001[Music] then [Music] okay [Music] so [Music] all right [Music] um [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] hmm [Music] okay we're gonna call the meeting to order oh mary did you take my let me just take that oh thanks oh i heard that uh roll call mary miss hefner here mr blandina here ms gagliardi here miss parker yeah miss mccalla here mr edwards the new jersey open post meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to advance notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the brick township board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be posted on the administration office bulletin board the official district website and channel b tv
00220 and sent to the asbury park press the brick times the star ledger and missile clerk's office i need a motion in a second motion daisy second melita mr edwards uh hold on i need my reading glasses this is some small print hold on there we go i'm looking at that too and you would think that after all these years i'd have it memorized but uh for most i bet you i could recite it in my sleep but let's try whereas the brick township board of education has been for pursuing the applicable new jerry statutes and whereas the board is charged with responsibility of performing all acts and doing all things consistent with the laws and the rules of the state board of education necessary for the lawful and proper conduct equipment and maintenance of
003the public schools and the public school property of the brick township school district and whereas section 7 of the public's meeting act permits the exclusion of the public for a meeting of the board in certain circumstances and whereas the board has determined that the circumstances exist for such an executive session whereas the board has found the action described below to be necessary and proper now therefore be resolved by the board on december 16 2021 that the public shall be excluded from the discussion of and action on the executive session here on set forth the session will be approximately 15 minutes and the general nature of the subject matter to be discussed is harassment intimidation and bullying reports it is anticipated at this time that the above stated subject matter will be made public if and
004when it is deemed to be in the public interest to do so and need confidentiality is no longer required by the board mary miss hefner yes mr blandina yes ms gagliardi yes miss parker yes miss mccalla miss walrup yes for our regulars yes [Music] oh god [Music] me [Music] thank you [Music] right [Music] uh [Music] here [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] california but where are the most popular [Music] forward [Music] uh [Music] get the giggles [Music] get it out [Music] um [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Music] yes [Music] so [Music] um [Music] oh [Music] ah [Music] okay [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] oh [Music] i ready [Music] you love mine [Music] thank you [Music] oh how do i get up on why isn't this up um hey mary thank you molita i don't know
005yeah it's fine thank you now we can start yes okay i need a motion in a second to return second missy mary miss hafner yes mr blandina yes miss gagliardi yes ms parker yes sakala yes this will rub yes i'm going to ask everybody to raise for the uh to rise for the flag salute in a moment of sign of silence and the junior rotc will be presenting four arms forward arms to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] forward please receive it i know i'm gonna don't get jumpy miss mac and i have it under control miss mcnamara thank you mrs walrab we are pleased to have a joint chorus here with this
006evening under the direction of mr capone and mr penrod from brick memorial high school and brick township high school so if they could enter they will be doing the national anthem and we will ask you to stand again welcome to the brick memorial and brick high school brick united senior chorus [Applause] systems [Music] we [Music] is [Music] oh r [Music] you may be seated for the remainder of the program see [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] christ the lord [Music] hurry hurry hurry now to bethlehem oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hurry [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so all right so that was hurrying out of bethlehem by the brick memorial honor flyer and now in front of you you have the uh voices
007of fire which is brick township's uh honors fire uh performing venni veni emmanuel [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] is [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] and now to close out our little mini performance uh we are going to do another combined piece it turns out mr bettis and i uh shared one of our pieces uh for our winter concerts um his concert was wonderful they performed last night great job memorial is coming up this wednesday the 22nd at 6 30. come and listen to some holiday music from our fire and our bands come on out 22nd at 6 30. uh we are performing combined uh a hollywood piece called hana rose so let's get back
008into our foreign [Music] foreign [Music] me [Music] not [Applause] thank you mr verdes thank you mr capone and thank you to the honors choir can we have another round of applause for these wonderful wonderful performers [Applause] thank you again for inviting us i actually attended last night's winter concert band of course at brick memorial they were fantastic they bring up the alumni choir as well last night to sing our current students and they actually both tyson's had these caroling groups required to go around to some of our senior communities i know they were at greenbrier last week fantastic job our performing arts it's really just amazing um a few weeks ago i saw the three act plays of rick hi as well great job yes thank you okay i'm going to read over a little
009that order i'll read my statement to the public and you're right jim this is very tiny often it may appear to members of our audience that the board of education act with very little comment and in many cases a unanimous vote please understand that before a matter is placed on the agenda at a public meeting the administration has thoroughly reviewed the matter with the superintendent of schools discussed it in the appropriate bob boe committees and then if the superintendent is satisfied that the matter is ready to be presented to the full board of education it is placed on the agenda for action at a public meeting board of education members are given advance notice to review the agenda and through the chair ask questions or voice concerns in rare instances when necessary matters are presented
010to the board of education for discussion at the same meeting that final action may be taken um we're going to go to approval of minutes uh oh i'm sorry i didn't i'm sorry i only see one on here i apologize no that's okay um dr anderson it was a last minute edition oh um i know right so jennifer lane our visual performing arts supervisor reached out to this wonderful video uh cheryl best who uh is our draw is our acting teacher drama teacher at um both high schools and colleen bennett have been who does dance have been taking their students from both sides of town all across the district to our elementary schools for their yearly performance of a christmas carol erica robinson or brick memorial high school tv production teacher produced a video of
011the students experience and her students emmanuel acelia and filmed the behind the scenes footage and lauren band edited the piece and they worked together on that so enjoy this little snippet from the christmas carol [Music] hi my name is um i'm scrooge in the christmas carol i'm really excited for the show we have all worked really hard for i want to say a couple months now um but yeah i'm really excited hope you enjoyed this [Music] hi my name is [Music] please let this be a normal field trip with a friend no way [Music] it's show time everybody show time [Music] santa claus is coming to town [Music] um the first show went really well um you know still kind of shaking off the nerves a little bit um had to do a quick change
012and get into a different costume that took longer than expected but uh um apart from that uh you know went really well when really smooth um you know lines were second nature so excited for the second one um my dream for like going into school stuff was like um really up to me yeah we're so proud of our programs right and that inter-department collaboration between our drama on our um dance and our tv studio uh you really got to see a glimpse of it through both the students the high school students eyes and the elementary student size so and we just received that about an hour ago and i thought it was apropos because of the holidays to show it um this evening at tonight's board meetings absolutely that's what we're here for right the
013kids um okay so we'll move on to approval minutes i need a motion in a second i'll make that motion second second daisy any board discussion mary hefner yes blandina yes scagliardi yes miss parker yes miss piccala yeah miss walrab yes reports um dr farrell i'm just going to let you go because you covered a lot of what i was going to say so i can save some time so go ahead thank you miss walker yes congratulations again to ms mcnamara dr anderson and mrs hanson i'm being recipients of the new jersey school boards association annual school leaders award they were recognized this past tuesday evening and we spoke about each of their respective programs miss mcnamara's brick-and-click safe restart plan for teaching and learning dr anderson's summer spark program and mrs hanson's special education
014summer esi program it really was a great evening because it gave us a chance to brag a little bit about brick and it was great to see brick schools honored with such esteem in the county also that evening congratulations to ms walrab also recognized that night for passing the test and completing and the test was very hard i i saw it and got some of those answers wrong myself completing the requirement of additional advanced credits as well for the certified board leader certification through new jersey school boards association this is the highest board member certification recognition so kudos for this achievement mr flora this year we've combined our school high school hockey teams into one and we're also back at the ocean ice palace we have a very competitive team and the games are a
015great event to attend i'll actually be attending this friday's home game so if you get a chance please come out and support our combined brick hockey team just an update as we move into winter just an fyi that we're not afforded the option of having a virtual snow day this school year like we had last year all inclement weather day school closings would have to be added to the end of our calendar at the end of the school year and hot off the press about two and a half hours ago i don't even have notes on it but we just got updated uh quarantined protocols as of today right from the new jersey department of education and new jersey department of health uh those quarantine protocols of that i got to watch my wording but
016it really reduced the quarantine time period for in certain cases where you can test after so many days and come back in there are many stipulations we literally got at four o'clock four o'clock miss mcnamara has a lot more of the details but that is a positive step to getting many of our students back in school quicker that are being quarantined you know two months ago i spoke about some trends and some data on some social emotional and well-being issues that are coming out of this crisis and unfortunately as i stated then you know adolescent mental health issues are on the rise discipline has increased steadily due to lack of consistent in-person socialization as a result of the pandemic many issues that have traditionally been in earlier years have now migrated up to later years
017and this has mirrored state and national trends our work has to center on these adaptive challenges that our young people are currently facing rick schools is committed to meeting the well-being challenges of our community of learners and educators that they're facing as a result of this pandemic we continue to work as a team student-centered teacher-led to support and guide our district in the best service to our students staff parents and the community i i spoke also tuesday night i know i was asked last minute to kind of pinch it and give a presentation on team building but one of the major aspects i talked about that night was communication and in my opinion communication is the real work of leadership and any organization should center on their effective efficient and positive communication to me there's
018nothing more important than the way a superintendent or district leadership communicates that is what people hear and see and that's their reality good effective efficient and positive communication to and with all stakeholders will foster engagement that'll allow us to champion a successful school system as i said i spoke about it briefly tuesday evening when i presented on team building and what we're trying to do here in brick respect and listen to all stakeholders empower our staff to make decisions that improve their craft and benefit our students and the district communicate how we genuinely care about the safety health and well-being of students and staff communicate that we have high standards and we want to pursue excellence in everything we do and we expect to be successful communicate to all stakeholders that as a school district
019we really do strive to make a difference in the community we serve the elements that make for a successful community school district relationship and collaboration all center on good communication with community input including students teachers parents administrators board members residents local government and businesses on the development of a district's vision as we're doing right now through the strategic planning process communication with an understanding of clearly defined roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders i spoke actually tuesday a lot about the roles of board members in the roles of of central administration talking about agreeing on the what which is community and board members role but the how and how it's implemented is an administrative function communication with mutual respect for one another in word and action communication with the tone of flexibility collaboration and empathy and
020lastly communication which prioritizes students during this pandemic our focus on communication has been the foundation for the success of our restart plan and our safe road forward plan our focus has and continues to be on the academic social and emotional success and well-being of our students this is of the utmost importance the pandemic has created very challenging and stressful times as a result of our focus and communication brick has been able to dispel the negative energy from the noise avoid infighting find common ground and continue to execute our brick schools plan which continues to prioritize prioritize students over all else i think we have taken a lot of pride in our communication both at board meetings monthly videos i i always joke i think i have a face for radio but i know those weekly
021videos early on that became monthly videos and we really communicate the good the bad and the ugly whether we all agree or disagree the communication part of it i believe has been stronger and has really helped us kind of during this strife so not to end on to to deep a note as my cabinet members told me i want to end on the happy holidays right we're approaching the holiday season and as everybody knows the holiday season can be great and it can be very trying for many people out there so let's keep everybody in mind so happy holidays to all of our students staff parents and community a great quote from helen keller she reminds us that the best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched they must
022be felt with the heart so wishing everyone happiness connectedness and kindness during this holiday season the pandemic challenges have given us the opportunity to reflect on the importance of connections and kindness and the challenges we face together as a team continue to bring us together and connect us stronger as the care and community that we are here in brick happy holidays thank you thank you dr farrell um i apologize i went a little out order it dropped off of my agenda that's in front of me but miss mcnamara will you introduce our our student speakers we have mr barisi here from brick memorial mr would you like to introduce the memorial speakers [Applause] hello my name is emma santos and i'm jenna jakowski and we are co-secretaries of the student government association at brook memorial
023high school first and foremost we would like to thank you for having us tonight we appreciate all the time that you lent to us first we would like to congratulate our 2021 to 2022 teachers of the year mr ben shively he is into our seventh seventeenth year as a member of the science department and we would also like to congratulate mrs reinhart who is in her 22nd year here at brick memorial being the anti-bullying specialist and a member of our gardens department so congratulations once again to both our wonderful teachers yeah yeah sorry no i'm sorry can i of course no that's okay we would also like to congratulate our brick memorial key club for hosting yet another successful gingerbread social faculty and their children were invited to create gingerbread houses and meet santa in
024the spirit of the holiday season a huge thank you to dr farrell for visiting on december 9th to speak to our career and leadership development class it was great having you next we would like to congratulate the mustang players on their successful runs of beauty and the beast junior on december 2nd 3rd and 4th we look forward to their winter production of radium girls and spring production of mamma mia just a reminder that it is not too late to enter in on our sga virtual baking contest all you have to do is bake and decorate your favorite holiday themed treats we are still accepting entries up until december 19th and the winner will receive a basket of baking goods next we will be hosting our holiday spirit week from december 20th to december 23rd monday
025the 20th will be pajama day tuesday the 21st will be dressed like your favorite christmas character wednesday the 22nd will be ugly sweater day in light of our annual ugly sweater party and thursday the 23rd will be holiday accessories we would also like to thank our secret decorating elves who strung up christmas lights outside of the school with the mission to spread holiday spirit this was organized by mr sarluca so thank you to him and the elves for such a lovely job well done we would also like to remind all residents and fans of brick memorial sports that all home basketball bowling and wrestling matches are streamed on our youtube channel at bmhs mustangs and a huge thanks to our festive faculty members for participating in our annual christmas card contest if you would like
026to vote please visit the bm homepage and we'd also like to congratulate our brick memorial band and chorus for putting on a wonderful winter winter show under the direction of mr bennis and mr penrod and congratulations to our mustang seniors melanie hyodis and rebecca so who placed first and second in the annual veterans of foreign war speech competition this year's theme was america where do we go from here and both students win a cash scholarship and will compete on the county and state level and finally we just have our winter sports report so our winter seasons are now fully underway with our bowling swim and hockey teams off to positive starts and our basketball indoor track and wrestling teams are ready to start competing this weekend our girls bowling team has already won two tournaments
027in taking first at the rule the river and roll with the indians tournaments they are also off to a great start in the division holding a perfect 21-0 record so far and our ice hockey team is doing well as we continue in our inaugural season combining efforts with brick township we look forward to another awesome home crowd as we host lacy tomorrow night at the ice palace at 5 45 p.m for girls and boys basketball programs will be competing in one of the best holiday tournaments in the state in the wobm christmas classic they open up this weekend the girls taking on state power mana squad on saturday and the boys battling in an 8-9 match up versus toms river north all games are played at the rjw barnabas health arena on the campus of
028toms river north high school and finally our wrestlers will compete this weekend in two different high level tournaments we are heading to the nationally renowned beast of the east tournament hosted at the carp ventura center at the university of delaware we will also be competing in the college of new jersey pride tournament held at middletown south next week we will travel to sister school brick township and take on the dragons on tuesday december 21st as always please stay current with all of our news and updates on our brickschools.org website subscribe to our mustang weekly newsletter and follow us on twitter at bm bm staying sports happy holidays to all and we wish you a happy and healthy new year thank you guys so much for having us [Applause] mr hessnan is here from brick township
029high school mr hessen would you like to introduce the brick high representatives [Applause] hi guys i'm skylar piscope president of sga i'm kayla judson public relations of sga we hope everyone had a nice thanksgiving and thanksgiving break and we can't wait to share what we've been up to the past few weeks to start off we had alumni networking day on november 23rd and it was a nice turnout we were visited by our very own bths alumni and were given lots of insight on their college experiences and their advice for all students at bths we're taking it for club updates we ended off november with a great note for the bths drama play three out of three one act plays by uh mrs best and her drama club they did an outstanding job with their two
030days that they performed we want to thank all families and friends who came out and supported everyone and in addition mrs best drama club the bths acting 1-2 and dance one classes performed a christmas carol for the fifth graders at emma havens as we saw in the video and brick memorial high school acting 1 and dance 1 students performed a christmas carol at vetsmen vets elementary in lanesville elementary school sorry um in sga our spirit week went well uh the seniors won again with 1200 points 300 more points in our juniors and then next week we're starting our holiday spirit week so mondays holiday accessories so like hats socks whatever you want tuesday's holiday sweaters so they can be ugly or cute it doesn't matter wednesday's festive fit day so just dress as festive as
031you can and thursday is red white and green so that we incorporate holiday spirit into our green fridays for december the key club has been collecting toys for kids in need and they're making holiday cards for senior citizens they're also running a coat drive until the end of this week and so far they've collected over 30 coats to donate to just believe nhs had a faculty feud which was a really good turnout we actually got to be a team because some team dropped out we lost um but it doesn't matter teachers from the foreign language and performing visual arts department took home the win so and um they also had an induction ceremony nhs for the newest members tuesday december 14th where they inducted 29 new members and their next main event will be family
032game night sometime in february mock trial team hosted mr and miss bths with numerous great acts and it became it was a really fun night senior jack dewgaard won mr bths with the hilarious comedy act trying to see how many licks it takes to get to the center of a titsy pop and freshman ruth murano won miss bths with her amazing singing solo so congrats to both and we can't wait to see what other talents await in the talent show in january hosted by our bths dance team we're looking forward to our winter band and coral concert which will be taking place on wednesday december 22nd at 6 30. this is always a highly anticipated event as it creates a wonderful holiday atmosphere in athletics our swimming bowling and ice hockey began their seasons off
033a couple weeks ago in boeing we'd like to congratulate nick covale for placing seventh place at the south jersey singles in manchester on saturday december 11th the boys record in a south stands at nine and six and the girls are at six and nine on friday december 17th it will be opening night for boys and girls basketball all are welcome to attend and on saturday the following day december 18th wrestling will be opening up at the old bridge icebreaker tournament and the team will be wrestling against brick memorial this upcoming tuesday december 21st at bths and that's all we have for you now thank you for having us as always we wish you all an amazing holiday break and we can't wait to see you guys in the new year [Applause] we have one more
034presentation major davies would you like to introduce yes and it's a very demanding job as the name implies but o'er is the first trick of death and he's already you know his way up the ranks and he's taking on leadership challenges as they present themselves [Applause] good evening uh members of the board my name is cadet airman brandon hearn you knew that uh my duty title in afjrc is the blue squadron first sergeant tonight i am honored to present the afk rotc minute since the last time we have spoken to you uh we've had some significant events we have participated in such as presenting the colors at the veterans recognition dinner at veterans memorial middle school on november 16th we have also sponsored over 80 reads for reasons across america the program which is uh
035putting reasons on the graves of veterans who are no longer with us and finally we have presented our afk rotc honors projects uh which will be voted on next week some upcoming events are some upcoming events in the program are this saturday december 18th we're going to the first baptist church of laurelton to labries on graves veterans we were also planning our 2022 military ball which is set for march 4th uh which all of our cadets are looking forward to as this is the first ball post covid that's a way of getting back to some normalcy um finally our last upcoming event that we know of is the spring blood drive which is currently scheduled for march 31st uh our goal is to exceed our previous blood drive donations of about 50 units by at
036least 20 percent um i'd like to say that that is all for now and on behalf of myself and the entire afgrotc program thank you for your time and happy holidays dr fowle does not like needles but i volunteer mr edwards for that uh blood drive we'll take you okay okay we'll get back to on schedule here and uh we'll do our committee reports miss hanson would you like to start good evening everyone the special education board of ed committee met on december 8th in attendance for myself dr farrell mrs wohlrab mrs seabird and mrs piccala some of the items that we discussed we discussed the implementation of rethink data collection system for our md and bd classrooms last year we implemented this rethink data collection system in our autism classrooms and it was a
037huge success once our teachers aides and teachers were trained on how to input student data this data is used to create and monitor student academic social and emotional and behavioral iep goals due to the success of the team due to the success the team decided to implement the system in our multiple disabilities and behavioral disabilities programs the implementation will begin with staff training then parent training the parents will have access to real-time data and be able to view graphs and student progress through a parent portal the system also has sample lesson plans teacher teacher and teacher aid training and parent training modules so we're so excited to implement all of these enhancements to our program um our extended day program in special education the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from parents teachers and the students
038our program features small group targeted instruction that focuses on student skills each student's program is specifically designed to address their iep goals students are being provided personal personalized learning experiences the only issue that we're having is that currently although it is open to all special education students it's very under attended each student is eligible to attend a five-week program for approximately one hour per day monday through thursday after school that gives each student 20 hours of instruction our district is very proud of our proactive approach to getting support to our students and utilizing this federal funding that we have been given to do this program um i encourage parents to take advantage of this opportunity we'll be sending out another opportunity for parents to register students our bcbas visited our special education department meetings um
039last month and this month to present on behavioral strategies for teachers i was able to observe this presentation a couple of times and was very impressed by the information that was shared as well as the teacher engagement during the sessions the teachers received practical and immediately usable strategies to provide to their students they were engaged and brought questions to our bcbas to problem solve so i was very impressed with the information and the engagement of our teachers we're continuing to hire for open special education positions so if you know anybody send them my way we're thrilled though to welcome three new teachers this past month to our md autism mbd programs in the elementary schools but we're still working to fill vacancies in the department um our transitional life skills apartment classroom has been up
040and running our living room furniture which was sitting on a cargo ship in the ocean for several months it was ordered last may um has finally made its way from the cargo ship to our classroom um and the students have been making good use of it i was able to observe the students in this classroom working making snacks in the kitchen learning how to do laundry clean and cook so students and teachers and teacher aides are all loving the new apartment we continue to provide compensatory education services for our students who missed instruction related services and social emotional learning over covid we've hired speech therapists and ots and are working on hiring an extra physical therapist in order to make up services our teachers are working to provide learning outside of the school day to
041our students all in an effort to catch our students up and mitigate some of the learning loss associated with the pandemic we're so lucky that our board of education and our superintendent are so committed to this task and provide us with funds to do so our disproportionality work continues dr fergus has been in district in person for three sessions already the first session was for training our indrs teams and reviewing our district data the second session was to work with administrators and the third session was back with our irondrs teams to begin work on our tiered interventions of support for behavior on the agenda tonight you'll see that we're approving temple who dr fergus works for to provide consultation services for year two of our disproportionality work as required by the njdoa as part of
042our disproportionality work we have hired two bcbas to work in general education these services will be requested and assigned through our indurs teams this week we met with coordinators on the process our administration and ironrs teams are so excited to be able to offer consultative services to our teachers and staff on challenging behaviors the bcbas will sit in on the ironrs committee meetings and offer research-based suggestions they will with parent permission observe students in classrooms to create paper behavioral plans and intervention strategies they will attend plcs for teacher consultation and training provide classroom based strategies and hopefully sometimes soon be available for parent training as well teachers are so excited to get this classroom modeling for strategies and coaching from these experts our pbsis grant that was awarded through the njdoe in partnership with rutgers
043university is continuing at the middle and high schools we're in year one of the process hoping to begin a full implementation in september we're thinking outside the box to get our teachers trained in responsive classroom we have no substitutes so we are committed to this four full day training but we don't have enough substitutes to allow teachers to attend this four day training session so we sent out a survey to teachers to see what the response would be for teachers to attend after school and on weekends and we contacted responsive classroom to see if they could accommodate this request and we're so pleased to announce that our teachers are so committed and excited to do this work that 13 teachers have signed up to participate after school hours and on weekends to attend this important
044training we really do have dedicated professional teachers in our district and we're so pleased and proud of that that's all so happy holidays to everybody and our next meeting will probably be in february we'll be put that on the calendar soon thank you kristin um dr anderson you're up i'm up so um thank you miss will rap the cni committee met on december 6th at 3 30 in attendance for miss gagliardi our chairperson miss piccala mr cutts mrs kane ms lane dr farrell and myself so first we started by reviewing the agenda items under student teaching placements we have a student doing their internship from capella university we have a school psychologist intern from georgian court university and a grade 3 student teacher at midstreams we also from kane university have a clinical practicum student
045at herbertsville early childhood development center from mcdaniel college we have a student teacher at grade three at osborneville and from monmouth university we have a clinical practicum for spanish at brick memorial and from nova southeastern university speech pathologist intern under travel and training we have several workshops a speech workshop pe workshops state and national conference conferences for nj asa texpo northeast conference on teaching foreign language a new jersey music educators conference and some leadership seminars under field trips we have several there are they range from art music science and then community based field trips this month and good news we receive the mark schoenwetter holocaust education foundation grant which will bring speakers in to speak to our students there is also another grant application on tonight's agenda from the laura bush foundation for american libraries
046to enhance the library at vets middle vets elementary school we have a genesis update from the technology department they're working on creating student portal login accounts so high school students can track their own progress in parent in the portal beginning second semester the tech department will also look at the conference feature at the elementary level so next year parents can sign up at the elementary level for conferences ms lane provided an overview of the research for all program this non-profit's mission is to shift stem education from traditional instruction to open inquiry where students can decide what and how they will study their their topic of interest which is very student-centered we love that studies indicate a strong correlation between original research experiences and increased student enthusiasm increased propensity to pursue science courses and participation in
047long-term stem careers so we're piloting the program with a biology teacher from each high school we love this program because it's so well aligned to our vision program of studies in keeping with that theme mr cuts shared a new high interest english course literature and sports did you inspire that course mr dr farrell that can count toward graduation requirements or can be offered as an elective to grade 11 and 12 students the cni department is committed to strengthening our visual and performing arts program in the art department we're offering ceramics too for students who want to continue working with clay and expanding upon the skills that they gained in ceramics one we're also adding creative woodworking and stagecraft in this course students will have the opportunity to expand their knowledge and creative abilities as they
048design plan and build sets for our school's theatrical productions and in the music department we're really excited to offer jazz band the course will expose students to jazz history theory and improvisation skills jazz band is different from concert band in that um besides the traditional instruments like brass woodwinds and percussion we're also introducing students to piano and string instruments like guitar and bass guitar so that we can compete in competitions all year long we had green schools update and the uh i provide an update of the green teams whose activities were on pause due to the pandemic with the support of mrs beatty ms lane and mr shively the green teams and our hydroponic units are back up and running and the green teams will be working on continuing the work toward new jersey sustainable
049school certification ms kane provided an overview of our ell program and the new ell grading guidelines she also formed a committee to create the the ell three-year plan which is due in february and in terms of a district assessment update second marketing period progress reports would post in parent portal and we just received the start strong individual student reports we're preparing the reports to be mailed home next week and i will present the district results at the january board meeting our first workshop reading at home with your child was at 6 pm tonight and it was the first in our parent partnership series our next session will focus on math and i was just thrilled to accept the new jersey school board's leadership award on behalf of the cni department my curriculum supervisors amanda beatty
050chad cuts jennifer lane christopher thompson brittany bucco and now mary kane who are affectionately referred to as the super supes along with our academic coaches and live teachers really did an amazing job in helping create those programs that were recognized and we're just so proud with the help of our coordinators kelly romano mike cintron erica crew and darren saint jean we were really able to implement those amazing programs and our as ms hanson said our dedicated teachers we had over 300 teachers who really devoted their summer to facilitating these student-centered teacher-led experiences for about 1500 students so special thanks to new jersey school boards for recognizing for township and our programs and our own board of education for their unwavering support our next meeting is scheduled for january 13th at 3 30. thank you dr
051nance anderson excuse me mrs mcnamara do you have something to add thank you mrs walrab i do our policy and planning uh committee did not meet however i did want to give an update we are applying for the unified sports grant again this year currently working with both high school principals and both athletic directors to put that application back in and get that started i kind of paused we had applied and received the grant and then things paused with the pandemic so we're back on track to reapply and put those programs back in place hopefully by this spring for those that don't know can you explain what the unified unified sports allows for both special needs students and regular needs students to join together in in a number of co-curricular activities really showing that inclusivity
052um and and uh joining together is one united brick with all of our students so we look forward to that program continuing within the brick school system and getting a restart in the spring i did want to as dr anderson and dunn say thank you to the new jersey school board association for the award for our both our safe restart plan and our our road forward plan that plan was done with a great team effort i would be delinquent if i didn't recognize all of the administrators that worked so hard and so diligently to make sure that our schools remained open and safe throughout this pandemic from mr chrysler who was the principal of brick township high school when the pandemic started to mr cajun who is now there mr barisi mr campbell mrs triantophilus
053ms butler who was at vets middle school during the first part of the pandemic dr o'cone dr billin mr blessing and um ms hudson mrs kerr mrs cloud mrs goodfellow and mr hersenko and i don't think i missed anybody i certainly hope that i didn't intervene i will be in trouble tomorrow i said dr villain yes um and we also had a wonderful team from our operations department under the direction of mr edwards mr macquario our facilities director mrs richardson are our food services mrs stapinski is for transportation and we have mrs de piola who ran our best program none of it could have been done without all of them working together in the best interest of all of our children and as always thank you to this entire cabinet for all of their support
054and to the board of education for their support we could not be here without you thank you ms mcnamara mr edwards you're up thank you miss walrab the facilities committee i'll start with first met on december sixth at two o'clock and attendance was miss walrup miss mccalla mr blandina dr pharaoh myself mr you're from that architects mr replica from spiesel architects and mr precora vicorio first item we discussed was the brick township high school veterans memorial elementary school auditorium hvac litigation i informed the committee that the settlement conference scheduled for 12-6 had been postponed and that the rescued there was not one rescheduled as of yet next type topic was the energy savings plan lighting replacement with led and occupancy sensors mr precorio informed the committee that substantial completion for green tech lighting has been
055reviewed and signed off for on drum point elementary school emma havens young elementary school lanes mill elementary school and veterans memorial elementary school mr pecorio informed the committee that lighting retrofit work is complete with the walk down scheduled for 12 721 at veterans memorial elementary school and the administration building and then mr pecoria informed the committee that work is currently commencing at lake river middle school and brick memorial high school the district-wide energy management system mr pecori informed the committee that jersey state controls is nearing completion for the control infrastructure work at herbertsville elementary school the early the early childhood development center lanes mill elementary school substantial completion packages for complete and approved buildings and are anticipated this week the solar power purchase agreement i informed the committee that the following roof determined that following
056roof determinations related to the installation of solar there is uh minor work that needs to be done at warren h wolfe elementary school which we've issued purchase orders for also informed the committee that the structures at bricks township high school are being installed during the meeting if anybody's been by there already now since we had our meeting there's made tremendous progress that's just a side note uh herbertsville um i'm sorry i lost my spot where was it where was i where was i there we go the boiler replacement of brick mower high school i informed the committee that due to significant cost overruns that dco has elected to reject all the bids that were received and re-bid the work the advertisement is uh was out and the new bidding opening is december 21st plug group
057plug load controls and from the committee that the plugged load controllers are still in review by bert's and the district's i.t department to determine the best device application as concerns exist for sensitive equipment that could potentially be damaged by abrupt power interruptions veterans memorial elementary school 2004 edition roof area informed the committee that there is no change in status on this that the pos have been issued roof replacement soil removal the project will begin in june of 2022. lanesville elementary school parking lot improvements mr corrio informed the committee that fencing installation started monday 11 29 and is currently 80 percent complete the playground and rear basin are the remaining schedule for the completion of the end of the week with weather pending veterans memorial middle school turf replacement mr precory informed the committee that work
058is well on their way the infield commencing this week with substantial completion by friday 12 10 with weather permitting just a update since then they are finished and uh dr fred i'm not sure did you share with the board the or maybe you're planning on doing i might have blew it that mr seleuca sent us the drone photos you didn't okay maybe you put him in your friday update huh yeah yeah the field's complete it looks great yeah i'm thinking friday update i'm working on it all righty uh brick moore high school the penthouse cnd replacement of air handlers and the replacement of chiller uh mr yore from the architects informed the committee that the project is proceeding on schedule where progress drawings being provided shortly for the by excuse me shortly for the district
059for review lake riviera middle school boiler emma havens boiler and midstream spoiler mr repka of spiesel architects informed the committee that the project is progressing on schedule with 90 design drawing complete as of 12 six and ninety nine percent designed by twelve twenty followed by quality assurance review bid advertisements will be going out on twelve twenty one pre-bid meeting is january fourth with the bid opening to commence on two one veterans memorial middle school boiler replacements mr yur informed the committee that the project is proceeding on scheduled progress drawings being to be provided shortly lanesville elementary school air conditioning mr replica from swedish architects informed the committee that the project design is about two weeks behind the boiler projects design development review schedule is for 1213 complete design by 1 6 bid paperwork by 111
060bid advertisement 118 with bid openings on 2 11. emma havens young lake lake riviera veterans memorial middle school air conditioning mr you are informed the committee that the project is the projects are proceeding on schedule with progress drawings to be provided shortly additional projects considerations lanes mill elementary school boiler replacements drum point elementary school boiler replacement uh mr myself talking about third person mr edwards informed the committee that spiesel and neda both submitted proposals for capital funding considerations of boiler projects originally being reviewed as ecms laker lanesville elementary school and drum point elementary school boil plants um could both be funded uh could not be funded through the additional ppa of 1a carports at brooke moore high school the ppa was determined not to be viable at the time and it would not fully support
061the projects in reviewing the proposal recommendations uh already lost my spot again reviewing the proposal recommendations lanes mill elementary school should be awarded to spiesel and drum point elementary school to neta addition of these projects would mean that all schools would have updated primary boiler plants providing the district with energy savings and a peace of mind award for these will be placed on tonight's agenda drum point elementary school informed the community that based on the current committee plan for capital projects we would additionally be able to fund drum point elementary school air conditioning the committee members agree that the addition of this project with design engineering ward donetta should be placed on the 1216 agenda all right midstream's elementary school air conditioning and osborne air conditioning committee discussed the various funding sources that could become
062available it's unfortunate that the infrastructure bill passed by the federal government did not include any construction dollars for schools there is discussion however at the state level to fund the school development authority which could provide up to 40 percent of funding for the projects that we have currently approved which will allow that funding then to be moved to the funding of the memorial i'm sorry memorial midstream's elementary school and osborneville elementary school air conditioning dr farrell informed the committee that roughly 90 of the funds received through the state emergency funding or stabilization aid will be used for capital projects midstream's elementary school parking lot reconfiguration and brick memorial parking lot reconfiguration i informed the committee that we would success the inclusion of the midstream's elementary school parking in the summer of 2022 to adhere to
063the district's 10-year plan brick memorial however should be slated for summer of even though the capital reserve funds are available to do it in the summer of um but that but the due to the number of projects that are being done in the summer of 2022 every school building except for bricktownship high school will have something happening in the summer of 2022. been on the veterans memorial middle school roof 6a and brick township high school roof 24 i informed the committee that the projects are within the budget at the time and would be budgeted for within the 2223 school budget sustainable new jersey schools miss piccault informed the committee about her interest in renewing status applications and adding additional schools to sustainable jerseys for sustainable jersey for school certification program ms mcnamara informed the committee
064that this is primarily a cni based program and that despite the setbacks of the lost covert year the district and the school's administration are committed and working toward all aspects of reintroducing and cementing the programs within our schools ms mcnamara i did i miss you in my attendees it didn't miss you in my attendees i had to go back to the top because i was like wait a minute i remember reading her name yeah you were there weren't you miss mcnamara was in attendance as well mrs mcnamara popped in late all right next finance finance met at this on december 6th at 3 p.m in attendance was myself oh there they are wow that was quick here you go that's them pretty neat yeah yeah i like it uh in attendance um sorry miss gagliardi
065mr blandina miss walrab myself and dr farrell uh first item business was new jersey natural gas i informed the committee that we did receive the commissioner of education's decision affirming the administrative law judge decision that new jersey natural gas does not need to provide the iran disclosure just as a side note mr amberger gentleman sitting down the end of the table here was uh primarily the guy who right went to bat for us on this and spent the the most amount of time on it um and we're still in disbelief that the judge decided the way the judge decided right so anyway that's on this evening's bills list for payment to pay new jersey natural gas for the monies that we have been holding 2020 2021 audit i informed the committee that the audit is
066still underway and is as indicated previously due february 5th 2022-23 budget informed the committee that all the program managers are working on their budgets which are due uh prior to the holiday break loyalton school property informed the committee that we are out for competitive contract as approved by the board of education for a auctioneer with the intent of awarding an auctioneer through competitive contract at the january board meeting charitable contribution program i informed the committee that uh in discussion with the board attorney the charitable contribution program would be considered a concession would have to go out to a competitive contract however the contractor could do such a program on their own as long as they did not involve the board of education interest rate change i informed the board that our two-year rate lock with
067ocean first bank at 2.13 percent has expired on december will expire on december 31st and their rate will be changed to 0.35 flexible spending account change i informed the board that the flexible spending account vendor that we use through the educational service commission of new jersey is changing as of december 31st and that vendor will be placed on the agenda for this evening for approval and our next meeting will be january 11 2022. thank you mr edwards pop a comment on agenda items this will be the first opportunity for public comment and it 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
068not 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 prospective or current employee and or student do we have anybody that has agenda questions agenda names mr finnelli nobody else it's all you i don't have a lot today this one's too fat but it fit there thank you first of all i realize everybody's in a festive mood so i'll try not to ruin that today okay and and the music the singing was great and they were all singing through masks which like barely so so that was that was great uh quickly before i only have two or three items i i didn't used to believe in conspiracy theories but i have
069to share this with everybody else today remember last meeting we talked about problems with the website and dr farrell has been back and forth trying to get them today while i'm on the website he he calls me up and says well what's your input i got my tech wizard here i forget his name david was david right so yeah it was david yeah stick wizard's there so i'm i'm explaining and i'm not a computer literate person what what the problems were and we come to a conclusion and what we're going to do and what they're going to do what i'm going to do thank you very much in that time i went to go back onto the website and i was locked out locked out i tried three times i rebooted my computer three times
070i did everything i did i called him he didn't answer the phone i sent him a message i said i don't know what you guys did but i'm locked out he called me back on the phone all all upset mr fennelly we didn't do anything we didn't do anything i'm locked out oh don't worry my tech wizard is set coming he's right here and the tech wizard walks in and says dr farrell the computer system where work went down the 15 minutes the network was down you can't make that up now you might believe that i'm not so sure anyway item 27 i realize you're not gonna tell me a lot about that this is just the settlement agreement would you be able to tell me when when it says that is it usually a
071monetary settlement or or just the settlement of whatever the issue was okay can you do that now no we'll keep going that's okay uh number 21 my favorite topic of the disproportionality report we talked about at the last couple of meetings i got my answers all right so i'm not going to kick a dead horse however tonight you get to see the bill where the cost to fix that all right i'm not trying to put blame on anybody i'm not doing anything other than to say if we can prevent stuff from happening 120 000 is a lot of money to fix a problem personally i looked at and said that's my six thousand dollar school contribution for the next 20 years so if you can do things to prevent that from happening fine on item
07218. yeah there's no no no what item what's this one you decided number 18 i just we had a discussion the omni financial is that a separate um retirement fund or is that the part of the state fund because i want to share information with you okay that's it okay dr farrell number 27. well the i'll i think i'm going to have to defer to the attorney on 27 on a settlement agreement because i'm not sure what we could share it's a student agreement so i don't think we could share much yeah because i think if i heard his question correctly you i we can't give you the particulars of this settlement agreement but your question is really is it just financial or is it usually a financial settlement or something it could be a
073mix could be a mix the stu the settlement agreement might be that we agree to provide additional services that weren't being provided before okay it could be that we agree that we're going to pay x amount of dollars to make the problem go away or it could be an agreement that we're going to do something different in the future that we're doing previously so it could be a mix okay i wouldn't say and kristen hansen's down the other end i wouldn't say there's not one that's the same they're always different right you can jump right into the omni financial if you want for omni financial is the third party administrator that when so it's not part of the pension system so when an employee elects to contribute to their 403 b plan which is a
074an additional retirement vehicle for them okay so it's their funds then go to omni omni distributes it to the right it's not the state fund which that they also contribute to right it's not their pension it's an additional they can they can they can with elect withhold additional funds and put in it's like a 401k but in government entities it's called a 403b okay i just want to share with you some information and i'm going to good time good okay uh talking about the pension funds and we had this discussion as of 2019 this is just information sharing the new jersey unfunded liability for the pension funds that's the police and fire which is separate the public employees which is separate and the teachers which is separate is 186 billion dollars right now billion dollars
075the governor will make you think they did a good job because they put seven million dollars we fully funded the pension system this year well yeah you put the seven million in for this year but you did nothing for the deficit that's still there all right to break it down the police and fire back in 2001 they had 1.8 people contributing into the fund for every person that took out now that is 0.9 so less people are contributing than taking out doesn't take a mental giant to figure out where that's going public employees is a little better they're at 1.4 and teachers are a little better than those at 1.3 however i clue in on the teachers and i want you to just think about something right from what i gather you have trouble getting
076teachers now couple years ago i remember we used to have 60 people 300 people for every job now you got a problem i see a lot of people that are retiring on the thing even though you took their their time away they're retiring you got a double-edged sword you're facing right now teachers are leaving because whatever they're tired their time is up they don't want to deal with coved they don't want to deal with whatever so they're retiring you have trouble replacing now with this kind of information you might have a lot more teachers retiring because they want to get their pension before there is no money to get it 1.3 is in the big safety margin and with all the reduced student populations going on you're going to have less teachers and then you're
077going to get to deal with my favorite thing bigger bigger classrooms right now the listing and i'll shut up the congress just passed another one of their brainstorms and they're not going to allow the government to increase their debt limit by 2.5 trillion dollars that is trillion i am predicting you're going to have a problem or we're going to have a problem with the teachers and and if it was me i'd get out too because i want my money yeah thank you mr fenelli any other public comment on agenda items being none dr anderson curriculum instruction thank you mrs welrav the superintendent recommends that the board approve the following items one through five i need a motion in a second motion daisy a second that motion mike any board discussion seeing none mary miss hefner
078yes mr blandina yes miss gagliardi yes miss parker yes miss piccala yes miss walrab yes mr edwards operations yes thank you the superintendent recommends the board approve items twenty 1-27 i need a motion in a second second michael any board discussion seeing none mary miss hefner yes mr blandina yes miss gagliardi yes miss parker uh abstain number two yes to everything else miss mccalla yes miss walrup i i'm going to abstain from number one regular checks and and yes to everything else sorry sorry i'm trying to get to the goodness yeah here it is mr chrysler hr thank you miss walrab the superintendent is recommending the board approve the following items 1-32 i need a motion in a second motion daisy second missy missy beat you second missy any board discussion seeing none mary miss
079hefner yes mr blandina yes miss gagliardi yes miss parker yes miss piccala miss walrup yes miss mcnamara thank you mrs walrab we have one of our new teachers for midstream's elementary school here this evening jill [Applause] okay and i think we're second one yes okay public comment this is the second opportunity for public comment each participant is asked to give his or her 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 performance of promotion or disciplining of specific or prospective or current employees and or students do i
080have anyone that would like to make any message sorry luka okay let me get started with this i'm going to read my letter which hopefully you got john slocum 950 soviet court to the superintendent thomas farrell stephanie warb the school board teachers and the administration uh i was told but my initial letter seemed a bit political and it wasn't my intention with that in mind i adjusted the letter so some people might have seen it before but political politics is not something i tried to get in anything uh i told the mayor at one time once you run on your reputation not on a political party i say the same thing to the council i may have mentioned it before none of this stuff should be political as far as i'm concerned because it's for
081the children and over in the mayor's office it's for the people of residence it shouldn't be political no matter what so that was my mistake i readjusted my letter somewhat okay the board of education and administration should avoid wall culture and the 1619 project in all our schools if an adult or anyone wants to use or see these items they can go to the free public library or the internet they're available there i do want to bring up a book just to mention it in a series of books that have been distributed in some schools around the country not in the school dress district so in case anybody watches but it's been around the country and i hope and believe the superintendent board will avoid such materials one of these books was called woke baby
082a young children's book probably kindergarten and it makes statements that i really deemed inappropriate uh on the second page it starts out look at your fists fingers curled into panthers poor pointing up up up reaching for justice and on the last page it stated like a good revolutionary you never ever sleep these books i do not believe along with the 1619 project the reading of that should never be any part of our curriculum i also believe we as citizens should stand up against this overreaching government and i believe the mass mandate are part of that type of government so this to me implies that we should give up our rights when they say what the government tells us and we should be able to make our own decisions about our minds and bodies children should
083not be talk taught right and wrong from the government but rather do it from parents and the parents decisions go into these children's what goes into children's bodies as well my second point basically continues on i do understand that some people may want students to wear mask all day and comply with the government edicts that it's right and and that is their right but studies pretty much show that masks are not highly effective and caused some damage to the students there was just a thing out a couple days ago talking about infants having problems because of parents and whoever was watching math just came out and this was out of brown university so it's not in my letter because it came out after that but this does other studies do show that they cause psychological
084problems for children and disrupt learning the face coverings of both teachers and pupils reduce the ability to communicate in particular choosing children you lose the experience of mimicking expression of essentia it's an essential tool of non-verbal communications mass could cause headaches drowsiness dizziness and reduce the ability to concentrate it's no wonder that many of our youngest children those in elementary school often seem shyer than their older siblings are almost afraid to answer questions or become part of the learning environment in school classrooms i do believe that our teachers and administrations need to keep abreast of all students educational and cognitive growth because if wearing masks continue to harm our children they're probably better off just avoiding the classrooms and learning from home through zoom or some other method thank you for your time thank you
085mr cerlika any other yes fan brandon benedictus mine's just really quick um is the track on at midstreams on your radar for repairs at all the track at midstreams elementary yeah no and the reason for that is because the that whole park was built by the township so they they actually maintain it they need to do a better job yeah so that's who maintains that park okay because we just had the jingle belt walk on saturday and now i see why my kids are skinning their knees they're not the most graceful of humans but it was really bad three roots i understand right yeah yes and they're like yeah so it's something that we we are aware of our director facilities mr pecorio has talked to their parks and recreation head about it um so
086i assume it's on their radar but they're that's they're the ones who put that park in okay so maybe you should call parks and recreation even though we did it it probably would help here and from uh yeah so we do know its tree roots or up it's the asphalt cycle yes yes i remember fixing that they went back there and fixed that yeah it's five six years ago it's been repaired before yes yeah yeah it's been a while any other public comment before mr fennelly closes us all good mr finnelli well you're going to wrap up the meeting if everybody's uh the public's portion of this i don't know if i should talk about this tonight but i decided i will and i only found out about it after i talked to you today
087tomorrow is friday december 17th tick-tock friday it's on the website i didn't see it he didn't see it because he can't get to it remember thank you everybody remember you blocked i was just about to say that around five o'clock there was a blackboard notification in conjunction with local police state prosecutors office on many things on just that issue okay the reason i brought it up because it ties in with the one last thing i wanted to talk about so that's all out there good i did i didn't see it but if it went on at five o'clock i was going down to make my dinner to get here by seven so that's why i missed it broward county florida mean anything to anybody how soon we forget marjory stoneman douglas high school that was
088broward county i'm going to make a lot of assumptions here legal assumptions and i'm not an attorney the article that i read i think it was today i'm assuming that the people that were affected by that school shooting wanted to get compensated monetarily and there was nowhere else to go but the school district and or and or their insurance company i don't know who else they they could sue so i'm assuming they sued them and i'm assuming that the school district and or the insurance company decided to settle with them for 26 million dollars that's what the payment went out of the school district or the insurance company why am i bringing that up well you you know the juries that we have now that whole thing was a disaster from start to finish the
089cops not going in when two of them were there you can put the blame wherever you want my point is that with this tick tock friday and with this it would be a good time to go over all your security programs all your protocols all your everything else and i don't know if you were here when were you here when we had that shooting by the maya from okay my feeling was and i brought it up at the school board meeting that [Music] that was a violation of your protocol so i'll tell you why the one the kid who came to the school was involved in a shooting nobody knew what it was he didn't they don't know whether it was a shootout both of them were shooting each other this kid was wounded to
090some degree and he got into the school and he ended up in the auditorium how'd he get into the school when the school is locked afterwards and and it should be locked down anyway he got into the school because another student led him into the school which in my my opinion is a violation of the protocols he didn't end up in the nurse's office he didn't end up in the security office he didn't end up in administrator's office he ended up in the gymnasium who knows did that kid have a gun was he involved in the shootout and i understand you got the school full of kids that you you have a tough time controlling them but this is what could happen you know if it if it shows a face here if you follow
091the news that what's going on in brick and everywhere other country we had we had a uh a shootout on route 70 the other day when some guy got mad at the car for something started shooting at him i mean this isn't brick this is a route 70. so my point is now it might be a good time to go over all of that stuff and my own personal opinion you can't be too tough it might cause you problems but you know this the slash shooting with the 15 year old kid where they knew a kid had issues the parents bought him a gun for christmas they brought him into the office they talked to him let him go back out went to his bag took out his gun and shot everybody i don't think
092he can be too tough but with that note thank you everybody have a happy happy holiday i wear my pen i i do wanna i i'm i don't end on that note because it's a sad note but every time's a good time to review and this would be too late we constantly review miss mcnamara and i and we're constantly in contact with local police and actually local authorities police prosecutors are everybody's been ramped up and a lot tougher with any deemed credible threat i also tell you quite honestly when you talk about broward county just as a father personal i really don't care about the settlement you know there's dead children doing there and that's too late and it is a problem what i do want to say to try to end on a better
093note here maybe you maybe you could spend a second for the people here that weren't on the website about this foolishness about tomorrow say what it is well the truth is it's a it's a nationwide um social media um i i don't even want to say threat because it's not deemed credible it's not directed at any new jersey specific school or brick school that you know young people have just put around in social media quite honestly in talking we talk every day with our local believe in chief riccio has been fantastic we work very well miss mcnamara and our sros and the local police so quite honestly we worked and we were ahead but then we did get a notice from the prosecutor's office saying if you haven't contacted your authorities just to be a
094heads up so there's a presence blah blah blah and some districts jumped the gun on what they were sending out and what they were speculating about and sometimes that incites and encourages on social media a vicious cycle we waited to work with our police directly there it is thank you miss mcnamara and we put this up at five o'clock we sent it out as a blackboard we worked in conjunction with our local police who've been fantastic but i want to end on a positive note about this and here's what i'm going to tell you in my time here one thing that has happened with any and uh you know not deemed non-credible threats or any scuttlebutt about or alleged uh threats the great thing about our community is most of the information i would say
09599 of the information we have gotten is because a student or a student going home to a parent heard something saw something said something whether it was to us or police so i'm going to take this time to spin it mr fernell try to be a little positive for the holidays and remind everybody out there students community parents alike no matter whether you think it's hogwash or not you hear something see something say something and bring it to the attention of some authority figure whether it's the local police or school district because some have come to us through the school district and we go to police some have come to the police come to our sros and come to us and we do an investigation and we have specific protocols that we're constantly not revising
096but reviewing uh to go through and and it's really about um our young people and i go back to the word connectedness and i i don't have data in this i used to have some data in my dissertation and i know i've been talking a lot about sel for the last few months but the truth of the matter is the more connected a young person is in their school the more apt they are to let you know a teacher or someone know what they heard and do that and not be shy and not act up so there's a lot of studies on that i don't know the actual data but i know it's true i know it if you feel connected to someone an adult figure and you feel uncomfortable with something you heard or
097saw you won't feel uncomfortable going to that person and giving them a heads up and that's what i encourage everybody and i know we have some administrators here too we have to have that relationship you know our sros are in the building for a reason that that sro grant back in the 90s that i think it was first created the reason was is to get police in the building so they can connect with the students they're in the lunchrooms they're in the gym class so that when the students hear something whether it's gangs substance abuse any kind of threat they have a connection and a relationship with that building sro to go to them and we can you know cut things off before they happen so um i'm going to try to turn a uh
098kind of negative it's so so sad and it wasn't meant to be nice i know i know that and i thank you and you're right it's not just young people if you want to see what i'm saying watch the end of the town council meeting tuesday night okay gonna that's gonna give you a wake-up call oh it's scary there's a lot of things scary out there okay okay i thought we were gonna sing a christmas carol thank you thank you ms mcnamara did you have something you wanted to add two things miss sorry two things mrs i missed a new staff member who's in the audience courtney i did not recognize you with your mask on uh courtney is here with us she will be teaching at veterans memorial elementary school hi courtney welcome to
099the family courtney and again my apologies um and just in reference to mr fenelli's speaking about the incident that occurred at brook memorial high school that happened after school hours it was at dismissal it was just after dismissal a student did let a student in the student was expressing distress their friend let them in when they realized that it was a difficult situation that child did exactly what they were told to do and that is they went immediately to the office informed an administrator and the entire protocol of lockdown happened in a matter of seconds we debriefed with chief riccio our school resource officers and our administrators following that we've put in new protocols and we are proud of the relationship that we have with the brick township police department and are very thankful for
100the cooperation of triferchio and his team and because of that relationship sometimes our message gets delayed it doesn't go out as quickly as another district then that's because we are working with the police department and making sure that you know you had on plan and everything in order before you let something out that's why i know a lot of parents were contacting board members and you know even calling into offices and principals offices they asking are we going to be sending something out you need to understand that it takes time when administration and the police department and and our building administration too is included in these conversations it takes some time to get these uh things together and out to you it's not that you know we're trying to like we just want to make
101sure that we're giving accurate information that's pertinent to brick not what anybody else is doing but what we need to be doing here based on what administration and the police uh department tell us that we need to be doing so um just wanted to make sure we were clear on that thank you miss macdonald thank you mrs um okay any more public comments before i moved on to board comments no missy do you have um i just wanted to say how wonderful the chorus did tonight uh what a bunch of beautiful voices that we got to hear and uh wish everyone a very happy holiday and a safe and healthy winter break and how was your event oh it was it was fantastic did you post that picture santa claus and mrs claus santa claus
102and mrs claus we had mr blessings sit on santa's lap it was uh yeah it was a really fantastic event it was a free event for our students that the pta put on and we were very proud of it i gotta tell you like pulling up and hearing christmas music maybe we could do that all the time it's a it's the same dj we used for uh halloween and they they really work with us and uh they're very kid-friendly and yeah he did a really great job the kids loved it it was fantastic that's great thank you mike [Laughter] happy celebrate holidays uh a lot of good things going on in this district go around town you see a lot of things happening different schools i think it's a trademark administration what's going on here
103to make our schools better for everybody and that of course savings thank you mike victoria hi i had the privilege of attending the green the sustainable brick township green team meeting on monday night i just want to highlight a few things that are going on with the green team this winter going into the spring the charge of the future initiative is looking to bring charging stations to brick to windward drum point and the kohl's plaza section so that's on the horizon for the township also the green fair will be back this spring the green team is looking to do it in an outdoor location this year and some of the highlights that they'd like to see are an electric vehicle show of course as much school involvement as possible and to remind the citizens that
104our state ban on one use items um recyclable items will go into effect in 2022 and they're looking for money from the tourism grant to help promote and ease into that reality for people who previously hadn't been recycling and reusing so that's that's nice for our township i think that's a good thing um i also attended the new jersey school board association [Music] meeting honoring our three administrators and it's nice to go somewhere to see our administrators receive some special respect especially for the acknowledgement of their innovative programs that meet the needs of our brick school children at the end of the night it was nice to get up see the plaque delivered and take the pictures but it was all about the kids and what we were able to do for the children throughout
105the pandemic so i thought that was a great thing and tonight it was great to see our students perform as usual it's always great to see the kids celebrated whether it's on a video up on the screen or whether they're here in person and i really like that and i want to wish everybody happy holidays enjoy enjoy the the break and we'll see in the new year thank you victoria daisy hi um good evening thank you and as always best wishes to our retirees i'll take this off and to our new hires welcome to our district my personal schedule hasn't allowed me to attend as many events in person as i would like however i am extremely thankful to watch these events online as we were saying before many are on youtube or social media
106or twitter and we can see different concerts games events activities and especially when i see the elementary school concerts watching the youngest students perform their hearts out can literally put anyone in a good mood so if you're in a bad mood turn on one of those concerts or a clip you will just have a immediate smile on your face so um and then i was able to attend the one night of the night of one night one act plays at brick township high school in november the drama students performed three short shows and one larger show and it was quite entertaining i had never seen those three shows before so it was fun to see some new material our students were very talented in these theatrical plays so congratulations to the cast and crew and
107mrs bess on a job well done and i am looking forward to seeing them perform the wizard of oz musical in the spring then i was able to attend the performance of beauty and the beast junior at brook memorial high school a few weeks ago this was a musical that was extremely well attended and very high energy i think everyone in the audience was actually singing and dancing in their seats or maybe that was just me but i felt like it was a lot of people that were doing it and and me as well um and then i also liked that the art club worked with the drama club to make the incredible sets and props and now i'm hearing that there's going to be a woodworking class that's going to all work together and
108that's what i really love hearing about so again congratulations to their cast and crew miss o'brien and dr fitzgerald and the final event that i was able to attend in person was the festive vendor fair that the mus marching dragons hosted last weekend there were so many vendors and craft tables set up and i was there in the last hour of the event and there were still many shoppers in the building so i hope that it was a successful fundraiser for their band association and just wanted to say that i love the live performance tonight as well as all the clips that we get to see of of our students performing and just having fun and enjoying things again which makes my heart happy as a mom and just a human being in our community
109so i thank you for always sharing those with us and then just thank you for attending tonight's meeting and i hope everyone has a happy and healthy holiday season and new year thank you thank you daisy melitta i guess good evening everyone i just want to take this opportunity to thank the entire brick township public school staff and all the employees here this has not been an easy year for anyone but i just want to let you know that you are appreciated you are valued and you are loved so thank you to all of our brick township public school employees additionally i would like to acknowledge and the choir that was here tonight their voices were beautiful but additionally it was the combining of the two schools that we are one community and together we
110are stronger together we are better so i did love that additionally our student representatives i have come to love their personalities and when they come up and they present all of the happenings that are taking place in their schools or in their prospective rotc programs it is wonderful all of the great things that our children are able to participate in and partake in and coming here and speaking in front of a group you know it's not easy so i thank those students for coming out and sharing their gifts with us and that's it i just want to wish everyone a happy healthy and blessed holiday season and new year and thank you for your support as a community i thank our community for coming out always voicing their concerns because dr farrell says the communication
111is essential we you know will not always see eye to eye however when we can come together when we can talk together that is when we can grow and we can connect and do what's best for our students so thank you for coming out i look forward to the brick township public schools continuing to grow and to be better because i we're continuing to climb and it's everyone here in the brick public school system so thank you all for that have a great evening thank you you always make me feel better she's always so happy um everything tonight was wonderful thank you all so much for coming um but before i click mr glazer i've been all wonky tonight with everything um aside from uh needing you know while people are on their break this
112uh you know home with their kids and may decide that they have some time to give uh some substitutes we still need for still need for drivers bus drivers we're still in need first um teachers you know anything you want to add you want to just remind everyone while they're sitting there going you know what after this break i want to go back to work where they could find all this information perfect jumping in point um i do think we had some people's um share that information at thanksgiving because i do think we had a little bit of a rise with some of our applications and ess onboarding some substitutes uh we also our ess is going to be attempting to offset some defraying some of the processing costs to become a substitute so not
113only uh is it lowered to 30 credits but they're also going to reimburse after working 30 days for brick schools or 90 days for brick schools they're going to be reimbursing them uh for uh uh yeah i think that will be helpful um we are going to continue to post on our website uh for any openings that are there there's currently i believe 12 posted positions we're interviewing people just for even substitute positions for secretaries and cafeteria workers and things of that nature and hopefully continue to have a group of people to fill in and lastly with bus drivers i think bus drivers are most likely our greatest need one thing that is probably not well known is we will train anyone who wants to be a bus driver for their cdl license in an
114attempt to get them on boarded and working for brick schools i don't think many people realize that and where can they find what qualifications they need in order to be able to go for their cdl i if they want to contact our office we'll be glad to help them or a transportation garage to to get that information it's the new jersey department of motor vehicles i believe but we'll get that information up there maybe we'll get a link on the website forever i'd be great yep thank you sir thank you so with that december 23rd we have an early dismissal december 24th through december 31st winter break when you guys are all thinking about coming back to work and applying online to the many positions that are open perfect time to do that and then
115january 26 is our reorganization meeting 6pm here um i need a motion in a second for a german motion missy second michael mary yes mr blandina yes miss gagliardi yes miss parker yes mr cala yes miss walrow yes happy holidays everyone stay safe i turned in my seat