001the new jersey open post meeting law 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 interests is discussed and acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act and board of education policy 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 bowenbrook high school and mailed her back to the courier news found referral clerk southbound board of education and any person who has requested individual notice and paid the required faith i pledge allegiance to the liberty of the united states of america and to the republic which stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty evening can i get
002a motion interception mr fazbear second miss morris all in favor well done you are martinez miss morris here mr simano tom selley i am president mr vadalair here mr zip cup here mr fazio here mr genevieve here okay at this point in time if i could have the swearing in for mr snoozy that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new jersey and i will bear true faith and allegiance to the same says governments established in the united states okay congratulations welcome [Applause] as far as my things i hope you're all enjoying your summer uh i hope some school is going well and that's basically all i've got to say all right so we have a number of things going on this evening in executive session
003um however we're going to try and hold those off as we get through the agenda and um anything we need to do under new business so there are no committee reports so we are down to open to the public level so if there's anything that's on the agenda you'd like to ask questions about and make comments please come forward just state your name so it's been a long time a year and a half since i've been standing at this podium i don't know if things have changed but there is no sign-in sheet here so it's okay i know okay my name is cindel ponti i am a recently retired teacher at the high school uh mr januzzi congratulations um it's nice to know that little by little all the students that i taught are making
004up the board i will not take complete credit for it i must have done something right i did have a question about something on the agenda it's 6.4 the employment of alan vasquez i'm wondering if it can be explained why he's being paid 35 an hour uh when i checked the agendas the corresponding agendas from last year um people who were doing the same job at least it was described the same in the agenda we're making eleven dollars an hour at 35 an hour this person is coming dangerously close to what we pay our or what the district pays its regular employees uh for full-time positions um so i'm hoping that that means that our um permanent employees and i'm sorry i keep saying our but i still feel as though the district is my
005district i hope this means that there's a nice healthy raise for them so that somebody who is a part-time summer employee is not making a comparable salary to people who have been here for many many years there was a question in there it was kind of embedded with a whole bunch of other things um but is there a reason why um this particular uh summer employee is being paid thirty five dollars an hour is there a reason for that i mean can you explain like why that particular number um that's that's understandable if that's how it was um how it was advertised that's that's what we pay our teachers to do summer work and that's why we advertised it that way anticipating that we were going to get a certified person to come and work
006for us but unfortunately we did not get any applicants that was the only applicant we had okay um uh when we talk a little bit further in the meeting about um uh morale i kind of want to come back and circle this wagon again but for now that's my only question on the agenda thank you thank you i got a sticky note but anyway patricia o'reilly 745 schoolhouse lane so oh is this on no okay all right all right so um i actually posted it online um i just had a question about the cares funding and i was wondering if um that is allocated to a certain portion of the district because it's in a couple of spaces in the agenda the the cares fund comes from the federal government and it's allocated to certain
007certain items like um the first round of care for our summer school so as we go through we list out what it's going to be paying for thank um see no other questions um can i get a motion for to approve the minutes from 621 ocean mr bell second that's mars any questions or comments i have good thing you made it you snuck in i'm sorry we're gonna have an extra okay can i get a roll please yes yes yes can i get a motion uh resolve the superintendent recommends for approval the resolutions as outlined in personnel resolutions under just in high school 6.2 6.13 can i get a motion motion miss morris can i get a second second all right any questions or comments hearing no questions or comments can i get a roll
008call mr bow yes yes yes yes mr thomas elliott yes mr battle uh just with their extension of 6.7 [Music] superintendent recommends for approval the resolutions is outlined in personnel resolutions under middle and elementary school 7.2 through 7.14 can i get a motion pushing mr second sorry mr tom sully any questions or comments [Applause] uh question about 7.2 how long was this person employed with the district one year hearing of no other questions or comments can i get a roll call please mr powell yes ms martinez yes nick yes [Music] okay number eight resolve the boundary board of education improves the resolutions as outlined in education resolutions under distributing high school 8.2 and 8.3 can i get a motion okay mr van laar second mr tom sully now would you pronounce your question now you
009guys still had the mentoring there was just one thing i was really reading and that i hadn't done there was written out was five and in parentheses it was four days and i'm trying to find it something for um it was just a typo but i was confused if it was five days or four days um so it could be its new teacher academy so they receive credit for five days of professional development even though they're grateful for it okay hearing none of them can i get a vocal please mr bail yes miss martinez excuse me yes yes mr tomato mr thomas ellie yes mr madeline yes mr zepco yes miss moore uh mr fabio yes okay number nine resolve the nonprofit board of education recruiting approves the resolutions as outlined in education resolutions under
010middle and elementary school 9.2 and any questions or comments hearing none [Music] yes yes abstain is outlined in special services resolutions 10.2 through 10.4 can i any questions or comments yeah i have a question on the tuition and related service contracts um it's a student number when there's multiple numbers with the comment that's how many students were sending to that particular account hearing no other questions or comments can i get a roll call mr ball yes ms martinez yes ms morris yes yes yes 11 finance resolutions resolved without the report of education approves the resolutions outlined in financial resolutions 11.2 through 11.10 can i get a quote motion second second mr valentine any questions or comments [Music] that's our business it's in the contract 6 150 today not to exceed 1 138 the previous years
011are we getting the same amount for the title grant yeah we're getting less yeah we're getting less the big thing that affected us with the title grants was a lot of the families did not fill out the pre-reduced lunch there was no incentive for anybody to fill out the form because they were automatically getting pretty much so right now normally um we're about 73 frame reduced lunch um we just finished the applications of beginning the market we're at 51 so the big thing to keep your eyes open for is this year we lost actually we lost our title three immigrant aid which is um it's not a lot of money for us but it is substantial and expecting if they use the year before numbers which they usually do a lot of our schools will
012no longer qualify as a school-wide title one school so this coming school year we will have to reapply and go through the whole application process which is a lot of work ahead of us to regain the funding that we had this past year so it is it is imperative on everybody to please tell parents to please fill out the things that you want for at all costs because if we can keep our numbers where they're supposed to be it's going to leave a lot of financial stress on the district um we have to be over 70 to qualify for schoolwide if not we go back to targeted assistance which means that we can only serve the students who qualify for free media's lunch using title one fun so it's a it's a big setback for
013us will that affect breakfast too yeah yes i wish they would stop calling it a free and reduced lunch right right that's what people then they think well i don't buy lunch so i don't need it where you can get like i know you can get insurance on your technology for free and other things and people don't realize or you could just help the district yeah that's i mean that could just be you know a result of covet as well in the laboratory and hopefully that's a one year blip in that next year so those numbers are lower we're getting less you're getting well redirecting to make it look like you're getting boring and they're fixing the funding formula when in reality they're underfunding you even further all right all right can we do local
014no roll call please mr ball yes miss martinez yes miss morris yes yes all right are there any other matters to come before the board yes at this point in time i'd like to address the um the committee meetings we had for rio middle school in september along with the parents survey along with dr frank's recommendation so obviously the parents who filled out the survey it was a little a little confusing to that we got back but basically 60 of the parents were better we'd like anybody who's not vaccinated to be required to wear a mask um our committee met and our committee recommendation to the board was um leave it up to the the person's comfort to whether or not they want to wear a mask and then obviously dr frank's lengthy email that
015i received uh early this morning or late last night whatever it was um his recommendation is that anybody who's unvaccinated should be required to wear a mask and that he did not do the temperature screenings or the coasted form in the morning um we okay there tom yeah i think it's the air in the room um further because that that that particular email was also going to our nurses as their standing orders um obviously if we have uh anybody who test positive things like that you still have your contact tracing and a number of other things so my recommendation to the board would be to reaffirm what dr frank is telling us um he is our chief medical inspector for the district and i would go along with with his recommendations which is if you're
016unvaccinated you wear a mask from a school standpoint it's very simple for us if you don't provide us the vaccination card we will treat you as unvaccinated and you will wear a mask if you want to provide us your vaccination card then it becomes your option whether or not you wear a mask the temperature the temperature the screening and the code would form obviously not doing those it takes a tremendous burden off of us so we're all in favor of that i think um at this point in time so you know there's other things where that uh you know we can go to three three social distancing which puts that for a normal operation um he said kids did not have to wear masks during lunch um so that was really for us i think
017as i told all of you before um pre-k through eight we have all of the dividers all set up for cafeteria so there is some barriers there for when kids eat lunch high school obviously everybody's had the opportunity to get vaccinated so we will run our lunches as normal so you know getting this information down getting it out would be a huge bonus for us so that parents who have kids who have the potential of getting vaccinated have that opportunity over the next six weeks to get that done if that's their comfort level versus wearing a mask i think i hit everything that was critical in his email um but that that would be my recommendation to you guys i would just like some direction from you on this um just so i can send
018out a letter this week to to the parents notifying them what the board's intention is for september and this would get enough notice out to parents that they have the next six weeks to make some some personal choices of whether or not they want their child uh to be vaccinated as well as any of our staff members who are not vaccinated to have that opportunity to do so so it's going to go up to the parents and the staff yeah okay i i don't see any reason to go against the medical professional yeah i don't want to see any job they're sitting up here so anything that was outside they did not have to hurt situations as far as i know they would have to wear a mask that was just additionally i think one
019of the other key points that needs to be said as well when i send out my letter to the parents is there is no virtual option this year under any circumstances there is no virtual option if a child has coveted they're going to be out for x amount of days when the fifth day hits they'll go on for instruction but there is no simultaneous virtual option at this point their virtual home instruction that the answer is yes okay does that might be necessary correct the kid has coconut okay the parents can also reach out to the teachers and they can have all their works in all correct i mean most of the work they get is online well high school i would say yesterday elementary um a child could be forced to miss multiple days
020of school and while they'll receive home instruction he still may fall behind i think our staff will be very proactive know and providing opportunities i think that just talking like across the board yeah i would say every teacher who agrees with you we all agree it's been a problem since i've been teaching yeah so i think we have consensus okay um the last thing i do want to tell you is that um today we had a visit from the executive county superintendents as well as uh that's roger kings and sam sandy go green who is the um special ed person for the state department here at summerslam they came and they toured small to see how our summer school was going and they were extremely happy with with our our summer school was going how
021things progressed operating so you wanted to pass that along to you guys that it went very very well today great now as far as attendance um for the people that were do we have like percentage-wise how many students percentage-wise took the opportunity to come to summer school right now i think in in total we have uh almost 50 percent of our whole student body um is involved in our summer programs um i think as the ones who were targeted to be here and and attendance-wise i think we're we're covering about 92 percent give or gain a number um but i can get you harder numbers uh you know as we move along i only got the first week numbers that i know it was it was pretty high but i want to make sure we
022track that all the way through i think um after this week is is the first end of the first session so i'd like to get attendance goals for the first session to get that team okay and how are we handling students that uh we saw as requiring summer school but that don't show up or that are they going to be healthy that was being very clear to the parents okay for whatever reason am i going to need something that says no dr frank wants us to operate as normal as possible when it comes to those things so we're going to try and operate as normal as possible in those avenues and you know we'll we'll deal with those issues as they arise um obviously you know we dealt with this this past year deal with
023the 10 people aren't going to be quite honest and upfront with some of the issues that are going on so um you know we're going to deal with that i think the other thing that dr frank did say that i thought was uh was interesting because because i know i was putting in for the uh code the testing grant and he was against that so at some point in time and they didn't have time today but at some point in time uh you know i'm going to talk to dr frank dr cook about that because if they're dead against it they're not going to partner with us because that's one of the requirements to get the grant um you know i i have to abandon going after the ground what is what is his rationale
024for like just having it here as new york things immediately test people i'm assuming it's the positivity rate and the false my total assumption is that it's going to come back that with these rapid tests there's a lot of a lot of false positives and things like that so again that's that's my my assumption until i have a conversation with him i don't exactly know his rationale no he didn't so does anyone so we need to uh sometimes soon right i would say within the next couple weeks but then the next couple of weeks we need to create a meeting um so that we can sit down and create our proposal to send to the uh association so please email me your availability figure out a time that works for us are we meeting at
025board office all yeah the other two ladies just give me a give me an idea of what works or what doesn't work so i don't know some people do go on vacation i have one plan all right well [Music] no you said the next two weeks it's not the next all right well the three of you just please send me some some information so that we can schedule that thanks oh my god it was supposed to be a simple question um at this point open to the public for any and all discussion [Music] we have none online no because our online person is in person yeah so one of the reasons why i do in person is because sometimes when i go on youtube and i can't hear everybody and um especially sorry that you
026witnessed a muslim you're very soft-spoken artist i figured michelle like loud and clear all right thank you that was it yeah along those lines can i ask a question actually how long are we on youtube like forever now yes okay some districts have abandoned it unfortunately yeah i have no problem yeah i don't care i think it's better though we're getting a lot of viewership i know to make it worthwhile hello happy retirement by the way thank you i'm so jealous well i had a hysterectomy on monday so i'm not standing up really straight but i'm doing the best i can i'm doing i've been proud here um have about 55 000 things if this were a radio station this is when stairway to heaven would start playing and the dj would go to the
027bathroom so make yourself a sandwich kids and tuck in because i've got a lot of things to say so um in february of 1992 my sister-in-law's sister sent me and uh a one ad that said hey you're looking for an english teacher in bound brook maybe you should apply so i did and i received the position and i've been here ever since and the first thing on my list is to thank my current board of education my former board of education my colleagues 158 million of them um my oh thank you uh my students 158 bajillion of them some of whom are actually here tonight um because it was 29 and a half which i'm not a math teacher so i'm just going to round it up to 30. um it was 30 years of
028education for me forming lasting bonds and it was quite far the best job i ever had it's probably also the only job i've ever had but it was the best of the only jobs i ever had so i want to thank you for taking a chance on someone who had only taught in immaculata and uh you know you took a chance and i made bamboo my home and i appreciate that so when it came time for me to uh think about retirement i had a couple members of my department who said oh you can't do this you can't do this promise me that if you leave you'll come back somehow for example you have a great uh lesson on how to teach um uh the application essay for college could you come back and just
029like be a guest speaker for a day and nothing made me happier in fact we talked about maybe creating some kind of a zoom maybe making it into a podcast something and it has been my absolute intention to not retire completely from the district because you never really leave home even if you lock the door and somebody else is living there it's still your home so let's fast forward to i believe it was sometime at the end of march when i received or when i sent my letter of resignation for retirement purposes in and at the i believe it was the march 22nd um board of education meeting most of you accepted my resignation not all of you uh it says very clearly the end of the day on june 30th now if you're a
030teacher and i know some of you are you know that the last couple weeks of school are absolute pandemonium you've got kids especially at the senior high school level you've got kids who are in danger of not failing so you've got a pretty much an entire marking period of work that you're working with them on you've got kids who are stressed out because there are things in other classes that they they don't know how to do so you're sitting with them there was one day where i did 24 detentions three but 24 detentions i mean i was there until six o'clock at night i did zoom meetings at 10 o'clock at night when kids got finished with work you know uh it was a really hectic busy time graduation came on the 24th and on
031the 25th i opened up my computer fully prepared to say okay at this point in time all of those google docs that i created not for the last 30 years but i don't know when we when we were told we're no longer using paper in this district everything has to be online i created powerpoints that were turned into uh apple slide shows that were turned into the next iteration i had letters of recommendation that were glowing that i wanted to save i had all kinds of things i had professional correspondence with army recruiters marine recruiters junior colleges and i fully prepared to print out some of the creative writing that i had done with my class that year that was meaningful to me so imagine my surprise a full six days before my end date
032when i was locked out of my computer my genesis and my google platform no longer worked and it still doesn't work to this day i had no idea how many sick days i was left with to find out whether or not the payout for tonight was something that i should gently protest or at least ask for an explanation for i received a robo call from my uh principal that said hey you need to sign off on your end of the year evaluation i sent you a couple emails i can't get into my email therefore i was never allowed or never able to sign into my end of the year evaluation to sign it and yet once again my resignation for retirement purposes was accepted to end on the last day of june six days after
033graduation which is when i planned to do all of this clean up work that leaves me with such an incredibly sour taste in my throat that is in my mind my district's saying to me get the hell out and to today with my voice just slightly trembling i tell you that is exactly how i still feel and shame on my district for letting a 30 year employee feel that way when i have so much left to give this district and now i question whether or not i have it in me to give it to a district that says to me you're out of here now before i have finished what i need to do was i so heinous was i so dangerous as an employee that you were afraid i was going to send poisonous
034emails or somehow and believe me i'm 58 years old this is not within my means that somehow i was going to reconfigure the computers the night after i left with some kind of a sinister motive because that's exactly the message i got from my district now if i want to know something i have to trouble through a phone call my hr representative and taryn has to take time out of her day to prepare a report for me for how many sick days i have or to show me my last paycheck because i couldn't get in to do it myself and i wasn't able to what if i decided to take a second mortgage out of my house and they wanted the last two years of my taste pay stubs now i have to come down
035to bamboo or i have to trouble someone to do it for me because i can't get into my computer anymore what about the people that i had professional relationships with that i wanted to say hey i just wanted to let you know i've retired but guess what here is my replacement i want you to develop the same amazing relationship with this person that you did with me i have no access to my google email anymore so i can't do it i had to apologize when he walked into my principal because i couldn't even finish the last task as a teacher which was to sign off on my final evaluation some of you are teachers in here or some of you have positions that are similar imagine walking in and your entire life on that computer
036is locked away from you so that is the sayonara from bell brook and we you know i know i've been watching the board of education meetings i know that there is a huge movement towards all kinds of activity but this just stinks of something that is unprofessional absolutely and and i feel as though i have been accused of hatching something unprofessional and that's why i needed to be stopped immediately literally hours after graduation on the 24th done over goodbye you're done that's what you guys need to fight against because i can't come back to a district and offer even a little bit of service when i feel like you guys kicked me in the ass and told me to leave and i have to tell you paying a brand new person 35 an hour when
037you have professionals who have worked here and been underpaid for what they do wow that was like just a little bit of extra sriracha on the burrito of my goodbye come on you guys you take care of us first not the people that are coming in and by the way i've been watching this board of education meetings virtually for over a year is it possible that when you have something on the screen you turn the camera to the screen you guys are all sitting down here is there a reason why those of us at home who feel uncomfortable coming in because of lots of different health issues have to watch an empty podium an empty deus when there's someone who is perfectly capable of tilting the camera just my foot and then tilting it back
038not hard but it's a professional purpose okay thank you i have it's not a question i'm not even looking for a response it was a vent but i'll tell you what it shouldn't happen to anybody else this should be the last time something like that happens and at least the professional courtesy before you block me out of saying hey by the way we're giving you 24 hours to get your stuff before you go quick thank you have a good one hi again mr o'reilly um so i'm not sure if an i.t person will respond to miss del conte um i just know that with my job sometimes like if i go on medical leave like i had to turn in my cell phone and i had worked with this company for nine years i didn't
039realize it but they my company's cell phone was scrubbed they called scrub and and it does weird things and they didn't really give me explanation so like all these doctors and contacts that i had on my company's cell phone were gone so i'm just i'm not sure if the same thing happened with miss del conte um but with it it's a strange item world so it would be nice if it would uh respond to miss del conte though and even if they tell her that you know her emails and everything were scrubbed so they call it thanks well let me ask you is that is your account completely deleted or is that accessible at this point [Music] rate and the answer was denied for both of them so there's there's things on your google drive
040that you would want access to then absolutely temporarily all i want to do is print them out and have a paper copy um i don't necessarily need to hold them forever um if you saw my mason you wouldn't know paper is still my friend um to print them out before june 30th which was the day the district said this is your last day in the district i mean technically i got paid until the you know an employee who was on payroll is there any way that she could come in and sit with someone so that she could print those things out the things that she's i'm sure that yeah so why don't we thank you speak to because i mean to come in speak to tom come in and arrange a time to to be
041able to come in and print those things that you that you would like to have access to okay i think to our point also did not happen to somebody else that you know tech should have a protocol in place where they give you 24 hours at least to say hey i don't know exactly what their perfect goal is but they haven't well i mean i honestly can't believe that after we've been a technology rich district for how many years that there is no protocol that hasn't been thought of before i'm not the first person to retire a sampling of other recent retirees has found that this has not happened to them again michelle we have a protocol i don't know okay so so get in touch with the administrative office and we can just definitely
042arrange for you to have access so that you can get to the things that you need to take with you all right there's nothing online no all right so at this point i need a motion to go into executive motion seven since there's nothing else to uh to vote on so oh wait we may be coming [Music] back all in favor [Music] we've got eight dedicated viewers as i they just heard me say get out of here we have eight dedicated views welcome back at 9 15. and you are online now okay camera facing yourself i'm not going have a great um [Applause]