001i'm here you're all alive okay it's this time the new jersey public 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 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 balbrook has caused notice of this meeting to be hosted in the board office and at the bound for high school and mailed her fast to the courier news found referral clerk southbound board of education and any person who had requested individual notice and paid the required fee please stand for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic
002for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice [Music] she is not here to email this girl today she had a commitment miss martinez is here she's online yeah stevens ms stevens is here she's also online this is [Music] here that's um real quick just a fast note tom for some reason i cannot hear audio from the members of the board up on my computer so i'm not sure what's up [Music] real quick yeah i just don't get here ever since try it one more time i love technology [Music] third time's the trap every day in my kitchen okay president's report um yeah i just want to you know i know for the student of the month uh students i wanted to congratulate them for their hard work and earning student
003of the month i did want to thank any staff or faculty members that have received the gem awards we certainly appreciate all the hard work and dedication to the students and community of bound brook um i am glad to see that sports and clubs are still continuing um i wanted to give a thank you to stacey young for the donation of the books uh that she gave to the seventh through twelfth grade and then a shout out to soul for soul for 150 pairs of sneakers that's awesome as well and i also continue to thank those people that are collecting uh and distributing food not only to our students but to the community at large so thank you for your continued service that's it all right well on that note before i uh turned it
004over to the principles um i'd like to make mention that costco here in bridgewater donated a huge sum of food for us for our food bank for this week so i'd like to thank costco and this is ryan and mrs fisher for coordinating that taking care of that um obviously this weekend um we had some some covert issues in the district i'd like to especially thank um all the district nurses for going above and beyond this weekend getting on the phone doing the contact tracing um it was very uh very appreciated that the nurses took some time um this weekend to help us out with the contract tracing making sure we got everything done appropriately in the right way along with the principles so we had a busy weekend um trying to do all the
005contact racing that we had to do this this past weekend and um i just wanted to thank all of them especially for going above and beyond this weekend and then of course um i did send that an email out to the staff this week or today actually letting them know that they've performed magnificently it's been almost a year since we went out um on this uh pandemic so you know with all the the different things that we've had to do being completely verbal to hybrid and back and forth you know they've handled everything very very well and gracefully throughout this time so i wanted to thank them i also um gave them a little bit of information which i will now share with the board um we got a memo on friday about the er
006esther two funds which is the second set of care funds um we are slated to get about 2.5 million in the second round of care funds which is a good amount of money for for us in the district additionally um some insider information that i received today um you can anticipate some very very good news tomorrow from the governor in terms of state e for bound brook so um from what i understand he is going to fully fund s to a year four level which is uh more than anticipated so if that does happen um again we are we're in pretty good shape so just wanted to put that out there and then obviously um there are two grants that they put out there one is for um learning loss and one is for mental
007health and we will be applying for both of those grants for the district for those funds so hopefully we can receive some more money to help help our kids with learning loss and mental health needs so with that now we're going to turn it over to our principles we're going to start with lamont annex and dr s for students of the month and now we're going to swing over to mrs clark over at lafayette school do we have anything for them what grade are you in we do have a fourth grade student from somali here in the audience so we're gonna go to to mr edwards now to do his uh students of the month good evening everyone our students of the month for swelling school for february are carter aries ethan aschoff dylan delgado
008alice and jaspreet kumar who's in the audience congratulations all right going to move over to community school and mr santa ceremony hello everyone middle school is proud to recognize for its students and samantha wright congratulations and mr smith from bamboo high school good evening i'd like to congratulate the following recipients for the book high school crusader citizen of the month award jaclyn hernandez queen marcelo gomez cameron summers and juliana zaccardi congratulations [Applause] and now we're going to go to our gem awards for the month we'll start with lamont lemonade and dr s congratulations he's always available to the students families and staff he goes above and beyond to make our little building vote each month he hosts the virtual all school meeting that all of our students can participate in it provides teachers with strategies
009and resources for the classroom this way and for lafayette school mrs lafayette's gem clark the month of february is heather woods um as educators i think we can only reflect on trying our hardest to reach all the students even some of the challenging ones um and it does sometimes become exhausting during a regular year um and even more so during challenging times like this heather woods has remained calm and kind um and really has just gone above and beyond for her students and i appreciate all that you have done so thank you heather and we're going to go to mr edwards for smalling school good evening again miss bell is one of our sixth grade teachers at smalley school a professional educator who continues to help her students colleagues and community this bell is a
010very caring sincere patient and a team player day in and day out she strives to help her students not just academically but she also tries to bring out their social emotional personalities in the classroom she's part of a hard-working and dedicated sixth grade team she is continuing to grow as an educator having attended professional development seminars in the summer currently she is enrolled obtaining her master's degree this month's gem award is presented to miss jamie bell congratulations [Applause] now we'll move over to community middle school and mr santa clara hello everyone once again uh the community middle school is proud to recognize mr lay as its gem award recipient for the month of february when we think back over this past month uh my most vented memory is snow and more snow so tonight's weather
011is just another example of how we're all kind of hoping for an early spring about one month ago when the weather turned uh temperatures dropped into the teens and unlike most years when you know we would typically bring our students into the gymnasium for arrival until the arrival bell rang this year we're kind of guided by coded protocols and temperature checks and so forth so students have to stay outside and if we're lined up and we process them as quickly as we can but on january 28th mr lay was out of store and he noticed that the store was selling a large quantity of mint mittens and hats uh the coldest day of the year was coming that very next morning temperatures dropped pretty quickly mr lake decided at that moment to buy over 100
012pairs of mittens and hats for the kids at cms the next morning mr lake solicited the help of mrs kradatas mrs darwin mr fisher and mrs dubio and they began handing out these mittens and hand packs to all the kids who are standing in line at arrival uh it wasn't the fact whether that many students if they did or did not own you know hats and gloves but for anyone who the parent of a middle school student they know that uh but that morning i can assure you there were a few students that refused this gift from mr light it's this level of caring that prompted teachers at the community middle school last year to nominate mr light as the 2020 teacher of the year so on behalf of all of our students our parents
013our staff i'd like to thank mr lakewood's generosity but more importantly for his constant dedication and this is sincere love for being a teacher and for going the extra mile for our students thank you and now we'll move on over to bamboo high school and mr smith hello again uh we would like to congratulate miss courtney namarovsky for being named high school gem award uh miss nemo as the kids call her is a time compassionate and persevering teacher despite the challenging circumstances of this year she has built a warm classroom environment for both virtual and in-person students miss nemo is not only able to successfully engage students in academic conversations but she also maintains strong personal connections with her students her creativity and empathy are the mark of an exemplary professional beyond our effective classroom
014practices ms nema is a valuable member of the bbhs staff she contributes to a supportive environment by taking numerous teachers under her wing she has impacted them as well as student teachers crazily as they navigate their early teaching years she provides sound expertise and advice from her own experience furthermore miss nemo goes above and beyond for her students not only does she care about uh her students grades and academic success she also cares deeply about their mental emotional and physical well-being students are constantly talking about how much they love her because she treats them as people not just students and she's always looking out and is always there for them at times like these teachers like ms demarovsky are essential to his school building she truly wants to see all teachers and students succeed and
015we are lucky to have her as part of our team for all of these reasons we congratulate ms lima [Applause] and the general award for the district is going to go out to mike for the palti this month um this past weekend we had some server issues and uh mike along with the rest of the technology team spent the entire weekend here working very very hard long hours make sure that the district continued to run and operate um without without them and uh mike who's a former former student here um you know he graduated while i was principal here uh never really left he stayed here he continues to work here um he's a college graduate he works really hard for us and he he goes well above and beyond all the time anytime we
016ask ask him to he's more than deserving of this award and uh again uh mike fitzpaul he's in the district the gym award recipient for the month of february thanks mike all right so at this point huh i'll do that um at this point in time tony are you ready for your report i'm going to turn it over to tony mormont who is going to do our ssds hiv presentation for the reporting period number one bad tone how was the presentation do you want to make him the presenter so he could share a screen uh yeah i can i'm going to allow you to share yes all right okay so the pandemic had a significant impact on hiv the first reporting period september through december in harassment intimidation and bullying the numbers were decreased significantly
017um you see the investigations are set up and district-wide confirmed they are two events they have a great deal from the first period of last year uh and i know from talking to my uh guidance director colleagues from other county schools that this is not just the case at november is we had three hiv investigations and one day from the case of hiv uh at the middle school it was general investigations and just zero confirmed no confirmed cases smalling two investigations and just one confirmed case and then zero investigations and confirmed cases district-wide we have no incidents to report from our high school the only school that we had incidents to report were at community schools and no other incidents and violence okay that's it for for my completion all right does anybody have any
018questions that is the bare bones we've ever ever seen thank you can you share your screen back to me you've done a great job okay um that is it for my report on committee meetings we've got a policy meeting tonight we went through some policy updates that will be on our next agenda um i would say the biggest biggest change on the policies is the abolishment of the four current fmla policies we have and they're kind of being condensed into one coherent fmla policy so i would say that's the biggest change worth coming in the policies does anybody else want to chime in on policy or okay uh with that we are open to the public for agenda items only i can see that nothing's changed over the years well i think we did have
019there were there were definitely one people out there it was oh yeah do you want to shut this so they can't read the comments advanced boss um sure okay there we go all right so we have nothing online for agenda items and nobody here so you are up to approval of minutes all right i need a motion to approve the minutes of 228 2021 motion mr uh thomas ellie second does anyone have any questions or comments does anyone need to abstain will we [Music] yes [Music] all right personnel resolutions resolve the superintendent recommends for approval the resolutions is outlined in personnel resolutions under district in high school 6.2 through 6.4 can i get a motion mr tong sally second second mr ball any questions i'm glad to see robotics moving forward hearing no questions may
020i get a roll call yes [Music] yes miss martinez yes yes yes the stevens yes this is resolutions under middle and elementary schools seven point two through seven point four can i get a motion motion it's mars second mr thomas ellie any questions hearing none can i get a vocal ball yes martinez yes yes stevens yeah ms rosa yes eight finance resolutions resolve the boundary board of education approves the resolutions as outlined in financial resolutions eight point two to eight point five can i get a promotion mr battalian any questions once again thank you to the donations uh that's awesome hearing no other questions or comments may i get a roll call yes mrs martinez yes morris yes stevens yes ms rosamano yes mr thomas ellie yes yes which is upcoming yes yes does anyone
021have any other matters they'd like to bring before the board yes mr thomas so today the state passed its new rules on uh marijuana have we revisited as a board for we have policies um we just went through them to see okay because they get a warning now same thing with underage drinking yes we went through them okay so they get a warning before they get in trouble they don't get in trouble and so they can they can openly smoke and drink underage and the cops that police officers cannot pull them over or stop them because of no longer because if they smell marijuana and if they do happen to come you've got to read into it they get a warning a written warning and the second one they get a more verbal warning and
022the third one they get even more verbal yeah i i understand that that may be the legal side but from from a school perspective right our policies are going to stay in place for now okay good any other comments or all right um is there is there anything from the public for the questions in general we have five comments so the first one is jackie beers teacher at the attic hello i'm writing to ask the board to consider allowing staff to work virtually from home if they are healthy but under quarantine due to coving currently stats that must quarantine are considered healthy but must use their obscenities for the entire length of the quarantine classroom teachers can teach to their virtual students while a substitute teacher teaches the in-person students subsidy teachers are called in
023regardless so this is not an extra cost to the district support staff to continue to service all students virtually therefore staying within compliance special education ieps this would be a great benefit for all students to continue receiving instruction from their teachers staff members teaching assistants consistency is important to all students thank you for your time can i just ask question concern i know it came up prior um if someone is in high school i know if they don't have a another teacher there they still fall in a substitute there are still kids that are virtual to that aren't they yes so couldn't we do that for all levels then i mean i understand that we can't provide for one level without providing the same for the other right but that's that's a that is a
024long time that's ten days is there it's less usually all right but still it could be five to eight days of sick time if we can provide that type of accommodation across the board from kindergarten up to i think that's more of a legal question is there any legal reason why we couldn't have every teacher that they're quarantining and service the virtual students that handle this and then substitute teacher that comes in to cover whoever's here can can you do that well i've got from a legal standpoint uh there's works best for you if all the all the physicians can do their job uh remotely because i mean here's the thing the whole class is quarantined right no in this the situation she's bringing [Music] that up we had said that because they because that
025the high school was a different thing we need to make sure we keep it all equitable is there is there why can't we do that in high school then too like if you're a high school teacher and you have to bring in a substitute anyway because their kids now coming back to school why can't then the person who's at home still teach virtually to the kids from wherever they're at and the person who's in school just has to worry about the kids that are in the classroom again i think the situation is that teacher would also have to teach the kids in the classroom well [Applause] that teacher still has to teach all the kids which teacher the one that's at home if you're saying that they you're not allowing them to work from home
026then who's teaching them that substitute so that's what they're saying like so you're bringing a substitute either way that's right you're just gonna bring us at the lower level we're not bringing in a substitute they're all co-teaching taking care of those virtual kids and just those virtual kids i thought that was the point of the quotation that if we had to do that that was possible again that's what we had hoped to do and then it became a legal question because they did away with the um the leave in december right but i'm saying like if instead of making them take a sick day let them work with them work with the kids that are on the you know on the birthdays but i think what i think what like dan is saying is that
027if you have kids so he so the person can only teach the virtual kids then so the virtual kids will get a full class and then the people who go in person that are just gonna have a sub give them notes is what he's trying to say where the whole class isn't getting taught only one group is or not the other but i think that if the teacher if the teacher is online and that the substitute would be able to access whatever the elementary of the code is other teachers to be in those rooms is there is there a mechanism to allow because because then students can just sign on to their device sitting in a classroom and take the lesson virtually like everybody else that person is being paid either way whether it's a
028coverage a sub or whatever if somebody's being paid to be there why not let their real teacher yeah right that's what we're saying i kind of think that that makes sense i the only thing that i would i'm not i'm just playing my double kid you just need someone like someone just need to log on i'm like i don't know how every every kid comes with their device so they're going to call she's saying not even just log on to them no they're just going to go onto their google me from the classroom and then the teacher can just like as if they were virtual from home but they're not they only have to go virtual for that one particular period is that teachers i i think i think we should consider it because you
029know that's that's a you know to no fault of their own they are being forced really to quantity right because like sometimes it is a fault you know every situation is different we don't know that right i mean i'm on your side but i'm just saying sometimes it is their fault sometimes right we can't make that difference my idiot brother you know was sick and he said and he came over anyway and i was like oh thanks and i had to quarantine for two weeks right and now he didn't have a copy but he was sick and i was like thanks dude now i got two two weeks right and you know and you can't differentiate between i went to you know cozumel and went out you know you know to the disco um so
030right so so we can't do that but i do think it makes sense the problem is you're not gonna be able to differentiate between the two i don't want to okay i would rather i'd rather than for the kids for the teachers to add a benefit for them don't use your sick days that's great but as far as the kids getting the consistency of having a teacher to me that's preferable i would rather than have that than 10 days of a sub who were paying anyway right supervising the classroom with busy work if the teacher wants to do it and then they're saying i'm home and please let me tell you if they're like i want to do this when this is all said and done we don't as a district we need to look
031at and again sick days do come into play i mean if you're if you're just at home and if you have the ability to um to present a lesson and without any legal ramifications of this i i mean because you're talking about that people are going to be wiped out a sick time of something that it's not there we can't differentiate if it's their fault not their focus we don't know and there's hippo laws against that but the thing being is that uh i mean i think it's something to at least to look into and maybe get some some legal counsel on it and and to take a hard look at it but i think that it's a compassionate look towards you know i mean i don't know i think i mean i think there
032probably is but i know other districts so they right i mean every school district is different but i'm saying if we have like i said if if if the kids because we we have the technology you know from day one it was one of the best things about this district ever we have a one-to-one technology for every student they are expected to bring that technology to school every single day then if they're you know classroom teachers not there they can sign on to a google meet as if they are because i mean we're obviously saying they have a capability because on virtual days you've sundays they're home doing it so they obviously can do it that's not the issue don't misunderstand what i'm telling we completely have the capability of having a teacher teach from
033home to kids in the classroom we have that capability what i'm saying is there's a lot of unintended consequences along with it and you need to think it all the way through well i just still think that the policy that we have of because we talked about putting in place that if people went out if and here comes this because we did put a policy class if a teacher decided to go travel and they and they went out of the country that would not be covered by a quarantine because we already put a policy in place saying okay if you're going to choose to make that choice you need to you know going ahead of time that you're going to have a two-week quarantine that's different than you know you know whatever i was in
034a classroom and and someone might have you know had code doctors note that saying you have to you you're quarantining under doctor's orders is that the difference or are you saying because the district is making me quarantined then you can do this i if you're saying if the district is making you a quarantine you can do this i can live with that a whole lot easier than you just yes then somebody from the outside coming in and saying i have to quarantine for whatever reason well i think if we're telling them that they have the foreign team then yes it makes total sense and then everything else is on a case-by-case basis right now that makes sense to me to me that that has made sense from day one and it again and that's not
035right no because again i'm gonna go back to when they when when that law dropped at the end of december we lost that ability of everybody being able to use that that time so then comes into comes into play the arbitrary and capricious reasons of me doing this for this person not for that person and so on and so forth again i have no problem helping anybody i i know in new york as far as quarantining if the school quarantines you you can work from home with your kids or you can work virtually um there is a limit to like if you have to quarantine for outside reasons and you're calling them and say listen i got exposed i was at a family occasion when i got exposed they they are they are forced they
036think they can get paid i think it's up to i think it's 10 days total but if you do that like after that you know you're on your own so like we can set like okay if that happens you know we'll cover the first five days but then that's like a hard limit if it's like outside reasons i don't know i mean well the problem you're going to have is a couple things one is you know to the extent you open that door you're opening that door and you want to be careful not to lose your discretion there may not be there may be situations where it's not appropriate for the staff members it just doesn't work but if you open that door then you're running that risk that everybody's going to say they're entitled
037to it the other part of that is the how you treat different situations potentially could be a negotiable subject so you've got to be careful with that if you're going to set a policy is that something we can then sit down with well mr paxton i sit down i've asked for a meeting with mr paxton this entrepreneur uh a separate issue which you know about so i can always approach this subject with them when i have a conversation with them during the week right because if we can get into a sidebar kind of negotiation like we did with them being able to leave but but like definitely set limits because you don't want someone saying oh yeah i was exposed you know my friend might have been sick and i'm going to foreign if it's
038if i'm in the unfortunate position which as of the last 10 days i'm in the unfortunate position of telling people they have to stay home then that should be definitely covered to me that should be covered that means i used to have that that that ability to say yeah i'd rather store it there and say okay so they can teach them how to conversation so does that cover miss beers miss pierce i don't think is is uh she's not she's not would that have covered the last person who has she can't be careful about music has there been anyone else that has been forced to quarantine and not been able to do that because then we would have to make sure that if we're going to do that we wouldn't store their same time you
039have a number of people okay so then that's that's something we have to look at as well yeah you have a number of people okay but i do think if your school tells you you can't come to work again i also again here here's the unintended consequence i'll just give you an example this is just an example let's use the child study team where you need to be with a kid to do what you need to do but now you're not here yes and no um listen is it the optimal thing to do to do a one-on-one conversation with with a student but here's some of the tests if you're not here you can't who's pulling the kid and some of the tests that they do have to do [Music] with the evaluations [Music] so
040you have to take a look at my school psychologist or learning consultant that that's all one-on-one and if it's in the iep that a child needs three sessions of vote a day by week or two sessions of speech then you're getting into i think you're opening up you've got to be very careful of opening up that pandora's box but i still think that if if you are forcing someone on a school-based support team to quarantine you as a school district or sending them out then there are six times should be covered yes whether they can reach that child or not yes i i hear it i'm just saying i think that it's where the differentiation [Music] so i mean so they're still doing an aspect of their job from home so i think that they
041they would fall into that same category all right i'm i'm gonna take this question so let me see if i understand this so you have a we have a hybrid is the teacher goes in she teaches or he teaches the children that are in the class and then they're also broadcasting and teaching the kids that are wrong okay so if we're how could a teacher teach the children because they have a device they'll sign on right but they can't teach the children in the classroom so we're going to pay for a substitute to just sit there and press the button that substitutes being paid for either way though but so we're going to pay for a substitute to come in but not teach well no they should be assisting in advice if i had a
042substitute for a child in my child's classroom 10 days and i have the real teacher on on virtual i'm not my kid's gonna stay at home and go virtual yeah it's just one class out of five okay one it's only one period elementary then i guess that's true if it's the elementary they'll probably they'll have their co-teacher in the classroom right and the other level then yeah then a parent could it but it would be just that one class for the day out of you know one period as opposed to an entire day i still think i mean at the high school level a sub is just telling the kids this is what your teacher assigned and they're doing it anyway right now there's not a there's not teaching yeah so i would rather have
043the high school teacher or middle school teacher teach the lesson well actually and again i think even at the high school level if i'm sending a teacher home that teacher could still teach from home if i'm sending the teacher home right so again to me if it's me sending them home it's still a fair thing right again but let me let me work this let me work this out all right can i move on yep all right so our next one is from steve nowitzki also a teacher 83 first street middletown new jersey garrett bamboo board of education members i feel the need to voice my concern about the situation here at the middle school and in the last few weeks i have had to do the contact tracing forum um this was due to
044the fact that a student in two separate classrooms had situations with covert 19 environments upon hearing that the teacher and the class of students now have to quarantine i wonder what when my time will come we try to follow all the safety procedures in the school and this is has greatly impacted the way i teach my class now with the incident of students being in contact with people who have tested positive i am no longer walking up and down the eyes i stay in front of the class trying to help virtual students and in the class in class students at the same time this is a daunting task uh sometimes i have four questions on go guardian chat and possibly two or three on google meet chat and students from questions from students in the
045class sometimes i am not able to concentrate on the in-person and virtual students at the same time even though we are trying to do our best with student safety at social distancing school we know that we cannot control what happens when they leave the building i understand the hardship of families having their children in a virtual class environment but i do i believe the teachers would be able to provide a more coherent lesson if they did not have to go between virtual and in-person students having students at home would be safer environment for them and also for the faculty administration and support staff thank you for taking the time to read my letter i know this is a difficult time for everyone i think i mean if you look nationally they are the cdc has
046said that that schools are not yes there are people are quarantining but it's not because they got coveted while coming to work and i listen it's it is an imperfect situation i can understand anyone's concern um i think that you know it does change our teaching practices um they're not optimal whether you're in the classroom or out of the classroom because it's not a normal school year um but i don't think in good conscience at this time we could would i would ever entertain closing down right now we don't have any transmission that we know of that happened because they came to work so at this time i think yes is it the safest but it's not the best thing for the parents or the kids but also didn't uh phil murphy said when if
047something gets passed for reopening right i mean right we were told that if we could meet a certain set of criteria that deemed our schools following be able to follow a certain set policy we were able to open it from the very beginning we were able to do that provide that and nothing has changed about that so we have to follow it and and keep going i don't think that anyone would argue the statement that this is difficult and not ideal it's terrible we totally agree that hybrid is awful and difficult but this is where we are unfortunately it's terrible we agree i'm sorry that we have to go through it yes i'll be starting next week i cannot wait question sure sure um so in response to mr nowicky situation which everyone is sharing
048honestly um is okay so i mean is there anything we can do to support these teachers that are struggling even if it's a temporary thing to alleviate that because i know exactly what he's referring to about having the poor email questions and then three in-person questions [Music] i i don't i don't see that as a possibility at the moment unfortunately i just i don't see how we can do it i'm sure he's doing his best yeah i mean i think we're all doing our best like i said you know at the onset of this you know i think our teachers have performed magnificently throughout all of this and they're doing the best they can with what we have and what's going on um i think everybody has i mean from the principals to the nurses
049to everybody um again i i wish there's more we could do to to help people right now um with some of these things but i i just i just don't i don't i don't have it if i had it i would do it something i would say that someone said to me as a teacher is i think as a board we do not expect you to have the same year that you had last year our expectations are not the same as they've always been in the past we know that you're struggling we know that this is not easy for you and and we acknowledge that and we thank you for doing the best that you can all we're asking is try to do the best you can we completely understand that it's impossible we know
050so i'm saying give yourself a break too you know you're doing you're doing a good job i've talked myself off of a lot of the legends um middle school teach 23 ducati avenue over the past week or so we've noticed a spike in in-person students either quarantine or themselves possible cases in early january received notice from the district with exact numbers of staff of students quarantine and those who have test deposited the email the level of transparency was greatly appreciated but has since not been happening uh being in the building the last few weeks i have seen the number of students coming in and out due to quarantine rise and it puts everyone on edge uh it would be it would put put us at ease to at least have a district level head count
051to watch the rising fall of the town numbers it seems that our numbers are a lot higher than then that of november when we took a few weeks to quarantine the district we never got a number that would warrant a district-wide quarantine but if we had uh the email update we then could keep track of when it's approaching that time i asked to bring back the weekly email update so we can state well-informed parents and staff did i get wiggly can we do that um i've been doing the um the letters um again it it's catch 22 for me because i was doing doing the numbers and if you recall that wasn't good enough because they wanted um the actual building and who and all that stuff so i went to the went to the
052letter and every time there's there's uh an issue i send out the letter now so i'm sending out individual letters versus the weekly so um i'm sending up letters now so again i'm in the catch 22 of the first thing wasn't good enough so i switched to the second thing and now the second thing is not good enough so can we have a combination of those two like at the end of the week i mean i don't i don't know if it really matters i think the issue is they want all this information that we can't give them and they still expect us to get because like i know people like i bet people are like oh where did this happen or who like yeah there's hippolog that prevents us from again releasing certain information
053that i know again can't say who had it there's no names attached or classroom and again we're now we're trying to compare numbers from november to now and things like that which really don't which aren't applicable right now yeah so again it's just not comparing apple's tab all right next question [Music] yes no yeah yeah okay um alexandria darwin another teacher uh 114 apartment corner road washington new jersey good evening to all the board of education members my students have always meant the world to me and they will always continue to their well-being their mental health and overall happiness to me the social emotional well-being is always with their knowledge of reading and writing there is nothing more that i wish than for the school to return to normal what i would give to be
054loving 100 composition books home to read their daily journal journal writing or circling around the room watching my students read sit close together in small group within the classroom i would be elated when we are able to safely do these things those activities again however i can honestly say i personally am mentally exhausted from worrying about bringing coke home to my own style i know we are all doing the absolute best we can and it truly must not be easy an easy decision to make but i ask that the district consider virtual learning even if it's for a short time until positive copic cases quarantining due to possible exposures at the middle should subside again thank you for all your extensive efforts and devotion during this time especially so let me ask you the procedures
055that we have in places when we get notification of whoever it is whether it's an adult or a child then then you go about where was that child and where were they we do all the contact right so i mean listen i i get being nervous but like i said we have those you know that procedure in place as long as we're following procedures and that's what the cdc is telling us that we should be doing i i i once again i'm sorry that they feel that way yeah and and again i think right now i think the problem that people are seeing is there have been several group exposures so large group exposures drive your numbers up very quickly it doesn't mean that everybody has coca means you have high quarantine numbers because they
056were exposed in a group nothing to do about it you know just my two cents for them hearing also is a lot of and i've always said this even when i was on the board last time there's facts versus fear and a lot of this is also teacher burnout yes my question is any professional development days that are upcoming just uh to kick it around just a suggestion is there anything that can be done and it doesn't have to be done now but maybe thinking in the future for uh just some distressing uh sort of mental health activities for the teachings just to get them in a better because uh i'm not saying therapy or anything like that i'm just saying just that instead of you know going on an academic stance just to kind
057of take a step back and and i think they i think collectively they're doing such an incredible job but also they're human and i think what we're seeing is we're seeing people just you know people are breaking down and i think they have a responsibility to a point within a reason just to maybe kind of uh alleviate you know put something in place or at least if not have some resources or strategies available to them that's just me just just to think about that because i mean um you know it is and it's not just staff it's administration and it's it's the counselors it's everyone i mean we're all going through this together but you know we got to give ourselves a break too i mean you know just to kind of take a step
058back i didn't know dr gallagher that's something that the administration maybe even a five-minute slot presentation slide when they're doing something i don't know we've done extensive mental health work with our staff we don't have any more pvds left um we do have a couple more things left to do with my time and we're working a few things out that are going to be staff based so they will be coming out shortly next um but again um you know we're into that we're into the depths of winter and i know and here and everything is possible okay the next one is from del ponte from the high school please let mr thomason know that mrs delta is still attending all board of education at this time she apologizes that there is no one in the
059audience but she is here online good for you [Music] to the surprise of noah lauren patterson uh thank you for discussing allowing the quarantine teachers to teach virtually and not burn their personal days it is not fair for not fair to a teacher when they have to quarantine because the parent says child into school with symptoms these teachers were able to teach from home when they when we were virtual uh please include every person and not just a classroom teacher yeah to be discussed if we're going to force someone to quantity because someone came to school sick and we're telling they have to quarantine it's only right then we should cover their sick days okay uh the next one is from mr paxson the law says the district can allow people to work virtually many
060districts allow people to work from home when the district makes them quarantine i definitely will have a conversation regarding this matter with my meeting with dr gallagher and the last one is from i'm assuming is kelly hellman but i think she misspelled her last name smelly teacher i would like to thank the board for their supporting words tonight i'm excited to be back in the classroom and have most of my roster back in person i can echo this annuity in the sense that i cannot run my class the same way especially after this weekend i feel the need to voice my concern over busing i have two students who take a district bus one has to quarantine the other one is allowed back in the classroom while i appreciate the efforts of the nurses for
061contact tracing unsettling because the size of the bus and ventilation on the bus while i understand we have no control over private bus privately contracted buses there are also in the same situation while some students have quarantined based on proximity on a bus and some are allowed back into school thank you for your time and stay healthy again contact crazy there's rules to that so many feet so many minutes of contact listen i don't think anyone's not on edge when they are forced to be in a large group of people that you can't guarantee are following the rules like you are there's since september it's it will be until until this is gone i mean it'll it's just always going to be that way but you know like i said there's policies and procedures in
062place and that's what we have to continue to follow and it is exhausting yeah um you know being on the phone with taryn for endless hours on the weekend and she's on the phone for endless hours with [Music] nurses you know you're going through a list of questions and you're relying on the answers that you're getting right so you know right it's it's not not an easy proposition at all all right no more questions we're good we no of education the approval of the resolutions is outlined in the approval of the cases under middle and elementary school 12.2 can i get a motion question mr thomas sally can i get a second second mr zumko um fall in oh