Board Meeting 5-24-21

001we're good [Music] i'm just giving the translator a moment to make sure know [Music] okay all right okay the new jersey open public's meetings 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 with the provisions of this act and board of education policies 0-162 the board of education of the borough of bound brook has caused notice of this meeting to be posted in the board of office and at founder of high school and mail or fest to the courier news foundry clerk south boundary board of education and any person who has requested individual notice and paid the required fee please stand for the pledge

002i pledge allegiance here okay um i did before we started the meeting um i just wanted to know is mr minhas and mr januzzi here mr januzzi uh okay because um we are going to take the beginning of the meeting to ask any questions that we have um mr uh del vecchio has removed himself from consideration so it's uh the two of you um if you'd like to come forward um so that we can answer if you can answer any questions that we might have uh just to let the public know these two gentlemen are um and so tonight is the night we're gonna get a chance to ask questions discuss it with the board two children so thank you first of all for applying for the for the open seat um like i said

003in the last meeting i'm very happy to see that there are people that are looking to get on the board because there's been some years where it has not been the case all right um so is there anyone that's on the board besides myself that has any questions that they would like to ask these gentlemen hello gentlemen how are you well how are you uh jay tomasuli 616 thomas place bombrook new jersey um so you're and you you've applied to to come to the school board what do you think the school board does you can go first sure uh you know my expectation is that the board of education is responsible for overseeing uh the education and administration of all of uh what's happening in baton rouge so setting policy reviewing the operations making sure

004that everything's working the way it's supposed to uh and advocating for the community to make sure that our children are getting the best education possible okay sir um so the bamboo board of education is supposed to serve the entire school district of bomb books not just only from an administration perspective in terms of also hiring and overseeing the their teachers the performance of the teachers and also enabling the teachers to perform at the best of their capabilities now that also means you have maintenance equipment and many other other factors that come into play and it's a synergy of finding out what works and what does not work and the board i feel can provide those opportunities to allow students in this district who is to excel at the best of their capabilities okay so my

005next follow-up question is um what is the number one controllable expense that the board has i would go with probably the personnel sir the combination between personal and technology it's actually personnel on insurance so um my next question is director music so you're the chairman of rec is that correct correct how long have you been in that position uh i believe as chairman the last three years three years so it's been it's been posted on social media that the only two sports that we actually pay attention to is wrestling with basketball in this town what are the sports that are failing in this town and what is your job as director or rec commissioner is that right how are you what sports are failing in this town and how are you in charge of wreck

006trying to alleviate that well it's a great question and similar to the role that the board of education plays with education the recreation commission takes it upon itself to oversee all recreational activities within that now sports and programs for the youth is a big part of what we do certainly not the only thing that we do um but in terms of what sports are currently succeeding versus failure that absolute close with the enrollment so it depends on what the kids are interested in but the community wants and then that's what we provide at the same time as the recreation commission we feel that it's really important to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to try different sports because if you don't try then who knows what you're going to like what you're not going

007to like so right now soccer is very strong has lots of enrollment our wrestling program continues to be very strong at the youth level as well as all the way through high school as you rightly pointed out uh basketball still very good the places where we struggle right now football and baseball our little league in town folded a few years ago and as a recreation commission we decided that it was important for balboa still out to have baseball opportunities so with the help of coachella point of view and his staff uh we brought that back uh we have five baseball teams uh i should say based on softball teams combined and some of my parents in the audience have been generous enough to donate their time and attention to help the kids learn the game

008and to bring that forward on the football side we're a little bit further behind similar circumstances we had a private organization that was running football in town uh that ceased to be a viable going concern so as a commission we're trying to bring that back to the field in the fall of 2021. okay and my last question have either one of you posted anything negatively on any social medias about the board of education or the administration no sir um the only thing i've been critical of is the graduation rate of the school which is below the state standard which is currently at around 70 to 75 percent maybe even less and that's pretty much anything i've been critical is there anyone else some questions um my question don't take this the wrong way um is

009why now there was an election very recently where quite honestly nobody read i ran on a post for three open seats why what has changed from then to now that that is hopefully i mean in a very good way hopefully gotten you charged up and energized to do this yeah if i missed you know my personal circumstances have changed recently in terms of both work and home life um i mentioned to you last meeting that i have a relatively large but young family so as my youngest starts to mature and becomes a little bit more independent my wife and i both find that we have time to pursue other activities both professional and volunteers so uh with the opportunity uh the time capacity and the availability i thought that it was the right time to

010put in an application yeah so for me i have one child in the le mans school right now i have another that'll be starting in september of this year both of my students will be i'm sorry both my sons will be in or have gone will be going through the early intervention one is currently probably going to be going into kindergarten and the other will be doing early intervention at the age of three so one of the issues that got me really um motivated and very passionate is the lack of support i feel for special ed kids and for children in those special needs and case in point what i found earlier this year when we first started going into virtual is that the teachers were not very well prepared and the course material that

011was prepared was a little substandard and not just myself but other parents other moms and dads i was talking to felt the same way now i being a parent obviously i let my emotions get the best of me because i was still learning the world everything around and what i found was i communicated with the teachers and they were open to suggestions because they realized they confided to me that they weren't getting some of the support that they needed so and i understand that because of my work that happens you don't always get the support that you need but you have to go think outside the box and that's what we did we working together with my son's teacher we were able to make the necessary changes to in fact where you know i kept

012everything quiet and let them take all the credit and the feedback was very positive with the changes in the material now if that can be done for one i can only imagine what's going on with everybody else so that's what pretty much got me involved uh you know great question um i think uh in terms of uh assets uh like mr thomas ellie pointed out probably the single greatest asset that we have as an organization here is our personnel uh and so finding the brightest among them empowering them to do what they do and do it the best i think really is uh the key strength and in many ways um in terms of what we could stand to improve i'll be perfectly honest with you i'm not intimately familiar enough to know at this

013point and it would be remiss of me to suggest uh what we would need to be able to do however uh if appointed i've worked very hard to understand what their strengths and weaknesses are and ultimately help create plans that will change one thing to the other so the benefits i mean the strengths are definitely the community i mean just look behind you look at everybody here you know they're not that passionate about their kids and what's going on here then then why not and you're obviously the person over here you know you have some really great teachers we have wonderful parents here that are extremely passionate passionate to words that you can even describe um what i'm sorry what the second part of your question the challenges the challenges is that synergy the synergy

014to find out it's very easy to go on social media to complain it's very easy but that's only one side of the point you know and as you all know there's two sides for every point there's two sides to every truth and i think that's what's missing is obviously there's roadblocks that red tape there's things hindering us from providing the things that we need for our teachers for our students and it's a matter of working together to try to mitigate those issues and to rectify them assess within the resources that we currently have and i think we can do that thank you is there anyone else what kind of relationship should the district um i think it actually fits with your last answer um it's definitely gotta be a one-on-one you know as a board

015you i'm gonna hear one side of the story you know the community the parents they're gonna tell you the other side and somewhere in the middle of this truth you know and we need that level of communication obviously there are some things that you can't disclose very for whatever reason and there are some things that actually there's some things that parents are a little nervous about exposing world because they don't want retaliation from their teachers or from the board or from the mother so this is the problem and this is also where we need to come to that level because you know we had a group of people here with these signs you know and they weren't here if they weren't unhappy for the last couple years you know it was just one year six

016months they wouldn't be here so if you guys are not listening to them then i don't know what's going on that's your problem so i think i might take it in a slightly different direction it actually goes along uh something mr ball brought up a little bit earlier which is uh perhaps maybe some of the issues that exist are because we're not doing enough to engage the community and kind of bring them into the fold in terms of what the board of education priorities are and what uh they could be doing to positively contribute towards those ends i think that could have a two-sided not only approach but effect uh not only to offset some of the recruitment issues that you may have at the board level but also to get the community engaged to

017foster that communication and ultimately to amplify the results that you guys can produce so in terms of communication i think getting the community engaged to that degree might be an opportunity to take it to the next level are there any other questions all right well thank you so much for uh answering the board's questions [Applause] [Music] all right so as far as i mean i think either one of the gentlemen i know but we need to make a decision you know like i said it's it's a very unusual situation because most of the time there is one position and one person and we've never had to really pick between two candidates we've never had this we've had elections where there were more people in the seats which was unusual in itself the public said that

018we didn't have to appoint so now we have to have a discussion based on uh another resume letters um based on the answers you've heard tonight is there a particular candidate that if you would like to put forward more than another yes well yeah i mean whoever replaces miss stevens she is up for re-election this november so whoever is put on the boards tonight will have to run in november regardless so yeah and you can vote in november but we do need someone this evening because otherwise the county will come in uh at the beginning of june and they are allowed to then appoint whoever they choose and so i don't think that's a i don't think any thoughts i think that i want to congratulate both of our applicants i think it's important to

019understand and see that you know between the board the district the community it's a symbiotic relationship we all need each other i think that both [Music] um i'm just throwing thoughts out there agencies or you know groups such as you know the work what we are here with for children so um it's really a this is a tough one just putting those thoughts up here so we can let this of interest is [Music] in the sense that time wise that he would then leave the recognition to then focus more on more was that is that okay i just i didn't want to say that's what you're saying how did you really do that okay all right so i mean obviously if it becomes a conflict of interest or where he would need to focus on

020the board he's willing to make that make that adjustment like i said i i think both candidates have their have the strength i think they're both good candidates and now someone just have to put forth uh like you're saying we're just you know motion can i get stuck all right so mr zuppko made a motion um so at this time all right so at this time we're gonna move like i said like we've never had to do it before but we are going to affirm that yesterday if that is not your is um let's see what happens no [Music] is [Music] yes [Music] yes [Music] yes [Music] yes [Music] all right so congratulations and thank you [Applause] um [Music] other comment i wanted to make before we began anything as i was looking over the

021agenda and there are numerous donations made to our district before um i saw a donation from mrs connor and her family um to have uh spaces for outside for the children to sit and i think that's awesome so thank you to her and her family um as well as a numerous donations as far as to help aid with our food bank and i saw those came in as well thank everyone that was donating for that cause as well um at this time i would like to bring forward uh the principles so that they can give out a student of the month award so can i get the principal for lalonda so good evening congratulations to alex batista may student of the month congratulations and avion rosado school lafayette's first student of the month is kenya

022gomez okay [Applause] [Music] palderon why don't good evening everyone our first recipient is [Applause] our second recipient is avapa [Applause] our next recipient is juan pablo chavez reyes and our final recipient is christian daniel pervez [Applause] [Music] hello everyone community middle school is proud to recognize for its student of the month daniel gonzalez aguilar [Applause] community middle school is also proud to recognize the student of the month diego escobar [Applause] and for the high school good evening in recognition of students demonstrating positive crusader citizenship traits such as responsibility respect kindness integrity cooperation tolerance and perseverance we have four recipients the first recipient is awarded to daniel cisneros our second recipient brooke cooper our third recipient jeremy suarez belisaro [Applause] i will take the award on his behalf and then last but certainly not least angel

023the last place [Applause] thank you um so congratulations mr caballo who is by day a teacher and by night a jedi always going the extra mile and supporting the students and families and creating an engaging learning environment when you enter his passion there's always fun learning activities going on and it's clear how excited the students are to be in your classroom i truly appreciate how welcoming we are when we pop in to visit um he always ensures um i can participate to participate in the activities the energy that mr creates between students and a growing love for education is amazing he motivates them and fills them with love of learning bringing humor continuous enthusiasm to everything he does i am so grateful to have you part of the peaceful team your passion for preschool education

024and japan and the results you get speak for themselves um thank you for all that you do congratulations i may look forward to be with you [Applause] answer lafayette's done for the month of may is mrs janine kinney my mantra falafel is teamwork makes the dream work and mrs kinney is a key player for us her impact on the students is quite evident as she is able to get them to self-reflect during times when others might find it difficult to do so the students are not only able to find a calm in mrs kinney but often leave her office feeling reassured and with a much more positive outlook to carry them through their day staff often look to her as well as she is a true confidant with a keen listening ear that is not

025only free of judgment but ready at any time to offer advice that advice is usually paired with her unique sense of humor that lightens any mood the same rings true for myself as often there are times i need a different perspective and mrs kinney is always ready to provide one she is consistently consistently willing to support my crazy ideas and does what she can to help me see them through most impressively with her health at the start of the school year we were able to bring lafayette's attendance rate to pre-culvert numbers within three weeks after seeing a 100 percent increase the first month of school families especially our virtual ones were struggling and understandably so with her knowledge of resources where she is truly second to none we were able to either directly support families

026or refer them to organizations that could provide assistance there is no doubt that with her extensive knowledge we changed many lives to the better thank you mrs kinney for not only all of your help but for your dedication to our students staff and families um mrs pellegrino is the new face of smalling school but not to the difference he is kind caring understanding professional and just a wonderful person and a teacher she cares about building relationships with her students and forming a strong rapport with them another third grade teacher quoted she always stops what she is doing to help other colleagues he always answers grade level texts regardless of the time of the day she remembers all of the important dates and sends emails to keep us informed and quote mrs pellegrino has made smalling

027school a better place and i'm excited to continue to work with her throughout the years and years of coming accusing special parts of team small [Applause] congratulations [Music] hello the community middle school is proud to recognize ron lee as his gem award recipient for the month of may i've had the privilege of working with mr lee for the past 12 years as a 7th grade teacher science teacher mr lee has inspired hundreds of students many of whom have gone on to careers in the fields of senate on june 10 mr lee will be hosting a virtual college and career vet with our friends at students to science and our corporate partner insmed a local somerset county-based global pharmaceutical company when i researched internet i came across the company's purpose statement which reads in part a

028purpose to find solutions where there were none before a purpose to do what's right even when it isn't easy both are profound statements that can easily be applied to school and certainly the mr lee's class as i mentioned mr lee works closely with our friends and students to sign to deliver virtual labs to the students in down brook this year more than ever our partnership with students the science and our corporate partner cenopy has had a tremendous impact on learning by providing a safe hands-on lab experience to our students during this pandemic mr lee has helped select coordinate and distribute individually packaged materials for approximately 30 virtual labs this school year over the last few years mr lee has become a bit of a celebrity with the students the science people and has been asked

029to contribute to their newsletter and attend annual working lunches in order to provide input on the program's implementation mr lee is a middle school robotics advisor over recent years mr lee and mr nowicki have helped to grow the robotics club into the most popular and highest attended after-school activity in the middle school our robotics club partners with the high school robotics team picatinny arsenal and ethicon engineers this year the middle and high school robotics club co-hosted a zoo meeting with u.s army major aaron hoyce who discussed the various roles robots play in our military as both a tactical and operational tool although the robotics program has been modified this year due to the pandemic i would like to thank mr lee for keeping it going and for ensuring students continue to have this avenue to

030explore their love of science and robotics thank you mr lee for all that you have done and for all the wonderful experiences you will provide our students in the future [Applause] yes good evening again it is with great pleasure that we recognize mr lee casperson as the gem recipient for bound brook high school lee is such an amazing person to work with he works so hard for all of his students constantly checking in with them and ensuring they are sure of what they need to do in his class he communicates with his students diligently to have them turn and work on time and helps them when they struggle um in their studies students really love him and seek him out for advice and guidance he has been an integral part of extracurricular activities as well

031coaching multiple sports and as the advisor for both project graduation and the senior class that being said lee's work in setting up the senior trip ensuring all seniors that want to go can attend and following up with students for detentions fines etc has been instrumental in determining and implementing a way for the seniors to celebrate the end of the year and their last year in high school with all the changes that pandemic has brought lee has stepped up to the challenge and demonstrated his care and concern for the well-being of students at ebhs planning and setting up trips is not easy especially for roughly 135 students he has really taken control over the process as well as following up with students which as we all know is a challenge all within itself not not to

032mention parent communications as well on top of this he continues to effectively teach his students without loss of rigor mr casperson's level of involvement and willingness to be there for his students especially during these times proves he is well deserving of this award mr casperson you were limitless congratulations okay at hello everybody our district gem award winner is mr jeff salmeri mr sal mary is a social studies teacher at the high school he teaches advanced placement united states history and he does a wonderful job how i got in contact with him is mr salmeria is one of my advanced placement exam proctors right now we are in the middle of advanced placement exams and mr style mary stepped up uh for me and did a wonderful job uh proctoring an exam um for me mr

033salmero is very capable uh proctor who's always willing to help and is not afraid of a big challenge as a teacher mr salmeri is very well regarded his colleagues say he's very good at teaching students how to debate and how to make this strong point that is based on evidence they also say his classes are rigorous but he is fair and extremely helpful to his students in learning the content they also say he's very helpful helpful to his teacher colleagues in setting up the vertical alignment within their curriculum and mr salmeri is the interdisciplinary studies chair at the high school school when i spoke to mr salmeri last week i was impressed when he told me that when he feels the energy going down in his classroom he will drop down and do some push-ups

034in front of his class to try to get the energy back up so i'd like to congratulate mr salmero for the district job award um [Music] this would be the time to address them um but we could certainly write them down and make sure that between now and the next [Music] um so i just have a question because i was late for the meeting um because i noticed that it's different than what's on the website am i correct uh what's what exactly an agenda i'm sorry that the agenda is different than well okay well um the agenda item that i put in online um i guess is there's because dr gallagher isn't here tonight correct he's not i believe oh okay so i guess there would be somebody else um going on the online questions

035well that's what i was just talking to our tech person um we don't have and there is no access for us to those questions so to anyone that's watching this evening we will note those questions down because they still exist because they're there in the virtual world somehow but we have no access to them because dr gallagher is not here so what will happen is anyone that asks questions that are online we will then hold those and carry those over to the next meeting okay okay so so anyway the question that i posted online is not on this um but it was about the high tops grant and they said mentioned 4 000 um so i just wondered because i i know they did the uh the meeting with the parents i wasn't sure there's

036anything else they did you know i don't think they would spend four thousand dollars just to have an online meeting so i'm just wondering [Laughter] the whole program itself cost like seven thousand dollars it wasn't just a parent piece there was three pd's for staff there was three um student things that happened like starting october maybe january or december and then february it was like three times so it was actually nine sessions total with different people it was already done um i didn't realize it wasn't the grant pieces from youth services commission like municipal alliance so this is just the technicality it was our program was already done it was just that who was paying for the program so there's nothing else already been done it's just now that we're reimbursing the district for paying

037for parliament okay so because i mentioned it looks like it was already happened so that's why i feel confused about that okay um yeah so then um and then i guess we maybe this would be revised this agenda uh because everything says that the superintendent will approve all of these so you in order to get these things passed so at this point he had recommended them through to putting them on the agenda and then it is just up for us today to approve them or not all right thank you by the way the first question was based on 10.9 i guess they rewarded it but it's 10.9 says approve the submission acceptance of the grant application for some accounting municipal youth services commission for high top professional services for 4 like um to get a

038motion to approve the minutes from both regular and executive meeting of may 10th 2021. can i get a motion motion mr bell second second mr morris any questions about the minutes hearing none can i get a roll call yes uh 6.1 the superintendent recommends for approval of the resolutions as outlined in personnel resolutions under district and high school 6.2 through 6.11 can i get a motion motion mr battalion can i get a second second all right mr zucker or any questions i have a question on six two the big one that everybody's here for if we agree to this we're accepting that we're not going to renew and that we're allowing pumping rights um by law by law it's in the contract and the 10-year law okay so basically yes if we vote more then

039we are affirming that we are mutually agreeing to not uh reading dr gallagher's contract so people hear from the attorneys he i know you said that people may have to because of he's to do certain things can we hear from the board attorney in terms of what our options are say we didn't want to i mean not just keep them in the position but keep them in the district you mean all right well first of all has he been right yes at that point if he chooses to stay then it would be up to the new superintendent to make that choice so maybe again the new superintendent would make the recommendation uh to the board that's what they would do with dr so then it would be it would be his recommendation and the board

040would review it or their recommendation rather than superintendent it would the new superintendent would have to recommend where to the only thing we have control is either to renew a superintendent's contract or to not with a super attendance contract beyond that um we do not have the ability to tell the new superintendent coming in and where to place dr gallagher when he steps down i mean we could tell if he puts him in and they put him in a position that we all disagree on we could vote on um when it comes as a motion but that's he continues for the next year because his contract doesn't end until june of so the idea would be to start this search for the superintendent fairly immediately to have yes yes and then because of the tenure

041that he does decide to stay because he would i guess assume seniority over everyone that's yeah that's like i said um ten year rights allows someone in a tenured position which he was in to be an administrator and then it would be up to the new school superintendent to decide where he fits best um we can't really we think we can't really say what that person is going to do going forward it would be up to them to make recommendations to us and we would either approve that recommendation or not improve the recommendation at that time i can't speculate at this point nor do i want to because there's an area of possibilities that could happen between now and then um so i wouldn't just wait till by law he maintains rights to employment in

042the district has the uh has a district ever terminated someone with tenure and so for what reasons [Music] all right any other question any other questions yeah i'll still be sorry uh i think just given [Music] what does that look like and what is what is a process and then you want to know what does it look like if you say we don't actually want this person in the district i know you're saying yes i just want to know what a situation would look like that way you can explain what dr gallagher's rights are what if we were to make the move to terminate him completely what the ratifications of such decisions [Music] that forward [Music] to certify the tenure charges against any individual usually between six months of the year and then when that

043costs um that whole process what types of things are superintendents because that's obviously what we're talking about of removing someone for tip like what types of actions would need would be actionable by the board to even remove someone in that position like what would you say to bring a case what kind of cases have you seen where people have been removed or administrators had their tender removed i'm very security computers what exactly would rise to the level of trying to take someone's tenure away because i'm assuming that that's a pretty high threshold it's a very interesting idea yeah i mean performance is now after the three other than that for disciplinaries the teachers engaged [Music] uh tenure charges and then another entity would decide whether that's correct that that's right right we would have to

044put together a body of evidence and which areas would have to have the right to dispute that as well and to see whether or not that even goes to the level where someone else would another end beyond boundary then decide whether or not we could even move forward to say something at the end okay all right um so here we know um okay at this time [Music] can i get a wrong ball for 6.2 through 6.11 yes i actually have another question i just want to be sure does it matter whether this uh emotion is yes abstaining from 6.2 but yes to everything else the resolutions as outlined in personnel resolutions under middle and elementary schools 7.2 7.5 can i get a motion mr bomb any questions or comments yes abstain [Music] as outlined in

045education resolutions under district high school 8.2 8.4 i think the addition of these programs i think it's awesome um an enrichment program during the summer and then hispanics is well received and uh let's have one question do we know what three books they'll be reading it's not on the presentation no i think you would have to ask um the teacher in charge just validate it no okay that's something uh yes yes yes number nine resolve the boundary board of education approves the resolutions as outlined in education resolutions under middle and elementary schools 9.2 and 9.3 can i get a promotion i get a second second mr any questions or comments hearing none may i get a roll call yes is muffin yeah [Music] yes there's more yes yes let's see can i get a motion

046[Music] yeah we're on the donations right all right the last donation uh from staples is this staples on the circle because that's summer yeah because it's that's the staples on the circles not summer votes i don't know if that matters okay because if it's the actual store it's it's rare and it's not something but i do want to find all of those especially mrs connor and family for uh for the outdoor bench i think that's awesome um um hearing no other questions or comments can i get a roll call but then yes for everything else yes hearing none we are now open to the public for discussion just please come [Music] hello lauren paxton president of the bbea when did you know that you would not have access to the online entries for the uh

047board meeting about 20 minutes ago okay um so who who makes the agendas in minutes uh that's basically done through the business office i believe um because the write-in stuff goes on to the minute so does uh mr steinmetz have access to that no he doesn't know no doctor if it doesn't he's not here so we will make sure that anything that was on the online then um it can't be reflected in the minutes necessarily for tonight's meeting because they're not something that we saw but we will certainly bring them forward and make sure that any comments that were made online we will make sure that we have access to those things and then we bring those forward at the next meeting and at the next meeting you're going to have access to the ones

048yes that doesn't happen again okay thank you you're welcome i'm delores off i worked here from 1970 until 2012 as a classroom teacher and i still have an interest in a love for this community and i want to see it going in the right direction the last time i addressed this panel this group we were in a little different situation i see you're making progress i'm happy to see that but i have a question can you tell the audience how you will be going about the selection process for the successor superintendent um that i i'll be honest none of us have participated in that the last superintendent there was no i was we were on tour there's a process i mean we've now not renewed our superintendent uh all of ten minutes ago so there's

049a process that we have to go through uh it will be ready and then he'll bring us with you know different avenues there's the what is it called agencies school boards or outside agencies will have to determine which is the most financially uh best for the district to go through they take charge of the process to make sure that we follow the proper protocols and procedures and then i'm sorry go ahead and then anyone that's on the board that wants to be part of that committee and that's election process uh you know would make it known and then we would go forward that way but is it possible that you could include community members parents staff they would have [Music] like what does that process look like so going forward what does that process [Music]

050and they'll try and um you know get a sense of what the district's looking probably says as well when you're looking for the next superintendent and they go about a process of kind of designing [Applause] as far as trying to include uh more because i know they spoke earlier even the candidates that are finding more a greater role in the community and teachers could it be something as simple as a survey i mean ahead of time um you know a lot depends on your timeline because you know obviously you're trying to get communities yeah a lot of times as far as the input from from the faculty uh yeah as well okay we can certainly put together uh you know community committee as far as that's concerned as well i feel like we've never done

051that so um [Music] i think if you're willing to do that yeah and listen to the people you won't find yourself in the same mess that are out of now in the future so i'm happy to hear that you're open to that sure okay like i said we've never ever been in this position before so uh we're new to it as well so we will we will learn together and certainly would love to make uh the faculty and the community at large a part of that process right here thank you erica clarke's principal of lafayette um i know it's the only reason i'm speaking right now is because it's formally public knowledge that dr gallagher will not be renewed for next year um obviously the process of selecting a superintendent is an arduous one it

052is time consuming um i taught in this district for 10 years i'm now an administrator from what my opinion is worth i do believe community members students staff and administrators should be part of the process um michelle i know when i worked with you on ed council a couple of months ago you stated that we should speak publicly but we have concerns absolutely so i'm just publicly letting it be known that if you do choose to have a committee as an administrator i would like to be considered to be a part of it so thank you can i remove my mask yes thank you hi my name is josephine laity i live at 121 cherry app good evening board members parents educators and vanbrook community what if i told you a story tonight about passion

053you're probably thinking what does passion have to do with the board of education meeting well i haven't lived in bound brook for too long and i certainly knew nothing about this counter its people yet these past few weeks i've seen such intensity and working together from our community that i have never seen before and i'm certain many of us here agree it really makes you wonder if people work together with passion in a common goal in their everyday life in their workplaces you could really achieve change and make someone's life better i want to believe that our school system here in bamberg is focused on intensifying relationships between students and teachers teachers and parents between staff and educators but we all know at this point that that is not the case it's very upsetting and

054shameful for our community to be here today mourning our school system the fact that we feel the need to show you in actions that we are not pleased is the biggest problem all around we shouldn't need to resort to actions you as the board should be listening to us is that not why you are here because you care about this town you care about the children you have a passion for teaching leading and being a part of something more please listen to me now we need more we need a change and we need it today the number of teachers staff parents and even students that have shared their stories with me these past two weeks have been disturbing to say the least the common denominator in these stories is absent today dr daniel gallagher but

055maybe that's best because you can focus more clearly on our problem at hand our ship is dying at the hands of a captain and we are drowning the way we can stand stay afloat and reach short is by swimming together in the same direction this is our plea to you tonight help us get ashore because i promise you if you work with us instead of against us you will not be left to drown you know that our superintendent is a bully he intimidates he manipulates and he harasses to get what he wants when he wants and how he wants it this is not the profile of the leader and even though we now know he will step down from his current position as a superintendent we will like to make it clear as day to

056you board we do not accept him in any other position in the district a great superintendent must have a clear vision for the district but also needs to be a good listener a good manager and leader that follows through with values and ethics a superintendent that lets excellent teachers leave or pushes them out is none of these a superintendent that does not defend his teachers from homophobic bullying from students is unworthy of his position and the superintendent that is racist homophobic and sexist to others has no space in any district as you may all know by now we have started a petition and roughly 800 people have signed it in less than two weeks 800 people that are telling you that he is unfit to hold any position in this district now let me ask

057you a question before i wrap up do you know what the anti-bullying bill of rights act is the act is concerning harassment intimidation and bullying in school settings the fact that this board is not taking action against the toxic superintendent that we have is alarming we are here we are aware and we will not stop until you take action against dr daniel gallagher he is not welcome in our home his contract needs to be terminated for a neglection of duties and responsibilities incompetence immorality incapacity of maintaining healthy and effective working relationships with parents staff and our community and lastly the most important of them all he has failed to provide for the safety of our students and teachers my goodness he has been their assaulter the bamboo community will be here again next meeting to

058hear your decision on this matter either it be the board taking action and terminating his contract or him resigning found our story will be heard far and wide because we love our town and our community has the passion to continue fighting until we feel like our school system is safe again thank you good night [Music] good afternoon my name is [Music] 311 mountain avenue today we want to talk to you about uh our daughter rebecca and small and a problem and a situation that we have with her or not rebecca was diagnosed or she has six diagnosis bilingual disorder hdhd dyslexia writing learning disorder learning difficulty involving reading learning difficulty involving math [Music] when rebecca was in kindergarten we were called to a meeting at the school because they wanted rebecca to repeat the kindergarten

059for the fact that she was immature in reality on the escondidas in honest on all honesty this is the moment where several teachers uh behind doors approached us and they suggested that rebecca will be evaluated psychologically and educationally which gave the result of the diagnosis that i had just mentioned to this point it was a happy moment knowing that we had the diagnosis and that we were going to have the the help that rebecca was needing [Music] and this is where the fight began year after year against the schools trying to have rebecca eggman to maintain her ip los maestros consejos [Music] um the teachers every year have given us under the table advice with the fear the fear that they said that it will come back to them if they if somebody realized them

060that they are the ones telling us to fight for the the needs that rebecca has because it will financially affect the school lunder we don't understand why teachers have to hide to help for the well-being of a child when the board of education was created for that certificate we managed to obtain the certified ips and supported by all the medical diagnosis and surprise surprise it was not immaturity she had six medical diagnosis ever since we have been fighting as her parents to have her ip being respected and to have it better against a system that has fired us as enemies in everything to accomplish that our daughter learned the way in a manner that she will be able to learn multiple vessels many times we have come to mark dimarco tardia and all the time

061his answer has been poor late and without interest is one of the examples is that during this class year she has missed 23 classes of orton gilligan which is her special education and 11 classes for math renovation class remedial classes [Music] yes and many of the classes that she has missed is because mr dimarco has called for a meeting for all the staff during the time that my daughter has to have the remedial classes um after a month four emails in one meeting we have still not being able to obtain that mr demarco gave us a record of the classes for her no we believe that he doesn't know or he doesn't have it because he is unable to give us an answer todd our concern is that everything related to this has brought to

062our daughter to a point of frustration and our weight on her de camanera for example such as the case that during the summer to the fact that she has to attend her remedial classes she also has to catch up with the 23 classes of burton gilligan and the 11 classes of math that she lost during a period of time where a child has to be resting and recharging a [Music] and the way we see it is that with the fact that the state wants to change the pull-out for the classes that she is receiving on our meeting with mr barco on may 20th he told us that the ip for our daughter is going to change without our consent as you know the ip iap is a legal contract between the parents the school and

063the state that's right elephant also player comparison and the ip cannot change without our consent that's correct he can also tell us that all the teachers are being trained within this new process and that is a lie because we have search and we find out that none of the teachers are being trained for this process they have attended some meetings but training they have not received no esta el significado del iep the purpose of the iep is an individual education process individuals making a general change without the consent is violating the needs of every child with different needs when they make a general change my daughter's another 21 student class classes and she should be on a smaller class according to the doctor's suggestions 25 of the students in the class where my daughter is

064have a some type of necessity for learning learning necessity learning necessity have it under consideration why are we here yes and we want to ask you that all the teachers will be able to help us with their knowledge with their suggestions without fear of fighting fire or being reprimanded and we also want to ask you that rebecca's iep should be respected and reinforced instead of weakness so she can learn like any other child especially if we also wanted to ask you that a special education in bamboo should not be the reason why we have to leave the town to obtain the need the needs for our child instead we should reinforce it to not leave our towns amigos from specialists i do have a lot of friends with the special needs children and they have

065told us that this is a losing fight jonolo creola i don't believe so i do believe that a special education is very important inside and the school and within that district we also want to ask you that giving all the facts and all the things that we have gone through that the people in charge of a special education investiga that they should be evaluated or investigated to make sure that they have the requirements to fight and to help the children progress according to their needs basically as parents and we have been fighting for four years it's very tiring but also to fight for that to be obtained and for her benefit from and it's also very painful to ask parents to look at our children not to be able to obtain what by law they

066deserve they need yes this is our request to do we thank you for any help that you can provide us information and we're here for you if you need us can i just get your last name okay i don't think there's anyone that's sitting on this board that would disagree with anything that you said to i want to honor you and your wife to come up here and speak publicly about such a private issue it takes tremendous heart and i know it's difficult so i want to say thank you for that second booklet in that booklet in the back of the booklet there's a number for this spn spam network it's a network that all of my deals my parents i tell them if you have a problem with anything [Music] the thing is with

067an iep the board is limited what we can do because what's happened is that it's a document between the school system and yourself which you had just said but the guise of what you are talking about comes under the department of education and i think that coming here i again is tremendous but go right to the source so you can get answers that would be my suggestion so if you don't have that booklet you know the child aesthetically is difficult it's a hard situation and you have their own things that you're dealing with but under the law you're allowed so you know i would say you know if you don't have it by the next meeting please come at the next meeting and let us know okay thank you thank you very much like like

068we say before we went through with a lot of people and if we are here it's just knocking another door and we weren't gonna stop for my daughter i wasn't gonna stop i'm never gonna do it but what we we are coming here just trying to to see if like i say we can get some help in here because always what really worry or is really worthy for us is to listen the teacher saying oh please go there trying to get this but please don't say my name because i'll be on problems i don't want to be on problem i don't get fired i want to get my pensions that kind of things then that's that's weird they they are afraid to what is if we are not selling drugs we are trying to get

069school school education for my daughter that i don't understand the part but i guess maybe there should be should be some information that maybe you guys don't know this happen if something is happening or like i say maybe doing an evaluation of the people in charge of these kind of things because definitely some something is wrong there do we have an audit that is not presented to us about the child study special especially yeah [Music] just just something else to finish is i post something in favor and we receive so many calls of parents spanish spanish speakers trying trying to say oh i have this problem and my daughter is repeating grades and grades and grades and and she may have a problem and and we are trying to help those people to go to

070the right person and get the right diagnosis and get the right help but we know for sure because that happened to us eventually we they're going to have another fight with another process then that's where we are trying to help the people in that in that way [Music] advocacy network and it [Music] thank you very much for listening hi my name is victoria giada 244 chestnut street so i want to prep this by saying obviously you see where i'm sitting so you know that i'm part of the fight to change our district if our children are not allowed to bully i don't think any of the officials in the district should be allowed to bully so maybe the board can um you know take action as we are asking take action and hold the person

071accountable for what he's done so far i don't know if you're familiar with any of the stories that have uh come out about what has happened and his you haven't uh we can print copies for you because we have we have plenty of stories they're from people a lot of them are anonymous because they're still scared of retaliation which i think is despicable that a a teacher has to be scared to help our students that's that's their job right like i shouldn't have to have my daughter's teacher saying yeah i'll give you this but don't tell anybody just like the last gentleman was saying teachers their passion is teaching our children so why should we not allow them to do so why should they be scared of retaliation against what it makes no sense whatsoever

072and the stories i mean she's got copies of the story so she'll print them for you so that's just what i wanted to start with is if our children are not allowed to bully none of the school officials including the superintendent should be allowed to bully that's his job is to protect our children another thing is what is the board planning to do to hold him accountable what is the board planning to do to to he works for you so uh do you ask questions about all the the concerns that come up from parents does the board uh plan to to have the what are the results of the the the teacher what was that called the teacher review the evaluation teacher evaluation the teacher survey we generally get the results of those when they

073come out we haven't seen one when was the last time we saw one last year two years so from what i understand yeah i can't like i said he's not here to answer but i know at the last meeting um someone asked a similar question as far as the end i know the end of the survey was recent and i think he said we should have that by the end of this year before summer vacation so that should be something that we should before before that so then the board can use that to make their decision and hopefully it's in good time my other question is i see in the last two weeks when we you know gathering stories gathering evidence gathering facts uh i i've learned that there are so many students that are

074moved out of this district either parents sell their house and move away or they're sending them to private schools which is to be honest with you something that i've considered because the schools are not improving so maybe we should move we've thought about that as well what is the board's plan to improve this district to keep kids in our district to keep taxpayers in the district over the last several years i mean i'd have to go through a list there's there's different programs that they've tried to their data driven instruction where they're trying to target students that need that help and give them additional services either after school or during the summer so there are things that are in there obviously it's not going to be something that's going to happen overnight but they're certainly

075aware of that and each year there are different recommendations that are made and tried and that's what making i believe no one on this board i tell you want us to improve in school you know testing my last question is about covin so every week we get these surveys where are those results are they posted somewhere do we get a copy of those results the coven the covenant survey the parent survey every week we get a slew of questions of how do we feel mental health um you know are we happy with what our kids are going through and i've never seen any of those results he's not here to answer that so [Music] now so he's the only one that knows the facts behind those surveys well that's i mean he doesn't someone isn't

076another company that runs the actual survey thank you that's the best kathleen kleindeck 518 daily play stone brock um i think you really need to get a forensic auditor to look at the special education funds something's wrong and i i mean this seriously i don't know if it's criminal i don't know if it's just um mismanagement i don't know if it's that far underfunded that things are operating the way they are but there's no way their school district following a law that's been in place for almost 50 years can have what is called a violation of the continuum of placement options i'm so angry mr demarco cannot tell parents we don't have that here we do this we don't do that we don't have this program that is a complete violation in the first sentence

077of continuum of placement options the word must is in the law you cannot say that we have resource room but we don't have in class support we have in-class support but we don't have resource rooms we have we don't have out-of-district placement we don't have this we don't have physical therapy we we have consulting services where in the law does it say that you can do that why are parents being extorted told that if you don't like it pay 500 an hour for an attorney that is the due process i've been through that with this district that's his answer we are paying taxes the taxes are getting used to pay attorneys by the district to take rights away then to fight that we have to either get a pro bono turn attorney or pay an

078hour to an attorney to go to court which i've had to do in this district i've had to leave this district i came back to this district i can't even tell you the intimidation tactics that went on when i left initially i know it was illegal i know it was borderline criminal i did not file charges with federal regulators who would have investigated it i left i was told by a 500 an hour attorney if you go through this it will cost you 30 000 you are better off sleeping in someone's basement in another district you have a big civil rights problem in this district right now i suggest you take it seriously i suggest you get the evidence and you compile it and you do something and it goes back years i suggest you

079get a forensic auditor and look at the books not somebody from the district somebody who does this for a living a forensic auditor who knows how to find things things that are not where they should be something is drastically wrong secondly i suggest that when you look for a new superintendent you become aware that the state just passed legislation to integrate all the districts into county districts and that across the entire state that is what the state is trying to do they want to cut aid to all districts that don't become um regional districts so you have that also when you look for a new superintendent but this superintendent you have to consider the possibility and this is for the attorney what is the evidence required to suspend somebody while an investigation is pending that

080is what you need to know you have major problems civil rights problems in this district and you need to do something quickly thank you [Applause] hello i want to say i'm very nervous so if i cry and whatever you know um just give us your name my name is karen sandy cicada i grew up in bamboo since i was three years old i dropped out of high school 10th grade and i live in cherriov in the garfield park apartments i have a lot of things well a small list of things major things that i would like to address oh sorry i am 20 years old i believe i was 17 when i dropped out and i was not going to speak on my experience in the brown brook district because i am also here to

081speak on two other things but i have heard a lot so far and i've wanted for so many years to express myself i want to start a little bit positive first so um i am i love bamboo i came here from costa rica as an immigrant and um i have dreams and i want to own a home in this town one day i want to be a teacher in high school one day and i want to raise kids one day here i want to grow and i want to help the community i have always looked for a home as someone who never had a permanent home in this district i want to say some fun things that's happened to me you know being in this district for example i've had some great teachers um i

082have some fun memories um sorry to start it first positive because it's going to help me be able to continue sorry uh i see some people here that i have memories with teachers that i've seen that i have memories with when i was in kindergarten um i used to go to recess and pretend that i bumped my head so that i could go to the nurse and see mr kaplan's mom and so she could give me a lollipop and i could just sit there and speak with her in sixth grade mr santa cerma he taught me how to properly shake a hand in fifth grade mr paxton did the dare program with us and i learned the dangers of drugs i learned a lot and i was so proud when i got to stand on

083this stage in the fifth grade and say the essay that i wanted to miss wisneski i'm not sure if she's still in the district but she was also amazing with music i ended up learning how to play drums as i grew up there's so many more memories that i have of wonderful teachers but um when i got to high school i never thought that i would be a cheerleader i was always like a tomboy and i ended up being a cheerleader because my friend wanted me to and i got into varsity my freshman year and i was so excited with the high school experience or whatever and um i had pretty good grades you know maybe here and there i get to see um i was active i volunteered in the salvation army i i

084had a good time i went through a sexual assault experience when i was 16 years old and i brought the attention to someone in the district one of the counselors that i will not name they had sent me to a therapist in zoo fall and i'm here to explain to you guys and the reason i'm here to say my experience is because i believe that so many more of me come out of this district or drop out of this district i didn't i never wanted to leave high school but i did so because i stayed back in kindergarten because i was too too immature to go to the first grade i did not want to have to stay back again because i was going through depressive episodes and with sometimes i would skip school and

085sometimes i would be late grades were going down and someone knew in the district what i had gone through i had clear signs of someone under distress and no one was monitoring me as someone new no one was monitoring me no one none of the counselors were coming to me hey you did this are you okay you're not doing that in your grades you did a whole 360 from one year doing great to another year failing i'm also a woman of color i'm mixed i'm thick and i would get dress coded a lot one occasion i got dress coded for the multiple but i was told no i was i had to stay in the principal's office from 11am i had just gotten my lunch until 3pm because the nurse did not have a change

086of clothes for me and my parents were working and i did not have a change from clothes for me so i missed my classes from 11 to 3 p.m until school was out and i had to sit humiliated in an office while i waited to leave the school on top of that i had my period as a woman i had my period and i got really bad cramps i was suffering and they would not let me go 10 feet across the hall to go and get a pill so that the pain would go away i had to beg i had to cry and i had to seem extremely mature for someone to give me the attention that i needed so that i could feel some elite feel believed until finally they called my parents and

087they gave me that pill in that school district none of the teachers knew what was going on they didn't even know something was remotely wrong with me and looking back all of them were confused none of them could have at any point feel empathy for me or move forward with me or encourage me because no one knew that i was not okay no one communicated that hey one of your students is not okay i believe now there's more help in the district i haven't been here for almost three four years yes and i believe that now there is help but what concerns me is that all this happened and i don't believe that the help came because of my story or i believe that i was almost hidden i was just a little piece just

088a little piece in the puzzle of a district and i am here because i really care and i want what's better and i'm very happy that things have improved i believe that there's a trauma crisis team now and i'm so happy about that however um [Music] improvement there's always room for improvement i've always learned that there's room for improvement i have had to improve myself alone and i'm here because when i wanted to share my story a brief amount of it because i don't want more of me to go through these districts i want you guys to be careful as a 16 year old going through what i was going through i was not going to come to a board of education meeting and stand here and tell you guys what was wrong with me

089i'm 20 years old now and i could do and tell you what happened in the past and congratulate you from what you've changed and hope that you will continue to do better i'm here to speak on three things for other people you guys i i just heard that you haven't heard many stories and etc so i want to share a teacher who's no longer here a female gym teacher um in brownbrook high school there was a meme of her posted on the internet and with joking accusations of her being in the women's locker room for gym because yes yes however i would like to say what i would like to speak for her real quick says i was in the gym and the teacher came in to tell my kids and to tell me kids

090were talking about me posted about me i asked the student to show me and that student did i took a picture of the memes and brought it up to mr smith who was there with gallagher they called the student in who said he posted it and mr smith made him delete them called his parents and then suspended him 10 days kids found out about the suspension started chanting to free the student every time they saw me after realizing that the student was going to be suspended for states and wrestling and that he wouldn't be able to wrestle the wrestling coach told the family to fight the suspension dr gallagher told me behind me meet with him mr smith the parents and the board president i was then told that it was my fault for seeing

091it because it was on a private account that because of me the student was now in therapy the next board meeting would have been after states the father of that student went to the board members that he is friends with and his suspension was overturned he was given iss and allowed to return and wrestle i went to the board meeting because i was told it was going to be brought up the board let it slip that gallagher told them to they tried to backtrack their statement but it was already put out there he actually came up to me after the meeting to try to say quote you heard them take it back it wasn't me i ended up in therapy because i was so scared those memes were going to be out there and i

092was coaching at a catholic school i couldn't find anything because of that male students then started writing that i was a pedophile in the boys bathroom in the locker room to add to that there was a black student who i believe played basketball at the time and after practice i believe he got a free breakfast he was humiliated and i believe arrested for doing so now i don't know about you but it does not sound right for a black student who took free breakfast outside of school hours after his practice to be humiliated and arrested while whoever posted this of the teacher was able to get away with a suspension i also have a friend who i will not name she graduated here last year she isn't she's african-american these are her words i am

093deeply disappointed that this is to be discussed again i'm deeply disappointed that this topic is constantly overlooked by a board who seems to continuously allow racist rhetoric to be voiced throughout baumbra schools if you aren't familiar with who i am or my story this refresher may help in fact this isn't my story anymore it is the story of many students too many students in the bahamas school district and we are tired of the harassment racism transphobia misogyny and so much more bamboo is a diverse district but it fails to protect all students from various cultures and ethnicities during my senior year in 2019 in class i was directly sent a racist meme via airdrop which allows iphone users to send other iphone users close range documents i found a hip report i followed up with

094the director and never heard anything back there have been too many incidents where inappropriate and hurtful remarks have been said aloud students have not been held accountable and some teachers have allowed this to happen continuously while others have to help in silence despite all the efforts i made to bring this to the administration's attention some students who have been attacked in the past have felt hopeless during that time specifically because they knew the administration would not address it or hold the student accountable before the board gets into the blame game they should know i know these bullies are not kids anymore they know the difference between right and wrong and they continuously belittle others because administration lets them get away with it it's time for the board to open their ears and take action we

095need to create a safe space for all now i'm not going to stand here and say that you guys want these things to happen in the district but i am going to say i hope more effort goes into listening to us to the people to the community i'm not the first to say this up here but it's so important when things are said more than three times especially when they're not good things that they're said once it needs to change people want change in this town not because we are some people that just want to complain we want change we want to help we want to better and if you guys can't do it what can we do so you can as a community because we all want the best for everyone we want the

096best for my future kids for the current kids for me when i was little we want the best we don't want to fight you we want to help you and we want you to help us that's all i have to say for today is already signed in um so one thing i think you desperately need is like a peace and reconciliation commission in the school district um and i mean i was touched by a lot of these stories and i cried for for her um i think um well first of all you know you have complaints about the superintendent um i would and you know he said she said a lot of people have different things that they had encountered with the superintendent um i can only speak for myself personally that um one thing

097that i sorely missed last year was the coffee with the superintendent and that was two years ago and a lot of times it was just me or like two other people um i think that dialogue is very important and not just on social media [Music] so i understand that there's a perception that a lot of the board members are um i guess very amicable with the superintendent and i think that it's in part because you directly talk to him so that there is that direct back and forth um i know for myself when i did the coffee with superintendent seemed like a great guy i mean he you know answered all our questions he might be showing one face to me um you know an enter a motivated parent he might be showing one face

098to me i don't know but i think that it would be good because he's going to be a superintendent until um june 2022 um that he does reinstate those coffees with the superintendent um because i think that is invaluable that's why the same okay at this point i'm going to need a motion to go into executive to [Music] uh those are the only things that we are removing after the meeting so uh we will be back all in favor [Music] so foreign so all right we are back in session so at this point i need a motion to approve all done i gotta repeat it resolve it down on vacation the approval of the resolutions is outlined in the approval of cases under high school 15.2 can i get a motion yes yes 16.1 resolve

099the valid order of education approval of the resolutions is outlined in the approval of hit cases under middleman elementary school 16.2 and point three can i get a motion is that you yes it was i'm sorry roll call yes yes [Music] yes can i get emotion to adjourn motions