001uh this meeting of Monro Township Board of Education uh is now session uh can I ask someone to please rise and join me in the pledge Mrs KY Pono you have a flag yes I pledge allegiance the flag of the United States of America under godible and justice for all thank you all M we have a roll call certainly Mrs armeno I'm here Mr cherella hereo thiso I think she's muted I'm here sorry about that thank you Mrs K Pano here Mr Nick atinsky here Glory I'm here Rybeck Mr seagull here Tano Mr Tano here you Mr rety here president you have a quarum present this evening than you in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law Monroe Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be
002to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted June 5th 2020 at all schools the home News Tribune the cranberry press and filed with the clerk of the municipality thank you very much Mr borski first order of business for us is approving of the minutes I need a motion to approve the uh June 10th 2020 on the Township Board of Education uh I'm sorry the P the public Board of Education meeting of April 27th move that okay all those in favor I I I any opposed extensions recusals I need a motion to approve the closed session meeting of April 27th 2020 so move Mr President I have uh a comment on that on the confidential meeting I believe uh the confidential meeting refers to vice president giving a report on negotiations if
003I recall Kathy was not involved in the negotiations portion of it so it may be a typo or am I missing something I think the vice has to come out and I thought it was you who gave the presentation I did not that's what I thought just minor correction on the uh thing and other than that yeah okay good C I'll make thank you okay with the correction all those in favor I any opposed I'm opposed opposed one opposed any exensions or recusals okay um motion to U approve the special Board of Education uh meeting of May 7th 2020 so moved I'll second that oh did Rupa okay need discussion on that all those in favor I any opposed or recusal Mr board president who seconded that motion was that Mrs Colo K Pano yes
004I need a motion now to approve the closed session meeting of May 7th 2020 you I have a second I'll second that you second it all right uh any discussion on that this is Michelle or Min have a question ahead okay I have the Clos session minutes um in my possession in the it says down here redacted confidential draft I don't see in mine where it's redacted so how will I evaluate whether I think the redaction is acceptable or not where do you have redacted confidential D on the on the agenda it says redacted confidential draft I think you might have the public agenda that's what I was thinking you need a board member agenda not the public agenda well this is what I was this is what I was given I had that same
005thing Michelle I do too the way it's the way you accessed those documents what documents now my point is so I don't so I don't see the reacted minutes I so I don't know what I'm I mean the ones that I see I would have accepted but I don't know what the public would be would be getting so I don't know what's reacted and if I agree with that or not so I would the the minutes that I have in my hand that are unredacted that are not redacted I would approve however it says redacted and I don't see where is the redacted version Mr President this is Andy poori can we just table the motion to approve those meeting minutes at this point of time please and move on I have no problem okay
006we'll table that don't we need to make a motion to table it in a second I just did I'll second it okay all those in favor I I any oppos okay I think that was 100% so that that was tabled all right now we can move on to presentations I'm G to turn it over to Dr alic I believe thank you Mr Felman can you make me the host so I can sh my screen please Mr President could you please request the members of the board to put their computers on mute if they're not speaking please that's a good idea if you're not speaking please put it on mute thank you everybody able to see the screen yes okay so usually at our June meeting we we um recognize our retirees anyone who has retired
007from our school district since last September through until through this summer um and since we are in um remote land we're still going to do this this too so I do have this um presentation I have um I'm mentoring someone right now who's doing her hours for to get her um uh her superintendent certificate her Chief School administrator certificate and uh she was able to put some of this information together for me um gathering information from the schools um and the people that some the people that these retirees work with um so we have 14 staff members who have retired through this past year we going to begin with Charlene Al Charlene taught in the Monro Township School District for 27 years she's a language arts teacher at the middle school she also worked at
008Woodland School um and then transitioned to the to the Middle School um completed 22 years she's been a sixth grade teacher language Advantage Program teacher during all of her uh teaching career here she's known for making learning fun and enjoyable in the the most nurturing environments her positive and upbeat manner was recognized each and every school day outside of teaching Miss alre is big into fitness and living a healthy lifestyle and even taught yoga to staff she's certified in personal training and Body Sculpting which she has been utilizing in New York sports clubs for the last 18 years as an Miss benevento she's worked in the district for 25 years as a secretary she started at Brookside school and then moved to the high school as the guidance secretary she's then became the secretary to
009the assistant principles in the high school at the high school she's been the secretary for Mr Griffin Dr Higgins Dr cernansky and Mr Collins she was recognized in 2011 as the high school's educational support professional of the year she is the proud mother of two mon Racha high school graduates Stephanie and Amanda and the proud grandom to Emily Bonnie brener has taught for 15 years mainly at the Applegarth Middle School which then became the Monro Township Middle School besides teaching at the Middle School Miss brener taught for one year at both mil Lake School and Monro Township High School she's a supportive and caring special education teacher she could always be counted on to teach in a variety of settings wherever she was needed including resource rooms and icr classrooms Miss Bonnie caletto social studies
010and science supervisor she had worked in Monroe for the past 13 and a half years and has many accomplishments for her departments she implement Ed the nextg science standard throughout the district she also created Partnerships with the Princeton plasma physics lab and the Waxman Institute with Ruckers she is instrumental in implementing a Civics program throughout our district and the many components of that she has created connections with our Township um for recy the recycling um program Arbor Day the Historic Society day Farm Henry rickless Holocaust Memorial essay the American Legion Oracle or oratorical competition just to name a few Bonnie's a wife mom and grandom to six with three more babies on the way and in retirement she's enjoying her family golf and the beach Mrs Susan green nowachek she began her teaching career in
011New Brunswick and South Brunswick before permanently settling as a third grade teacher at M Lake School her happiness and generosity are second to none she has a passion for teaching that can be seen in how she mentors and challenges her students providing them with the guidance to be successful every year Susan and her husband Jim would work to donate hundreds of toys to the bill Lake toys for to fundraiser it's a testament to who who she is as an educator that she not only thought about her own students but she considered the way she could help children in general she is also one of our first cluster teachers at mil Lake School she worked to push her students to new heights and levels and was also sure to present this information at School faculty meetings
012above all she has left a lasting impact on our district in mil Lake in modeling how to have unconditional love and respect her students and children she will be missed and is immensely thanked for her years of sucess Mr Keith Hudak teacher of social studies at the high school he taught for 36 years 33 of them have been in Monroe he's coached for 38 years at four different schools including Monroe he's he has been the head coach for softball and football at Monro tanip high school as well as assistant coach for field hockey and women's basketball thank you for all of your work with our students this is Eileen Kelly teacher of physical education at the high school had 40 years career as an educator 31 of those at the high school as a coach
013she spent every one of her 40 years coaching at least one high school sport for 11 of those 40 years she was the head coach of two sports field hockey and softball over the years she's been a member of many committees affiliated with many educational associations involved with ntaa as an officer and was the advisor to numerous clubs in 2007 and 2008 she was honored as the high school teacher of the year M but most importantly she's known for being everything Irish she's truly proud of her Irish heritage and is well known for her presentation of Irish soap bread during the St Patrick's Mr mager pra assistant principal at the high school um right here is just a list of his accomplishments but Mr Magic Pera has been in our district for a very long
014time and really has um provided a lot of mentorship um to teachers to administrators and to students throughout his years here he began as a science teacher um 17 years and the department coordinator for three he was the science club advisor and environmental action Club advisor weight training coach Ski Club advisor I AQ which is indoor air quality coordinator Ava coordinator science League advisor's the 2005 teacher of the year the 2008 Cornell meril Scholars distinguished educator award he was a vice principal for 13 and a half years the acting principal for a year and a half mtsa president for four years he will truly be missed here in Monroe in Monroe and we wish him all the best in his retirement Mr paasi a teacher of industrial Arts at the high school he has 25
015years of teaching experience at Franklin High School Freehold Regional in Monro Township he developed new classes for the engineering program with industrial Arts within the programs of stem engineering civil engineering and AutoCAD design he was a certified instructor for Project Lead the Way engineering program and over the years he has coached varsity football and J baseball Mr Dave rinsky is a custodian at M Lake School and Woodland schools and in total had 36 and a half years of service in the mon Rach of school district to former beloved head custodian Angelo Mr rinsky was like a son keeping an elementary school clean orderly and safe for students and staff is no easy task however Mr rinsky always made this his top priority and went Above and Beyond on a daily basis he was a constant
016and kind face to his colleagues at the lake school and it was an incredibly rare occasion to hear him say the word no always with a smile Walking The Halls of the lake Mr rinsky modeled what it meant to be a part of a school community and to make sure every action bettered the school as a whole thank you for your incredible years of service and we hope you are enjoying retirement fishing this is Mary scers middle school custodian she's worked at the custodian um for the work for the board of education for 23 years she worked at Barkley Brook School Brookside School central office the high school and the middle school she's always Pleasant and friend and could be counted on to help with whatever you might need her outside interests include anything biblical
017related and she loves plants and trying new restaurants a lot of staff at the middle school enjoy participating in all of her church RS this is Robin Silverman reading specialist at mil Lake School she began her teaching career in an early childhood setting in New York and then she joined the mil Lake staff in 1994 during her stay at Mel Lake Robin has held positions as first grade teacher second grade teacher interum vice principal and reading specialist she's ending her career as the reading specialist but it's important to consider that she worked with some of our students who struggled with early literacy she never treated these students as lesser then in fact she built them up to feel empowered as Learners we have professional development on Reading Writing math and stem but there are some
018things that are innate and come natural Mrs Silverman's special skill is her natural and comforting way that she has with her students when students walked into Miss Silverman's room they felt at home and in kind we saw so many students s to new heights and defeat the odds through Mrs Silverman's hope you enjoy your retirement Mrs Silverman we will miss you this is IA stanitz she's a custodian at Brookside School uh one of the N custodians at Brookside school since 2007 she's a valued member of our Brookside family she showed a dedication to her job that was unparalleled she went above and beyond the normal responsibilities of her job to not only ensure the classrooms were clean and ready for our students but also to make sure that teachers have what they may need she
019was a warm friendly face at Brookside that many of us got to know so well while we are happy for her venturing off into her retirement we will surely miss her deeply and Mr Washington so these these quotes are from some of the people that he works with in his Department um and we want to thank Mr Washington for his 28 years of exceptional service to the Monro to community Mr Washington was the first member of the technology department in Monroe when he first started there were just a few computers and a handful of printers mostly at the central office building today he over receives thousands of devices 8,000 users and eight schools he's led the district through the onetoone iPad initiative at the high school countless minor emergencies and a few major ones along
020the way he's a great leader but an even better friend and has that special quality of making everyone he comes in contact with feel important the man the myth the legend Reggie Washington is retiring now the fund begins congrats on extending your weekend within five days with with five days I just want to congratulate all of these staff members they have been truly uh family members in our district we look at all of them as team members and I would just like to thank them all for their service root all of the students and staff that we've had thank you Dr if I can I'd also like to second that with the congratulations and and thanking them for all their years of service to Monroe okay uh with them with finish with that we can
021now have a committee reports I have any committee chairs that would like to report May sure we had a curriculum committee meeting tonight um we reviewed six documents um unified physical education AP Calculus AB geometry chorus grade 78 chorus grade six instrum music instrumental music grade six and three textbook adopt options computer programming chemistry and honors chemistry um the curriculum for physical education Falcon Pals currently our unified programs at the Monroe Township High School are Innovative rewarding and productive for all our students involved our unified physical education program is a Special Olympics New Jersey unified Championship School model as our population of students with intellectual disabilities in increase there is a very discernable need for programs that truly integrate students with their neurotypical peers Monroe Township has developed groundbreaking unified programs that step outside of
022the definition of inclusion Falcon Pals also um is a acronym for peer assisted leadership skills unified physical education is a Consortium of students with and without intellectual disabilities that engage in a course designed to create an atmosphere of social acceptance while engaging in physical skill sets students learn the importance of teamwork sportsmanship rule application and strategy as it pertains to participation in physical games and activity as well as integrating seal life skills and basic health Concepts Monro Township High School has implemented unified programs based on the premise that students should learn together all students should be actively engaged in courses where everyone is involved in getting a meaningful lesson AP Calculus AB this is a college Cal one level course as per the College Board course overview AP Calculus is designed to be a course
023equivalent to the college level calc one students will gain an understanding of differential and integrate integral calculus with an understanding of the connection of average and instantaneous change as well as area between a curve and the axis the intent of the course is for students to gain an understanding of each concept graphically numerically and analytically with an application to real life scenarios students will be able to build arguments and justify conclusions throughout Concepts such as limits change and function analysis the next one is geometry geometry begins in grade 10 and it is the second course in the tradition college preparatory sequence the course is designed to stimulate and develop clear logical creative thinking through the study of the basic structure of geometry geometric relationships and formal deductive proofs some topics included are points lines planes
024segments angles parallel and perpendicular lines congruent and similar triangles polygons proportions right angles circles constructions perimeter area and volume in addition the New Jersey student learning standards has added a greater emphasis on proofs as well as an introduction to ellipses horizontal parab parob [Music] Parables and hyperbolas uh the next one is the grade six curriculum document the sixth grade core I'm sorry excuse me sixth grade course the sixth grade course is a concept and performance-based selective at the Monroe Township Middle School the course is a non auditioned Ensemble and is not necessary for students to have Coral experience prior to enrolling the Monroe Township Middle School sixth grade chorus has singers performing in two part and three-part treble Coral repertoire this course emphasizes vocal technique knowledge of Music Theory sight singing practice practices literacy through
025repertoire and coral and Ensemble singing a broad spectrum excuse me a broad spectrum of musical literature is studied and performed throughout the school year in various meters languages and Musical musical styles students in The Ensemble perform by grade level and occasionally with a larger seventh and eighth grade combined chorus students are encouraged to audition and participate in co-curricular Coral activities students will also have the opportunity to audition for select choirs as a res and as a result of audition skills and as a result audition skills and preparation will be a focus for this Ensemble enrolled students must accept the commitments as prevent presented in the performance calendar as a condition of participation in the course we also reviewed the chus for grades seven and eight 78 grade course is a non auditioned Ensemble it is
026not necessary for students to have choir experience before taking this course the group has singers populating The Sopranos Alto baritone and cambiada vocal Parts the course stresses vocal technique music theory knowledge site singing literacy through repertoire and quir chiral Ensemble singing a broad spectrum of musical literature has studied and performed throughout the year in various meters languages and musical styles students in The Ensemble will perform by grade level as well as larger 7eventh eighth grade combined chorus students are encouraged to audition and participate in Regional State and National choirs since students will also have the opportunity to audition select choirs that meet after school audition skills and preparation will be a focus for this Ensemble students must accept the commitments presented in the performance calendar as ation condition of participation in the chorus the next
027one is the instrumental music grade six the sixth grade instrumental music program is a concept and performance-based pullout elective the sixth grade bands are non auditioned ensembles there is no prere requirements for this course however successful completion of fifth grade band is helpful pullout lessons are arranged by instrument family to provide a more personalized imate approach therefore Paving an excellent Pathway to profic proficiency topics addressed will include essential musical Concepts such as scale site reading TuneIn tone quality development Ensemble development techniques that allow students to improve listening blending and balance skills while playing with others and chamber music opportunities to strengthen musical Independence we've also had three textbook adoptions we've had computer they are computer programming chemistry and honors chemistry computer programming this course emphasizes problem solving design skills and program analysis and testing students
028will solve problems in mathematics science business and other areas Hands-On use of the computer is emphasized this course is designed for novice Learners to begin the basic study of computer programming using the Visual Basic language the text starting out with Visual Basic 8th Edition copyright 2020 is the text that has been identified to best meet the needs of students in computer programming rich in concise practical examples starting out with Visual Basic covers the tools and features of Visual Basic and when and how to use them the authors introduced the fundamentals of Visual Basic in a clear to easy to understand language making it accessible to the novice program in students students not only learn how to use the various controls constructs and features of Visual Basic but also why and when to use them the
029eth Edition includes updates for compatibility with Visual Studio 2017 the next was chemistry and honors chemistry the honors chemistry book that was chosen was is introductory chemistry a foundation by the author zall the textbook comes with the owl online system that allows students to meet curricular goals set forth by the honors chemistry curriculum the owl guide students in their learning students will also be able to interact with the knowledge and unique formats for the online platform for learning that is available the text allows for problem solving structure that enables students become strong critical thinkers in The Sciences additionally included are study tools that help students with conceptual understanding and resources for practice and review math review is also provided for particularly challenging mathematical Concepts our AP Chemistry program also uses a book by the author
030zenal so the students wishing to move forward in chemistry will gain the key foundational skills that are necessary the textbook selected for our chemistry class is chemistry by saas which was for Pearson chemistry is a very well aligned to current standards and curricula for our chemistry course authentic science experiences are embodied with the te embodied with the embedded with the within the text along with stem activities the text is also aligned to the Next Generation science standards the platform utilized with this within this program offers much flexibility to the teachers to create customized lessons as well as assessments given the math component that is a natural part of chemistry this text also provides problem and math support to students Through Math tuneup Pages as well as online problem set stem activities are also built into
031the programs Frome higher order critical thinking skills and that's it any other committee chair Mr Rybeck it's Rupa I have one for policy committee yes thank you I can't see everybody so I'm glad you called out okay no problem uh so the policy committee met on June 3D and we discuss dis discussed one item a code of conduct for remote meetings for board members which was provided by school boards and Mr Rybeck had also shared a copy with me um I had attended a school board's virtual web session on policy on May 20th and this code of conduct was discussed in great length School District school districts are encouraged to adopt this code of conduct since our meetings are in a virtual environment this is something that was discussed on that policy um web session
032the code of conduct could be adjusted to fit the needs of the school district I just want to share some of the highlights of what's in this code of code of conduct and these were also some discussion items during that web session and I had also shared this with the policy committee last week so um first item that they discussed was you know this is a new environment for us all and we want to continue to uphold trust keep everyone focused and competent they talked about continuing to be professional don't use backgrounds um in your meetings dress and speak in a professional manner be in a quiet location where there are no distractions while you're in the meeting speakers should raise their hands or request to speak identify or announce themselves um it was also
033reiterated that board members are still held to board member Ethics in the remote environment nothing is supposed to be shared with anyone while in closed session and there was also some discussion on cell phone usage and this is something that can be added to the code of conduct as an in-person meeting cell phones are silenced or turned turned off and if there's an emergency you're supposed to let board president the board president know so um the code of conduct was updated to include that one piece regarding cell phone usage we followed the template that school board had provided us and a copy of the code of conduct um for remote meetings is on the agenda this evening the policy committee has reviewed this document and has agreed to make a motion tonight to the full
034board to adopt the code of conduct for remote meetings um and if approved we can sign off on them and then include them with our standard board member code of conduct that we sign off on each year in our January reorg meeting so um I'm going to read the F the motion right now is that okay to do this point I think it's it's in the agenda okay um I think for am I right maybe Mr Gorski do we have it in the agenda I think I saw it in the agenda is it's it's in the agenda um in board action under the superintendent report so we'll be voting on it then okay okay so we don't need to do a motion right now you can do a motion now if you want just we'll
035just have to uh delete it later on okay I don't need to if it's fine in the agenda I'm good okay um and then I had one other item I just wanted to update um board on is that the education pieces that we've been doing we're going to take um a little break for the summer and we're going to restart the education pieces um in August or September so I just want to make sure the board knew that um as we move forward okay thank you thank you Mr President yes Mr poori Andy poori good evening everybody and good evening to the public and to the by fellow board members I just took a list of uh all the teachers and staff that's retiring from Monro Township today uh and uh I see that at
036least seven or eight of them have put in 25 years plus into Monro Township and uh you know on behalf of the board and especially from me I want to thank everybody and wish them a happy retirement um in terms of the education advocacy committee meeting we actually held a meeting on June 3 there were three items that were discussed I'll go through those very quickly uh the first one is an update on the on the I can give you the bill numbers it's uh Senate number 2392 and the assembly number uh 3969 uh both of those actually went through the assembly and through the Senate uh and we we contemplated on actually writing letters but because the the bills already passed through the legislation there was no point in wasting our time doing that
037and also these uh bills have been signed into law by Governor Murphy what these bills essentially do is to give the municipalities an Avenue to delay payments to the school district as you know we get about 86% of our our budget from from the uh from M Township so if the township chooses to exercise uh that bill uh the law that's being executive order that's put in uh it would have some serious consequences to make sure that you know we continue to pay our teachers and staff and continue to do the operations we're doing um so having said that I I still am glad that uh uh Dr alwick sent a very strong letter uh to the to the uh to the legislation at least our voice is heard uh during the meeting it was
038suggested by the uh the committee members to have uh Mr Gorski go back and check with the m Township officials to see if they anticipate any kind of a delay in payments especially now the fact that uh this bill has passed uh so I I think Mike you have done that do you want to just uh give a quick update on what you learned certainly thank you Mr plor as per the directive of the educational advocacy committee I called the township business officials to inquire if there has been any changes to the Township's ability to pay the full tax payment schedule to the Board of Education especially now that as you mentioned the legislative uh body has given them the ability to do so Mr Weinberg informed me that the most recent quarterly tax collections
039recognized by the township were 95.5% down from 98% preco 19 in his opinion there is no significant deterioration of tax revenues recognized by the municipal government as of now therefore according to Mr Weinberg the municipality does not foresee any reduction delay or deferral of the school district tax payment schedule as approved and as a postcript to that Mr P we received our final payment in the uh 1920 school year which was June's payment today of 7,261 69 so that concludes all payments to us that were owed for the 1920 school year well thank you very much Mike uh as you know my concern doesn't end with the school year of with the 2019 2020 we got to be cognizant once we start the 2020 21 uh budget also we continue to get the payments the
040way you getting there's another bill that we we've been tracking in the senate for 2475 and basically this bill uh gives provision to uh the municipal entities whether it's a municipality or a school district or what have you uh to be able to bond at a very lower rate um in in asking questions from the committee members uh Mr Gorski replied that there's no need for have uh going and issuing any bonds at this point because you know we do expect the the funds to come in from the township as as anticipated so that's that's a relief because we don't want to burden the taxpayers anymore than we already have uh the last item I have is the revised State allocation as you all know that there was a 30335 million if I remember correctly
041that was slashed from the overall uh state aid to all the school districts and it was proportionally don't ask me the definition of proportionality but it goes into that black hole of the school funding formula and then they distribute the cuts to everybody uh just to refresh everybody's memories and we were get getting about a million dollars more than what we received in state aid last year uh with the cuts unfortunately uh we it result in almost $93,700 cut from that so that only gives us an increase of $323,400 it uh but I think that we have a very responsible uh budget that we're going to be passing uh modifying hopefully today so that's concludes my report Mr President thank you um Mr P I just want to say that I uh you know I
042mentioned I written a letter sort of addressing some of the things that you you mentioned and I'll read that for board approval during my report later on absolutely thank you very much Steve okay any other committee chair Steve Paul ahead Paul since Andy Andy gave me that that sort of segue I figur I'll take it from here thank you Andy um I'll jump to the state aid reduction because that's where Andy left off and we did have our finance meeting uh Wednesday the 3 at 7 pm and yes we had to come up with some options of how to pull roughly $700,000 out of the budget for 2021 um to compensate for the reduction in state a so um Dr alic Dr Layman and Mr Gorski had been already preparing for what could have been
043anywhere from a five to a 15% reduction in the aid and then the the cut kind of came in right around the middle so we were I'm gonna say prepared to have this discussion and so um therefore the recommendation came down to I'm going to use the word defer as opposed to just eliminate because the the the thought is that these things are going to be deferred into the following Year's budget because these were things we needed um we're just going to do without them for one more year so the the first was roughly um $100,000 to defer the referendum and all the costs associated with going out to the town for a vote um we'll put that off till after June 30th of 2021 um and then we'll see where things stand so that's
044100,000 the proposed new trailer lease for the back of the high school for the four trailers um we are working to again it's there's a gray area of our you know contractually are we deferring it for next year or are we just going to try to cancel the contract and and then look to revisit this conversation in a year that's roughly $500,000 um and then in the area of special education yeah Special some new teachers that we were looking at some new instructors um we were looking at adding into the mix was an uh an additional behavioral specialist an additional transition specialist so we've pulled that from the budget as well approximately $110,000 um it's not that we're pulling from the special needs budget we're just not going to add these two extra teachers and
045Specialists and while that's a difficult decision of course um it was felt amongst the administration and the staff that that these were two that we could um we could comfortably put off for a year um when you have to make tough decisions so all in told that's about $710,000 of cuts Without Really um affecting any actual programs or curriculum classes um and that covers the $693,000 reduction in state aid so after some Q&A uh discussed Dr Alvi we provided the questions Dr alvic provided the answers um the committee did close out the session ready to recommend these eliminations SL deferrals uh tonight's meeting so that was the state a part if I may just go to the exciting anybody have a question on state aid that what I'm hearing no Mr rutsky this is Andy
046I think we also discussed in the same way about the uh the need for the the district to continue to pay uh some of the services irres of whether we're we're receiving them or not such as the school buses and uh and the driver Union and things like that I think uh some of your committee members uh raised that as a question to see if we can differ that because of the situation Bute we we did yes and that's um I would say for next year's budget that's a little bit of a gray area because while we were committed to doing that for 20 19 2020 budget and with the agreement with the state to fully pay everybody that was already budgeted for through year end whether it's the police not being in the schools
047whether it's the coaches not coaching Sports um everybody got paid for this school year so for September with a lot of unknowns with regards to remote learning or inperson learning um it's also unknown if we have to contractually pay some of these ancillary outside uh positions does that sound about right Andy okay all right and and and that's going to be sort of fluid as time goes by we'll learn more and um obviously our Administration will be working very closely with the state on what legally we have to do and then what we as a district want to do well I'm going to be addressing this also later on but um yes the legal ramifications there of having to pay for example contracted Transportation buses we're not having uh you know if we're doing virtual
048instruction so those are some of the issues we have to take up with the legislators also agree agree and and that's why uh I say this situation is fluid because I I I don't think we really know what's going to be in September and right I'm sure I'll leave that conversation for further in into the meeting with Dr Al um if we're good with that I'll go on to school lunches because who doesn't like a good lunch um Mr Gorski went over with the committee with regards to um information from n Mitch Nancy mosac the food service director um that our school launch participation when we were in school was running at an all-time high um what what's referred to is a type A Lune um is your full service lunch um that we offer
049we are on average I'll give you some stats here the lowest in the county for the elementary schools were 47 cents below average for the Middle School we're 62 cents below average and for the high school we're 79 cents below average for these type A lunches um so while we're charging and our prices are 230 235 and respectively at the high school at 79 cents which doesn't sound like a a heck of a lot but over the course of1 180 days that's $142 for each student and their family to not spend on the cost of school the cost of their lunches so maybe they buy some extra food or they do whatever they do but I'm just saying um it's a great service Monroe is providing with our food service out to the students um
050one of the things that helps facilitate those low prices is the uh Federal food commodities that we do get um it it directly reduces our food cost by about $125,000 per school year so that's a big number and that's one of the main points that allows us to keep our lunch prices at the lowest in the count um with that said we are recommending it was recommended to the committee Mr Gorski and M Mitek to a 2% management fee to Mets a 2% management fee increase to Mets culinary management so contractually they are allowed to ask for an increase which lines up with CPI price inflation um which is about 3% right now but the administration feels comfortable that we could recommend a 2% increase and that they'll they'll accept that so that's what we're
051prepared to do that concludes my finance report thank you Michelle hold on Michelle's got a question okay take yourself off mute I'm doing it I'm doing it okay so uh in that regard in in our on the agenda tonight is the contract renewal for and you know the finance uh committee was recommending the Food Service management company De I I would like an explanation for the public about um the the numbers uh in the middle of the recommendation it says the proposal for Food Service Management program and includes a management fee uh in the amount of 72,000 800 and guarantees a financial return of 61,500 it says financial return if that could be explained because um As I understood it in the committee that that we are zeroed out even with that return so I
052don't believe it doesn't really make its way into the budget but um we did have that conversation and I'm glad the numbers are out there Mike dorski you you uh prepared to discuss that a little deeper yes thanks awesome thank you the uh Mets culinary management for everybody's understanding employs all of the cafeteria workers with the exception of Nancy mitac who is a district employee is the food service director and as part of uh those the management operation that Mets culinary management engages in they have training for their staff expenses uh they have other expenses that rise with CPI and that's why the state issued contract for these management companies allows the um management fee to float with CPI and as Mr rutsky said that's 3% so Mrs mitac and I negotiated it down to
053two um Mrs MIT sack feels that this company uh is outperforming in many areas especially HR and HR management and she feels it's fair to recommend a 2% increase specific to Mrs arminio's question the management fee annually is approximately $70,000 that's what they're paid to run the food service operation hire the staff buy the food um and cook the lunches from that they guarantee in their contract a pre- depreciation profit of $615 they've exceeded that every year that we've been with them and once you add depreciation charges as designed the food service operation breaks even and by that I mean it may have a profit or a loss in the range of 10 to $20,000 a year it's not designed to have a retained earnings accumulation in that fund like Falcon care and ECE state
054of New Jersey and the New Jersey uh Child Nutrition department reimburse us for lunches and uh if we're accumulating retained earnings or too much cash they feel your lunch prices are too high believe it or not and they will they will tell you to reduce them or they will take back some of their subsidies so I hope that answers your question thank you Mr Mr poori you hand up yeah for for a non Financial person to understand uh what you guys just said in terms of the cost of lunch comparable to rest of the districts around Monro Township Where Do We Stand how compatible are we I'm sorry did you ask about our comparison to the rest of the county yes on what lunch prices or on the whole profit and loss on the lunch
055prices all right so that's where um we are I let's see if there's a percentage in here I don't see a percentage let's put it this way if we're 79 cents below the average at the high school and we're charging 240 the average is then 319 so that's about a 25% reduction lower than everybody else in the county well our prices lunch are lowest I believe in Middle sex County lowest in the county and about 25% below average I hope that helps in other words say a parent what what would be the cost that one has to put up with in addition to anything is there a cà $42 a year is what the average high school student is saving in Monroe versus the average middle SE County lunch out of high school for type
056A Paul yes ma'am if I remember correctly the last time we raised the lunch price was not because we needed to it was because the state required they forced us to yeah a year or two ago they forced us to raise and buy like a dime yeah this year Year we're not forced to raise and we're holding steady okay thank you I ask board members if you have a question please go through me so that we avoid any overlap or U three people calling out at the same time I'll recognize you we just call out if I can't see you I'll recognize you all right anyone else have a question for Mr rutsky any if I may I would just like to offer my highest compliment to Nancy mitac our food service director for her
057daily uh management and operation oversight of this program she is on top of uh the vendor as far as making sure all the rebates come back to the district and um she is the Envy of every other school district as far as the performance of The Food Service directive you may recall a couple years ago the USDA came here to highlight and showcase some of our um operations and um you know uh as I as I mentioned before that's that's uh solely because of the vision and excitement that Nancy mitac brings to her job thank you any other committee chair Michelle armeno Michelle go ahead okay I don't know if this is for Mr gorsky's report or since I have it in the package uh we have a uh tax payment schedule uh I just
058want to confirm that is this this is the and it at the bottom it's 118 million plus oh I'm sorry 118,000 uh it says to Total District tax could that be explained oh no it is I'm sorry it is 118 million I thought it was um at the end would you Mr Rybeck would you like to talk about that now or we when we get to the ba report where that's no I'd rather wait for the ba report because I was wondering where that question was coming from that's okay it's the packet my packet is sort of all over the place right now and I just wanted to since we were talking about taxes and the municipality I just wanted to make sure that this was our scheduled tax payment from the municipality we'll deal
059with it later any other no problem any other committee chair okay in that case we can move on to the public forum let me explain this public Mr Mr President this is Andy polar I apologize to interrupt but I thought we had a building ground transportation committee I didn't hear anybody Mr tuano is there no report Mr Tano are you I can't see you are you going to report the bg& committee I have a report this time I'm sorry I couldn't hear you Pete this time okay all right well we'll have to make up for that one um all right we can move to the public forum uh when you come up members of the public please note that this is your questions or statements are for the agenda items only I'll ask that you
060state your name and address you have four minutes uh to present Mr Felman do we have anyone there from the public yes sir um Mr President we do um let me take a look here um malan of the board would like to speak um prep if you could just uh play please state your name and address for the record and if you could lower your hand when you're done speaking it would be appreciated thank you very much P go ahead uh yes so I have a couple of questions the first question is regarding the um the last email we received from Dr alwick regarding the Ceremonies for 2020 seniors the class of 2020 um I what I heard from uh what I what I read from that email is like they still planning to do
061a ceremony at Arena is thats or no can I ask is this on the agenda no PR you have to wait for the next public forum for this please let me ask okay I have another I have another question I have another question on the agenda item please well then let's you know make sure you stick to the agenda okay okay I see um I see a Reta Stone uh payment from the BS Report today's agenda from ba report could you say that again I can make out what you said I'm sorry okay from BS Report there is a a bill that that is pending approval from the board to buy Rosetta Stone the language software that is being used in our schools all right you want an explanation to that Dr alv you I
062have no I let let me finish my question please I thought you okay in that in that bill I see that we are buying for three years up front so in this dire situation why do we need to buy three FR three years UPF front why can't we buy only one year that is one question and I see that invoice that is for English us and Spanish French and German but I I skimmed through middle school and high school curriculums I don't see that we are offering any German if we knock off German we might save some money on that particular Bill and on top of that the same Rosetta Stone we have some licenses through our library so did anybody explore the option that can we can we consolidate these license cost along with
063the library licenses or use that one and the another question is why don't we explore some other New Age software Retta stone is very old I respect for their software but there are so many new things that came up like mango languages bable for business do lingo there are so many other uh new AG software and new techniques that came in to enrich our languages so did anybody did any research or comparison if it is too late to do that let's buy for one year I request you to consider this and let's buy for one year and do the research the whole next year by the time we need to buy the next time we will have some more information on this one are you finished with the questions yes I'm done with my questions
064Dr Al do you want to uh sure yes so Rosetta Stone is a program that we use with our third through fifth graders for our beginning language acquisition it is used in conjunction with a a uh Spanish teacher that also works with each of the classes um um so the students are kind of getting getting it two different ways our um supervisor does take a look at what is offered the Rosetta Stone actually works best for our students because the teacher teacher the classroom teacher and the Spanish teacher are able to track student progress um with this specific um license um I do not know why it's a three-year license versus a one-year license usually that's because we get a better deal when we get when we do a multi-year year um I'm not sure
065if that's exactly exactly it that for this one but usually that's why we do a multi-year license um working with the public library we wouldn't be able to get enough licenses for all of our third through fifth grade students um through the public library um and Dr Roselle who is the supervisor of World Language works very closely and is actually on the board with the public library of the public library so she works very closely with them so I'm sure that she has um EXP explored that option with with the public library okay thank you Dr Alvi if I may add on to that the three-year agreement was significantly discounted as opposed to a one-year deal we still have to have it board approved every single year but by uh signing a three-year we get
066a significant reduction in price that's what I figured thank you yeah that made sense also Mr Gorski okay uh who's next Mr Felman Mr board president prash parab would like to speak Pros if you could just state your name and address for the record and if you could lower your hand when you're done that would be appreciated Pros yeah thank you thank you very much prakash parab uh 33 din Drive President Steve I have uh three things to talk about go ahead yeah first of all congratulations to all the retirees thanks for your devotion towards the children so we really salute you all and special thanks to Scott metella for bringing stem programs to the school and leading the school as an acting principal so we salute you we salute everyone but we salute also
067Scott M for the special stem programs uh the second thing is um the May uh in Mr Go's report uh item C I may expenditures of again the $1 million and from March 21st to the school has been closed I know that you're like contractually paying for payment for the salaries and all that but naturally when the school is closed there are several variables uh for which we are not paying the cost so uh what are the savings if not why that is the question and uh that second question then the third one is uh I appreciate governor and um Mrs governor for implementing climate changes as a education inclusion that's a good news but I'm hearing also there are some changes in the sex sex education curriculum so what we would like to know
068as a public is what sex uh education changes if they are coming uh and U if they are uh question is if the state implements those curriculum on us are we forced to adopt them actually as they are or it is left to the community uh and our Board of Education and our district to see what is the best interest for our students so those are the three things two yeah thank you okay Mr Gorski you want to take that yes thank you Mr Rybeck regarding the savings that uh it seems to be a um a question that keeps coming up from different areas we've addressed this before but I did have a chance to work with staff and put together some detailed information for your understanding and as I stated before by having schools
069closed legislation from the state requires us to pay all full-time wages all emoon with the wages including benefits and and things like that all contracted service is for transportation even though the buses aren't running all private school tuition even though most of it's not being performed so some of the largest areas of savings come in the following areas and I'll be brief substitute pay strictly from the closure of schools has saved $177,700 Savings in fuel from transportation is approximately $77,000 decrease in athletic trips saves $4,690 Savings in graduation venue and transportation to graduation assuming that we're not having it at SunBank Arena or cure Bank whatever it's called now saves 16,192 savings from aen L payments which is negotiable saves $882,000 and we worked with energy for America to do a detailed account of savings
070from energy in our schools since we've been closed based on kilowatt per hour and so on and that comes to $34,000 from energy however we are losing $ 54,6 120 from Falcon care profit so when you and and that Falcon care ECE profit was always transferred to the general fund so that must be included when you net all these together the losses from Falcon care and ECE at 54620 and all of the other savings and expenses that I mentioned just now the net decrease in expenses is $229,400 on $130 million budget I hope this puts this issue to rest because there as I said from the beginning there are no material savings from closing schools thank you okay Mr RC I can answer the second part of that question sure thank you Dr anytime that
071standards are revised by the state we are obligated to implement them within our schools however they don't tell us how to implement them they just give us the standards and then it's up to the individual districts to write curriculum um and adopt curriculum um usually when they update standards they there's a timeline of when the standards are required to be implemented um I know for next year we're actually required to Implement new science standard for next year not this September for the following September new science standards new Visual and Performing Art standards New World Language standards new career Readiness standards and New Life Readiness standards however we are aware of the time frame when these standards are coming out from the state so we as as a supervisory team under Dr Layman and all the
072supervisors work that if they know the standards are coming out we plan for when we're going to write the curriculum to incorporate the new standards so yes we are required to implement the standards that the state sets but it's done through the curriculum writing process and all curriculum is approved by the board thank you uh okay uh Mr Felman do we have anyone else we board president Betty saberito if you could just state your name and your address for the record and if you could kindly lower your hand when you are done speaking it would be appreciated Betty hi good evening Betty sabito to Barrymore Drive uh I am the leader of cpag which is the special education parent advisory group and I have some questions and concerns on behalf of our group with regard
073to the budget the first one is um Mr ruty I understand you said you're not taking away from special ed when you're making the cuts for the two positions that clearly we need we have a bigger concern because the transition specialist that program is growing very largely so um that was absolutely and a bigger concern is with the behaviorist because a lot of these students now not a lot all of them are going to be out of school by the time we return approximately six months because we're doing which is extended school year remote so I don't I'm assuming that the district did take this into consideration but we're going to return with a lot of behaviors and currently what we have on staff I've said this repeatedly simply isn't enough because our behaviorists do
074not only deal with special education students general education students have behaviors as well so we're very concerned about that our second question with regard to the budget is we're trying to save everywhere but we do see um I think Mr Gorski just said that we are obligated to um contractually pay our full-time employees but we're currently playing a lot of part-time employees and for esy we see that we're Contracting um quite a lot of uh Power professionals which I understand we need some for the teacher support I'm not sure if we need all of them being that we are going to be remote and the second part of that question is on some of these power professionals on the agenda we also see that there's that additional toileting um amount that we pay for the
075students that need that assistance in the classroom again it's remote so why are we paying this additional amount to pars that are going to be working remotely that's all my questions Dr alvic do you want to respond to some of that sure yeah um we we agree this none of these budget cuts were an easy decision um we we had to look we didn't want to take anything that was currently in our our our students have in in the budget so we looked at new Appropriations we worked closely with Mrs um Rella before making these final decisions so I I hear I hear the concern um and we will continue to monitor that situation as we returned to school in the fall um with regard to the um Paras and the toileting it's a contractual
076obligation so it it's part of we're saying um all full-time employees it's not necessarily full-time employees it's our permanent employees we must pay all of our permanent employees which includes full-time and part-time employees um so even though we're going remote we're still contractually obligated to provide uh for those employees I just want to add you know these these decisions are not easy and that's what we're here for and uh we try to to to make you know the least negative impact as as as possible but again these were very difficult decisions that that we had to make and U hopefully things will improve in the future Mr Gorski did you want to touch on any any of this or are we good believe we're good thank you okay thank you uh thank you Miss saino
077um Miss Felman we have anyone else yes Mr board president miss Christy scurby um would you like would like to speak Miss scurby can you uh please state your name and address for the record and just remember to uh just kindly put your hand down when you're done Miss scurby uh yes hi good evening uh Chrissy scurby 21 pness Drive um I notic under the superintendent's um board action that there is the contract um to renew the board attorney for about $193,000 and then under the business administrator action items there 's also a line item to hire a separate Law Firm could can somebody please clarify that for me well there was a question as far as the separate Law Firm there was a a question that came up and that we felt that would
078to be fair uh we need to hire an outside Law Firm um Dr Alvi did you want to add anything to that no okay so that was that was back dated to May 1 so it wasn't part of the May agenda and I believe it goes through the end of the year is that correct that's correct and that was just for one question that you had that you couldn't have our board attorney was something that that had to be looked into and then that's the way the contract was so for one item we're paying through the end of the we have to have a contract for the end of the year H that's interesting okay was it was it had to be okay and uh just another question it was it was just mentioned that
079we're saving um $116,000 on the high school graduation is that money going to be allocated then to do something for the class of 2020 I know a lot of school districts are um you know doing various activities um and I just I I don't see uh what what our district is doing in terms of of following what some of the other districts are doing um you know as putting banners up uh throughout the town um I know that Hamilton has changed their venue from The Cure Arena to uh the Trent Thunder arena so they have a larger uh location to hold it um I'm just wondering what we're going to be doing with the savings of the graduation money um for the class of 2020 Dr Al I'd like your answer but I'll just like
080to come in and say that uh you know um every district has to do what they have to do uh to to um try to try and give their kids the best possible end of their experience we're doing all all that we can do um you know you can only every time you look at somebody else they may have something that they're doing that we're not doing they may be looking at us and saying GE we're not doing that so it's very hard to compare I just think that I appreciate speaking for myself now uh all that uh our Administration and teachers and principles are doing to give our kids the best uh end of year experience Dr Al you want to add to that um I was going to share during my um report
081about our plans for graduation do you want me to do it then or would you like me to do it now no why don't you do it then all then okay thank you I thank you Mr gby anyone else at this time Mr board president there is no one else in the public okay good in that case we can move on to the superintendent assistant superintendent report Felman it's Dr Layman I just wanted to a quick update yeah thank you I just wanted to give a quick update on a promotion there all right here's a quick update on some things that uh some of the elementary schools and the middle school is doing as we kind of wind down the uh school year here uh they're being creative trying to engage students in the community
082and events that typically involve large Gatherings or have we have performances for uh as an example Woodland and Brookside schools held a joint band recital uh last week for uh the beginner and advanced band students they all performed we had uh several in this case there was a probably about a hundred students logged on um the first day of the sixth grade virtual bander SLE was earlier this week uh I was fortunate to be a part of it I think at some point we about 139 students logged in um to a Google Chat uh there was so much interest in that event they planned another one uh so everyone else or everyone could have a a chance to perform and that's going to be the second part is going to be next week um Brookside
083Applegarth and wooden school also presented their art tag gallery show uh for the 2019 2020 school year the links we shared them in the weekly update last week um those are all events that we typically get a large crowd for the art tag shows are usually held at Woodland School and you we have hundreds of parents come through and we get to do Gallery walks and see everything so we're just trying to be really creative to share the work and the products of what the students are doing um but knowing we have restrictions as to how many people we can get together and the timelines and uh it's a moving Target our our numbers that we're allowed to bring people together with but uh like I said we're just trying to be as creative as
084we can to make sure we can highlight this accomplishments and uh get them some credit towards the end of the school year some other things some other things we've done uh we have field days at the elementary level that are starting to kick up alagar had one uh last week or the week before it was a virtual field day had a b basically a digital Choice board that was really interesting uh students would log in they'd click on an activity they wanted to do they'd have uh some sort of video that kind of spoke to them or demonstrated what they needed to do and then they could take pictures and videos and upload load those uh activities and things they were doing with their family and their siblings uh to a Google classroom and uh
085they kind of shared it and celebrated together uh a Virtual Field Day the Woodland Virtual Field Day is coming up this Friday I think everyone's really excited for that one thing we have rolling out tomorrow and this is high school specific uh we're going to go live with our senior Awards program uh noon time tomorrow check out the distri the high school website uh we have our uh senior Awards video so congratulations to all of our seniors and all of their accomplishments and uh that's going to be an exciting presentation that will kick off like I said tomorrow at noon uh and then something else we did and this is kind of a concurrent through the entire remote process um our Middle School percussions Cincy uh that's directed by y Snider since the last week
086in March has had weekly guest artists uh each week they had a different guest in the percussion field come on to zoom and speak with them and perform for and listen to and critique their percussion uh the guests who volunteer to speak and perform have ranged from doctoral percussion students Broadway percussion performers percussion composers College percussion professors uh from schools including TCNJ William Patterson um and all of those guest speakers been thoroughly impressed with our uh percussion students so like I said we've trying to really think outside the box and uh expose our students to and show showcase them in a various array of virtual kind of formats thank you Dr Layman any questions for Dr Layman from the board okay I guess we can move on to our superintendent report Dr alvic I apologize
087name okay so Dr Higgins and the high school team have been working to finalize Iz graduation plans for our class of 2020 um the official graduation will be held virtually on June 24th the virtual presentation includes all speeches and a tribute to each of our graduates it will be available on the district website we will also have students do a graduation parade through the high school parking lot on the 24th and the township has proclaimed a sound off for all graduates at 7M that evening more detailed information will be shared with the senior classroom Dr Higgins I I think his plan is to send it out tomorrow um now that the governor Has Lifted the outside Gatherings we are moving forward with four separate in-person abbreviated ceremonies on the football field for the first week
088of July um Dr Higgins Mr pero and I met with um Chief venis and uh members of the office of emergency management this morning so we are working very closely with our Township to ensure that we are following all guidelines that we need to follow um board members will be invited to attend one of the graduation ceremonies if you choose Dr Higgins will reach out to you um each graduating family will be able to invite two family members all graduates will be seated on the field appropriately social distan with their family members and then we'll have a couple of speakers at each ceremony and then each student will have their name announced and we'll have the chance to walk across the stage and a photo opportunity um we know it's not the same as in
089the past but we want to recognize each student for their accomplishment um for the rest of the district we are working on closeout procedures and they will be shared out by each school and as we begin to collect the textbooks and return supplies to students teachers are going to be wrapping up their instruction for the year and again more information will be shared with the families uh this Friday in the weekly update and from the individual schools I know that there's many questions about what's happening in September um please know that the administrative team has been discussing various options for reopening schools and all that that entails we're working through several options that include alternate schedules certain classes or courses returning in person continuing remote learning um we're including options for staff and students who
090are unable or unwilling to return to the buildings all of these plans are Works in progress and we are still awaiting guidance and orders from the from the NJ dooe before we finalize any plan um we're expecting some guidance next week and I will also be including staff members in a district task force to assist with all the planning and we'll communicate to families when we have more definite plans but please rest assured that we are working on it and we are aware of it um now on to the agenda although we celebrated all our retirees for this year I do want to mention a couple of retirees that are on this agenda um as I mentioned in the slideshow Mr Reggie Washington thank you for 28 years of service to the Monroe Township Schools
091we have very big shoes to fill with your retirement Mrs Andrea benevento benevento the secretary at the high school thank you for your work with our students and staff Mrs Mary scors custodian at middle school thank you for 23 years of service to our district um Mrs Jones Zulan will be retiring as of October 1st so she'll be included in next year's presentation um so thank you for your 46 years of service to the students of Monroe she will be missed at Barkley Brook and in the district and Mrs Rochelle schek power professional at the middle school thank you for your 17 years of dedication to our students um her retirement is also effective October 1st so again she will be included in next year's recognition but I want to wish each of our retirees
092a very long and healthy retirement so moving on to Personnel agenda it's recommended that the board approve Personnel items a through BG by roll roll call okay do we somebody move that some it's Kathy have a second call P did you second that I I moved it okay who second it Steve I second it Andy poori okay any questions or comments hey Steve aie ahead aie I'm a little concerned about um on Mary's contract about the um the attorney that we hired what was what was the reason for it because I know we got a letter from them and I'm not going to go into detail with it but um was it the reason because we needed the votes uh the Reas the reason was to um avoid make sure there was no conflict and
093um basically to keep everything up and above vo decided to do it hire in outside attorney to get an opinion did Ken get the same um courtesy last last month for Mr Cory's contract because he it was the same issue and I'm not an attorney so I can't go into the delve into the legal aspects of it but I don't think it was the same issue I think we have to deal with the issue of the question that you're asking and anything else we we'd have to get for our attorney I don't think it's the same thing add some you want to add some light on this or Dr alv no I think there was a question that had come up last month about her contract and that's why we hire the attorney right that's
094what I said Mr Rybeck at this point sir I remind you that this is a Personnel agenda item and the members should be voting yes no abstain or recuse those four words should be in if you want to talk about the attorney contract that's on my report okay so let's let's take a vote now you going to do a roll call vote Michelle has her hand up Mr Tano Michelle has her hand up oh I'm sorry Michelle you have a question she has the mute on and she's shaking her hand and obviously you can't see it no I couldn't Michelle you're on mute I understand that I can't find myself I can hear you we can hear you now okay well I can't see myself so I so don't okay so bear with me because
095I think some of these uh letters have changed and I have a couple questions on some of the things we're voting on um on pay and I don't know if this has changed recommended that the board approv certified Personnel for Falcon Nest Preschool what you going in and out Mrs Armenia okay well I don't know why I um I know others were going in and out as well so Falcon's next by the way is letter P oh it's still P okay great letter P um it was on page nine of 61 um I just want to know will these involve students will they will the students be like uh remotely or is this just we're voting on because it says July 1st to August 30th this is the this is for the staff to get
096ready they have they're the ones with the preschool at the high school right so they work with students and they also have basically have a preschool in the high school this is the summer hours that they get approved for in order to do all of the paperwork for all of those those uh preschool okay okay and um s recommended again um I have a question that says is this a is part of the normal job description or this is an extra pay or is this is extra pay for the end of the school year and the beginning of the school year because they have so much paperwork that has to be done with includes the grading um certifying for graduation scheduling all of those pieces so these are the same same hours that we give
097them every Su okay so it's over and above their job description yes okay a couple more um see on W recommended that the board approv school counselors for summer work also uh what is the nature of the work W this is again summer work this has this is at the middle school so the first one was High School one's the middle school and again it has to do with schuling making sure that all students have a schedule for the first day of school okay and the uh why the June 25th to August 31st are these um this is summer power professionals are these like students is a lot of times we hire students in the summer no these are our actual power professionals that we hire throughout the year use them in the summertime they
098come into the schools they help with getting all of the classrooms um the supplies to all of the classrooms um let's you know moving all the textbooks moving all of the student supplies um unpacking all of the orders that come over the summer and making sure that they're in the right place okay and we need that many this year you think every year and yes it's it's a very difficult the summer when we have okay and let's see um okay and the IEP meetings and home instruction are these people going to still do home instruction on a it's am page 18 of 61 this is actually um staff that's being approved to do home instruction next year they will only get paid if they actually do the home instruction this is just our list of
099home instructors that we for the following year that's fine thank you for that and let me just see if there's one more um I think that's it we are going when what was the last letter AQ no um BF I think b g g okay thank you very much I think I'm okay yes if I may I just want to I just and our and and those you know those people who have served this District very well for a long time I don't know many of the the people who are retiring but I do know Mr Washington and of course Mr matella you know they're going to be missed they've done a great job and uh I know they've served us really you know very well and they've served our children very well and they
100will be missed but I wanna I just want to for a second just talk about uh Miss Mary scur who is she's just a wonderful wonderful person and my children uh They all loved her my wife loves her she says anyone any of you who have ever had any experiences with her she just leaves you with feeling I mean she's just a wonderful wonderful person She Glows from the inside out and um she's just a beautiful person so I just want to wish her well and I I I certainly uh they do I as well I know Mr Washington very well and Mr M Pera and uh it's been a pleasure knowing them and just seeing seeing how professional they are in what they do thank you okay I think um Steve can I just
101can I ask one quick question I want to follow up on if Dory if I may following up on on Michelle's line of questioning all of those summer um agreements that we're setting in place for a maximum of hours I is it safe to assume that if life is a little different and we're not ready to reopen in September they may need Less hours to do some of those jobs or not at all it's po it's possible but right now we're planning for an opening oh I like we just don't know what it's going to look like that's good anybody else Mr President I I apologize for extending this conversation but very quickly I saw the governor's uh uh executive order about the camp uh and the directives that came through that in terms of
102how to conduct instructions I'm assuming that the school district is taking those into consideration uh right Dr alwick just want to confirm that I listen to the governor's address every single day awesome thank you okay I think now we can vote Yes Sir Mr board president this is a items Mr Tano he said yes but he I did not hear Mr Tano's response I said yes thank you sir Mr rutsky yes Mr cherella yes poori yes Mr Rybeck yes seagull yes Mrs Deo yes Mr Nic atinsky uh no on AV and yes on everything else no on AV Mrs armeno okay um just to be clear a is uh the contract for um our Council our in-house Council yes okay I'm going to abstain on that one and on then a let's see aw I'm
103going to abstain on two new positions the bcba positions and yes on everything else Mrs K Pano yes I'm I'm I'm beging pardon Mr Bo president Personnel items a through BG has passed okay I think we're ready for well uh so I want to just congratulate our two newest administrators uh Mr Randy FL is the new supervisor of special education beginning July 1 and Mrs Terry Weiss is the new assistant principal at mon Raja High School beginning September 1st I'm excited that they're both joining our administrative team this year and I wish them the best thank you so on to board action it is recommended that the board approve the following board action items a through R by roll call we have and who second second Jill M second okay uh any questions comments so
104many of us um once again on the bylaw 0145 um I'm not sure if we um my last comment last month was that uh to say that it was a regular meeting if board members uh failed to be in three consecutive meetings uh our attorney has said that it doesn't include committee meetings and I think Miss Rupa um seagull said um so I don't know what the what is the clarification it's still not written it's my understanding it's regular meetings it's not like committee meeting okay I just want to be clear and I just want to make sure it's in the minute thank you I understanding okay uh any other questions let's let's uh have a vote m board president this is board action items a through R Mrs Deo yes Mrs Co Pano yes
105Mr poori yes Mr Tano did you hear me Mike yes I I asked for Mr Tano oh sorry make a pardon sir how do you vote yes to all no on I on I so noted thank you raty yes to all nensy uh yes to all no on I Mr seagull yes Armen yes on all no on I tiella yes yes board president board action items a through R has passed that concludes my report Dr can move now to our business administrator's report borski thank you Mr Ryback if you me the Liberty to get off task a little bit with the business report I would just like to acknowledge all of the retirees um it takes a special dedication to go that that long and be able to retire from a school district position and
106all of them deserve the very best in retirement but there's one who certainly stands out um and one who I will personally Miss maybe more than anybody else that's ever retired it's a gentleman who started here in March of 1992 has just finished his 28th year in the district I had the pleasure of working with him through the Y2K matter where we had in-house software that Mr Washington was involved in the redesign so that we could make it into the year 2000 just to give you a little perspective Mr Washington brought some of the first computers ever to be installed in this District into our uh School District we're talking about software platforms that I work with with Mr Washington that included Lotus 123 and Quattro Pro I don't even know if they're in existence
107anymore and way back and I I just want to acknowledge that he's one of the most disciplined um people that will always finish a task and no matter how dirty a job it is always have a smile and a dedication to the students and the parents of this District that in my opinion is unmatched and is an example for All District employees so Mr Washington I wish you all the best of your retirement now Mr board president it is recommended uh that board action items a through QQ be approved by consent roll call okay um we we have it move someone move it it's Kathy I'll move it Paul I'll second it Paul Paul Ry seconded okay any questions or comments in that case we can have a vote hello it's Michelle armino go ahead
108okay so some of these items that are and I just want to be clear that I'm right here uh we're talking about some U the engineer Edwards Engineering Group uh Samuel Klein and Company and Di architectural those are those the ones we're voting on now yes okay um some of these uh I don't some of them just looks like invoices and not contracts so it's hard for me to tell like for Ed for example Edwards it's just a a rate schedule not a contract burkdorf is also just a rate schedule not a contract um some of the others like for instance Facilities Management program that is a contract uh so I'm just wondering why some of these are not contractual that we can read uh you know what's the the full extent of our agreements
109Dr alvic do you want to answer [Music] that sorry I think your mic is off orski it's his report I'm sorry the answer to that is these are professional for next year and some of them are in a particular engagement some of them are just a because the um the engagement that uh is forthcoming could vary and the board of education is in the field of specialty that these different people represent if you have a more question I can answer it or I could go to your tax payment schedule question that carried over okay I actually do um we have so what happens when um these same people even though there are Professional Services people if their aggregate in the aggregate goes over 44,000 a very good question um if you give me a little
110liberty to answer that there's some the bid threshold for a qualified purchasing agent is on the agenda tonight for approval the state raised it to $44,000 a year the quote is 15% of that where we're to get multiple quotes exempt from those bidding and quoting requirements professional service contracts these are professional service contracts that we recommended before they can exceed those amounts and uh and you do not have to go through the public bidding process okay so just um as a a best practice I just think that sometimes we should I don't know it's it's somewhat uncomfortable that it seems like an open ended um contract that we don't have to go out to bids on a regular basis for some of these very big items and I know just for example um we talked
111about the Epic management company um at a a previous um a previous board meeting and I was U properly corrected by Mr poori that they were a management company and they w't going to be doing pretty much managed the design and all that kind of stuff and they weren't be they weren't going to be doing construction and my concern was that you know how much would that cost and then I read in the newspaper that I think it's Perth Amoy their design and management company is is going to probably now it's a much higher construction that they're going to go through but it might be close to $4 million so these are the kind of things that um is it conceivable that some of these companies go well over maybe $100,000 in a year the
112board is not really um tasked with getting bids Mrs armeno certainly with your experience you've seen a lot of these contracts come up before and we have a transparency process here in the district where we talk about these engagements extensively at the committee level we generally talk about the fees and divulge those at those times give cost estimates for each project they're included on the bill list each month uh for the board to review and included in that is a sample that's audited by the finance chair so those are the checks and balances with those items plus we have a budgeting process where I remind you that uh there's no uh willy-nilly spending here because it's defined by the Appropriations in the budget and it's limited to that and there's a lot of discussion that
113goes on and deliberation with the school district budget um that is a governing Financial disc closure instrument that limits how much can be spent in these areas Mr President this is Andy poori can I have a couple quick questions please um mik Mike uh when we get these rfps are they I'm sorry go ahead be right back I was turning off my video okay uh so Mr groski uh in terms of the receiving these proposals do you uh required to put out a request for qualifications and proposal do you evaluate these proposals based on the uh the rates and the qualifications that are provided to you and is it a general Practice in the industry to have this kind of uh you know on call Consultants just in case if there is an emergency that
114comes up you don't need to wait until the next board meeting to go go through so that the things can be expedited quickly to address an emergency and this is mostly associated with that kind of work Mr plur to answer your questions it is yes across the board yes to your last part we uh we do get this it's kind of like a time and material bid where we get board approval for these services in advance in case of an emergency happens and you need them you don't have to wait till the next month's board meeting in order to contract number two competitive Contracting best practices require that we do get rfqs or rfps requests for quotes requests for proposals for these services and there is a analysis that's performed with rates amongst other Professionals
115in the field and it's it's quite a cumbersome process that that involves our facility director uh Jerry T Mrs Allen the accounting uh the assistant business administrator and others to make sure that the public is best served by getting quality services that are needed um and that the prices paid are competitive thank you very much Mr gski any other questions yeah Steve is Paul can i h ask a quick question so I'm just looking at GG the donation of the vehicle from the township so 2012 Chevy Tahoe to be used by District security Personnel I'm just kind of wondering hey that's a nice gift so thank you to the township um but is it is it a police an old police vehicle is that what it is or is it just a Chevy Taho Mr
116RC it is a pre-owned police vehicle okay that's what I assume but I wanted still in good operational condition ition according to Mr pero and it will serve our security staff instead of uh budgeting for and buying a vehicle yeah excellent thank you very much okay guess uh anyone else hey Steve yes AI yes on the auditor um given the concerns of the the public um I think we need a fresh pair of eyes from a different auditing firm just to show um some new transparencies on our uh financials that's on number 10 um on number 28 for the law firm um we're only we're authorizing it today the contract but you guys went out and got a letter from them was it last week with authorization from the board is that is that correct
117um Mr borski you want answer that sure on May 11th on May 11th Dr alvik received an email from a resident two hours before the board meeting raising a conflict of interest question that had to do with the board attorney because of the sensitivity of this and and a a care not to violate the rules it was pulled from the agenda that evening um and um I was directed by the board president to go and solicit a law firm to provide an answer to this particular issue the uh obviously that involves uh some professional fees the uh the attorney involved discounted his fee to $195 an hour and the associate the power professional Staff last it's all divulged in the resolution and not knowing how long this uh could take or if um the question
118is satisfied it's open through the end of the year that's all I have to say on that isn't it a conflict for some of the board members to vote on this contract I'm not going to answer that because I'm not an attorney um but uh I provided guidance to the board in a confidential email and I would refer to that and then on uh HH schoology um I noticed the platforms K through 12 we're only using it for the high school Dr it's schoolagy right Dr Al yep I can answer that one yeah the the cost um is 4K to 12 our high school did a two-year implementation so our all of our high school teachers are using it we do have staff that are utilizing it throughout the district um and it will be
119rolled down into the lower grades um as the years progress but we also utilize it for administrative purposes um and and professional that's it thank you okay anyone else I guess we could vote Mr Gorski thank you we're going to vote on H consent roll call board action items a through qo on the attorney yes no on the agenda item for the attorney than youo yes this is too yes thank you ma'am Armenia uh yes on everything no on a108 I beg your pardon I could hear the note no on a number 10 I think it's A1 A1 a is in apple and 28 beg your pardon second item was what a is an apple 28 Mr Chella yes Mr seagull yes on all accept on letter NN recusal on nn thank you Mrs K
120Pano Mrs K Pano yes on everything and I will apologize because I keep losing my internet and then I have to go turn it off and turn it back on so I'm doing the best I can with crappy internet Mr rutsky yes to all thanks Mr poori yes to all Mr ni atinsky uh no on 10 and 28 uh the rest is yes Mr ryack yes I all board president board action items a through double Q has passed that concludes my report thank thank you Mr gorby now we have the president's report I have a few items uh first my report uh I just like to congratulate all our students teachers administrators and all staff in general at this point in the year who have been asked to sacrifice so much of what they have
121always held dear as part of the uh our end of year experience we had the death of George Floyd demonstrations for equality and justice for all one was here at Thompson Park this past Sunday covid-19 all of which were felt around the world our superintendent Dr alvik and her administrative team as well as school administrators teachers staff and parents have worked hard to provide our students with a positive endof year experience my wife and I adopted two High School seniors and all of us are enjoying the experience it's been a lot of fun I'll go so far as to say all schools in The District in other districts rather I'm sorry are trying their best as well because school means community and inherit in that is support and respect for each other I know we
122all want things to improve I wish I could give you an exact answer but that's impossible right now we need to be on the same road working together to a better place right now the health and safety of our students and staff are Paramount in all our decisions I hope our leaders will help us in working together to make a better world I'm ready to work toward that end I hope you are as well um I have just a brief announcement I saw online today the 25th Annual senior Awards program video presentation will be available on Thursday June 11th at 12:00 uh www.m monroe. k12.2 and. us click on mths uh a brief note here we just got this actually today via regular mail but I just wanted to read it that the the assembly
123uh the house honors and and uh the contributions of teachers in response to the covid-19 public health emergency and recognizes May 4th through May 8 as a national teacher appreciation week I realized this is way past the date we received it today via regular ma mail but I just thought it appropriate for me to uh to read it um considering all the hard work our teacher doing and they deserve the recognition and now I referred Mr poori when you gave your report I I referred to a letter that I wrote and uh I was hoping to get the board's permission to um have this written up and and sent to these people um dear Governor Murphy Senator Greenstein Senator Sweeney assemblyman Benson and D'Angelo for the past several years the Monro Township School District has
124not received its best share of state aid you're well aware of our overcrowding situation our citizens have rejected two referenda and are heavily taxed and refuse to uh refuse to increase their burden approximately 86% of the cost of Education Monroe is paid by the taxpayers we've done and continue to do all we can to meet the challenges of res of the residential growth that we are experiencing cutting $700,000 from our state aid is going to cause more pain we have postponed the referendum for more school aid uh we have postpone hiring two new special ed positions and our cancelling Trail is to make more uh classroom space available in the high school how much more can our taxpayers and staff be asked to do we realize the pandemic has caused Global grief however this board
125of education is disappointed in the ongoing neglect of our District's dire situation as well as this large cut in our state aid we need a we need a change in the funding formula the state requires us to pay the full cost for contracted transportation services during school closures it's also possible for municipalities to defer tax revenues to the school system I appreciate the fact that our didn't but speaking in general now that would cause a major financial problem borrowing borrowing to make up the cuts only hurts the taxpayers further unfunded mandates still exist how can we pay for them while our while our enrollment grows continuously causing overcrowding and increased expenses we continue to allow developers to build with no consideration for the school system it's our hope that you can increase our Aid package
126or provide assistance in some other form so that quality instruction cannot be endangered and taxes not Skyrocket we are requesting a meeting with you to further discuss our unique situation in Monroe I'd like to make a motion that the board adopt uh this uh letter and allow it to be sent out to the um people that I addressed at the beginning second second Steve thank you Mr J heard it any question something that you know uh um Mr Mayo brought something up at our committee meeting that I thought was you know at first I thought it was kind of funny but then the more I thought about it the more I thought that it I don't know what our I don't know what we can do or if we can do it or what the
127what the legalities are but she made a pretty good point about these on funded mandates where we were talking about why we're set why we're forced to pay these these these things and the state mandates that we pay the things and we're we pay the bills and we're not using the services and that maybe we shouldn't be sending the you know we shouldn't be sending the the the money to Trenton uh until they until they do something for us so and I know I'm not looking for us to do something here with that and and to stop paying the state but I thought you know it's an interesting point and I think it's something that maybe we could research further okay Steve I have a point just to build upon it I I I guess
128the the issue is not just not uh paying some of the services that not not being rendered but if you look at the corporate world and many of our public uh the citizens have lost their jobs because of this pandemic and you know some of the the corporations have slashed uh the salaries of people as well so just the fact that we have to pay whatever we owe them contractually in its entirety versus even getting a 10 or 15% uh reduction that we are seeing across the board in the corporate America doesn't apply to these vendors to me is um really not a a reasonable expectation I do understand that whether if you're a bus driver or anything else or a police officer you still need to put on the table you need to have
129the job you need to have them get paid but get paid the same way that they're getting paid before the the pandemic hit and the the the financial hardship HD in um so I think that's something that I don't know if you're going to include that in in the letter or we can discuss should we have the privilege of actually getting a chance to meet with these people I think uh that that should be safe for our discussion if we have the uh like you said the privilege to uh meet with them is because there'll probably be some more items that we'll want to bring up anyway this is just a foot in the door um look we we've met many times our legislators and everything and and uh I haven't seen any appreciable change
130I know we're we're still coming out technically with $300,000 more than we were last year when I guess some some districts were less but you know our our um situation is very unique here because of the development uh really that the state is is is uh not considering the schools because they don't allow for impact fees and uh we've been fighting this for years and uh really haven't gotten anywhere but I think that uh it's it's long overdue that these developers start contributing to the school system that their developments directly impact it's just logical to me and and and I for the life of me I can't see why the state isn't doing that at any rate uh yeah I'm sorry Andy did you want to say something was that you did anybody want to
131say something I thought I heard somebody say something go ahead Steve I I just want to say that's an excellent letter I think it reaches everything uh every point that we really need to enforce here and I I think it would be a great idea if you got uh other districts on on board with that same letter writing campaign I think if the the state hears it just from us it won't have a as big as an impact as if they hear it from other districts that are surrounding us as well I can certainly propose that Peter at the legislative Committee of New Jersey school board because you have the all the districts there in the state and I I could certainly bring that up yeah okay I'm sorry anyone else Rybeck just a reminder
132we need a roll call on this yes I know okay Mr gors I think we can vote Mrs Deo yes Mr seagull zle Mr Tano yes thank you Mr rutsky Mrs armeno yes this armeno you said yes I said yes thank you Mr Chella yes Mr poori yes Mr Nick atinsky yes Mrs kapano yes Mr Ryback Mr board president uh please your motion passed unanimously thank you thank you board members appreciate it let's hope let's hope we get some positive results with this okay uh now we can move to uh Other Board of Education business I have some thing B sure um I just wanted to congratulate to all the retirees I hope they have a wonderful retirement I also want to thank the teachers and the staff for all they've done during this pandemic
133and I just want to bring up something that we discussed at the end of the curriculum meeting that I didn't touch upon before um we had a discussion of the mental health of our students during this extremely difficult time and Dr Layman outlined how all the staff are working together together to help our students you know teachers are on the front line and they're reaching out to students if they have concerns in addition parents and students are able to reach out to counselors if they need help so if you have a child who you're concerned about um feel free to call your school counselor because they are there and they will um definitely do the best that they can to help you this a ma just just so everyone knows not call the school counselor
134because they're not in school but email sorry I stand corrected email Mr Po Mr President uh I see 111 people on the attendant so I'll try to make this quick first and foremost I'm extremely happy to see that uh our school district is considering having graduation outside and uh you know I had a conversation with uh with Dr alwick and unfortunately the social media seemed to think that we already made a negative decision on it and I hope this kind of wrong propaganda uh stops very quickly uh I did share some information regarding the co re reopening uh literature from John Hopkins uh with our school board and also there is a directive in terms of the hbac system it's not just the things that we touch uh and feel that result in the spreading
135of the virus unfortunately it's also the air that we uh consume sitting in these buildings so something that we should be uh aware of uh I do want to recognize a teacher who wants to be uh kept anous but uh she was a person who woke up in the middle of the night after she went through the covid-19 situation went and gave her her uh you know antibodies to people who are suffering from uh from covid-19 there's some volunteers within the Indian Community who have led this effort and uh quite honestly I heard uh Rupa you probably heard too what 69 uh cases were uh administered through that and they saved lives yes like that so whoever that lady is uh in she's from under Township School District and you know kudos to her and
136it really hats off for doing such a wonderful job uh the one item that I have is something that I've been talking about for quite some time uh which is the uh confidentiality of the information that we discuss in the Clos sessions uh if you look at the uh Court of ethics on the School Board Association uh we all which we all site every year there's an item that says that I will hold confidential all matters pertaining to the school which if disclosed would needlessly injure individuals or the schools in all other matters I will provide accurate information and in concert with my fellow board members interpret to this staff and aspirations of the community of its schools so basically we are all pledging that we're going to uphold these things and I know that
137some of this has been compromised last year we discussed as a as a as a team that we will not be pressing any charges uh and we discuss not to have this thing repeated again unfortunately I recently seen some Electronic media making circles making uh you know rounds in the electronic media where a member of the public is clearly indicating some of the actions and discussion items uh that took place in the uh close session uh this is absolutely uncalled for and this is absolutely deplorable that people from our own uh 10 member board are leaking information from the confidentiality so I have no trust to attend our our close sessions and expect that it's going to be kept confidential so Mr P can I interrupt you because pleas it troubles me to to hear
138this uh you know the confidentiality of a close session is is extremely important because we talk about students we talk about personnel and and uh you know that information until and unless it's legal to do so has to be held confidential I have no I'm sitting here really very very angry that that this you're reading about somebody in in the public saying they have access to this information it's unconscionable to me that anybody on this board of education We Trust who we who has the public trust would leak information concerning that's privileged information it's ridiculous that this is that I have to sit here and listen this kind of thing it's absolutely ridiculous Steve it's not just about having the privileged information it's about has you know uh keeping confidential in in in con you
139know in confidence with the uh the people who are involved and and their security and quite honestly if the board members agree I want to make a motion to have uh somebody actually do conduct an investigation on who the perpetrator is and then uh you know file sub etics charges on the person who's leaking this information from our Board of uh educ education I have no problem with that I saw the same exact thing and it was very concerning um it was specifically mentioned closed session information and I absolutely think we need to have uh an investigation on this because it's very disheartening that this is happening um yes it's very disheartening we all work hard to we most of us work hard to keep things confidential and we we we abide by those rules
140and I really do think we need to have an investigation Mr did you second the motion I did okay any more discussion uh Mr Rak yeah go ahead I'm just I'm sorry K I'm sorry um Mrs kapano which is I think she's Frozen in time over here maybe we could fix that I see circles going around she on freezes she go ahead Ken I'm just I I just want some clarification as to what the what the issue we're talking about is because I don't think I've seen it but I want to I'd like to just know what we're talking about I know I know Ken that would upset you as well Andy you want to shed some light on that quite honestly that that's again it's a confidential information I'll be more than happy to
141share whatever it is with you Steve and then maybe goes through Mary to get to anybody before you know we put it out there I don't want to implicate any any sources on it so but however the bottom line is if there's some body among the 10 of us who are leaking information that should not be leaked to the general public uh you know that should not be done and simply that's ethics violation and we should not be tolerating such individuals to serve on the board of education period as far as I'm concerned um you know what I see uh I'm going to you know and if you don't want I'm thinking about this I'd like to amend your motion I think it's important motion but I'd like to amend it that we uh do
142an investigation using an outside uh lawyer so that there's no no conflicts or or you know it's all nice and clean and easy so I I make a motion that we conduct an investigation at the possible leaks from uh close session using an outside attorney yeah can can oh somebody go go ahead Kathy I know you've been out for a while so come back oh I saw you couldn't I'm going in and out so if I I can't hear her can you hear me or I'm gone Kathy just just to bring you up to speed she we can't probably hear her Andy let me do Kath can you hear me yes am I back on Andy made a mo Andy made a motion uh investigate the uh uh this this problem with the leaking of
143information and I um I amended the motion to uh have an investigation done by an outside legal councel well I'd like okay so we would have to vote on the amendment but I think since we approved um uh what was it did we approve tonight the law firm of porio brumberg and Newberg we might as well use them because we have them on retainer till December that's a good idea all right I can include and there we want an outside independent person or or law fir to do it because I think that would be U we would have more faith in that maybe than to um you know do it internally all right so's got a lot on her plate so and I think that's why we now have this other law firm purposes such
144as know Ste Steve uh this is Andy uh very quickly I am concerned about the cost you know I know that one person for member of the public writes an email all of a sudden we need to hire an outside Council to address that or you know if a member of the public constantly submits Oprah requests day in day out that's taken up by time from our own attorney board attorney which get paid to do the district work instead of responding only to opras opra is a wonderful thing I support it I want people to get information that they deserve to get but it's becoming almost a game with some public that constantly uh request that information quite honestly Mr Gorski Mr President if you allow me to ask Mr Gorski to come and kind
145of give us a cost the order of magnitude cost associated with the amount of responses the School Board District is being put through through these oah requests and constant uh uh filing of various charges Mike are you prepared to answer that yes Mr Ryback just to understand what the board attorney's role is uh I am the open public records officer in the district but as these items touch Personnel of the board uh certain items have to be redacted and that's an important process of the legal review we did this before we had in house counsel and we're continuing the process now to make sure that we don't violate anybody's confidentiality and sending out Oprah requested information um the attorney's time on some of these issues is extensive the amount of volume that goes to satisfy
146these oper requests is sometimes goes to a half to a ream of paper that has to be gone through by the attorney redacted and then transmitted into a media that it can be responded back to the person to answer your question directly I would estimate annually her her time charges to be between 30 and $40,000 responding to Opa requests Ste Steve I just want to conclude what I'm saying I I do appreciate all that information the whole intent is we've been elected by the general public to serve the school district and provide the you know a a good education to our our students instead you know all these distri attractions that are created by a handful of people is really not letting us do our job and you know this rup and I and and
147maybe even Peter we're coming to halfway mark in our term and that's really frustrates me constantly to go through this kind of stuff where we can't get the board board business done because of these distractions I rest my case Michelle I see your hand up Mr Ryback just a reminder you need a second for this amendment to get on the floor you know um I was gonna I was GNA ask Michelle haven't forgot wait Kath brought up a good idea about uh I think good idea about using a law firm that we're paying for already uh so as since it's not said can I can I just withdraw my Amendment and maybe ask Kathy to do the amendment and and mention the law firm that doable yes so maybe since the it hasn't been second
148Mr POI would like to just withdraw his motion and make a new one using the law firm name great idea Mr glori you you ready for that I'm not ready for that other than to say that the whatever the law firm that Kathy is talking about I do would like to have them to uh lead the investigation to keep any kind of uh you know favoritism of partiality and conduct an independent investigation and report back to the board their findings of the perpetrator who leaked the information from our close sessions Mr one sec I I know Miss alino still need a second I'd like to second the motion have a second by Rupa seagull now the motion's on the floor do you want excuse me this Kathy do you want the name of the law
149firm to go into Andy's because he didn't use the law firm Ju Just say it Kathy if you don't mind um it's porio Bromberg and Newman PC it's on our agenda who remember all that yeah well we we try now all right so we have a second now we can have uh questions or comments Michelle you had your hand up and then Ken if you don't mind wait so I'd like to understand how we found this law uh firm to begin with yes go ahead I can't see you Mr Mr Gorski so thank you for calling out Mr Rybeck you directed me to um that last matter yes I did and the district has U previous experience with the porio firm um I also discussed the issue with our bond counselor Jackie shanus from a
150Carter in English and it was her recommendation to uh to uh utilize the services of porio specifically vdo Gagliardi to uh answer that legal question that specifically we talked about before they have expertise in the areas of Education uh and school law and they came recommended by another attorney that the board has appointed annually and just um on that on that note um I I was often uh wondering why we one didn't go and get some advice from school boards which would have been free and why we didn't go directly to the ethics commission or the New Jersey school um in the education commission so um it seems like this was I'm a little disappointed at how this is played out it seems like we are looking for um some specific things to happen and
151I have been on this board and I have been watching uh the district for many many years and I think there are some people who live in glass houses in this regard um over the years I've been very disappointed that conf confidential things have gotten out and no one has ever been uh challenged on it um so I'm very disappointed that this seems like uh somewhat over the toop going forward I am certainly one who has always tried to keep confidentiality and I take this very seriously my next comment is not may I have I still have the floor sir may I please in terms of the open public meetings act we talk about the cost of uh between 30 and $40,000 tax taxpayer money so when a taxpayer looks to the board in the
152district for information it is their money they are spending um open public records is a part of our democracy and sometimes if democracy is cumbersome and sometimes it's quite costly it is our government the it's the people's government if the people need information I'm very offended that the administration thinks it's a problem that people in in our public in our public sphere who are paying their taxes um are asking questions so I really think that the open public meetings Act is to protect the public and we should not be so offended when people come forward and ask for things information that they themselves pay for Ryback um I well with regard to Mrs arminio's comments it's it was not brought up by Administration Administration has no offense in this issue at all and secondly your
153your suggestion to go to the ethics commission for a private ruling taken about four to six months for a response this was an issue that had to be resolved by the next board meeting and New Jersey school boards Association will always direct you in their guidance to speak with an attorney they will not provide legal advice like this required thank you you answered you made my statement there I I I just want to add one thing to gentleman I know Mr plor and Miss cherell you'll come right after me Mr poy he had his hand up um there's nothing underhanded going on on this board of education and I'm frankly hurt you know that that you're saying that Miss almino um Mr I did not say anything about she keeps Steve if she keeps interrupting
154other people I got to go and respond to her acquisitions I I I hope to keep this respectable for everybody please uh Michelle I you know you you certainly made a statement that to me I interpreted that way and I I take offense to that because that's that's not the way I operate and it's not the way I think this board wants to operate um you know we're we're trying to keep things above board and we're expressing how we feel if you're internalizing it that way I'm sorry but there there is nothing going on here that that should you should come to that conclusion as far as this leaking going on uh well allegedly going on that's something that every single one of us should be against and I know I know I know you
155believe strongly in that I know uh and and and we can't have that on this board of education no Board of Education can have that's dangerous to release this kind of information Ken I thank you for waiting I'm sorry I know you've had your hand up for a while thank you Mr ryack I just want to I with you know I'm not I don't know the ex what we're talking about as far as what the instance was but I am in favor of doing this investigation and I hope that the scope is large and that we cast a broad net because I am in possession of information and um proof evidence of multiple leaks that have come out a Clos session to in multiple directions by a couple people and I'm hoping hoping that when
156we do this investigation that I'm able to sit down with them and show them my evidence and the things that I have because I've been asking for years for these things to be addressed and they have it so once that once we have that if we're looking to remove people whether they're employees or board members who are in that close session and leaking that out I'm hoping that we're going to take that action because um we need to I agree with you so I will vote for this and uh I just hope that I get to have the input that uh I deserve too as a board member because as you know and many people here know I've brought a lot of things to the attention of the to uh our board leadership that have
157gone un addressed so hopefully we'll have a chance now with this openness and transparency to address these I want to get this corrected I have no tolerance for this kind of thing Mr poori very quickly I completely agree with with Ken uh one of the things that we take it to heart is our ethic Court of ethics and if anybody violates at any time that needs to be taken seriously uh to m m armen's point about it's a public money it's a taxpayers money they have every right to get it I 100% agree with it but unfortunately there's also people can take that very sentiment and abuse the power of Oprah and if I you know I don't mean to put anybody on the spot but if you go back and look at the number
158of people requesting Oprah request on a fairly regular basis as soon as a a conversation happens between two board members within 24 hours a a member of the public comes and request any communication between these two members for the next uh whatever one month of communication between them and it's constantly the same handful of people doing it so if it's being done in the good faith to hold the the school district and the board responsible I'm all for it but I think it's being a privilege that's overused by only certain privileged people any M go ahead your mic's off I can't hear you can we turn I see her her microphone is off is it on yeah now you got it okay it is sir it is not a privilege it's a right of the
159Democracy it's not a privilege to get open public uh Records it is the right of citizens Steve can I call the question please no not yet um the um the PE now you distracted me so the people who are asking for things I mean one of the our ethics if you want to talk about ethics one of our ethics requirements is that we don't sing PE single people out because we may not agree with them so that's you know that's like a special interest if we want to single people out who we don't agree with um I think it's we shouldn't do that we have a motion to call the question we have to vote on that Mr Gorski could we have a sec do we have a second Mr glor uh um Mr ryack
160the motion was moved by Mr plor seconded by Rupa seagull I didn't hear that okay we do aoll to for the board to conduct a investigation into the breach of confidentiality utilizing the attorney firm of Pugo and Company uh Mr plor yes Mrs armenio um I'm very uncomfortable with wait is gone but because I believe in um yes confidentiality it's yes Mrs Deo yes Mr Nick atinsky yes Mr Chella yes Mrs kapano yes rsky yes Mrs seagull yes Mr Tano Mr Tano yes thank you Mr Rybeck yes board president motion passes okay thank you all let's hope we get a good outcome out of this um any other board of education business anyone yes Mr rck yes go ahead okay Michelle armeno I'd also like to thank the retirees and wish them the the best
161in their uh in the future I would also like to thank the teachers and wouldbe teachers the parents who have gone through this uh the shutdown and taken care of each other and thanks to the IT department who are those unseen professionals who help the district be seen and heard so I want to thank the IT department and I would also special appreciation for Mr Washington he's always been very patient with me um in my um my my skills or there lack thereof so I appreciate and Mr Feldman who is also very uh very helpful lately so I want to thank everyone and um soon to be uh the end of the school year so I wish everyone a good summer and hope we can get through this um pandemic by September thank you thank
162you well said anyone else Mr ryck it's Rupa rup kathew next go ahead Rupa okay sorry Kathy um I just want to um you know thank all the retirees for their years of dedication to our students I wish them all a Happy retirement and best of luck in their next chapter um I also want to just say congratulations to our senior class of 2020 I know I think about you daily because I also have a graduating senior and I know this year hasn't been what you were expecting for you your parents or anyone but I do have to say I want to thank the high school administration the teachers and the district staff for everything that you've been doing and it's not only the school district it's the entire Community working with the parents at
163District we're all collaborating together to make sure that our seniors still have a proper send off from the Volunteer Fire Company creating a banner the rec center displaying signs on the rec center for the students so I think it's such a nice feeling to know we have a strong Community behind our seniors so um I do want to say one more thing because I was looking at my favorite Dr Seuss book and as I was reading it I was thinking about the senior so I just want to share one page from it because it just meant something to me it made me think of them so I'm just going to read this real quick little Dr Seuss thing because we all grew up with Dr Seuss you have brains in your head you have feet
164in your shoes you can steer yourself any direction you choose you're on your own and you know what you know and you are the guy who decide where you go so I wish all the seniors um best of luck in your future endeavors and you know just remember you get to be part of Monroe history and continue to make Monroe proud so best of luck thank you m SE Miss Kyle Pono yeah um this is our June meeting which I sometimes lose track of what day it is or sometimes even what month it is but it's our June meeting which usually equals the end of the school year so I want to commend all of our teachers and our staff for what they have done the last four months with the online learning and how
165hard it's been to learn to teach in a different a different and new way but also many of our staff have their own children that they've been teaching at home also so it's been hard for everybody to get used to all of this and staying in home and everything so I I would just like to commend from the administration all the way down that how we have um worked through this pandemic I also like to say that I'm very sorry to see um Reggie Washington and Scott MRA Pea on the retirement list um I've worked with both of them for a long time Mr madra peara was a science teacher for all my children so we go back a long time and and I they remember him very well so I just want to wish
166them the best and all of our retirees the best uh as they go through their retirement you know we sometimes um we don't ever want them to leave but we don't have a say in what they want to do in their lives so we just know that um this is their time miss them and they both will leave a legacy dead again yeah you go oh boy are you frozen there okay Kathy finished I'm gonna assume she is any other board member okay um can I ask before we move on to public forum um Mr Feldman how many uh members of the public are waiting you have any idea it looks like only two have their hand up I did have another one so it looks like three as of now all right I was
167GNA Mr board president I just want to update the question is that there 11 people actually on and as you were asked the question I see the hands go up more hands go up they did they did now it looks like there's a close to 20 now all right um you know what uh for the sake of the board I'm going to make a motion to take a a 10-minute recess I have no idea how long this could take and then we can have the public forum Michelle did you want to say something yeah I think we should go through the public forum before it's getting late for them as well they've hung in there can we take the recess after the public form and before the closed session that's fine with me I just
168thought it'd be easy I'm doing it for you all all of you I know if anybody has a problem I agree with Michelle okay just move on move on with the public forum U let me just State when you um please state your name and address and you have four minutes at the mic M Felman we have anyone up first do we have gazala Bora gazala um if you could just lower your hand when you're done thank you very much gazala yes hi good evening this is gazala Bora one M Drive am I Audible am I audible yeah I said good evening good evening Mr R I have a few things to say only one of those I looking for a response on but besides that everything is just my comments as a taxpayer I
169want to start by echoing what Mr Layman said about the band concert um I have three children in the music program in the district and I'm a very grateful parent um my uh fifth grader had a virtual band concert this week and it was simply heartwarming to see the effort for the teachers put in the students it's just they it was just overwhelming and I did send Dr Alin about it um I have a student in the percussion Symphony club and I want to really commend Mr Schneider for all his efforts for bringing all those guest speakers there um to run a club virtually takes a lot of effort and um and I know the kind of students he had mine included there are a handful and he's doing an amazing job um the second
170thing I wanted to say was I I support Mr nikitin Sky's request in the meeting today about an external audit like a new auditing company because I feel doing that will fulfill the need of transparency this District you know has right now there were so many taxpayers like me who are questioning the transparency and it would only you know increase our faith in the administration if we could use a different auditing company to just for just one audit um the third thing that I had to say and this is something that I'm looking for a response and it doesn't have to be immediate but this is something that um came off of uh Mr P's comment to Mr Ryback letter I just reminded me of something that's happening across um um across the corporate world
171right now that big corporations are giving rebates on contracts like contracts that we might be renewing with them or contracts that we might be signing up new with them so I just wanted to just throw it out there that when we renew contracts with Rosetta Stone with schag um the iPad Insurance all of these things these are Big corporations we are dealing with and maybe um maybe we can have a conversation about how we are you know as a as a district in Dire Straits and if we could get some sort of a rebate then the usual year you know renewal fees so that is something that I am looking for um feedback on I do want to thank you Mr Ryback on that letter that that you read and I gotp speed I hope
172that does something for us and I hope other districts also join that um and the last thing I want to say is not nice but I do want to loop back to something that I said in the um in the phed meeting for the month of May I had asked because U Mr gorski's contract was up for Renewal and it was being voted on last month I had asked about the status of the pending ethic charges and I was told that it's a Personnel matter and that cannot be discussed um I was told that the board members voting on that contract were not informed about the status of those e ethic charges and I was also told that it is not something I can opra well um so I did not waste taxpayers dollars of
173Monroe Township uh for the Oprah but the Oprah was done at state level and I am in receipt of a consent order signed by the Department of Education commissioner um commissioner rol and attorney of the mundro Township School District business administrator it is an acknowledgement of guilt of violating three separate ethic codes the school ethics commission the SEC strongly admonishes the conduct and has cons I I can inter I have to interrupt you uh I know I understand what you said but it's been all practice not to discuss anything concerning Personnel I okay so I'm going to just go back to something that Mr poori said today that you guys take ethic violations seriously I have as a this talked about this multiple time somebody could have reached out to me personally and given me
174the answer to this the time's up and I don't feel comfortable talk at this conversation talking about personnel and your time is up we have to move on sorry Mr Felman we have somebody else Mr board President we have Sarah Aziz Sarah if you could just state your name and address thank you very much hi uh my name is Sarah aiz three lelot Drive um I have uh two separate questions we like to ask them both first before getting a response to each of them um first I understand that the high school administration led by Dr Higgins and the superintendent are responsible for planning graduation ceremonies in addition to this I wanted to know what role if any the board members and the business business administrator play in the planning of graduation ceremonies uh want
175me that or you want to I'd like I'd like to continue have a few more points actually um I am a former auditor a CPA and I was wondering what's the cost uh in changing Auditors because whenever I took on a first uh first time client it required many more hours of service to get to know the client and uh you know Auditors charged by the hours uh so I'm interested in how much it would cost the taxpayers to change Auditors I'm also interested in finding out um you know how many accounting firms do this kind of audit because um you know uh auditing uh Boards of education is a very specialized form of accounting uh so I would like aners those two questions additionally um some people have written on social media that all
176the existing schools can be extended to uh alleviate the overcrowding however I believe we have a plan uh for we have projected 2700 unhoused students over the next five years Al although I don't believe each classroom should have more than 25 students let's assume for argument sake that each modular classroom houses 30 students dividing 20 700 by 30 would equal approximately 90 modular units at the last uh meeting Dr alvik said that we couldn't add modular units onto mil Lake and Woodland schools without negatively impacting the surrounding areas because there was not enough space can 90 modular units be added to the existing six Monro schools to alleviate our overcrowding cheaply and safely without negatively impacting the common areas including the cafeteria and the hallways additionally how do we accommodate 27 projected unhoused students if
177all future referenda fail that's it okay let me let me let me start by um answering the third one um and and Dr alv or Mr G you could chime in after me uh our ad Central Administration uh came up with a recommended plan to solve uh our overcrowding problem for the next few years uh they work very hard on this uh and um I think you're familiar what the with what the plan is personally I think it makes sense uh but we are putting off the referendum but it's the the U District administration that came up with a plan that will will resolve some of these certainly will resolve the overcrowding issue for for a few years Dr Al do you want to add to that or Mr gors I can add to it
178that yeah can we um have 2700 students housed in 90 classrooms yes will it negatively impact our common areas yes um that was one of the reasons that we looked carefully at the um different schools to see what would work best for the referendum plan and that's what was presented at last month's uh board meeting um with regard to the graduation it is the high school administration working in conjunction with central office um that's me Dr Layman Mr Gorski Mr Gorski really just signs the the bills for the graduation um and he is also the person who leads um the graduating class into the arena when we have it in person um so but he's he's not involved in the entire planning process that's something that we've worked on um as an administrative team and
179as I mentioned earlier we met with the township officials today to make sure that they are in agreement with us that we're following all of the requirements that we need to follow this year Mr Rybeck yes sure Mr gors regarding um the Mrs aiz speaker about the comments about the auditor I remind the board and the public that the district went out for a request for proposal for auditing Services about a year ago and this was a publicly advertised request for proposal where we outlined what uh requirements for the audit were and we received no response of bids um so Miz's comments about uh cost of an initial audit engagement uh my experience and I'm not a school board auditor is that she is correct uh the auditor has to come in and write an
180audit program assess risk and a bunch of other things that are all nuances when you first come in and there is an investment that is uh created at the beginning and that's that's obviously billable time um that did not stop this board from going out for an RFP before and um again these Auditors have a license and they are are most trained in Independence and they would not be able to issue an audit report or give an opinion on the district's financial statements had they had any impairment of Independence in in appearance or fact um so you know that's that's the Cornerstone of our profession thank you okay uh I believe that answers all the questions from Miss aiz uh Mr Felman we have anyone else we do Mr board president uh Katherine hunt Katherine
181please state your name and address thank you very much cine Catherine's breaking up I can't hear her hear yeah I don't know that's not coming out well let's see if this turn you're on now oh great great for a while it it was beeping or something okay um well thank you so much I just wanted to tell you state your name and address is Mr yes I'm Katherine hunt I'm here at 121 L Lane in Rossmore okay welcome thank you very much um well it's been very interesting today and I want to say I did hear um of some uh that there were some attacks on uh Michael Gorski at the last Board of Education meeting and I was very concerned about that and I said um so I wanted to look up more information
182about Mr Gorski and uh he has done such a great job with our budget and he plays a really important role in keeping taxes lower than com comparable towns around in middlex county and um I would to say I um do appreciate the time he took to answer questions I had on the budget when I contacted him last week um he's also from what I've been able to uh see he's the best qualified business administrator we have in the county and we are lucky to have him thank him very much and uh I'd like to say he's um he has his master's degree he has his CPA and public school accountant license you can look it up oh I had to put this down here it makes a noise and um I noticed that a
183couple of weeks ago so many of the schools had cuts and ours did too and so I wanted to uh thank him for balancing the budget as well and finding ways to do that so he even though the budget was already established he had to go back and find ways to balance it out and he did and that we do have there's a very low rate on bonds right now and we need to take out a bond to build another school so um I'm hoping that we'll be able to do that and I support taking out a school bond especially at the low rates we have you know thank you very much and I just Kath I just want to say you know the as far as the budg budget cuts Mr Gorski certainly plays
184a key role there but so does Dr alvik and Dr Layman and School principles as well uh it's a it's a team effort yes we're lucky to have all these people on board thank you yeah it seems to be a good team there so thanks a lot thank you thank you fman board President we have Kathy Belco okay welcome Kathy can you hear me yes I can welcome okay thank you um Mr Ryback and the board for um taking my um comments I have four comments that I'd like to make um my I'm Katie Belco 8 Brandon Avenue in uh Monro Township and um I have three graduating seniors this year so I am very interested in um how our graduation ceremonies are going to go um it's been a long time so um I
185just I have four points and hopefully I can get through them in my four minutes the first thing I on this um first statement I want to make is um I've been attending a lot of the board committee meetings and um actually started attending a lot of them when I was at home convalescing with covid-19 and so I've been listening a lot at the curriculum committee and with all of the things that have been going on I personally attended the um demonstration this past Sunday in Thompson Park and um I want and I've been listening to all the updates and I wondered if the township um has any plans to have a k through 12 diversity and inclusive classes um or curriculum that will be added into uh any of our programs so that we
186can continue to educate our young people I think we've probably done a really good job because that demonstration that was put on by our um graduated um students was very well done and very well respected and did have the support of the local police department so that's just a something I'm throwing out there to the curriculum committee for consideration um the other two things um have to do with one is the public forum I wonder why we as the public cannot see all of the attendees in the public forum if we were in the library or in the school building we would see all of the other people who are in attendance so that we know exactly who we are speaking in front of and and what other people are there um and uh so
187I wanted to know why that we cannot see that participation list I personally had to email um Mr Feldman because I can't get the hand to raise um I and I work in it and I I went through everything I could do even going in and out so I really um would like to see that all of the attendees are um shown in the meetings my third point is um I would like to the board to consider based off of the um njsa 10 um colon 4-6 Senator buyer and and buyers open public meetings act to start enforcing or start utilizing the 10 um colon 4- 9.1 electronic notice of meeting of public body um and it's it that particular section of the ACT um spells out the open public meetings act for electronic notice
188of meetings um we I I don't know when was the last time any one of you read a paper newspaper I personally haven't picked up the News Tribune or the cranberry press um in a very long time actually I don't even get it in this part of town um none of the school buildings have been opened so the Public Notices placed in school buildings are a waste of time um and also um the clerk's office has been closed so no one could go to the clerk's office to find out when the meetings were we um I I highly recommend that the board um create a public Board of Education Monro Township Facebook page that is is official um and you can create those kinds of pages so that comments can only be made by someone
189from the board who's designated and that would be a place where people could get the notices of when the meetings are also we should speak with the Monroe Township um uh the actual Township web page and perhaps they could put a banner up within the 48 hour requirement that is there that the meeting board of headed meeting tonight or Tuesday night Wednesday night and then um Facebook Twitter Instagram and um I would like to ask for permission for minute I know my time is up to finish the time is up um I'm I'm sorry we're out of time uh Mr Felman we have someone else do Mr board President we have Charlton Thompson uh Charlton if you could just state your name and address and any attendee that has spoken already could you please uh
190put your hand down thank you very much Charlton Charlton Thompson 44 spru Medals Drive can you hear me yes welcome Charon all right you guys have bought up a code of ethics which is a good transition to one of the topics I'd like to discuss because it's been brought to my attention that one of your board members has been posting on social media using inappropriate language not becoming of a board member or a citizen of this town uh the attitude and temperament go beyond merely disagreeable and really into the realm of antagonistic uh some of the posts that were uh put up center around bullying intimidation sexism use of profanity and even a a a a hint of political now we all have the right to free speech but I don't think a board member
191that's representing the township students uh should be making those those posts and I won't say the name unless you want me to no I don't think okay but I want to know what what is you know what can be done about this well first let me say I I you know I appreciate you coming up and expressing how you and your concerns uh they're important but at this time I'm under advisement to uh not respond except to say that I will take this under advisement well I want to make this a you know a for complaint and and I want uh you know a response on what's going to be done or I am going to have to out this person so I need to know exactly what what is going to be done about
192this because if you see these posts which I have copy of they're outrageous they're disgusting and this person should be removed he should not be res representing anyone in this Township with the vile language that he's been using again I I'm taking you know everything you said under advisement but I cannot respond at this time and I'm not I'm not expecting a response now but I would like to know exactly what's going to be done how this is going to be investigated and how will I be uh communicated with the result or I'll have to take it a step further I can't comment on that I understand what you're saying I appreciate this gonna go into a black hole is what you're saying like like you gotta say something or I'm gonna say something just
193said I'm taking it under advisement but what does that mean please elaborate I can't can't comment on on anything further than that anybody else on this board want to comment they can't no I'm the only one that can respond to you here and my I need I'm sorry so what does that mean though you're taking it under advisement does that just mean okay after this meeting nothing happens like I need to know something Stephen SE I'm I'm being honest with you I cannot make any comment further than what I said right now at this time I'm not I'm not asking you to comment I'm saying what when what do you mean you're taking it under advisement that to me that can mean a lot of things you have to give me something here hearing what
194you're saying the board what you say but I can't make any further comment at this time so if we as a citizen hear something like this and we bring it to your attention you say you can't comment at this point I can't comment so when will you be able to comment I guess is the question I can't say exactly when that would be I know you're not happy with that but that's that's all I could say at this point I mean I I understand how Personnel matters work but this I mean to say nothing like I'm not saying nothing I'm saying I'm taking on the advisement and but I can't comment and and that's as far as I could say I I I I don't mean to do this back and forth with you but
195I just don't I mean from my perspective I don't know what that means my response but that's the only response I can give you at this time just you know as a citizen it just doesn't seem to be an appropriate response uh because to me I mean you guys do have a code of ethics right yes I'm sorry your time is up we have to move on okay okay thank you anyone else Mr fman yes Mr Bo President we have prash parab Pros if you could just state your name and uh please drop your hand when you're done thank you very much thank you very much prash up 33 did I Steve the president I have uh few statements then few questions first one is ethic violation don't just restrict it to the current leakage
196ethic violation if you are Consulting with external lawyer ethic violation whichever is done and if they are serious we have to take action okay so it should be General look at all ethic violations which have been done not particular this one this particular something looks like fishy to me so I want it is B all across okay and the second thing is going to the next thing is the state is mandating us for to pay the contractors even they are not working it is a very in this situation is a very you know emotional issue you know because we don't don't want anyone to lose unemployment at all but at the same same time the state is getting a federal money so in this letter you have to say that which you are sending to
197governor and this thing our legislatures must Lobby that what fed government is federal government is giving to our state Some Cuts should come to the Monroe Township they you know we never get money back okay and state mandates it is not so make your letter more stronger and I agree with you they don't don't think of impact fees our special education they are not funding and they are not giving money when the federal sends to the state they giving it only few that is not tolerated so make these letters stronger the second so I want to comment of your comment on that and secondly enrollment I'm looking at again in last five years we are enrolled our enrollment has increased by 441 only and out of 4 41320 in high school so high school I
198don't know because we are getting students from Jamesburg so it is high I I I'm not objecting to Jamesville students coming but the projection that in next five years we have 1,200 students coming is questionable the thing is third topic we had a very good presentation by modular construction company uh during the bgt meeting one thing is important the modu construction means they do offsite construction whether you want a permanent high quality Taj Mahal single flow construction they can do it they construct outside and bring it and mod so the time frame they take is very short within 9 to one year whereas regular construction takes two to three years so that is so my question is we had a good presentation so what is the next step okay so those are my I think
199I lost the fourth one I already talked about ethics things so that is all and I also thank Washington Mr Washington for his implementation of several nice Technologies in our schools thank you so those were two questions I had steeve thank you prash we have anyone else there do Mr board President we have Patty Lang Patty could you please state your name and address um Patty Lang 74 McFarland Circle Monroe Township welcome Patty hi okay so C we currently have four policies regarding affirmative action on our in our policy books affirmative action is required by the federal government um and any entity that gets federal funds needs to have an affirmative action program and an affirmative action plan the key point of our federally mandated affirmative policy and program is that we will Foster a
200learning environment that is free from all forms of prejudice discrimination and harassment based on race Creed color national origin ancestry age marital status affectional or sexual orientation gender identity or expression religion disability so or socioeconomic status in the policies programs and practices of a Board of Education ation how do we as educator students in the Board of Ed and the community successfully Foster learning environment that is free from all forms of prejudice discrimination and harassment when a member of the board of education has been AC accused of behaving in a manner which is completely opposed to this goal in the past week we have witnessed a student l call for action against discriminate discrimination amb bigotry in all forms how can members of the Board of Education individuals who have sworn to make decisions in
201the best interest of students stand by as any student or family of Monroe and Jamesburg feel as if they've been disrespected devalued humiliated or threatened by the words and actions of a board member I am requesting today for Dr Layman assistant superintendent of schools and the district's affirmative action officer to conduct an affirmative action investigation into the allegations by students Alum alumni and the community against pet Mr Peter Tano Mr tofano deserves an investigation in order to refute or confirm the allegations the results of this investigation need to be shared with the public and if necessary a corrective action plan needs to be developed and implemented I am requesting that our school district plan and Implement a program that will open a dialogue between those affected by the actions of said board member those affected
202by harassment intimidation and bullying based on the protective status listed in our affirmative action plan and those willing to work together to make a change in the status quo finally in addition to the investigation and the open dialogue I am requesting that the board president Mr Steven Ryback work with Dr Layman to develop a mandatory training for all board members on the district's affirmative action policies and their implementations thank you thank you Miss l any comments um again I have no comment on this except to say I will take it all on advisement anyone else you do Mr board president Chrissy scurby okay go ahead good evening uh Chrissy scurby 21 pness drive it's great to finally hear that you guys are taking the moral High Road a good start would be addressing the bad
203behavior of the majority of this board the district has had a long time allowing this Behavior avior from our ba our Board of Ed president vice president and those board members who have supported these individuals from hate packets to defamatory comments during meetings picked up accidentally by the microphones inappropriate text messages from District officials on District phones defaming a superintendent board members and members of the public directing security to escort members of the public out of meetings when they speak over their four minutes anytime anyone speaks a different View new point they are labeled a naysayer or a keyboard Warrior it is time for this to end as the ethics commission wrote in a response to a derogatory comment made at a board meeting not withstanding the commission's decision as set forth within the commission
204reminds the parties that the service of the board member should always be above all else to serve the needs of the students and the children of the district as a result there may be times when parents may offer their opinions or viewpoints about the actions and decisions of the board even if those opinions and viewpoints are not in line with those of the board all members of the public should be treated with decency and respect the administration needs to do what is right and there needs to be consequences for this Behavior this type of behavior needs to end we need to unite our community and we need to heal from what has taken place way too long in our school district it is time to write all the wrongs done to so many community members
205staff members administrators students and teachers we've heard from two different members of the public tonight addressing ethics charges that were filed and that were acknowledged three different codes of Ethics were violated by our business administrator for this board to constantly question what the outcome was and to be told it was a private matter and that it was not operable was absolutely ridiculous and it it shows that you take things and you just sweep them under the carpet we need to do a better job here what what is going on is not right and it is not fair to the taxpayers of Monroe Township we need to have an investigation and we need to understand what what consequences are going to be held for violating ethics charges we have three codes of Ethics that were violated
206we have a consent order that was opr signed by the commissioner of education for the Department of Education what is going to take place I'd like to have an investigation to know what this district is doing because now it's in your court they signed a consent order with a penalty now it's on the board of education to decide what to do and I hope you will take that seriously because the the this action needs to end thank you I'm just make a few comments on this number one um our board works very hard making decisions and um clearly you see tonight that we care very much about ethics but if we make a decision that someone in the public you don't agree with that doesn't mean we're wrong or we're unethical we're trying to do
207our best we're volunteers and we do our best nobody's trying to do anything that's unethical our Administration is top-notch uh they care I don't know any problems with our any of our administrators and uh we we need to move on from this and from these accusations and I think today we took a step that will help um move us forward uh because the the sanctity of a closed session is very important okay Mr Felman we have anyone else we do Mr board president PR mam PR please uh give your name and your address thank you very much hi this is malam for J Place U so I heard uh one of the board member has said today in his own word no ethics violations are are intolerable in our district and I found that our
208district business administrator has violated three counts of ethic and while doing that he he violated our board policy 1540 administrator code of ethics exactly on this is a personal matter and um you know this is not a personal matter okay it will be personal matter if he if he is part of some other domestic violence or some other place it is a personal matter I have a docket of 850 pages I skimmed through and this is not just like a personal matter this is the Department of Education his commissioner has signed and then gave me the report the whole docket okay well I mean you speak to the commissioner on that I did that's why I'm speaking in this board because now ball is in your code and I want to stick to the words
209that no ethics violations have been tolerated that's what I want to hear from you and while doing this while while violating these ethics let me finish Mr R I'm lead while violating this one while violating this one and I went through all the docket pages and it's not just one incident or two incidents it's a multi-year multi-year misuse of his position and his office capacity to skim through the people's money for tax returns that is been filing okay and for right back we have to stop this this is this is a Personnel issue this is and that's what I said before Dr this is a personel not a personal issue a Personnel issue because because he is a p he is a in the Personnel Department of our district Dr Al I'm thank you I'm
210G to stop this conversation P this is not a Personnel issue I want to move on this is not a personal issue this is it is a personel issue we're moving on if you don't like what I said you could speak to the commissioner right now I'm not going to listen to that let's let's move on Mr Rybeck may have the floor the gentleman's comments are wrong and very misleading and politically driven I'm not going to comment on it further than that although I would really like to I was advised I'm sure you would but I've I've heard enough of this ready I'm going to move on board President we have Deborah Pella Deborah please uh pronounce your name and your address thank you very much hi there this is Deborah Pella 15 Louise Lane
211I'm sorry welcome de thank you so much it looks like I'm the only one who didn't prepare something tonight write something ahead of time so I'm just going to go with a few comments and uh uh ask for responses afterwards so um my first is Michelle thank you very much for saying the public has the right to ask questions I appreciate that I probably about 50 texts saying thank you to you for restating that earlier uh regarding part of the agenda I'm curious if after I'm done speaking if you could explain to me um I'm may have missed it what letter you refers to what do school Physicians do meaning why are they on monthly retainer I'm just curious what their duties are um my next question is regarding graduation if it's split SP into
212four days why are only two people permitted to go in the stands are we using both sides the stadium is there not enough room I'm just trying to understand why only two people from each family um can go uh and that brings me to my next point which is I know we're not saving money right now um but the maybe the $16,000 I don't know how much they would be but have we looked into purchasing additional stands for our football fields where we can include more people and have more pep rallies and have more people at our games or a odd example like this for gradu I know we had an issue earlier this year with pep rallies lots of disappointments and how to fit everybody just wondering if that's in any budget down the
213road of adding additional football stands to the field um and I think my last question was regarding um nope that was it for now so those are my questions thank you Dr do you want to answer any of those yeah I can answer them um the question about the school Physicians we're required to have a school physician on on our um for our district they actually support our nursing staff so any medical plans that are created within the district for any of our students um are all approved by our physician also any of our athletes or um marching band students who have to have physicals that that is submitted by students doctors all of that paperwork actually has to be approved by the the district physician before the students can participate in any of the
214activities so yes we get all the paperwork from the parents and from your your child's physician but it all has to be overseen by our school Physicians so they are um we do work with them all year long throughout the year for all of that also um they are the ones that help to guide some of our policies and um regulations with regard to administration of Med medication um and they oversee our nurses letter um you asked about graduation even the we have a class size of 590 graduates this year so even by breaking them breaking it up into the four different sections and having about a 100 125 students in each that is still maxing our capacity of our Stadium um with having each family have two members of their family with them um
215we are also trying to be very cognizant of where we're we're placing students so the families will actually be on the field um we will have them you know socially distant from each other we we've um Dr Higg has actually mapped out the entire Stadium um where people can park and with um so that's the reason for that and with regard to adding um more um seating in our fields and our stadiums I can tell you that Mr buer proposes that every single year in the budget um and unfortunately be due to the high cost and our need for the classroom space it has not made it into the final budget but it is definitely something that is in our um that that we're aware of and that we know that we need to to
216look at at that doing that in the future but it it it goes up against all of those difficult budget decisions thank you anyone else Mr President Lawrence Lou Lawrence uh please state your name and address hi Lawrence Lou 58 Brandon Avenue uh I want I was going to thank Michael gors but uh Catherine earlier did such a great job of that I think I'm just going to skip right over it uh I also want to congratulate the 2020 graduates uh of M Township High School um I attended the black lives matter rally and I thought that was amazing that a pair a group of high school students could organize something like that and I think that they're a shiny example for what our future holds if this is the generation that's going to take
217charge in the next 20 years uh however uh I am very disappointed uh in a c board member Peter Tano's actions against Miss Risco um I thought that his his comments to her uh were demeaning and I believe that you know his he should be you know at the very least be investigated for ethics charges um I was you know I have my little sister who goes to the school system here and you know thinking about someone like that Peter Tano saying stuff that he said to her it it honestly made me really really angry um so I I I mean I was reading through some of the stuff and I you know I'm actually like shaking with anger because of how upset I am uh because I was you know I'm just going to
218read out some of the stuff uh because I think it's frankly disgusting um uh I hope you're okay with swearing but I some of the screenshots that were taken were absolutely uh vile uh he said you know in one comment he talked about uh you know someone's wife and then watching his ball slap against their wife don't mind I rather not you know do have children that could be listening as well even though it's a late hour um maybe you could find some other way of of got okay all right very well uh thank you then all right anyone else Mr Felman I apologize for that language folks yes Mr B President we have uh Teresa Jad winsky Teresa please state your name and address Teresa okay I'm gonna move on then Mr board president
219to Ravi cheru Ravi yes hi uh thanks for taking a call uh I have a couple comments number one I applaud you guys for sending the letter to the state uh however I do have my doubts because as you mentioned uh Mr President last time that you guys have been fighting for this for a long time and the politics is unbelievable and I have reached out to S Greenstein and asked her to come to Monroe and explain being on the board why she couldn't fight for us more and uh um thanks for legy Stars the co came in and she didn't have to come in so my suggestion to you is this I would ask you to do whatever that you guys need to do at the state level but also ask Mrs Greenstein to
220come to the uh this this board meeting next time uh because they already agreed to come to uh to Monroe and ask her how she's going to fight because just sending the letters it might just go into Oblivion because a lot of people are going to be sending letters and they will they will see the letters and they'll say okay fine let's move on right so I'm not sure how effective just sending letter is going to be uh so that's my suggestion my second comment is going to be again um referring to the this member of the board I have uh the messages and all I can say is his comments are so Filly that they are filer than the worst sewer that you can ever find on the planet it is unbelievable that my
221kids are going to the school where he's on the board and it is appalling that he's on the board and it it questions the the the type of uh decisions and uh comments and and the and the and the um decision that he can make for the board I I question his character and um if he has any iota of decency he would resign right away knowing that his comments are out in the public and in the Press right and and secondly uh in in line with Mrs armenia's comments that the public have the right to know and I hear you that you cannot comment on uh and you you cannot say anything about uh this this person in the course of action I think the public has a right to know what the procedure
222is for just generally if there are such violations uh coming from a board of um um member of the board thank you okay thank you for your uh comments and your concern and coming up to speak anyone else yes Mr board president Sheila D alesandro Sheila please state your name and your address thank you hi my name is dandro welcome jro am I pronouncing it correctly jro Sheila Sheila oh okay that's okay um I first wanted to say uh thank you to the board I think that Monroe has got one of the best school systems by far thank you we have our own little things just like you know every other place but it it will work itself out in time um one thing as a parent is a little concerning listening to everything that's
223going on here um listen no one's perfect everyone has their floor everyone gets a little hot under the collar and they kind of think about what they did after it came out so I get that whole thing um I'm sitting here listening to Mr chano catch a beaten and then you have you know um Mr Gorski where you know we again we have to respect both of our members but I don't think we should allow it to happen to Mr Tano and and not have it you know kind of Silence it with Mr gorsy I think they both gentlemen deserve the same respect in that sense and everyone in my eyes are innocent for proven guilty so I think that the bashing is just like not a good thing for our children to see um
224the other thing I have to say is I do not know Mr trano personally I know of him through the community um and I have bantered with him back and forth on social media and again we agreed to disagree I have been again as a resident through somebody else had found out attacks on his children his family um it has gone on till hours of the night and everything and then I can say as a parent I would lose my cool too listen Everyone's entitled to a mistake we say things and you know he's has a position on the board of education he's not g not perfect but again we have to respect everyone's boundaries so if we want our children to grow up in a beautiful world we need to teach them A Beautiful
225World so I think going back and forth you know to everyone out there everyone deserves a fair share just like you w watch out for our children being the you know the board heads and we'll have your back once what you know once you have AR back in that sense but I just I just had to call in because I've seen so much nonsense on social media today and all I'm thinking is he has children at home and I'm thinking about all these police officers that are going through this you know at home and their children are worried about them the world is so ugly why do we need to make it any uglier so you know my thing is we're known as Monroe and to me Monroe is great it's beautiful let's keep it
226that way and let's just work together thank you thank you for sharing your thoughts and and for speaking up felin anyone else yes Mr board President we have Leon sing Leon please pronounce your name and your address and sorry if I did not pronounce that correctly Leon can you hear me yes is it Leon your name can you hear me I can hear you just need your name and address lean Singh 34 Imperial Court welcome Le thank you um I'm a 26 year resident of lro I have four children that have gone through and are still currently going through the system to have graduated I have also B volunteered countless years of my life here to the sports program in this town I'm calling duing to the recent events with Peter Tano on social media
227I have to tell you quickly our history it is ironic that Peter's being called a racist since racism is what brought us together through social media about five years ago there was a racial incident on social media where one demographic in town was ostracizing another and I can tell you Peter was outraged and so was I that this was appalling and going on in mon this is how our families have gotten to know each other over the last few years we have been very spent a lot of time together on the sports field socially and many other things I can tell you that he is not a racist I have never heard anything come out of his mouth that would even implicate anything like that when we found out that Peter was going to run
228for the Boe there was no doubt that many others were going to support him for the change that we want to see on the board of panel and as you can tell from the number of people who voted for him a lot of him support him in this town this does not come from being a racist this comes from people actually knowing the real Peter tuano and the care and the fairness that he wants for the best for our children in town he is a family man a businessman and that does not allow a lot of time in your life extra things but he was so deeply committed to wanting to change our children's future that he gave up family time to serve on the Boe he is also the type of man who I
229see who offers his services or anything he can do to help people such as offering a GoFundMe account for a dying man in town to have a fishing boat so that he could fish his last days of living I'm disgusted to see what is going on on the attack of his character which by the way most of these things said was before he was elected his children have now been attacked and that should outrage all of us it is clear that there is an agenda going on here in town and that certain residents in our community have a personal problem with Mr Tano and it is truly disturbing I also do not condone a lot of things that Peter says and we have conversations about this and Peter will listen and acknowledge and a lot
230of the time say you know what I could maybe could have done that differently I expect in dealing with Peter that you all remember we are all imperfect there are two sides probably three sides to every story and screenshots are only showing one side of this thank you thank you for sharing your thoughts and just for coming coming here today uh anyone else Mr Felman yes Bo Mr board President we have uh cadan maxut welcome I am trying to unmute as we speak um okay muted how are you thank you um I'm not sure how my name got on the list I actually did not request to speak okay I'm sorry about that I will mute you okay okay all right we still do have um we do still have a couple people we have
231um prit ball sing hi everyone good evening everyone um very interesting evening I need just to state your name and address yeah my name is pritpal Singh n Lis Lane Monro thank you very interesting conversation and thank you Michelle for standing up for the public you know that's really appreciate BR I'll be very quick you know I I've been seeing like your talk talking about personal matter should not be discussed still we are discussing it uh on one side for Mr garosi is personal for Peter Tano is not personal so I mean so keep it consistent we as a public just need to make sure you know you are not biased towards some people who's staring the pot and uh be transparent on what's going on with the Board of Education now I heard Andy
232also for some investigation I don't know but do you have extra funds to do all these things but those funds cannot be used for the education of the kids either personal matters I'm going to just answer that one um you know if we have possible uh leak of confidentiality that's protect the kids and protect the and protect personnel and um we need to find the funds if we had to to do this because we can't in any way jeopardize the sanctity of of a close session information okay and thank you very much for answering but what I I am not I don't do not know personally Peter but what I have seen is these posts were before he got elected I suppose after that I he must have he he must have learned something out
233tonight so I hope he will not be doing that but um you know thank you for answering okay thank you for your uh thoughts anyone else we do we have um it's the initials Rd Rd can you please um address the board with your name and your address hi my name is jvel Davis 42 Spruce meals Drive welcome thank you um I know that you spoke on Mr Tano that you can't say anything per se as to what on nj.com on the petition with 2500 plus signatures in 48 hours um I'm I'm deeply Disturbed with what I saw what I what I read um I have children coming through one that graduated and some that's coming through the school system and it's very unnerving to see that you have a a member on the board
234that the language that that was used you know towards you know children and people in general um is it's totally unacceptable so being in fact I heard people you know you couldn't say anything I would challenge the board right now to rebuke the behavior in front of everyone right now well the the only one that can answer you right now is me and the only answer I could give you is the one that I've been giving is that I have no comment on this right now but we're taking everything that's being said under advisement so advisement is just like that that's nothing advisement can go into a folder and a desk tomorrow well that look you said that not me I didn't say that do you personally rebuke that type of behavior if you read
235that say it's not Mr Tano let's just make it person X I want tell I don't want to get into being cross-examined here um I'll stand by my own ethics uh and my own reputation anything else I just have no comment on and and that's all I'm going to say so I'd like to move on right now all right Mr Feldman we have anyone else we do Mr board President we have M weiner can you please address the board with your uh name and your address thank you uh yes Michael Wier n seoa Court hi welcome yeah thank you uh listen you know the Board needs to do the right thing and and and Peter Tano needs to resign uh it's shocking to hear people call and support him and some of these reasons that
236I've heard is just nonsense okay uh our eighth and ninth graders probably take computer literacy classes and know enough about a digital footprint to be careful about what you put on online and our board members are going to go and treat community members that way you got to be kidding me this is an embarrassment you guys need to do the right thing and I also want to say that there's other board members who are on these pages and know see this behavior and they were aware of it for months and months and no one said a word and you know what that is that's cowardly that's what that is it took community members to address this behavior when all of you many of you were aware of it the entire time and that's absolutely cowardly
237so do the right thing now do the right thing now and remove this guy from The Board of Ed because there's no other solution to this embarrassment thank you thank you for sharing your thoughts anyone else Mr board President we have Michael aleski Michael please uh state your name and your address thank you my name is Michael aleski Mayberry Avenue of course Monroe Township welcome Michael thank you Steve Steve uh just wanted to make maybe a a positive comment after listening to uh all the comments by all the people in the public um at some point in time I remember I was doing some reading on the New Jersey board's uh website and I remember reading I'm pretty sure it was there that they apparently offer some type of a uh Communications work shop or
238team building workshop and maybe not uh right now is not the right time but I wonder if you could maybe make a uh a note to to revisit this maybe in a few months maybe when things settle down yeah and you know it' be really nice too of course if this Workshop were one that not only included the board uh but also the public as well so that somehow some way we can get back to uh somewhat friendly relationship between the board and the the people here in town yeah I think that would be a real good step in the right direction and I'll give a little shout out to Lou Masters while I'm at it because I remember him talking about this when he was running for the board that's it Steve thank you
239Michael appreciate it Mr Felman anyone else Mr board president as I see now there is no one else from the public okay and thank you Mr Felman in that case I will close the public forum and we're ready for a closed session I just want to make a a a motion uh before we go into close session I make a motion for the Board of Education to appoint Kathy kapano as temporary board secretary for the discussion concerning the superintendent's evaluation in closed session this evening in accordance with njsa 18a colon 16- 1.1 second Mr Chella second it uh any discussion yes Steve this is Andy p i I think this is where we're also lacking some transparency uh we keep hearing the P members of the public actually getting to the uh into the close
240session so I request that no telephone use cell phone use is permitted during this uh close session please I'm going to uh reiterate that as when we get into close session and just what I uh wanted to do okay um Mr Mr Rybeck yeah Michelle okay can you read the entire resolution please so we I'll read I'll read it again I'll read it again I make a motion for the Board of Education to appoint Kathy kapano as temporary board secretary for the discussion concerning the superintendent's evaluation in Clos session this evening in accordance with njsa 18a colon 16 d1.1 okay that wasn't the one I meant I meant the close session resolution I didn't get to that yet oh okay sorry that's okay not a problem okay so we have discussion on this I guess
241we could just do a vote on this I don't think we need a roll call vote all those in favor I I any opposed all right no abstentions or recusals all right so this motion pass now uh 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 colon 4-6 10 colon 4-21 to discuss the following subjects harassment intimidation and bullying Mage falling under the attorney client privilege proposed settlement agreement and release in confidential student matter uh 83636 mtea level three grievance discussion regarding m tea negotiations superintendent evaluation Employment contract following close session action may be taken the discussion conducted in close session can be disclosed to the public at
242such time as the need for confidentiality no longer exists okay I guess we had some I have a second second Mr Mayo all in favor I any opposed no no just just can we uh take a break and also can you tell people how long we might be in that session absolutely and where are we going to go from here yeah we're L there's a there's a link Kathy for the closed session it was a zoom link sent out a zoom link sent out it should be in your calendars right not in the calendars it means sorry minute break be acceptable hold hold on Steve Steve one second let's just make sure that we all the address for the zoom because I did not see it in my email so did you look is it
243Mr Felman is it in the calendar or email it's in the calendar I sent it Dr alvic sent it let me look at it I will send it again to to the board members check check your board email because that's where I got it and then you had to accept it which would put it in your calendar that's what might have happened okay I didn't I just sent it again thank you okay we 10 minutes Michelle I couldn't hear you are we taking 10 minutes so will that be 10:45 we're just finishing with this one I think you're having a problem with the technology there um yes uh let's take uh uh I'll make a motion to take a 10minute recess 45 all in favor anonimous okay we'll be back a quarter to um quarter
244to 11 we leave this on right we leave this meeting on or we get out and get back in go to close session yeah we have to get out of this right close that hit the X the X leave event got it here right I make St hold on I don't think we have all the members here I see Peter Tano missing and there's one more person Paul Paul Paul Peter I think Paul fell off his chairo late F sleeping Steve yes would you send me a copy of the motion so that I Board of Education hereby approved the previously submitted settlement agreement and release in connection with confidential student matter 83636 the board president and the business administrator board secretary are hereby authorized and directed to take all necessary steps to implement this action
245by the board of education so moved second moved it and that who's second Jill second all those any discussion all those in favor no no no it'll be a roll call a roll call B I'm sorry Kath you got so wait I got to go to my beginning and get the the paper okay so we'll do it this way um Miss armino yes Mr Chella yes M Mayo yes Mr ninski yes Mr poori yes Miss seagull yes Tano yes Mr rutsky yes and I am going to vote Yes also me all right you us should go last so Mr rback yes okay so it's unanimous okay so that motion passes motion passed okay the next schedule Board of Education meeting is July 22 Rybeck just a point of order you still have to see if
246there's anybody in the public who wants to speak on the resolutions think anybody was there is anyone want in anyone in the public there I think there are still 37 participants from what I'm seeing here she means well that's Michelle you correct doing that okay um July 22nd will be the next Board of Education meeting I'm assuming it will be virtual um I make a motion right now to adjourn do I have a second tiella all in favor not not seeing anybody the motion passes this meeting is adjourned thank you everybody thank you