Jackson Board of Education Meeting 6/23/21 @ 6:30

001People connect to True Colors in many different ways. True Colors helps me find comfort when I am scared. It means standing up for myself. It means not to be afraid of who you are. It means acceptance. True Colors makes me happy and feel good on the inside. It means finding the good in others. True Colors reminds me of when the world went gray during the pandemic. Rosenauer Roadrunners, I am so proud of you. Show your true colors. Sing out. Thank you. And I will be looking out for you. Because I hear you guys really are great. What a year. A historic year of uncertainty, worry, and for some, great loss. We've had our ups and our downs, we've experienced constant change, but together we have made it. Every one of you have been part of

002getting us to this point. Thank you. Reflecting on the year, I see the lessons learned about the importance of connections and relationships, and that our schools play a very large part in keeping everyone connected. Academics are important and will continue to be important, but it is also all the other things that keep us engaged. motivated and feeling part of the bigger picture. Our colleagues, friends, family and community all are important. Important to our big picture. We need each other, we need relationships and we need to see smiles. We need to support one another. Thank you for all you have done to support me, each other, the school community and most importantly our students. We made it. We made it to the final week of the school year. I know there was many times during the

003school year I never thought this week would come. I'm sure there's many times during the school year all of you thought this week may never come. But it's here and we all made it. I have a lot to be proud of for getting to this point. To all of our students, the work that you've put in this year in a learning environment, in a situation that was not probably what you were expecting, I commend all of you for what you did to get to this point. To our community, to our parents, the support, the encouragement you've given to not just the school system, but most importantly your children, has been tremendous. And to our staff, many of you reinvented yourself, many of you taught in ways that you've never taught before, all just remarkable things

004that we've seen happen in the classrooms and I commend all of you. What I challenge all of you to do now this summer and as we move into next school year is let's take the positives we learned from this year. Let's take all the good things that we've learned and let's embrace that and make next year the best school year we can ever possibly have. We are so proud of all the ways our staff serves students behind the scenes, beyond the classrooms. Thank you to our business office and all the office staff in all of our buildings. Our food service department, transportation, buildings and grounds, security and technology. All of you have had to pivot from one direction to the next many times in the past year. We are so grateful to you. Thank you.

005So it's been a year of enforcing rules and following guidelines. So I've got some new guidelines for everybody for the summer. So I wanna make sure in terms of social distancing, you keep your family close, you keep your friends even closer. You take some time for yourself and hit the beach. and use some sunscreen instead of some hand sanitizer and make the summer the best that it could possibly be because it's been a long year and we're going to need you fresh and ready to go in September. There's still a lot of work to be done to get ready for the next school year and we will be working hard all summer on all of it. We promise to keep you updated, to keep you safe, and to keep us moving forward. But as this

006year ends, let's take a minute to take a deep breath. to recognize and thank our entire community for getting through a very difficult year and to enjoy all we have to be thankful for as we move forward. Have a wonderful summer. Greetings Jackson teachers. On behalf of our entire central administrative team, we want to send you a message to help celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week. Every person in this district has pulled together in the best possible ways through a year you could never have imagined. And you, our teachers, are the very ones on the front line of it all. We are thankful for you every day, and during this week it is a perfect chance to tell you just how much we appreciate you. On behalf of the principals and administrators throughout the Jackson School District,

007I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of our teachers. for their dedication and commitment to our students, staff, and communities of Jackson Township. During this Teacher Appreciation Week, please know how much you are appreciated by all of us for what you do day in and day out on behalf of your students. Thank you so much, teachers. I wish you all a wonderful Teacher Appreciation Week. It is much deserved. Thank you. I recognize each and every day the Herculean task that the teachers have had and none of this works without their dedication, without their sweat and tears trying to figure it out. And there are so many times that I even know as an administrator, so I can very well imagine as a teacher how it may have seemed like it was impossible. to

008get certain things done. Impossible to see children grow during this time and yet it has happened and it's all because of their hard work, their effort and their tirelessness. Just not giving up and not giving in to all of the obstacles and hurdles that they had to jump through and jump along. So thank you so much teachers for all that you have done. You are truly amazing. So as you celebrate this week, I hope you are feeling just a little bit more comfy in your jeans, and I hope you are feeling a lot of love. But enough of me. I think we found some other voices who can say it even better than I can. My teachers have helped me through it by really just going out of their way to help us and make

009sure that we're comfortable when we learn things because you know that because of remote and sometimes we don't earn as much as we used to so they really go out of our way checking constantly making sure we know it doing all these examples and it's really been amazing to know that someone really cares if we that we get it right the first time and it's been awesome. This year definitely has been a rough one and very challenging, but my teachers have all been very supportive. They definitely know how stressful it is, especially with classes I cut in half and myself taking all these hard classes. They're always there and they're making sure that we're on top of things, but also not overly stressing and taking time for ourselves to just mentally compress with everything else.

010I want to go to a little fun thing that my teacher has gone through with COVID. Since we haven't gone outside because of COVID for like outside recess, she probably feels so bad. So when it's a nice day, when it's a nice day, she would let us go outside to eat snack. So it was last year in seventh grade, my teacher, Ms. Clotius, she helped me, like she showed me like how powerful reading could be. I, you know, didn't really like reading. I didn't really feel like it was something that I enjoyed, but you know, she showed us like not to give up on books too early and to keep reading them. So I would say the life lesson she taught me was like to never give up and always like keep going. I think

011a life lesson that I've learned from some of my teachers going back to the elementary school is like when we're writing in our journals every day about our futures and goals, what we want to do, and I think writing in them and, you know, saying, oh, I want to do, I want to be in math, I want to be a scientist, and being in high school and learning from the teachers now who are going back to those journals and saying, you can be whatever you want to be and learning that you can push yourself to be whatever you want and do whatever you can because a dream is reality. They taught me how even if there's a lot of challenges, I should just push through it and get through it. One life lesson that a

012teacher taught me was that I should always look forward and not back. One of my teachers said that sometimes life is not fair. All that matters is how you react to things when they're not fair. And that really makes you your person. really shapes you into what you are and your character. A life lesson I've learned over this year especially is to not give up because as soon as you give up, you stop trying, you'll never get anywhere. But if you keep trying, things will get better because especially this year, protocols have changed. We've been able to do, like at the beginning of the year, we weren't allowed to do the things we're really able to do now. So definitely not giving up is definitely a lesson I've learned over this year. Good evening. Please

013rise for the salute to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This meeting is in compliance with the open public meeting law and has been duly advertised in the newspaper as an official meeting. Roll call. Mr. Spoltoff? Yes. Mr. Herman? Yes. Mr. Acevedo? Mr. Burnett's key president Mr. Sergeant president Mr. Walsh Yes, and this is Rivera present. I need a motion for approval of the agenda with addendums motion second discussion roll call yes mr. Herman yes mr. Acevedo yes mr. Burnett ski yes mr. sergeant yes mr. Walsh yes this is Rivera yes I'd like to turn over to the meeting to miss Promelli for her superintendents report thank you

014mr. Barron Good evening everyone. I'd just like to update the board and the public on our closing of the school year. It was a wonderful closing to our school year and it was so beautiful and nice to see our students and our staff smiles. We had beautiful promotion. Ceremonies at our eighth grade are moving up. Ceremonies at the fifth grade level were wonderful. So nice that parents could come and attend. And our high school graduations, we could not have asked for more beautiful weather. And the fact that our graduates got to be outside, have all of their family attend as if we had no protocols or any pandemic. It was fantastic. It was smiling faces across the board. And thank you to the board members who were in attendance to any of those. We were

015also able to get in our proms, our fifth grade and eighth grade end of year activities that were outside and fun for students. So after a challenging 15 months, it was a lovely close to the school year, seeing great big smiles. So thank you to our community. Thank you to our teachers. And I hope that our students and families really enjoyed those events. It was a great way to end our year. Tonight we will have three presentations in my superintendent's report. First, I will go over the final review of the district goals from the 2020-2021 school year. Mr. Bertante will present the Jackson Safe Return Plan overview that is required of our district to submit, even though there has been no guidelines in place for us. Mr. Baginski will be sharing the high school common

016lunch period that we are ready to implement in the fall. So those three presentations will happen in a few moments. Lots of information being shared tonight. The district will also receive $8.3 million from the American Rescue Plan, better known as ARP, to be used to address the challenges of the pandemic. We will... It'll certainly help us with our budget deficits that have been created through S2 and the overall $18 million cuts that we will have in our budget. So certainly that will help us, but the specific uses, there are specific uses for that money, and the district is getting ready to plan to use that money to reduce class size, to provide interventions to our students, to provide supports with mental health needs for our students and staff. We will also provide programs for students

017and families, some of which that are happening this summer, to help accelerate learning, credit recovery for students. And we will continue to keep our public and our board updated as we finalize any plans for the use of that money. So tonight, I'll begin with the goals presentation. I am going to go to the podium. And then I will be back for a few words before I call Mr. Orsantia. So the presentation is behind you if you'd like to turn your chairs to see it, board members. This is our final review of the district goals for the 2021 school year. Thank you, Ms. Irwin. So one of our goals was health and safety in the district, and obviously there was a reason for that goal. We needed to read and interpret the safe. return plans, the

018road to recovery from the New Jersey Department of Education and all of the health protocols that we were required to do. We needed to train our students and our staff on those procedures, including obviously social distancing and hand washing. And we needed to create it was required of us to create a health screening for both staff and students and train and implement those uses. So as you can see this goal was completed with those items that were listed on the first slide plus many more items that addressed health and safety. Obviously we created our plan. It was approved by the State Department of Ed and the County Department of Education in August. We had revised that plan several times according to the many pivots that were required based on guidelines or health concerns in the

019district. Most importantly, it was revised with synchronous learning because we had not started with synchronous learning. We had started with two separate programs. So that was revised and lots of training was provided for that synchronous learning for our staff as well. Very extensive training. Our staff and our students were trained on health protocols. Our nurses were trained by our nurse coordinator and Mr. Baginski who worked closely with the nurses through this pandemic. And the health screening was created and implemented for both students and staff. and also needed to be revised several times based on the color coding of the activity report for the state that's based on the health numbers and also any changes to any travel advisories that were required. So all of that occurred this year. So I feel that that goal was

020met. We also had a goal of curriculum and student achievement. We have this goal every year. Specifically this year, we needed to create two unique programs very quickly in the summer before school opened once we saw the requirements of the school district. So we created a hybrid in-person learning program and a full remote program. So we had students who were full remote all the time with the same teacher. We're very pleased with the outcome of that. We felt from the beginning in the summer that that was the best plan for student achievement and academic progress versus the synchronous learning. Synchronous learning is difficult. And so although we had to pivot to that mid-year for certain reasons, we did continue our full remote program, definitely for elementary and middle school. And then second semester, we dissolved

021and did synchronous learning at the high school. We again trained our teachers in all of these programs extensively and continued to work with them throughout the school year. We compacted our curriculum to help expedite the learning. and accelerate the learning. And we continue to strengthen our already existing social-emotional programs, our daily meetings, our advisory periods in our elementary and middle schools. And we continue to strengthen those. We also did a curriculum audit for diversity and equity in our curriculum. And we made any recommendations for improvements such as making sure our resources that we use such as books that are read have diversity within them and representation of diverse cultures. We also ensured that our curriculum was strengthened in regards to equity of meeting students where they are academically to move them forward. Additionally, in our

022curriculum and student achievement goals, we had listed the Expand Student-Centered Learning through Problem-Based Curriculum. That is an initiative we have been working on for a few years. And we also were going to be recommending a new high school schedule, which you'll hear about from Mr. Baginski in a few moments. And finally, our five-year curriculum review cycle is always a goal for us. And this year, we were implementing ELA and Gifted and Talented K-12. Those were implemented. and we also did review our world language curriculum and our health and physical education curriculum. So you will see that those things have been completed here on this slide. These are some of the actions, not all, but some of the actions that demonstrate that we have met that goal. I'll let you read those. I won't read them

023to you. Okay, next slide, please. We additionally had a human resource goal this year for recruitment and selection and placement of personnel. So we did want to expand our recruitment. We also wanted to go more paperless in our district around our HR procedures, and we also set the goal. to address all the accommodations that were going to be needed for the COVID pandemic among our staff and ensure that always ensure that our effective evaluation of our employees occurs. And we also wanted to see a very lofty goal here to expand our pool of substitute staffs, which was quite difficult during a pandemic. These are some of the things that we did to meet that goal. I do believe it is completed. There were different ways in which we posted job openings on more social networking

024sites or electronic sites that are used now like School Springs and Indeed instead of just posting things on our website and New Jersey school jobs. So we've expanded where we post using Frontline Central. Mr. Baginski, along with the HR department, have used that with our staff this year to have staff sign their contracts. Instead of having paper contracts, they're electronic. The COVID accommodation forms, request for accommodations was electronic through Frontline, as well as any health benefit changes that were necessary. And most recently, starting to use it for time in attendance to replace paper sign-in and sign-out. So that goal was definitely meant well and beyond. We also trained and managed all of the process in the HR department, a phenomenal job with the accommodations that staff were asking for. And we expanded, we were able

025to expand our substitute pool for non-certified positions like school nurses and also problem solved the daily extensive substitute coverage that we ran into with the the pandemic and we're able to keep our doors open based on our creativity in solving those issues such as having building-based subs increasing the daily rate and doing some advertising for substitutes Facilities goal for this year was to improve and enhance facilities to create the best environment for safe learning as always. And you see the goals listed here, monitor the ESIP projects, the solar projects. always prioritize any new projects that are necessary monitor the district continually to ensure things are safe this year specifically a goal was based on increasing our cleaning protocols and disinfect using disinfecting sprayers for large spaces those are the backpacks that were implemented trained staff

026on any new esip equipment that was put into the district and establish a more playable sports field for Liberty and replace the Ryder Hall gymnasium floor in this building that was original to the building. This goal was also met with, you'll see there, many of the completed areas. Our ESA project is about 90% completed. We trained our staff on any new transformers and new equipment that were installed. We also applied and were awarded a $461,000 security grant. which was extremely helpful. We increased our cleaning protocols. I mentioned about the backpacks for large spraying areas like our bathrooms and our hallways and large classrooms. The Liberty Fields, Mr. Ostroff was able to get water there, which was amazing. And the gym floor, again, in this building was completely restored. It's beautiful after being the original floor.

027A finance and transportation goal this year was to identify and implement revenue generating endeavors for the district and address transportation personnel shortages. These were some of the goals in that area, some of the objectives to implement full transition to two locations for transportation. Continue to recruit bus drivers and mechanics. Review and apply for the electric bus grant and garbage truck. Continue a multi-year implementation of our archival system of records and research feasibility of reducing courtesy busing routes for the 21-22 school year. So when we look at the progress made for this goal, I would say almost all of the goals were completed here. You can see we did apply for that grant and we were awarded two electric garbage trucks with a cost of $1.2 million of savings for us for those garbage trucks, which

028was fantastic. We completed the full transition to the two transportation sites. We have used lots of district advertising to recruit bus drivers, mechanics, and substitutes. Signs have been posted around our buildings, outside our buildings. We used our email blast out to families to recruit for these positions. And our drivers actually created a video also trying to recruit and share all the wonderful things about being a bus driver. Nevertheless, we still have our struggling, and not just here in Jackson. Ocean County and New Jersey are all struggling. to get bus drivers. We will continue to advocate and work hard to recruit in those areas. The last bullet you will see there, the last checkmark, the review of courtesy bus routes was paused. It was paused due to the focus on other areas like our pandemic and

029other pressing needs that were occurring in transportation. So I'll explain a little bit more about that in the next couple of slides. Homeschool connection is a goal for us obviously continued efforts always for transparency and openness with our board our public our parents This year specifically I've been in the district six years and I know that we communicated more than ever this year out of necessity and making sure everybody felt safe and comfortable and knew what the plans were so we have a we had a creation of a website a page on our website that housed all of our reopening, all of our communications. We provided monthly updates via voiceover slides to our community and to the board and anything else that was related to the pandemic. We made sure we communicated and that was

030one of the goals. Another one of the goals was to address any accessibility needs for our website so anybody with any disabilities can access that. And we continually try to improve the accessibility on the website. That was one of the goals. And also, obviously, to increase our publication of any student achievements and extracurriculars. and continually strengthen our website is always part of our goals. You'll see here some of the things I just mentioned that demonstrate the completion of those goals. Lots of communication this year, COVID notifications as well. The dashboard, we were one of the first districts to create a dashboard that communicated the positive cases in our schools on a daily basis. A large focus on obviously the health and safety was communicated and we did use an automatic tag piece now that which

031helps address the accessibility on our website for people who need that accessibility to view our website and hear our website or see our website. And then we also created this year feeds and links for parents to see sporting events if they weren't able to attend. We did that at the middle school and the high school, live streamed graduations and moving up ceremonies and many, many other events. The videos you saw walking in today to the board meeting, all of those were created for transparency purposes and to inform people and to celebrate our students and our staff and the things that they've done. So it was a lofty, lofty goal list, in my opinion, for a year during the pandemic, but we were able to accomplish a lot of things due to the wonderful staff here

032in the district. Moving on next, you have the board goals that were set this past summer. The first board goal was to monitor and implement the return to school plans based on the New Jersey Department of Education Road to Recovery. That goal was to approve the restart plan and receive monthly updates from myself. I believe we met that goal and completed that goal. The restart plan was approved by the board in August and then again approved by the State Department of Education. I provided monthly updates not only at the board meetings but also with the voiceover slides to our community every month so that people knew where we were at and those were all posted on our district website. updates, as I mentioned, to the Board of Education every month, and our Restart Recovery webpage

033that housed all of our communications and continues to house all of our communications. The next board goal was the long-range facility plan projects to monitor the ESIP and the solar projects, analyze and prioritize projects, and always, as you see in your board packets, continue to inform you on any enrollment numbers that we have in the district. So this goal is also marked as complete. You received monthly, bi-monthly updates about our ESIP project. You also received monthly updates in your board packet from Mr. Ostroff. Monthly updates that way were provided to the board and the district had to limit capital projects for the 2021 school year based on budget. But you can see there many things were accomplished, replacing the floor, as I mentioned before, rooftop chillers at Crawford, resided some of our modulars, replaced some

034water tanks, and replaced some stairs at Switlik. Goal number three for the board was to research feasibility and reduce courtesy busing routes for the 21-22 school year. You'll see there that some of the objectives were to expand our transportation committee, work with the Jackson Police Department, identify areas of possible cost saving, and report the findings to the board during a public meeting. As you see here, I did not mark this goal complete. It is not complete. It is in progress. We have had to shift, as I mentioned before, our focus due to not only the pandemic, but also to the vacancy of a transportation director been here for us. So we paused this goal. However, we did hold one transportation committee meeting, and we have another one scheduled. I want to explain the importance of

035continuing this goal. The importance for this district to continue this goal is to prove to our State Department, who has told us when Dr. Jenko was here, when we applied for additional funding to help close our gaps with the S2 cuts, that we did not qualify for that additional funding. stabilize it's called stabilization aid to stabilize our budget because we had done a bunch of things but we had not reviewed our courtesy busing routes to see if that would save us money so the purpose of this review I will be honest with you is for that purpose I want to be able to say that we have reviewed it we know if it will save any money and then it will be a decision whether we keep those routes or don't They've been here a

036long time. I don't know that that is a recommendation we will make, but we have to do the review in order to say that we have done it and done our due diligence. So that's the purpose of continuing this goal, and we will continue to move forward in that direction. The board had a goal, its final goal, to review its goals and make sure that progress was being made. So as you can see from this last slide, we did review the goals not only in my communication to you monthly, but also on December 16th, we did a formal presentation to the board to update the progress of these goals. So I believe that goal of the board was also met. So in closing, it has been a year and the ability to find solutions to

037life's challenges is what makes us grow as a person and grow stronger. And these were some lofty goals for us in the midst of a pandemic. And I would like to just say thank you to all the folks behind completing these goals. There's lots of people who work behind the scenes here to complete those goals. And even through a very difficult year, they were able to make progress. So I want to thank them for that. Any questions from the board before I move on? And I want you to be frank and honest, which you are. Can you, speaking for the entire district, making believe that parents are listening and students who graduated are listening, can you say that despite all the challenges, we were able to provide sufficient education, sufficient education, quality education, and that

038it's at the par of what would have been had there not been the COVID restrictions. So I would want you to just say something that I would believe you saying that not to worry, we got it done, but also tell me the hard news also. So I will say by all means we worked very hard last summer to compact our curriculum Which means we take out the big standards the standards that are most important to ensure that a student is prepared in that grade level So we compacted our curriculum We worked with our teachers for three days up front before school opened and as I mentioned earlier the two approaches that we created a hybrid instructional approach and a remote Academy approach really helped move this district forward. I do believe that our students received

039high quality instruction from their teachers this year. Our teachers would say the same. In order to ensure that we do not have any gaps anywhere, we do have assessments that are put in place that we'll be using in the fall. There have always been assessments in place for us to monitor the progress of our students. There will be assessments, and we will address any gaps through those assessments and progress monitoring throughout the school year. So I do believe we provided a very strong program here for our students. And remember, we were in person for hybrid learners from day one. We did not start full remotely and we pivoted to remote very, very seldom in comparison to many other districts around us. Thank you. I think what's important to note, Mr. Acevedo, with that too is

040that the federal government and the state are very clear that no district provided the level of education that they have in the past, which is why Jackson specifically got $8.3 million to come up with solutions specific to learning acceleration and to recovery and to fill those gaps that I think Mrs. Pormilli is speaking about and I think we'll hear later tonight also. Correct? Correct. Thanks. Just give me a minute to get back to my seat. so before I move on and introduce mr. Ratonte I want to sort of just this sort of closes out the year for us as I mentioned about you know the student activities just went over the goals for the year and where we ended up I do want to make sure as I at the last board meeting I thanked

041our administrative team specifically as they were in the audience I want to really really thank my team who works closely with me at the administration building We worked endlessly together. We made many sacrifices to our personal lives and our families to ensure that we were prepared for our students this year and throughout the year and our staff. The collaboration of these folks, the stellar work ethic that they have, I really need to thank them. Their dedication to the Jackson District is amazing. Mr. Bertante, Mr. Bekinski, Jeannie Barber, Michelle Richardson, Allison Irwin. phenomenal team and I couldn't have done it without you so thank you. You need to hear that. Before I move forward, there's two other people I need to thank in closing the school year. I need to thank Ethan Noble and Harry Ferron,

042our JTV digital media teachers, for all they have done. The last 15 months, all these productions you have seen, the live streaming is so amazing and professional. They were able to do all of these things to provide the opportunities for our families to see their children, to have these events. let people see these live stream events that couldn't have been seen without these two gentlemen who are digital media superheroes whose energy level is like nothing I have ever seen. I'd like to know their secret for energy. They were seamless. They have incredible dedication to this district. You see them all the time. Thank you both. Amazing products that you've produced for our families. With that we're going to move forward talking about Where we're going next year the safe return plan is required for every

043school district in New Jersey to upload To the state by tomorrow actually And we're supposed to provide an overview of our plan for next year Mr. Ratante is going to present our overview. Please know that there have been no guidelines provided to our school district yet, so it's going to be need to be revised I just want to put that up there so mr. retentive thank you thank you mr. Pirmilly so tonight we're presenting our safe return to school plan we were notified on May 12th through a broadcast by the Department of Education about the American rescue plan as well as the funding that would come along with the American rescue plan The key focus of this plan and the funding was to help districts safely reopen schools, help them address the impacts of COVID-19,

044and help them sustain the operations within the school. This money was awarded to every school in the country, throughout the country, from the American Rescue Plan. As Mrs. Parmilli mentioned, we were given that notification May 12th. We were told that we needed to submit our plan for reopening on June 24th, and there was zero guidance that has come out as of... as we speak as far as guidance from the Department of Education or the Governor's Office or anything regarding how that needs to look to open. So we've really taken it upon ourselves to kind of do the Jackson way and go forward with how we would like to, what our vision is and how we would like to see the school district open. Obviously as information comes out from the Department of Ed, we may

045need to revisit our plan or tweak things, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Just as a general overview, we did a lot of different methods to get feedback from our community. We had a parent survey where we received over 2,100 responses from our parents regarding reopening school in September. We had a staff survey with over 800 responses. We've had, since our May 12th notification of this, we've had meetings with our district staff, district education group, our D.A.C. committee on the school level. We've had notification from our from our school committees, our skip plans, our staff and faculty meetings. We have met with our administrative groups and everyone really in central office as well. We've had numerous conversations, feedback, meetings to really try and implement what the Jackson community felt was the

046best way to reopen our schools. So what you can see here is what our plan is is to open our schools the way we've always opened our schools minus last year Return to five days of school learning return to full day for all our students Operate normal schedules which mean having having lunch in our schools having breakfast available for the families that need breakfast Masks, as we've done the past several weeks of school with really a lot of effectiveness, will continue to be optional if there are students and staff, as we've seen throughout our graduation ceremonies and some of our award ceremonies and different end of the year activities that do feel masks, they're comfortable with the masks and prefer the masks, they're more than welcome to do so. However, it will be optional as

047a district. Having full day of school brings us to having serving full lunches. Social distancing to the greatest extent possible. Again, it really is dictated by class size, classroom availability, size of classrooms. Those are all the factors that would limit the extent possible, but to the greatest extent possible, we'll continue to social distance. And the last bullet on here, which is... Always a goal in schools and will continue forever to be a goal of schools is to maintain hygiene make sure kids learn how to wash their hands Blow their noses do all the the appropriate hygiene things as well as staff will continue to have wipes Hand sanitizer and things like that that we've been able to receive throughout the year through purchasing and also through some very generous Donations that we've received on that

048level Okay, as I mentioned, obviously we really do need to work in conjunction as we have this year with the Department of Education, the Department of Health, and the Ocean County Health Department. However, the physical and mental health of all of our students and all of our staff are factored into all of our decisions and will continue to do so. The broadcast that the Department of Education put out has a template that needs to be completed The template has a couple different areas and the one area maintaining health and safety They list specific items and how we will address them The first item they talk about is mask wearing which as I said, our goal is to be an optional mask wearing district Social distancing will continue to be done to the maximum extent possible.

049So those are the two first items in the and the template next slide, please These are things that we will continue to do no matter what directives come out from the from executive orders or Department of Health will continue to maintain hand-washing maintain cleanliness maintain Not only cleanliness in our classrooms, but in our buildings I really do need to tip my hat to our maintenance staff our facility staff our custodial staff that really did an amazing job this year of making sure that this was a goal from day one that was was set and really achieved throughout the entire school year the other item is the daily screening procedures and whether or not we will be continuing to do the daily screening procedures or be able to move to a single beginning of the year

050sign off stating that you will follow these procedures for the school year for all of our students staff and parents so that guidance we are waiting to see what we need to do at this point our choice and our preference is to not make it a daily requirement but again that's another area where we will need to look at some specific directives or guidelines on what we follow there The final two items in the health and safety component of the template deal with vaccination opportunities. We have had over half a dozen opportunities that we've provided to our staff and our students, students when they became eligible, of notifying them. We've had some partnerships with some local organizations that we've made available and made sure we notified our staff and communities. These have all been notifications.

051I've been asked this question a couple times. These have not been requirements or mandates. It has been notifications. We will continue to provide notifications. We're in the works right now with the Ocean County Department of Health for another opportunity that would be not only for our community but also for our students. And we're working with our ELL department to see if we can coordinate having some of our teachers at some of these events as well to provide more information for some of our ELL families at some of these vaccination sites. The final item in the health and safety deals with appropriate accommodations for children with disabilities. Since day one of this school year, we've had our self-contained, most needy special education students in school every single day. They've been there. They've been our commitment since

052day one, recognizing the priority of making these students get schedules, routines, and as much education as possible as far as opportunities for them. And we will... We will continue to make them absolutely at the forefront of our decision-making process and making sure that we get those students all the services that they need and absolutely deserve. The next section in the template talks about ensuring continuity of services. So there's a couple different things that we were able to do with the funding for the summer. So we do have credit recovery courses for a lot of our middle school and high school students that may not have done as well as they would have liked during the school year and some courses. So they'll have opportunities to maintain credit and complete their courses over the summer. We'll

053be providing summer enrichment courses for all levels from grades K through 12. We're going to continue to have all of our wonderful programs that we... maintain every summer from our extended school year program to our jumpstart program to our SLP program to provide many many students opportunities to continue learning and working throughout the summer months. We'll have a middle school program this summer to help a lot of our accelerated learners in math make sure that they can reach their full potential with next year's courses. We will, going into next school year, we plan on having programs. This was something that really came out very strong from our parent survey. Continue to have programs after school for students, not only in the areas of math or in literacy, but really in enrichment, in the areas of

054STEM, in the area of robotics, in some activities. Fun things will take place for the students that we'll be offering for our students for the upcoming school year. And we're really going to support our teachers as well with professional development. We have some activities planned for the summer and we'll have a lot of activities planned when our student when our staff all return as well in September to not only provide professional development for the staff But really support them and helping transition our students back to school We have many we have many remote students that opted and chose to remain remote for the entire school year Obviously, they were full remote, you know last spring as well So we'll be opening the door in September to students that may not have set foot in one

055of our schools for over a year And a half we're anticipating that to be something that we're very concerned about We want to make sure that we address all those kids through orientations throughout the summer when they come back to school and really welcoming those kids and making them feel comfortable and giving them whatever support we can to help them transition back to our school system in September and The final thing up there is we will continue. It was a bit The timing worked out very well with our initiative to have one-to-one Chromebooks. It worked out very well that our students had them for the entire school year, and that is an initiative that we will continue into next year where all of our students will have a Chromebook assigned to them for the entire

056school year and be able to use it not just in school, but at home for homework, study, research, whatever else they need to. The last component of the... Template is our social, emotional, and mental health. As I kind of just alluded to a little bit, this is something that's going to be at the forefront of our planning for reopening schools in September. Obviously, the academic support is crucial, but also so is the social and emotional and mental health of all our staff and our students. We'll be providing some parent workshops throughout the year. That was on our survey results. That was, I think, the second highest item that was scored by our parents of looking for some different workshops that we'll provide for parents. We'll be expanding some programs to kind of help children meet

057those needs throughout the schools. And we also have a very exciting high school common lunch period that Mr. Baginski will share with us shortly. So in closing, I just want to commend all of our students and our staff. And all of us, all the community and parents, this was obviously an extremely challenging year. I have to say we are excited for September. I think these last three or four weeks of the school year really kind of gave us all a kind of a rejuvenation a little bit and a taste of what school was supposed to look like in case we forgot. So there's just a tremendous rejuvenation that we all have and an excitement that I saw amongst really the staff. Being in the buildings for these last couple weeks of school, being at the

058graduations, the moving up ceremonies, the academic award ceremonies. You just saw a really a new life in a lot of people and I think it was so welcome to see and I really just think we are all very excited to get to, not that we're not going to enjoy the summer, but we're very excited to get to September and see all the new opportunities that the next upcoming school year will bring for us. I just want to also, I know Mrs. Parmilli thanked the team, but I'd just like to thank her as well. This has been an extremely challenging school year for a lot of people. I can't even imagine jumping in to being a new superintendent and taking on the task of having to do what we've done every single day for the entire

059school year. And she's been a rock for us throughout the entire school year. She's been professional, hardworking, maintained good ethics, always made sure the kids were at the forefront of every decision. And I just commend her and I just want to thank you for being part of your team for the school year because it was definitely a challenging one for all of us and I couldn't imagine doing it under anyone else's leadership but yours. So thank you, Mr. Pramili, for that. This plan that we have up here will be posted on our district website. It's part of the compliance with the American Rescue Plan. As we mentioned, if changes and updates come out throughout the summer, obviously we will make them and notify the parents as we've notified you throughout the school year of all

060of our upcoming changes and whatnot. And that information will be, like I said, available on the website moving forward. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Ratante. Does the board have any questions about the presentation? Could I ask a question? Yes. We have evidence, sufficient evidence, to say that we are a good school district. However, it is for us to believe that good is not good enough. And good enough is not good enough. That we have to challenge ourselves and that we can, when September begins, we can't treat it as a remedial year, but as a full-fledged, all-hog. We're going to learn. We're going to teach. We're going to do it. We're going to win. Now, clearly, one quick statement for anyone who might be listening far away. When kids get COVID, okay, they may

061not die, but it affects their lungs. And there's no athlete in this world who is not affected by lung capacity. So we have to make sure that our kids are healthy. So if we kept them away, it was for good cause. Now, one thing is, not only do we want the students to feel welcome here, but we want the parents to feel welcome here. And I suggest that we make more regular ELL parent meetings to let them know that all this information is theirs to have. Maybe it's too much at one time, but we can... Hand it out, portion it out in such a way that our ELL parents will get it and they participate more. Because if we want to avoid problems in the future, we want to avoid problems in the future, we

062must remember those who are not plugged into our district. If they're not plugged in because they don't like the district, that's personal. But if they are not plugged in because we didn't make it easier for them to be plugged in, it's our fault. And I hope that we make an effort for those parents who are not familiar with American schools or the fact that our schools are really theirs, that we make them know that these are their schools. The parents own the schools. The students own the schools. We run them for them. And I'm just saying that as a reminder that our goal should be to excel and to continue excelling. and not to forget those who we leave behind because we were excellent. Thank you. Yeah, we do have ELL family nights planned for

063the school year. We will continue to do them on a variety of topics throughout the school year for academics, for social, emotional, everything else. And don't insult them by, you know, poor Martin Luther King and poor Cinco de Mayo and all that stuff. You know, there's a lot of stuff. that we can teach that has nothing to do with Cinco de Mayo and Martin Luther King and Jackie Robinson. There is sufficient information that enhances all of us, no matter what we look like, no matter who we are. We have to seek that information and share it. If we want peace in the school, if we want appreciation of the schools, we have got to make people belong to the school. And that's just cheerleading for the district. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you, Gus. Any other

064questions before we conclude this presentation? Have we solved all of our electronic connectedness with all the students, or do we still have some problems? We really did resolve a lot of them. All of our students were given a Chromebook that would connect to Wi-Fi in their homes. Any students that had issues with not having Wi-Fi were given a Kajeet. It was a special kind of Chromebook that allowed them to get Wi-Fi from their homes. Obviously with all technology there's going to be little bumps and bruises along the way, but you know we were able to make sure all of those kids had working Wi-Fi Chromebooks really from the very beginning of the school year throughout. As things happen during the year as we all know with technology things stop working things break. We were able

065to we had a system where they would come in bring bring in the non working Chromebook and get a loaner. to use until we were able to fix the one that was school issued. So for the most part, really, we were able to stay on top of it throughout the entire school year. We learned a lot. It was our first year of doing one to one and doing one to one in a pandemic made it even more challenging. But we learned a lot and we have we already have plans in place to make it even better next school year. Thank you, Mr. Ratante. We're going to move on now to the high school schedule updates by Mr. Baginski. So I just want to begin by echoing the sentiments of Ms. Rotante with regard to Ms.

066Primilli. Her leadership throughout the pandemic has been stellar and something that we've all leaned hard on. I also want to say that it is a pleasure to put the past year behind us and to look forward to next school year. And I think that the high school comment period is a great example of what to be excited about. It's my pleasure to inform the board about this exciting change, which really began three years ago with a broad-based committee that was formulated by Superintendent Permilli when she was the assistant superintendent that included teachers and administrators, including the teacher union leadership. And so that group worked together and did an extensive amount of research and visited various high schools who were employing a different schedule. that included a common lunch period. So they went out and visited

067those schools. They also, that committee, surveyed our staff about some possible changes. And they made a formal recommendation during the 2019-2020 school year. So that process led us to... making some contractual changes with the JEA to make sure that this was going to be a feasible possible thing for our school district to do and for the past year we have been doing the logistical planning to turn that vision into a reality and I just want to acknowledge the facilities department the food service department the security department and our building administration at both high schools under the leadership of Kevin DiEugenio and Jeff Brignola who really led the charge with that logistical planning to turn this into a reality And we are at the point now, we are communicating this plan to all of our stakeholders

068and specifically to the Board of Education tonight. So as we looked at the common period and what it could offer our students, it really focuses on increasing opportunities for students to thrive in school. And when we say thrive, we mean be able to make connections, to be able to get involved in things that they may not have been able to get involved in. and those things were exclusively offered after school. Also availing themselves of extra assistance, whether it be through teacher extra help or enrichment opportunities, or to participate in a co-curricular activity that maybe they just couldn't stay for because of transportation issues. So there's a whole host of opportunities that are great reasons for why we did this, and I'm going to talk to you a little bit about some of the logistics of

069the schedule. So this involved a reallocation of time. So one of the things that was important for us in this planning was to make sure that it fit within the same time period of arrival and dismissal from school for students. So you're looking at the proposed regular day schedule for next school year for the high schools. We kept intact the homeroom period because we felt that that was an important part of the day for both high schools in terms of announcements, in terms of attendance taking. We also built in a common period right there in the center of the day, which is an hour long, and we did that by reallocating some time during each of the periods, one, two, three, and four. The instructional time periods are slightly less than they were in the

070past. They used to be 80 minutes. They are now going to be 76 minutes. We also shaved some time from period five. Period five was that after school time period, so students could avail themselves of extra help from teachers. And we were able to preserve the passing time, which was essential for our large high schools, the passing time between period one and period two and period three and period four. This provided us with the opportunity to create this space in the middle of the school day so that we no longer have a disrupted instructional period like we used to have with third period and to have a dedicated time where the entire high school would be engaged in a variety of different activities that I'm about to tell you about. So obviously during that time

071period students have to have the opportunity to eat lunch. So the school lunch, the students will be able to buy lunch and eat lunch at any time during that one hour common period. Lunch will be available for purchase throughout the entire duration of the period in the cafeteria and at several kiosks located in the school. The food service department has already worked to make sure that that's going to be as flexible. as possible to meet the demand of students during that time period. Obviously, students can eat their lunch in the cafeteria as they have done in the past, but there also is going to be certain identified areas within the high school where they'll also be able to eat, which is a big change. Students will be responsible for disposing their own garbage after eating

072and leaving the space the same way they found it. One of the hallmarks of this whole endeavor is to promote student responsibility. options and opportunities like this comes responsibility and the students are not are not opposed to having to be responsible for their own actions and making sure that they're taking care of their own garbage and following the rules. Obviously there'll be places in the school where eating will be prohibited to preserve the integrity of the space but I'll talk to you a little bit about what those areas will be like in the high school. As far as extra help, so moving that fifth period to the middle of the day really is going to make a great opportunity for students to seek extra help from their teachers. Extra help will be available from their

073teachers three days a week for half of the common period. Teachers will establish the schedule and the location of where they're going to provide that extra help. Most typically it would be in their classroom. Teachers will also be available for some drop-in assistance. impromptu opportunities for extra help from students and students have to know that they may have to adjust when they eat their lunch in order to see the teacher when they're available because obviously half the common period the teachers available for assistance and half the time period it's going to be the teachers lunch So this is just a sample teacher schedule during the common period and there won't be any bells or anything else. There won't be a distinction between an A lunch and a B lunch, but you'll see that teachers contractually

074will be given a lunch that will be equal to 30 minutes and the other half will be available for extra help or supervising a study period. So it'll be really important that the students abide by the time limits set forth by the teacher. So the supervised study areas is a really a great opportunity for students to engage in things that they know that they want to get done whether it be studying on their own working in small groups with other students to study and so we've designated two kinds of supervised study areas for next school year at the high school. quiet areas and social areas. Quiet areas are places where students can know that they can go and be working and noise and distractions will be kept to a minimum. And then there will also

075be social supervised study areas where students can go in small groups and so polite social interaction will be permitted. Obviously, we know that students, as Mr. Rotante, are coming back from a 16-month time period where school looked very different. Creating these connections between students and between students and teachers is really a great reason why this is coming at a real opportune time. So those supervised study areas will include lecture halls, media centers, auditoriums, the gymnasiums, and the grand hallways and the large spaces at both high schools. So some additional supports that will be available during the entire common period. We're really taking an all hands on deck approach where guidance counselors, CST members, school nurses, media specialists, and paraprofessionals would all be available and on duty during that one hour common period. They would be

076scheduling their own personal lunch outside of that common period so that they're available for the entire time period. So this will help us meet the needs of students. also help build connections between these staff members and to support their students in the best way they possibly can. So I mentioned before about increased opportunities for co-curricular activities. We're still going to have our our co-curricular activities function, our clubs in the same capacity that they do, but this will be an additional opportunity for those clubs and co-curriculars to also supplement what they do by meeting or possibly having the meeting during the common period. And so that would be an opportunity to build on what is already a proud tradition here in Jackson of clubs and volunteer clubs and athletics and also again building the connection between

077students and staff members and providing those opportunities for students to do that. So non-certified staff also will be fully engaged during the common period. This includes the school law enforcement officers, custodians, lunchroom aides, and secretaries. As I mentioned before, all hands on deck to support students and to support everyone who's working during that common lunch period. Obviously, the health and safety and security of our students during this time period when we're giving them more opportunities and we're giving them more responsibility. These people are really helpful for us to make sure that they're following through on their end of the bargain. So in closing, these opportunities for students to thrive in school are created by the work that our committee has done over the last three years. It's a reallocation of time. There are going to

078be some bumps in the roads, especially in the first week of school, the first two weeks of school, when students get used to what they're doing. We certainly don't want all the students rushing to the cafeteria to eat at the same time. So there's going to be some adjustment from the student perspective, also from the teacher perspective. But I have no doubt that it is going to be something for the entire school district to look forward to as we look into a new school year. So at this time, is there any questions from the board? Yes, Mr. Spalter. Will the students have four classes per semester or will it be because I know some other high school districts that have done this successfully and but they rotate like which classes how will how does it

079work because my kids are just going. So the teacher availability during the extra for the extra help time is large is going to be driven by when the teacher prep time is. So if a teacher has a professional period during period three or four they would be available during the first half of the common lunch. and if a teacher professional period is period one or two they'll be available during the second half i think i miss miss community yeah they're still gonna they will still have their four classes there's no okay so at the high school it's four classes per semester you know okay because i know some do it where they have like six classes and they have four today and then two the next day and then two yeah yeah we'll still be

080on our block schedule okay very good thank you mr b i was talking about good enough it's not good enough This part of your presentation of our presentation is brilliant Brilliant. This is where we can find you could stop right there This is where we can find our peak I mean, this is where kids can actually join clubs. I know I can predict what's going to happen in the first few weeks because I've gone through something called the flex period. Kids won't know what to do. They'll hang around, but eventually they'll find their compass, their compass point. And I'm telling you, this period, if used creatively, aggressively, proactively, is going to be what will make the school different. will make the school different. If we just use it as time to do things, no. It

081is a very, very, it's a brilliant thing to do. I hope it's a great success for all of us. Whoever thought of it, brilliant. You and... Well, I will say, I am the messenger tonight. This work was begun by our superintendent when she was the assistant superintendent and a whole host of teachers. If we keep doing things like that, she'll get praised again. This is wonderful. And you too. As far as the campus is concerned, it's still a closed campus. Students cannot leave. I didn't make it part of the presentation, but there are no-go areas that students would not be permitted to and being outside in the parking lot that would not be permitted. One other question. When you have these... common areas who are going to supervise them if the teachers are in the

082classroom yeah so that's why i said in that sample teacher schedule teachers will be responsible to be three days a week in their own instructional space to be available for extra help the other two days they will be assigned to a supervised study area to provide that supervision very good yeah okay thank you Thank you, Mr. Baginski. I agree. Definitely something exciting to look forward to in the fall. Ms. Rivera, that concludes the superintendent's report for tonight. Thank you, Mrs. Promelli. I need a motion to open public forum on the Jackson Safe return plan only. We will hold another public forum during this meeting for other questions. This public forum will be for questions on the Jackson Safe return plan only. Motion to open forum. Second. Please sign in and state your name and whether

083or not you are a Jackson resident. Each person is allowed a maximum of five minutes to speak. No person may speak more than once on a topic until all others have been heard. Seeing and hearing no one approach the microphone. Oh. Oh. She blocked your view. And you can come right here. Hello. Erica Osmond, Jackson resident. So I just had a quick question for you. I wrote it down as you were talking so that I wouldn't forget it. So you said that they're moving from 80 minutes to 76 minutes to save yourself some time and that they'll have 60 minutes, which I like this idea of teaching students to be proactive. But teaching students to be proactive only works for a certain type of student. So I have three children and two of mine. will

084love this and they will go for extra help and they will join clubs and then the other one's going to eat lunch for 60 minutes and so he's going to be losing time that he needs more than the other two. So is this going to be a required you cannot have a 60 minute lunch if your if your grades are under a certain average can the teachers tell them that they have to stay there because this is just vacation for the student who is not all gonna ho about going to school yes I can I can help you dr. Osman with that that question so We're aware of that and part of this is that teaching that we want to do at the high school level so that they begin to use and better understand,

085and I know I'm preaching to the choir here, how to manage their time so when they get to college they are better prepared for that. We know it's very difficult for a lot of freshmen who enter college who haven't had those responsibilities and independence. So part of the reason for having our guidance counselors available, our CST available, all those types of support staff available. during lunch is also for a guidance counselor to say, you know, I noticed you're not really using your time wisely. You know, some of your grades might be falling. I'd like to see you attend, you know, so-and-so teacher's study session. Or I'd like to see you please, you know, reach out to your teacher and schedule a time. So it's going to be those kinds of supports and guidance that we

086want to be able to teach our students. through this process. And that's our ultimate goal is to create that responsibility and independence that they take ownership for their learning. Unfortunately, that's still not required time. So just a suggestion to put it out there just because I have a challenging one who will see this as vacation and will I could assure you my lunch bill is going to be very high with three kids and 60 minutes of lunch. But You know, if you're GPA or a certain class, you're below a certain grade, you know, whatever numerical number you want to come at, it should be required that they go and get some extra help because no matter how much you encourage certain students. Especially at that age, you know, they're not going to be like, oh

087my guidance counselor isn't yeah. Yeah, and I'm sure Once we go through those levels of trying to teach first We would probably get to a point where it's not a choice anymore. You need to go to this session Okay, and then my other question, I just wrote it down real quick while you were speaking. So in past meetings, due to budgets, we were told that classroom sizes were most likely going to increase. And then today in your presentation, you stated that we're still going to try to social distance as much as we can. So I only know, you know, you guys know what higher ed and our best practices is keep classrooms smaller so that. We can social distance in case something does come up. We don't spread it across the whole classroom. So with

088larger class sizes, what is the proposal for how you're going to try your best? I mean, there's no great answer for it, but the proposal to try to make it where kids aren't right on top of each other. Right. So as I mentioned earlier, my superintendent's report, some of the ARP money will be used to reduce class sizes for that purpose. So we're looking currently at our highest class sizes that are projected right now and hopeful to be able to hire some additional teachers with that funding to help with those larger classes. Okay. And do you know what your caps will ultimately be in each class? Not at the moment. We don't know specific caps, but certainly we wouldn't want to see classrooms higher than 25, especially at the elementary level. And dependent, as Mr.

089Ratante said, on the size of the classroom as well that we're using. Okay, thanks. You're very welcome. Question along the same lines. Can the teachers use it as detention? Can they kind of force the kids in there? So great question. One of the things that we piloted in our high schools prior to the pandemic was a lunch detention versus an after-school detention. And what we discovered is that it was much more effective because it's a social privilege that's being taken away based on the behavior. So we will be moving in that direction as well during the common lunch. Hi, Maria Froyo. I'm a Jackson resident. I had a question about something that you mentioned about this new lunch program and the common period in reference to staff. and that it was going to be all

090hands on deck to try to manage now all of these students having lunch basically at the same time in different areas of the school. So one of my concerns with that is who exactly is going to be watching the children? in all these different areas. Normally, when you have a cafeteria, you have one teacher who is either certified or a substitute who is a certified substitute who is legally allowed to supervise the children. So who exactly is going to be supervising the children? And are there going to be times when there are non-accredited adults who are not certified teachers watching the children. For example, are there going to be secretaries that might be enlisted to supervise the children or other staff members that are going to be utilized at this time? So as Mr. Baginski

091presented, we will have teachers in our supervised study areas. There are certain areas in which the students will be permitted to go, and then there will be certain areas that students are not permitted to go. Where students will be attending, there will be supervision in all of those areas. our teacher schedule again is a three day in your classroom to support student learning the other two days is a supervised period study area for where the students are in our cafeterias we also have security we still have our lunchroom assistants we have our assistant principals all of which will be out in our buildings overseeing the safety areas for all of our students is there going to be a certified professional, a teacher who's certified at each of these locations is my specific question. Will there

092always be someone that's certified in every area and not just someone who is a staff member? And you're able to do that. As Mr. Baginski shared in the presentation, we made contractual changes to allow that to happen. What kind of, what do you mean by contractual changes? So a teacher, sure, a teacher is bound by a contract, we're bound by a teacher's contract, and how many student contact hours they have, how many prep times, and how many duties they have. So we added additional duties. coverage periods into the contract to allow that we now have teachers available to cover those classes and study periods. Will there be times when there's paraprofessionals that might be asked to supervise a group of students? Yes, there could possibly be paras in the room with the teachers. Yes. Okay.

093I'm just asking because normally student teachers are not allowed to be alone with students. Paraprofessionals are not allowed to be, you know, supervising the students alone. So that's my question. Sure. Yep. we've covered all those areas thank you you're welcome saying no one else coming forward i need a motion to close public forum i shall move did you make them all in favor public yes all in favor all right standing committee reports state and county school board representative the next meeting is july 29th and we're going to go over um the next school year's um dates parent group liaison mr. Burnett ski we are not gonna meet now until October special education mr. Herman next meeting is October scholarship mr. Walsh okay the presentation was June 2nd we will reorganize probably next October or November

094for next year buildings and grounds mr. sergeant I have nothing report on buildings and grounds at this time budget and finance mr. Walsh That's an ongoing process. We'll see what happens with S2 over the summertime and see what this money from the federal government does for us. But right now there's not much going on as far as budget's concerned. Transportation, Mr. Walsh, Mr. Herman, and Mr. Spalthoff. We have a meeting next week. We will discuss more of what the superintendent showed us today. Negotiations, Mr. Sargent. Yeah, JTA. In spite of the representative at the meeting, very spirited negotiations, and I believe we've come to an agreement. Thank you. I need a motion for approval of the minutes of the closed session meeting May 19, 2021, and the official board meeting May 19, 2021, Committee of

095the Whole. Is this meeting? Motion. Second. Discussion? Roll call. Mr. Spalto? Yes. Mr. Herman? Yes. Mr. Acevedo? Yes. Mr. Brunetsky? Yes. Mr. Sargent? Yes. Mr. Walsh? Yes. Mrs. Rivera? Yes. I need a motion for approval of the bill list. Motion to approve bill list. Second. Discussion? Roll call. Mr. Spaltop? Yes. Mr. Herman? Abstain from check number 201-183, yes to the rest. Mr. Acevedo? Yes. Mr. Brunetsky? Yes. Mr. Sargent? Yes. Mr. Walsh? Yes. Mrs. Rivera? Yes. I need a motion for approval of the Treasurer's and Board Secretary's report. Move the Treasurer's. Second. Discussion? Roll call. Mr. Spalta? Yes. Mr. Herman? Yes. Mr. Acevedo? Yes. Mr. Brunetsky? Yes. Mr. Sargent? Yes. Mr. Walsh? Yes. this is Rivera yes an emotion to open public forum on agenda items only we will hold another public forum during this meeting

096for other questions the middle of the forum will be for questions on the agenda only second please sign in and state your name and whether or not you're a Jackson resident each person is allowed a maximum of five minutes to speak no person may speak more than once on a topic until all others have been heard Seeing no one come forward, I need a motion to close public forum. Motion. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? I need a motion to move finance. Motion. Second. Discussion? I'd like to amend finance number 27 to delete Pickwick Well Drilling as they are not able to complete the job and add AWT Environmental Service. for a cost of $4,410 for a total cost of $45,530. Roll call. Mr. Spoltoff? Yes. Mr. Herman? Yes. Mr. Acevedo? Yes. Mr. Brunetsky? Yes.

097Mr. Sargent? Yes. Mr. Walsh? Yes. Mrs. Rivera? Yes. I need a motion to move facilities. motion second discussion roll call mr. spaltop yes mr. Herman yes mr. Acevedo yes mr. Burnett yes mr. Sargent yes mr. Walsh yes this is Rivera yes I need a motion to move programs motion second discussion roll call mr. Spalta yes mr. Herman yes mr. Acevedo yes mr. Burnett yes mr. sergeant yes mr. Walsh yes this is Rivera yes I need a motion to move students motion move students second discussion in number five translators $100 per hour is that How long is a translator, are they there for the whole day for a student? I'm trying to find where you are. You're on number five of students? Number five of students. On a regular agenda? Oh, that's the part. Yeah, that's,

098yes, that's different. Do you want to describe a little bit about the court services, Dr. Taylor? That is for hearing impaired students where they're actually transcribing like a court stenographer. So it's not standard translation. It's not the only service we utilize. We also use web-based. So it's an available service. We had no students utilize it this year. It's more approved as a just-in-case. Roll call. Spalta? Abstain from number 33, yes to everything else. Mr. Herman? Yes. Mr. Acevedo? Yes. Mr. Brunetsky? Yes. Mr. Sargent? Yes. Mr. Warren? Yes. Mrs. Rivera? Yes. I need a motion to move personnel. Motion. Second. Discussion? Yes. On number 20. Pleasure. Letters B and D. I'm not questioning the personnel. I'm just wondering, with all the cuts that we've had, these are necessary positions? I just want to clarify, number 20,

099B and D, correct? Yeah. Yes, absolutely. We need to have a school nurse in every one of our buildings, especially when we don't know what we're going to be facing in regards to guidelines. I'm sorry, did you say you needed an extra nurse? No, I said we need a school nurse. Okay. That's replacing a school nurse that's currently leaving. Okay, so it's a replacement. The same with Dee is replacing a teacher who's leaving who teaches Spanish. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Roll call. Mr. Spalto? Yes. Mr. Herman? Yes. Mr. Acevedo? Yes. Mr. Brunetsky? Abstain on anything transportation related, yes to everything else. Mr. Sargent? Abstain from number 39, letter UU, yes to everything else. Mr. Walsh? Abstain from number 12 and number 44, yes to everything else. Mrs. Rivera? Yes. I need a motion to

100a public forum on any topics pertaining to the Board of Education. Motion of second. Please sign in and state your name and whether or not you are a Jackson resident. Each person is allowed a maximum of five minutes to speak, and no person may speak more than once on a topic until all others have been heard. Hi, my name is Maria Froyo. I have a question about something you mentioned, Mrs. Pormelli, about the curriculum. and you mentioned diversity and you mentioned equity. And that is very concerning to me because I live my life as a very diverse individual and I teach that in my home. I don't believe in equity because equity means equal outcomes. And I don't believe in equal outcomes. I do believe in equal opportunities. And I think we have that. So

101are these words just happy talk for critical race theory? Is that part of the new curriculum? And how can... How can parents find out more about what this diversity is? In my daughter's case, she's in a lot of AP STEM classes, and I have not seen any of that literature at all in any of her academic classes or in any of the literature that she's been reading. It's a good question. I know it's a hot topic right now. I'll be clear, there's no critical race theory being taught in Jackson School District. The equity, diversity initiative that we have in the district goes back several years. It goes to in our responsive classroom approach in which we have morning meetings, advisory periods, and throughout our curriculum, we celebrate. cultures we acknowledge all cultures and we ensure

102that we have equal opportunities for students that is the initiative that's in place so it was an audit to make sure that we have programs in place that give everybody opportunities so here's a prime example I know I've been asked before around this initiative does that mean we're changing criteria into some of our advanced Placement courses. No, that's not what it means. What it means is are we doing a good job and ensuring all of our students know and believe that with the right education they could take an AP class. So it's making sure our programs are supporting students in order to prepare them to take advanced work if they'd so like and making sure we're encouraging all students to do that. And again, as I said before, making sure that equity is available for

103everybody and that we all appreciate each other. There's that word again, that equity. And that is just a very concerning word because equity, it doesn't mean equal opportunity. That normally means you want an equal outcome. I don't want an equal outcome. You're misinterpreting the word. So here's a more specific question then. If I wanted to find out more about the curriculum that's being taught. How can I find out? Who do I ask? Would that be Mrs. Licitra's office? I can ask her? Absolutely. More about some of the literature and things like that. Because like I said, I haven't seen that in my daughter's AP classes, but I don't have children in elementary school, so I really wouldn't know otherwise. And it's, again, it is an initiative that is... integrated into all things that we do

104it's not a specific curriculum and that's what we audited for. We are not looking for a specific curriculum. We're looking for exposure to ensure that all students feel appreciated and accepted in our studies. So yes, Ms. Licitra is the person to speak with. I know you've spoken with her before. Our curriculum is available online, but any more specifics, definitely talk to Ms. Licitra. I just want to clarify the equity piece again. So here's an example maybe that will help. So when we do our progress monitoring and we notice that a student is struggling, we want to ensure that we are providing the right supports for that child. So we want to make sure that that child has access to supports. That's what we're looking for when we do an audit. Are we supporting all of

105our students based on their academic and social-emotional needs? So when we do an audit, we look to make sure we've got programs available to help support students who are in need. So that's what we speak about when we talk about equity. Okay. I did have another question for Mr. Acevedo, if I may. Are you a medical doctor? No, I'm under medical supervision because I'm getting a cobalt bladder operation, but I wouldn't I was just wondering if you were a medical doctor I'm not that familiar with you. So I just wanted to know if you were a medical doctor I never saw the you know dr in front of your name. So I wanted to ask So that's no you're not a medical doctor. Thank you very much. But could I could I answer I'm gonna

106make a comment about equity My daughter was student council president and honor society, national honor society when she was here. My son was a regular guy, normal child until a car hit him when he was 10 years old. At no time did I feel that my son and my daughter, who are students here, ever not received an equal opportunity from a fair, flat playing ground, the same equal opportunity. Equity is a frightening term when it becomes political. Racial commentaries become political. We've got to keep politics out of here. People's opinions are opinions. Okay, my opinion is worthless. His opinion is worthless. His opinion is worthless. Only informed facts matter. This school district uses the word equity according to the educational requirements that we provide an equal opportunity to all. And just because you're an AP

107student, I taught AP students, and I taught at Rutgers, and I taught at the University of Southern California. It doesn't mean diddly if you think you're better because you're not better. You're not better and you're not worse. You're equal. Enough said. Seeing no one else come forward, I need a motion to close the second public forum. Second. Motion to close. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, now we need to go back to executive session. I need a motion to go back into executive. Is that what you want? okay we're gonna do board comments um mr spoltoff um i just wanted to again thank everybody in the district for wrapping up this school year um it is i think probably the quickest longest year of our lives um anybody that's been involved in a

108school system um and i want to congratulate mr bruno on uh don't leave mr bruno on his uh we passed that right yes mr. Bruno on taking over for mr. Ostroff so big shoes to fill look forward to you in that role congratulations mr. sergeant first I'd like to congratulate once again all the graduates of Jackson School District it was a beautiful day to celebrate and so once again congratulations I'd also like to say that Door negotiations we had the NCS They were very spirited group and we settled with him as well Teamsters, I believe there's one group that's holding out That's all I can say about that But other than that everyone, please have a good night Mr. Herman really want to thank our superintendent superintendent when people were here a whole year asking

109get the masks off the kids and obviously legally we were required to however one tweet by the governor a few hours later Jackson was one of the few districts in the state of New Jersey to completely not require masks and I appreciate it the graduation was a great event we didn't see masks we didn't feel COVID and I thank you. Mr. Acevedo. I would like to come Compliment Mr. Bruno for his promotion and for his predecessor who guided him to this leadership position. Because of such employees, we are a successful school district, but we must keep getting better. Mr. Brunetsky. I too would like to congratulate all the graduates and the fact that it was a normal graduation this year. as normal as it could be after this year. It's nice to see no masks

110on anybody. I want to thank the staff for tonight's presentations as well. Everybody have a great summer, and we'll see you next month. Mr. Walsh. Welcome aboard, Mr. Bruno. But before you leave, Mr. Ostroff, I have a question for you I didn't get a chance to ask you before. How's the sinkhole? Which one? Okay. And my other question for you was FEMA. What's the progress with the FEMA application? None? It's not working, huh? Summarily denied. Okay. Okay. That's what I was afraid of. Federal government's good for doing that. I'd like to give kudos to the superintendent and her administration. I really, the reinforcement, the enrichment, the STEM programs, everything that you got set up for the program or for the summer programs is what we need to keep the kids going, catch them up for

111those who need to catch up and make them excited about next year when we're open normal again. Okay, I'd like to thank all the graduates and good luck in the future. hopefully someday you come back and either join this board or be a teacher good night I want to thank everyone for coming their presentations congratulations to all the graduates and the moving up ceremonies congratulations to mr. Bruno and everyone have a great and safe night I need a motion I need a motion to go into executive session. Motion to adjourn to executive session. Second. Yeah, we're going into executive session for matters on personnel, negotiations, student matters, and matters of attorney-client privilege. It is expected we will need 30 minutes. No actions will be taken when we conclude. Other than that, to adjourn the meeting.

112All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We're in closed session.