001good evening the special meeting of the Monroe Township Board of Education will come to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay it is recommended that the Board of Education appoints Steven Ryback as temporary board secretary for this meeting in accordance with njsa 18a colon 16-11 second is there a second second all in favor opposed Miss Armenia was opposing abstaining no oppos okay thank you then whenever you have a roll call M armeno I am here Mr Braverman here Mr here sure Mr Mayo here M K powitz here m lang is absent M Corino is absent I'm here Mr Russo is absent Mr
002rutsky is absent um Madame President you have a quum thank you just get to the uh in accordance with the provisions of New Jersey open public meeting law the Monroe Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted June 1st 2018 at all schools home News Tribune cranberry press and filed with the clerk of the municipality thank you so we will go right to public forum anyone wishing to speak to the Board of Education please come to the microphone state your name and address for the record and Miss armino before yes before I I am compelled once again the third time in a row to object to not having uh the proper public forums and on this on our meeting's agenda tonight
003thank you we will note that in the minutes anyone wishing to come to the microphone Krishna La Jake please I have a question um what's the agenda of this forum um this meeting special uh what is the purpose of this meeting yeah uh Acting Superintendent search deliberation process okay so last meeting was also the Acting Superintendent in search right and a superintendent evaluation and evaluation um so the question that then comes in um you gave a notice of non-renewal to the superintendent before you actually evaluated his performance yes okay um while having said that um I also want to point out that you know U I've spirited a campaign letter in support of Dr kak that has been signed by almost 600 people here and I support Dr kak I believe he is the best
004man for this job uh he's bought the school districts to a respectable level Monro Township school districts to a respectable level we have a referendum that is still needs to be done there's overcrowding and everything else so I support Dr kak I want it on the record please what's your question it's a statement okay that's what I thought right thank so having said that um I have a question about the referendum uh we were discussing referendum last week before the clock ran out on me um when we were doing the Middle School referendum for uh February uh it was told that you know if the referendum fails we would turn back and push the same referendum through because we need the schools our schools are overcrowded and everything we are now looking at May and
005we still do not have a path forward on the referendum last time I've been told that there's a steering committee that will come together why is there a delay I mean when the Middle School referendum was came out and was sent to the are sold to the public it was said that you know Middle School is dangerously overcrowded and all that we're getting 18 trailers we won't get anything so what's the delay that is stopping us from doing what the plan B was then well if we go to plan B again we need to have a recommendation from the administration which we have not had yet and then we would need to go to the state which would take six months and we will not be able to have anything in place again before 2019
006yeah but then um that was not what was told during the U not saying that um what I'm saying is what was told during the referendum was that you know hey if it fails we'll turn around and get it in within 6 months well I yes it is it was said that but if we decide to change it because we know that there were a lot of people who did not support the referendum because we did not include the high school addition so if we're looking to add to anything to that referendum then then we can't we're not turning around and going out right away for the second referendum so you are in effect changing the referendum or we are not saying that at this point there has been no recommendation everything is on the
007table okay um so what is the criteria for um selecting the SE um the uh the selection committee or the administering committee what's the criteria for it who is on the um steering committee for the referendum how do we get who is on it and uh the steering committee was created about three years ago by then president Doug po there are members of the board there is a member of the public there is a member of the mtea there is also um at the board attorney um the business administrator the the superintendent and the assistant superintendent and the director of facilities okay so um I have seen uh reports coming out of um the board of Aid going back as back as 2014 that show that you know the high school and the middle school
008at least the high school was the middle school at this time the never mind I'll come back next week again can I say something yes Mr thanks I realize how frustrated the uh public is but I got to tell you prior to that me uh that group getting together three years ago I spoke to Mike Gorski and I said let's build the high school let's put an add dis on Oak Tree and let's build another school where Apple goth is had that been done we would be there already I mean this is this is crazy the way we keep I'd like to I'd like to really say the way we really are doing things it's just beyond the imagination I I couldn't write a book with this it's just frustrating it is frustrating but but
009the problem is we're not taking D you're taking Direction instead of being proactive and that's the problem I hope you'll start a time now prash par 33 dinner Drive last meeting you president president you said contract non-negotiable letter was given to Dr kak on March 22nd according to public understanding in February Boe meeting a motion was passed to have Dr kak resend his resignation and start negotiation for 2 years extension Dr kak resented his resignation in February then on March 22nd a meeting in March 22nd be meeting there was no Quorum and the meeting was cancelled so it looks like you the president of BOE gave the Letter to Dr kak on March 22nd without majority consent of the Boe can you please explain I will not talk about the superintendent's contract nor the statutory
010notice it's not that I will not talk about it it's I cannot talk about it okay I'm just noting I want this to be to the record that's why I'm asking these questions and to clarify your comment I don't want to take your time please you answered my question thank you please I said but you had misinformation there because the statutory notice was given on March 27th March 27th okay you know Dr kak has a vision for next 3 years including strengthening of our Science and Technology Program increasing the science and math competition continue to pursue college and Corporation partnership increase more Innovation projects in so he has a vision and you all are pushing him out so we are in June what we have observed so far is no productivity from Boe leadership we
011observed several issues such as teachers contract not signed for several months failure of referendum of Middle School several walkouts by Bo members attempts to push out deserved superintendent Dr kak bylaws not followed with respect to reappointment of superintendent no lobbying for the fair funding for the school no urgency to bring up updated referendum to vote this year lack of transparency and providing information to public nothing positive has been done under bu leadership ship in several months what Bo leadersh has done is split Boe rather than uniting them we feel lack of leadership we in public are disappointed thank you anyone else from the public Ragu churi 23 green a street I want to bring up two main issues one with the leadership and two uh regarding the superintendent uh Dr kak if you look at
012the stats the way U the Parks coures have increased over a period of time under the Dr K act we see significant Improvement we attribute that to Dr KAC as well as the teacher contribution too and uh two regarding your leadership Miss Kathy somehow as a public like and as a parent of a high school student I want some kind of a trust confidence and transparency in some of the decisions that board is taking under your leadership we as a community members around 600 to 700 people have signed a petition to extend Dr kak's contract uh we have listed the positives that uh we have seen under the leadership of Dr kak despite that the board has made a decision to not to renew his contract the the lack of contents is not I mean
013I understand whatever may be the reasons you don't want to extend his contract that that I'm not uh uh denying that part but what we want is a transparency in explaining to the uh to the residents to explain like know what went wrong we are fine but we need a transparency here to let the public know why the dec has been made and why when it has been made we don't don't see a consistency in those decisions you know one time we all agreed here that his contract has been extended in the sense uh we taking back his resignation and after that we don't know what happened and again the news came out that his his contact has been not renewed I mean what I want to ask you is why there is inconsistency in
014this kind of information when shared with the public and uh trust part that's another important thing so when as a leader the the public expect some kind of a trust and confidence we are lacking I mean we are not seeing that maybe like know you're not expressing it in a proper way to the public to gain that trust that's another thing that I want to bring it up and I looked at some of the previous board Boe meeting notes and I see that the over capacity issue has been identified in 2014 I want to know as a leader as a president of this board when you took up this role you are already on this board for past 14 15 years I believe and you know the over capacity issue as a leader what decision
015have you taken or what is your contribution to address starting from 2014 and we are five years into it now almost like four years done and fifth year into it and we have lost one referendum and we don't have any action plan of at least the public is not informed what are the next steps we've been coming to these Boe meetings and we've been asking every every month there's no transparent information like you know there's no information or there no next plans like you know what is it you know we are planning for next uh referendum if if you want to go same with the next superintendent to uh I what are your criteria to look at a new superintendent you know will he be able to handle uh the new referendum or E he
016aware like you know if all like you know how how how you want to handle uh the over capacity issue like what will be his contribution or what would be his inputs given our like you know or capacity issues for the new new superintendent yeah I mean these things we wanted to put in in your interview whatever like you know the selection criteria as a public we wanted to know his contribution his information like how you want to handle when it comes onto the board well first of all in regard to the referend we have nothing new to add so there when we do and we had been giving updates every month when we had an update right now we have no referendum we have no um a um uh uh what's the word I'm
017looking for uh the the the superintendent the Administration has not recommended a plan yet at the board acts on the recommendation of the superintendent so there is no recommendation we are still in the process of looking at all options when we have an option we will definitely bring it to the to the Board of Education in regard to the contract and and the transparency there are things that the board cannot discuss with the public especially if there's pending legal matters um and that's all I will say uh any if you not um you have the right as a citizen to go to New Jersey school boards and question this or go to the county super intendent because everything that we have done has been done with um the knowledge of school boards the knowledge of
018the county superintendant the county business administrator and our attorney uh client um privilege so that is all I'm going to say I'm not responding to any questions in regard to the process of the superintendent rehiring not rehiring or contract I cannot it's not that I will not I I cannot do that I totally understand that's what I said right you know at least for the S I'm sorry your time is up thanks anyone else good evening uh Chrissy scurby 21 pness drive here we are again another week another special board meeting this meeting is called um to continue along the process with selecting an Acting Superintendent as a result of the action taken by the board president to act alone and write a letter to Dr kak saying he would not have his contract renewed
019after board members walked out of the meeting and there was no Quorum a letter that should have been voted on by the board before it was sent to Dr kak yet there was no vote it seems to me this board president is acting alone in outside of the guidelines set forth by New Jersey school boards and state regulations so tonight there are internal candidates being interviewed I'm asking this board to take this very seriously we have heard for several months from members of the public how there was a plan that was devised months ago to terminate Dr kak from Monroe and to put Dr alvic in his place I believe this is still the plan I do not know who has applied this evening but I'm hoping this board will go into those interviews and
020truly listen and evaluate the qualifications of each person I would like to point out that Dr alix's contract was delayed being voted on this year which I find very interesting go back to the agendas for the last several years and the assistant superintendent's contract was always voted on May in May interesting though if her contract isn't approved how could she even be considered for Acting Superintendent additionally I'd like to point out some things this board should consider under Dr alvic we have more testing of our students than ever before we keep coming up with more and more ways to test and collect data rather than worrying about what we're teaching the curriculum has been watered down and and has not been seen by many parents as challenging anymore the big policy she is spearheading is
021a homework policy that has been dragging on since the fall which only serves to micromanage teachers further now we are hearing that she's involved with spearheading classroom Alexa as a parent I don't want Alexa teaching my child it's a computer and I don't want my tax dollar is going to pay for technology when we don't have enough technology now in the lower schools to be con to be seen as a competitive District any longer what's next a virtual classroom where students don't even have to come to school and at the last Board of Ed meeting I'd like to point out Dr alvic had security walk her out to her car and watch her leave the parking lot if she's so scared in her current role as assistant superintendent what will happen when if she's appointed
022Acting Superintendent are we going to be hiring Secret Service parents have grave concerns with Dr alvik ability as assistant superintendent and we have even more concerns with her running the district anyone else from the public good evening Ram ragut 60 in stri mro um as uh others have mentioned it's June June 7th right to be exact uh and really as we look back at this board at the board of education and the leadership what has been achieved it's very dismal very poor uh right that's the rating I would give um there's really no productivity uh that's coming out teachers contract dragged on for months the referendum failed nothing in sight for 2018 with the referendum uh the well respected superintendent of the school Dr cozac is gone or almost gone uh no replacement in place
023so we are very very disappointed uh with uh where things stand um and really I think there's some soul searching to be done by the Boe and the leadership in particular in terms of Dr kak again we are reiterating that that let's not waste time let's focus on getting him renewed back in place um his achievements right park scores have gone up in the last three years highest in mid sex County it's not a magic uh science competition you know loed Martin again his accomplishment I know there are others involved but he's the leader the administrative team uh worked with Dr Wagner from Harvard right to help students be Innovative uh in terms of how they think about their projects again building Future Leaders out of mandro uh Dr kak has also helped with the
024Innovation and Entrepreneurship center right with uh Dr Ash andal internships for students high school students with the Medical Group lawyers office etc etc etc lobbying for fair funding he has done his part to take things forward not much action from the Board of Education he has also a very clear vision of the next three years what our children need the focus on strengthening our Science and Technology increasing that level of competition which is very important for our kids helping them really pursue that college programs and that corporate partnership for people to get internship and experiences and then really that Innovative Project based approach for students there a lot of things he had in his vision he has done a lot the members of the public really support him we are really really concerned particularly with
025this referendum and all the things on the plate we are requesting begging you you know please let's put politics aside issues aside personal issues aside and let's renew Dr kak's contract it is really important I think if one thing the Boe can do to be successful in 2018 that is it getting Dr kak back back in the saddle and then of course let's take forward on the referend thank you anyone else from the public good evening Naga vaja 15 Harvest View uh Miss Kathy uh when answering one of my fellow residents questions you mentioned this evening that the referendum failed because high school was not included do we have stats to show that is that something something that you have already shared no I I did not say that the referendum failed because we don't
026have the high school um addition on it I said that um there were a lot of reasons why but um there has been a lot of requests to put the high school addition onto the referendum if we do that we have to it's a brand new referendum and we have to start all over again with the process with the state okay what I heard was that referendum fa because many residents were unhappy that high school was not included on at least that's what I understood so no go ahead so does that mean again I know you answered already but I want to get it straight does it mean the referendum won't go in until we decide once again on whether it's for middle school or high school or both together that's correct so we're taking
027a further step back we're not taking a further step back we're looking at um we we're digesting some information that we received some surveys we're asking for updated um demographers reports um and we're should be getting all this information during the summer if we want to put something on the agenda on the um ballot for next uh March we need something in place by September so when you say by summer do you have strict timelines that this is adhering to or is it just end of summer middle of summer well the state has strict timelines there is only five days out of the Year where you can go out for a referendum there's um you can I'm sorry I was referring to the data that you're waiting for right we're we're hoping to have it
028by July because if we want to go out by March we need to have all this in place by September okay thank you anyone else seeing no one we'll close public forum and go to close session resolution be it resolved that the board of Education of the township of Monroe hereby moves to go into Clos session in accordance with the Sunshine Law chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 njsa 10 colum 4-6 through 10 colum 4-21 to discuss the following subjects Acting Superintendent search deliberation process following close session action may be taken the discussion conducted in close session can be disclosed to the public at such time as the need for confidentiality no longer exists can we ask questions about that before you have to move about move the resolution got to pass the
029motion no there's no questions on closed session resolution there are no questions no no no not on closed session resolution well you're asking us to approve to go into close session right once that resolution is passed we can make a statement about the going into close session you usually don't make a statement it doesn't matter what usually if if there's usually no stat I need a motion and a second to approve this I'll move it and I'll second it and now I'd like to make a statement um first of all um I believe that this is It's possibly a dubious procedure to seek Acting Superintendent based on the last um actual vote in um March that we were we had voted to reconsider Dr kak's uh contract and nothing was done and then unilaterally a
030letter was sent out um without any vote at all from the board so again I think this is a dubious procedure and also uh president kalanit since you mentioned it in public you mentioned that you received uh you've had discussions with the county superintendent with school boards and I think the county assistant um but it seems like that was also done unilaterally um I had written you in private before the meeting uh to get the direction and uh summary of discussions you've had with all those people to fully and to be a fully informed board member and I was told there there was no there was nothing in writing and no records of those meetings and I feel that if you're if you're making statements that you you're telling the public that we're supposed to
031proceed based on your your um meetings with these people I think that members of the board who are equal in who are we are supposed to all be equal uh should be apprised of those meetings first of all and the summary and information derived from those meetings and that has not happened so I don't know really what was done in those meetings it's not recorded it should be recorded it it may not we may not be able to speak about it now because it's not resolved but um the public deserves a public record of what occurred in order for us to proceed so that's my issue um and on the referendum well we won't talk about that you're right I can't talk about that now thank you I have a a question and maybe a
032Brie statement but I want to know are we going to be voting on any of these candidates toight that's up to the board okay and how many votes would be needed to approve of to approve anybody for any superintendent position you'd take six votes so it would take six votes of this board to pass anybody that we interview tonight yes not a not a simple majority but no of the of the those present okay so it would take a unanimous vote essentially given that Mr um um Russo unfortunately is a conflicted well that was my other question is that I don't I don't believe that he is conflicted anymore because by the time that this he's conflicted as of today as of today but the Acting Superintendent doesn't won't take place until ju but as
033right now whatever we're doing today he is conflicted but it's up to the board member to vote or not based upon that conflict from what I've learned from previous experience um right or wrong that it's up to the board member to recuse themselves or not or Vote or not um and we've had a similar conflict I don't want to go into conflicts with board members we're have we have a resolution now and right and I'm I all I'm saying is I think it would be up to Mr Russo if he votes or not not up to you mam president because we've had similar conflicts in the past and those people have not been stopped by you you've not stopped them from voting and now we have somebody who could possibly vote and I think you
034should be allowed to vote and then let let let let the law sort it out that's all I'm sign so we have a a resolution to go into close session so all in favor I I opposed I so at this time the board will move into closed session this time the board will move back into public session and seeing that there are no resolutions I need a motion to adjourn so moved Mr Mayo Mr tiella all in favor I opposed and at this time the meeting is adjourned