November 15, 2022 - Board of Education Meeting

001Take their seats, please. Okay, Mary. Ms. Hafner. Here. Mr. Blandino. Here. Ms. Gagliardi. Ms. Kennedy. Ms. McCullough. Here. Ms. Siebert. Ms. Woolrub. Here. Mr. Edwards the New Jersey open public's meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies of which any business affecting their interests or is discussed or acting upon in Accordance with the provisions of this act the brick Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be posted on the administration office of bulletin board the official district website and channel B TV 20 and sent to the Asbury Park Press the brick times a star ledger on miss a municipal clerk's office I need a motion in a second to go into executive session. I'll make

002that motion Michael Second Victoria mister Edwards Whereas the brick Township Board of Education has been formed pursuant to applicable New Jersey statutes and whereas the board is charged or responsibility for performing all acts and doing all things consistent with the law and the rules of a State Board of Education necessary for the lawful and proper conduct equipment and maintenance of the public schools and public school property of the brick Township School District And whereas section 7 of the open folks meeting act permits the exclusion of the public from a meeting of the board in certain circumstances And whereas the board has determined that circumstances exists for just an executive session Whereas the board has found the action described below to be necessary and proper now therefore be resolved by the board on November 15th 2022

003that the public shall be excluded from the discussion of an action on the executive session set here and set forth The session will be approximately 15 minutes in general nature subject matter to be discussed as harassment Intimidation and bullying reports It is anticipated this time that the above stated subject matter will be made public if and when it is deemed to be public Interest to do so and the need for confidentiality is no longer required by the board Mary miss Hafner Yes. Mr. Blandino? Yes. Ms. Kennedy? Yes. Ms. Bacala? Yes. Ms. Woolrub? Yes. Could we, while we're in executive session, have the microphone moved for Ms. Kennedy? Thank you. We'll be back. Everybody take their seats. We're going to get started. Are we set with everybody good? Michael? Can you hear me now? Okay. I

004need a motion and a second to return. Motion, Victoria. I'll second. Michael? Mary? Ms. Hafner? Yes. Mr. Blandino? Yes. Ms. Kennedy? Yes. Ms. McCullough? Yes. Ms. Woolrub? Yes. Would everybody please stand for the presentation of colors, flag salute, and a moment of silence. To the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Often it may appear to members of our audience that the Board of Education Act with very little comment and in many cases a unanimous vote Please understand that before a matter is placed on the agenda at a public meeting, the administration has thoroughly reviewed the matter with the superintendent of schools, discussed it in appropriate BOE committees, and only then, if the superintendent is satisfied that

005the matter is ready to be presented to the full Board of Education, it is placed on the agenda for action at a public meeting. Board of Education members are given advance notice to review the agenda and, through the chair, ask questions or voice concerns. In rare instances, when necessary, matters are presented to the Board of Education for discussion at the same meeting that final action may be taken. Dr. Farrell, our student representatives. Thank you, Dr. Farrell. Thank you, Mrs. Walrab. This evening we have Ava Scanlon from Brick Memorial High School. Ava? Good evening. I'm Ava. I'm so excited to be back this month. To get started, I just want to say that I, along with a lot of the other seniors, are really happy to be... Like almost done with the college application process. Okay,

006so Thursday, October 13th, members of Spanish, Italian, and French who received excellence in foreign language were inducted into the World Language Honor Society. Thank you, Mrs. Mora, Mrs. Giovannini, and Madam Schwester for organizing such a wonderful event to encourage excellence in foreign language. Key Club attended their semi-annual meeting at Greenbrier 1 with the Kiwanis Club over there. And I was there and it was super fun. Saturday, October 15th, our art club ran by Mrs. Harzer and her amazing students participated in the annual fall, Windward Beach Fall Fest. Not only were the students in costume, but they painted faces and offered tattoos. Mustangs are once again the trunk or treat champions. We are Terry's trunk or treat five-time champions now. Mrs. Krakowski was our principal secretary for over 30 years. She would be so proud as

007we collect in her honor. We had our Halloween spirit week Monday, October 24th to October 28th. We celebrated a little pre-Halloween spirit. It included Monster Mash Monday, Trick or Treat Tuesday, Wicked Witch Wednesday, Thriller Thursday, and Full Moon Friday. Wednesday, October 26th, ROTC held their annual American Red Cross Blood Drive. 48 units of blood were collected, which can impact up to 144 lives. We are so grateful for the students who took time from classes to save lives. Congrats to Kyan Graham, who is one of... one in 62,000 students nationally to earn academic honors from College Board's National Recognition Programs. On actual Halloween this year, Monday the 31st, through our costume contest, gift cards were given out for winning in categories such as scariest and best impersonation. And somebody dressed as Mr. Varese. Within this month,

008Mrs. Decker won the Book Love Foundation grant. We would like to thank our custodians during National Custodian Day. They are our unsung heroes who work behind the scenes to keep the school safe and clean. We couldn't do what we do without them. Thursday, November 3rd, the Mayor's Advisory Council hosted a talk with Mayor Ducey during lunch. Students from many organizations were in attendance and talked to the Mayor about the happenings in Brick. Parent-teacher conferences will be held Wednesday, November 16th to November 18th this week. We look forward to welcoming parents back to the building for the first time since the pandemic. We did offer a virtual option as well. We thank parents and teachers for their communication this week. The Spirit Committee is holding the annual Chili Cook-Off to see who is the most talented

009chef at Brick Memorial. We are excited for the entries. The Fall Harvest Dance for our special education students will take place on November 18th, 6-9 this Friday. The attire and theme is football. We are also excited to welcome all of our volunteers for this event. Now to November 18th, ROTC is collecting items for the Soldier Supply Drive. They are collecting personal care and hygiene items. Student government is holding a Seeds of Service donation drive November 14th to December 9th. We are accepting canned goods. And finally, before I move on to the sports report, Brick Memorial wishes everybody a happy Thanksgiving. So for the sports report, our fall seasons have finally wrapped up, and we have a lot to be proud of this year. Our cross-country teams consistently improved throughout the season, with our girls finishing

010fifth in Ocean County and Ryan Kelly finishing third overall and qualifying for the Group 3 championships. Our boys also had a season of improvement in personal bests and saw great performances from sophomore Charlie Pedantato, senior Luke Passarelli, and junior Jared Jorgez, who has also qualified for the Group 3 championship. Our field hockey team won its last three out of five games and ended up qualifying for the state tournament. Our gymnastics team had a successful season and saw freshman Liberty Kenney earn a seventh place finish in floor and a ninth place finish in all around in our short conference championships. And she finished second in beam, fourth in floor, and sixth all around in the sectional championships, and then a sixth place in the all-group state championships. Boys soccer had a good season in playing many

011close games and being a thorn in many successful team sides as they had a remarkable six ties. They had a remarkable six ties this season, culminating in giving the number one seed in the state tournament all they could handle in a tough three-to-one loss to close out the season. Our girls tennis team... finished up their season while seeing senior Haley and Gino compile a perfect undefeated record in division play and finishing third in Ocean County before qualifying and winning a round in the singles competition in the state tournament. Our girls volleyball team got hot when it mattered most and upset the number four seed Brick Dragons and the number 12 seed Red Brank Bucks in the state tournament. They eventually lost in the Central Jersey Group 3 semifinals to the number one seed and back-to-back

012sectional championship Colts Neck. Our girls' soccer was one win away from a Central Jersey Group 3 championship as they lost in a heartbreaking fashion to Middletown South with just two minutes left in double overtime in the championship game. Our Mustangs upset the number four seed Jackson Memorial and the number one seed Steiner on its way to the finals. Congrats to our girls from all division and all county honors, Peyton Vigiano, Haley Tai, Mackenzie Fanning, Emily D'Almeda, and Lexi and Mia Caruso. Our football team won its last two of three games in eventually losing in the regional Invitational Final. Invitational finals to Red Bank regional finishing the season at six and five along the way We had several record-breaking performances from our junior quarterback Connard eats including scoring passing and rushing school records The success doesn't

013stop at the athletic world our co-curriculars are striving at brick memorial With several clubs newly formed and off to great starts including our surf club our chess club our deca club our music club and our And of course, our traditional success has continued with our Student Government Association, Key Club, and National Honor Society, among others, including our drama clubs, Mustang Players, being excited to be rehearsing and getting ready for Sister Act in December. And who can forget about the best band in the land? Our marching Mustangs continue their winning ways in completing a perfect tournament of the band's season. earning the number one ranking in the entire region. That's from Virginia to New York. And last weekend, the band ended their competition season at Hershey when they once again won in the finals of the

014Atlantic Coast Championships. another ACC championship, marked six in a row for our marching Mustangs. It has been a great fall season to be a Mustang, and we are excited to see what the winter season has in store. To stay current with all things Mustang, please follow up on social media on Twitter and Instagram at BMStangSports, and be sure to catch our latest editions of the Mustang Weekly. Thank you. Thank you, Ava. At this time, we now have Andrew Calley from Brick Township High School. Andrew? Good evening. I'm Andrew Kelly, your Brick Township High School representative. With this school year in full swing, I have many exciting events to tell you about. I have past, present, and future events for you tonight. Let's begin. Picking up from where we left off last month, we had a

015spirit week that included wearing pink to support breast cancer awareness and wearing red for Red Ribbon Week. We also had a Western Wednesday and Dress Like Adam Sandler Day. The support from our students from this week was incredible. On October 31st, Halloween, we had a costume contest. Students who were best dressed throughout the school were invited to participate in our contest by their teachers. The staff members and student leaders judged this contest. Prizes were given out including the Dunkin' Donuts gift cards and of course bragging rights. The Drug Awareness and Mental Health Community Forum took place on Tuesday, November 1st, was a huge success. The presentations by Ocean County Prosecutor's Office keynote speaker Daniel Duddy and our district student assistant councillors were informative and inspirational. We are hopeful that this forum was able to support

016our community and increase the awareness. Thank you for all those who attended and the individuals who supported our facilitating with this event. BTHS recognized our veterans this past month through the creation of a mural in the front hallway wearing red white and blue recognizing veterans among our BTHS staff during morning announcements and participating in a collection drive for our soldiers. The mayor student advisory committee along with our guidance department facilitated a collection for our troops. Items were donated in support of our courageous men and women in the armed forces. Even though football games have ended, the competition band is still performing and competing. On November 5th, the band traveled to Hershey, Pennsylvania to compete in an Atlantic Coast Championship. They placed fifth out of 16 bands, which is very impressive. On the evening of November

0172nd, the Thespian Honor Society had their induction ceremony. In honor to be inducted into this... Honor Society, you have to have academic excellence as well as being an active member in the drama department for at least two years. Ten students were inducted this evening and were celebrated after the ceremony with their families by having cake in the cafeteria. All sports have wrapped up and winter sports begin the week of November 19th. This Thursday, November 17th, the annual Powder Puff game, including our juniors and seniors of BTHS, will be held at Brick Township High School at 4 p.m. The class of 2024 and 2025 will be hosting a gift auction as well this November 19th at the Powell Building in Brick. Doors open at 4 p.m. Tickets can be purchased ahead of time by contacting M.

018Velez or L. Ionello at brickschools.org. the class of 2023 is holding a popcorn fundraiser to help raise money for their senior ball and future senior events looking forward to next week we have a night that will surely be remembered the faculty feud which is being hosted by our national honor society it will be held on tuesday november 22nd at 6 pm in the auditorium at bricktown ship high school tickets are five dollars and you can by those at the door. We have over 30 staff members participating in this event. Come out, see the amazing talent that we have inside of our own Brick Township High School doors. Be sure to stay connected with all of VTHS events and upcoming information by accessing our school website, SGA Instagram, VTHS at SGA, and our school Twitter, VTHS

019Dragon. Dragons many more exciting events and information is to come this December. I will see you all next month hashtag Go Dragons Thank You Andrew at this time. We have cadet senior master sergeant Brandon O'Hearn for the ROTC Thank You Brandon Finally we have a presentation of from our Veterans Day celebration at Veterans Memorial Middle School To honor all the people who have served in the Army fighting for our lives. It means to honor the deaths of soldiers who died for us. It symbolizes the courage to sacrifice oneself for something bigger. It's a day to respect people that put their life on the line for our country. You know what I mean? Thank you, Van Cloth, for serving your World War II. We honor you. To me, Veterans Day is very special because we get

020to honor all of the people who dedicated their lives to our country and making sure that we get to go to sleep at night feeling safe. Whether it's physical sacrifices or things they've experienced, challenges that they went through physically, emotionally. Again, I'd rather say it's a great opportunity to really give a chance to reflect on those sacrifices and say thanks. Thank you. Okay, thank you for those presentations. I need a motion and a second for approval of minutes. I'll make that motion, Michael. Second, Victoria. Any board comment? Seeing none Mary miss Hafner. Yes. Mr. Blandino. Yes. Miss Kennedy. Yes miss McCullough. Yes. Miss will rub. Yes We will begin our reports. We'll start with miss Granger for special ed Good evening the special education committee met yesterday on November 14th some of the items we

021discussed were the Tremendous job Dr. Morris has been doing getting all of the special ed positions staffed. We talked about a lot of highlights that are going on in the special education department. Next month I am super excited to announce that I am going to start honoring our special education employees of all types as our special superheroes every month. They dedicate their lives to our students and they should be recognized. So I'm super excited to order some capes and to go around and make sure that these special superheroes know that they are very important to our students. We also are going to be starting in January. our structured learning experience students that are going out into the community doing jobs they will begin to do presentations for all of you at the board level every

022month and we're super excited to have those students and teachers show us everything that those students are learning outside in the community We have updated the Parent Academy. It is located on our district website under special services. We are adding different events every month. One of them is Meet and Greet with Me on December 1st. So it is a Google Meet and I will be there answering any questions and just talking overall about the special education department. The Elks is also having an annual party. We've put out some flyers, so please check the website, and we will also be putting it on our Twitter feed. The Special Services Department does have a Twitter page. It is also located on our website at btpservices. That is all I have, and thank you. Thank you so much.

023Dr. Anderson, Curriculum and Instruction. Thank You mrs. Walrath the CNI committee met on November 2nd at 345 in attendance for miss gagley Artie mrs. Kennedy miss McCullough mrs. Beatty mr. cuts mrs. Kane mr. Lane miss Lane mr. Longo mr. Saluka mr. Thompson dr. Farrell and myself full house that day I reviewed the items on the November agenda which include workshops field trips and student teaching placements and then I had a each of our supervisors introduced themselves to mrs. Kennedy who replaced mrs. Parker as a member of the committee We began with science, and Ms. Lane began with an overview of the science resources that we are using to improve student achievement on NJSLA science assessment. At the elementary level, students are developing sense-making, investigating, and critiquing skills as they explore physical, chemical, and earth science

024units. Our science coach is supporting our elementary teachers and collaborating with teachers across the district to support the implementation of the new middle school science program. Open Sci Ed. Students are reinforcing these concepts and they're also using a software program called Inkits, which is an online platform that enables students to manipulate variables in self-directed, next generation science standards aligned virtual labs. At the high school level, students will be using iHub to explore real-world science phenomena and engineering practices. Teachers are receiving professional development from Dr. Baldwin, assistant professor at Kean University. Secondary Social Studies, Mr. Cutts provided an overview of the Veterans Day interdisciplinary resources, which included digital books, virtual field trips, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, informational articles, graphs, and poems. He also shared the schedule for the Veterans Day celebration at BMMS on

025November 14th. The event included guest speakers, the Wall of Honor presentation, living museum stations, and Mr. Cutts provided an update of the new social studies textbook implementation. The students and teachers are enjoying all the new interactive resources, the differentiated support, the interdisciplinary skills, including comprehension strategies and writing tasks. Teachers are also using document-based questions, or DBQs. to help students strengthen their critical reading and writing skills, which are aligned to tasks found on NJSLA. In ELA, students are using Achieve 3000 to improve their Lexile levels and comprehension skills. The ELA coach is supporting teachers in implementing a new reading and writing unit designed to target areas of weakness in NJSLA. At the high school level, ELA teachers are focused on strengthening students' writing skills on narrative writing tasks and literary analysis tasks. Social studies teachers are

026focused on having students synthesize information through research simulation tasks, which is also a task found on NJSLA. Newly added high school interventionists are tracking student progress. Is that it? My time is up? Oh, I can go on and on. So high school interventionists are tracking student progress and offering students targeted and customized support. in terms of elementary math Mrs. Beatty provided an overview of year two of the I ready implementation teachers have received additional professional development to implement the try discuss connect instructional routine Mr. Thompson provided an update on year one of the I ready implementation in grades six and seven he indicated that the middle school teachers are benefiting from the year one feedback that elementary teachers have provided Mr. Thompson reported that the academic coach has provided teachers with support to implement I

027ready and resources aligned to weaknesses in the NGSLA data. We are also adding algebra support and credit recovery for high school students, which is called student success, and we're offering that for approval on tonight's agenda under HR. In terms of goal setting, Mrs. Beatty and the academic coaches met with the data teams at each elementary school to do a deep dive into the NGSLA data and benchmark assessments. Teachers discussed how to make the data actionable through small group targeted instruction. Mrs. Beatty also established protocols for students to set goals and track their progress. Students are engaging in data chats with their teachers and participating in class and school-wide contests and celebrating their progress. Mrs. Kane provided an overview of support that teachers are receiving to improve students' writing skills. Each of the elementary schools has

028just completed its first on-site professional development cycle. The first round of learning focused on the framework of a writing workshop model, including the architecture of a mini-lesson and how to weave grammar instruction into a writing lesson. The consultant demonstrated how to facilitate individual student conferencing as well as goal-setting around a writing process chart. Additionally, reading workshop lessons were modeled for pilot teachers. We look forward to the next round of training. Students are using Lexia, a computer-adaptive program to increase their literacy. ELA and ELL interventions are providing targeted support, and we have already surpassed the end-of-year enrollment ELL projection. Mrs. Kane also shared the ELA and ELL newsletters that she publishes monthly to support professional learning. Mr. Sarluka and Mr. Longo provided an overview of the parent guide and the process used to create and revise

029it. As was previously communicated, the Family Life parent guide has been uploaded to the parent portal for students in grades 2, 5, and 8. Parents can review the guide and choose to electronically opt out of the two lessons that were added at each grade level. The HPE curriculum has also been updated on the curriculum tab, and the parent guide will be posted on the district website as well. In terms of family engagement, the district will be holding parent-teacher conferences from November 16th through the 18th. First marking period report cards will also be distributed at the conference or can be found in Parent Portal. And we are hosting a CELA Biliteracy Parent-Student Information Meeting on December 7th. Our next meeting will be on December 1st at 345. Thank you, Mrs. Woolrath. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. Ms.

030McNamara, Policy and Planning. Thank you, Mrs. Woolrath. The Policy and Planning Committee met on November 1st at 4 o'clock. We discussed two of the items that are on this evening's agenda, the funds that we're receiving from the Special Olympics in the amount of $33,000 and also the bylaws that have been now set through Strauss-Esme for a first read. We're in the process of setting our next meeting. Thank you Thank You miss McNamara, mr. Edwards facilities and finance Thank You miss Walden facilities committee met on November 1st attendance miss Walden's call out dr. Farrell Spendina Although I think that that's mistake is you got that in the minutes, but you weren't there correct. I was there you were I don't know why sorry made such an impression on me One of those nights This McNamara was

031not there. I know that. That's the mistake in the minutes. I have to correct that. I can see where you would mix the two of us up. Yes. Thank you. It's definitely my mistake. Mr. Repke from Spiezel and Mr. Pecoria, our facilities director. The first item of business was the district-wide energy management system. Mr. Pecoria informed the committee that substantial completion has been signed off on at Lake River Middle School, Brick Memorial High School, Osborneville Elementary School, Lane's Mill Elementary School, Veterans Memorial Middle School, and Midstreams Elementary School. Substantial completion includes all level one items, which include the primary system function. During the walk down of midstream's elementary schools, it was identified that the upgraded VFD pumps did not have check valves installed on the original building piping. With the new automated function and control

032of these pumps, it is necessary to install two check valves. There's a change order on this evening's agenda to do that work in the amount of $9,365. The solar power purchase agreement. Mr. Pecorio informed the committee that the TRC walk downs were to begin 11-2 the following day. They have since been completed. The boiler replacement and combined heat and power, Mr. Pecorio informed the committee that the scheduled shutdown was for November 8th, which did occur, and that the new fire alarm panel testing was for November 10th. The MES 2004 addition roof area. Mr. Pecori informed the committee that that roof is complete and solar has been installed, so that project is done. The Rickmore High School penthouse C&D replacement of air handler and replacement of the chiller. Mr. Yor informed the committee that the SESI

033mechanical is provided, most submittals, and will be working to schedule prep work for penthouse access soon. Veterans Memorial middle school boiler replacements and air conditioning. Mr. You're informed the committee that thermal piping has provided 90% of the submittals for review and material equipment orders are currently being placed Mr. You're informed the committee that thermal people thermal piping will be on site November 7th to do pre-construction photos and develop details for scheduling work Lake River Middle School air conditioning Mr. You are informed the committee that thermal piping has provided 90% of the submittals for review and material equipment orders are currently being placed and That they will be on site in November 7th to pre-construction photos and develop schedules for work Emma Havens air conditioning and veterans more elementary school air conditioning As you are for

034the committee that the rebid had taken place the jobs are currently set to be awarded on November 15th Preferred mechanical that's on this evening's agenda From point elementary school boiler replacements and air conditioning miss you are informed the committee that the rebid to take place and that the jobs are currently set to be awarded in November 15th to the SSA mechanical and that also is on this evening's agenda So I would I inform the committee that the Netta projects unlike the previous work done that we did through speezle Have control scope that will need to be done through Jersey State controls through the Through the educational data educational services commission, New Jersey co-op We have asked Jersey State controls to provide us pricing on that work and we'll be bringing that forth to the committee

035at our next meeting. I also informed the committee that the Emma Havens Young, Veterans Memorial Middle School, Lake Riviera and Drum Point Elementary School projects are being funded through capital reserve funds. Those resolutions are on this evening's agenda for approval. Lake River Middle School boiler plant. Emma Haven's young boiler plant and midstream spoiler plant. Mr. Rupke from Spiezel informed the committee that midstreams and Lake River boiler rooms are up and running and Haven's young boiler room one boiler was running on temporary power the shutdown of the main panel with JCP now was scheduled for Monday 11 7 7 a.m. Which did take place and at that time all the boils would be hooked up and running which at this time they are lake river middle school permanent boiler pump was scheduled to arrive installed the

036week of 11 7 which did occur all boiler rooms need pipe labels and the boiler training on the new arco boilers is scheduled for november 9th lanesville elementary school air conditioning mr repka informed the committee that leansville elementary school hvac project rtus are installed at the all-purpose room and currently working on internal duct work I informed the committee that there are three change orders that have been submitted by Spiezel. One change order is for a credit to eliminate the fencing around the condensing closures around the building. There are two additional change orders, one for $6,498 for refeeding electronic control center and one for modification of the hot water domestic piping at Lake River Middle School for $2,588. Those three change orders are on the agenda. Lane's middle elementary school boiler replacement mr. Perkorean from the

037committee that the lanes mill boiler room are waiting for pump number three and it will be this week and then prefer will install it and that project will be complete veterans more middle school roof a six mr. Perkorean film the committee that this job is closed out so that one's done Township high school roof 24 mr. Perkorean from the committee that that job is also completed veterans memorial middle school solar removal for the warranty work mr precoria informed the committee that the remaining solar installation is scheduled for november 17th we're still investigating some road leaks on that roof but the solar will need to be need to be reinstalled to avoid charges from njr due to lost production It's dream parking lot reconfiguration. Mr. Corey informed the committee that the light poles the regulatory warning

038signs the rear track resurfacing and the playground fence repair are all scheduled for November 10th and 11th Rick Lamora High School parking lot reconfiguration. I informed the committee that mr Ernst of the County Engineering Department has informed us that the district will not be need requirement of the easement that was originally stated we needed for that project so therefore we can go back out to bid we're now working with suburban on selecting bid dates for that project so that that work can be completed during the summer of 2023. Additional project considerations midstreams air conditioning and Osborneville air conditioning and form the committee that there is No clear funding that exists however we have been told of possible funding through the New Jersey PPU and Some federal grant monies that may be available through the Department

039of Education both, New Jersey and federal so we're looking at those herbert'sville and Osborneville parking lot reconfigurations Miss McCollum formed the committee that during the school board convention engineering firm CME offered to examine the traffic solution for Osborneville they had previously supplied the district with a concept drawing for her Burt'sville I informed the committee that would reach out to Drew at CME to see what work they could provide for us Lane's Mill Elementary School playground. Mr. Perkory informed the committee that the equipment lead time is about six to seven weeks. The installation is scheduled for the spring of 2023 due to the poor rubber surface that needs to be poured at 45 degrees with a rising temperature. The funding sources I just talked about, the BPU funding we spoke about, and then the federal funding

040for school infrastructure and green transportation. and the NJSDA and NJDUE capital maintenance need grants. To date, we still don't have information on any of those, but we are keeping our eye out for them. The M1 and comprehensive maintenance reports inform the committee that the facilities have been provided these reports. They're included on this evening's agenda. There's a reduction in them because of the reductions that we're going to be facing budgetarily for S2. Fire alarm system repairs Inform the committee that POS have been issued to reliable safety for the admin office the veterans of our middle school herbertsville elementary school midstreams lanes mill Lake Riviera drum point Emma Havens and Osborne Ville Mr. Pecoria is looking to do the additional work through a caught vendor a CT We're hoping to have them they are on the

041agenda for approval this evening and then we'll be working to Move with them to do the additional fire alarm repairs that are needed Is the end of the facilities meeting. Finance we then moved into. First we had a consultant who provided us with a presentation on Bell's schedule analysis to help with efficiencies in transportation. After that presentation, we asked the consultant to please provide us a proposal for doing said work. We then talked about the stabilization aid and the need for that stabilization aid to help with the 2023-24 budget. To date, we still don't have any information, right? You didn't get anything today, did you, Dr. Farrell? Nothing. Nothing yet. Solar partnership, I informed the committee that the Department of Community Affairs has denied our request for use of competitive contracting to do a solar

042partnership. We are back to the drawing board with Mr. Montenegro in trying to determine how we can go about a potential land lease for the solar partnership. Promoter services, we received the RFP from Times River Regional Schools in regard to their promoter services for the advertising that they do on their school district property. I full I informed the committee that I made a mistake of three dollars on the tax levy receipt schedule It's on this evening's agenda to correct that rounding error of three bucks That was in the formula because we need to get our three dollars. I don't want to be without it And finally, I inform the committee that we have a former employee who has amounts owed to us for both payroll and health benefits that exceeds the amount that is able

043to be claimed through small claims, and therefore we're going to have to have the board attorney become involved in trying to collect those past due amounts. That's all we had. Thank you, Mr. Edwards. It wouldn't be a board meeting if I didn't go out of order. I'm sorry. I was so excited about Ms. Granger joining us. This is her first week here that I jumped right into introducing her, and I skipped over Dr. Farrell and myself. Welcome, everyone, to this evening's board meeting. On Saturday, October 29th, I attended the Brick Township High School production of Blight Spirits. It was wonderful. From the sets and costumes to the brilliant acting to the lighting and the sound, it was just amazing. I just wanted to congratulate and say well done to Miss Best and the Brick Township

044High School Drama Club. Their winter show... is going to be, I believe, in January. And it's going to be a Grimm's fairy tale spectacular, Dr. Cajun. And I believe this one is one night only, and it includes staff as well as students. I was going to say, you know, you took my joke. I was going to say, I wonder what you're going to play, one of the seven drawers or, you know, that's it. We're really looking forward to that. I'm sure our students will be telling us more about it. And you're not going to want to miss that fun night. Earlier this month, myself, Mr. Edwards, Dr. Farrell, Ms. Pakala. and Mr. Blandina attended the New Jersey School Board's workshop. It was held in Atlantic City for the first time in two years. It was

045in person. Mrs. Pakala is going to add some information on that at the end when we close out, so I'm not going to go too far into that. But over 275 programs were available throughout the two days, and we were able to complete our mandated training courses in addition to attending many other great programs and listening to many great speakers. I also wanted to recognize, and if they could stand up when I introduce them, our two newly elected board members who will be joining us on the board in January, Ms. Fran Benedictus and Ms. Madeline Ayanaron. If you could stand up. Congratulations. We look forward to you coming on board. We look forward to your new insight, and we look forward to working together as a team and continuing to move BRIC schools forward and

046doing the best we can for our students and staff. I just wanted to close in saying, as we are approaching, quickly approaching, I felt like the couple of months were lagging there for a little bit, and now November's, we're halfway through November and the holiday season. is approaching us and it gives one an opportunity to kind of reflect and see what you're and think about what you're thankful for and I just wanted to say how thankful I am for being a part of the Board of Education for being a part of the Brick Township School District family. Something recently happened within the school with my son and I actually just got an email yesterday. and I wanted to share it and I'm going to try very hard not to get upset. Wyatt is, as many

047of you know, Wyatt is multi-disabled and in the last two years as he approached high school, some of the things that we didn't, I didn't take into consideration as far as when he was entering his high school years that would come up and one of the things were a lot of the things that a normal student who doesn't have the disabilities that my son has as far as being legally blind and multi-disabled, one of which being driver's ed. Wyatt will never be able to drive a car. And one of the things as we entered his high school years, he said to me, Mommy, I'd really like to, you know, am I going to be taking driver's ed in high school? And I said, well, you know, Wyatt, you do know because of your eyesight you

048won't be able to drive a car. He said, but Mommy, my brothers and sisters, and he has. five, six other brothers and sisters who have all entered high school and were able to take driver's ed in high school. So when we entered his IEP meeting, Wyatt brought up the fact that he wanted to take driver's ed. And it was something at first that we all kind of went, ugh, how do we do this? Just recently I received an email from his driver's ed instructor his Occupational therapist his case manager Who have all come up with a way for my son to take driver's ed? Just like every other student His right of passage he came home so excited and so proud of himself because he is able to participate in this class. And I just

049wanted, and while it may have just happened at Brick High School, I know that things like this happen throughout our district. And I just wanted to say how absolutely thankful I am for all of our dedicated teachers, for all of our dedicated staff, our administrators, our bus drivers, our aides, our... clerical staff, everyone that works so hard every day, that is not just committed, but brings such kindness, understanding, and compassion so that students of different abilities, students who are facing many challenges have the opportunities that They have because you guys work so hard together and making that possible and I just wanted to say as a parent Just how thankful I am for all of you for your commitment for your dedication for me my son's dream come true and I'm sorry, but um It

050really meant a lot. So I just wanted to say thank you Of course, tonight I go last, and I have to follow that as well. They're probably saying we hear his comments every month, and they're very mundane. I want to start off with Veterans Day. Friday, November 11th, we celebrated Veterans Day, and last night at Veterans Memorial Middle School, they hosted our Brick Schools Veterans Day celebration. Our district and schools do so much to promote and thank our veterans. It's so important we continue to recognize and celebrate Veterans Day like we did last evening at Veterans Memorial Middle School And we last year we unveiled it for the first time the wall of honor recognizing local veterans Thank you to mrs. Triantopoulos and our administrative team especially Trudy San Jose as well as the staff

051and students of Veterans Memorial Middle School for organizing the event of what you saw previously a little bit on the video This event gives us a chance to involve students, young people, and remind them of the sacrifices of so many. Young people need heroes today, not professional athletes or the comic book superheroes you see in the movies, but real-life heroes, and they can look no further but at our local veterans. Last night was a little special for me as well because I got to introduce my hero. who was the guest speaker last night, a former coach of mine, Corporal Robert Masseri, Coach Bob Masseri, who actually served in Vietnam, received the Purple Heart for taking a live mortar shell at Khe Sanh and saving his company as well as himself, where they actually did surgery.

052And to hear him tell the story. of having surgery without anesthesia and asking for volunteers, other soldiers, to hold the flashlights and put the sandbags around him because the mortar wasn't detonated yet. That's a true story that's in books. You could Google it. I think it's called Robert Masseri, the human bomb marine. To hear him tell our young people that and to see their eyes and see their face. And there is some gore in it, but a lot of truth. And for him to tell you over and over again, all he kept thinking was, I'm 18 and I'm going to die. I'm 18 and I'm going to die. These sacrifices are so important. And we get more out of using it as an educational moment and sharing those stories with our students. And sometimes we

053forget, and sometimes our students forget. And it's easy, unfortunately, in today's day and age with all the other. Distractions, I'll say. So last night was excellent. It's becoming bigger and better thanks to Trudy and Mr. Triantopoulos. We are eternally grateful to all the brave men and women heroes who serve, have fought, and continue to serve our country. In the words of JFK, as we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. Thank you to all our veterans past, present, and future, and especially to our local veterans here in Brick. Welcome and congratulations to our newly elected Board of Education members, Ms. Madeline Kola-Giovanni-Aiannaron and Mrs. Frances DeVenedictus. I've said many times that being a volunteer Board of Education member is a thankless

054job that takes a lot of time and energy, but the return is immense. As board members and administration, you know, we're responsible for the community's two most important assets. their children, our community's children, and the community's money. So thank you to our new board members who are willing to serve for all the children of BRIC. Your dedication and commitment to our district is much appreciated. Congratulations to the cast and crew of the fall drama production Blight Spirit, which took place on October 27th through the 29th at Brick Township High School. The sets were built by the newly creative woodworking course, which started this school year, and they were spectacular. Great job by Miss Best and Mr. Lynch. We're looking forward to welcome our parents into the schools for parent-teacher conferences during American Education Week. Conference

055days are Wednesday, this Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, 11, 16, 17, and 18. Please check with your student's teacher or the principal if you have any questions regarding parent-teacher conferences. American Education Week celebrates each individual in the learning community working as a team to make a difference in the lives of our learners. Welcome again and again and again to Mrs. Granger as she is at her first Board of Education meeting in her official capacity as our Director of Special Services. I'm excited to have Mrs. Granger officially on board and I know that our Special Services Department is in good hands. I recently read something on how professional integrity is really hard. I think I read it on Twitter, actually, but I thought I would share. It might have came from a coach. I follow a lot

056of these coaches on Twitter. Integrity in general is hard, but here's what it said, and I thought it was something I'd like to share at this meeting and share to our community. Honesty is easy. Integrity is hard. Play is easy. Work is hard. Doubt is easy. Faith is hard. Pride is easy. Humility is hard. Sarcasm is easy. Sincerity is hard. Just doing one's job is usually easy, but doing whatever is needed for true success is hard. Talking is easy. Listening is hard. Putting oneself first is easy, but putting others first is hard. Choosing the fun or fast way is easy, but choosing the right way is hard. Choosing comfort is easy, but choosing courage in tough times is hard. Choosing just to profess what we value is easy, but practicing our values is hard. Integrity

057is hard, so go hard. I was always told that integrity is doing the right thing in the face of unpopularity, even when no one is looking. We use this as a chance to recognize our staff because I think they possess enormous amounts of integrity that I'm able to see every day. So thank you to our entire staff for your professional integrity and the hard work for our children of brick. Lastly, happy Thanksgiving to all. I've said this the last, oh my gosh, three years now. I've been here. This is the third time. This is my favorite holiday. Thanksgiving is my all-time favorite holiday, and it's not just because of the food, or I always say it's food, family, and football, because I'm a football fan. But it's because this holiday gives us all the chance

058to recognize all the things in our life that we are grateful for and give thanks. And I'm truly grateful for serving Brick Schools. And I'm also grateful for a great administrative team, great staff, fantastic students and parents, and a dedicated Board of Education. Remember, and I quote William Arthur Ward, gratitude can transform common days into Thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings. Thank you all, and happy Thanksgiving. Okay, this will be the first opportunity for public comment and will be for agenda items only. The board invites thoughts and reactions on agenda items. Each participant is asked to give his or her name prior to making a statement. All statements shall be directed to the presiding officer. The board will not, during the public portion of this meeting, discuss matters involving

059employment, appointment, termination of employment, negotiations, terms and conditions of employment, evaluation of the performance of... promotion or disciplining of any specific or perspective or current employee and or student. Do we have anyone for public comment? Mr. Finnelli. Vic Finnelli. I only have a few topics. On curriculum and instruction, item one, sending somebody from St. Dominic's to Louisiana for three days at a cost of $2,400, does that come out of their budget? or out of our budget. Also, we have six people from Central Administration going to Atlantic City for three days. Who's Central Administration and when do I get to go? The third top, the third one is, oh, and you also, we're sending 80 students and 15 adults. to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Don't know for how long, but it's for a Disney recording

060session. Somebody explain that. While we're on field trips, this is just sharing information. I know that a lot of times the administration and whatnot says we don't want to do a lot of testing because we don't have a lot of time. They take up too much time. Yada, yada, yada. I looked at field trips. This is just my observation for something for you to look at. This month you're approving 77 field trips in one month. We're only in the third month of the school year, which seemed like a lot to me. But then I said, well, let's go back a couple months, see how we've done this year. Last month you approved 32 for this year. The month before, September's meeting, eight. and months before that, 13. So that number now, three months into the

061school district, into the school year, we've already approved 130 field trips. I don't know whether that's good or it's bad, but just to me it seems like a high number. And inside that number, without casting stones, I won't mention. You got one high school that has 57 field trips planned and the other 30. One is almost 100% more than the other. I don't know whether that's normal, whether it's good, whether it's taking up too much time, but maybe it's something you should look at. And my last question is on the operations, one of my favorite subjects, the disproportionality thing that we talked about. How many months ago was that? Do you remember, Dr. Farrell? How long ago was it? Way back, when we were discussing it. Why now, at this time, are you going out

062to look for somebody to help do that? And with all of the talent we have in the school district, why do we need an outside person to do that? Why can't all the people you have here do that? That's it. Thank you. Dr. Farrell? Sure. First of all, I believe St. Dominic's, I'll start with the, it's technology and it's a pass-through from a grant, I believe. Right, absolutely. So that's what happens with our parochial schools and our private schools. It's not funding locally. It's not our local funding. It's the federal funding for St. Dominic's. Okay, so it's just a pass-through. That's just a pass-through. That's what I thought, but I just wanted to check. Texpo, which is finally back, I'm actually the, so I'm one of the six. I'm actually the Ocean County. Texpo is

063the... workshop down Atlantic City. I'm actually the Ocean County Superintendent's representative for the state. Technology Committee, Techspo, the last one I was at in person was 2019. It's fantastic. It's a workshop. The most of the audience is really for our technology directors, business administrators, and superintendents. Ms. McNamara will also, she oversees our technology directors, will be there, as well as Mr. Edwards and myself. The conference is three days. I believe it's Wednesday, Thursday, two days. I'm sorry, Thursday, Friday? It actually says three days. I believe it's two days, though. It actually said three days. It should be. The conference starts on Wednesday, but we're going down Thursday and Friday. So if we made the error, we'll correct it. I didn't know who was going. That's why I'm asking. Yes. So I told you this six

064years ago, Central Office, the directors, Ms. McNamara, Mr. Edwards, and myself. The Disney trip. I don't you want to add to that the Disney trip I believe is then and it's funded by them It's brick memorials band There's a competition down in Disney. They've gone in the past but Yes, is it also a competition or just recognition? Can I go on that one too? If you help them fund So I do want to talk about field trips because I started this As we were coming out of COVID, field trips are very important. They're what we called real-world applications. They're structured learning activities. But I did ask Dr. Anderson and all of our principals starting last year, it was important for us to get the entire year's worth of field trips on early in the year.

065I think I mentioned this last month. I wasn't sure. So you're going to see early in the year a ton of field trips that should be going out to May. And it's important that we get them board approved earlier from the board and we have them scheduled because if we're providing Transportation and many times it's all funded through either parent groups or PTA or fundraiser But if we're providing, you know with the problems with transportation, we want to make sure that we could do that so if there is some kind of disparate between the two high schools, it's probably because and i've been haunting our principals through dr anderson that they didn't get alders on early enough i've been asking them to go as far out as you can talk to the advisors um with

066that so that's what we've been doing with that um with that and that again is you know pre-k through 12 uh you know those trips across the district well this isn't 77 in one month the numbers that i read are not pre-k to 12. there Okay, unless you count the pre-k it's like elementary school I don't want anybody to think we're going on 77 trips in one month Dr. Farrell the ROTC hails all of their field trips from brick Memorial High School Even though it's both brick Memorial and brick Township High School, which may add to why brick Memorial shows more than brick high And there's also the community-based instruction field trips. So those are on there as well. Which is part of our curriculum. Something for you to look at. Yeah. Just to me,

067it looked like a big number. I'm a big proponent of it. It's a big number because they're trying to get it approved early. It's not 77, necessarily 77 trips in this one month. We'll see. It's a month to one. I'll be totaling for you. Many of our structured learning experiences, and you're going to see, we're actually going to start talking about that. believe in January, Ms. Granger? We're going to start, especially with some of our special services classes where we have real-world structured learning experiences out in the community that are phenomenal. You'll be seeing and hearing more about that from the students themselves as well, which I'm excited about. Disproportionality, we are in it again. Member of the state comes in and says from... Or three years ago. This was three years ago. The one

068before was that that you're disproportionate In a group and I want to say this was special education Minority students this time and then to start that this is new. This is new from three four years ago So I'm confused when you say that because that's where the data is from They look at the data from 2018-19 school year. And they say, hey, after they collect that data, they don't collect it right after that year. It's a couple years later. They say you are disproportionate in, again, I don't know, this might be discipline of SLN minority students. But let me say it this way. The state mandates you to do that. requires us to go out with an RFQ with certain state sponsored people that come in. So we're looking at four year old information? 2018-19,

069right? Yeah, the state looks at that information and that's what they go off of to make determinations for your current students. They require it. And they require you to use your federal money, isn't it, the IDEA money? So we have to use, we've got to set aside a portion of our federal IDEA money so it's not local tax, but we have to set aside that money to pay for the... consultant and everything that they have a state approved so what happened was the current person who we had the rfp they had left a specific group that the state sponsored and went to a new so in order for us to change we have to go out for a new rfp I guess I shouldn't be surprised because the governor is touting the new Homestead rebate

070program, which now has a different name, and everybody's going to get more money. Da-da, da-da, terrific. And the money we're going to get is for 2019, and we're going to get it at the end of 2023. So I guess I'm not surprised that you're dealing with four-year-old information. It's just... Boggles my mind. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Any other yes I'd like to thank you first of all for the opting out Can you put in the mic down so people on line can hear you there you go Yeah, there you go. I'd like to first thank you for the opting out In walking and talking to a lot of people it was an important thing But what was more important to them was not opting out. It was asked is to be asked to opt

071in I hope you take that in consideration because a lot of the parents don't. think they have to opt out but to opt in is way more well we've already first of all because it's mandated curriculum unless you opt out you can't have an opt-in but what we did was you know dr anderson you explained it so well why don't you go ahead it's really an act of consent so go ahead dr anderson right because that doesn't comply with the regulations to have an opt-in what we did was made sure that every single parent was aware of it and it was something a process that was really easy and could be done electronically because what the statute says is that a parent would have to write a letter to the principal we're not doing that

072we've set that up already for them right i saw that i thought it was great Right, so we wanted to remove that piece from it so that parents could be fully informed. They could look at that parent guide, make a fully informed decision. And then if parents don't respond in Parent Portal, our health and PE teachers will reach out. They won't be able to move beyond that screen. So they won't get their report cards if they don't see this. Exactly. That was one of the things that I heard an awful lot about. parents wanted to not opt out opt-in but if you're gonna go that way where they can't move forward or that you're gonna recontact them that right that works that was the best we could do that still fell into the wall but

073we made sure that parents couldn't didn't say well we didn't get it well if you don't go in that and see that and and mark that you've seen it You can't move forward. You can't get report cards. You can't get sports items. You can't get anything. I'm glad you heard that. So, yeah. But the other thing with that is, are the parents going to know exactly what is going to be taught to their children? We made the timing at this time because parents will be in our schools for our conferences, and so they can ask any question that they want of the health and PE teacher, and so that gives them the opportunity. Those lessons aren't also taught until June, so if they're not sure now, they can always ask questions through June. One of

074the things that will happen before those lessons are taught is parents will receive a letter reminding them that the— The video is going to be shown if they have any questions with the date so that parents, I heard from several parents who wanted to just know when that lesson was going to be so they could get ahead of it and preview it with their child and then their child would learn about it in school. And so that accomplishes two objectives. It says, by the way, you've opted into this lesson in the beginning of the year or whenever you entered Parent Portal and here's what that lesson entails. Are you still, you know, the lesson intends to be presented on this date? Please contact me with any questions. Great. And one other part of that question

075is... Is a male gym teacher going to be teaching the female students, or is it as it used to be broken down to female teachers are going to be teaching the female students? Because some of those things are very sensitive. Oh, they are. So we actually use our nurses because we don't have female gym teachers throughout the district, so we actually rely on our nurses for that sensitive topic. Perfect. Those were the questions that were asked of me. Thank you. Any other agenda items? I know, but we already were into it, so I just didn't want to be rude. Any other? Nothing? Okay. We'll close that. Dr. Anderson, curriculum and instruction. Thank you, Ms. Wolrab. The superintendent recommends that the board approve the following items, one through three. I need a motion and a second.

076I'll make that motion, Michael. Second Daisy any board comment. Yes. Actually, I'd like to remark on on the three items today Concerning field trips it has been a priority of this board on a shoestring For a very long time to bring back real-world experiences in the community historical experiences real life experiences for our students. And specifically, special education research based instruction has taught us that structured learning experiences and community based instructions are very key for our students transitional requirements for their IEPs. And there are even structured learning experiences where some of our students actually get paid so this is something that's been a priority of the board for a long time it's been a direction that the board has wanted to go through for our special education curriculum and to me personally it's very important

077and I believe that's a reflection of the way the community feels and our special ed parents feel Thank You miss McCall any other comments seeing none Mary miss Hafner. Yes. Mr. Blandino. Yes. Miss Kennedy. Yes miss McCullough. Yes. Miss will rub. Yes. Mr Edwards operations Thank you. The superintendent recommends the board approves items 1 through 22. I need a motion and a second motion Victoria second Michael any board comment Being none Mary miss Hafner. Yes. Mr. Blandino. Yes. Miss Kennedy. Yes. Miss Bacala. Yes. Miss will rub. Yes Mr. Kleisler HR Thank You. Miss wall rab tonight. The superintendent recommends under HR items 1 through 31 for approval I need a motion in a second. I'll make that motion Michael second Daisy many board comment Being none Mary miss Hafner. Yes. Mr. Blandino. Yes. Miss Kennedy.

078Yes. Miss McCullough. Yes. Miss will rub. Yes, mr Yes, we do and I'm gonna try to make sure that I hit everyone that's here We want to congratulate all of the the new hires for this evening. I believe we have Kayla Irwin Irwin Kayla stand up careless and Matthew Gustaforo did I miss anyone? Give me your name at Amber Al Fieri At this time, I'd like to turn it over to Mrs. Granger for a few more announcements. So I am very pleased to announce our two special education supervisors. All of you know a familiar face. Jeanette, she is going to be one of our new elementary special ed supervisors. Stand up, Jeanette. And our second supervisor is Christine Brossy. I've already nicknamed them the dynamic duo, so. Welcome, everyone. Mrs. Granger, you didn't add that

079for the first time in quite some time, we're actually almost fully staffed in our special ed department. We have one position open, so that's why I want to thank Dr. Morris, who was our interim special ed director, who was working very hard with, you know. with miss grainger and and trying to get these positions filled that were so needed for our um for our children in the district so uh mr kleisler i did not ask you at this time is can you just give us an update oh i'm sorry there's more i'm sorry go ahead it's okay um at this time i'd like everyone to join me in congratulating the new principal of osborneville elementary school mrs jane van osdale jane would you like to say a few words great Sorry, Jane, I apologize. I'll

080make sure I pull the microphone down. Good evening. Thank you. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Board of Education, Central Administration for the outstanding opportunity. This is a learning curve for me for sure, as most of my career has been in the secondary level, but I'm propelled by your support and vote of confidence. To the staff of Osborneville, you are dynamite, and I vow to be the best version of me every single day for you. And finally, to our youngest learners at Osborneville and their parents, I look forward to developing a relationship grounded in trust and mutual respect as we work together to ensure the best for all of our students. Thank you again, and I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Congratulations. Thank you, Mrs. Van Osdale, and congratulations and

081welcome to all of our new hires. It's been a tough go, as Mr. Kleister could tell you, over the last six months even in filling positions. Many of these positions were already budgeted and not filled, and we were kind of either piecemealing through substitutes or interims or actings to do that. So yes, there was some breakage, Mr. Edwards, obviously, on the budget. But now we have some new hires in place. And it's nice to see a lot of internal candidates that are also moving up. So that's always nice as well. It's important, I think, when you talk to us in central office administration, we call it building leadership capacity within your district. And it's important to do that. I joke, I say, you know, if I ever get hit by the bus, and I know

082that's a bad expression, but if I'm not here, we should all be, I hate to say, but in a replaceable menu that we're building leadership capacity and backfilling all of us so that the district can be successful and continue on. And that's been our philosophy all within, and there is a lot of great talent right here in our district. So congratulations and welcome. Thank you, miss McNamara policy and planning Thank You mrs. Waller their policy and planning the superintendent recommends that the board approved the following items one through two I Need a motion in a second. I'll make that motion Michael second Daisy any board comment The nun Mary miss Hafner. Yes. Mr. Blandino. Yes. Miss Kennedy. Yes. Miss McCullough. Yes. Miss will rub. Yes Mr. Klaser because I didn't ask before before we go

083into public comment. Are there any HR? items you'd just like to if you don't mind yes i would like to just um maybe advertise a little bit if you don't mind um one of our goals each month is to make sure at the agenda we don't have to make corrections we did have to make some corrections as you can see with the the red line notes i want to echo what mrs granger and ms walrab you had said about dr morris working through the break he and i were working on final offerings to some of our employments that was one of the reasons why we had some red line items. We're very fortunate to have had people in the leadership positions in our district to take the time over the break to communicate out with

084those people. And I thank you on behalf of the entire district if you're one of those people who did that. Yes, we are almost fully staffed, but as a result of tonight's board meeting, we anticipate some vacancies starting tomorrow. If I could just point out for anyone who knows, I don't want to say I'm concerned, but sometimes there's positions that don't get posted all the time. We anticipate needing a diesel mechanic. I don't know how hard it's going to be to find a diesel mechanic. Something tells me it may be very challenging, but we can anticipate a posting for a diesel mechanic. Our technology department is also, we're going to be posting for a data processing programmer. So someone that has a keen ability to work in, that likes technology, that can work with data

085processing, collection of data, running reports. We have a need in that technology department, and that's the position that is being posted. We're going to post it out again tomorrow. Our business department is going to be looking for an accountant. So we'll have that posting coming up. We also have been short with one of our ROTC. It's a little bit unique because we can't do the hiring. It's through the Air Force. But if you know anyone that is in the military, in the Air Force, that has the desire, the location to go through the application process is on the link to our website. It is through the Air Force or Air Force University, I believe it's called. But if you know somebody during the Thanksgiving holiday, they're at your house and you want to pass that

086along, we do need one teacher aide. We'll have a number of bus drivers and bus aide positions. We're going to have a food services position and custodial service position. And the last one on there is there is actively right now an elementary special education teaching position that is up there. If you know anybody, please direct them towards the website. We're doing everything we can to get everybody hired in a timely fashion. I believe the board meeting is only three weeks away, so it will be a lot of work to get it ready for a three-week meeting. Always need substitutes. Always need substitutes, yes. Thank you, Doc. Thank you, Mr. Gleisler. Okay, this brings us to our second opportunity for public comment. Each participant is asked to give his or her name prior to making a

087statement. All statements shall be directed to the presiding officer. Comments shall be limited to five minutes, and each speaker may only speak once. The Board will not, during the public portion of this meeting, discuss matters involving employment, appointment, termination of employment, negotiations, terms and conditions of employment, evaluation of the performance of, promotion or disciplining of any specific or prospective or current employee and or students. Do we have anyone for public comment? Yes, Mr. Sluka. John Sluka, 950 Sylvia Court. I'm going to read my note or letter or whatever you want to call it. Dated October 27th. Dear Dr. Farrell, the administration and the Board of Education. I know we all didn't forget the forced online at home optimistic learning through a computer screen followed up by that now proven ineffective mask wearing. I guess now

088the results from the national testing have shown that instead of keeping the students up to date in their studies, the testing proved that there was severe learning loss in New Jersey and many other states. Because of the mistakes made by whoever was in charge of that, school districts like Brick and basically every other school district, those in charge of the state schools are looking for alternative ways to have the students recoup some of the lost learning. One such idea comes from State Senator Shirley Turner, where she introduced a bill that would force students to commit to longer school days and years. This is equivalent to having the students punished for the mistakes of an adult in charge. Let me suggest that as a Board of Education and superintendent of schools that we oppose this idea

089or ideas like that and let it be known to the creators of legislation such as this that no student should be required to put in extra time to make up for the mistakes of those adults in charge. I do not see the teachers union also allowing the teachers to add extra time without additional compensation and this financial change would be even more burdensome on us taxpaying public, especially those on fixed incomes. The high level of need for academic support can be done in a normal school year without extra time forced upon the children and the teachers. The test scores are in mathematics and English, which someone must think is the essential subject matter. We don't test for sex education standards or critical race theory, so those subjects must be some kind of ancillary subject matter

090in a proper education. We can extend the learning process of math and English by eliminating any and all ancillary classes that are being involuntarily ordered on our students by those same people who made the mistake of forced at home on computer screen learning. I know this idea may not make those in charge feel good about themselves and may make those in charge people feel that they are losing some of their power over the students and over the parents. But it may be time they step back and realize that the parents should be in charge of their own children. An idea such as this may alleviate the problem that may be associated with extending school hours and school days and at the same time allow teachers to keep their normal school day hours End days and

091keep the course of scheduling those tax taxpayers similar to that that's currently in place That's the end of my letter. Just one little thing I know you mixed me up which of changing people around and everything but I'm not even sure I even heard the approval of last minute minutes So just so you know, I'm not sure you might have did it we did it. Yeah, we did that I didn't I didn't know so much confusion. I said, yeah, I wrote stop writing things down and I stopped Okay, well, I'm good then thank you for your time. Thank you any other public comment? Yes Before the clock starts we have one more recognition that you didn't do if you live in brick and your water and sewer taxes go up, we now have a place

092to go with our newly appointed commissioner over there. So if they go up, we have a new commissioner at MUA over there. Two things I... Gotcha. Gotcha. You know we love you, right? Two things I want to talk about. One is the... demographic study and the other is the presentation that we did on SLA last month now my wish would be that at the time that you're going to do the presentations you also put them on the website so we don't have to bring it up next month you can do that if you want and we can handle it all at the same time or we have to do it this way a month later all right and I had a chance to go over both your presentation and the actual report from Netta A

093couple of things raise questions. I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm saying they raise questions. All right? And there's a lot of numbers. If you're not good with numbers, you're not going to follow me. All right, on the first page... Hold on, I've got to get a second page, because I asked you to do this. Oh, yeah, well, no, I'm going to first... On the summary, it says, elementary enrollments will remain relatively steady with a slight increase projected by 2029. Middle school enrollments will remain relatively steady until 2029. High school enrollments are projected slight decrease in 2029. Now, if you go to the page that shows enrollment projections, right now we have 8,440. I'm not contesting the numbers. And the projection for 2029-2030 is 8,292. So that's a difference of 148. Over that period of time,

094you're going to go down 148. However, within that number is also the increase in pre-K, which is another 82. So in effect... But those three schools you're going down 230 students I don't consider that a slight decrease, but that's what this report is saying I do said that their numbers not mine You're going down 230 because you're actually going up 82 in Pre-k so that that looks bogus To me you might want to take that as one of the things you look at and the other one You know, you don't have to answer me All right. I'm reading off the report. The other one is what I talked to you before If you go to grade 9 through 12, because high school is going to start and go backwards, and you go to the projections,

095the way you look at this, and I'm not going from school to school. Keep that in mind. I'm talking within the school. I'm not talking middle school to high school. So if you look at 2023-24, grade 9 has 470 students. The next year, you would have to go, that grade would be in grade 10. and that would be 477 students. So you draw a line at 135 degrees through the whole thing. Every one of those grades goes up. No matter which year you look at, they go up, which means enrollment in the high schools from class to class is going up an average of 20. I don't know where those people are coming from or where their projection is, but every one of them is projected to go up. To me, that doesn't look right.

096If you go to the middle school, the same thing happens, but on a lesser level, right? Every grade goes up six, seven to eight. However, if you go to the elementary school, exactly the opposite happens. Every one of the grades goes down. Now, the only thing I can think of is we're going to have a lot of people moving into the school district. However... They don't have small children. They only have middle school and high school. That could happen. I don't know, but it doesn't sound reasonable to me. And if you look at their report, they're saying how many new constructions they have. Well, half the new construction in Brick is at least senior citizens, so that's not going to affect it. This looks bogus to me. Something's not right. I don't know. Could be

097right. Could be wrong. I don't know. Sometimes I'm wrong about a lot of things. By the way. which hand do we salute with right or left that was a mirror of a camera take a picture okay you know i caught it you know i caught it right i said those kids are they are they are they doing with their left hand instead of their right you ought to check your presentations before you do that because i'm going to catch it okay let's go dr farrell let's go to uh the sla results all right I'm not going to go through all of the numbers because you did some of that last meeting. However, I want to just summarize. In SLA, grades three through nine, not one grade level is above state average. All right? State average

098includes all the districts, the good ones, the bad ones, Trenton, Camden, everything else. If you go to math, grades three, four, five, and six are below average, but seven and eight are above average. Not that good. Algebra. and i don't know the answer to this one at all algebra slightly above the state average 35 34. if you look at the two middle schools level four and five the high ones 97 and 98 percent in that category if you look at the two high schools it's 18 and 22 percent now i'm assuming that the smart kids in middle school take the class and the dummies in high school take it but that that big a difference i shouldn't say dummies i should say less smart You might know that. Although I look at it and there's

099a pretty big difference between the high schools. In science, not that good either. Grade five, eight, and 11, all below the state average. But here's what I wanted to talk about to get some insight into. On the summary page, is this the summary of BRIC or is this the summary of the things that the state puts in their presentation? Okay, thank you. Mr. Finnelli. Dr. Farrell? First of all, the way presentations work on board meetings, we first show presentations to our elected officials, meaning the committees. in their groups, in the board, and then we present them at the board. I love feedback. I asked you for your notes on the demographics. You do a great job with numbers. And the one catch, what you looked at, I got to actually look into the spreadsheet, talk

100to Netta and the demographer, and find out what that algorithm is, the retention. There could be a reason. I don't know where they get it. Remember, they're just projections, right? But it's simple math. Usually, they go back. Nine years which is good, right? They take an average then they take how the years and the nine years go and they take a retention rate of that class moving on and then they take that average retention rate and then they kind of project I Will look at those numbers you show me I have and we haven't really done an analysis on we're gonna bring it to a steering committee But the way the presentations work is we do show at the public setting for the first time though I wanted to get you those copies earlier on

101demographics because I wanted your notes on it. But I've said this over and over again, I think, the last two years when we talk enrollment. First of all, we could agree to disagree on one thing. Enrollments are projections, right? We know enrollment's going down. The reason why, and I did the presentation part from the report, so there's nobody to blame but me. The reason why I say slightly is you can't separate pre-K because our numbers include pre-K. and we've closed schools. So all the projections are based on pre-K. So to say we're actually going down more than 190 or whatever the students is because when you take pre-K numbers out of that, you can't because then you're not comparing. Then you're going back to almost 2008 or 9, really before we had any pre-K. And

102wait, and before we closed, we had other schools open that we closed. The projection is simply off of numbers we have. If I say we're slightly declining and that's an adjective or an adverb you don't agree about, agree with Mr. Finnelli, I can't do anything for you. I wrote that presentation. When I look at 100 and say 90 students total that come to get from 8440 to whatever that number is, divide what 190 into 8400, it's slightly less than 2%. So that's slightly decreased to me. So that number. That's me giving an adjective. I have no problem looking in the way those numbers run because I don't have the answer for you. I will find that out. I don't have that right now. As far as test scores, because I know that's important, we said

103last month when Dr. Anderson, we have to do better. We have a new baseline from last year. Dr. Anderson could talk. What I found out, which was new to me, is there's a template from the state, I believe. And his question was about the summary. That's a I don't know standard template I don't know how much manipulating but there's a lot of things that we have to show In their format you can add to that if you wish. Yeah, absolutely. So so it is a basic state template But are you meaning the last? Page like the last summary slide what I'm referring to is in summary item one Pandemic hit some communities harder than others. What are you? What are you trying to say there? Are you trying to say that brick got hit harder

104than other districts or you implying that brick that hit harder or this really shouldn't even be in your presentation because it doesn't impact brick so that so how I feel about it is that and the rest of the bullets go to explain that statement, that our percentage of economically disadvantaged families increased by almost 2%, by our enrollment in our ELL program increased significantly, that we, although those two variables impacted the community, we were also able to add interventionists. So I felt that that was a good summary of explaining that. Many of our families and because of our s2 cuts Our class sizes were larger. So some districts were able to remain fully open with 18 kids in a class and still retain kovat restrictions and keep kids socially distanced Because of s2 some of our

105class sizes were very large and we had to go to a hybrid model so that's how what I meant by the uh the pandemic hit our community harder than others in a neighboring community like wall township they those kids were in school the times their class sizes were around 18. so that's what i mean that we had to deal with our covid restrictions and because of our class size it required us to do a hybrid model okay just in response to one thing you said you're wrong Because I was very particular and very clear when I read these articles here, right? The first one was elementary school. No, the first one is actually pre-K, which I didn't mention. Pre-K is separate from the other three. That's why I added it back in. Pre-K enrollment I

106didn't talk about. I talked about elementary, middle school, and high school. And to have the number pure, you have to take out the increase in the pre-K because I'm not talking about pre-K. That's in the bottom number of the 84 to the 87. If you think that 230 students is not a lot, okay, fine. It's not a lot. But I purposely took pre-K and didn't talk about that. So you have to put the number back in. Mr. Finnelli, we could talk about this, too, offline. No, I will, because here's what I'm going to say. You said total enrollment. So our 8440 right now, total enrollment includes pre-K. When you said in 2029 our enrollment is 80 whatever, that includes pre-K. That's what you said, total enrollment. That's what I said, slightly decreased. But I don't

107want to get... I read you to three schools. I didn't mention pre-K. No, I know. I read you to three school categories. What I heard you say just before was... you have to take pre-K out of the total enrollment. So I don't have it in front of me. That comparison, just comparing to this, Tom, that's it. Just what they said on the front. I'll talk to you again about it. I have no problem explaining it. I got to get into it too. But what I'm saying is I look at the total number. So I thought that's what you said, and I'll be glad to talk further with you. It's just a projection. You're wrong in what you say and what I said, because I'm right in what I did. I took the pre-k out because

108I didn't talk. I'm saying in comparison to the three things that they said of no change, no change, and very little change, in actuality, there's going to be 230 student change, just in the elementary, the middle, and that. Pre-K is out. It's in that total number, but you have to take it out to look at those three schools. And they say there's not going to be a lot of change. Now, I know it's all projection. It could be right and it could be wrong. The big question is, what are you going to do with this report? That's correct. And you're right there, and I agree with you. And by the way, I'm wrong a lot of times. I'm just... You're wrong about what I said. I'm fine. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying you're

109wrong. Okay. Thank you. You guys can agree on what it is and you can report back next meeting. But that's the big question. What are we going to do with that? We've got to take this data and utilize that for our strategic planning. So that's the positive. And there are some positives. Pre-k is growing we have to figure out that way because that helps us when enrollment down the line So that's one positive that I do want to say Thank you any other public comment yes in the back. Yep. Hi, sorry, I didn't say Should have brought boxing gloves tonight it might have been a better arena Good evening administration board members superintendent. My name is Charlie bacon I live at 366 Rancocas Drive. I, like the board president and superintendent, I want to congratulate

110Madeline and Francis for winning seats on the board. Before I begin, these are typed notes, but it's kind of interesting the dynamics going on here, some of the things that I heard, which I have actually embedded in my notes. We talked about COVID-19, a diesel mechanic, and other things going on. And that's what I want to talk about tonight. During the recent Board of Ed campaign, there was many things that came to light about what is being taught to our children. And frankly, this is disturbing to me and obviously a majority of the voters in BRIC. Coming out of COVID-19, all of you folks that are professionals have read many things about COVID-19, obviously. It wasn't the first pandemic in the world. Hopefully, it's the last. However, there's many studies done on this. And we

111kind of disregarded a lot of that when COVID-19 hit. And that's what I want to talk about here. This is my belief that coming out of the impact of COVID-19 and remote learning, devastating event. A lot of us know personally people have a lot of mental health issues over this and what it did to our learning process inside this district. This is my belief system. We've got to be focused coming out of COVID-19. The loss of time we've lost with education. The interaction with people, just wear the mask, the devastating effect that has and all those other things. And I think the core of what we should be focused on is the core curriculum, the obvious things, language, math, and the things that have been touched on in here about test scores going down that

112are very appropriate. Vocational education. I used to work in the Marine trades. Prior to COVID, we had a lack of vocational schools. Getting into whether it marine automobile whatever This is a point I think we need more emphasis around these areas because a lot of people want to go into these areas and you read Constantly now you can make six figures in a vocational program mental health issues with touchdown This is a huge issue that we really have to address, either in the district or other support systems. I just met somebody. I work in a medical building. They just took a job in one of our offices on mental health out in Robbinsville. Very important. Here's my feelings. Outside of these basic tenets, has no business being done or taught in our district, period. I've

113heard things tonight, and I heard them during the campaign of the Board of Ed, that quite frankly disturbed me. We need to get back to the core to make sure that that's what we're focused on, not things about what grade, opt-in, opt-out about sex education, period. This board and recently the people you, congratulations, by the way, that you interviewed, I was here for that meeting. One of your fundamental questions you asked, should politics be inside the board event, right? I agree with that. Here's the problem I have with it. However, this board has remained completely silent when politics and extreme policies of the governor and his administration have seeped into our district. I haven't heard anything, any resistance on that. We've talked about S2 for four years. I was in front of this board in

114October 2018 talking about S2, and I haven't heard you. And if you had, you haven't been loud enough. Since this a board to me appears to have no appetite to push back on Radical or controversial whatever ideas you want to call these things. I don't really care about the label to be honest with you I plan to meet with our local legislators and propose that an education referendum bill be introduced by them and in front of Trenton and Some of the highlights and I'm thinking about in this referendum period When mandates come from whether it be the state or the federal government, they have no idea what's best for our district, in my opinion. And I cite three things in this document I typed up. I went after, as a representation, Camden, Brick Township, and

115Holmdel. And I worked for the Board of Education in Holmdel one year, and I purposely picked those three because I think they're representative of different wants and needs. As far as that's concerned. Why do I feel strongly about this referendum? I'd like to continue, if possible, please. Thank you. Yes, you can finish your thought. I think a referendum enhances our core curriculum, bottom line, right? The electorate involved in important education decisions that impact our children. A lot of you say more parents should come to these meetings. I don't disagree with that. But a lot of these parents now, both parents are working in our district or in their. to support their families. It's not that easy for them to attend these meetings. The other thing I like, it provides enhanced checks and balances. I remember

116a few years ago you talked about a referendum going up in front of the folks in this town about security, right? And you had a lot of good dialogue going back, the pros and cons, and I got a lot of feedback from different places about security, and I know it's a tough thing. And the other thing I like, it holds you accountable, quite frankly, because anything that goes into a referendum has to be defended. And I frankly don't really care what the state mandates. What I care about is making sure our children are getting the best education possible, whether they're going back to college or they're going to a vocational program, period. Anything else is noise and takes away from those core things. We've probably lost 18 months in the educational system. And closely, in

117closing, I firmly believe getting residents more involved in the education process will benefit our children. Thank you very much. Thank you. Dr. Farrell? Well, I would just comment. Many of the county superintendents agree with you on a lot of fronts, especially in Ocean County. You know, there comes a time where we have to have this discussion again, and we've been having it here for the last, since I've been here, about local control. And what is the authority of not only a board member, but a superintendent and the governor? Board members, unfortunately for them, they do take an oath to uphold a state constitution that includes, unfortunately, governor's executive orders. It includes any state law, Department of Ed curriculum mandates that come down to acting officials such as myself that are state certified. That doesn't mean

118we haven't or have not pushed back. This board alone, I actually asked them to tone down a letter, if you remember, about the masking and the hybrid learning. Because I agree with you, and I've been one, I've said this over and over again in public, I do think we did a disservice when our kids... We're not in person all the time. And I think we're all seeing, and I think many of my colleagues would agree to that. However, you know, what BRIC local control can say does not usurp anything where the majority say in the state. And that's what we do when we're in public education, right? If you look at the history of public education, unfortunately, it's not a federal thing. It's always been left to the state. And it's been for all students,

119all demographics. And unfortunately, education isn't a one-size-fits-all. It started in the rural community, so they were treating vocational trades, right, for those students that they felt would be contributing to their local economy and authority. And that has grown over, you know, hundreds of years in public education. Local control is something I believe this board believes and we have fought hard for. But local control does not allow a board of education or a superintendent to say, well, you know what, here in BRIC we do not want to address the Algebra I standards or these state standards. And I know that's kind of a little simple of an analogy, but that's what happens in public education. So we do get curriculum mandates. From the State Board of Ed. We do push back. And I will tell you,

120many of the county superintendents push back in our own superintendents group. And I've been saying this months ago right here with Mr. Finelli because you said, hey, you should be pushing back on this. As far as S2 is concerned, Mr. Edwards here has been pushing that plight with the entire state that was affected by S2 so much that there was a lawsuit that actually worked that uncovered the algorithm, I would say. That considers brick a wealthy factor so Men, I personally signed as a brick resident. Yeah, so Many of the concepts you you are saying to many community members have said here We all agree and in education what I always say to everybody is we all should agree on the what? That's what's important the Board of Education is an elected official from the

121community and they are the conduit to the community and they do just that. Here's the what. Here's what we value. The how is an administrative function. That is left to administrators, particularly the chief school administrator, kind of navigating that. Some things I can navigate, other things I cannot. It's simply a statute or the law. I think we did a great job with our family life curriculum because even Tom's River kind of followed our lead a little bit. We pushed the envelope. I kept saying we're meeting the spirit of the standards. We did not require a parent to send a letter to the principal. It's basically you go in, you opt out. And I'm not going to give my private opinion of certain things with education because I also, too, have a license to be a

122chief school administrator for a public district that educates all students, whatever race, creed, ethnicity, disability, pre-K to 12. And I am kind of, I have to abide by state standards and Department of Ed standards. So how we navigate that communication, how we navigate the implementation. That is something we all do as a community together, and we're not going to agree all the time, just like the masking, unmasking, the hybrid, and all those things that did absolutely affect us. And I joked through the whole crisis, I think we kind of ticked off 50% of the population. No matter what decision came down from the governor's office, how we implemented it, we were always in a polarized environment fighting that. What I ask you to, and I ask everybody, is their patience. This community is excellent. At

123the heart of this community, there is one thing every single person agrees. They may not agree with the how, and they could argue, and I got pretty big shoulders, I say, and I've been criticized and I've been wrong before, but we do agree on the what and the what's the most important thing, and that's our kids and our students, everyone here. I don't doubt that in every one. We all disagree a little bit on the vehicle and the approach. And quite honestly, that's my job is to kind of bring us together and listen to all sides and try to help navigate that implementation because that's what administrators and leaders do. So it is a tough job. I do take it. You are not unheard. We have listened, and we do do our best, and we

124can do better with a lot of things. And I promise that from my perspective. I do thank you for your comments. Thank you, Dr. Farrell. I'm sorry. The vocational part is part of our strategic planning. That's been coming up a lot. Mr. Sluka, a lot of people, Mr. Campbell, that is a huge something we are looking at about future academies that aren't being offered in our local vocational. And we recognize that. And there's a huge study out recently about just that, about for our national and local economies. But that is part of the strategic. I see Kathy Lindenbaum some other people here to have been part of the strategic planning process They have been talked about to introduce. So thank you. Sorry. Thank you. Dr. Farrell as to us too we went down to I

125was in Trenton. We took a bus down to Trenton. We invited parents. We put that out other than our staff members and board members Mr. Conti was the only public person that came, correct? Mr. Edwards, myself, and who else did we bring with us? Me. Dr. Anderson. Victoria, Dr. Anderson. Mrs. Kotsianas. Yep. Yeah, we went to, we also went to, and we presented in front of the Senate committee. about us too. We wrote letters, we wrote petitions, we did, yeah, we testified, yes, we did. We also, I've written several letters when the governor has tried to impose different things within our community asking for local control. They're like dr. Farrell said there is so much that we can do as board members and we push back and I do Wholeheartedly agree that a lot of

126these decisions that are made from Trenton do not understand what? We in brick our community itself needs and we should have some more control over what we Think our children within our district needs, but that doesn't mean I can break the wall We and and our two new board members are going to see you take an oath. You have to follow the law. And there's just you can still push back. But there's certain things that you need to do. Do you have anything legally that you want to add to that? You want to turn your mic on? Effectively, it's statutory. The board exists as an entity under the laws of New Jersey. They're required to comply with the Title 18A statutes, any regulations and or guidance that's dictated by the Department of Education. That's your

127role, and it flows through curriculum. That's set forth in a regulation. which you are mandated by law to follow the guidance on the SLS that's provided by the Department of Ed. How we do a curriculum and how we do instruction, that's where we have the ability to maintain some local control. And I think you've seen that play out. Over the course of time and and you know, we've had a good discussion with the public about that about you know watch it play out listen and and be guided by what actually happens here in the district on the things that the District the Board of Education can actually control People everybody here is for brick and and I think that's what you've seen Thank you. Yes Being that I have not been voted in, sworn in

128yet, being that I have not been sworn in yet, I have a couple of things I'd like to say. We need to think of BRIC. We need to figure out a way to educate our children without some of the stuff that's going on. And you all know what I'm talking about. I might look like the bad guy here, but I heard the people of BRIC, and I know you saw what the people of BRIC did. Don't want they put me in this place because what is going on in our schools, which you guys are trying to fight We cannot be governed strictly by a governor to tell us what to do. Our curriculum has to help our kids be educated. We have to work a little bit harder. This S2, I would love to know

129who was involved in all of this because it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. We need to fight. We need to fight for our children of this town. We need to fight for the parents of this town. We need to give our children a great education. They don't need to know some of the things that are going on. I know what went on in the teachers conference just recently. I have plenty of friends who are teachers and plenty of parents who are teachers. Some of the curriculum that they have, oh, heck no. I don't want my children or grandchildren knowing it. They learn stuff like that differently. They don't need to be taught that. They need to learn reading, writing, math, science. We need these kids to go to college or vocational. We need to help our children

130learn. We can't. The people of BRIC want their children to get an education. We need to do that. I'm sorry. I know you're saying I'm going to be sworn in and I have to follow with the governor. I've been on many boards. I get that. But we have to push back a little bit. We have to protect our children and our parents and our board members because you're trying. I could see it. We have to work. We have to do better. We're not doing great. We have to do great. Thank you. Thank you. Any other? Yes. Mr. Montenegro, can you let us know? Mark Vasquez, can you let us know can the superintendent and the board members make public statements? To the news or anywhere else on matters that they do not agree upon What

131do you mean that they don't agree upon? Anything. If the governor brings down a new mandate and he doesn't agree upon it and he wants the public to understand his point of view and why he doesn't agree that this works for Brick Township, does he have the legal right to go to the press and speak on behalf, whether it's personally or in the function as superintendent? Well, in the function of superintendent, he and the board president, under the board's policies and bylaws, would be the people to provide any public statements on behalf of the board. But that's oh, I'm sorry. That's with that. And the question is, is what have you done in the public eye? Right. Because most parents have, you know, the 30 seconds to kind of look on social media or to

132look at a news article, not to sit in a meeting. Right. Have you made any public statements in the news? Have you? Yes. We did a bunch of press releases during the hybrid learning and covid as to the masking. And I even. Put myself in a little bit of a hot water with our local county superintendents because I usually kind of we kind of work as a group, Ocean County superintendents. When we do that, when we do and we fight back the Department of Ed on a lot of issues, funding especially, but a lot of issues we fight through the right channels, right? There's a right channel to do it, too, before you go public. But we have done many of press releases, and I've only been here about two and a half years. So

133two and a half years. I could tell you I know for a fact during COVID from the get-go. Like I said before, I actually asked Ms. Walrab and I said, because I got some pushback from my local county supes that I thought some of our letters were a little too harsh. to the governor because quite honestly we do need you know some funding and money and i didn't you know put it but uh this board felt united about pushing back when it came to local control and how we were going to implement the masking not masking and some of those mandates so yes that has happened and do you guys work with our local council and mayor on specifics like for instance creating a referendum to stand against what what we're not in agreement with

134what's coming down do you have you played any role in that So we work with the mayor a lot of issues. We work very closely. When you talk about referendum or you're talking about opining on something political, and I've said this for the last couple months, I am not a politician. I know there are people in this room maybe that are politicians. There are elected officials that are volunteers. I am a professional educator. And I do not opine on the political nature of science. I will opine what I think is either educational malpractice or disservice, like when we have remote learning, because I do think there's studies out there that show that. And I will opine for that, and I will fight for our students. I will not opine with policymakers or on policies that

135have been implemented. That's just not my job. And remember, at the core of board members, they're a policymaking body. to have oversight. They're not supposed to be in the day-to-day operational side. That's an administrative function. There's been a lot of gray area lately, and I think that's coming from Trent and from some of our politicians, quite honestly. And it puts superintendents and board presidents and board members, I think, in a very tough position because each community is very different. I don't live in Brick. I spend a lot of time here and work here, but every community is very different. That's why local control. Is so important. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you. Any other Any other public comment? Seeing none Allie word comment. Yes Where am I? Um, mr. Bricey. I wanted to

136get in line behind. Mr Finnelli for the Disney chaperone Just if you could write me on there. I'm right behind him In honor of the month of kindness and to give thanks, I just wanted to say that I'm so thankful for my children's teachers at Vets Middle School and Brick Memorial and the administration, past and present. I am thankful to be a Board of Education member. I'm thankful for our... administration I that we all work so well together for every child in our district I know I'm most thankful for the opportunity that I've been given to be a member of this wonderful group that and that we continue to keep brick schools student-centered and teacher-led I just want to thank everyone for coming out and I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving Good evening. I

137just wanted to start by saying something that I actually didn't even have written down, but talking about the vocational school system. Believe it or not this morning or this afternoon I actually did receive an email from one of the guidance counselors at brick memorial for my daughter who is currently a sophomore that they will be bringing in the vocational school Representatives to speak to them because they will need to enroll in I guess those vocational classes if they are interested for their junior and senior year and they will be doing those schedules soon so they do bring in the vocational representatives to the high school students and show them everything and also my son is a senior at one of the full-time vocational academies so for those who say that maybe we should just only

138worry about reading writing arithmetic and whatnot i don't know if you know this but you can learn so much more from the arts and other disciplines it isn't just singing or acting you have to use all your brain and everything about you when you put yourself into that and that makes you also more not everybody's going to be a rocket scientist not everybody's going to be an engineer so if you were to take some of those other types of classes away from these children, they would be hollow and they wouldn't learn in those other classrooms. I can tell you that for a fact because I have living proof in my house of what the pandemic did when the arts were taken away in person. So I just wanted to say that as a mom and

139as a community member. that they are important and they are shared in this district, the vocational opportunities for these students. They just have to take a hold of them if that's what they really wanted to do. But I also wanted to just welcome all of our new hires and say thank you and congratulations and best wishes to all of our retirees. The school year is flying by. The first marking period is already over. And as I was just saying, my son is a senior. So I really, really hope that this year would go by slowly. I wanted to soak up every precious moment with him. But of course, he had other ideas. And he has joined every single activity inside and outside of his school. And he's truly enjoying his last year of high school

140with his friends. Not me, but that's OK. I attended the production of Bly Spirit at... Brick Township High School. I hadn't seen that show since I was actually in high school in Brick Memorial. It was great to see Miss Best's rendition of this script. Bravo to the cast and crew and I look forward to seeing the rest of their shows this year. I was also able to attend several games at both high schools during the fall season. I'd like to go into depth about them but there were just way too many details so I will just say congratulations to all the students at student athletes and coaches. And congratulations to both of the high school marching bands and their color guards. They are always amazing. So if you ever get a chance to watch any

141of their productions, they're about 20 minutes long during the football games. They start in the summer because that's how long it takes to choreograph those numbers, and it's just amazing. And I want to say congratulations to the new board members that were just elected last week, and they will begin in January. So congratulations. Good luck. Have a happy Thanksgiving, and we will see everybody next month. Thank you. Hey, Daisy. Hey, Allie. I wanted to say, not that it was nice, but it was so important to hear from Ava and Andrew today. And I think that they really bring a nice dynamic to our meeting. And we don't need a blinking light over their heads that says it's all about them. Their spirit in the room lets us know that. I also want to welcome the

142new hires and I just want to expand a little bit on the privilege that I had, the opportunity to attend the New Jersey School Board Association Convention in Atlantic City from October 24th to October 26th. There were over 200 programs offered to our attendees, and I attended four sessions each day, including my mandated governance for training, which is... a New Jersey case law update. We sit in a room for almost two hours and we hear about all the new case law from within the last year or two. And it's amazing how fast things can change in a district. Some of the sessions I attended, some topics I covered twice. New Jersey Sustainable Jersey grant funding programs. the community-based climate change education that was mandated for 2021, school PR 101, SEL is everywhere, making it work

143for you. I took another conference on school climate improvement and the platform that New Jersey Department of Ed has laid out for us so that each district can follow the research to make and answer the question, why does SEL matter? It's how and what we learn, our positive relationships and connections that reduce barriers to learning and align with student success. And I'm very proud of our district, the way we're incorporating that in our strategic plan going forward. I also attended a class about student special education, I'm sorry, social-emotional learning needs in today's school. how we can just go to a website and learn about the five skills and competencies, the CASEL 5, that the state is modeling for all schools in New Jersey. I have two takeaways. The first one is that all the data-based

144research on the connection between SEL, how and what we learn, reduces barriers to learning and aligns with student success. It was told to attendees in several workshops that this is something that is supported by research that will improve our student academic outcomes. The second takeaway I had is that as I've been saying for years pay attention. Mr Edwards as I've been saying for years It's past time this district needs a public information Officer and a grant writer and we really need to find the money on a shoestring the way we do things in brick We really need to make that a priority because we've talked about it for years and and it really You know, I used to say it's free money, but our teachers do a great, great job, and I want to encourage

145our teachers who apply for individual grants and projects. And I just want to say that I'm proud to be a board member here in BRIC. I'm proud of our student-centered, teacher-led administration and district. And I think that where there is good, there's always room for improvement. And I see the plan for that improvement, how it's unfolded over the years and how it continues to unfold. Now we have a new director to lead us in a special direction. Again, supporting those community-based learning research-based programs that are the best for our kids. And I think as long as we don't follow the trends but we follow the research, we're on the right track here in BRIC for our kids. And again, it was a privileged thank you to the administration and the board president who makes it

146a priority that we have the opportunity to attend and connect with people around the state who do what we do. Thank You Victoria Michael yeah just like to follow up on a couple items here first we like to congratulate our new board members that were elected last week I want to comment on just a couple of things I've heard here tonight it has to do with the ability in this board the board as was mentioned we're a policymaking board I learned a lot more I thought a lot difference when I was on that side of the desk as opposed to this side As a policy maker, you take the oath, you have bylaws and rules that you gotta follow, and then you learn a lot of the rules and things that can get you in

147trouble if you don't follow those rules from the school board's association. I'm a guy that likes to go out there and fight a little more for things, and then I find out, wow, I do this, I can face ass-thick charges. I like... the things Mr. Bacon said, but some of them I found out I can't do with that easy sitting here. I'm better off on that side sometimes. So I want to agree with Mr. Bacon, and maybe we could find a way when we go talk to the legislators. I'd like to sit there if I could and give them some ideas too. I had talked, when I first came on, I talked to, he had just retired from the State Assembly, Dave Wolfe, and he gave me a lot of education too, and I admired

148that because he was very involved with education at that level. So I agree. It's got stuff for when you're on this side of the table as opposed to on the outside You got to watch what you can do. I saw Kathy Linda mom laughing because she knows it's that way, but I also want to Go to mr. Finnelli now, mr. Finnelli. You missed the opportunity When they raised the rates very minimal in town this year For the residents to raise more on the outside the residents that the other towns that buy from us I was the only one sitting in the audience So I you missed that boat and you didn't even notice that it went up a little bit So it couldn't have been too bad. It wasn't too bad I was sitting there

149in the audience that night when they did have the rate hike well I can understand that but I was sitting in the audience. I'm letting you know that the rate hike when it went in this year So other than that, I want to again congratulate the new hires have a nice Thanksgiving and We'll see you next month. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Okay, November 16th, 17th, and 18th, paired teacher conferences, early dismissal. November 23rd, early dismissal. November 24th and 25th, Thanksgiving school is closed. December 8th is our next regular board meeting, 7 p.m. here. I need a motion and a second for adjournment. Victoria. Second, Daisy. Mary? Ms. Hafner? Yes. Mr. Blandina? Yes. Ms. Kennedy? Yes. Ms. Bacala? Oh, yes. Ms. Woolram? Yes. Thank you, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Hey, congratulations. Welcome aboard.