001[Music] all right good evening everyone we're going to call to order at 6 31 with a reading of the new public meetings law which was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which time any business affecting their interest is discussed and acted on in accordance with the provisions of this act board of education policy 0162 the board of education of the borough of bound brook has caused notice of this meeting to be posted in the board office and at boundary high school and mailed for facts to the courier news fountain brook borough clerk southbound broke board of education and any person who has requested individual notice and paid the requirement please stand for pledge allegiance i pledge allegiance to the
002flag 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 [Music] okay can we do a wall call please thank you sir okay uh i'm gonna keep my comments brief tonight just thank everybody for coming hope you're all enjoying your summer uh looking forward to uh getting through our agenda here this evening and then settling down for our strategic or retreat um in two parts tonight and then on wednesday so um just looking forward to doing that um i do not believe well we don't have a superintendent's report in the agenda dr freeman are there any comments you wanted to offer um no not at this point this will answer questions online okay very good um as far as committees
003go i do not believe we have had any committee meetings since our last regular meeting i know we have operations scheduled for two weeks from today and the rest of the committees i think we're going to discuss during the retreat in terms of schedule for ongoing activity as well as whether or not we want to make any adjustments or changes i have governance governance and education as well very good we got them all we're going to line them up great so uh any questions or comments on the committee meetings okay good if i'm moving too briskly for anybody just please stop me um we are now up to item number four which is open to the public for agenda items only i know we have a couple of questions from online which may not be
004yeah i don't believe any of them actually are agenda item related so i believe we're just going to address them during open to the public any questions so i have placed a few questions online we did so there are two different parts of the meeting where we take questions from the public the first part is related to items that are on tonight's agenda for discussion i think all of your questions are related to not agenda items so we have a different part of the agenda for that no problem awesome but i'm glad that you're here okay we are up to item number five approval of the minutes result that the boundary board of education approves the minutes for the following meetings regular and executive minutes of july 18 2022. have a motion thank you mr
005paul ii thank you miss muscle any discussion okay hearing none can we have a roll call please mr bob yes mr dawson yes ms yes christmas yesterday yes thank you we're up to item number 6.1 resolve that the superintendent recommends for approval the resolutions as outlined in personnel resolutions under district and high school this is 6.2 through 6.19 i have a motion motion thank you mr dawson a second second thank you mr zipcode discussion the um the resignations um when are we gonna get like uh that yearly report on the um hold it based off all the exit interviews um is that supposed to be end like by the end of the summer or it's like yeah looking good in the summer okay we're compiling the list now uh other questions okay hearing now can
006we have a roll call please mr bob yes mr pazu mr dawson yes mr xeno thank you up to item 7.1 approval of middle and elementary personnel resolutions resolved that the superintendent recommends for approval the resolutions as outlined in personnel resolutions under middle and elementary schools this is 7.2 through 7 11. i have a motion motion thank you mr paul a second second thank you discussion i wanted to make a mention of student teachers and how excited i am about student teachers and how we get more of them into the district and how we can you know retain possible full-time teachers from teachers coming out of school so yeah and i think generally that has been part of our strategy we do have a pretty strong relationship i think with rutgers or something at the
007middle school we have in the past we've had many but yeah i think miss fisher told us this year rutgers told us there are there are enough candidates okay basically people are not going into education anymore their graduate school for education doesn't have the numbers it used to have okay i think anything we can do to retain them i was any other questions all right hearing none can we have a roll call please mr val yes mr nelson yes however i need to abstain on 7.5 yes thank you we are up to agenda item 8.1 resolve that the boundary board of education approves the resolutions as outlined in financial resolutions this is 8.2 through 8.19 second thank you mr dawson discussion i'll just say that it's encouraging to see that we actually have reasonable bids
008that we're in a position to accept for uh 8.8 well i did want to ask how they uh compare to the bids we've got previously the last round yeah it's a good compared question i don't remember those numbers honestly any idea how this these bids on the lafayette project compared to the last round when they were super high and untenable this is 8.8.8.0 slightly higher yes and i think the strategy in going back out to bid was that we actually changed the scope and allowed for alternates correct that's the difference between the last time and what we're currently voting on i actually have a question on 8 14 um i had asked about the funds being reused and i understand that the amount from the state came back from a budgeted percent of 35 to
009a budget percentage so we had to actually use uh what sounds like uh grant money to cover that extra 10 and i i'm curious to see what you know what we might want to do to help cover this in the future or is this something that we can kind of look like look towards the state as they're always going to maybe make this kind of adjustment as a newborn member i don't know how often these adjustments are made to so so maybe that's a good question for you nick are the adjustments that we're talking about your routine something that happens every year this is uh for the yes yes the original budget comes around in june and then it's an estimated budget you have estimated your salary and then the state decides the reimbursement of
010the pension costs is that you see from this stage any other questions all right hearing now can we do a roll call please mr bob yes mr dawson yes [Music] yes great uh at this point we're up to new business is there anything that any of the members would like to raise at this time all right so now we are up to open for the public to the public for discussion so ms turner i'd actually invite you if you want to come up to the lectern just sign in okay good evening everybody thank you for holding these meetings i appreciate it um i'm a mom of a little girl seven years in march and she's gonna start lafayette so i just have some questions i have some concerns the governor i understand is there is
011a new order for a sex education program that's going to start as early as second grade i'd like to hear about the feedback does baumbrook plan to adopt this do you know even know what i'm talking about some people do or don't um i just want more information i want to know what we're up against here for my child sure dr freeman do you have any suggestions so we are going to we have to adopt it we'll have more information at the next meeting because the curriculum will be adopted at the next meeting we also have a presentation where uh our assistant superintendent of construction will explain more and your question regarding opting out you will be able to okay does that so will the program be an isolated program or will it be fluid
012and common discussion place uh laissez-faire amongst all teachers and what i mean is you know if i ought my daughter out i don't want her to be in art class and have this the teacher be discussing things that would be naturally adopted like would be naturally held and saved for that program during health okay it's a very scary time right now i think my child deserves the right to be held as innocent as possible and not it's bad enough she's influenced through tv media and i try and protect her from that so this is you'll probably see me at more board meetings so i'm very happy to be here um so i have some other questions if there's other people i don't feel free to run through okay so um another question i had so
013you'll provide that's going to be at the next board meeting um that will be september or the end of august two weeks from today two weeks from today okay i'll make sure that i'm here thank you um i just wanted to know if there was any discussion in terms of coping for the upcoming year right now we're waiting for and it'll be released in the next week uh the guidelines from the cdc once those guidelines are released the state will put the hours in place and we will meet with the county superintendent exactly what the guidelines are and communication will be sent out to paris okay so everything we're pretty much just everybody we're at a waiting point to find out um so depending on what that is we'll be then i guess dependent on
014the question is do do you have the opportunity to opt out of the code situation like with the masks i mean how the children have been in fairly good health significant i mean significantly better um in the last several months right so i know i understand we're going into flu season um will there be mandatory coveted testing but again that's probably a question i'll be saving for two weeks from now right the first implication is that the standards are going to be uh relaxed okay and the requirement for testing will not be if you if you if you go on a cnn website they they have information regarding the cdc and the fact that they're going to release in the week and they kind of give you a snapshot of what they've learned so far
015okay that's good i'll i'll check that out um the covid vaccines again that's probably a question i'll be holding we'll be here for a little bit next week then two weeks from now thank you and then um my last two questions the free lunches are we continuing that for the 22 23 year the universal free lunch that was you know around the country that uh ended on june 30th okay so we will go back to and you can get free lunch and qualify so the universal free lunch where everybody receives pretty much regardless of income that ended on june 30. okay there is a bill however with the uh in the state assembly that they're trying to um combat food shortage uh in families so they are working on something that will kind of replaced
016that but it's only in the build format it hasn't been passed yet so uh that may be something that in the next couple months you'll hear about that could help with the free lunch situation okay all right uh thank you and then lastly my daughter's part of the workforce um aftercare program and she was over at lamont's last year and it was wonderful it was a lovely program i know it's not directly you guys don't guide that program right contract with them so this year she's going to lafayette and there's not a high registration for lafayette students so what they said is that the lafayette students would have to walk over to walmart annex yeah all right that's not exactly close they got little legs and then it's you know the weather gets bad so
017when i called them today they said that they're um trying to work on some transportation option to get the children from lafayette bus over here but they said when they had asked the school board the school board denied any offering of support to help get transportation now i don't know how true that is that's just what i'm repeating yeah i wasn't called i don't know if the school board's ever discussed that well i i want to advocate and see if we can help look into that because what happens is if they're going to have to absorb the cost then so are we as parents you know um so naturally that was what would be what would happen so i'm wondering if there are any um areas where there could be some budgeted funds to help
018lafayette students get over there get over here i mean i just think it's you know one teacher to x amount of kids it's raining you know i got you know little legs you know there's six and seven i don't think that they should be walking i know it's not that far of a distance for you or i but so okay okay thank you so much i appreciate your time thank you thank you all right yep sure hi uh my name is alvarez i'm a partner of juan alvarez he attends a second grade on lafayette school and i'm here today and i have a couple of questions uh does lafayette school have an after-school program uh the first months of the school year it's the same this is the same program yeah yeah so it's not
019we don't run the program as a school district but we have a contracted company that does that for us and like last year as turner said um there weren't enough enrolled at lafayette so they actually did walk over to lamont and yeah but did they have it like on the first on the first yes was it on the first place the reason i'm asking is because uh my kid came from uh north plainfield which is also somerset of county and after two years of being all uh on the computer learning uh he came to lafayette and when he came when he first got enrolled uh i got a call like it was very disturbing so the call was somebody told me that oh your kid is gonna get in first grade and i asked him
020why he already did first grade they were like oh because he's too short and i was like that has what does it have to do with it i mean he's in that discrimination and and they were like oh yeah but also because his academics doesn't uh meet the requirements to go to uh second grade therefore he's going to be held on on first grade and then i talked to them to see if i could talk to the principal i went to the principal and there was a specialist on reading and this especially said to me that my kid was on the beginning of kindergarten level uh his reading and therefore he couldn't uh go to the to the second and then the uh the principal i think she talked to the um superintendent office or
021something because then there was no recommendation for him for his previous school to be retained therefore they put him on second grade but they were teaching him things from kindergarten i know i got it they were saying they put on a small group because of his uh he needed a strong base to go forward and after you know after when i first got into that i'm just giving my english i'm so nervous right now so um we also have a translator here if it's easier for you no it's just i'm so nervous take your time okay so um on the first meeting uh the the specialist told me that okay fine if he gonna be on second grade just put him on esl classes because his english is not that well and i was like
022okay maybe because he you know we i speak english to him in the house my wife speaks spanish in the house with him and he has some other uh relatives that also speak spanish to him therefore i thought it just english might not be strong enough to be on regular classes so we put them on uh we put them on the uh on the program esl program and then two weeks later i got a call from the teacher saying that he has nothing to do there because he's english is good and therefore he needed to be move on to regular classes where he probably needed more help at reading because that's where he needs help matt is doing good but he needs help at reading so i i talked to the principal again and we
023moved them to regular classes so he received regular classes but i i always got notes like you know little notes on his uh when he bring a home that he did in school like great work awesome work so i thought everything was fine wasn't until um february 3rd that i had a meeting with the teachers and we went there and we were told that uh he was a candidate for retention and i asked why i shouldn't why wasn't uh why they didn't tell me before so you know we could do something interviewing do something you know they could help me uh succeed to pass the third grade and they told me that um they did it on the uh the qualification cards the card report the other card report that they sent but my wife
024tried to log in in the uh in the report and they asked for uh i think the genesis yeah he tried to get a chance but always send them back to uh north plainfield yeah she could never she could never get in here and i know we failed to ask for uh more help and make sure you know how was he doing but we were uh we were okay with all the the little cars or the poor you doing awesome job and things like that i know they might did to encourage him to keep working hard what wasn't until that day that we knew that he was the candidate to retention then i talked to the i talked to the um to the principal i talked to the principal at school and they intervene they
025they uh help him with an after-school program they give him a little more help so after two months we got another uh meeting and they're still telling me that he is gonna be retained and i asked to talk to uh to talk to the uh superintendent at that time was um dr gallagher and then uh he couldn't he couldn't be there i think he was busy or something so his assistance was there and she told me that we're going to put him on a summer school program and if he uh goes a little bit higher on his reading level then we were going to discuss the matter after uh after the school program the summer school is done so we put him on the on the uh summer school and they tested him again and
026they're telling me that he did not make any problem like syrup and he's at the same spot where he was at the beginning so i am very concerned because i don't want him to be retained on second grade he's getting help from uh um from a school in warren called kumon uh we enroll him there uh we hire uh well in highway i talk to my niece and she is okay to help him uh after school if lafayette school doesn't have a problem after school to help him uh with reading a house i read with him and he reads uh to me here it's okay but he's my channel my name is blind you know yeah of love and but i read with him every day like uh 20 to 30 uh minutes a day
027and he's improving really fast so i was told that at the beginning of the year he was uh his reading skill was beginning of kindergarten now they tell me he's okay on second grade because he's reading uh for his level of reading is from the beginning of second grade so he basically did two years in one year and he got intervened not until february so all i'm asking for them is to give me some more time all i need is more time because i know if he could get more help and if he could because i was told oh but he's going to strive he's going to shut down and everything and it broke my heart the day when i told him that by the possibility that he was going to be returned on second
028grade he was crying and saying why because i am dumb or something so i was you know i i i talked to him that that's not the reason it's just you know things happen and you know but i i wanna to teach him uh that sometimes it's not good to prepare the road for them but prepare them for the road and there's going to be struggles in life but he's going to be with the with the little chance with the little opportunity he could he could succeed i know he can succeed i i believe in him and uh you know i i i compromised myself my wife and everybody uh to work with him together uh make sure you know this learning uh won't be too frustrating for him but it could be fun and
029he could uh go to third grade and uh you know succeed right so in the in the after school program first he started to read so he got little books that he was reading and then uh his homework was done in the after school program so i thought he was doing okay because his math homework was done his uh every all the homework was done at the after school program so i thought therefore maybe he didn't need help for reading anymore but now it's it's just you know it's it's not the case they're still thinking about retaining him in uh in second grade which i i'm not agreeing and i i i will do anything there is possible to to avoid that so you know a couple of just thoughts you know to share with
030you first of all i think we can all empathize most of the people that are up here currently have kids that are in district and you know have experienced our own challenges so um you know what i would what i would say to you is i think you're doing everything that you need to be doing as a parent right you're putting in the extra effort you're you're reaching out and obtaining the additional support you're making sure that your son gets the attention that he needs right and i think that as a board we're all committed to making sure that all the students in districts are successful and i think our administration is as well so if you don't already have a meeting scheduled to talk to dr freeman who's our new superintendent i encourage you
031to do that and come up with a program or you know a point of view on how you know we can all work together and make your son successful as a student thank you very much yeah absolutely thank you very much no thank you thank you thank you thank you for coming alone as a parent thank you go absolutely miss turner i had a quick question who did you speak to at the after school program uh that said that they contacted the board and the board said there was no uh you know i i love my other little book outfit that statement is being made to one of our parents and that did not occur right yeah i think that once we find out who that individual or entity is i i really think that
032that needs to be investigated i don't want to prove that because yeah it's it's i know when my kids were over at lafayette and smallie and the annex and like you're saying when they have to walk that's an issue onto itself but i i don't like people putting words in our mouths yeah and that concerns naturally nothing against i think what you're saying is legitimate i'm concerned about whoever you spoke to i don't know i'm almost positive next time i guess ceo or their lead director or what have you so i did plan to reach out to the director to get a little bit more of the bad story to find out so you know because i'm just as concerned yeah i just didn't want i don't think it's a fair statement fact that that's
033not the case but i did say it is my responsibility as parents advocate for you know for my challenges which includes your beginning thank you my child made that walk last year and i really wasn't a fan of of rainy days either the the nice days it was a really they were fine nice walk but i know i didn't like the rainy days either you know the only thing i would say rogers i don't know that we have to go too deep on naming names at this point but what we can do is follow up with the leadership at middle earth and just make sure that we're all on the same page in terms of what support they might need and whether or not there's a protocol that they should be using if they need
034to get touched i hear you but i also hear that there was a statement made in public saying that something was said that we said that's not acceptable if we didn't say it that needs to be rectified that's my that's my my humble opinion perfect because i i think yes we want i'm not looking to throw a rock in the pond but in the same turn i don't want a rock throwing on us so and us i'll take it on to me because i'm a member of the board no one ever approached me okay but i don't find that as i don't want to know that whether it be a name or an entity there was a statement made in public that i don't want i don't i don't think it's fair to just negate
035that well i think we want the right information to be given to our parents about the wrong information i also think the wrong relationship with the community where they they feel comfortable if there's something that they hear that doesn't jive with the board's point of view that they can come and bring no no i think it's it's all positive stuff i agree with you there are some actions to be taken post meeting and you know we can discuss with those i just want to make sure miss turner's getting the right information yeah i mean listen i i my plan was to follow up with their director anyway because if i was talking to just somebody who was answering the phone i may have not gotten full confidence and stories so my plan was to follow
036up with the director regardless um to you know candidly like what's the deal you know and but i just wanted to have some sort of idea of what where we were standing so i can correct you guys while we were here today so if in fact that was incorrect information that they gave me then they'll have to resolute that and then i can certainly provide that feedback at the next meeting i you know i i just can i just mention that i'm i'm i'm really grateful to you as a family that came out also to speak on behalf of your son and your family i i've been on the board since january i haven't seen a lot of community at the meetings and to see you here and to listen to you and to hear
037what you have to say is very very valuable and we take it to heart as a board i think i can say like we you're listening and we understand and we want to help so i just wanted to express that to you thank you um we are up to executive session online oh i apologize we do we have one more question online yes we should have one it's actually a two-part question i believe you got it all right so dr freeman are you ready okay yeah sure whatever oh yeah just come on you can come on up you can be next guys no you're fine we're happy to have people it's nice to see people here i couldn't see the folks in the back hello everybody all right i think you just gotta push the
038little button but yeah we can hear you just fine sweet hello uh my name is a parent of an incoming kindergartner attending the hands i think yes so into the area relocated in february so uh one of the questions i have was already previously answered clover thing so thank you i guess the other one is more so twofold um so is there like a um like a pta or there's something okay in fact they're looking for officers i just saw them because when i did my research um i i saw information but it said mothers and it was a little misleading so i didn't know if it was like mother's day no that's a pto parent-teacher um but so that was one question i guess too and it might like i said twofold what like
039what opportunities to get involved right so i have a child that's coming in i'm just trying to be as involved as possible this is all i do right so that's really you know i decided to come here really to kind of get the lay of the land but i kind of wanted to know what what does that look like here since it seems a little you know small small community yeah but you know what well what do you i guess my question would be what are you looking for um what what kind are you talking about for you or for your child or both well i guess more so both but really more so for me to like what can i do to be as seen as possible is very important right and who we
040are ultimately but you know just to get involved presence i think is very important i feel like our elementary school pto is very very strong and our leadership in that pto is very very strong and very committed to the community i think all you would have to do is reach out you can give your contacts to that app just make sure you please yeah because yeah the information that that was online actually yeah yeah if you sign in there and i don't know if there's not a space for email on that page is there something but they also are involved i would say from like a social setting they do um like community events they also do things at the school they really support the schools in a huge way so i would recommend absolutely
041researching them and seeing if that's something that you might want to get involved in um yeah are we in ptl yeah yes on facebook it's called about pts okay because yeah i went to the website but again i i haven't i didn't hear anything back i did more actively yeah okay and just setting yourself up as a volunteer with that organization like you can help out a couple events kind of get a feel for what you what you like you know what what your kids are interested in um i also think our rec division is very very strong so um you know sports and um different activities that are held by that it's not necessarily through the school board but i'm just gonna do a little shout out thank you because i'm sure that there
042are other things that we think of probably post meeting um and just you know being able to associate a face with a name know where you are absolutely what your interests are we can keep you came out yeah definitely awesome come back again you like you're like teachers it's so nice all right um did you have any other questions for us at this point no other questions i'm sorry this is a left hand it's okay don't take your time i just didn't want to be discouraged i appreciate it thank you so we did have a two-part question coming online um the first part of it is is it possible to post the school supply list on social media for parents um i think that's speaking of the pto i think that's something that pto has
043done in the past but i'm not sure if we've done it on the district website but now that we're more active on social media i don't see why we couldn't yes we have it's available i i happen to know the reason for this question um they often trickle out pretty late in august which is fine except that everything's on sale now and you know if you put it if you were to put it out at the end of the previous school year parents would be you know like when they have like the ten cent folders that staples you miss all that by the time the list get out and that's the last minute that's the free supplies right wasn't that big yeah yeah yeah but i think mike's pointing to something a little bit different
044but each grade gives a you know supply list and we would like you know get it a little earlier so parents can take advantage of the sales right so i think in reference to the question it's not necessarily the channel for distribution but the time right okay and then the second part of this which is a little bit longer also has to do with after school programs bamberg does a wonderful job of providing additional help through tutorials and summer programs for at-risk students however i was curious to see if there is any discussion in providing after school opportunities for students that are working on grade level and above as a teacher in a close by district i know it can be difficult to meet the needs of all students in daily lessons it would be
045great if we could provide all students with enrichment opportunities since the gifted and talented program doesn't begin until third grade and thank you so i think that's some reasonable feedback i will say my own experience in the enrichment programs that we offered last year to some of the students in grade school um i would have liked to have seen that be more pervasive as well so i think generally speaking i'm supportive of this idea i don't know how everybody else feels i think in education i mean i feel like that's that's the issue everywhere right we help we help the kids who really need the help and then and then the other ones often get a little less and and as a as a board but you know i think everywhere as an educational community
046i think that's the issue that people struggle with how do we help especially the middle yeah because there are a lot there's often when you get especially in over enrichment programs for the really gifted and talented but the middle kind of gets left behind i don't think that's unique to bound broke i think that's that's a system systemic issue but something we could look at absolutely especially when you talk about our programs at smaller school we've come a long way in terms of extracurricular activities that are available maybe not necessarily educational programs per se but things to keep them active involved so i i think it's just a renewed call to make sure that we're serving all the members or all the students in the district and not just people way on the top right
047right i mean i would say that and the average kid scenario two is is finding out the cause of why it's an average kid right like what is the what is the cause like you know kids that are highly academic have different strides than the average kid so like where do we tap into that need and what are they looking for what will entice them to yeah yeah we can get into a whole discussion about averages though yeah and at some point every you know if we have high high performing students the average is high performing at the same of the time was that the average doesn't meet either right criteria criteria for either the program so they're just [Laughter] uh everybody who wants to make a comment and made a comment good everybody's all
048right that's great all right uh we're up to executive session but given what's on the agenda i'm not sure that we have anything to adjourn for is that correct all right great awesome so then we are at the end of the agenda can i have a motion to adjourn motion thank you mr palace thank you second thank you mrs museum all in favor thanks everybody for coming out tonight have a great night thank you