001the meeting of the Monro Township Board of Education will come to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice all Madam president i' just like to point out that today is Flag Day June 14th yes thank you thank you for that and we just pledged to it so that's a good thing it is recommended that the Board of Education appoint Steven Ryback as temporary board secretary for this meeting in accordance with njsa 18a call 18a calling 16- 1.1 any need a motion and a second I I will definitely motion for Steve I will I'll second that thank you all in favor hi hi Steve I give up if you're struggling with the writing and
002it's okay with you go right ahead try to help you out opposed then the this was passed and you can do a roll call when you're ready uh Michelle alino here Mr bravman here Mr Chella here M Mayo here M Kono here m l not here M Corino is not here I'm here Mr Russo is not here Mr rutsky is here Madame President you have a quarm I'll read the statement in accordance with the provisions of New Jersey open public meeting law the Monroe Township Board of Education has caused notice for this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted June 8th 2018 at all schools home News Tribune cranberry press and filed with the clerk of the municipality okay we'll go to public forum Michelle do you have anything
003to say for public for yeah I think we should still we'll take that under consideration three three according to our bylaw our policy okay anyone from the public wishing to speak please come to the microphone make make sure you have your I uh state your name and address for the record and we will adhere to our 4-minute timeline thank you thank you president this is prakash parab 33 Dana Drive uh I have question to you president of BOE yesterday during June 13 Boe meeting Frank Russo the member of BOE thanked Dr kak for releasing one page summary of document to him about budget of each department school districts ETC number of employees I don't know but one of the document let us say that Mr Russo commented that he has been requesting this document from
004Mr gosi for two years and from you for one year and both of them did not both of you did not respond to him whereas Dr kak provided information within a week so this again shows that the president of BOE and business administrator are not trans transparent to Bo members now don't tell me that it is a legal issue my question is why you are not sharing information to BU members when they request it depends on the information so what information who decides what information so don't you think the Boe members are elected and they have we are taxpayers they have been elected and they need they request information who decides there's a confidentiality I I think there is some confidential agreement and when they request information who decides what to give or what not
005is there in the you know please clarify to us it depends on the information the administrator sends out a Weekly Newsletter to the Board of Education with the information they feel is important to the Board of Education we have committee reports that um we report every month with the information to the board of education but see when suppose naturally Bo members reads a report or whatever documents at s s they have followup questions so they ask for the information so why you didn't even reply that you will not be able to give this information because of blah blah blah Did you reply to Mr Russo that this information cannot be given because of these reasons because how you can keep the bu members in the dark depends on the information the information Mr Russo had
006last night I asked to have sent to the whole board in the Friday confidential anyway you are not answering my question you didn't respond to Mr Russo for one year did you tell Mr Russo why you did not respond suppose he requested you that document did you tell him did you tell the respected Boe member with respect this is confidential I cannot release it I'm I I I I don't really know what you're asking it it depend it depends on the information at the board what he requested was denied at the time anyway you're not answering my questions my request is whenever the Boe members request some information be immediately tell them if it is confidential you cannot release to them and give the reason don't keep them hanging okay they don't ask me for
007information they go to the administrators and ask for information and they get it from the administrators they don't have to come to me to get information anyway Mr R Russo asked you that's not it is not wrong Miss armeno I'll anyway afterward you can comment let me take some time today is the day you like evaluating Dr kak okay so my request to the Boe members consider Dr kak's performance for last 3 years he did present it yesterday don't get sared away by the statutory notice given by president of BOE without your consent keep your thoughts aside please think keep your thoughts okay keep your independent opinion please think of it I know he's gone but evaluation as a record please take your opinion the evaluations are already complete yeah thank you very much Krishna
008Jake pleas um we were let's continue the conversation we were having about the state funding right um You said when we when I ran out of time yesterday yesterday that um we spoke to the legislators regarding the additional funding for mro Township So when you say we who in the board uh Board of head members spoke to the legislatur and who did you speak with the leg in the legislators myself and Mr Russo had a not Mr Russo Mr Ryback had a conversation with um our Senator Linda Greenstein excuse me Linda Green sen okay there was also a um a committee that formed where U is some of the underfunded school districts like Chesterfield uh their Boe presidents went in and made um presentations was any of our board members there um there it was
009probably a few weeks ago Miss Armenia was there I was there Mr Ryback was there Mrs Lang was there and our business administrator was there okay do you have any feedback from the meeting that you had with them if I remember correctly Miss Armenia we did speak about that at a a passport meeting oh I have missed it um anyways um again the second the follow-up question to that is um if you are speaking to the legislators right uh we in the public have always come out and said that you know we would be interested in spearheading a letter writing campaign we've been doing it independent of the Board of head because we have never been called on by the board of head to say you know hey we need you to write letters in
010our support we've been spiriting another we could have worked together and we would have made a difference right because this is at the end of the day it is our children and our school restrict we would have and we were just um surprised that you know the board of head spoke to the legislators without letting the public know or asking the public for support on this um critical issue okay okay okay and um do you uh so going forward um the plan was there was also a plan to Su the state right um has any decision been made on how to sue the state or what parameters are we going to sue the state for and what kind of additional funding are we requesting from the state I will turn that to Mr Chella because
011I I believe you were going to handle that with um your committee so I met with our uh our board attorney today and we had a discussion based upon that so um and it's not it's not a confidential conversation what I what the couple of the things that uh I brought up to her and I asked her to look into um and and we I never I didn't get a definitive answer today so I'm not speaking for her I'm speaking I'm telling you what I said uh basically I thought that maybe we had a a basis for a lawsuit uh based upon the thorough and efficient clause in the Constitution so basically what the Constitution says is that we have to provide a thorough and efficient education for our children so the only way to
012sue the state would be if the vi if there was a violation of the Constitution that we could sink our teeth into you know and say this is we're not providing a thorough and efficient education for our students because of of X so my thought was we have a a high uh uh a high percentage of uh special needs students in our district and a lot of those students have very specific requirements so for instance um autistic children who are autistic uh and and are uh on the higher end of the spectrum uh they can't be moved around a lot you know they can't it's not good for them to be moved from school to school and to be uh have a lot of change you know they need to have everything structured and so
013we don't have the same programs in every school uh we our elementary schools are all not equipped the same way so we do have to move those students around so why but why so why do we have to do that the reason is we don't have the room we don't we we don't have the funding there are a lot of reasons why we have so we'll pick a school put put that a certain program in that school and then move the kids to that school and move them around and that's not very good for the children so maybe we're not providing a thorough and efficient education that way the other thing is that there was a a lawsuit a while back uh maybe last year about mainstreaming children with special needs and I think that
014if you if we look into that that the basically what the lawsuit stated was that we're not mainstreaming enough children into the into the regular classroom setting and we needed to do more of that and have have a a less restrictive environment for some of the special needs students but we we had too many that were segregated I guess um but I also think because of funding issues and stuff that we might be mainstreaming too many children that maybe some of those children still do need Specialized Care that they can't get in a mainstream classroom and why would we be doing that because of because of cost cutting and and those kind of things so I think we might be able to also make uh the argument that we're not providing a thorough and efficient
015education from that standpoint so she's going to look into those and then get back to us but that's what that's what you know that's one of the things we talked about today so that's where we are with that we're going to move and then soon um we'll be having a meeting soon as as you know we've been we've had a lot of meetings we've had a lot going on here starting with you know the mtea negotiations and the contract all the way through now now we're in graduation season replacing a superintendent we had a a um you know the the referendum and things like that so now that we're I think we're on the on a tra trajectory where we could start meetings again and start formulating a a plan to uh and I'm and
016I'm motioning over here because Dr parab is there and he's on our committee but uh that we that that we start to you know move forward meet again uh continue to meet with our legislators which we have done through the subcommittee and then and then move forward we I have um sent quite a few emails as well to the governor do Governor Phil Murphy we've sent it to congressman and also the Senators well thank you u i could forward a copy of that email to you Ken and you could use it and then we could work to fine tune it I could get my community involved that would be great and that's the thing I everybody has to everyone has to speak up you know we we we we can you know we're taking on
017the fight and we're willing to fight we have a lot of outspoken people on our committee uh sometimes to the point where we're all fighting each other but we we're doing it because we're fighting about how to move forward and how to do this which is which I think is a healthy thing but uh if but we need our residents to speak up sure sounds fair so thank you thank you thank you anyone else from the public seeing no one we'll close public forum and close session resolution Madam before you before you go um I'd like to just speak about uh the last uh speaker the previous speaker um we we have been told that if we have to ask the administration for anything we have to first go through you and then ask the
018it has well maybe some people don't have to go through you but others have other members have been told and they emails to the effect that we can't just approach an administrator and ask them a question that we have to go through you and then the administr and you have also you have also responded on many occasions and said that the administration administrator will not be satisfying a request for information I have never had an email that said that well I'm sorry that but uh we'll have to find it um but the but the lastly Mr rth so's particular question um information there was nothing confidential about it all it was was a I never said it was confid but I just want to it seemed like I want the public to be clear that
019there was nothing confidential in that request and all it was was a matter of sorting out data that's probably within within the uh computer software so if it was sorted out that and he was asked a particular um administrator who refused to do it for reasons of being too busy or maybe not feeling it's important or whatever the reason was it was a matter of sorting out um data from the software so there was nothing confidential about and it should have been done two years ago okay so to clarify things you have the right to go to the superintendent the assistant superintendent the business administrator and and the board attorney okay anytime and CC me on it I I have always I have always respected the protocol I and I know you have and the
020other thing I I will say the other day you had sent me an email about um the visits that Steve and I had with the um County and the New Jersey school boards and um the um uh I think it was the county ba that Mary had you wanted to report and I told you you can call them anytime you want you have that opportunity to call them if you want to find out the information yourself they work for the school board they don't work for me so anytime you have a question you have that opportunity or the right to call them and I I believe Mr Rybeck did that years ago be before he was on the board um wrote a letter to I don't know if it was the county superintendent um it
021was a long time ago it it might have been you or it might have been um Mr roach but I know one of the administrators went bananas about us about CI Mr roach Mr I know you talking yeah roach you know so I know we have many members of the community all the time that call the county that that's that's what they're there for and you have that right as a board member and as a member of the community of Monroe to do that which sort of then makes my point because I know Mr roach was belittled by an administrator who who said uh who who was very offended that he dared call the county superintendent so I mean there seems to be a pattern of it's okay for some people and not okay for
022others but we will continue this well I don't remember ever having that conversation with Mr roach but uh you have it was that wasn't about you that was just about approaching uh the superintendent for legitimate documentation about finances and uh the administrator uh wrote a very scathing letter back and then treated M well I won't I won't qualify I have no knowledge of that close session resolution be it resolved that the Board of Education of the township of Monroe hereby moves to go into close session in accordance with the Sunshine Law chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 njsa 10 colum 4-6 to 10 colum 4-21 to discuss the following subjects superintendent EV valuation following Clos session action may be taken the discussion conducted in Clos session can be discussed to the public at
023such time as the need for confidentiality no longer exists second I need a first I will I will motion to go into executive session is there a second a second all in favor I opposed then we will be going into a close session okay at this time the board is back into um we are back at the public session we have no resolutions so um the next I do not have the next Board of Education meeting I believe it is uh July 15th don't we have a special meeting 20 no I don't think we have any more special meetings I thought we called for one last night we had for a closed session to discuss Personnel matter no I think we ended up not doing that not doing that because I was going to go
024and no no I think we we we went in a different direction so I'll just have a a motion to adjourn okay you said July 15th I think it's the 18th 18th there you go yes July 18th 2018 here at 7:00 p.m. in the high school okay I'll make the motion to adjourn okay Mr Chella miss armeno all in favor I opposed meeting is adjourned