July 19. 2022 - Board of Education Meeting

001here here Miss Roberts would you please read the open uh public notice please the New Jersey open 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 any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provision of this act The Brick Township Board of Education has caused notice this meeting to be posted on the administrative office bulletin board the office District web the official District website Channel BTV 20 and sent to the Asbury Park Press brick time Star Ledger and Municipal Clerk's Office thank you I just want to make note that Mr blanzina is coming in can I have a motion and a second please motion missing second Daisy Miss Roberts will you

002please read the following sure whereas The Brick Township Board of Education board has been formed pursuant to applicable New Jersey state statutes and whereas the board is charged with the responsibility of Performing all acts and doing all things consistent with the law and the rules of the state board of education necessary for the lawful and proper conduct equipment maintenance of the public schools and public school property at The Brick Township School District and whereas section 7 of the open public meetings Act njsa 10 colon 4-12 permits exclusion of the public for executive session from a meeting of the board in certain circumstances and whereas the board has determined that circumstances exist for such an executive session and whereas the board has been has found the action described below to be necessary and proper there are

003now for being resolved by the board on July 19 2022 that the public shall be excluded from discussion of an action on the executive session here in set forth the session will be a practice nearly 15 minutes and the general nature of the subject matter to be discussed is as followed harassment intimidation and bullying reports litigation for 5364 it is anticipated that at this time that the above stated subject matter will be public if and when it is deemed to be in the public interest to do so and the need for confidentiality is no longer required by the board thank you Mary yes [Music] you ready okay we're gonna get started again I need a motion and a second to return second Daisy motion Victoria second Daisy Mary then Mary yes um I ask everybody

004to stand for the flag salute and a moment of silence foreign thank you I need a motion in a second for approval of minutes motion Missy second Michael any board comment seen none Mary yes we're going to move right into committee reports um Miss Roberts would you start with finance and Facilities um we'll start with finance that was a quick one we had a meeting on July 12th at 2 40 p.m in attendance with MS bakala MR blandina Dr Farrell Mr Edwards and myself we discussed stale data checks the solar partnership bills list ratification resolution and the facility facilities fund transfer request we set the date of the next meeting at as August 9th um before that we had the facilities committee meeting in on July 12th at 2 pm in attendance was MS bakulla

005MR blandina Dr Farrell Miss McNamara Mr Edwards Mr peculio Mr your and me uh we discussed the district-wide energy management systems the solar power purchase agreements um boiler Replacements and combined heat and Power we discussed the um only 2021 project left was Lanes Mill parking lot that we discussed all the 2022 projects and we set the next meeting date as August 9th at 2 30. thank you Miss McNamara policy and planning thank you Mrs walrup the policy and planning committee has two items on the agenda for this evening one is for the second reading of the policies for procurement procedures for school nutrition programs and the harassment intimidation and bullying both in accordance with 18a and 6A regulations and then the new three thousand and four thousand series moving our policies from school boards to

006the Strauss Esme which also has an update on their numbering their alignment to 18a and 6A and any of new regulations that have come out thank you um curriculum and insurance Miss Dr Anderson thank you Mr instruction did I say insurance I was like did I just say interest I'm sorry curriculum instruction no no you don't have to worry about insurance today we're good today so the cni committee met on July 11th at 3 30 PM in attendance where Miss Gagliardi Miss pakala Ms Parker Mr Cuts Miss Kane Dr Farrell and myself um first was an overview of the items on this month's agenda under training and travel there are four workshops one workshop for the facilities and maintenance department for annual training requirements two for special services department for otpt and speech therapists for

007embedded therapies into the classroom and in ABA training for teacher aids as well as a workshop for the art educators of New Jersey conference in Long Branch under student teaching placements we are so fortunate to host several students from Georgian Court University Keane University and Monmouth University beginning in September um in terms of Grants we have a donors choose Grant submission for classroom supplies and uh next Ms Kane our elementary Ela and social studies supervisor and K-12 supervisor actually provided an overview of the process that the district's focus group use to identify best practices in in reading the district-wide committee of teachers explored the science of reading research we analyzed the student achievement data from the 2014 to 2019 period we identified weaknesses in our current resources and then the committee explored the units of

008study resource from readers workshop model and considered other programs such as imagine learning fountas and Pinal classroom amplify ckla and I ready reading so the focus group teachers chose to Pilot the units of study for the 22-23 school year we also had an update from Mr Cuts who's our elementary our secondary Ela and social studies supervisor he provided update on the Middle School social studies committee and what the teachers the response of the pilot uh both buildings highlighted Savas and hmh and evaluated the two programs using a best practices rubric Associates committee selected Savas my world interactive because of the customizable assessments strong Civic component project-based tasks Ela standards alignment and use of primary resources almost um sorry um they are all also sorry um very impressed by the student-centered resources that provide students with

009choice and text readability and Technology components I also provided an update on the health and PE standards just some of the highlights and I'd like to share some of those slides with you now Rich can you cue that thanks and so thanks so just to provide a little background we're required by federal law to revise and look and update our standards every five years we go through a revision process so the health and PE standards were adopted in 2014 and so they they convened a committee at the state level and they went through the process of revising those standards for an adoption in 2020 because of the pandemic They delayed that adoption for a year so that implementation then became a 2022 implementation so go ahead so our approach is always aligned to our district

010vision and that vision is student-centered teacher-led and so just to give you some context we always turn to our teachers who are Specialists and in keeping with that Vision we formed a committee of our teachers supported of course by our physical education supervisors and our first step was to compare the 2014 standards to the 2020 standards to see you know how different were they and what we were kind of relieved to see was that for the most part there wasn't major changes the format had changed there's some some content that was added but for the most part the resources we currently have in our current curriculum are appropriate for the standards we also determined that we would look to implement the lessons that had changed at the oldest oldest age in a Grade range so

011for instance in the new standards there's a k to two band a three to five band you know a six to a band and so you could do it anytime in that range the committee chose to do it the latest age in that range and so in a for example in the K-2 standards range we would be implementing at the end of grade two what also was helpful was to realize that the new standards that many families had concerns about and that had been um you know a subject of conversation in the media really fell under the Family Life curriculum and since 1980 parents have had the right to opt out of the family life curriculum portions of it that they felt were not appropriate for their child that they they wanted to keep that

012content delivered at home so what we decided in looking as at a committee it how to ensure that that would happen that instead of just publishing a document with the news the new standards that we would actually create a parent guide that would allow parents to be really informed about what that portion of the curriculum provides and those and those provisions and then we would ensure that every parent received that that guide so that it wasn't it was it form it like serves as informed consent so that you would be looking at the guide and checking off that you received it not that well if we didn't hear from you we assumed you received it you don't have a problem with it so we really wanted to create a mechanism where there was an act

013of consent and if we didn't hear from parents that they were um uh satisfied with the with the curriculum and that they were satisfied with the implementation that they could go ahead and opt out so they either will parents will either have the opportunity to check off that they've received it and they're okay with it or they can identify portions of it that they would like their child opt out of so here's an example for instance of a grade two lesson so the new standards have like poor ideas and so the committee when we look at the standards in isolation um we we had the feeling that in isolation and without context the standards can be quite intimidating and so if we look at it just the core ideas that are included in it and

014focus on the spirit of the standard it takes away some of the concerns I think that have been expressed to me at least so for instance um in a second grade there's standard 2.1.2 SSH 0.2 and it's every individual has unique skills and qualities which can include the activities they enjoy such as how they may dress their mannerisms things they like to do now that's a lesson that parents can opt out of but the way we're going to approach it is that we're going to ask kids again student centered what do you like to do what do you like to wear and then from their responses help them understand that none of those are gender specific so you know there isn't any stereotypes that should limit Behavior girls liking uh science or boys liking are

015you know that's shouldn't be an issue it should be that Hobbies interest careers are open students of both genders so we're going to really use the what the conversation that occurs in the classroom when we ask kids what they like to do to to guide the development of that lesson and the implementation of that standard so then an example at the eighth grade level so there are factors that contribute to making healthy decisions about sex that's the core idea and so when you look at the standards and you look at some of the pharmacy performance indicators you might be concerned and think you know we're we're spending our time describing certain sexual behaviors it's really more about the context of keeping kids safe and healthy so that's that discussion should be about sexually transmitted diseases

016and how to limit the likelihood that you would catch a sexually transmitted disease and so those diseases are transmitted through sexual behaviors and there are several types of behaviors that transmit STDs and so discussion about high and low and no risk behaviors and how that contributes to a child's overall health and well-being is really the spirit of that standard and what we would want to focus on and so moving forward our our goal is again to keep the vision of the District of student-centered teacher-led at the Forefront because even the New Jersey Department of Ed clarified in a document in April that some of the things that they provided in the standards is examples in parentheses were not required or they're just examples and that there's no need for the district if they feel it's

017not appropriate for their Community to implement it and so we look at the standards as a blueprint and that it's the blueprint that will guide our development but we're responsible for the implementation and we're responsible for selecting the resources and we're responsible for meeting the development mental needs of our students and the values of our community and we feel like those parents who would like students to to have that health education we absolutely feel that we are have the expertise to deliver it in a professional manner that's appropriate for students and at their age and and developmental level but if care parents would prefer to do that instruction you know they absolutely will have an opportunity to express that desire before any health instruction occurs and so our next step is to finalize the parent

018guide it's a big process it does it's not something that's done um in a day it takes time and we have multiple people working on it at all levels at elementary middle and high school level and then we after that committee completes the work we're also going to ask all of our health and phys Ed teachers to look at it look at it through their lens and their perspective and see what they can contribute or any concern that they have and then once it's finalized and only then we'll distribute it to parents in in our community and collect a response from each parent so it's not like well we sent it home and they didn't we didn't hear anything it's it's an active consent and so the goal of our committee really is to revise

019in a the curriculum in a manner that is student-centered and teacher-led that's developmentally appropriate and age-appropriate and matches the values of our community so that was that was my update for our cni committee um I do want to share just one bit of really good news about our summer spark program we started last week we have 250 students who attended our first week of the elementary and secondary jumpstart that includes 77 of our ell students the teachers designed their summer learning initiatives based on end-of-year Benchmark assessment data in Reading Writing and math the students are participating in enrichment classes in stem and art creative expression and mindfulness we've received positive feedback from families and students and one parent emailed and said both of my children came home today extremely happy and excited from jumpstart so

020we are and thank you so much for all you are doing so we are thrilled by um by the kids and their response to the summer program almost 150 students were enrolled in our music camp in grades 3 through 12. so we're really growing that music program and our fine performing arts program students have performed um different fundamental theories on recorders Boomwhackers bucket drumming along with singing and participating in the concert band and we're really looking forward to having a culminary culminating uh concert um a music showcase on July 28th so we're really excited about that for our families so our next meeting um oh one more thing I want to highlight that we do have our high school students attending Credit Recovery classes so that they can remain on the trajectory to graduate with

021their cohort we also have students participating in art immersion and they're applying their creative talents and rejuvenating practices to supporting their overall wellness and they're working in different media like drawing and painting and I just want to thank our supervisors Amanda Beatty Mary Kane Chad Cutz Jen Lane and Chris Thompson they've designed and coordinated the summer Richmond program we have great summer spark teacher coordinators too they're doing an amazing job that's Erica Carew we have Darren St Jean we have a Kelly Romano and Andrew Dorman so they're doing a really great job and I forgot somebody I'm sorry uh they're they're just doing extraordinary job so just really want to thank all of our dedicated teachers we have tons of teachers who are spending their summer working with our students and you've heard that before

022haven't you miss Dr Farrell thank you Dr Anderson um I know um special education committee didn't meet but did you want to add anything about the summer program or anything I know I keep putting you on the spot month after month I know my goodness I was not uh I didn't know if you wanted to mention anything no no I actually we have our two coordinators sitting here uh Jeanette raise your hands and Nicole um they have been coordinating um the esy summer program and enrichment program so we have students um almost 500 students almost 500 students between Warren H wolf preschool and the high school attending our summer program um it's going very well we are a little short staffed um that's just I think the sign of the times right now um but

023they are doing an amazing job um coordinating that program um the students attend uh eight to twelve and then from 12 to 2 they do enrichment activities for comp Ed from learning loss from covet 19. so we are still providing our special education students with two hours a day during our 23-day program to address that learning loss so normally they would only attend 8 to 12 for esy but we have extended that program until two o'clock in the afternoon so that our students can actually make up and recoup some of those losses so this may be the last year that we do that that we have funding to do that but um but it's going extraordinarily well and it's really thanks to these two ladies right here they're really doing an amazing job thank you

024Dr Phil I just want to I know last month I spoke Mrs this is tonight is Mrs Hansen's last meeting um the end of this week it really is this time I spoke last month so I won't go into detail but um this is our last meeting um and boy I this week alone the hours we've put in together as well um with a myriad of people in the department and seeing uh what a big job that is uh not only percentage of the budget but number of Staffing number of students the number of programs that go on and uh and I said this before many times Miss Sanson but she will be sorely sorely missed she's really has improved and increased our special education program for our classified students in a positive manner we

025brought many students that were placed out of District back into District which is what's important that's not only the law it's the right thing to do it's the least restrictive environment we're sad to see her go I'm only gonna be happy if she's happy and I know we'll talk about it more but thank you for your time and brick and I know that was prior to me as well but thank you for your time you did an amazing job and you are going to be sorely missed Mr kleitzer is there anything you would like to add on HR in the ad but we continue to try to fill the holes uh the the agenda items speak for themselves an awful lot of professional development going on in our programs over the summer I think speak

026for themselves with the items on the agenda thank you public comment this will be the first opportunity for public comment and this will be for agenda items only the board invites thoughts and reactions on agenda items each participant is asked to give his or her name prior to making a statement all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer the board will not during the public portion of this meeting discuss matters involving employment appointment termination of employment negotiations terms and conditions of employment evaluation of the performance of promotion or disciplining of any specific or perspective or current employees and or students is there anyone that would yeah friends Benedictus I just had a question on what is going to happen to the children whose parents opt them out of the sex act can we keep

027that till the end okay because that's we're just going to do agenda items okay okay thanks Ryan I'll call you up first at the end any anything on specifically agenda items only yeah excuse me oh I'm sorry I don't know um Mr Campbell all this working my buddy's not here well Campbell's 655 Mark Manor I don't know maybe we have to postpone or have a special meeting this is on the uh contracts operations uh 20 21 22 23 24 25. architect proposals do not jive with the bidding acceptances you wouldn't mind was just a little bit but in one case it's almost a million and a half dollars something's either being taken out definitely nothing being added let me go down the line with them but I there's nobody here that can explain why it's

028that way if you want Mr Campbell I could get that in an email for you um why why don't we on the details wait why don't why don't you go into exactly what your questions are regarding these and then we'll see if we can we can answer those okay the first contract is Brick Memorial High School I'm assuming this contract is For Neda for the the air handlers in the penthouse uh the chiller is that the contract because I know you'll have your Energy company has the uh boilers where he's going to open it now okay keep keep going Mr Campbell well there's discrepancy there anyway because they listed only uh 12 air handler units where in reality there are 12 plus the three newer ones we put in for the air conditioning in the

029gym so I don't know what's happening there but we're talking uh a lot of money he accepted one mil 520 The Proposal from the architect was 2 mil 427. something's wrong and I don't know whether they they couldn't have included the rooftop uh there's a 16 rooftop boilers I know at the next contract I'm not going to do them in any order here is Lake Riv Lake Riv okay The Proposal was six mil 114 the bid came in at four six seven big difference What's missing then we got the next one we got uh fretz Middle School Dutch Middle School came in and the bid came in at four mil 8.99 the proposal by The Architects was five mil uh 810 and 7-0 next one Emma Havens Drum Point it uh came in that two

030mil nine six three which is all well and good but there was no real proposal the only thing I had from was the uh boilers not the other stuff so I don't know what transpired there either but it's got to be rectified because it reminds me of the time you weren't here then but I got to bring it up is the Brick Township running track okay this board sat here all right and they were going to pass the running track for a million and a half a running High School running track unfortunately I had to get up and tell them they were getting Hoes by eight hundred thousand dollars it came out they screwed up yeah but that's why I'm always on this stuff because they left a bad taste in my mouth and then

031they screwed up with the renovations in the high school gym brick okay your time's up thank you okay um any other public comment on agenda items Mr Finelli nope you're it come on Vic fanelli my first question and I have to jump around because you added a lot of things to the agenda not that I'm objecting but I did it all yesterday so jumping around yeah well this time of year HR is I understand yeah I understand that I understand it we're ready I don't have it all together like I normally do okay on question 21 through 25 uh Walt mentioned that that's a lot of money yeah that total money for that one company gbi is 17.8 million dollars my question is have we ever done business with that with that company before gbi

032because if you Google them and I just did a quick look the gbi and their term Thermal Pipe and their CSI and like they're all over the place my question is 17 million dollars up front uh have we ever dealt with them before my other question about operations is number 37 just for my own information that's preferred Behavioral Health when they do uh an assessment to have a student come back to school for whatever reason there's a 300 fee associated with that who pays that under HR number 38 just a question on full-time security officers do they get benefits it's just is this the section where we also ask questions about the policies or is that late yes no that's um one other question um I have to do my disclaimer my my questions here

033are General um it has to do with new hires but it's General it's not you're not looking for specifics like if the person is in the audience don't take offense right first of all what what is an ldtc and and I'm looking that one stood out because we're hiring somebody for eighty four thousand dollars and I realize there's a benefit to getting somebody with experience and I and I know there's areas that it's hard to get specific categories however what do you get what could you get when you also hire somebody with a lot of experience well you could get somebody that's a job Hopper right and I'm sure you look at that and and a valid reason I could think of somebody lives here and teaches in Woodbridge they're going to jump at a

034chance to come here and I would too I mean I would do I would do that so you need to look at that number two you're going to get somebody that has a lot of experience but they might be setting their waves and their ways might not be your ways and number three based on our discussions we had today that person's very tenured they're that much closer to retirement in today's environment you got to be looking at how how long it takes to retire people uh and I guess my last question is uh on the policies that that uh those pop those policies were added yesterday right the policies they were not on the agenda there's four of them on the bottom of the thing there that have um the 300s and the 400 types

035that do with teachers and everything else they weren't they weren't there when I looked yesterday but I was there today so my question is is everybody on the board that's voting on that had a chance to read them and understand them and let me carry that a little further right there's 341 pages even I didn't look at all of them all right and my and and his his here's my test question right a non-ten you teacher's staff member a non-tangent teaching staff member not recommended Freedom Renewal by the superintendent right the support member will know all the things are supposed to happen before they vote on that what's your question have they read it and understand all these things yeah in the policy and and and that they read it and understand it and know

036what what has to happen on your part before they vote on it and they're all looking at me like why are you asking this well I'll give you a hint [Music] um please let's keep it every year thank you you're voting on all of those policies and they were up for one day there's 341 pages of it and oh by the way that was a trick question because they don't get the vote on it all right now now when I read this I've just said to myself this doesn't make any sense to me but maybe you can explain it because I read the second part of that sentence and I'm Tanya teaching staff member not recommended for Renewal by the superintendent is deemed not renewable a board of education vote is not required on the

037superintendent's recommendation to not renew somebody so if you say somebody is not renewable they're not renewable and the story which okay good I can agree with that I understand you have to talk about it but then further on down here it says if that person goes to a school board meeting and presents the case the school board can overrule you and say we hire you back okay thank you for your questions um your time's up Dr Farrell do you need me to I'll start with that because first uh we have a board attorney so all the policies and I'll get Miss McNamara Aaron a few months ago we switched over from school boards to Strauss Esme almost and there this is only first reading the way policies work they go through first readings to the

038board they're not finalized to a second reading of the board our policy committee kind of digests them these aren't new policies we've had them in school boards this is Strauss estimate different numbers different languages a little better detailed but they match statutes when you talk about a non-tenure just to give it because I've had experience with it it's not that cut and dry and we have a board attorney here uh thank God that'll help there's what's called a Donaldson hearing so if a non-tenors non-renewed a superintendent really just doesn't put them on the agenda to be voted for Renewal but they could do what's called I believe I'm talking Donaldson here because I did a couple of them or they either do it in public or in private us to the board and then the

039board can overrule that's a statute remember the way it works is you have you know obviously federal statute then State Statute and then from the state statute you have regulations from the board Department of Ed and then you have our policies which is under local control which is how we Implement that so we have a policy which is the board's oversight right administrative oversight in the way for us as administrator administrators use the regulation so you may we have a may have a general policy on Code of Conduct but then our handbook may have a lot more details I don't know you know someone's late at 10 days we do this this and this and as an ex principal I will tell you we like that not to be as black white because there is

040examples and different grade levels you know when you're younger it's more rehabilitative when you get older as a student's more punitive but that's kind of the oversight and the big thing so what we're really doing now is we're switching over to Strauss assessment we're hoping in the fall to get I mean there's 9 000 policies maybe switch over because the numbers change but almost all of them are policies we had on the books from New Jersey school boards that were switching to the Strauss s May language of those policies that were required and as those come up the board gets because you can't read 300 Pages we actually Mrs McNamara can enter this but miss McNamara gives them kind of you know here are some of the differences you'll look at and this is a

041first reading so when board members now come back and say hey what is our options we check with the board attorney we go back we look at the items we'll put it up for a second reading again for edits did you want to add to anything on the policies so before she says anything so somebody keeping track of the changes yeah yes I am yes I'm keeping track of the changes because I have to submit them to stress Esme they will make those changes for us and once the changes are made and we've approved the second read then they will go up on our website and be accessible to everyone and Mr Finelli just so you know the way if you look at revisions on policies on the bottom and our lawyer can interject any

042time but Strauss Esme is our policy provider and they match it every time you revise or edit a policy this should be a revision so you'll look at the last time Sam policies online from years ago some that haven't might have been looked at in five six years that were revised in 2017 2015 that's the last revision you'll see it on the bottom of a policy so if a parent wants to look up a policy they'll see the Rev on the bottom and the date it was adopted by the board so I've done that but yeah the one I looked at I only looked at one I know I'm just sharing that doesn't that doesn't make any sense to me that if you say and you you're the person that should say this person I'm

043not recommending for the job so they are when you say they're not I'm not recommending they're done and then and then and then somebody has to rehire them I hear you and I went through it but it's the law so yeah and just as an aside as a matter of law as the chief School administrator Creator all Personnel decisions have to be on the recommendation of the superintendent so the board doesn't have even though they vote on It ultimately and it requires their affirmative vote by a majority of a full board to hire or terminate an employee they can simply put something on the agenda for hiring or firing it has to be on the recommendation of the superintendent so Personnel flows through the superintendent board ultimately votes the non-tenure non-tenured teaching staff members is

044a unique statute you know that you just read through that has its own specific Provisions because 10 years so significant uh but it's it's specific to that situation to clarify what you're saying if the superintendent by May 15th does this thing sends a letter to somebody and say you know we're not going to be higher and that person does not take the issue to the board to present their case to the board the board doesn't vote on that correct they're gone because he said they're gone that's correct correct that's right okay but but it doesn't make sense that then the board can override him but that's that's just what they I guess from the employee's perspective they have the right what's called a Donaldson hearing and there's past precedent on that and I've been through

045some of them and they're they're rough um just so you talked also about ldtc I'm going to punt it to Mrs Hanson one last time but our uh learning teacher consultant you have to have a master's degree certain certificate certain certificates outside of just special education certificate a lot more licensure for that but why not and by the way they are very hard to find um we're going through that now you have an opening so if anybody knows of a licensed ldtc we're required to have them they're hard to find they have a lot of experience licensure and you have to have a masters as well you want to right so uh learning disabilities teacher consultant actually we have one here in the audience tonight Amy raise your hand here's an example okay so a

046learning so learning disabilities teacher consultant isn't member of the child study team and they are case managers for students with disabilities but they also have expertise in all aspects of learning and how children learn it is a very it's New Jersey is the only state in the country that has learning disability teacher Consultants so in most other states psychologists do both aspects of the testing for a specific learning disability so because of that they are very short we're very short staffed with them and they're very hard to find and there's a lot of colleges that have stopped providing that training so because of that they're hard to find we did have an opening we actually had four really good candidates for two positions we offered to we offered a position to all of them at

047some point because they were all good they were all good but um they they want a lot of money because they're you know they they want a lot of money and and some of the um one of the one of the candidates actually was already making 90 some thousand dollars for another district and wanted to come here and make even more so it was it's difficult it's a very difficult situation to hire these professionals so we we um did not get three of them and we got one out of four candidates so we still have one opening yeah they fall under the teacher category they they are under the teeth they are on the teacher's guide in our contract but they are not teachers they were teachers so you have to be a teacher in

048order to be a learning disability teacher consultant but okay I hope you hear a long time no no she already know she already works here she's not one of the new hires he just happens to be here today um I do want to get and then we'll get to the so Mrs McNamara you know so preferred Behavioral Health which also has a grant they're in some of our buildings they do our fit to return for students and staff I believe cost by you want to jump on that so it's preferred Behavioral Health they are the uh I understand the whole thing I just want to know who pays who pays for it and security officers do not get benefits was the next question do not get but we pay um per diem we've been paying

049for the last years 185 a day um for security officers most of them are retired I believe they're all retired but no benefits with that and the last thing you asked um you know and I I should have said this before for Mr Campbell so everybody knows by law there's a bid process the board attorney could talk through that with everything right there's a bid process got to be approved vendors yada yada and that process by the certified purchasing agent which is our business administrator Mr Edwards uh goes through that process so whether an architect says this is the proposal I kind of like when they come in a little lower Mr Campbell I hope we didn't miss nothing but the question was um gbi if we've done business with them before that that was

050a question I believe we've done business once but we can I can double check that and get back to you yeah that's a lot of money to one company one thing one thing I I just add on the public bidding process one of one of the requirements that they have to submit and they were the low bidder on those contracts that they received but one of the requirements of their submissions are they get certified by the state from the dpmc and one of the things that they have to get is the state identifies the total amount of contracts that they're authorized to handle at one given time and they also have to certify to the amount of of contracts that they have ongoing uh so for instance and I I don't remember the numbers on

051gbi but I can tell you it was more than the 17-8 so theoretically I'm just using a hypothetical if they're approved for 50 million dollars worth of contracts and they have 10 outstanding if they're the low bidder for up to 40 they're fine uh so they their paperwork was in order for 17.8 it's interesting you bring that up because if you look at their website it says minimum job a hundred thousand dollars maximum job 15 million but giving him 17.8 on their own website thank you Mr Finelli any other um questions on agenda items before I close this out yes ma'am no that's going to come next that that that's going to come next any other agenda items that we'll be voting on no okay we'll close that um Dr Anderson curriculum instruction thank you

052Miss swollrab under curriculum instruction the superintendent recommends that the board approved the following items one through four I need a motion in a second I'll make that motion second Daisy any board comments seeing none Mary Miss Hafner yes Mr blandina yes Miss Gagliardi yes Miss Parker yes Miss pakala yes Miss sieber yes Miss wolrd yes Miss Roberts uh thank you the superintendent recommends operation items one through thirty seven I need a motion in a second motion Victoria second Missy and he board comments yes I have a question about number nine uh we're looking to ratify out of District student placements they're 18 attached um about how many at a district of plate student placements do we have this coming year this year we have 67. thank you and this is just a ratification Victoria not

053new placements right any other comments questions seeing none Mary Miss Hafner yes Mr blandina yes Miss scagliardi yes Miss Parker yes Miss piccolo yes Miss sieber yes Miss wollrib yes Mr Chrysler HR thank you Miss walrab under HR the superintendent is recommending uh items 1-36 and number 38. I need a motion in a second motion Nicole second Daisy any word comments seeing none Mary Miss Hefner yes Mr blandina abstain at number 38 yes on everything else Ms Gagliardi yes Miss Parker yes Miss Mccalla yes Miss Siebert yes Miss wolren yes and Miss McNamara thank you Mrs walrab under policy did you want to no did you want I was opening it to you to introduce I'm sorry I misunderstood yes before we move on from HR we do have several people in the audience um

054that are new hires for us we have Megan Ahern who's coming on as our social worker for the district Megan stand up Trevor Trevor signorino is coming on as a teacher at Veterans Memorial Middle School welcome Trevor we have you're gonna have to bear with me for a minute we have uh Mr Rob Coates Bob Coates [Applause] uh we have I know you're here sitting right there I just have to find her name Ben medeir she's coming out as a teacher at Veterans Memorial Middle School as well and we have Justine fusilli who is a nurse at Lake Riviera Middle School so of course the the million dollar question is did I miss anyone that's coming on new that's sitting in the audience that I couldn't see from this chair I think that's got it

055thank you now miss McNamara policy thank you under policy and planning the superintendent recommends the board approved the following items one and two I need a motion in a second Mike I'll make that motion Nicole any word comments or questions seeing none Mary Miss Hafner yes Mr blandina yes Miss Gagliardi yes Miss Parker yes Miss McCullough yes Miss sieber yes Miss wolrb yes now is the second opportunity for public comment each participant is asked to give his or a name prior to making a statement all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer comments shall be limited to five minutes and each speaker may only speak once the board will not during the public portion of this meeting discuss matters involving employment appointment termination of employment negotiations terms and conditions of employment evaluation of the

056performance of promotion or disciplining of any specific or perspective or current employee and or student Fran so my only question was what happens to the children whose parents opt them out during that portion of the sex ed where do they go what do they do is it going to be some like ostracized they feel weird type of a thing that's my only question that's your only question okay you can have a seat then miss um sure Dr Anderson I'm sorry so it will really depend on the you should speak more into the microphone sure thanks it will really depend on how many students opt out and the the situation that exists in each building right so um in some buildings they might students May report to the library and other times it depends on the

057number of students and the principal will make that decision along with the physical education teacher they'll be given an alternate activity typically on nutrition or something along those lines that are related to health but not related to those standards thank you um Memu had asked the other question if you want to come up now and just state your name and where you're from yes my name is Judy Baker I live in Lakewood I um the presentation that was given I I have several questions regarding it um has it been finalized or are you still working on are you still working on the um give all give all your questions and then they'll answer at the end right okay so um I wondered if there have been any concerns or discussions to push back on the

058state of what they have required of uh for these standards uh if any board members felt anything was inappropriate that they felt maybe it shouldn't be included and be sent back to the state um I'm glad that I'm glad to see which document you were using because I've looked at many different documents and have seen a lot of different things in it regarding the New Jersey learning standards for Comprehensive Health and phys Ed for 2020 it says by the end of grade two gender it will cover gender identity and body parts including genitals now did you say something to the fact that it was going to be upgraded to the third or fourth grade I wasn't I couldn't really hear what that referred to by the end of grade five that covers gender expression sexual

059orientation and methods of pregnancy and by the end of eighth grade different types of intercourse or at least that's what I saw in the document and I didn't hear I heard you speak about STDs and sexual behaviors which I guess might include that I wondered if that was still being considered as well um I wanted to know um how specific the parent guide will be will it include books resources and is there a way for parents to access daily lesson plans so that they can see exactly what is going to be presented the resources and the books that are going to be used I don't understand why you're expressing non-gender specific I think it's perfectly okay to have gender specific things in this universe that we live in so I don't really comprehend that part

060of it um I know there's a lot of questions here I had questions about the act of consent that is required as well um you know is it on an individual basis each parent is going to receive something so um let me see if there was anything else I guess that's it thank you thank you thank you um Dr Phil do you want to sure um and then I'll point it to Dr Anderson nothing's finalized as of yet I'm obviously in the summer with teachers in the committee um that work on on these detailed um lesson plans and curriculum writing obviously take a lot of vacation um we will have a parent guide out to individual parents every parent you know if you have a grandchild or child or in in this District you can

061opt out that and you'll be able to see that we would like to wait to be clear it's going to the parent it's going to the parent or Guardian if a grandparent would like to approach the parents about the session but the parent or Guardian not actually um yeah and that would go it is active um consent we do not you know we've we've said this many times in this board meeting you know we encourage parental involvement with your child's or grandchilds or if you're a guardian their teacher we don't post daily lesson plans on every class for every uh student for every team however we do encourage parents you know what are we teaching this week there's a lot of feedback and communication and what's neat about New Jersey standards at least is under

062the Family Life curriculum and it's been around forever STD has been taught in eighth grade when I was in eighth grade a very very long time ago um and when I say teach remember here's the spirit of the standards here in Brick we are going to implement the spirit of the standards with the appropriate age-appropriate resources we feel that meet our constituency so when you see different implementations of the standard that is up a little bit for local control we will meet the spirit of the standards when we talk about sdds or any of the things that are talked in the middle school that were being taught when I was there it's not that they're teaching they're really just advising to make safe and healthy decisions of which by the way abstinence is still very

063very common in New Jersey and taught as a way not to uh get sdts uh so that is part of it the parent guide is not done yet I know we've been talking that like crazy because we want it to be very active so if someone can't go into Parent Portal or some a child or something to kind of arrow through and not do it so Dr Anderson and her group um is working on that if you read I'm done I'm done I'm gonna just shut down now um if you read the local paper I think this past week until you'll see there's been a lot of pushback to the state and the state's kind of um holding their ground with again the spirit of the standards the state has not been pushing as far

064as specific resources or ideologies or they really haven't for that that's still left for local control did you want to add anything and I really feel like we have that local control and that flexibility and as long as we're pointing to the standards the specifics in the performance expectations we can work around that by providing context and making sure for instance that we're talking about wellness and healthy decisions and low-risk behaviors so so some of that information is is relevant but the main point of the standards those basic concepts those are those are what we'll be stressing in the curriculum and I really feel like our parent guide will provide parents with that information if they have any doubt at all they can always contact the teacher and say and that's probably the best thing

065to do because once you establish a relationship with a teacher and you ask questions that that will help you make up your mind one way or another like this is not really for my child or wow this is this sounds really good and this is what I would want my child to be um I think that sometimes exposure occurs in other avenues than and then in our classrooms and that exposure to correct those misunderstandings that occur sometimes on phones on television and the exposure that kids have which we saw during the pandemic really give them the language to understand what what's happening into their bodies parents who are equipped to do that and want to do that they should be given the first opportunity to do that we do not want to usurp the rights

066of parents that is not our intention that's not any single phys Ed teacher's intention or any any of us because we really respect the role of parents as the the primary Educators for their child but our responsibility is to help those parents who don't who would like some support in in that area and we're we're here to do that with our professionals who have that expertise in that area um you did ask about you know uh gender expression that is in in the standards and we like I said would like to approach it in a way that that talks about what their students interests are when you talk about um uh gender specific things and and and that there's nothing wrong with that um I I I think there's something wrong if it's limiting right

067if it proposes if it is a barrier to you or an obstacle to you for pursuing your interests and your hobbies and your things if you think about it Title IX has only been around for 50 years prior to that my own relatives were not and females were not involved in sports and I've seen a whole generation of girls raised with Title IX who are really more confident and have actually aspired to pretty impressive leadership roles because they had opportunities on the field as the as boys did but then it wasn't always the case and it's um really incumbent upon us to make sure that kids aren't limited by by those limiting beliefs and of course obviously whatever they see at home and and we do know children the values that parents communicate at home

068are Forefront okay in everything that's that sound lays the foundation and what we want to do is create some guidance documents some guidelines so that parents can make informed decisions is there different methods of um um intercourse that is going to be presented by the end of eighth grade so you can't talk about STDs without letting kids know that there are different forms of intercourse and that there are risks associated with those forms so it's really in the context of we want you to be healthy and make good decisions and abstinence is a is a primary tool for that that's no risk okay thank you thank you any other um yes Mr Speaker uh John siluka 950 Sylvia Court I'd invite a lot excuse me can you just had to step out for a moment

069is going to step in as chairwoman I don't have a problem with that nothing nothing personal to you I thought she was making faces at me or something no no no I was sent it to nine round again and I'll fix that okay okay uh just quick because I I understood part of it Act of consent does that mean the parent has to sign off on it I know it's you send it to the parent the parent doesn't respond do you say that means okay what do they have to sign something saying it's okay which I'm hoping that it is but uh the other one is um one thing drives me nuts all the time besides the fact that I think you should have an opt-in age appropriate and well just as an example eighth

070grade is 13 14 15. devil and eighth grade or down in third grade you're talking about the highest standard now will be third grade for next year instead of second grade or first grade it's going to go to the higher level of that age group those kids are either 8 9 or 10. are you separating them by age could you keep using age appropriate but this is by grade level and to me that's like two different worlds I know and then the other one is most girls I guess we're still allowed to say that uh at seventh and eighth grade are older than most boys at my age you know when it comes to different things so when somebody's hype going into high school boys may not be equivalent to a girl who happens to

071be two years younger they mature faster they grow up all the you know are you going to separate them to say it's good for the boys but not good for all good for the girls but not for the boys what you know you're going to go just strictly by year I mean I graduated grammar school at 12. I'm not telling you that the girls from some of the girls in my age group were I think I caught up to them maybe if it's 17 Maybe you know so that's the other part of it I just sort of like questions I started question things off at as we went along um well there was one more thing in here oh on the presentation it said you know I like something or other whatever it happened to

072be doing uh now what is it says I like to play sports I like to play soccer I like one of those persons says I like to be left alone or which I would have said if I was in seventh grade you know what do you like about school three o'clock yeah well though as you know how much schooling I had considering that's the way I felt um so or they might say I like being on a computer with my friends how the teacher is going to handle that if all of a sudden it's not I like to play soccer I like to dance so I like to sing okay I'm done all right thank you I graduated eighth grade I think at 12 as well um by the way this has been the case

073since I graduated in eighth grade and late 70s um it took when we talk age appropriate in education we do talk grades unfortunately because it is about grades and curriculum um you know I I God Rest his soul my uh deceased father an old Irish Catholic he didn't talk to me at all about anything whether it was puberty health or any of those you know um and I know my older brother gave me a lot of wrong information so um yeah so you know many times there's many different families and people like myself that actually relied on public education I grew up locally right in how I went to the public school in hell but it is based on on grade when you talk active consent we're trying to do kind of what you just

074said Mr Luca but there's a there's a whole technology piece we're working through to get to that where it's not just someone it's not we don't use really paper and Pen where you're signing off it's more of a you gotta click and you won't be able to get to say access maybe grades in the panel portal or we're not there totally yet but we're working through what that mechanism is so that it is active consent and that parents can look at the lesson we're going to get now I don't put too much on you Dr Anderson but you can gladly add to that because that is not finalized yet what that actually is going to be because we want to know what will work for the phys Ed teachers right so we want to create

075a system that works for them to manage the information because if we create a system and impose it on them and they are it doesn't work for them then they'll be people will fall through the cracks we we don't want that so although it says in in the statute that you you can opt out it prohibits us from saying you opt in so instead we're saying that's okay we'll require active consent meaning you've read through it and you agree with it and you'll sign here or you don't and in that case we would never do these lessons in a whole group format they're always on a Class by class basis so that's a more intimate setting to have those conversations and so if students are in a different room they're doing a different activity it's

076not large scale it's and that way and it's important that the phys ed teacher has a relationship with students especially at the elementary level these are not lessons we would want to do in September this is something you'd want to work with their students and many of our gym teachers have worked with our teach our students since they were in kindergarten so by third grade or by the end of second grade they have a relationship with these students right and so when Health topics come up they can get a read on their students because they've worked with them for multiple years so again um I think the concern would be creating a system with that provides parents with enough information to make an informed decision and it's a incumbent upon us to make sure we

077have that response from a parent and not assume that they're okay with it because we didn't hear from them Mr I just want to add I know um he asked a question about how and this happens a lot of boardmans you know how is a teacher going to handle right the truth is there is an art of teaching right I know when I taught and I coached you know even when I was in the class and I was that Wise Guy that probably made those kind of comments and you know if uh I was and that teacher would say you know and and really the good teachers have that relationship build they could say okay Tommy really this is why three o'clock is your favorite day but that's not going to help you get here

078here and here so each teacher has the good ones know how to address those questions because I you know I I joke one day when I retirement or write the book can't make this up because I could tell you the things I've heard in the classroom and the things my wife shares that she hears in the kindergarten classroom like out of the mouths of babes you know so I think you know the vast majority of our teachers not only are so professional they've seen it they've been there they have good relationships with the kids and they know how to interact with that but there's never a one size fits all whether it's dealing with with a Jax Luke or dealing with a Tommy Farrell everybody's different uh for that and that is the art of

079teaching you know that is the art of teaching or comments anymore uh public comment in the back just state your name and your address please okay hometown foreign okay name and where you're from please okay Joanne Gilbert from Bricktown um the constitutional rights of all students to freedom of conscience thought please sorry the students to freedom to context thought and speech this means the state is to not and is not entitled to pass legislation that require schools to impose sexual code on our children yes schools shouldn't shoe Arts students know what kind of contact is unacceptable like actions that constitute bullying in her and harassment yes this does not mean the government has a right to impose sexual framework until students particularly when that contradicts so many families religious convictions and practices this is clearly

080within the bonds of moral and social Idol ideology an area constitutionally reserved to families being unto God is what made this nation so great when students learn from God's word the foundation for economic education has been fighting communism since its founding in 1946 but communism and Marxist ideas are back entering our classrooms in new forms to add to the plot we have common core bringing in now khrushchev's plan which I showed you before in the um in their um oh my goodness anyway I just want to make a direct quote from him it says your children's children will live under communism for Americans are so gullible no you won't accept communism outright but we will see keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you will finally wake up and find you already have communism

081we will not we will not have to fight you we will so weaken your economy until you will fought like overripe fruit into our hands the Democracy will see to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who won't work out of this it is out of the 33 goals I uh the Communists of the danger I picked out nine of them that relate to students and parents and number 14 says get control of the schools used as transmission belts for socialism and current communism propaganda soften the curriculum get control of teachers associations but the party line put the party line in textbooks we know that many of our heroes have already been taken out of our textbooks number 24 says present homosexuality degeneracy and promiscuity as

082normal natural and healthy God has laid a clear pyramid parameters for Godly Behavior another reason why our government took the Bible out of our schools they don't want people to know the truth because they don't want to follow the truth it is up to us parents to speak truth into our children number 20 26 says eliminate prayer on any stage of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates principles of separation of church and state so that is why you can't mention the name of Jesus when a valedatorian is addressing her class and parents on that she's not allowed to mention the name of Jesus in prayer why would a child uh when a child is chastised when they draw a nativity scene around Christmas time well they're being chastised they're not

083allowed to there are so many more incidents which are happening to Christians they are really being censored made to implement to feel less uh number 31 discredit the family as an institution encourage promiscuity and easy divorce teaches not relating to parents regarding students who decide they want to be something other than what God created them as so this is happening there's there's a break between parents and and teachers and their their own children books suggesting are students experiment with their body parts things that were reversed that were reserved for marriage only you know when a child is allowed to be a child thank you your time's up okay um any other public comment yes Mr Finelli first of all you said the president this week by having your Tuesday meeting on a day that was

084in this town council meeting so thank you for that but we will expect that in the future won't we yes did you catch that was not a boy okay a couple things I wanted to share with you um the Asbury Park Press on June 29th did a big article on the declining enrollment in schools I would suggest everybody read it June 29th very informative second thing is another information thing again the NJEA gave another 750 thousand dollars to Governor Murphy's stock fund this is the strong Affair of forwards that his wife Tammy is the chairperson why do I bring this up I think it's important the teachers know where their Union do scopes this is the guy who helps us out so much my third one is a question since no tests are being used

085for graduation requirements now what are we using for graduation requirements my second second question is just my own information the free School meals program for everybody is ending in September and they're just going to go back to I guess to the ones who qualify is that going to cause any problems in the district my next oh my other question is where are we on the demographic report and now I'm going to finish what I started last meeting when my five minutes are up I was I did it I did some numbers on the academic achievement which were terrible and now I was started on the absence and I'm just going to finish the absence right you know chronic absence is defined as missing over 10 percent of the days which comes out to 18 days

086or greater and that's how they put it on the report they say this percentage of students in Brick missed 18 days or more doesn't say how many days they missed just as 18 days or more if you took the number of students and that by the way brick was 17.4 percent overall that's how many students are chronic 18 days or more if you just took that amount of students and multiplied it out just say they all missed 18 days that's 25 250 days missed and where where is your big problem kind of surprised me and I have no idea why it is it is your middle schools in one school that category chronic grade six was 26 percent grade seven was 31 and grade 8 was 21 and the other middle school and I'm not

087telling you which is which grade six was 26 percent grade seven was thirty two percent and grade eight was thirty percent so if you look at the middle schools about one in three students got a chronic absence problem that that number almost doesn't register in my head it just doesn't there's got to be some but until you fix this problem don't even bother trying to fix the academic problem because kids don't come to school but it does solve one problem you're not going to have to worry about class size because those numbers that you put down for class size assume that everybody's coming to school and that's not the case so clear size is not a problem that's a good side effect from a bad problem the other one is uh let's let's meeting I

088asked the questions about the TWU contract and it was specifically about the sick time and I'll refresh your memory four years ago the negotiations and the contract with the TWU was that any new hires after 2014 they didn't get unused sick time anymore right you don't you don't get the money so you people negotiated with the with the Union the union agreed to that it's about time that you got something as a give back from the unions plus you gave all that money to the unions this time I mean tons of money went that way so the definition I got well we had to do that because people started taking all of their sick time that was the reason that that that that was put back in to me that's unacceptable me personally all right

089it was negotiated in good faith the people who came here knew what they were getting into knew what they were signing up for yet they abused the absence program so shame on you for letting that happen and shame on you for allowing them to make you take that out of the contract that that is just not right you get something to give back you give all of that stuff and then they turn around and say well we're going to use all our sick time and we're going to you lose it sick time is not there for that purpose it's there for emergencies right it's there if you get sick you get you get money but it's not there to say well if you don't get sick you're going to get paid for it that was

090never the intention and you never that never should have happened and that's just a bigger burden on the taxpayers right now foreign I just want to double check because we said a a couple things last month chronic absentee is the the absentee was a report I believe we said was three years old that data on the state report and then the last one was 2019. no what was the last the last chronic opposite too I'm asking Dr Anderson the attendance 2019 which is last year or 20 20 21. I know we had an issue with the beginning of the year like they said last year and how they were logging in and if they counted them absences um you're absolutely correct right obviously you can't get anywhere if people don't show up I will tell

091you though just like students that go to vocational schools we still have to have a seat and account for that student whether they're in school or not just like the state like you said you know if I know there's 25 in this class even though 10 may not come 18 in a days I still have to have 25 seats and account for those 25 students just like someone that's a half time vocational student um Mr furnell you you do that to me you get up here you ask me questions you don't give me my time to speak you may not agree with it it's like I'm just gonna just comment on your point but this is not a q a and I'm not going to get baited into a debate this you ask some questions

092I'm just going to give you the answers I said to it uh whether it's your point or not that's that's what I'm trying to share with you you asked about the graduation requirement um in in the state of New Jersey high school graduation is about credit completion there were specific uh end of course uh tests uh years prior that they get away they're actually talking about coming back with those end of course to us but Dr Anderson can comment a little bit on it but right now graduation for someone to graduate it's credit completion and a minimum credits in certain categories that's the state minimum our program of studies I think is actually either equal or a little above the state minimum as far as if you want to share graduation requirements as of today

093a little bit it might even be in a better position to answer that question since it you know comes through as a science New York used to have research years ago like and and we had some course of studies like math um end of and of course for algebra one algebra two so so the state has been changing over the number of years right we there were certain NJ SLA tests that you had at least take and if you didn't pass them um then you would have to go to a portfolio assessment in order to um and pass that portfolio assessment in order to Grant gain your graduation requirements for testing for assessment purposes the state just put out a new broadcast explaining how they're going to realign all of that I would be lying

094if I told you I had digested the whole thing I have not yet I am meeting with the guidance Departments of both high schools and the principals of both high schools and Dr Anderson we're going to take a look at those and see how we have to align things in order for students to meet their graduation requirements I do know that the portfolio process is still part of the process for gaining your pathway to graduation requirements uh free and free and reduced uh meals yeah um we got that notice and they finalized last month it won't be for everybody like it's been and I do think and uh your spot on I think it could be a problem for us um unfortunately we have about 30 33 free and reduced lunch lower socioeconomically and if

095you don't fill out those forms and don't get credit that hurts us in a myriad of ways through federal grants Title One monies for example when the federal government the last few years went to free um for all free meals for all that kind of stopped parents and those students that may have needed it to fill out those forms which qualify for us for a lot of federal native we've been talking last few months I know I have about how we are going to promote and communicate through guidance through our Food Services Program through a myriad of programs to get the word out with that application even help them I know in other districts are not help the parents at back to school night with with those applications many parents and community members feel uncomfortable

096obviously filling out that form for a lot of different reasons but it's important for us because that is attached to a lot of federal monies again Title One monies is important but yes as of right now there is no free for all and I do foresee that hurting our numbers that have traditionally been say upwards of 30 to 33 percent uh could be lower and that could cost us some federal money um you know TWU without getting into the contract I know there's a statute on sick time I want to clarify and I think I might have said this to you last month so people don't just cash in sick time right I think under the statute it's when you retire only and get into the state retirement that you get sick time in the

097statute I don't know the last contract if it was before or after but it was 2015 maybe the 15 000 15 000 to cap but I don't know the year it came out that statute so there's a clear statute for sick time that public employees in in the school district can cash in at retirement when they go into the state retirement plan and it's capped at 15 000 person on based on per diem I don't know much about the statute I don't know if that's mandated throughout I don't know if you have leeway contractually I don't know if statute supersedes contracts on yeah the statute superseded it I want to say it came out in 2010 I could be wrong my recollection on that yeah but yeah unless you were somebody that was grandfathered in

098before that statute came out which at this point most people are there the 15 000 cap would would apply to most just so you're you're clear on my point right it was negotiated out of the contract we finally got something back from the union they agreed to it people after this date everybody else before that date they were grandfathered in for their fifteen thousand all right but you multiply that money out every time somebody leaves it's of course the tax pays another fifteen thousand I was agreed to it was a done deal all right and that's good you finally gave something back and you gave the TWU all that money this year tons of money which I stood up here and say is it enough that's not the majority many people that are retiring actually

099uh exhaust many of their sick days but I I heard what you said the first time um the demographics report we have one more steering committee meeting in August from the business department we are presenting a uh comprehensive uh strategic plan we will be posting the demographics uh report um there are some issues with the demographic studies because it takes some there's updated birth rates now which uh from 2020 uh that are being added which will help um yes they're showing declining enrollment like everybody like we talked I think next year we go up 40 right now and a projection then goes up after down after that for a couple years and then status globally it'll be posted it'll be up I will even print out a copy I know you want um I I

100know I'm I'm working as hard I'm actually doing the final part of that to get it done I want to do it so that I know we're going to be presenting the Strategic plan because that's kind of what I feel that's really what it's used for so if say we present the Strategic plan and say October I'd love to get this up by August or September on the website I'll even print a copy for you and get it to you there's Associated spreadsheets with it we do have a steering committee left on strategic planning it'll be the last internal steering committee because Mr Edwards Mr Roberts the business is the last one that has not presented on the budget and business they will present we're going to start Gathering it but I promise you if

101you've got to work on support you should tell Mr Euro that you want some of the twenty thousand dollars back thank you really thank you any other public comment uh yes ma'am you can come hi I'm Marianne pasano I live in Lakewood and words of wisdom from my pastor followers live for themselves leaders live for others we ask that each one of you humble yourself for the sake of the children and not exalt yourself for your ideas with the Demonic spirit that we truly believe is over the state of New Jersey um at the end of the square this one question I have two two or three questions lgbtq is education is now mandatory in New Jersey teachers are being taught how to incorporate it New Jersey joins California Colorado and Illinois as the law

102requires schools to include and teach lesbian gay bisexual and transgender history supplying textbooks material on their contribution to society and the political economic and social scene um we came across the pink triangle in one school and it was used in the camps for the Holocaust gay men to be persecuted if it's presented in social studies are you going to be teaching it in social studies that was my one question um when you were talking about different levels of maturity this gentleman here I was dancing at a wedding with a little girl we were she was singing Madonna knew every word about being a virgin at her age at seven years old she she was clueless as to what a virgin was and we were trying to explain to her watch what you say or watch

103what you sing at seven years old I was an aunt and I was explaining to the kids in my class how I became an aunt that my sister was older so there's such a different level of maturity and and not only I remember going through sexual education in in Catholic school and we were mortified because the boys were in the room and the boys were mortified because we were in the room so I I can't even imagine at an eighth grade level let's say that I was mortified and embarrassed and my sister already had two children and I had two older sisters how are you really going to work this out um I think it was last month when I heard opt-in and opt out and I'm saying to myself what a burden it is

104on the parents that are already tied down with work home family and duties instead of opting out why couldn't they opt in you'd still receive the government funding so anything was that was not your basic math science English and and social study parents would have to sign it you'd still be getting your your grants from the state it wouldn't stop your funding and it would make it so much simpler that it's not being pushed on the parent um I printed out or my friend printed out the New Jersey hold on New Jersey educational law and standards that came out in 2020 and it said that parents would have to sign off the info came from New Jersey guidelines children five to eight years old would be taught about masturbation sexual stimulation when touched if it

105feels good oral anal sex and intercourse I think you'll find that if you opt in the class and the parents signed in you would have a very very small class um other T other states that are teaching abstinence are Mississippi Texas Arizona Arkansas and Louisiana all the other stops all the other states stopped it because the funding from the federal government was stopped um do you teach Epstein as you said that we you do uh Common Core came in 2014 a group of Christians Dr Moore PhD from Hillsdale College Jane Robbins a senior fellow American principal project Dr Sandra stalsky Ed D professor of English of Arkansas Emmett mccrawley executive director director of The Presence innocent project another PhD from Stanford University um Common Core came out in 2000 I'm going to say nine 2014

106it was renamed in Most states as educational law and standards it takes the focus of science math English language arts and as anti-family anti-religion this does not prepare our children for the world for the workforce or for college it shuts down capitalism and it creates a low-income Workforce New Jersey adopted Common Core in 2010 they went The Five-Year cycle and it was renamed in 2016 as the New Jersey learning standard there's a book out it's called The Art of War if you want to take a country down demoralize the people brainwash them it takes 15 to 20 years which is three generations and I hate to tell you most of you guys are young and you're part of that generation because in 1988 the LGBT established themselves to this the phase two would be to

107stabilize destabilize Society it takes five to seven five to six years there's nothing new that hasn't happened past president and will happen in the future in Revelation 17 9 is called the seven Mountain mandate foreign do you have anything or okay I can um well first let me say and I said this to Mr sluke a month ago that's why we're looking at active consent in New Jersey you cannot opt in just like we don't let someone just opt into algebra one or any other standard it's an opt-out but we're going to work it so it is an active consent and kind of get to that type of level uh please note it's simply not true that ages five through eight are being taught anal sex masturbation or any other words you want to say

108I want to make that clear right here right now my wife's a kindergarten teacher here she heard some of our meetings the last two months it says please tell them that is not happening in kindergarten that is not happening and New Jersey does teach abstinence it's one of the standards and I will tell you that the health standards right now in eighth grade are the same ones pretty much that I was taught in 1979 1980 and I gotta tell you and I said it before I'm grateful for my public education Love My Father Like I said before didn't talk a word about it to me about anything and I had an older brother like I said that pretty much lied to me he's probably going to see this so but we're trying to get that

109the social studies curriculum on lbtq that's been around now for a few years and all that is is when they talk about and you've seen many movies you talk about whether it's Herbert Hoover or or the new person bootage they just talk about these people in history that's they don't teach it nobody is teaching lbtq they're just referencing to historical figures no different than Martin Luther King was also a reverend and a minister things of that nature that has been done and and in the curriculum uh for years and that's all it is it's nothing more than that so please there's a lot of misinformation out there and again I'm going to say this again I love the state of New Jersey I love our country but I really care about brick more than anything

110else because that's what I'm in charge of so if it is happening in Brick if you want to come up and you say this is happening here tell me I'll find out I'll find out exactly why and I'll see it but right now under my watch these things are not happening here they're happening maybe in other states another curriculum and we hear you we hear you every month nobody we're listening and we hear you and there are some things in our realm of control there's things that are not in our realm control that you're probably better up taking up at a different venue like with the state but we will communicate we're very transparent about it and we give you the reasonings why uh things are happening again communication at the level of the classroom

111is way more important than here I wish to tell you I could guarantee every single classroom and every single environment is the same in my own District not with 12 schools I can't do that so I recommend to every parent Guardian grandparent here strike up that relationship with your child or your your grandchild's teacher have that open lines of communication let them know your feelings and your beliefs and all that's all we could do um but to make Global assumptions or to impart or imply one belief or one opinion on a hundred percent of the population when we're in a public atmosphere just doesn't work in public education we're a heterogeneous population for a reason we're not a homogeneous population like maybe a private or a parochial school so but thank you for your comments

112okay any other public comment um yes sir hi my name's Jake droppy and where are you from uh brick okay uh recently moved here and I had a question if we were to opt out our child from the uh health class piece are we going to be opting out of the entire health class or just specific topics that we're not ready to discuss and is that your only question or do you have other I have a second question okay keep going then and then also if we opt them out of certain topics in health how do we know that they're not going to spill over into say history or science or anything of that nature into other classrooms okay there are two questions okay so Dr Anderson answered this before so um when you opt

113out it's a specific lesson uh nobody will be ostracized there'll be alternative assignments we're working actually the particulars depends on the amount of people under the state law opting out is for the family um life curriculum which is part of our health right so um you know you can't opt out from algebra one right I mean if you need algebra one to graduate in high school you can't opt out you have to meet those standards or that criteria for credit completion whether it's seat time or testing did you want to add anything to that Dr Anderson on the opt-out because still working no but that that's what but that's why it's important to have active consent right so that we're not going to assume that if you didn't opt out that you are consenting to

114be in and Dr Anderson Just to be clear they will be each day especially on the lower level will be addressed in the parent so if there's a specific part of that they can opt out for that section but continue to have other sections yeah it'll be outlined as a lesson and here's the lesson you opt in or you or you you walked out so yeah there's a specific thing that you do not want when you see it you can choose that one top out of and still have the other one it will be delivered by the health and physical education teacher so it's unlikely that that conversation would be integrated not unlikely it won't be integrated into the classroom teacher in her conversations or his with students because it's in health class okay thank

115you thank you um would you like to any other questions I saw your hand up before Brian Huber it's good to see you all here today it's good to see anybody today uh I have a brief a few brief things to say but I think they are very germane to your bullying policies that you're going to develop correct you have a bullying policy well does develop or the existing HIV statute isn't there something coming out on a bullying policy in this District our head policies they exist yeah they already everything exists right yeah and is there a revision of that coming well every year we revise policies but the Hib is a state statute right and then we have a policy obviously on when people subject to Hib on how what the protocol is legally

116and that's a very detailed statute that we follow through display I I wanted to say that there are systematic requirements that the school has for their students and I understand the sex education program by the way I'm a product of your sex education program from Midstream school back in the 60s and there are those films that they showed us were basically reproduction this is that and this is what this looks like in it and I had to have my parents with me in that classroom or actually in the auditorium and midstreams and than the rest of it was what you learned in high school there you go but the issue now that's happening today is there is a spiritual breaking out there is a what we would call a revival going to occur and is

117occurring with students in your school that's why I asked you about the policy that we have for Bible clubs after school one of those we had discussed that I wrote the Bible policy or the Bible after school policy for the District 20 years ago and I had it presented to Mr Montenegro who was my board attorney and we had a great time in developing that because there was there was words and intention for uh to make it mandatory that this District would not ignore the students that wanted to have those kind of groups now based on the scriptural reading and the uh which I would say the initial indictment in Romans chapter one these issues of homosexuality all the different things that God does not want to have happen is laid out and it's God's

118judgment on that if you have a Revival and I think there will be you're going to have conflicting opinions in the school and I just don't want any Christian children or Christian kids that Express their disdain or their the biblical view about this to be labeled as bullying because they're expressing their religious opinion on the topic and and believe me the Supreme Court also when it was talking about the Jehovah Witnesses and there was a big court case in 1958 about what they can say and the the bottom line the court determined that when you have a conflict of discussion the idea is not to cut away or eliminate discussion but to have more of it and that that was always a good that was an excellent I have the judge's name but it was

119an excellent statement for that particular conflict we're going to have conflict it's it's inevitable because the spirit of God is moving in your district and in your students it's going to happen I just don't want as we know we've had some tremendous uh Decisions by the Supreme Court especially with the coach out in Texas and he can pray with his people and a teacher can have a Bible and can mention God in the classroom but not as far as interrupting that particular course within the class but if it comes up it could come up in social studies especially when you talk about other people in social studies so these issues are going to come before I'm just hoping and I'm expecting that the district is aware of this and what is going to happen for

120the students in your District because as from my opinion and from what I've seen the academic level Rises with the understanding of God's word and the statement anything sure okay first of all our our freedom of speech and our opportunities are foreign not just Christians of our children in our district have a freedom I come from a place and I know we're a place here that if we have enough students that are interested in a club whether it's young Democrats young Republicans Fellowship of Christian athletes lbtq whatever the clubs are if there's an interest in a club and they get a faculty advisor to help them with those clubs happen a myriad of them for all children if the interest is there our job is to help with those opportunities and allow that freedom of

121speech and freedom of expression so we're not different here than anywhere else I've been at and that we allow that I want to get on the hip thing for a second because I do this every month everybody's the harassment intimidation and bullying when we say Hib people use it in a lot of different connotations it's not just harassing a student there could be a conflict or a disagreement or a fight with students that doesn't rise to the level of hip under the law the harassment intimidation bullying law came out when I first became a principal I want to say 2009 from the k Jason Toms River a young boy to commuted committed suicide being around it's very specific that there's a distinguishing characteristic that the conflict has to show corroborated meaning race ethnicity sexual orientation

122there's like five um a bunch of those but it has to be clear otherwise it doesn't rise to the level of hip under the statue doesn't meet up it's a disagreement it's a fight and they'll be appropriate discipline for those students so it's very different so when people look I I really recommend not that it's interesting reading but if you look at the statute from 2009 that's been amended a few times right it may have been amended a few times it's very very detailed because I talked to our young principals I talk to our administrator Miss McNamara and I we do it every summer it's very clear so when a parent says you know I want to file a Hib against you know another student they're harassing my child well they may be harassing or

123maybe a confident but it may not be a hip and that's what's got to be clear and we Administration I say have to do a better job communicating that to our community what that difference is because we've had even here parents that have come here or people that have went through the chain of command that don't understand that so that is on me and I took that opportunity when you brought a PIV to China use this opportunity tonight to explain the difference between Hib and rising to the level of a harassment intimidation bullying under the statute differ than a conflict disagreement or fight between two students again I want to get back to the clubs and the interests of students we are a public entity all Races all Creeds everybody if there is enough student

124interest in anything as long as it's not illegal we will help in that venue we will if they can get a faculty by I mean we've had I know here we we have a Surf Club or I know I had one at Shore we have a myriad based on what you're saying the ability to have because we had the same questions when I was on the board about a faculty advisor to an after-school program and how will this District let's say the group decides that they're going to have and they're going to put up posters and there's a Bible and prayer groups going on within the district after the school hours how are we going to get or how will they how will the district provide the supervision that they need from the staff for

125that so like any club like any club once we have the student interest we have a faculty advisor volunteer to first year right because we don't have paid in the contract statement if there is a faculty advisor interested that club runs I I've had many districts I've been in with the fellowship of Christian athletes which are a lot of athletes that do a lot of Bible read they would meet once a month in room 202 with Mr so-and-so or coach so-and-so or whatever and that is wrong but that's based on the interest of students right we are not from the administrator's perspective and that's where the Supreme Court was very clear in front of we are not going to promote a specific um Club student sponsored I understand that yes but that's but the school

126was still involved with providing the supervision for that group and if there is none does the group get canceled well we have many clubs that if we don't get a faculty advisor like if it's a new club someone says I want to have a Checkers club we don't have a chess climb right yeah if there's only two or three students and I don't get a faculty visor to volunteer it can't run we have many clubs like that if there's enough interest and we get a faculty advisor to volunteer that year and then we'll actually probably end up paying a stipend in the years after right exactly that's the way it works with all clubs here right okay well thank you for your time sure thank you appreciate this are there any other public comments yes

127Ellie I just want to say we have two excellent high school principals that not only encourage their their students to be involved in clubs start some clubs up themselves to get there to get their students out so they're in good hands with as far as the clubs go good hello Ali Kennedy um just wanted to for the people that are here that maybe don't have students in our district and understand how it goes opting out of things is very easy I do appreciate I know many of my friends appreciate the ease in which we log into Parent Portal and we're able to just read through what it is check it off and we're in or out also as the parent of an incoming ninth grader which would mean he was in health for last year

128in eighth grade they do not sit like this and listen with baited breath to everything that the teacher is saying they're probably so much giggling going on and it's not as bad as everyone is thinking um but if I may can I direct towards Mrs Hansen for just a minute because I know it's her last or I have to say it yeah so Mrs Hansen on behalf of I have friends that work for you I have many friends that are recipients of your amazing Department I just wanted to say thank you for everything that you've done for Brick Township Schools we are going to miss you tremendously within the state our special education department is huge we're amazing and it's because of your hard work and dedication to our students and it is a tremendous

129loss to our district um congratulations to your new District our loss is their win and um thank you for everything that you've done you will truly be missed thank you [Applause] thank you any other public comments before I close out seeing none any word comments Melita any Daisy Victoria actually Ed Victoria I am I attended two New Jersey School Board Association conferences last week one was a very informative discussion with the Senate education chair Vin gopal about issues of funding and policies in um uh this area he he had his listening cap on and he provided a lot of answers to us regarding funding issues the other was an all-day New Jersey School Board Association law form and they talked about legal issues including diversity equity and inclusion The Bullying legal ethics the public portion

130of a board of ed meeting different things that um are relevant to the way we conduct our meetings on tonight's agenda we accepted Miss Meredith Hudson's resignation as principal of Emma Haven Young School I am sorry to see her leave brick and wish her the best in all her future endeavors I met um Miss Hudson before I was involved with the schools when she was just this really cool lifeguard on the beach in Brick and um I've seen her Blossom as an educator and a leader in our district and I'm going to miss her as I'm going to miss um Miss Hansen and wish you all the best thank you thank you Michael Missy Nicole who I can't see anybody have anything uh just to piggyback on what Victoria was saying I also just wanted

131to wish Miss sutson um the best of luck in the future she was my son's VP over at Memorial before she went over to Emma Havens and she was integral in getting him through his junior year and I really appreciated all of her hard work and dedication over there at the school and she will be sorely missed and uh just a congratulations to the class of 2022 the graduation ceremonies both went off without a hitch without a raindrop thankfully and uh hope everybody enjoys their summer thank you thank you [Music] okay I know the video came out at Brick Township High School graduation I saw that is their memorial one we're waiting for the we're waiting it did it came out I didn't see it yet waiting for the Drone one Mrs uh Miss McNamara

132was going to show both tonight but I wanted to show both and we didn't have the brick memorial drone one it really came pretty good like the video okay so we'll do that and we'll get that and we'll try to get it to the website and maybe next month so all right great thank you um thank you all for coming here tonight um Kristen I mean I wish you the best of luck but I also look forward to you missing us terribly and regretting your decision and calling and begging us to take you back um yeah exactly um but um thank you for all you all you've did and um you will be missed and I do wish you the best of luck so congratulations on your new job assistant superintendent and um I'm sure

133we'll see you so um congratulations to all our retirees and our next meeting will be August 16th at 7 pm here I need a motion and a second for adjournment motion to adjourn second Michael um Mary yes thank you all right