create a very memorable experience that fostered teamwork, laughter, and school spirit. Oak Tree had also had a bunch of special events happening in the past two weeks. On June 3rd was their annual field day. June 4th was a mix it up lunch celebration day. June 5th was a healthy living night and grade three tours at Applegarth. And June 11th is going to be kindergarten's moving up celebration day. And June 18th is grade 3's moving up celebration. Congratulations to all the third graders. Next up is the middle school. Congratulations to the sixth grade chorus, concert bands, and jazz ensemble for competing in the music in the parks festival on Friday, May 9th. The chorus,

023Overture Band, and purple jazz ensemble were each awarded first place in their respective divisions with the fanfare band taking a very close second. Additionally, Isan Yol was awarded the top soloist in his category. The sixth grade chorus is directed by Miss Lisa Costantino. The Overture Band is directed by Mr. David Rottner. The Fanfare band is directed by Mr. Samuel Schneider. And the Purple Jazz Ensemble is directed by Mr. Rick Fonhane. On May 20th, a band director from Jamesburg Middle School and his 14 band students visited the middle school eighth grade band classes. As part of a new collaboration between the schools to help with the middle school and high school transition, they were invited to play a piece with the students at the middle school at Monroe for the May 28th spring band concert. This

024Friday, June 13th, the middle school will be hosting its annual 8th grade dance. This is always a great night and the students have a lot of fun. Tuesday, June 17th, the Mon the middle school will hold its eighth grade awards ceremony. And this is always a proud event for the parents and students. Wednesday, June 18th, the middle school will hold its eighth grade graduation, the culmination of three years of hard work by the students. Information for all eighth grade events has gone home to the eighth grade families. The middle school music department participated in their annual Dorney Park trip and competition, and the kids had an amazing day. They achieved the following recognition for band. Seventh seventh grade band earned third place and an excellent rating and the eighth grade band earned a first place

025and superior rating. So a lot of hard work and a lot of good rankings. Um and the seventh eighth grade combined chorus also won first place superior rating and that's not it. best overall chorus, best student accompanist, and best student soloist as well. And last but not least, we're moving on to the high school now. Spring sports has come to a close, which means that finals week is about to begin at Monro Township High School. Good luck to all of the high schoolers on their exams. Next week, on June 20th, Monro Township High School is celebrating the outgoing class of 2025. Congratulations to all of the high school seniors on their 12-year endeavor through education. We are wishing you the best to come. I'd like to especially recognize my fellow student representatives Chetta for all

026of your hard work as a student representative for a district of over 2,000 students. I, as well as many others, are looking forward to seeing this next chapter in your life. Thank you, SA. [Music] Thank you everyone and have a good evening and rest of the meeting. Thank you very much um both of you and I hope you guys have a wonderful summer and best of luck in college next year. We'll miss you. Thank you. Okay, the next item on our agenda is our presentations. Our first one is our retiree recognition. Sure. And before we transition there, I just wanted to say something to Seash. Uh thanks on behalf of Dr. Chanley and myself. I know you've committed time here in the evenings, but you also are a member of our student liaison committee amongst

027all of your other engagements and uh truly thank you for your contributions to the entire school community. So, thank you. Thank you so much. That means a lot. It's been an honor. So, we do have two presentations tonight. Uh the first one is recognizing our retirees and it will be immediately followed by uh our second presentation of the spring uh recognizing some of our students. So, if you'd like to join us up front, Good evening everyone. All right. Good evening everyone. Thank you uh Dr. Layman, Mrs. and uh thank you for joining us everyone and coming out. This keeps dying on me. All right, let's try this again. Good evening. Want to thank you for coming out tonight. It is a uh busy time of the year. And before we proceed with our monthly tradition

028of recognizing our students and staff, we want to take a moment to recognize a very another very special group of individuals, our retirees. June is always a very bittersweet time of the year. And um as we say goodbye to our graduates and all of our schools that are moving up or moving out of our district, while we are excited to see them move on, we are also very sad to see the them leave. The same goes for our retirees. And while uh everyone has their own walk of life in our district, they all make their own individual impact. And whether they are here tonight in person uh to be recognized, we would like to read their names regardless. So, thank you to all of our retirees, everyone that came out tonight. So, we will start

029with our transportation starting with Kathleen McDonald. [Applause] driver. Regina Mara, driver, Martin Poco, another driver. And finally, from transportation retiring this year, Margaret Simone. Thank you to all of our drivers. Maybe the hardest job in the district. Moving on to Brookside Elementary School. We have two retirees this year. Starting with our lead custodian at Brookside, Katherine McGlaughlin, and longtime paraprofessional Beverly Monaceeri. And I think she's here. I saw her earlier tonight. There she is. [Applause] Moving on to Mil Lake Elementary School, first grade teacher Sandra Cormmy. [Applause] And also from Mo Lake, our basic skills teacher, Kathleen Sizzik. All right, on to Oak Tree. Second grade teacher Terry Gross and power professional Rosena Vento at Woodland School. Special education teacher Margaret Hopkins. [Applause] Of course, fourth fourth grade teacher Melanie Rume. Now, the Monroe Township

030Middle School. This is an all-star lineup here. Starting with Principal Secretary Louise Bowman. [Applause] security officer. Oh, excuse me. Officer Kathleen Hecker, [Applause] teacher of Spanish. Sylvia Gonzalez, school counselor. Dana Overheim. [Applause] And of course, the voice of the Monro Township Middle School all call, 12-month secretary, Miss Amy Pole. Thank you. Don't worry, Pat. I don't have a joke for you. Assistant Principal Pat Smith. [Applause] And finally from the middle school, power professional Mary Vayana. [Applause] On to the Monroe Township High School, starting with longtime music director Marty Griffin. Thank you, Morty. Thank you. Special education teacher Carolyn Mcgroy. [Applause] And finally, longtime Woodland security officer and current high school security officer, Mr. John Painter. [Applause] pretty creative. And then finally, our district employees that hung it up this year, starting with our director of

031guidance, Dr. Michelle Catelli. And finally, longtime network operations manager, industrial arts teacher, and many other tasks within the district, Mr. Albert Pulfanelli. That's a good one. Congratulations and best of luck to all of our retirees. Thank you. All right, we're going to get right into the next presentation and I am going to move right along here. All right, here we go. So, we're going to jump right ahead. Uh, this year, um, or this month, I'm sorry. We are going to recognize students and staff that have had outstanding achievements in the athletics and other co- extracurricular areas that have taken place in the late winter and the spring. And we will start off at the middle school. And I would like to introduce Dr. Dr. Jim Higgins. [Applause] Good evening. It's always great um to honor

032our retirees. Unfortunately, half my main office retired on me today. It's fine. I'm not holding against you. Buy me chicken palm. We're good. And the other piece is anytime we honor students, it's always a wonderful night. So we are going to get started find. So for our middle school history be these students qualified and participated in national competition in Orlando. So I would like to call up Arjun Bor. [Applause] Faal Jabar V Cavor Camille Lopez Aiden Aiden O'Neal [Applause] Middle School our middle school geography be qualified and participated in national competition in Orlando, Florida. Arjun Borer, Bisal Jabar and Aiden O'Neal. I'll make sure I catch them. Walmart. This is really throwing me off. Monroe Township Public Library Nature Poetry Photography Contest for first place, Senia Junani. And second place, Venica Kakoro, Middle School. [Applause]

033For our middle school science olympiad, we uh achieved third place in our region regional competition and fifth place in a state competition. So I would like to call these students up and their advis their adviserss were Melissa Colantino and Nicole Gerggas, Ashia Agawal Arana, Midant Daga, Eveina Guzakowski [Applause] Ruth Ruth Reishkumar Michelle Harin [Applause] Cananala Sav Nandish [Applause] Anya Furma, Anika Prasad, [Applause] Isan Shaw, Adwit Singh, [Applause] Kan Bashav, Akil Vanc Oh, I'm sorry. Anavosula. My My apologies. [Applause] that way. And last but not least for Marino Township Middle School, the middle school science fee. This student qualified and participated in national competition in Orlando, Florida, Camille Lopez. [Applause] Okay, I'm now handing it off to the other Dr. Higgins from Monro Township High School. Thank you, Dr. Higgins. Try to put this here. Maybe

034it works a little better. Uh, I'm pleased to be joined tonight by a number of our adviserss from our clubs uh to honor our students in their achievements in spring activities and sports. So, at this time, I would like to invite our adviserss for FBLA, Mrs. Jennifer Solomon and Mr. Brian Kho to the All right. Good evening everyone. Future Business Leaders of America is a nationally recognized organization where students can pursue their interest in business, philanthropy, and community outreach. Tonight, we're here to celebrate some exceptional individuals who placed at our state leadership conference. These are some of the best FBLA members in the state of New Jersey. Placing second in battle of the chapters, Nandini Kani and Vick. [Applause] Winning the gold member award, Ryan David. Second place in who's who in FBLA, Dewani Bonu.

035Our gold officer award, Nandini Conan. And in second place for our American Enterprise project, we have Dewani Vinu Operat Vicram Dragunov. Second place for intro to FBLA we have Sai Polari. Third place in our chapter business report, we have Arun Samuran and Lasi Kabari. Second place for banking and financial systems, we have Adia Avakar and Shiv. [Applause] Third place in marketing, we have Arjun Madura, Pern Piranic, and Chris Sha. [Applause] Third place in public policy and advocacy, Dewani Benu. In introduction to event planning, we have Dotan Aberidge Abina Vesesh and Ryan David. [Applause] In third place in business communication, Chloe Serati. [Applause] Third place for social media strategies, we have Pria Shaw. First place in help desk, we have Kesha Gandhi. And in first place for hospitality and event management, we have Shash Mahertra, Hosni

036Kusleti, and Abina Tony. And for our NJ education programming committee, we have Vicram Ragenoff to recognize [Applause] as well as we have NJ education program committee as well as elected as the new central region vice president for NJPLA, Lassi Kavari. [Applause] And we won several chapter awards as well. So we took first place in whiskers and wishes state community service project, second place in passport of progress portfolio, gold sear of we are a gold seal of merit recipient and we are the largest chapter membership in the central region and we won the chapter website award of merit. I do want to take a moment to recognize Jen and uh Brian. They do an excellent job. FBLA is one of our largest and most successful uh clubs at MTHS uh and they do a great job.

037So, thank you to Jen and Brian. At this time, I would like to call up our uh one of our key club adviserss, Miss Jovanna Kendes. [Applause] Uh good evening. Um so Key Club is a volunteer organization. Um, the students that are being awarded tonight have given countless hours of volunteer work in all aspects of school, outside of school, and in the community. Uh, the students that are here have been elected to state positions. Uh, two of them are going to be lieutenant governors that are liaons between key clubs throughout different schools in the states. So our first student that I want to call up is Ishika Agarwal and she's our liaison for number 18. [Applause] And our second student I want to call up is Divia Dash Doss. She is our Lieutenant Governor for

038District 1. [Applause] And our third student is Cushi Trevetti. She will be the state editor for TE Club this year. Thank you. Miss Kendz is also the adviser for our student uh our technology student association who is recognizing a number of students tonight. So on our May 3rd competition we took third place in engineering design. I want to call out Sarvesh Anand Boderola Samita Mali Anushia Pash and Ria Mokala Ragal. [Applause] And we also took first place in virtual reality visualization. I want to call up Sha dlocola and Sauan sign. Thank you Miss Kendez. To recognize our students uh excellence in youth and government, I would like to invite our adviser for the youth and government club, Miss Laura Granite, to the podium. [Applause] Youth and government is a studentrun government for the state. They

039have one in each of the states throughout the country. Students write bills they wish were New Jersey state law. They have to write it in the proper format. They train and learn how to speak professionally in the proper parley procedure in chambers. There is a student governor. There is student cabinet for each of the cabinet positions. You have the Senate. You also have the assembly. And the bill has to be voted out of committee and when they're in committee sessions and then has to follow the traditional path where have to pass both houses and be signed off by the governor. You can get vetos, you can get conditional vetos. We also have a lobbyist core that are hired by companies to then lobby for the bills that they wish would become law. We have a

040court system and they write legal briefs and they debate cases that have gone to the New Jersey dispa u uh supreme court. Additionally, they can select bills that they don't think is according to the New Jersey state constitution and the bill author would have to defend themselves before those justices. We also have a crisis co-op committee where we know that things come up at any given time. Uh they're given problems and they have to work with that as well. Um and uh we have the press where they do report both in print and in other media for the activities throughout that. It's a quite intensive program. Um new uh Monroe Township High School has one of the strongest delegations and we usually do and this year as well take home quite a bit of honors.

041So we have for the from our courts division the outstanding courts briefing Gambrella Seagel and Sha please come on down. Um we have for the successful uh legislation that passed um Clara Courtang uh Sanji Meta and Ashley Sharma. The outstanding firstear delegate first year that they have done this is Depia Tadpani. We have our crisis co-op finalist who worked on one of the problems um is uh Thomas Murphy. [Applause] They have a program that they run during the year where the top people in the program from each state is selected to what is called the council on national affairs and we had named to the council of national affairs quite prestigious Zayn Jabber Samantha Mosa um and uh Ana Rana and Philip Shioone [Applause] [Music] [Applause] We had several people who were officers at the

042state level program. Um the Alice Paul assembly chairs for 2025 were Arian Mather and Samantha Mosa. This year for the lobby core president was Ana Rana. And elected for next year to be the lobby core president isaica patrony. [Applause] Monroe Township High School had the governor for the state Zane Jabber. [Applause] We have for next year the chief justice of the courts Sam Dean Deanali sorry we have the editor-inchief of the press corps and that was the mater and the delegation as a whole was awarded outstanding delegation ation. Thank you for all of the work that you did. These kids are incredible. Thank you, Miss Grant, for all your hard work as well. At this time, I would like to invite the uh advisor for the National English Honor Society, Miss Sharon DeMarco, to introduce

043our scholarship winner. Wow. Good evening everyone. It's a pleasure to be here tonight as the adviser of the National English Honors Society. NEHS as it is known uh is sponsored by Sigma Delta and it recognizes students who demonstrate not only excellence in English but also in leadership, service and character. As part of its mission, NEHS offers members a national scholarship opportunity. It's an essay contest based on a chosen novel. This year's novel was Claraara and the Sun by Katsuo Ishiguro. It's a powerful and haunting tale of a future shaped by technology in a world increasingly reluctant to uh obey their robotic companions and obsessed with genetic enhancement. This novel really questions whether machines can replace humans. Throughout the fall, NEHS members read and discussed this novel deeply. By January, all of our members submitted a

044carefully crafted literary analysis essay along with the personal video reflecting on how literature and their experiences in NEHS have influenced their growth as students and also as individuals. A national panel of educators reviews these essays from hundreds of submissions across the whole country. They looked for compelling literary inter uh literary uh interpretation, quality writing, original insight, personal reflection, and they only selected the very best examples of these skills and those who are also planning to go to a 4-year university. So on behalf of MTHs, I'm so proud to recognize Parm Gatia, a member of the class of 2025. Pam Pam is planning on attending Rutgers University in the fall where he plans to major in electrical and computer engineering. Congratulations, Pam. [Applause] Thank you. Um I just I don't I didn't see Miss Noric. I

045don't know if she's here. is Miss Normick here or Mr. Varelis. So, it is my honor to recognize our representatives for the 2025 Teen Arts Festival. These are our state representatives, Avani Gamberwala and Charvika D. [Applause] Thank you to uh to all of our students and all of our adviserss. It is my pleasure to hand the mic over to our athletic director, Mr. Baron Dika. [Applause] Good evening everyone. It is my pleasure to acknowledge our student athletes who did a fantastic job this year. Um the spring was equally as successful as our fall and winter. Uh this year we actually had our last athlete competed today which is awesome. So uh there are some schools that were done maybe two and a half weeks ago. So, we made it really far in states um both

046as teams, as individuals. We're very proud. Let's give them a big round of applause for that. [Music] [Applause] This year, we also had 26 student athletes signed during National Signing Day events that we had throughout the year uh for a total of um 11 different sports being represented uh to play at all the division uh one, two, and three. So, congratulations to all those student athletes. She got a little bit ahead of me there. So, the the fabulous student athlete that just walked across, her name is Iman Sadu [Applause] and she is one of our spring track athletes at the middle school. Uh she was our GMC champion, first place in discus this year. [Applause] [Music] Next up, we have our flag football team coached by coach Nick Isola and Brian Hines. We have our

047first team all BCC red division Evangelina Francisco, Mia Marabuto, Nia Powell, and Isabella Stigman. We also had one student athlete, second team, BCC Red Division, Jordan Sour Barnett. Next up, girls lacrosse, all division and all conference, Juliana Dow. Juliana also represented Monroe Township High School at the GMC Scholar Banquet. Uh, next we have Savannah Riker, Rya Saloon, and Isabelle Rizzo. All red division, Avery Lipton, GMC offensive player of the year, Rya Saloon. And our head coach, Miss Alexa Marshall, was the GMC coach of the year. On to boys lacrosse. We had three players receive all red division. Jake Ivanchic, Julian Hughes, and Anthony Santangelo. [Applause] We had three student athletes receive all conference honors. Payton, Millian, Joseph Santangelo, and Terron Singer, [Applause] boys volleyball, all division and all conference. Joel Abraham. He was also recognized

048at the GMC scholar athlete banquet um this year as well. Um all red division Suvid Kolaru and Sri Sant [Applause] softball all division and all conference. uh Monica Bukaric and Belle Zarski. Our red division, Brianna Bukawich. [Applause] and our head coach, Miss Marissa Votman, GMC Red Division Coach of the Year. [Applause] Boys tennis, all division and all conference. Nathan Voodin. He competed today in the second round of the individual tournament. Um, fell to his opponent, but made it really, really far. So, congratulations to him. And we have spring track. GMC Champion 1600 meter and 3200 meter. Central Jersey Group 4 3200 meter sectional champion and also competed and qualified for the meet of champions. Uh Steven Barbara. [Applause] I'm going to go a little off script here. We did have a couple awards that came

049in a little late for uh for postseason awards. So I do want to acknowledge those student athletes. Uh Steven also received all conference honors. We have Jimmy Jordano all conference. We have Nishant Tama, all conference and placed fourth at the meet of champions. And then we also have AO Sagu, all division and place seventh at the meet of champions. So let's give them a round of applause. [Applause] All right. And last, but certainly not least, we have our golf program, all division and all conference, Chris Anand. [Applause] We have all division Shri Kamukala and all conference Tristan Mooney. [Applause] We are extremely proud of our MTHS golf program this year. They were also GMC champions for the first time in school history, [Applause] Chris Anand, Lane Belmont, Janaki Chidala, Brody Chong, Chase Goenor, Shreases Kunam,

050Mukala, Tristan Mooney, and Joseph Peters. Again, congratulations to all of our sport programs this year. We're already preparing, getting ready for the fall, and we look forward to another great year next year. Thank you. [Applause] for retirees and students. Uh thank you very much for uh all those who attended. It was an outstanding year from academics to our arts programs to our athletic programs. And this is an exciting time of year because we kind of bring it all together and we wrap things up. We have a bunch of events coming up in the next couple weeks which we're very excited about. But uh that's it for tonight. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. Congratulations to all of our award recipients this evening. Um the next item on our agenda is our committee reports. Um

051you can see on the agenda it says the following committees recently met. Tuesday June 3rd was uh curriculum co-curricular athletics and pupil personnel citizens advisory committee legislative action and community engagement and policy committee. And on Wednesday, June 4th was personnel, finance, and shared services, buildings, ground, transportation, and security committee. We did have a brief discussion last month about making it easier for board members to access all of the committee reports. All of the committee reports are listed on the board agenda as attachments for you. Um, the videos are also livereamed. So, um, is there anybody that just has anything that they would like to highlight quickly from their committee reports? Miss Bora, uh, I have one comment and then one, uh, request. Uh, the comment is on the lace committee. Uh I want to congratulate

052everybody on the committee for finally getting us a spot on Monroe News. It had been um a wish list for a long time. Uh a lot of you get this every quarter. Uh there has been no news on our school district um you know quarter after quarter. Uh 7,000 student school district is definitely part of Monroe news and the lace committee was able to collaborate with the editor and I believe we made our first submission and in the next Monroe news we should see news. So I congratulate everybody on the committee for making that happen. Uh the other comment that I have was on the policy committee discussion on the honoring the students policy specific to the NHS criteria. Um there is um been a lot of chatter on this and so my request is

053if Dr. Layman could um repeat what he said in the committee meeting which I did here but I'm sure a lot of people have not seen it. you were um the the guiding principle that the high school followed in coming up with their recommendation for the weighted average of 95 for the NHS um qualification. Thank you. Sure. So, uh Dr. Higgins met with his team and they analyzed the current class as if it were to uh simulate through some of the kind of thought thoughtful and thoughtout uh criteria. and what they determined and they heard the voices from the the community about the importance of factoring in the weighted piece um as part of the mo motivation for students to take some of those uh honors and AP level classes. Um so in consideration of

054that they looked at um 95 as the A that is the 95 on a 100 point scale that's our A. Anything lower than that is an A minus above that is a A+. So A is the benchmark. Um, and then they set the criteria based off of um, using that as as the weighted number and the weighted value. They did run the numbers for 93.75 and uh, 92 I believe was the other number they ran it for. Um, I don't have the notes in front of me. I can pull them out as we, you know, go through the meeting. Um, but he he analyzed it and it does reduce the number of students that are eligible to apply for NHS. Um but it also accomplishes the the goal of raising the rigor which was one

055of the uh the goals and the focuses of doing this. And if I can repeat those numbers, those 51% students qualifying at the current criteria in the current junior year class. Um if we were to make it 93 something, it would be 30 uh 6 38 36% and then at the 95 28% of the current class would qualify. Yep. And the goal was to land between 25 and 30% uh in terms of the qualifying students. And and I would say there's not a we're not looking for x amount of students to be able to qualify. If the entire class qualifies with a 95, then that's awesome. You know, it's not about hitting that number, but it's about raising the rigor and then seeing the impact of what that adjustment made, but also taking into consideration

056the weighted piece. Miss Rner. Um, yep. So, I was going to highlight Monroe News. I appreciate Miss Bora bringing that up. Um, I do know Mr. Moralda last week had shared that we had submitted um a couple of articles um for submission because we had a quick turnaround uh I believe one was um regarding the award for the music community. The other one was um for the the golf team's um accomplishments. There might have been a third one. I don't remember off the top of my head. Um, but thank you to him for getting those in so quickly once we got once we heard back from the township and thank you to the township for working with us on that. Um, I also um did just want to touch on regulation uh 5440 from the

057policy committee. Um, I had brought up some concerns at the meeting last week. Um, I do want to thank Dr. Higgins, Dr. Leman, um, you know, the entire administration because I know that this has been a long conversation um, very extensive. Um, but I also know there's a lot of passion in the community about this and I just want to make sure if we're going to make these changes that we're making them, you know, for the benefit of the community. Um, and so I know I had advocated strongly to continue utilizing the weighted GPI. So I do want to thank the administration for hearing that. My concern now sort of comes from that other side of it. Um to make sure that we aren't significantly reducing the ability for the students who maybe aren't taking

058a significant number of AP or honors classes. um you know, specifically perhaps some of those students who maybe you know are you know in more basic skills classes um whether they have you know IEP plans or things of that nature because by raising this to a 95 now we're essentially requiring those students to get you know very high grades throughout their entire tenure in high school. Um and I think just we want to make sure that we're trying to you know have each kid reach their maximum potential. So, I know that there's this is a first read. We still have time to, you know, discuss this either way. Um, but I did just want to share my thoughts and also perhaps for our policy committee meeting in July um or our next policy committee meeting

059if we can possibly just see um from that perspective how much the reduction of students would be uh if there would be a large impact on that um I would appreciate that. Sure, I can bring that back. Um but just to come full circle, we talked about um the basis of the students taking classes in high school is some some students will stretch for an AP or an honors class, but there are multiple levels of classes. So students performing in the appropriate level class, the threshold of 95 is if they're in the AP class, they've met the criteria to be in there. So the expectation is to operate at that level. if they're in a a different level class, whether it's a dynamics or a a standard track class, the the tracking quote unquote of

060the students places them in the courses that are the appropriate level. And then if they have modifications or um accommodations, those are those are factored into the grade that exists. So we can certainly have have a conversation, but that was the basis of you know the conversation at the last meeting without the waiting piece. Right. So, the waiting piece is taking into account uh the motivation to having that, you know, carried in there for the for the advanced level classes. So, we wouldn't have a choose a student choose not to take a course just to get in it in uh in a national honor society criteria um to take an easier course instead. This gives them that flexibility and the ability to do that. But the basis of the decision is grounded in the students

061are taking courses that are tracked and uh at the level at which they're operating and that was the that's been the kind of foundation of this since the in since the inception of it. Right. And I know we had started this just to um you know make sure that our policy was following the current protocols at the high school for for principles list. And you know I know that's sort of the more urgent need um and I you know I think that it's been a good discussion. Um, but I just did want to share that. And then just really quickly, um, the other question I just wanted to ask is, um, I had the opportunity to, um, watch the BG&T meeting, um, but I just wanted to know if, um, I don't know if you

062were planning to do this later on in the meeting, but the current situation, um, at Applegar school if, um, there's been any changes in the last week regarding that. Yeah. So, we're still uh like as I communicated in BG&T, we have a vetted out strong plan for the middle school as as a plan B and we're still working with that other location um through some of the variables. Mostly it's on their end making sure that the facility itself would meet the criteria that we would be required to meet to step into a building. Um we will uh take action. The longer they take, the less likely we are to to use them. um specifically considering the the middle school has evolved into a very strong option for us um with all the variables vetted out.

063So um the communication plan for the community specifically those incoming fourth and fifth grade uh families and students is to get notification out to them before the end of the school year with uh kind of a status and a heads up and then we will communicate through the summer uh as things evolve. you know the the ultimate goal is that this part arrives um and we are actively working on that and you know that is not something that is an unlikely scenario. There's a very good chance that it will come. So this is all for not but uh we will be queued up and ready to roll if you know nothing changes. Okay. And then just um if it does end up where these students need to attend the middle school um I know we

064had discussed the potential trailer removal. Is that still something that we would be doing or would be we'd be um holding off on this until So, so the trailers uh will remain in place until this is resolved. Okay. That is part of the the solution for this. Yep. And then once everything is played out, then we can proceed with taking action as a board to then move forward with removing the trailers. All right. Thank you. Any other comments or questions from the board on committee reports? Okay. Then we're going to move on to the public forum for agenda items only. Any member of the public wishing to speak, you have four minutes to do so. Please state your name and municipality for the record. Praash 33. I think the minutes of the last meeting are

065in the agenda and the first motion which our district is in the agenda. So like to discuss about the superintendent you know so the members of the board of education respected members of the board of education. We the constituent of the district express our great concern and deep dissatisfaction regarding the recent actions taken by the police board including the administrative view of districts reped without public explanation of due transparency in the last board meeting. The apparent decision to place on the paid administrative leave without state of cause evidence of due process raises a serious questions regarding governance, accountability and compliance with both state education policy and open meeting laws. The lack of transparency surrounding this action has posted widespread confusion, eroded public trust, and calls into question whether this board is acting within the bounds

066of its judiciary duties and ethical obligations. It is the board's legal and moral responsibility to provide clarity and justification for the decisions that the materially affects the administration and welfare of our schools. The superintendent was actively pursuing full day kindergarten implementation, a critical initiative for the education, equality and early childhood development. The ab the apparent abandonment or delay of this effort is unacceptable and contributes to a direct disservice to the families and children of our district. Dr. Chandley has devoted more than 20 years of service in our Mura Township School District as a teacher, middle school principal and last few years as the superintendent. She took over the as a superintendent during tough time of co crisis and has demonstrated good performance since then. She makes sure children come first. We as community are surprised.

067First second thing multiple middle school campuses within district are tested with evaluated high levels 10 times of the permitted levels. Four to 10 times. This is a health emergency. The prince of lead concentration let alone high level possess documented irresistible threat to the conjective and physical development of children. We need from the BU a report on medical impact to middle school students. National committee enter you know honor society the acceptance level is 85. I understand that you all are raising the bar from 90 to 95. Why such a high bar at national level is impacts on the admission of students to good college keep it to 90 with weighted average score of 80 and honor student be fair to all students even regular students. We hereby demand following actions to be taken without delay. A

068full and public explanation of superintendent administration leave including timelines rational and plan for leadership. Immediate public release of environmental impact to our middle school students. A detail corrective action third party involvement in resolving this issue. Restore 90% weighted course standard for nationals. Please be advised the people of this district will not tolerate opaque government's addiction of duty or inaction in the face of the environment threats to our children. If transparency is contemplated, thank you. Your time is up. We will take legal action. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Respected DOE members and fellow Monro citizens. My name is Ketul Parik. Me and my family have been living in Monroe Township for over 20 years. Both my daughter and my son started their schooling in Monroe from kindergarten onwards. My daughter graduated from Monroe High School and

069will be in her final year of medical school in July. My son was diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of 10 and passed away when he was 13. Dr. Chanley was the middle school principal for both my children. I would like to read a message from my family, my daughter, my wife and myself. A cancer diagnosis comes with millions of questions, especially with a child. When our son was diagnosed with cancer, one of our questions was how his diagnosis treatment would impact his schooling and education. What we found when we went to his school MTMS was teamwork and a cohesive environment from every member of the staff to give us complete support, encouragement and assurance that out of our million worries, this would not be one of them. This positive environment would not have

070been possible without a strong leader like Dr. Chanley shining by example. Much like a mother bird watching over her babies in a nest, Dr. Chenley has been has always been a protector and advocate for children under her care. As a cancer patient, our son was self-conscious about his loss of his hair due to his treatment, especially around his friends and classmates. Dr. routinely protected and advocated for our son by reminding fellow administrator to follow our son uh son to wear his hat in the school building. Under Dr. Chanley's leadership, when our Thanksgiving holiday was clouded by the news that our son would be placed on hospice, the entire middle school came together to deliver us with food, gift cards, and later to bring us comfort during a challenging time. When our son passed away, Dr.

071Chenley allowed his friends and classmates to honor and salute his funeral procession outside of the middle school so that they could pay their final respect to their beloved friend. Subsequently, administrators, counselors, and nurses worked in tandem to ensure that emotional and psychological impacts on MTMS students were mitigated. It is clear that Dr. Chenley leads with compassion and strength that trick trickles down to every educator, staff and child under her care. She truly believes in lifting up her educators and believing in each and every child's potentials as if they were her own. There is no person more dedicated to Monroe schools and the children that it serves than Dr. Chenley. Monroe and his children are immensely lucky to have had her thus far. And it is our sincere hope that she will be able to continue

072to lead this district with the same strength, protection, and positivity that she always has. My fellow citizens, our experience shows that Dr. Chenley will use her strength and even take extra steps to secure, protect, and comfort your child in her care. Thank you very much. [Applause] Michelle Scott. Uh I think you all know who I am. Um I'm a member of the uh Jamesburg Board of Education and uh I'm also a resident of Jamesburg and I'm speaking to you tonight as a resident of Jamesburg. Um, I'm elated to see the working relationship uh that's been going on between uh our superintendent in Jamesburg, Dr. Gina Vani and Dr. Cherry Chanley and their staff. That's included our eighth grade students in many of the events for them to meet and get to know one another prior

073to entering the high school and becoming fellow Falcons. This helping their transition to the high school become more fluid. I cannot recall any of our prior superintendents of either district collaborating on the scale for the best of our students. Just this month, our students joined the middle school students for their spring concert and I was extremely happy to hear this. From my knowledge, Dr. Chanley has always put the students and the staff first and I would like to see her continue to do so and I ask that you reconsider the motion that was made last month to suspend her and reinstate her immediately. I'd also like to comment on uh this average of 95 that why does Monroe think that they're any better? I myself was I'm a National Honor Society member that was inducted

074my junior year high school and uh why does Monroe think that they have to have now a 95 average and 90 isn't acceptable? Um I hope that you think about that and consider that and how that's going to affect the students. Thank you. Are there any members of the public wishing to speak? Well, uh, good evening, Edward Selby, Miltown, former plea or president, little vacation. Uh, good evening. I'm here to tell you of my interaction with Dr. Chanley. It's only my opinion. Um, I'm not trying to convince you, but I think you're missing out on what she creates. The first thing I learned from Dr. Chanley is family. Her family comes first. It's all about family with her. Whenever when my wife had a stroke, she couldn't do enough. She called me every day. She

075would text me. Her husband would text me. That's family. And that's what she brings to the buildings. She brings family. She looks at these kids. She's interacting with the kids constantly, interacting with staff. We all understand that there's negativity. We see it all the time. I've been a victim and I've probably been the other side of it. I blame no one for that. It happens. But we have to stop reacting to the negative. We can't change the past. We cannot go back and change the past. Have we learned anything? Have anybody paid attention in history class, social studies, whatever you call it today? That was probably my best subject outside of phys. However, we can't change the past. We have to move on from the past. We have to stop being viral and attacking each

076other and let the person that has shown a great leadership. I look at uh Miss Allen who was elevated to business administrator and under her guidance and under Dr. Chanley's leadership, the district's going to find I'm going to say the word wrong, physical uh physical uh well-being. That's leadership. That's recognizing talents and and not micromanaging. Dr. Chanley doesn't micromanage. She allows you to do your job and elevate it to where you needed to be. I can't convince you to do anything. I can just express to you what I learned from Dr. Chanley, and that's allow your people to do their jobs. Do not micromanage. Do not miss out on the talents of Dr. Chanley and how she interacts with these children, how she dresses for Halloween. I've I've wor I've worked for some good superintendent

077as Miss Fabiano can attest to. Probably one of the best I've ever seen. Um until I met Dr. Chanley. She's she's gaining there. But anyway, give her a chance. Go back. Think about what you're doing. You're doing it to the district. Do not try to live in the past. Move forward. I don't know what happened before I got here. I just know what happened while I was here. The only thing I can say is thank you Dr. Chanley for bringing me Monroe and to you good luck. Are there any other members of the public wishing to speak? [Music] Um good evening Betty Sabrio Monroe Township. I am the leader of CPAC, which is the special education parent advisory group, which is a statemandated group, and I'm here to speak in benefit of reinstating Dr. Chanley.

078I've long advocated for over a decade for our special education programs and students. Currently, a fifth of our students fall under special education. Over 65% of our state funding is special education, and over 84% of our federal funding is special education. So, it's an important part of this district. We've advocated for a long time because we couldn't get anything done because of the lack of consistency. You are all very well aware of how we've had superintendents in and out. Working with Dr. Chanley and her team under her leadership, we have finally seen improvements that we have advocated for for a decade and that were very needed in special education for our students, for our staff, and for our community. Since Dr. Chanley stepped into the role, the following has been accomplished. And I say accomplished

079because there are very good things that are happening for our students. We've seen improvement to our special education reading programs. There were no reading programs for special education students until now. Opening of self-contained programs at all of our schools so that our students do not have to be bus from one end of town to the other and they can attend their um home schools alongside their siblings and their peers. Support of additional registered behavior technicians in self-contained special program classrooms. That is super important so that we're also supporting our teachers. the support of better teacher and power trainings for special education that was lacking in this district. Bringing on the second supervisor of special education, which in our district this size was more than needed. The integration of our summer enrichment into our extended school

080year. Creation of a special education chain of command, which was also lacking in this district. The opening of a sensory room at the middle school to help support some of our students. the creation of self-contained programs allowing students the opportunity in a high school building that offers vocational and prevocational experiences and an environment designed to help them succeed in the future. That was lacking for a lot of our students. Complete inclusion in programs across all schools with pushin for all students so that they're allowed to be educated alongside their peers and proper training of teachers so that they're able to properly modify these lessons and to really integrate these students into the general education classrooms. These are just some examples and they're minors. But what's important here are that there are areas that we've been

081asking for improvement for over a decade that hadn't happened until now. Um we are by this we are enabling special education students to have equity and granting them the same opportunities as their general education peers. A disruption to this work and consistency and the momentum would be detrimental to our programs and lifealtering for a lot of our students. I don't think you guys recognize that enough. We are only able to achieve these long advocated changes thanks to the consistency that Dr. Chanley spread across the staff. We have been working with her and with special education supervisors to improve our programs. We are urging you to please consider in your vote and also into reinstating her because it's really important that this continuum for this continuum so that our educational programs for special education are helpful

082for our students. You know, I think what Mr. Selby just spoke about if we could just leave the past in the past if everybody on all s there shouldn't be any side except for the side of our students and our staff and unfortunately I think this is all becoming very personal and please put your personal agendas aside. Think about what this gentleman just spoke about with his family, what they went through. Those are real life problems, not the nonsense that we've allowed to go on in this board of education for a decade. So, please consider this and the well-being of this district. I don't care what side you're on. Leave your stuff at the table. That's been one of my biggest things that, you know, just advocate for what's right for our students, for our

083staff. Please think about your votes. [Applause] Katie Belco, Monroe Township, co-pag leader with uh Mrs. Sabberto and former board of education member. I was not Mrs. Chanley's biggest fan when she first applied for the job here as the superintendent of Monroe Township. Mrs. Bora and I share that um sentiment. However, when she was the acting superintendent in this district, she was able to be a mover and a shaker and get things done in this district that has taken years to get done because of the revolving door that was happening with this the superintendent that came through this district for personal reasons, personal vendettas, things that were should not be at that table when you're making decisions for this district. I implore all of you who voted to put Mrs. Shanley on suspension or I'm not

084really quite sure exactly what you did with her, put her on leave with pay, but I implore you to rethink your decision on that and to revert that and go back and make sure that she continues to lead this district, at least for the duration of the contract that she has that is binding with this district, which we will wind up paying out anyway if we don't keep her in her job. I when she came up for the full position as the superintendent and I will quote I had said I would never vote yes for her for the full job and she changed my mind and it was because of the way she worked the things that she did and I was able to see that Dr. Chanley was caring about the staff, the students,

085and what education we provide here in this district of Monroe. And I'm very proud of the three years I spent as a board of education member and being aside her and supporting her in the decisions that she made. I did not agree with all of them. I argued with her on many occasion and I and she and I came to many agreements and compromises which is what you do when you're sitting there in the position that you all have. And if you feel like I'm scolding you, I am because this is unacceptable behavior and you should all be ashamed of yourselves. Thank you. [Applause] Eric Marzine, Monroe Township. I own a small business, but I want to just clarify for a second. My business is not in Monroe. It's not affiliated with the township or

086its schools. And I'm here for one reason and one reason only. And that's for Connor Marazine, who is my son who's eight. He goes to Mil Lake. and my daughter Kaden's Marazine who is also eight and goes to Mil Lake. And this is why I'm here. This is why I'm involved right now. And not for just them, but for all the kids in this district. And I hope we can all agree that they deserve nothing less but the best leadership in the district. That said, the way that this board has conducted business over the last few months has caused a lot of concern in our community, as we have seen already tonight, and I'm sure we're going to go on and see it a lot more. As someone with a degree in educational leadership, I

087know that decisions made without warning or explanation can cause anxiety and fear among staff, which can lead to long-term negative consequences for our students and community. I have a few questions. I hope you answer them. Um, and perhaps I'm missing something. I hope tonight's discussion can provide clarity for all. I understand that you cannot speak to any personal personnel matters, but please note that my questions primarily pertain to district protocol and policies and not to confidential information which I understand cannot be discussed. Miss Fabiano, I understand these questions are for you. Uh but if you are unable to answer the legal ones, I'd appreciate it if you defer to the board's attorney. First question. When the motion was made to put the superintendent on paid administrative leave, it was stated that it was based on

088quote because of what we heard here tonight. End quote. Was this concerning a public or closed session discussion? If discussed in public, can you disclose what was said that led to this action? That wasn't my statement. So, I can't clarify. All right. Number two. I notice Robert's rules of order were not followed during that motion as there was no discussion or restating of the question before the vote. Why was this process not observed? And is the district legally required to follow it? Do you want to ask all of your questions first or do you want to let the time run? I can ask all of them. What is the legal process for placing an employee on paid administrative leave in our district? If there is one, can you share the policy number? You want to

089keep asking your question? I'm just making sure if you need to write them down. Number, this is my last qu. There's only four questions. Very easy. What are the legal reasons an administrator can be placed on administrative leave? Are there specific circumstances that immediately warrant this action? Those are my questions. There's 59 seconds left, but I think I have a little more time since I was waiting. Yeah, Mr. Mayorine, I I know that you um you initiated litigation against the district. There's currently pending litigation against the district related to these issues, so I'm not going to be discussing them with you tonight. Um the the board's uh legal counsel in those litigated matters will be uh answering a lot of the questions that you've posed. Um and and certainly to the extent that you have

090additional questions, I'm sure they would answer them as well. All right. Thank you. Thank you. So when we get our uh extension, I guess back from the prosay form of appeal that we'll get some answers. I'm I'm not sure what you're talking about because I wasn't involved in that litigation. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Good evening. My name is Jessica Coniglio and I'm a former teacher at the middle school and I worked with Dr. Chanley for 16 years. I'm reading message on behalf of myself and other former colleagues. I've had the privilege of working alongside Dr. Char Sherry Chanley for many years and can personally attest to the supportive, inclusive, and collaborative environment she has fostered. As a leader, her door has always been open, welcoming new ideas, programs, and events that benefit our

091students. With over two decades of experience in this district, Dr. Chanley brings a rare depth of institutional knowledge that few can match. Her professional journey from vice principal to principal, acting superintendent, and eventually superintendent reflects not only her dedication, but her consistent support for educators, families, and most importantly, our students. She led our district through one of the most challenging times in recent history, the pandemic. Carefully balancing the safety of students and staff while ensuring educational community. Dr. Chanley's long-standing service has given her unique perspective on the evolving needs of our community. She has championed diversity and inclusion in our schools, evidenced by meaningful changes such as updates to the district calendar, the introduction of sports like cricket, and community centered events like those organized with the M foundation. She leads with integrity, empathy, and

092a steadfast commitment to fairness. Dr. Chanley has always treated district employees equitably, fostering a culture of respect and professionalism. What is happening now has created a climate of doubt, confusion, and concern. At the very least, Dr. Chanley deserves a fair and transparent process. Likewise, our community deserves honesty and clarity in understanding all aspects of the situation. I sincerely hope and trust that our elected officials will uphold due process and maintain the values of transparency, equity, and accountability that this district that this district stands for. Thank you for your time. Are there any other members of the public wishing to speak? Good evening, Chrissy Scurby. Uh, Monroe Toyness Drive. I'm here tonight to express my deep concern over the proposed changes to the National Honor Society eligibility requirements, specifically the increase in the academic threshold from

09390 weighted GPA to a 95 weighted GPA. Right now, 51% of our current junior class qualifies to apply for NHS under the existing criteria. That's a meaningful and healthy percentage, one that encourages a broad group of students to strive for excellence in academics, service, leadership, and character. However, if this change is adopted, the number of qualified students will plummet to about 28% of the class. That is a drastic drop, almost half. This is not a minor adjustment. It represent it represents a fundamental shift in how we define achievement and opportunity in our school district. This change does not affect individual students. It impacts our entire community. Each NHS member is required to complete at least 40 hours of community service. When fewer students are eligible, we lose hundreds, potentially thousands of hours of service that

094benefit our local organizations, our neighborhoods, and our schools. Reducing the pool of eligible students so drastically will also demoralize many hard-working students who, while perhaps not at a 95 GPA, are still deeply committed to service, leadership, and academic growth. NHS should inspire excellence, not discourage effort. Raising the bar so high sends the message that only perfection is worthy of recognition. That's not the spirit of education. That is not the spirit of the National Honor Society. I urge you to consider a more balanced approach, one that maintains high standards while continuing to foster inclusion, community involvement, and student growth. Now, speaking tonight, as a parent and as a former board of education pre president in Monroe Township, I am respectfully requesting that Dr. Sharie Chanley be reinstated as the superintendent of schools. On May 5th, this

095board voted to place Dr. Chanley on administrative leave without providing any explanation to the public. As a parent, I find this deeply troubling. As a former board president, I find it unethical and unlawful and something that has the potential to cost the district a lot of taxpayer money spent on legal bills rather than education. More than a month has passed and there is still no evidence or rationale shared with the families who entrust you to the education and well-being of our children. You often talk about the importance of communication and transparency, but yet for more than a month there has been zero. You have left parents, staff members, teachers, and the entire Monroe community wondering why you took this action and wondering who is next on your hit list as you have fired and tried

096to fire multiple principles. You fired our security director and you put the superintendent on leave, all without just cause. Dr. Chanley has been a a steady and student- centered leader. Under her leadership, we have seen meaningful progress, accountability across the district, and a genuine focus on academic excellence. Yet, this decision to suspend her without explanation feels like a decision made to settle a score or even to or to get even with me for a vendetta that the board president's husband has had against me since February 2022. Your decision at 1:30 in the morning on May 6 was not rooted in what is best for kids or what is best for the educational system here in Monroe Township. The abuse of power shown by this board is only going to hurt our community. We should be

097focusing on the real issues that we are facing. Conversations this month should have been about how to handle Applegarth School possibly not opening in September. Putting fourth and fifth graders in the trailer in this building is unacceptable. I don't know how you plan on having lunch, specials, busing all here for fourth and fifth graders, but the conversation isn't happening about that. It's about why the superintendent is put on leave. Miss Gerby, your time is up. I ask this board to do the right thing and to reinstate Dr. Chanley. Good evening. Christina Zawaki, Monroe Township. I'm actually reading a letter on behalf of Margaret and Ray Nesby who are in a meeting right now. I know that you all know them. They do a lot for the township. So, they gave it to me to for

098them. Good evening, members of the board. Our names are Margaret and Raymond Nesby and we've had the honor of working in this district for a combined total of 25 years. We stand here tonight not just as an employee, but as people who deeply care about the well-being of our students, the health of our school community, and the integrity of our leadership. I want to speak from the heart about Superintendent Chanley who has been placed on administrative leave without explanation. This has shaken many of us, not just because we care about her as a person, but because we've seen firsthand the difference she has made in this district. In a profession where we often feel overlooked, Superintendent Chanley has always made us feel seen. She didn't just lead from behind a desk. She walked through our

099halls, stepped into our classrooms, and took time to speak with those of us who often go unnoticed. She asked questions. She listened. And perhaps most importantly, she acted with heart, with fairness, and with a genuine belief in the potential of every child and every staff member in this district. We've seen her comfort students in moments of crisis. We've watched her advocate for programs that help our most vulnerable children. We've witnessed her steady presence during uncertain times. And in those moments, she gave many of us the strength to keep going. That's not just leadership. That is humanity. So to see her suddenly removed with no explanation or communication feels like a blow to everything we believe as a school family. It has left us confused, hurt, and frankly afraid. Because if someone like Superintendent Chanley can

100be cast aside without clarity or cause, what does that say to the rest of us like Rey and I who pour our hearts into this work every single day? We are not asking for secrets to be revealed. We understand that some matters require discretion, but silence breeds fear. And in a school system, fear can be just as damaging as failure. We need to know that the values we teach our children, honesty, fairness, respect, are being honored at every level, especially at the top. The district has come a long way under Superintendent Chanley's leadership. We've built relationships. We've rebuilt trust. We've started to believe in what's possible. Please don't let that progress unravel by removing our leader, Dr. Chanley. We ask you to consider the message being sent not just to Superintendent Chanley, but to all

101of us who serve this district with love and commitment. If there is a path forward rooted in fairness and compassion, I urge you to take it because our students, staff, and community depend on it. Thank you for your time and for listening with both your minds and your hearts. Margaret and Ray Nesby. Thank you. Good evening. Brnisha Monro Township. Um I have two points so I'm going to make them quickly. Um the first is around National Honor Society. Um I do believe increasing the criteria from 90 to 95 is a mistake. Um, admission into NHS is a checkbox for most mid-tier colleges all the way up to the top 20 national colleges and per national policies. Uh, students must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 85. Monroe Township has already made it higher by making

102it 90. And so I do feel like we are punishing our students for doing well academically. Um, Dr. Layman, you mentioned raising the rigor and seeing the impact. I'm curious what impact. Um, I I just see less students getting in. So, I am curious about that. I do feel like we're putting our children at a disadvantage by making it more difficult to get in, and I'm just not seeing the benefit. So, I did want to communicate that before you vote on it. And my next statement, um, I come before you tonight not only as a concerned parent, but also as an invested member of this community who cares deeply about the future of our school district. The recent decisions made by this board have raised serious concerns about the direction we are moving forward and

103the motivations behind these decisions. From my perspective and the perspective of many others in our community, these actions appear to be to have been taken without careful thought, deliberation, and long-term planning that such impactful decisions require. When decisions are made in haste or appear arbitrary, they risk undermining the trust of the very people you serve, parents, students, educators, and taxpayers alike. The direction in which our district moves today will shape the opportunities and outcomes of our children for years to come. The responsibility demands the utmost care, transparency, and reflection. In recent months, the board's faced significant decisions regarding the contracts of two highly respected and well-loved administrators. Initially, there was discretion, deliberation not to renew their contract. Fortunately, the board ultimately chose to do the right thing first in March by voting to renew Mrs.

104Garcia's contract and again last month by reversing course and renewing Dr. Dr. Chhatta's contract. I want to take a moment to generally commend the board for these decisions. It is never easy to reconsider a stance or change in direction, but in doing so, you demonstrated open-mindedness, humility, and a willingly a willingness to truly listen to the voices of the community. That kind of leadership deserves recognition. Tonight, I respectfully implore you to approach your decision-making with the same open-mindedness you demonstrated in recent months, especially as it pertains to the decision to put Dr. Chanley on administrative leave. This decision, as many of us are aware, was made at approximately 2 am during the very end of last month's board meeting. I think we can all agree based on our life experiences, both as teenagers and adults,

105that our clearest thinking and wisest choices rarely occur in the early hours of the morning. But in all seriousness, I urge the board to not only reflect the impact of your decision, but to carefully examine the process by which it was made. Was a thorough investigation conducted? Were clear reasons provided to Dr. Chanley? If the answer to either of these questions are no, then I believe each and every one of you must pause and deeply reflect on the justification behind your vote. As over a month has passed since the decision has been made. Tonight, you have the opportunity to course correct to bring stability and focus back to the district at a time where we are preparing for a critical milestone including the opening of Applegard school in the fall and the launch of full

106day kindergarten. So, I respectfully ask you to set aside personal differences, set aside politics, and reinstate Dr. Chanley, a leader who has moved this district forward by her inspiring passion and always putting the kids first. That more than anything should speak volumes to this board and to this community. I urge this board to slow down, listen more intently to community voices and recommit to the process that prior prioritizes thoughtful governance over rush judgments and action. We owe it to our community and most importantly our children to ensure that every decision, especially one of this magnitude, is made with full clarity, integrity, and due process. Our children deserve nothing less. I urge you to please reconsider and reinstate Dr. Chanley. Thank you very much. Pat Smith um resident of Mono Township for over 40 educator from

107Mono Township Middle School. The privilege of working closely with Dr. Chanley during her time as principal. Our shared love of literature and commitment to providing students with a high quality education created a strong professional bond built respect and dedication to student success. Personally, I'm especially grateful to Dr. Chanley for seeing potential in me. She hired me as an assistant principal, offering her full support and mentorship every step of the way. Her belief in me con my career and gave me the confidence to grow as a leader. I offer my full support to Dr. Chanley as superintendent of schools. Dr. Chanley is a leader of exceptional integrity, compassion, and dedication. She's generous with her time, consistently making herself available to listen, support, and guide those around her. Whether working with staff, students, or families, her encouragement

108is genuine and unwavering. What sets Dr. Chanley apart is her deep and abiding care for her students. She's committed to ensuring that every student thrives both academically and emotionally. She understands that true learning happens when students feel safe, supported, and valued, and she works tirelessly to create that environment. Dr. Chanley is also a person of principle and passion. She leads with a sense of purpose and a steadfast commitment to doing what is right, even when is not easy. Her vision, integrity, and humanity make her an outstanding choice to lead our schools forward. Thank you for allowing me. [Applause] Good evening. Jim Higgins, a principal Marino Township Middle School. Speaking solely for myself, I will not comment on the situation. I simply want to thank I'm going to turn around and look at her. Thank Dr.

109Chanley for promoting an integration of the MTMS eighth grade and the eighth graders from Jamesburg over the past few years. Whether it is joining us on an eighth grade field trip or t participating in our annual health fair or joining our band for our spring concert, seeing the Jamesburg and middle school eighth graders is always wonderful. I thank you. I thank you for always being available to our students and coming to show your support no matter what our event is. I thank you for being available to me 24/7 because our job is not a set hour job. Our job is 24/7. I have called her 11:00 at night, 11:30 at night, 6:00 in the morning, she will pick up the phone to go over the situation. And lastly, I thank you for prioritizing security cameras

110for the middle school. For 12 years after we moved in, we had no security cameras with up to 1,800 students at a building this large. No matter what the financial situation is, she prior she helped me prioritize them. So, I thank you and the cameras are doing wonderful. [Applause] Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity to talk and share our input on this evening. On behalf of our direct supervisor and great colleague, Dr. Sherie Shanley. As a building principal, I'm extremely proud to work in this Monroe Township and to support our district's vision. I'm also extremely grateful for this opportunity to continue my professional work here in Monroe, serving our support and dedicated board of education. It is my pleasure and professional joy to continue to serve as an educ leader and to do what

111is best for children and for our learning. As a leader, I am encouraged to always use my voice. And this is one of those times. [Applause] As you know, in the most recent board meetings in April and May, our communities from both Woodland and Milate came to support our work as principles. It is now my opportunity to do the same to show my support for my mentor and colleague Dr. Sharon Shanley. I want to start with a clear expression of gratitude and continued support for our shared work and efforts as a strong mono community. One of my favorite leadership quotes comes from Mr. Simon Synynic, an American inspirational leader and author. Synynic said, "A leader's job is not to do the work for others. It is to help others figure out how to do it

112themselves, to get things done and to succeed beyond what they thought was possible." Dr. Sher Shanley embodies this quote both as a mentor and supervisor, always supporting and paving the way for the success of Wonderful Woodland School and all our perform fine performing schools in this district. In each of my three years as the principal of Woodland, we've met our school goals with scores that were highly effective. We've established a strong culture of collaboration, shared learning, shared responsibility for the success of our students. We've embedded the avid advancement via individual determination philosophy into our school culture. And Dr. Shanley has been integral to those successes I just shared. She has been supportive of my leadership, my principal ship, and all that I have done in this district. Finally, Dr. Shanley has strengthened the vertical articulation

113between my building and my sister school, Mil Lake. And for this reason, up next to speak is my very good colleague and friend in this work, Doc, Miss Miss Pamela Garcia, who isn't a doctor, but could be [Applause] I'm actually really nervous. I'm going to start by saying that and I I am, but I know there's a lot of educators that are here and so I'm going to speak to you and I'm going to speak to everybody honestly. In March, I was honored to have the support of my Mil Lake community. Tonight, it's my turn to give that support back. I have been truly fortunate to be mentored by Dr. Chanley, a remarkable leader whose insight, compassion, and commitment to excellence have shaped my growth and our school success. I began my administrative career many

114years ago, actually right here in Monroe Township with many of you, serving as a supervisor and working alongside many of the same dedicated colleagues who I continue to support and work with today. I share this because it's important to me that you understand that my deep connection to this district, to this school, to coming back to this community is more than just being a Mil Lake principal, which I've told you before has been one of the best experiences of my life. And I was very happy to get to return. During the March board meeting, the Mille community came together with less than two days notice to highlight the many successes we've experienced. Those achievements are not mine alone. Of course, they're all of the children and the teachers, which I constantly want to highlight because

115I'm nothing without them. I'm nothing without them. I'm sorry. Um, those achievements are not mine alone. They are the direct reflection of Dr. Dr. Chanley's leadership and the belief in the possibility and the possible possibilities when schools are supported and inspired from the top down. Educators know what that looks like. When you are supported from the top down, they're not they're not standing on a pedestal or not being in your buildings. They're actually working hand in hand with you. Over the past three years, Dr. Dr. Chanley has played an active and integral role in both the daily operations and the long-term successes of our school. She is not a distant figure. She is present. She's visible and she's engaged. Whether attending our annual night of reading for three years in a row that I've seen

116her, and I'm sure it was continuous before that, our Veterans Day celebration, our beloved Halloween parade, dressing up, she shows up. not just as the superintendent sometimes as Snow White, but someone who truly values and celebrates with the school community and that is meaningful. Her presence at these events sends a very powerful message to the students, to the staff, and to the families that Mil Lake matters. Our children matter. Your children matter. Please know that she brings that same level of dedication and guidance not just to my school, not just to Woodland School, but to all the schools. Dr. Chanley's support goes beyond celebration. When a beloved first grade teacher who was honored here tonight felt ill, she stepped in without hesitation. She assured parents and worked with me and came to my school and

117spoke to those that were could that were affected to ensure that they were supported that they knew that the district was behind them. Not just myself, not just my VP, but actually the district. She was the representative. That doesn't often happen. Dr. Chanley empowers me to be fully present in my school. Oh my goodness. in my school to make thoughtful, courageous decisions and to continuously grow as a leader. Under her leadership, we have cultivated an environment at Mil Lake that is joyful, inclusive, and driven by growth mindset and high expectations. I'm almost done. I promise. I am proud of what we've built and I'm deeply grateful for the guidance and heart that Dr. Chanley continues to pour into our schools and into our district. and I'm asking you to allow her to continue. Thank you.

118Thank you. [Applause] Louise Bowman. I'm a resident of Monroe. I want to apologize because I'm losing my voice, but I just have a few things I'd like to say. I'm asking the board to reinstate Dr. Sherry Chanley as superintendent. I recently retired after 25 years with the district and I spent the last 10 years at the middle school where I worked for Sherry for much of that time. As her secretary, I saw she is kind, honest, intelligent, well-informed, ethical, and inspiring. She was an excellent principal, and she has done an exemplary job as superintendent, doing more during her tenure than the revolving door of superintendants before her. Most importantly, she deeply cares about children and students have always been her top priority. This board should put aside their grievances and work together to do what

119is best for our students. Stop wasting time, effort, and money on personal vendettas and move on. Monroe children deserve better. Please bring Dr. Chanley back so she can continue doing what is best for our kids. [Applause] Hello everybody. Good evening members of the board and fellow community members. My name is Aier Jabber. I live on six Cedar Brook Road and I'm a parent of two Monroe uh Township students in middle school and high school, both that were recognized today. So, thank you for that. Um, and one of whom mom brag moment is the first ever New Jersey elected student governor to be chosen from Monroe. That's Jane in the back over there. Um, I'm here tonight though to express my support for Dr. Chanley and to call for her reinstatement as superintendent given that we

120have not been provided with clear evidence in support of the decision for the suspension. Let me begin with the simple truth. Putting a superintendent on administrative leave without due process does not serve our students, our educators, or our taxpayers. While Dr. Chanley remains at home, her full salary continues. Yet, the district operates without the benefit of her leadership. That is not sustainable or responsible outcome. I can only speak from my direct experience, but it's but it's an experience shared by many in our large Monroe Muslim community, which represents a large number of community members here and one that is growing as well. Today with others including including my partner Somaya Elamra, who some of you have met in the past. Okay. Um we've worked closely with Dr. Chanley and the entire administrative team I would

121say and members of the board of education um on a number of issues and I can say without hesitation Dr. Chanley has listened she has collaborated and she has taken action in 2022 when we petitioned for our Muslim holiday the holiday of Eid to be recognized like other holidays in the district um as an official school holiday it was Dr. Chanley who recommended that it was that it be added to the calendar. Just this year when we raised concerns about prom falling on our Eid holiday again, Dr. Chanley again responded and thanks to her leadership and the board's approval, our Muslim holidays will be recognized in future years, including next year on the calendar officially. When concerns arose following the Patriots Day lessons and the student experience with bullying and harassment during that time, Dr.

122Chanley didn't brush them aside. Instead, she invited us in to speak directly with district supervisors about ways to address and prevent Islamophobia in our schools. And when we organized events such as the Muslim Heritage Month proclamation and the lighting ceremony um of the Crescent and and Star during Ramadan, Dr. Chanley and many of you also um didn't just know you all showed up um and she has supported us through and through and has celebrated with us through all of these occasions. As a member of the New Jersey Muslim Holiday Coalition, I can tell you that this kind of partnership between school leaders and diverse communities is still a challenge even in a state as diverse as New Jersey. Many districts districts across New Jersey are still fighting for the kind of recognition and inclusion that

123we've achieved here in Monunroe in such a short time. And that's in large part due to the leadership of Dr. Chanley. She has helped make our schools a safer, more welcoming space for all children. Something every parent, every student, and every educator should expect from their superintendent. I mentioned my daughter in the beginning, not just to highlight her accomplishment as hers alone, but one that's a result of the support and confidence she has in being herself and growing into the future leader she will be as a result of her positive middle school and high school experiences during Dr. Chanley's tenure. That's why I respectfully urge this board to do what is right, not just for Dr. Chanley, but for our students, our educators, and our entire Monroe community to reinstate her and give her the

124fairness and due process she deserves. and let's move forward together. Thank you. [Applause] Good evening. Adam Elias, Monroe Township, 93 Old Church Road. Uh appeared before this board in the past as a father, three young children here in Monroe, as a uh aspiring yet failed politician. I appear tonight though as a proud and humbled to be legal counsel for Dr. Sher. I want to turn the clock back for a moment to April 17, 2024. Quote, "Dr. Shanley has done an incredible job this school year to push the Monroe Township School District to the next level. Her dedication as superintendent is unwavering. Under Dr. Shanley, the Monroe School District is a safe, caring, and healthy school environment. Dr. Chanley has been a strong advocate for community engagement, equity, and family engagement. That was April 17th, 2024.

125That's quoted directly from her evaluation. I have to ask, what the hell happened? What's changed in a year? It took me a while. I sat in my office for a while trying to piece things together. I had a lot of information, an overwhelming amount of information, thanks to my client who just kept just hammering me away with documents and with little snippets of information. I'm trying to piece it all together. All I could figure out was that two weeks later on May 1st, 2024, Christy Scurvy ended her wonderful tenure as board president and board member and the board got a new president. And on that same day, the board president rescended medical leave that was granted to the superintendent. And that was the start of a fact pattern. A fact pattern that leads us to

126where we are now. You know, he talked about transparency. This board, if nothing is transparent about its game of retaliation. That is the name of the game for the Mic. You read about a lot of these other actions that happen with other superintendents across the state and usually it's one incident. It can be traced to one incident. There is an overwhelming pattern of retaliatory action tracing back to May 1st, 2024. And it's not always Dr. Chanley that's the uh the victim. There is collateral damage along the way. Most recently, Dr. Chow. And I too join everyone else in thanking the board for doing some self-reflection and reversing that decision. You know, real politicians like to flex when they take on collateral damage. The most ruthless of them all will spill blood and they'll let it

127dry. You know, they'll double down on it. Um, they know there may be consequences and they know there's going to be collateral damage and unintended consequences maybe, but they've made peace with it because they feel that the action that they're going to take outweighs the harms of the collateral damage. But the collateral damage here, it's our kids, it's our children, my kids, everyone else's kids. You know, the prevailing advice that my client receives is to shut up, sit back, grab a cocktail, and get paid to do nothing. She has a contract for three more years. Enjoy the leave. Reset your mind. She can't sleep. She wants to go back to work. She actually wants to come back to work here. You would argue that's a sociopath to want to come back to work here after

128the abuse she's taken. hundreds of thousands of us views, but she's earned that right to want to come back here. Assistant principal, acting principal, principal, assistant superintendent, superintendent for 22 years. This right here is malice. This is irreparable harm. This is actionable. And each and every one of you are liable for that. On a personal note, I have one rule in my practice. I don't sue the police and I don't sue my school district. I'm not bluffing. This is ready to be filed tomorrow. I don't want to file it. Please don't make me do it. On a more personal note, on May 5th, 2025, I went to bed that night as a proud resident of Monroe. I really did. And I woke up the next morning outraged, mortified. Please don't make me go to sleep

129and do that again. [Applause] There any other members of the public wishing to speak? Okay, seeing none, we will close the public forum and move on to our next agenda item, which are our assistant superintendent report. Um, say I think Sure. Okay. So, tonight I'm going to combine the assistant superintendent's report and the superintendent's report. The uh assistant superintendent report is typically highlighting academic and uh athletic achievements and kind of bragging about our students and our staff. And I think we had a nice display of that this uh this evening already recognizing our retirees and finishing up our acknowledgements uh for our students. So I'm going to move right into our uh acting superintendent report. So, it's recommended for under personnel item personnel items uh personnel 10 member vote items A through BC that the

130board approve the acting superintendent's recommendations. Motion second motion by Miss Ratner, second by Miss Bora. Correct? Yes. Any questions or comments? Hey, can we have a roll call, please? Yes. Um, Ms. Alvarez. Yes. Miss Bora, yes. Miss Depay, yes. Dr. Peek, yes. Mr. Po, yes. Miss Ratner, um, yes. Recused due to conflict on R33 and AH3 for Mr. Ratner. Miss Chararma? Yes. Mr. Tfano? Yes. Yes. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Uh, Mr. Yes. Miss Fabiano. Yes. Yes, Motion passes. Under the personnel nine member vote, it's recommended that the board approve personnel items BD through DF. Motion second. Motion by Miss Ratner, second by Miss Dain. Yes. Or whatever. Any questions or comments? Okay. Can we have a roll call, please? Yes. Miss Alvarez? Yes. Miss Bora? Yes. Mr. Payne, yes. Mr. Piro, yes. Miss Ratner, yes.

131Miss Chararma, yes. Mr. Tfano, yes. Mr. Zik, yes. Miss Fabiano, yes. Motion passes. Under board action 10-member vote. It's recommended that the board approve the attached board action items A through A. Motion second. Motion by Miss Boris, second by Miss Ratner. Are there any questions or comments, Miss Ratner? Um, yep. I do just have a quick question on letter Ah, um, the arbiter registration, it's an online registration platform. Is that something that goes along with Goofan? Is it something entirely different as far as uh, the two programs are together? It's, uh, it's the same parent company and it's something that the athletic tournament uses. Okay. Yep. All right. Thank you. A board action. Sorry, one second. Where are we? We're uh board action 10 member. Sorry. Uh yes. Okay. Um, Miss Alvarez. Um, okay. So,

132yes to all. I have to recuse on number 13. Letter B any items related to the learning tree. And there's another Ah, items uh for the learning tree. Wrong letter is number one. AH number one recused. Yes to the rest. I'm on the wrong one. Oh, I'm sorry. So, we're on the number. All right. Never mind. Let's do that again. So, yes. Okay. Yes. Um, okay. Miss Bora. Um, no on item E and yes on everything else. Okay, Mr. Payne. Yes. Dr. Peek, no to E. Yes to everything else. Um, Mr. Po, yes. Miss Ratner, I need to abstain on letter A um for Mr. Snider um and letter G for Dr. Layman. And then um I'm going to vote no on letter E. E. Okay. Um Miss Sharma, yes. Mr. Jano, no on EJ.

133EJ. Okay. Uh Mr. Yes. Miss Fabiano, yes. Um, okay. So, we have Okay. Motion passes. We good, Miss Allen to move on? Yes. Sorry. Next item. Next. Yep. Go ahead. It's recommended that the board approve board action items AQ through BC under the nine member vote. Motion. Second. Motion by Miss Bora, second by Mr. Depay. Any questions or comments? Okay, seeing none, can we have a roll call, please? Yes. Miss Alvarez? Yes. Miss Bora? Yes. Mr. Depay? Yes. Mr. Piro? Yes to all. I'm going to abstain on AX. Miss Ratner. Um, yes to all. And I need to abstain on letter AQ for Miss Francis. Okay. Uh, Miss Chararma. Yes. Mr. Tfano, yes. Mr. Zikner, yes. Miss Fabiano, yes. Motion passes. Okay. The next item on our agenda is our business administrator's report. It is

134recommended the board action items A through AI be approved by consent roll call under a 10 member vote. Motion. Second. Motion by Miss Alvarez, second by Miss Bora. Any questions or comments? Um, I do have a question. Um, Miss Allen, would you be able to tell me if A1 is the lawyer we use for the prosay petition? It is. It It is. All right. I just have a comment there that um this was my first time seeing a lawyer represent the board cuz I went there and God, he couldn't even say the name of our superintendent. Correct. He kept saying Dr. Charnie. So, I I have to say that there's got to be some better like we've got to have some sort of quality control on who's representing us. Like it it I I honestly

135felt if this is the person representing me this time I you know I he's probably doing it that's the quality every time. How are we being represented? Yeah. So with that, um, the the school district is insured by New Jersey Schools Insurance Group and as part of their standard policy, which I haven't looked at the policy that's applicable to to this specific district, but knowing New Jersey Schools Insurance Group policies as I do, um, there is an absolute right of the insurance carrier to pick and assign the insurance attorney um, to the school district. And we cannot give any feedback, Mr. Weiss. We we can absolutely give feedback because some of the arguments he made wasn't representative of this board at all. I don't think any one of us think oursel as political. Um and

136he made it sound like this is political. I can certainly make the concern known to the insurance carrier. Thank you. That was my comment. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay. Can we have a roll call, please? Yes, Miss Alvarez. Okay. So, I'm going to say yes to all, but I'm going to recuse on number 13. Items related to the learning tree on the bill list and ah related to the learning tree which is number one. Okay. Um Miss Bora, uh no to A1 and yes to all others. Okay. Mr. Mr. Payne. Uh yes to all, but I have to abstain in the bill list where if it does, uh refer to a member of my family. Um Dr. Peek, yes. Mr. Pum, yes. Miss Ratner, um I'm going to recuse due to conflict

137on A1. Um and recuse on letter B for check numbers uh C. They're all C's. Uh 07296, 0748, 0749, um 07410, and then the billist addendum number one um numbers 07464, 05796, 07613, 07811, 07848, and 07772. two um and then recuse on letter ah for um methyl and worbble and the law office of David Ruben. Okay, that's all Miss Chararma. Yes. Mr. Tano, yes to all and no on A1. Okay, Mr. Zikner, yes. Miss Miss Fabiano, uh yes to all. Recused on the bill is for meth vessel rebel. Okay, motion passes. Okay. Then the next item on our agenda is the board president's report. I'm going to keep this brief. I do want to once again um congratulate all of our award recipients tonight and all of our retirees. Um happy Father's Day to everybody

138um celebrating Father's Day this weekend. Um graduation is next Friday. So, congratulations to all of our graduating seniors and I hope that everybody has a happy and healthy summer and we will see everybody back in September before we know it. And then that will move us on to other board business. Are there any other any board members wishing to speak? Miss Ratner? Um yeah. So I just wanted to um share a few um or highlight a couple of the events that I had the opportunity and pleasure of attending um either as a parent or as a board member or in some cases both. Um one was the unified field day. Um, I very much enjoy being able to participate and see all the stuff that goes on there every year. Um, this year I was

139doubly blessed because two of my children um were unified buddies and so I I really got to see it from their eyes as well and it's just honestly an amazing event for our entire school community. Um, and so I really do appreciate um that opportunity of being able to attend. Um, and then I also um I did just want to share um that when the um last week it was the uh the chorus they had the band and chorus trip and obviously I could speak you know pertaining to the band plenty but my daughter did share with me um that the chorus actually received a nearly perfect score which is apparently almost unheard of. Um and so you know we heard like the actual awards that they received but um that was this numerical thing

140that's apparently you know tremendous in its own right. So I did just want to share that. Um and then finally I know we have um a lot of promotions and graduations that are coming up. Um I got to go to the Mil Lake kindergarten show which was wonderful. Um my littlest one was performing which you know was kind of bittersweet for me but then you know my son said you could just have another one and I said no and we left it there. Um and then next week um I look forward to attending the middle school graduation. Um I might I don't I might have missed something for that. I know we've usually gotten something. Um but um I'll be there as a parent either way. um um as well as you know then the

141high school uh graduation at the culmination of the school year. Um, and I just want to congratulate all of our graduates. Um, and thank all of our staff members and administrators for a fantastic school year, Mr. Dupono. because of what we heard here tonight that was read off a pre-written paper in the last meeting which followed the line we are going to make a motion to place our superintendent on leave. Um I've decided that I'm going to take one for the team here. And when I say team, I mean the students and the parents that love our superintendent. Uh if anybody needs to know how to file an ethics charge, email me and I'll tell you how to do it. So here goes. In our last meeting, and I'm not supposed to tell the public

142this, but I'm going to. There were four reasons given. And uh Miss Chanley, before I do this, do I have your permission? Because I know you're losing sleep because nobody's told you yet. So, I'm going to do it because I know your staff is probably also upset that they don't know it. And before this continues and people start to lose respect for you, I want the entire town to realize how stupid this is. So, number one reason, and I'm not going to say I'm not going to say who said what, but I'm going to tell you what was said. The first thing that bothered someone was Dr. Chanley wasn't mentored. That was easily resolved because you weren't mentored. Okay. The second thing was she doesn't tell me any updates of the programs I vote yes

143for. Ridiculous. Okay. The third thing was Dr. Chanley emailed Maryanne Freriedman and asked that Katie Fabiano and Pete Piro not be part of her evaluation. I'm sure every resident in this town can understand why. And I'm going to tell you what my opinion is. Pete Piro was the director of security here who resigned because he did not want to take direction from a strong woman who was running this district. So he resigned and he ran for the board as a revenge because he doesn't care about the students in this district. That's my opinion. Okay. Katie Fabiano's husband has made a literally a hobby out of destroying people's lives in this town. The superintendent is his number one target now. It used to be me, but now it's the superintendent. I'm sorry that you know you're

144number one. I I'd rather be number one for you. So I I can see as a board member how she would feel that she wouldn't get a fair shake from these two people in her evaluation. Now this was emailed to her. It wasn't done with a phone call or in secret. It was done transparently. and Maryanne Freriedman informed us that this is a common practice of superintendent to re relay the message of conflict they feel if they don't want to be evaluated by certain board members. So nothing was done illegal there in my opinion. I'm not a lawyer. There's one sitting right over there. You could ask me. Uh the last and and most ridiculous one of all in my opinion was madam president. Yeah, madam president. Nothing I'm speaking. Madam President, the last thing

145point of order. The last thing I have a point of order is that Sherry does the evaluations of her husband's supervisors. Her husband is a tenur employee of the district who's had 20 plus years of excellent reviews. Nothing that Sherry can do would affect him negatively or positive at this point. So there's no benefit for her evaluating her husband's supervisors. As it is, her son, who was hired by the previous superintendent, had to quit his position because this board said her hus was conflicted and she could not approve his employment here. Now, like I said, I put it all on the line here. I'm sure I'm going to get some ethics charges. Charlie, just try to stop me because this is upsetting people. This woman has dedicated her life to our students 20 plus years.

146Moved here to get closer to the school so she can be around during emergencies and and be part of the community without having to travel back and forth. Literally moved here to help the students in this district. And from what we've heard here tonight, the the the students and the staff are very happy with the job she's doing. This was done like some also some residents said out of personal vendettas. So I'd like to make a motion tonight to resend and reinstate her as superintendent and stop the nonsense before this district faces severe litigation that's going to cost this district a lot of money. Second. Any questions or comments? [Applause] Seeing none, can we have a roll call on the motion, please? Um, sorry, can I interrupt you for a second? Can I can I

147make a comment, please? Yes. Thank you. Um, I because this motion is on the table, I do also want to start first by thanking everybody that came out. There's a lot of keyboard warriors in Monroe, but the people that took the time on their busy weekn night and showed up here to show their support for Dr. Chanley, I am grateful for them. Um, whatever Mr. Tufano shared and the motion that he made is really the right path for us to take as board members. Like a few taxpayers standing here said, she is a contract till 2028. Any decision we make on her paid administrative leave, given that we've not followed due process so far, is going to cost us litigation money. and all of us. Our northstar on this table is student success and our

148commitment to the taxpayers to fiscally improve education in town. Any money spent on litigation is money taken away from our students, all of our students. When it comes to personal vendettas, it's the students that are suffering. I have always maintained that I don't take sides when I sit on this seat. I look at the issue at the impact on students whether it is putting any administrator on paid administrative leave or looking at their evaluations. My northstar is student success. Dr. Chanley when she was in acting I was running for this board of ed Mr. Fabiano wanted her to be the next superintendent and I told him at that time because I was running with his wife that no, Monroe deserves somebody more experienced. We've had a revolving door because people don't have a backbone to

149stand to the nasty town. But after becoming a board member, I observed like Mrs. Belco came here and said, I was in the exact same shoes as Miss Belco. I wanted better for Monroe. I wanted more for Monroe. But I was on that hiring committee of board members and we made the decision we made and I am proud of that decision. Monroe has only benefited from that decision. I am not Dr. Chanley's friend. I am here for the students and whatever decision, whatever vote we take here cannot be based on personal vendetta. Mr. Mr. Fabiano wanted her to be the superintendent, but because she did not listen to him in the first couple months that his wife was on the board and I was on the board, he got angry at her. And then he

150had a personal vendetta. He went and joined teams with Mrs. Aiz, who's done nothing but destroy education in this town. I don't understand I don't understand why that page is called Monro Township education page because that doesn't talk about education at all. It only talks about people and how bad people are. People like me who are so bad who've been sitting on this board volunteering my time trying to focus on programs, get more funding for Monroe. But I'm bad. I'm evil. So if you believe Mrs. Ziz and Mr. Fabiano, then we should continue on the path we are on. But if you really want to do something right for the students and make sure our money is not spent on litigations and on paying Dr. Chanley while she sits at home and Dr. Dr. Layman

151does the job of two people which I have a whole lot of respect for but it is not fair. We really need to resend this and do things the right way. If you have an issue with Dr. Chanley, bring it to her. Give her a chance to correct it. Put a corrective action in place and then take the action that you're t taking the action. This is not bureaucracy. This is not dictatorship here. Let's let's put students first. Let's please put students first. Thank you. Could I Could I There's a There's a motion on the table. So, is there any other questions or comments on the motion? Nope. Okay. Can you restate it? I want to make sure I understand the vote. The motion was to The motion is to resend whatever. The motion is

152to resend and reinstate. I think he said, Mr. Tfano, if I'm not mistaken, and Mr. Tfano, you can correct me. Uh I believe you said to resend and reinstate. Correct. Resend the motion to put her resend the prior to reinstation. To reinstate immediately. Okay. Can we have a roll call, please? Yes. Um, Miss Alvarez, no. Miss Bora, yes. Mr. Depay, no. Dr. Peek, yes. Mr. Piro, no. Miss Ratner, abstain due to conflict. Miss Sharma, no. Mr. Tufano, yes. Mr. Zikner, no. Miss Fabiano, no. Motion does not pass. [Applause] Yay. This cost you a lot of money. Public um I'm sorry, other board business. I had something Mr. Piro and then Mr. P. Go ahead, Mr. Po. I had my hand up. All right. So, first off, uh, let's tell the truth about the evaluation thing

153if we're going to say something. So, I went to do the superintendent's evaluation. I signed on and it would let me on. So, I was conflicted. I called Miss Fabiano, the board president. She said that she doesn't know why I'm conflicted. I then emailed Miss Freriedman. I will read my email. I would like to know who advised you to mark me conflicted on Cherry Chanley's evaluation. Did Shyrie Chanley tell you I was conflicted? And for what reason? Did Shyrie Chanley advise you? She spoke with our legal counsel and our board of education president prior to advising you. I was conflicted. Why wasn't our board of education president advised by school boards that I was being more conflicted? I was embarrassed that I was not given access to do the evaluation and had to spend taxpayer

154monies for a legal opinion that was not needy because there was no conflict. This is the response back from school boards, Mr. Chapano, so you could get your facts right. Dear Mr. Piro, thank you for your email. These are the events as they occurred. 319 Dr. Chanley sent email stating two possibly three board members are conflicted. Dr. Chanley had not stated the evaluation had not started the evaluation that time. Dr. Dr. Chanley on 331 sent an email that two are conflicted and were marked as such. 43 Dr. Chanley completed submitted the CSA evaluation and all board members received notification on 45 422 email from a board president stating just important that Mr. Piro is conflicted and should not be. I was in a district afternoon and e in I was in a district all afternoon

155evening and responded on 423 423 I called the board president recommended that board attorney uh regarding conflict with Mr. Piro for attorney's recommendation 424 received email from Adam Weiss board attorney that in his legal opinion Mr. heroes not conflicted. I was out of the office on 424 and responded on 425. I sent an email to Mr. Weiss thanking him for his opinion and remove Mr. Piro from being conflicted. Notify Weiss for President Mr. Piro on 4:25 at 9:34 a.m. So those are the real facts. Mr. Tfano, you want to say something? Why don't you read the emails first? That's that's exactly what I said. No, that's not what you said. That's exactly what I said. I should have been more conflicted. Cost taxpayer money for that. You should have banged your head against the wall.

156Who you should have? Any other Yeah, right. Uh, Mr. Payne, you wanted to speak, correct? Well, I didn't want to speak about any of this. I I It's other board business right now. I was I attended the um armed forces day event held at our high school and it was what I the audience is going to maintain with the audience but I can't say the audience the audience is going to maintain decorum. I attended and it was really a wonderful worthwhile day to meet all the veterans in our town and I live in Rossmore and I met about eight or 10 of them just from Rossmore and didn't know we had a veterans association in Rossmore and our high school I can't remember the lady's name she did a fabulous job running this program the

157high school students were absolutely so attentive to all of the needs if any of the men and women who were there that day from the armed forces. They sold shirts. Uh they had a collection for I think um tunnels tower if that's what it called if I'm right saying right. And it I came home um just feeling so wonderful that I made time to go but to experience what our students in the high school and Dr. Higgins and all his um administrators and everyone in charge did to make everybody feel so comfortable and to give them the highlight for Armed Forces Day. So I just wanted to commend them and and say it was a great day for me. Thank you, Miss Bora. I want to echo Miss I I echo Mrs. Deepain's thoughts on

158Armed Forces Day. It's an it's an amazing event, one of my favorite ones. Uh I will miss being there as a board member next year. Um in response to what Mr. Kiro said um about the whole process, I just want to state a simple fact that um the the controversy here is that Dr. Chanley did something she couldn't do. Whereas that's not right. Dr. Chanley did what superintendent tend to do. So I'm going to read the email that I wrote to the entire board after a conversation with Miss Freriedman. And I copied Miss Freriedman here. So just like you read an email. I'm just going to read the email that I communicated my conversation with Miss Freedman and what she said. Um dear fellow board members, I spoke to and this was the day after

159on May 6th. Um, I spoke to Maryanne Freriedman who was kind enough to make time for me this afternoon and I wanted to share what I learned from her about the superintendent evaluation procedure. According to Maryanne, it is not uncommon for superintendent to reach out to NJSBA FSR to share who in their opinion is conflicted for their evaluation. There are times when the board president is not aware of this conflict. So, superintendents often do this on their own with the NJSBA representative. So, what was being hyped as an highly unethical act by Dr. Dr. Chanley last night is in fact quite a common occurrence. What happened afterwards is also due process. If the board member does not agree, they can tell the president or the NJSBA representative themselves and are usually asked to get advice

160from their board attorney to prove otherwise. If successful in proving otherwise, they get the chance to evaluate like it happened with Mr. Piro. What was being explained in the close session by the board president and the vice president as an highly unethical act by the superintendent is in fact quite usual. I have copied our NJSBFSR to this email. So, if anyone would like to confirm my conversation, please do so by reaching out to Maryanne Freriedman. I would like to urge you to understand that not everything that was sent said said in the close session was factually correct. There are assumptions and personal opinions being thrown around and using that to put the superintendent on administrative leave without any warning or discussion was not the right way to handle the situation. It was not a solution-minded

161approach. She's a tenure staff member with a contract till June 28. As board members, each one of us needs to individually understand the process involved and the impact it has on what matters end of the end of the day for all of us, MTSD and fiscal accountability of our actions to taxpayers, hoping we can work as a board of do what is right for everyone and sadly not. I think just to clarify what you're saying, it's not unusual for the superintendent to reach out to New Jersey school boards, but what is unusual is for the superintendent to conflict a board member without having legal advice first. There was no legal opinion on that. No, it's not needed. According to Marian Friedman, superintendents have these conversations and then she told me the exact I wrote it

162down. I'm sure they do have those conversations, but usually there's some legal basis behind it. I don't have anybody else to seek guidance from but our field service representative and our highly qualified and our board attorney. No. And she does always refer back to the board attorney. NJ school boards has an attorney of the day. So I question why you didn't ask them. Who would who was the one who saying what Miss Freriedman is saying? Trust me, I spent a lot of time talking to these people in the last month. Anything else for other board business? Okay, then we're going to move on to our second public forum. Any uh member of the public wishing to speak, you have four minutes to do so. State your name and municipality for the record. Hello. Can you

163hear me? Hi, my name is Ganeshwar Asamas. Address is 283 Morning Tribe, Mand, New Jersey. Um I recently heard about the superintendent being put on administrative leave and I feel that uh the board members and the board should take careful uh consideration in resolving this dispute and not taking any u opinion which will just waste the taxpayer dollars of Mandra Township. I'm a parent. My daughter is in 8th grade and I feel we a wonderful school district and I request the board to do whatever it can so that we the taxpayer are not spending the board is not spending hardened taxpayer dollars to a legal fight which is not required. So I I really urge the board to go over this thing, resolve the conflict and reinstate Dr. Chandley. She's a wonderful super. Last time

164I just give you an example like we had an issue with the warehouse issue for uh in um u near my my community and then I responded to I reached out to her and she was very much uh uh available to respond quickly. So I feel that she is a wonderful school superintendent and we want her to be stated as soon as possible. Thank you so much. [Applause] Any other members of the public wishing to speak? I have a question for the attorney. Is uh what the superintendent is, is that a fireball offense? I'm not going to answer that. Okay. Uh because to me it sounds like more of like, you know, maybe she should have, maybe she shouldn't. A lot of, you know, uh crap. crap basically. Yeah, thank you, Pete. Basically, it sounds

165like a bunch of crap. Um, are you guys all aware that she is a tenure principal in the district? Do you know how much that's going to cost everybody to keep her here as a tenure principal? That she can't be fired because she is a tenure principal. I hope you all think about that at the end of the day. Okay? I don't I live in Jamesburg. I don't live in Monroe, but my in-laws live in Monroe. They're retired. So, I hope you think about every dime, dollar, and cent of the taxpayers and how much it's going to cost you. And I hope it costs you all personally. You need to think about it this because this is all vendetta. You've had this planned since he got rid of me and Chrissy Scurby and the rest

166of board majority. So, you got your way now. And I hope you're all embarrassed. Hope you lay your heads down on your pillow at the end of the day and know what you're doing. [Applause] Chrissy Scurvby, 21 premise drive. This is about the superintendent's evaluation. We put her on leave over Mr. Piro being upset that Dr. Chanley told school board she thought that he was conflicted. A disgruntled former employee who is now a board member is conflicted when evaluating superintendent when they have a negative history with that superintendent. The resignation letter of Mr. Piro speaks volumes of his disgruntled manner toward Dr. Chanley and myself as the board president. It was riddled with lies and inconsistencies. He is a conflicted board member to do her evaluation. You fired the Porzio Law Firm last year because

167they had an ethical compass and would advise this board. Real legal advice. You hired somebody now who is giving you terrible advice or not even advice because apparently you didn't go to the board attorney fire prior to putting the superintendent on leave. There was no discussion. There was no investig. Was there an investigation? I mean to hear that she's put on leave because Mr. Piro's feelings were hurt that she called New Jersey school boards where she is legally allowed to do is absurd. I mean, let's call it what it is. You You've been looking for something. You found nothing. She's an exceptional employee. Exceptional reviews. I bet the review you probably did was good. her board goals. Did she meet them? I I mean, that's what you're supposed to go on, not Mr. Piro's feelings.

168That's now going to cost us millions of dollars. How do you sleep at night? Usha, how do you take that vote when you are constantly telling Dr. Chanley how wonderful she is? How your own family asked you if you're in love with her because you say nothing but praise for her? and you vote to put her on leave because your running mates's feelings were hurt. I hope you're okay when the taxpayers have to foot the bill. I can't wait to each one of you are served and sued personally. You deserve it. [Applause] Anybody else wishing to speak? Okay. Then seeing none, we are there. We're going to be having a dis. Do you want to speak? Okay. Sarah is of Township. There have been some public criticisms of this board alleging that the board had

169not been transparent regarding the reasons for the suspension of Superintendent Sherry Shanley. As someone who's been following this board for years, it's my understanding that the board could not discuss confidential personnel matters in public and if they do, they could be subjected to lawsuit. That said, I would like to discuss matters that are already public. In response to an ethics complaint in 20 2023, Chanley admitted that she violated the school ethics act when she involved herself in the employment matters of her son. She claimed that this was an inadvertent error and that she did not even notice that her own son's employment was on the board agenda. Nonetheless, the school ethics commission reprimanded her. And in their ruling, the commission stated, and I quote, "It is the responsibility as the chief school administrator to carefully

170examine all agenda items prior to board meetings to ensure that she abstains from all matters in which she has a conflict of interest in order to preserve the public trust." Even after this ethics complaint was filed, Chanley apparently continued to involve herself in the employment matters of her family, putting family first, I guess. In 2024, the School Ethics Commission determined that there was probable cause that she violated the School Ethics Act again by involving herself in the employment matters of her husband. This happened a few years after Chanley's actions as a middle school principal prompted the New Jersey Department of Education to compel our school district to develop a corrective action plan to prevent school district employees from misrepresenting their credentials in school publications. Unfortunately, Sher Shanley's actions have repeatedly drawn embarrassing news headlines to

171our school district because of you. It should not shock anyone that someone with this pattern of behavior may have done something more recent to deserve a suspension. I call on the board to thoroughly investigate any allegations of wrongdoing, examine the relevant documentation, and hold Miss Chanley accountable if she has shown to violate violated ethical standards against. Ultimately, I hope our community gets the ethical and competent leader leadership that we deserve. I also have a question for uh Dr. Layman. Uh Dr. Dr. Leman, as you continue in this role, will you also support having the Eid holidays um as a school holiday on the school calendar along with the Jewish holidays and the Christian holidays and the Hindu holidays? And will you continue to work with the Muslim community and all other communities in um addressing

172issues of discrimination, racism, and bigotry? So, I was a part of Yes, of course. And I was a part of the engagement in the in the district staff that met with you know all the all the communities and we certainly would support any holidays uh moving forward. You know we we have to develop next year's calendar. We typically start that over the summer into the fall. So we will certainly take a look at you know anything that's on the table. Thank you very much and uh good luck to you in this role. Is there anybody else wishing to speak? Okay, seeing none, then we are um Oh, yes. Hi, Roshnish Sha Monroe Township. Um, not sure if I had to repeat it again, but just in case, um, I'm fairly certain that everything that was

173just said was not brought up by Mr. Tufano in terms of what was discussed for the review. So, it's actually super irrelevant and I'm not even sure why we're discussing things that have been brought up in the past. Um, what's the most relevant is Dr. Chanley's evaluation now, what took place last month and what'll take place tonight. It is not has nothing to do with what she has spoken about in the past. Um, so I just want to make sure that everyone here is aware of that. Thank you. Have a good night. Adam Elias Monroe Township. I just want to confirm, Mr. Weiss, did you receive the notice that Miss uh Dr. Chanley wanted her um evaluation to be held out in public? Yes. Is that still going to take place today? I I think

174we kind of just spoke about that, but to the extent that I didn't really an evaluation of Dr. Ch. To the extent that the board is going to to discuss Dr. Chenley's evaluation, it will be done in public. Okay. Will that be this evening? Right now. Right now. Thank you. Brian Fabiano Monroe. I'll address the elephant in the room. I wasn't going to say anything, but it's amazing sitting back and listening to a couple hypocrites come up and preach and and beg and disregard facts that they know that have transpired in this school district. I'll start first with Mrs. Aaki over there who's running for the board of education this year. Her husband was just f fined by the state ethics commission for trying to again waste school district money to say my wife is

175conflicted. Let it be clear, Miss Kirby can't get it through her head, so she continues to spend thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. The ethics commission has now said it twice. I am Mr. Brian Fabiano and she is Miss Katie Fabiano. Two separate people. Now, you may live in a household where your husband controls you and doesn't allow you to be a strong, independent woman, but that doesn't happen in my house. Oh, sorry, Mr. Wacky. It must be in your household as well. But the funny thing is, you'll sit here and disregard that this is the first superintendent in Monroe's history that's been found guilty of violating ethics. First one, you'll sit here and say employees shouldn't be thrown out. Employees should have due process. remember a guy called Shawn D Shawn Dalling? Yeah,

176you do. We were over in the middle. We were over in the middle school. There were hundreds of parents, students, community members that showed up and begged Christy Scurvby not to fire a man who was loved in the school district who had a wife and and daughter home on endstage Lyme disease. Sick as hell. They were going to lose their benefits. The guy had months to be able to retire. and they laughed in his face, but then they come up here. Boohoohoo. We're going to disregard everything that Sharie Chanley has done because you know what? She's one of ours. Shawn Dalling wasn't. Mike Gorski wasn't. Every other person that they ran out of this school district, you know what? I helped in the beginning get Sher Chanley this job. Absolutely. That's my right as a

177citizen in this community if I support someone. And you know what? When she got in the job and she said, "I'm not running the school district. Chrissy Scurvy is running the school district." I knew instantly she was not the one for the job. When she allowed Chrissy Scurvy to steal money from the sports programs, steal money from the booster club in the audience. Excuse me. I'm speaking. You will maintain a stealing money students security. Excuse me. Security. I'm saying my clock is still running. I'm going to file a report tonight over him harassing me. Security, can you escort her out, please, if she can't maintain Ghorum? What I seen them do under the purview of a superintendent who closed their eyes when they stood in the parking lot at all hours of the morning. I

178got want me to read Karen Beerman's text when Karen was on the board. That's what we should be talking about. Things that matter for the kids. So, you're going to tell me when a superintendent turns a blind eye in the public's view for a board member who w who wanted to be the superintendent but wasn't. And she's still chapped over it. She got beat, destroyed in the last election worse than anybody who's ever run for this board. I think your numbers might have been lower than yours, Sarah. Right. Maybe not. No. But at the bottom, okay, she and this power-hungry group of five, there weren't even 10 teachers in this district here tonight to support the superintendent. What does that tell you? This place was empty. Look around at other school districts. What happens when

179these situations happen? Thousands of people show up. This is a stunt and a disgrace. They're afraid for their jobs because of you. Our staff is afraid. Are there any other board members wish Are there any other members of the public wishing to speak? You already know my name because he likes to say it a lot. Christine Zawacki Monroe Township one. I think it's remarkably hypocritical that you allow certain individuals to yell and be inappropriate and be hurtful. And when other people react in a way that might be impassioned because they're irritated by what they're hearing, the same thing isn't done. And by definition, that is hypocritical. Additionally, when people are walking up to the microphone, you might want to whisper about them a little bit lower because your mic is very sensitive and it picks

180things up. It's really an atrocity to see what's going on. People are uncomfortable. People hand things in to be read anonymously. Sometimes not anonymously because there is this overwhelming like layering of fear. You are supposed to be here for the public and you are listening to a brazen few who are allowed to spew their nonsense and it's absolutely absurd. It's embarrassing. Things are being said that one aren't validated, two I don't know if it's rumors, and three you're allowing it. Whether you're allowed to say certain things or not, screaming for security or letting certain people say things and other people are not allowed to, that's a problem. It's part of the reason why people don't always show up. [Applause] Is there anybody else wishing to speak? Okay, seeing none, then we are going to close

181the public forum and move on to the uh evaluation discussion of the superintendent that was asked to be done in public. Um I Miss Ratner should Mr. Weiss should Mr. Weiss help me out here. Yeah. So, this is weird. I'm going to put that out there. We're doing now a superintendent evaluation in public. It's a public meeting. The members of the public are allowed to be here. Miss Ratner is conflicted. Um, and so Miss Ratner, if I were you, I would leave the room, but that's, you know, that's your decision. Um, we, this is a public meeting and arguably like, you could leave the room and watch it on TV if you wanted to and we wouldn't know and all of that. So, um, technically you should remove yourself from the room, but that's not

182a directive. It's totally your call. Oh, so can I ask a question there? So she she cannot participate but she can sit and listen and that's not going to be unethical. And I heard your advice that she shouldn't be in a room where this is being all all I can tell you is that my recollection of all school ethics advisory opinions that talk about conflicts and conflicted board members indicate that board members are to remove themselves from the conversation the situation you know the location of the conversation. So, I can only be guided by that. Um, if it were me, I would leave. But again, I'm not telling anybody to leave. Totally up to you, M. There's no action to be taken after this. Oh, okay. All right. Um, I guess I'll I'll go. I

183I can't say anything anyway. So, I that I know for sure. This is just Yes. And also, you know, by the same token, um, Dr. Layman and Miss Allen as employees, um, should also typically the the subordinates of the superintendent leave the room when we're in executive session talking about an evaluation. But again, I'm not telling anybody to leave. Um, they can if they want to. Dr. Layman and Miss Allen, are you guys leaving? you were going to step out and to the extent they step out um I just uh suggest that the board appoint someone temporarily to temporarily to take the minutes and I would suggest that we do that right now. Okay. Can I have a motion to appoint an acting secretary like to nominate Carmen as the acting secretary? Is there a

184second? Motion to second. Second by Okay. Motion by Mr. Piro, second by Miss Bora to make Miss Alvarez the acting secretary. Roll call or roll call. Uh, any questions, discussion? Any questions or discussion about acting secretary? Roll call. Okay, we need a roll call vote. Um, Miss Alvarez. Yes. Miss Bora, I'm sorry. What are we voting on? We're voting to make Miss Alvarez the acting secretary. Secretary for Okay. Sorry. Mr. Tufano. Yes. Dr. Peek. Yes. Mr. Payne. Yes. Miss Chararma. Yes. Miss Fabian. Oh, you're last, right? Okay. Mr. Zikner, yes. Mr. Piro, yes. And Mrs. Fabian, yes. Okay. Is it 10:28? It is 10:28. So, um, board members, you have the evaluation in front of you. It was prepared as we discussed in the last executive session. All the comments and all the information were

185copied and pasted into the document. Um there are additional comments um at the end feel free to review and um if there are no questions or comments then I will collect them back um and then if you do want wish to review it further then we can you can do so at the board office. Does anybody have any questions or comments about the evaluation? Just need a couple minutes to review, please. Thank you. Yeah. Just want you send it Be well. Go. Um, I have a question. I'm looking at standard two, governance, ethics, and professional norms. I do not see my comment in there. I'm not sure um because the next page page eight talks about standard three. So standard two and my my comment started with her in her three years as superintendent preceded

186by six months as acting Dr. Chanley has endured relentless personal attacks. I don't see that. Am I missing something? Um I don't there are six comments here. Are we missing a page maybe or is stapled wrong? Um, do you want to read the rest of the comment? I don't I don't know. I can't. Yes. In her three years as superintendent, preceded by six months as acting superintendent, Dr. Chanley has endured relentless personal attacks on her character and performance. Yet, in the 15 years I have lived in this community, she has brought more meaningful progress to MTSD. Um, in in the 15 years I've lived in this community, she has brought more meaning. It's probably the the it looks like the bullet didn't line up, but it's the second bullet. It's in the second bullet. It

187says, "Yet in the 15 years I've lived in this community, she has brought more meaningful progress to MTSD than started wrong." So, I it's not the regular policy and regulation updates in her three years or so. That's not part of my past wrong. You just cross it out. Make an edit. It's Yeah, my comment is a little That's all right. You're right. It's there, but it's a little mixed up. But that's all right. Does anybody have any other questions or comments? No. Nope. Nope. Let them know that you'll edit it. Then I'll make I'll edit that one comment. All right. Yeah. Okay. Um and then we'll I have a question for the attorney without that. Um so when Mr. Tufano shared information that was discussed last board meeting, he didn't really wasn't really accurate and

188I feel like the public got a a wrong opinion. on what was discussed. It wasn't just the one issue that was discussed. So, I don't know if we need to clarify or we can just see. So, to to the extent that um I mean, look, you're certainly able to make whatever statement you want to the public. Um, and to the extent that you feel that it's incumbent upon you to quote unquote, you know, give give your version of the facts. You certainly can do that. Um, Mr. Elias has indicated that he's going to be filing something. So, the board will have ample opportunity to put its position and make its position known uh by way of legal filings. Um and uh certainly we can do that as well or in place of um okay so

189so there's a there will be ample opportunity to um to have the different versions uh known okay thank you can I can I mention something I sure when I spoke to Maryanne Freeman I I talked to her at length about a couple issues she told me that even at this type or time of an evaluation we can change our mind on what we said depending on or pertaining to what other people have said in a group. So she said I mean it's down in writing but we have a a turn a chance to say you know what I forgot that and maybe I should have put that in there. So, she did explain that to me that we can always go back and add and subtract just because we've heard it differently from some of

190the other board members. Just wanted to let you know that's what she told me. So, and um if I if I can add, I don't know if this is something that the attorney or Dr. Chanley are going to speak to later. But one of my concerns was the thing that was brought forward by uh Miss Fabiano and Miss Alvarez was that how she doing the um the evaluations for her husband's supervisors, right? So it it's definitely a flag, you know, if it's not right, why is Dr. Chanley doing it? We need to follow due process everywhere. Um so that was a question in my mind. And apparently when Dr. Chanley was made acting or superintendent. I don't know at what time she got legal advice on what she can and cannot do or shouldn't do.

191And this wasn't an advice given to her. So, you know, and right now, Mr. Weiss has looked at it again and it's the advice that he can give to her, but again, not concerning enough to put her on administrative leave. um given that her the person we're talking about is somebody who's worked for the district as long as her has never had any issue with his evaluations. I don't see Dr. Chanley using the backdoor method to get his evaluations better. So while I do agree that what is not right should not happen going forward. it shouldn't be a reason to put her on administrative leave is what what I feel and and you I don't disagree that when something like that comes up it needs to be corrected but I do disagree that it cannot

192be a ground for putting her on administrative leave and just to just to go off that I do want to just point your direction to there was an email that I sent I shared with the board on August 28th um April 28th August 28th last August August 28th um read that document because in that document it will explicitly state what you're talking about and that it's shouldn't happen. And you know since we're since we're discussing you know this issue uh to the extent you want to identify the document say what it is so that this board it's the probable cause notice that the board receives in August from the ethics commission. What was it uh what was the case? Um 924 that was the C924 sorry decision on probable cause. What was it about? I

193wouldn't remember for that was you could read the caption. So the title of the case right here uh the case that's being referred to uh is and I'm going to butcher the name and I apologize. So let me actually get my better glasses. Um, uh, Valla Bahani, Bahani versus Sharie Chanley, school ethics commission docket number C9-24. Uh, is the email attachment that Mrs. Fabiano was just referring. Uh, Miss Bora, and there's uh, one of the Does it say that she shouldn't be doing evaluations of Yes. Correct. Okay. But I I go back to my point that shouldn't be held as you know egregious enough for putting her on paid leave. Any other questions or comments then we are going to move on our there's no closed session. So our next scheduled board of education meeting

194at July 30th 2021. Don't we don't we so she's she's not seen it. Do we not present it to her? So, so what typically happens is now there's going to be a further um revision based upon the fact that you you indicated if I'm okay with that not not happening is it fine like I just said that yeah so so typically what would happen if everybody at this table was okay tonight with Dr. evaluation it would be provided to her. I'm okay. That's that's the next step. Okay. I'm okay. So you can provide it to her. So So what we're saying is it's going to go back so they can doctor it to me. But if you think that it was doctorred, you should have spoke about it already, but you did not say anything.

195I did try to Yeah. So I'm okay with that one sentence being off. That's fine. I don't think we should delay the process anymore. Thank you. No problem. Because it's a good Okay. So our next scheduled board of education meeting is July 30th, 2025. Can I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion second motion by Miss Alvarez, second by Mr. Piro. All those in favor? I I have a good summer everybody. We'll see you in July.