BOE Meeting 8/10/21

001good evening thank you for joining us for the cherry hill public schools board of education meeting on august the 10th public notice of this meeting pursuant to the open public's meeting act has been given by the board secretary on august 4th 2021 in the following manner posted notice on the school bulletin board at the administration building transmitted to the courier post philadelphia and choir and the clerk of cherry hill township please rise with me for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance 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 i will turn it over to mrs sugars for roll call mrs arroyo here ms freidel mrs matlack here mr avadya here mrs schultz here ms

002stern here mrs stratton here mrs tong here mrs neary here okay that brings us to our student representatives that will they be presenting this evening dr mosh end of the month and there are no board recognitions this evening and that brings us to presentations we'll be doing that during cni uh yes okay then i will move to the administrative reports for the road forward and i will turn it over to you dr milosh you mrs neri and thank you everyone for coming out tonight this is our our second board meeting back in public we had a board meeting last wednesday a board retreat here in the cruise cafeteria so this is our second meeting since our action meeting in february of 2020. so welcome back thank you all for being here dr morton and i

003are going to go through and do a brief update on the road forward plan mr blavinsky is getting the technology loaded for us very good thank you mr plavinsky so as we've done for a number of months now we're providing an update to the board and to the community about where we are as we prepare for the opening of schools although dr martin and i will do the majority of the talking this evening about where we are with preparing for opening this is work that's being done by a huge team of people the work that's being presented encompasses work of our building principles the central administrative team our buildings and grounds folks our nurses our counselors all the way down to teachers and custodians whose voices have been instrumental as we are preparing for september

004the 9th thanks mark so we always start out with our mission statement again our mission statement is what grounds us it is the primary focus of who we are and what we do as a school district so this always contains the most basic and most important information about what we refer to as prepare for any of the work that goes on within the school district good mark and then we have our three strategic planning goals these goals were adopted by the board of education in february of 2020 three these three goals under student wellness purpose and passion and connecting beyond our classrooms again primary focus for the work that goes on within our school district as we make determinations and decisions as we discuss curricula as we discuss the organization in our buildings as we

005talk about hiring and do interviewing of new staff it's these goals that we refer back to all the time these goals will continue to guide us through 2025. and again as i've said in a couple meetings we continue to say yay for full day uh which we took from the the opening of our full day kindergarten program in september of 2019. this will be the third year that we've had full day kindergarten in the district and we're incredibly excited about a return to full-day instruction throughout the school district and as of tonight there are only 30 days until the first day of school september 9th is going to come very very quickly 30 days from today will be the first day of school so we are very excited about that i got a couple of

006calls earlier today evidently there's a rumor swirling around i don't know whether it's just i'm assuming not just at pools or on telephone calls but on social media about us opening in a half day schedule we're not opening a half day schedule we're opening a full day schedule so if anybody tells you we're opening a half day schedule that is a vicious rumor please don't listen to that if you have questions contact the district directly but we are ready for full days of instruction the only early dismissal the elementary level kindergarten through fifth grade operates on a one o'clock time schedule for the first day of school that happens every year that's nothing special about that happens every september and again thursday september 9th is the first day of school now there's a number of

007commitments that we refer back to these are the commitments that the district has made as we prepare for the opening of school and we prepare to welcome all of the students back so first and foremost the health and safety of our students and staff members that is always our primary focus as a school district we are always first responsible for the health and safety of our students and staff secondly we have regularly scheduled school days for all students regularly scheduled school days as we dealt with the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 academic year it's primarily the most important thing that we talked about with people with the challenges they faced with abbreviated schedules and with having some students in school some students out of school not having regular full days of school so we're committed

008to regular scheduled school days breakfast and lunch being available and scheduled for all students we've been distributing meals to students since march of 2020 we made the first meal distribution during that first week that we were closed by the end of june of this year 2021 we distributed more than one million meals one million breakfasts and lunches that went out to the children in cherry hill we will continue that meal distribution we had a meal distribution site yesterday that will inc that will the last day that we will have that will be monday august the 30th that'll be the last day that we distribute meals seven breakfasts and seven lunches and the meals will be distributed at school every child is eligible for a meal that continues on for a program that's being run through

009the department of agriculture at the federal level every child in the school district is eligible for a meal for breakfast and for lunch the principles we'll talk a little about this tonight the principles of working with our aramark team and developing what that will look like in each individual school there are nuances based on the enrollment based on the size and shape of all purpose rooms and cafeterias but we are excited that's going to continue we'll continue to work in partnership with the new jersey department of education the new jersey department of health canada county department of health to remain informed about the status of the community health and communicating transparently transparently with students families staff members and the community those are the commitments when dr morton writer now regarding masks as of august 10th

010which is tonight we've done updates like this each time with what we know last friday governor murphy announced that on on friday august the 6th masks will be required in schools for the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year this is a quote that's on here from the press release from the governor's office the governor signed executive order 251 which will mandate masking in the indoor premises of our public private and appropriate preschool elementary and secondary school buildings with limited exceptions effective on monday august 9th 2021 list of people that endorsed the governor's actions with doing that we have maintained a mask requirement in our school district since school opened last fall in fact we started it last summer as people returned into the building to work that did not change for cherry hill as we

011went into the extended school year program into our title one summer programs went to the acceleration and remediation programs that we were that we were running anybody in our school buildings must wear a mask students staff members contractors visitors everybody must wear a mask in the building again this is the language that's contained within the continuity of learning plan the language is identical to the information that was provided in the continuity of learning plan for the 2020-2021 as well these are four areas of focus that we continue to work on and work with as we get ready for the opening of the academic year again primary focus on students instead of social and emotional wellness and mental health all of the people in our school district we have about 1700 employees we welcome back just

012under 11 000 students on september 9th so these nearly 13 000 people are all coming back in transitional time their social emotional wellness their physical wellness their mental health has to be paramount in what we plan for and what we look at we must make sure that we are prepared for all the humans that are returning to our schools dr mann and dr mahan and their teams in the curriculum office looking at curriculum and instruction preparing for the academic needs of the students based on last year's experience based on this year's expectations looking at the entire picture of the child's developmental experience in schools and what we need to be ready for in september and to plan for throughout the course of the academic year planning the instructional day again including breakfast and lunch times

013for meals to be served for all children to have access to those meals classroom setup movement within the building again our building principals and their teams are continuing to look at that in the individual schools and the remote accessibility and technology will continue to ensure that the digital divide is closed in our community all students and staff have access to technology necessary to learning to be successful including all students who have access to devices and internet connectivity that they can take home if they need to use that at home we had surveyed students during the course of the year we'd given out thousands of chromebooks and hundreds of wi-fi hotspots other than children that were moving out of the district or the seniors who graduated we allowed children and families to maintain that technology during

014the course of the summer families continue to use it students continue to use it which again is great experience as they continue to explore and to learn during the summer months again breakfast will be served at school every day we've spent a lot of time working with the team from aramark and again aramark is the food service provider that we contract with here in cherry hill they've been fantastic partners as we've gone through this experience we have a new manager who will bring out to meet the board mr ted bridges he's been with us about 13 months at this point quite a transition for him to walk into a district this size during the pandemic he's done a wonderful job with his team with mario the the head chef in preparing the meals and as

015they get ready for the opening of the academic year he has availed himself and his team to the building principles again as they prepare for individual schools talking about what it will look like for meals we know again that everybody is going to be eligible to receive meals we also know that not every child that comes into the building is going to want to eat a meal that's provided by us children are not required to eat the meals that we provide but they are eligible for them right children are not required to eat them there'll be more information that will come first it'll be brown bag it'll be cold breakfasts but it'll be brown bag for the kids to be able to pick up from elementary school all the way up through the high schools

016we know that some students will need to eat in the classroom there will be classroom spots where kids will be able to eat after the bell again based on our transportation based on when kids arrive at the school meal calendars will be posted on the district website there's a lot of information about meals that's available on the web website and again building specific details will come out by from the principles as we go through the course of this month we are still asking all families to fill out the free and reduced meal application the free and reduced meal applications is what has always been historically used to identify children or families who were eligible to receive free and reduced meals those numbers also impact additional funding that the district receives to provide additional programs and

017additional services to children within the school district it also makes children and families eligible for additional services and programs outside of the school district so again it's one of those opening of school forms that families receive in august we're encouraging all families to complete it and for lunch again meal calendars are posted at the elementary schools lunch times are being adjusted at all 12 elementary schools again based on what the size of the apr is you have johnson elementary school which has a large enrollment of students probably has the smallest apr in the district it's a big cinderblock box right you have other schools that have much larger apr spaces so there's different number of tables there's different amount of space in those rooms so they'll be making a determination based on what the size

018of the spaces are that they have to work with and then working out what does that seating arrangement look like how many children can we put at a cafeteria table what does seating look like at a cafeteria table how do we work with kids who have never been to a cafeteria or an all-purpose room to eat lunch because there's going to be a lot of them at each one of our schools as they learn this in the beginning of the year outdoor eating will be an option depending upon the weather that'll be an option at all three levels again that'll be specific to the schools about where how do they access those spaces what does that look like same thing at the middle schools lunch times will follow the traditional schedule with the schedule that

019they've used over the last few years uh meal distribution areas will be set up for students to pick up and again outdoor seating options will be available high school lunches will be at the same time lb1 and lb2 for those of you that have children that have been in the high school those two 25-minute blocks will still exist and will still occur in the same way same thing outdoor seating options will be available and will be identified as the children return to school and then dr morton as i said has been chairing the road forward committee they had their second meeting as a large group yesterday so dr morton if you want to this is weddington dr man you guys have a microphone that's over there that works i don't know that it'll stretch all

020the way down to dr morton maybe you and miss mallory swap seats for a moment thank you so much dr milosh appreciate it and thank you so much uh nikoi and fair for sharing so the rope forward committee we had uh our second meeting yesterday um phenomenal phenomenal meeting there were robust conversations that took place um as i sat back and listened to some of those conversations and watched the folks engaged i was i was truly in awe at the level of dedication and commitment to the children of cherry hill and the level of detail through those discussions so just as a reminder the committee is composed of a wide representation of community members we have district administration represented board of education members on the committee building administrators teachers parents community members as well and

021what we in particular wanted to take a look at uh yesterday was using the district's commitment of ensuring that all students would be back in school for regularly scheduled full-time days without any stalls or stops or interruptions uh we we took a close uh analysis and dissection and look at the continuity of learning plan for those um who are familiar with the plan the plan was put together last year as our blueprint and our map and our guide to help us to navigate the world of covet and trying to do school amid this this pandemic so as we look forward we wanted to really take a close look at the continuity of learning plan make recommendations engage in deep analysis review and have great discussions so just some of the topics just to let you

022know some of the topics that were discussed yesterday obviously masking protocols personal hygiene accommodations for students and staff screening student flow entry exit and common areas meal access and cafeteria procedures facili i'm sorry facilities cleaning practices special education and related services we took a look at implications for sac student supports during online learning district assessments and standardized tests technology supports school trips visitors to school transportation uh implications for science lab implications for athletics physical education performing arts uh and and and the big piece as well and uh something that we'll focus on and moving forward is this idea of communication and engagement of our community i think it was it was clear that for the community for the committee this idea of engaging the community and seeing the school district as a community school district

023one that's representative of of you and our entire community is is essential and important to the committee so we want to find ways to engage our community in the process of helping to uh to move forward and to school our children uh in the best way possible and the safest way possible so that we can ensure that the district's commitment is upheld that we are able to move forward without any move forward with regularly scheduled full days of school without any hesitations without any stops without any stalls or things along those lines we'll continue to explore other other discussion points as well um there are our members here that are part of that that committee and if there are items that you like have forward brought to the committee i definitely suggest um to reach

024out to some of those members our next meeting will be on august 19th and we definitely look forward to the work the information that's discussed is shared with principals our principals have scheduled pandemic response team meetings for august i know that students are involved in that it's very important for us as well this idea of student voice and the commitment of our students and the perspective of our students is integral as i look around the room my former role as principal of west uh student who who took part and our pandemic response team is here in the room and uh his input was tremendous for us throughout the process so we definitely look forward to involving our students and moving forward and having discussions through pandemic response teams and yesterday's meeting was about an hour

025and 15 minutes it could have been five hours as as the discussions were moving forward i just had to stop it for the sake of time but definitely looking forward to moving forward and continuing the work thank you dr malesh thank you dr morton uh again a dynamic group of folks that were in the in the room together yesterday uh working on it i appreciate your leadership with it uh and i appreciate everybody that's participating on the committee so we'll look for dr morton um again as we go through the presentation on the 24th two weeks from now at our next board meeting dr morten we'll share updates then as well thank you dr malosh and dr morton that brings us now to correspondence did any members of the board have any correspondence this evening

026mr avadya yes on on august 4th i was able to attend the camden county educational services commission meeting that we are we're a part of and you know we're part of the delegate assembly as well as the board of directors and so the good news there i just wanted to quickly report looking at the last year and they have a very different model than a school district like ours largely these guys are giving service to a lot of districts that comprise the the commission um but it was pretty good uh in in the last year you know thinking about a covered year their revenue was down 40 but their profitability was up almost 60 percent and so they had found a way to kind of bob and weave and they wanted to report that um

027looking at the numbers briefly they said you know really getting the revenue back up for the long-term sustainability of the ed services commission is going to be important but you know for the year past the numbers look good thank you mr ovaria was there any other correspondence this evening okay that then brings us to our first public comment the first public comment session is for board action items only this is items that will be voted on this evening there is another public comment section for any topic at the end of the meeting please identify the board action item you will be commenting on each comment submitted shall be subject to the three minute time allotment when the light turns yellow there are 30 seconds left to speak when the light turns red the allotted time

028is up acting as civil models of decorum cherry hill community that values education issues that affect our children schools and community bring out strong emotions in all of us the board of education takes seriously its vision to work with civility please join the board in sending a message to our students that even the most difficult issues can be addressed while showing respect for one another okay and if there is public comment in the first public comment please come to the podium and einhorn 1017 that's worried i just want to comment on 19.2 retirement of jennifer fassfinder i've known jennifer for 35 years zach is not going to be the same without her so i congratulate her i wish her well and all the best for her and her husband to have some great days ahead

029thank you mrs einhorn okay if there are no other public comments for the first public comment that will bring us to our board work session and first up is curriculum and instruction and i will turn that over to mrs matlack thank you thank you mrs nary um we met uh let me just get my dates together we met on august 2nd and at seven o'clock and we had two items on our agenda for us for cni the african-american studies course and we had high school english language arts dr mahan would you like to give the presentation now or do you want me to report on the other item first okay i think you said report on the other item yes sorry please report on the other items and i'll make my lawyer excellent thank you

030okay so the other item we had on our agenda was high school language arts and miss mccartney talked to us about that the process for piloting text is something new that the district is going to be doing let me just read you the purpose that they've put out as part of cherry hill's ongoing commitment to providing culturally relevant instruction and learning experiences for all students excuse me one minute the office of curriculum and instruction in collaboration with building administrators the high school required text will be revised to reflect the growing diversity perspectives and interests of today's students so um the teachers will have the opportunity to pilot texts this year these are texts that will that are not already board approved but they will be um given to the board two months in advance to

031review there is a form that the teachers can fill out they must select two of the three required texts for their grade level and then they have a choice to select at least one text by a female author and one text by a non-white author they can overlap and to bring to make the text relevant if those three of those texts have let's say select an additional text published in the last 50 years if all of those texts were published before 1970. um it's giving the teachers the opportunity to branch out a little bit with what they're comfortable with with the students we also had some recommended text changes for the school year some of the books that are on our list are being a couple are being removed and a few of them are

032just changing the grade level that they're going to be offered at um we also had some old business ms stern brought up about the school start time discussion dr morton will be presenting at our september meeting that will occur on august 30th for september to present a timeline to us about what the students and the staff their meetings will look like throughout the year regarding that topic so dr mchand so mrs matlock excellent job and actually all of the notes that i had to share regarding the changes to the high school english program you have already shared so i will not reiterate those but you have feel free to add anything i forgot you have hit everything all the points that i had so thank you for that um that information was shared to the

033board uh cni committee by mrs mccartney last week and because we are continuing to move forward with growing diverse perspectives in our literature we were asked to present that information again this evening to the full board so thank you mrs matlock for that in regards to the african-american studies course update this was also a presentation that was given to the cni curriculum of the board we were asked to present it again this evening the only difference is that we did not ask all the committee members who presented at the cni meeting to come out again this evening so we will highlight certain portions of the presentation i have my colleague here mr goldthorpe who is the supervisor of curriculum and instruction as well as ms mallory who is the director of special education who will

034be chiming in so i start with this slide board members you have seen this before this is the advertisement for the juneteenth protest that was organized by members of our cherry hill east african american culture club here are just some images of that day these pictures represent people of all races ages socioeconomic status all coming together for a common cause students parents teachers administrators community members police officers were in the crowd to rally against again a common cause i highlight for you quickly this is an article that was published in the courier post a picture of some of the students who participated in the peaceful protest and helped to organize they were also students who shared their voice with us as administrators and with the school community you had a chance for board members to

035hear from several of these students during a board meeting as they talked about their experience within cherry hill public schools as a school district we must be willing to listen to address and to respond to the students needs we listen to parents community members teachers and the most important population we are here to serve which is our students we must be willing to respond to so in the development of the african-american studies course there are five areas that i would like to highlight tonight quickly they are professional development curriculum the application process who we have been collaborating with and the next steps for us so after the juneteenth protest there was a formation of a social justice committee that was comprised of student advocates students administrators literacy coaches content area coaches media specialists members of

036the community including the african-american civic association as well as input from members of the community i've been in the district for 17 years and i can think back to countless examples that have been shared at the microphone at board of education meetings and emails with parents and community members about students feeling marginalized and not seen in the curriculum we want to be sure that our curriculum is providing a mirror which is a story that reflects your own culture and helps to build your identity we need to start moving away from windows which is resources that offers you a view into someone else's experience so the work that you will see presented here this evening goes beyond summer reading presentations review of the amistad curriculum project literacy we're looking to make sure that this is a

037way of life here within cherry hill public schools so the application process really speaks to a shift in our thinking and typically we just ask individuals would you like to participate in curriculum writing this time this is the prompt that was shared with anyone who asked to participate in curriculum writing for the african-american studies course and this was the prompt that they were asked to respond to so just give a quick second and this came from avoiding racial equity detours from educational leadership which is professional journal that is used in the field so that's how members of the committee were selected we are unable to do this work in isolation we have worked with several university partners who are identified on this slide we've also collaborated with teachers and administrators students we've had significant amount

038of introductions brainstorming ideas interviewing of professors and the opportunity to share perspective because we are not able to write a curriculum of this nature in isolation one of the things that i do highlight is that as a um learning community within cherry hill public schools we take great pride in writing our own curriculum and not taking a pre-packaged curriculum and using something that is already out there i know that there has been some concerns in regards to what the curriculum will include this curriculum was fully developed by teachers within cherry hill public schools under the guidance of professors with input from our students and teaching staff so some professional development that we've had began back in august with an emphasis on student voice and equity we've also been able to have book talks around the

039book cultivating genius and historically responsive literacy with dr goldie muhammad we were able to we were invited to a distinguished lecture series at monmouth university where dr evan kendy was the keynote we've had on our in-service day february 12 a lecture series you will see several professors as well as the director of the new jersey amistad commission who presented at that lecture series to our teaching staff we have also again been invited back to monmouth university for another lecture series on the text while all black kids sitting together in the cafeteria and we have also made a conscious effort to ensure that all of our students have access to the curriculum we continue to work with mary ann joseph who has looked at the curriculum reviewed the curriculum and just for context marianne joseph is

040a consultant who we work with who supports special education teachers and supporting teachers in the co-teaching environment which we'll speak to in a little bit so planning for next year continuing our work with mary and joseph we understand how important her voice is in this work excuse me we will be continuing our in-service day lecture series we also have trainings scheduled for september 2nd and 3rd for all of our high school social studies and english teachers hosted by the new jersey bar foundation on how to ensure that we are teaching and being inclusive for all students in our classrooms and then the university partners who we've worked with will continue to consult with us on a monthly basis so as i mentioned the curriculum was written this is not a pre-packaged program this was a

041curriculum that was written by our teachers based on the standards based on feedback from students we've been meeting bi-weekly for the last four months there have been whole group and partner experiences the curriculum will be uploaded into rubicon atlas we've had university partners and special education partners in consultation with us again in building the curriculum last week members of the cni committee had an opportunity to hear from heather esposito lauren zarano ashley giles dr julie benvenitas caitlin mallory heather esposito dr don trisa allison and dr walter greeson these were individuals from the committee who volunteered their time to share based on the topics that are indicated in the slide above this evening just for brevity we are going to highlight three of the areas the first one is the student voice and feedback the second

042is course accessibility and the final is leading by example student voice and feedback and leading by example will be presented this evening by mr scott goldthorpe and course accessibility will presented by ms caitlin mallory so we'll start with student voice and feedback thank you dr mahan so thinking about student voice and feedback the students called upon the community school leaders teachers to create a curriculum that would not only let their voices be heard but they would cover topics and lessons of the african-american experience both past and present they would be interconnected with interdisciplinary and real-world applications working within an environment of trust and respect students became a vital part of this process helping curriculum development and providing insight into the topics they wanted to learn about and that they felt were missing from previous learning

043opportunities within cherry hill so i'll take a moment just to share some of the the results and themes that have emerged from those focus groups so some of the things that the students wanted to talk about or learn about was thinking about africa the history of the people the dynasties of africa the religion the culture and the languages they wanted to learn about slavery and the slave trade and the underground railroad and abolitionists the civil rights movement what effects are on today what people were involved in the leadership within that movement they wanted to learn about systemic racism with police brutality bias in health care how do we stop some of these systems they were interested in healthcare with access to healthcare clean drinking water food deserts within communities and racial bias in medicine they

044wanted to learn about people artists inventors scientists authors musicians they wanted to learn about education and access to education and the history of how african americans were educated hbcus which are historically black colleges and universities and black excellence they wanted to learn about wars the american revolution and the civil war and under underpinning all of these was the idea of having courageous conversations in their classrooms with their peers and with their teachers so one of the biggest takeaways that that we took from that was students wanted to know where do i stand in this story and how does this impact me and my peers so we used this idea to guide our work in designing our main curricular units early african cultures arts arts and culture jim crow era systemic oppression of today anti-racism activism

045and black lives matter and finally culminating in a final project where students have a voice and choice to select a topic and form of expression that they're interested in for further in-depth study and reflection i'll hand it off to miss caitlin mallory to talk about course accessibility thank you good evening um before i talk about course accessibility i think it's important to share that the department of special education shares um a personal role in the implementation of this course a lot of the themes in the fight for social justice are are not foreign to us as we continue our fight for equity and inclusion for students with disabilities and people with disabilities as dr mahan stated marion joseph who is very well known in the district she's an educational consultant she has taken the role

046as the curriculum was in draft form supporting teachers through universal design for learning udl which gives students an equal opportunity to succeed with a variety of teaching methods as this is a new curriculum as with any new curriculum being implemented we want to support our teachers giving them resources so that they can offer student choice a lot of the curriculum lends itself to the success of students through giving them project-based instruction there's rubrics and choice boards some examples that have already been shared with the committee and with teachers t-charts other tools a picture choice board and basically throughout the implementation of the curriculum she will be instrumental in supporting our teachers as we move along we definitely feel like as we learn and grow with the curriculum we will need to be there 100 of

047the way and that is our intention so that all students have an equal opportunity to succeed thank you miss mallory and finally i'll share a little bit about leading by example it's been clear throughout this journey that cherry hill public schools is a leader in this work at the high school level in requiring an african-american studies course for high school graduation other school districts educational leaders students and community members are looking to us to lead the way in this important work and i'm proud to be a part of the team to help bring this course to fruition an important piece to remember is that while we have come a long way in this journey our work is not done we will continue to collaborate with our university partners and outside organizations to provide our teachers

048with the professional learning and guidance needed we will continue to revise and refine the curriculum always with an ear listening to student voice to guide our work as we prepare our children of today to be the leaders of tomorrow thank you any questions mr avadya yes thank you for the presentation this evening so dr mayhen i remember uh early on in this work you said this is going to be challenging conversations for the board for the staff for the students or have we given thought you know we're you know this this uh we're 30 days away yay right yay for 30 days have a given thought though you know you know so these students voice right they they go home um and those parents you know they they haven't had this course even the students

049haven't had the course have we given thought to how we thread those conversations you know that have that have a lot of value as well or any kind of like group you know parent things that were maybe we could kind of like on the two generations you know kind of like move this work forward as well absolutely so in the last week or so two two themes have come up and you touched on both of them the first one is making sure that we are communicating early and often with our family so that they know exactly what is going on in the course that includes making sure that there is one universal presentation by the african american studies teachers at back to school night as well as correspondents that will be coming out from the

050district as well as from building principal classroom teachers so that families are explicitly aware about what will be taught in the course the second which just came up was offering an option for i would describe it as a parent university where parents are able to audit the course we have not finalized the details for that but it is something that is on the table for us to consider because we do recognize that there will be possibly parents who are highly interested and have knowledge of the content that will be taught as well as some who have not had exposure to the content that is being taught you know for many of us including myself my experience in the classroom in k-12 did not include many of the things that we are proposing to teach in

051this course so it would not be a misstep to ensure that there is a bridge between parents and students in the conversation so great point and it is something that we are definitely following up on great thank you you're welcome mrs stern i just want to first of all um thank the three of you so much for the presentation um i had the opportunity to have a more in-depth experience more into even more in-depth presentation at the cni committee and i i just i have to say for myself and i believe some of my colleagues we were pretty blown away by the presentation the amount of work that's gone into this the thoughtfulness um the um the the level and breadth of inclusion for so many different voices so many different experiences and so many

052different learning needs and um to the point where we talked about as a board like this is an amazing process for like in general curriculum approaching curriculum and how we assess curriculum and we you know when we look at what curriculum we're offering um i i it's just really impressive i just have to say and i think you know i i've i'm one who always asks a lot of questions and and brings you know questions to as i'm trying to make sense of it and make sure it's it feels right for the students on behalf of them and i i just feel so excited for this um i'm really excited about the possibility of parent university i've had people come up to me and say hey is there can i take this parents can i

053take this course um and uh my answer is i i don't know right now it's for the students but that's pretty exciting that that could be a possibility so just a real kudos um you know i i shared in the committee meeting i have two kids are going to be taking this class next year and we have a variety of voices around the dinner table about this class has come up many times so i'm just really excited and thank you all for really hard work really important work you know i think we couldn't have asked for a better approach and effort as something that's so new and relatively different for for a public school district to be doing in this country it's pretty exciting so thank you thank you anyone else mr elmore stratton i

054i uh wanted to ditto those comments and kudos to the team that's been working on this i just had one question since we are 30 days away yay i was um what are we doing in terms of um can you speak a little bit to who will be teaching or the teaching selection of this or or have we already what their training will be or are they members from this group or in terms of just the instruction so i'm going to take a page from miss adrian that is an hr question so i can tell you so i don't want to divulge anything that would hurt our application process but we have interviewed and we are currently in the interview process the professional development that will occur for staff includes some of the things that

055you saw indicated in the presentation regarding the new jersey bar foundation as well as designated time for the teachers at both of the high schools to collaborate together go through the units again and then to have the monthly collaboration with the professors but yes we are there anything else thank you mrs matlock thank you to members of the board thank you dr mahan and the team before i turn it over to mrs neary because that's all i have um i would like to ask dr mahan if you could i think it would just be helpful for the high school english language arts portion if the handout that the cni committee members were given that evening if you could put it in our friday memo i think would be helpful for the rest of the board

056to see that and visualize that absolutely thank you you're welcome thank you mrs mary that's all i have thank you mrs mcluck and thank you dr mahan and the rest of the administration that worked so diligently on this it was an excellent presentation okay that brings us now to business and facilities and i will turn it over to mrs schultz to take us through that committee meeting great thank you very much mrs neri um just also extend my kudos and thanks to the cni team as well for all the hard work that has gone into the curriculum so kicking off bnf our committee met august the 3rd at 5 45. we had two things on our agenda the first topic was food service we were kind enough to have ted bridges from aramark join our

057meeting to give us kind of a overview on food service a lot of what we covered dr melash did go over in the road back presentation so i'll just highlight a few other things that mr bridges did cover so just a couple things at our meeting the latest statistics were that we have done roughly 1.1 meals have been distributed through the food service uh project in cherry hill and i also just wanted to add as well that on top of the 1.1 meals that have been served through the district mr yoni yaris and his organization have also done an additional 1.2 million meals so approximately 2.6 meals have been distributed through cherry hill we also kind of discussed that the last date for distribution is going to be august 30th i know that a lot

058of communication has gone out but would be remiss if we didn't take this opportunity just to remind our families that the last date for distribution will be august 30th after that date meal distribution will be done in the schools with that first date being september 9. there'll be seven full meals distributed on august 30th and then the next date for meal distribution will be september 9th so i'll just pause just to make sure those dates and the way i explained that was correct mrs sugars they are corrected the ninth will begin in school distribution to students okay perfect and then this is the next um bit of information i do want to caveat we did have some conversations with mr bridges about the next information but i will put a huge caveat as all things

059this is what's very very fluid some of the things that mr bridges discussed was just that kind of how he he was discussing again with school principals what the what how he believed breakfast would go and he thought that it would be kind of cold breakfast to start in a grab-and-go fashion then moving to hot breakfast and then more of that customized feel and that would be his recommendation but again um a big caveat that that's going to be a very fluid situation and he's been in communication with all the building principles and then again lunch being the same kind of hot cold and customized alternatives as well he did kind of go through with the team that everything will be pre-packaged that we are looking to eliminate students congregating in one in one central

060area some questions were asked about will families be able to send in food they absolutely will still be able to send in food some questions were raised can will students be able to have the option to purchase um a second meal they will if they would like we brought up vending machines and will we have the option to purchase purchase snacks through a vending machine it does look like at this time that we will be putting snacks in vending machines again that will and can change and then um the option for self-service snacks and again some will be allowed but not all we are looking for to have the option of snacks that are again easy for staff to just grab behind them and pass again looking to eliminate students just conjugating in one area

061we next we talked about the ada mrs sugars and mr bart gave us a great project update again we were very fortunate as a committee to be able to see photos attached to those updates so i will do my best to articulate the great updates that we saw without pictures but we did get a very good update of all of the work that was going on at woodcrest and west in regards to the ada the work that had been done is a lot of the work with the main goal being focused on the accessibility to the building so a lot of concrete work had been done i would say kind of the accessibility into the buildings um sidewalks had been repaved um things like that um i don't know if there's a way for us

062to post that presentation with the pictures up on the website but it was really great to see all of that work that had been done we also had an update on the roofing projects that had been done against stockton johnson hart projects and then rosa in pain and all of the roofs will be done for the start of school so those were the five schools that we were doing roofing and we do have all of those schools and roofs will be finalized at the start of school we did have a question we asked uh that was asked in regards to the recreation grant we have still not received any type of an update in regards to if we had been afforded that bid so that had been asked uh and then i believe that was

063just kind of our host of updates our next meeting is august 31st so just a quick update on the date we will meet august 31st at 5 45 that meeting is open to the public and that will be at the malburg building so i'll open it up unfortunately the only other committee meeting that is here tonight is miss stern if you have anything else to to add thank you miss schultz i just i learned stuff that night about um food service that i didn't know even though you know i've been in this all my kids are now in high school so i've been here a while um and i just think it's helpful to keep sharing because there's so many questions about meals and lunch especially during the pandemic just you know that the meals

064are available to every every child um but they don't have to choose the meals you they can still bring their own lunch if they choose and and the other thing i never knew is that our mark has the capability of of providing meals for special dietary needs so our and i don't apologize if you went over this i don't think you mentioned this but we talked about the allergy kids who might have food allergies they can if they're not if our mark's notified they can provide special meals for those kids kids who have um religious dietary needs so halal their kosher they can provide those meals so and because every child is eligible um that's something that i just think is nice for our community to know um and to share with my fellow board

065members learn something new at least every day and sometimes more than one new thing so but thank you mr schultz i think you covered everything very well otherwise so thanks all right so i will open it up to questions yes i see two miss arroyo and mr adam so i will um so so the roofs that were updated stocked in johnson hart and payne did those i know we talked about before that we couldn't do ada upgrades or updates in the in the in schools because of our roofing projects now that they're done would that be then is that then coming up to priority to get that work done around those schools so um we only did partial roofs at the elementary schools and at rosa the only full roof replacement that we did was

066stockton the other buildings had small areas done and it's it's not that roofing or prevents us from doing ada we just need to make sure that we're coordinating um we're going to move forward with ada work we don't want to do work that then could be damaged or um you know we don't want to we want to make sure that we're doing things in the right order so you know we can still move forward with some of the ada work we talked about that night at our meeting with mr garrison the advantages of waiting to a bond referendum where the state will potentially provide forty percent of the funding for the projects and how to coordinate some of those projects um in with other other bond referendum work that we're doing so um you know

067we have a plan we have our report we have our report by building done our focus right now is on accessibility to the main entrance and that's what we're focusing on right now but there's lots of other ad work both inside and outside the buildings that will potentially be addressed if the referendum is successful also failed to mention that um we do have pain and back is um next on the list for 88 project updates and that work is physically that work will physically be done in those buildings next summer so pain and back is already slated we'd voted on that work as a board and it's physically going to be done next summer so and miss um stratton thank you miss schultz i was just going to ask in terms of the meals and

068um with food service are i know our students are our first priority but are we also are the building principles also going to ensure that they can find safe spaces or or safe ways for our staff and teams that are in the building to also eat safely and especially at the high school where a lot of them are sharing classrooms with each other that kind of stuff so i'm going to politely send back a question to dr blush or mrs sugars yes they absolutely are students and staff are with priority first focus that as they develop their plans is always on the students and the second one is on the staff about what locations what can be provided what the spaces look like and they're different again depending upon the building more than just where

069the traditional teachers lounge would be same thing with outside spaces inside spaces but they'll work that out and be determined and shared with staff i'm guessing probably at the september 2 september 3rd faculty meetings that are held mrs neri uh yeah regarding the food distribution now that we're doing that within the schools how are we handling some of the youngest students and then some of our students that go to 21. how do we handle the distribution for them so distributions as we have been doing we will no longer be permitted to do once our students are back in school and we are feeding students within the school buildings so we will no longer be doing community distributions after august 30th okay so i guess i i probably didn't phrase that while i didn't articulate it

070well how will those students be serviced then so are our students that go to 21 if they are an out of district placement does it then become the responsibility of the out of district placement yes to ensure that they're getting those meals do we track that i don't i'm just hazy to me how that's going to work it'll work just like it did before the pandemic you know before the pandemic those schools were responsible for providing meals and that will continue okay thank you any other questions from board members okay that concludes the bnf thank you mrs schultz thank you well that'll bring us right into human resources and i'll turn it back over to you right thank you very much so our hr committee met on also august the third at five o'clock and

071we had a very packed um agenda so first up on our agenda we talked about some revisions and title changes and those were specifically in regards to the director of technology which was the which formerly was the assistant director of technology and the purchase coordinator formerly the purchase manager so we talked through that and then we also went through a job description revision for the coordinator of student accounts next we moved into some job descriptions these are for the new stipend positions specifically for esports the head coach esports the assistant coach the robotics club advisor and the robotics club the assistant advisor so those are the new stipend positions and we talked about just the need to get the new job descriptions in place the next thing we moved on to was the abolishment of

072again the high school student super supervisor and then we had a list of policy revisions so there were quite a few of the policy revisions that were on the agenda these were very minor changes they were wording and clarifications and most of these that came through were from strauss esme and they were their recommendations and then the last thing that we talked about was just um recruitment update from mrs adrian at that time there were about 20 openings i believe mrs adrian had a lot of those meetings that she was going to be meeting with and then we just talked about the addition of long-term subs at each of the elementary schools so it's a pretty pretty packed hr meeting our next meeting is august 31st at 5 pm um this is a closed meeting

073so the public will not be able to attend this meeting i will take any questions uh or i'm sorry i apologize miss stratton did you have anything that you would like to add i think the only thing i would add is that because it's in alignment with what curriculum and instruction is just to share that our messaging in terms of being inclusive and making a statement across the board in terms of where we stand in terms of anti-racism and in terms of ensuring that everyone is seen and heard is the addition to our job descriptions now we'll also have a slight statement that will move forward that and that's also an alignment with some of our uh board goals that may be approved in the next month so i just thought that's poignant to point

074out because it shows that we're we're making that message clear in every department across the board thank you so with that any questions from any board member okay all right those are my updates ben i will send it back to you ms neri thank you mrs schultz okay that will bring us to our policy and legislation committee meeting and i will turn that over to mr elvatia thank you mrs neary so we sat down together in a room not unlike this one but not this one on august 2nd there were no legislative updates at the meeting we will have something for sure in the october cycle first order of business we talked about school and facility names timing of transition so that's mrs lewis mr lewis and ms malberg and i'm talking about what that

075might look like from a timeline perspective um and so we we we seem to come to some consensus in the committee uh on a couple fronts one that this this timing should happen this year this calendar year not just this academic year that we have discussed previously and reiterated that our malberg move should happen first um so that the the early childhood center naming should be the first of the two as a smooth transition and then we talked about incorporating historical pieces into the ceremonies and the the messaging as well as getting perspectives from community and community members um in terms of how we threaded in the messaging and the festivities of these renamings and then mrs wethington dr milash we're talking about you know once we arrive at at these um these celebrations we'll

076have good public release messaging we'll have all the celebrations buttoned up we'll want you know of course a wide variety of people attending and we'll invite the media as well so if there are perspectives on that they would be interesting to hear but i think the consensus was to do it definitely this calendar year okay then we looked at what was coming down the pike from strauss esme that makes the recommendations in terms of policies to update and without going through all of them um a couple things that came up for the for the benefit of the board here is in 2421 this is career tech policy we have to review the applicability of the whole thing there's really one sentence that may apply to us as relates to vo tech and one committee member

077asked if we have this dr malash informed us we do have some but we definitely have have room for more um couple minor calendar changes couple uh compliance issues [Music] we did talk about 5460 the bridge year pilot program and this is where um you know students who this has been uh approved but essentially students can can within some parameters come back to do sort of a fifth year in high school we had two interested students in coming back that they're not going to to do it though they did not follow through um at least as of this this past meeting we felt the the the timing had had elapsed now two are considering it for next year so for 22-23 um and so you know so we'll see but you know for the discussion

078that it was you know two inside of of course the numbers that we have is is is not a major swing um we talked about uh in 64 71 that um travel this year may may actually become a possibility uh although mrs wettington reported that most requests are still for for professional development to be done virtually so the these requests for in-person travel they're they're really not coming yet but we anticipate uh that they might uh as has been our custom we have waived field trip regulations so that some kids may go to uh to orlando florida so we we decided we shouldn't take the stand this year after this this wonderful tradition of mickey mouse and such things i'm sure that travels in the circles of orlando florida one committee member asked about mount

079misery and this is an interesting one um this will be likely according to dr milan coming to cni with kovid the numbers that are accepted in mount misery per time period have gone dramatically down there are uh several groups that have not gone to mount misery that you know that would would have to be considered um you know in in revitalizing that so there's still you know cni i guess we'll take that up um the same board member talked about room arrangements we talked about what the standard is usually it's a four to two to a room student occupancy that's expected and then you know if there are special requests those are considered for additional fees at that point of the discussion i talked or well a committee member who shall remain nameless talked about

080uh international field trips and that you know this this comes up periodically um in the fall of 2017 for some historical note as dr milan let us know the board really took off the possibility of international field trips at the time there were several things in the international news that caused some concern we talked about what equity looks like when these international trips are done you know private pay and off of the school um and so um i don't know where we well we ended up in at least one place where we said you know given what we've learned in covid how many of these world-class experiences can we bring in without the travel and the equity concerns of uh the major travel things outside of the school side okay [Music] yep don't know what

081that was okay then for old business we talked about our care of school property contingency around food so this is the one where um this is the one where if you're in a certain arrears on your lunch balance and you know we spent a lot of time as a cherry hill board of education talking about this but essentially that you start to potentially have the have the potential of missing out on some some school opportunities trips different opportunities because you're rolled into um well we talked at length about the arsonists you know so we're sort of lumping in you know the food piece to that uh and the committee felt that we should bring the discussion to the full board we didn't really reach necessarily consensus on what to do with it but that perhaps

082as a as a full board we should we should look at this um so that happened there's an issue that had been circling around with it so we had one request and so we were looking at this policy in the middle school sports you know what about students who want to participate in middle school sports who are not going to our public schools and there was definite conversation here we did talk about well i i guess let's see here well we talked about like is the home school population different from the private school population we talked about you know one of the things that's come up in this conversation is you know the fact that there are responsibility and so there's a liability piece there's a transportation liability piece uh there's an hiv potential piece

083in now mixing um you know our students with essentially students who are you know homed in cherry hill but who are you know going to other schools or learning at home so it's it's a complex issue i i think where we land in my my fellow committee members can but i think where we landed really is we need to do more research in terms of how other districts if other districts do this and if they do it how they carve it up and out do they make distinctions and if so how and what and i think we also need follow up with um with our athletic director to think about like you know from his macro view you know kind of you know what does this mean but for now we weren't ready to action

084as much as do additional i think research um and then we had some discussion about the size of the issue and the amount of time we're spending on it so that that so uh ms freddell will be back to kind of help us navigate some of that stuff too okay let's see okay we talked about the checklist of the road forward and of course we had that presentation earlier today tonight um dr milan reported some pieces of the self-assessment are currently being done just want to make sure that is uh fully buttoned up i a committee member asked about njsba and what they had to add to the conversation that was going to be a follow-up for our committee um also to follow up with uh with mr green in terms of what he's seeing

085so i guess trying to get ahead on the policy side of the road forward and just doing that sensing of other districts in the state and what's going on okay another committee member uh mentioned about thinking about marijuana legalization and the implication uh mrs wettington reported that conversations are happening um you know uh security's involved mrs minigen's involved and then we asked as a committee that we get more updates um of course you know we're following the law but you know what does it mean on the ground uh code of conduct updates uh according to dr milage here are will be coming in probably this october and um mrs wettington presented a list of topics for the coming academic year asked us to review by next committee meeting um and and so we are to

086send thoughts before the next meeting and then we had two uh two public comments that really centered around cherry hill east and the day of elections which cherry hill east will be participating in uh and the one the one note as the conversation ensued is we have no choice but we also want to be good citizens so you know the day of elections will be coming to a cherry hill east near all of us and with that i guess committee members i don't know if there's anything you want to add to the discussions that took place other board members that have questions or comments yes mrs neary so i guess it's probably for dr milos regarding mount misery are we looking at options because i'd hate to lose that program and i know it's kind

087of been i guess maybe it'll be almost two years now so we are looking at options and that'll be the discussion through cni you know there's a curricular component an academic component with the children's experience when they are at mount misery there's a historical component that exists with the amount of time that the students from cherry hill sixth graders have attended the impact of covid on the camp and and what they are able to do and not able to do dramatically will impact what we are able to offer and to provide you know the tradition has been in cherry hill based on the curriculum that sixth grade students attended you know which means that going into this academic year you have all the sixth grade students the um all of the seventh grade students because

088they didn't get to attend last year then there are at least two groups probably a little more than 200 students at cruz that didn't attend when they were sixth graders either because when we originally closed down in march of 2020 those two groups missed their opportunity to go uh mr goldthorpe you know from the curriculum instruction office um it's within his area of responsibility so they're looking at what the options are uh what can be provided what would that look like you know and and what could possibly change during the course of the year so that's the discussion that'll come you know that larger area with cni okay thank you okay mrs mrs deary back to you okay thank you mr ovadia so that now brings us to strategic planning so i will turn that

089back over to mr avadya thank you mrs neri thank you i clearly haven't spoken enough at this meeting okay so we had we i think we took our 90 minutes although i think i gave everyone two minutes back at the end of it anyway we had two exciting agenda items at strategic planning a meeting that took place on august 3rd okay the first was talking about what we are now terming boundary readjustment and actually our administrators have had their first meeting looking at the grip report talking about goals as part of boundary readjustment very exciting conversations that are happening um a critical piece throughout this conversation that's that's going to evolve over over quite a bit of time is going to be equity and that's uh that's i don't know if multi-linear is a word

090but let's pretend that it is it's going to have a lot uh going you know how do we support the the programs how do we use valve's musings of very rich data how do we look at transportation class sizes staffing impacts ib program and what that functionally means but what it means on the ground how do we create the right work plan in august this committee will be reviewing demographics in september start to look at different configuration potentials by december come with a lot more meat through strategic planning and then to the full board so we'll have quite a bit of of discussion all right in october we're going to invite a board member or board members parent or parents and staff members to be part of this this working group that's is already hard

091at work dr milan let us know on a historical note that mrs sadwin had participated in the last time of boundary readjustment as a parent now is back as a staff member mrs webbington was excited a lot of work to be done dr milan reiterated that equity lens and that we need to do this right it's a major major work and undertaking it's not about easy and it's not about popular really it's about finding you know something that's good that really works for students and and betters what we can provide as a school district okay we actually talked about well at the end of the day we actually talked about after much discussion doing both elementary and middle school work so this boundary readjustment to institute them on a slightly different timeline than we had

092talked about previously but to actually do both because of the interrelation of those populations in those schools in september of 2023 um this also gives us some time from our projected uh bond referendum so it'd be a year later uh in this in this in this way and so there is a relationship also here with the bond beyond the timing which is that one of the things that we need to do and of course we're in strategic planning so one of things that we need to do is also equalize the schools in our long-range plan that will help with this and all seem to agree okay what we also agreed and i followed up with uh miss fredell as well is we want to i think look at sun setting the policy around open enrollment

093at rosa in this cycle in this in this well actually by the by october of this year but a sunset that would happen for the school year starting in 2324. that would be interesting so essentially what we'd be doing is we'd be sunsetting a policy but further into the future than traditionally we do so we're going to ask p l to take that up and while we were on that discussion we said if we're going to talk about open enrollment at middle school should we be talking about open enrollment at elementary school and the administrators felt very strongly we really needed to look at that in p l um or well that we really need to look at it p l i'm adding but so so that's uh strategic planning's request to to um to

094p l to actually look at the sunset now for 2324 and as well as the other thing i just said which was oh yes open enrollment and looking at that at the elementary level so anyway so that was that was interesting the second topic of conversation was about bond referendum and i think okay but we're not going to say that word anymore we're going to call it an improvement program which is exactly what it is um and the improvement program really is about having better physical plan as we look into our facility future and so we talked about we're not going to incorporate in the improvement program roll out into back to school nights this year but we are going to thread the date where we're going to come back to have that discussion and

095put the date on the calendar at back to school nights so just i mean this is happening pretty quick um but that will that hopefully gives the community some time to understand that it back to school night we'll be threading in and setting dates and then we'll be coming back to have these improvement program discussions per building now mr garrison is going to do the live sessions at each middle school and the high schools we are going to be doing trainings with the principals because we believe the principals of elementary schools are really the you know the the pulse takers pace setters that people are most familiar with um the training again mr garrison has got the experience doing it so he'll be part of that he'll attend a bunch of community groups included in

096that would be zone pta and perhaps fair funding and of course some of the really hot topics that you know that people talk about that are important ada compliance hvac nurse's suites um and such thing and that we also want to you know as uh as mr schultz does so well is to remind people of the work that we're doing and that that's in line with a long-term plan you know it's not the bond is not something we just drop in it's something that's part of the entire the entire piece and we're working on a logo as well and that's very exciting work that mrs wilson is doing okay uh we really need a high level um information flow for for these for these things i think one of the things to keep in mind

097just as we talk you know about this with with the public as a board you know it's the 37 percent that we get by doing an improvement program through a bond mechanism that's a key piece you know people talk about all the money we've been shorted from the state you know the state is a major partner when we do work that way and we talked about you know presentations and how to make it accessible but also understandable and also to meet people where they were a board member who shall remain nameless said we really need the entire board to commit to going to lots of presentations and that's a lot because we're you know there's plenty of demands on a board member's time but this really needs to have that retail politics and that prioritization

098and um you know essentially we gotta almost in september pull out a calendar and just start signing up um and so that would be great and a community member talked about you know talking about you know whole buildings feeling like a single building all updated and that you know at the end of our improvement plan we will be completely done there won't be massive work that hasn't been done it's all it's all being baked into the to the full plan bob talked about talking more about indoor air quality to keep investing in our schools while we're waiting and so anyway so looking at our timeline september back to school october the presentations go out in full swing we've we had talked earlier in the committee work about an august town hall we we felt strongly

099we that wasn't the right time for a town hall i think initially we're going to talk about uh boundary readjustment but we're just we're not in that place and we will be probably i think in the timeline it was december we'll see but anyway you know that august town hall will not be happening um we talked about doing some artistic renderings of the you know the end of the end goals of the improvement plan and so you know a lot of stuff anyway then we uh we did have one member of the public who was very complimentary and deservedly so and that's it then we wrapped up i think about two minutes early so it was a blast of an evening so okay so strategic planning members or administrators anyone miss anything trying to think

100yes mrs matlock i don't think you missed anything i just wanted to you did mention a couple of times the grip report that that we use as one piece to inform our work and i'm sure there's some community members and possibly even board members who haven't used this or been on our committee aren't familiar with it's a demographic study that the district commissioned a few years ago don't remember exact year but i'm sure mrs sugars or dr melash would but a few years ago to help inform this work going forward so i just wanted to put that out there so everybody could understand what we're talking about yeah mrs matlock that's a great point and i think you know one of the things that you know in the community here sometimes is do we need

101all the elementary schools when we look back at that report it's very clear we do no but that's a great point and i i guess dr malosh is that available on our website somewhere it is available on our website okay yeah it's under the button for bond bond progress and funding for charitable public schools yeah yeah it's definitely it's definitely worth a read and then mr schultz i have two questions um i can ask them both or i can ask one and get get the answer and then but all right we'll start with number one um when mr garrison was here we had talked about a timeline of doing the individual presentations at each school in that timeline was september to november so he'd also visited the b f meeting and had mentioned at our

102meeting that he had a mock-up sample of what that individual presentation looked like so i'm curious if he had shown that at the strategic planning meeting what that looked like so i would be curious if that is available to be sent to the board um in the friday packet so we could see what that's going to look like and then i'm curious it is now we only meet as a board one more time in august are we confident that we're going to meet that timeline to september november to go out to the individual schools for those individual presentations to stay on our timeline to meet this for the bond yes mr schultz as of right now we are confident we'll be able to do that okay and will the rest of the board have will

103is that available for us to get that in that friday packet so we expect that we'll have the the dates by the 24th by the meeting on the 24th for people to sign up for uh and those meetings will take place primarily in october and in november um you know the the visits about the referendum probably will not occur in september just because there are so few days in september for back to school nights across the 19 schools plus two board meetings that we have going on as well so most likely they will be in october and november but yes we're confident we'll be able to get them done mrs wilson is working with the building principles to get the dates so we expect on the 24th we'll have a sign up sheet for people

104ready to go and then just to clarify um i just was meaning a copy of the the that individual presentation that mr garrison not necessarily the sign up just just that presentation that he had presented to strategic planning yes i can get we can put that in the memo i would say i would say just dr milan it may make sense the the comments we made were not dramatic but they were important if she has a second iteration of it i don't know with with ms schultz's permission i would just i'd rather get that one because there were we all made a couple comments that made sense i think absolutely agree yeah we'll give the most up-to-date one that he's provided to us okay and then just the second question i'm just curious about i

105i don't understand the dates um and so i just need some help get it understand the dates on the sun setting of the rosa if if the goal is 20 23 i'm not sure if that's a 2022 2023 school year to start with the re uh sorry redistricting i'm not sure what we're now calling it um or if the goal is 23 24. so if we're talking about sunsetting it this year in the 2021 2021-2022 school year like what what kind of happens in that that individual year if like i would be curious to understand the conversations around the benefit to the parents it feels like to me there's a gap year in between based on if our goal is 20 23 20 24 like i i just i don't understand the years i think

106only two separate things so when he says sun setting it within the policy it would have a date of when it would sunset which allows for the administration time to build out the plan of what it looks like grandfathering and so forth for each of the schools the dates around 2023 for elementary and middle was just a proposal really a discussion item i wouldn't even say a proposal we wouldn't we're not that far at all um of doing them together versus trying to do it for the 22 23 school year but it was discussed and established that the policy piece would come first and that we would quickly have to align the timing but it would be within the policy would say when it would sunset that's not determined yet okay so we're just basically

107saying the policy will sunset and the dates would align with when the redistricting would start yes yes okay but we would determine the policy first okay that's okay thank you does that make more sense it does i just wanted to make sure that the dates for sunsetting the policy was going to also be at the start of when we were going to yeah it wouldn't be there wouldn't be a gap it's just not the win isn't determined that's i just need to clear just a problem i'm sorry i don't want to keep saying re rebranding whatever it's going to be boundary readjustment readjustment okay yes i will uh let me let me just add one thank you i see mrs stern but um the the our our administrators felt fairly strong well we had a

108lot of conversation about doing it right versus doing it and the timeline that maybe we would we would most want but um i i think the piece of it is in saying to to our to our administrator team that's really started doing some of the heavy lifting and thinking about this we just we don't know that we could it seemed too aggressive as we kind of tried to get to some consensus to really do it in 22. however our administrators our administrator team did feel it would be a big benefit to do the policy work now that would basically propel the work and the import and the timeline of the work forward in in what we're now recommending so okay mr stern okay thank you so um what a busy meeting um so i just

109want to go back a little bit to the garrison present to mr garrison and the bond work that's on the calendar for the next few months um so at our last board meeting we said that we we really talked about developing a clarity about what's going to be in the i don't know if that was the last of the previous but what's going to be in the bond ultimately based on community input tonight what i'm hearing is in october a plan for presentation so like the presentations that we've been getting from mr garrison that have been happening in the board meetings um so the if i'm just to clarify so that's essentially kind of the full gamut of what has been put together by garrison which is probably more work than we're going to do

110it's probably more money than we're going to go out for in a bond but that's the initial presentation in october and then at what point do we start and i understand there's going to be a com i guess wait i'm not sure i got that right but the committee forming but um and then we're going to have start to have more like community discussions is that and how will that look i don't know if you got that far but so so let me let me start and then i think i need i need mr sugars on this one but the way i think to understand it is when we go to let's just take carusi middle school all right we go to crude city middle school we're not talking about a bond we're talking about

111where we think this building can go to be the best building we can provide for the students of kerosene middle school this isn't about how we pay for that this is about if we did all the work we could do this is what we believe a great crucial middle school is part of the part of the purpose of that converse or part of that purpose of that presentation is to have a conversation around does this make sense and what's the most important and how does carusi and that community feel about its school and and it's you know it's its structure um one one source of funding could be the bond and the bond is nice because that 37 from the state but operational dollars capital reserve grants whatever whatever it is that makes that up

112that's really a different conversation i i think we need more data before we're really ready to talk about what's included in a bond however you're also right to say our goal is still september 22. now that means we really need to be ready by the end of january 22 to submit to the state so there is some time and there's work that needs to be done but there's not much and so that's where october really is critical so that that's my sense of it but mr sugars yeah i think we have to start having the conversations we have to share as mr avadya said you know what are the potential issues at each building our vision for that was that for the secondary schools we would have a presentation and a tour because you know

113the bulk of the work that needs to be done at the secondary schools would warrant that at the elementary schools we were thinking more about including the meetings around a pta meeting and having more of a conversation about it um and i think you know we have to start having this conversation we have to start sharing what needs to be done and there can you know there certainly needs to be some community input i think when you look at the type of work that needs to be done there isn't a whole lot of debate about do you replace a roof or not do you replace hvac or not there can be some debate around certain items like you know do you reconfigure the f-wing at east high school and make it a stem area i

114mean those are you know some of the conversations we can have but i think for the most part you know once we sort of as a board prioritize what needs to be done and what's critical and we talk a lot about building envelope type things i think there definitely will be conversation and input on some things but not necessarily on others okay thank you that was actually really helpful just a follow-up question um and again i'm always you know we're always thinking about community engagement because obviously we need to make sure we approach this a way that that is you know gets that that makes sense for the community and and to therefore get community support for this to move it forward um i heard you mentioned zone pta so like i mean i'm just

115really thinking about like you know the newsletters that go out from the principles and the pta meetings were there's we're more likely to kind of be have more touch with the community through those avenues you know is that i guess i think like i'm thinking we really want to have a good plan around how we do that piece to get as many people to those presentations and get those presentations available to community members um those have as many voices involved um i i think i don't know the best way to tackle that but i just you know i know you it sounds like you discussed that so um how do we make sure we're doing all that i guess is when i my main question yeah no i i i think i think yeah you

116have a good point we have to have a really good on the road plan but you know so mr garrison i think there's a strategy to starting with the schools in the school community but we'll be going to churches and synagogues and we'll be going to council we'll probably go to everywhere now where we should go yeah i mean we definitely need to to lean on mr garrison but i think you know i think one of our roles as a board is really that two-way communication with the community if there's a table we need to be around you know i mean well we need to we need to let that be known but i think the other thing is we need to go there and so if that's you know ponzios and or wherever i

117don't know it for wherever there's a table that's willing to listen you know to a point we want to go to but of course today you know you also think about the electronic assets and how you know how that works um you know with mr green here we always want to think about you know the the legalities too right so it would be great for every principal to just send their community vote yes to this that's really important that's probably not allowed so we just want to definitely figure to figure that piece out within our strategy as well but it's a point well take we need to be we need to have a really good on the ground and it's a quick one strategy so that we know that this will be a yes and

118not a no mr ivari i just wanted to add quickly um we are doing training we have our administrative retreat the last week in august and mr garrison will be with our administrators that for a time period they will he will be talking to them about the issues in their building so that they're very familiar with them so that they can speak to them and we will talk about you know making sure that the message gets out how that message can get out what what it needs to to say yep mr neary did you have yeah i just wanted to be clear that the conversations to happen in october at the schools are to meet with the building the administrator and i forget what other subset of folks that would be there to understand the

119concerns as they see it the once as they see it it's not to hey here's a bond we want you to get on board with a bomb we are nowhere near that it's a lot of lifting to do between this meeting now and january february or whatever that timeline is to be ready to take something for september but there is no bond developed right now we've just been discussing here are the needs mr garrison and his team have established what work has to be done at the buildings and what they look like but not this is what will go into the bond that's part of those conversations to happen starting in october at least that was my understanding sitting in the meetings and conversing with mr garrison and team as that was kind of the

120starting point what we have now is just what needs to be done this is what it looks like in the cost it we're obviously not going to get to all of it so can perhaps we need to kind of shift the way we're presenting this on the district website as well because right now it's like bond bond bond maybe we need to kind of focus on district building needs or i don't know the right language but improvement plan thank you sorry yes that is so so so let me let me well let me let me just interject for a second to say there's a bit of a paradox right we've been talking about well we've been using various language but we've been talking about this for a very long time the time that's left if

121we're going to meet the current deadline is very short and so there's naturally kind of this idea of and i i think the the the solution to the riddle is this we have to prioritize this work you know i mean i'm planning to probably between october and november go to 10 meetings but but as i look around the room my hope is that you know other people will join me i mean i don't think we want one board member at these at these meetings um and that's a huge load of work it's a huge load of work on our admin team it's our huge load of work on the board of education but frankly from a strategic planning perspective it's worth it and so i i think that's part of you know that's part of

122it but yeah i mean from here to january right even if we it's not that much time so we do need that commitment and we talked about that you know in the committee like we just need strategic planning is only really doing two things and one of them we're going to ask p l to do so it's one of those things that like this is it you know this this is a big rock that we would like to get done by the end of january dr moulash mr button can i just add too that on the district website is the presentation that mr garrison delivered for the long range facilities plan on march the 23rd um there's a link to the actual you know what the presentation was there's also a link to the video

123that as bob delivered the presentation to the board from our youtube channel which is tremendous information you know and he goes through in this presentation goes through how they you know the data that they gathered going back more than 20 years to identify being in all the buildings but it's a tremendous amount of information where he talks about again the needs of the buildings there are many needs of the buildings that we know exist they existed back in 2018 when we went out for referendum many of those needs have not yet been addressed just because of you know time and money but i would always point people back to that presentation to refer to it and to watch bob's words you know and listen to him as he talks about it is always a great

124foundational step very true and well said other thoughts on the board if not all if not i'll i'll go back to mrs neri thank you mr avadya and we can feel pretty assured that the air condition is definitely working in this room so we won't have to worry about that one less item so that will bring us now sorry it's very chilly in here will bring us to our special action agenda and first up is curriculum and instruction and i will turn it over to mrs matlack to move that agenda thank you mrs neri superintendent recommends and i move the following number one approval of attendance at conference and workshops for the 2021-2022 school year do i have a second mrs schultz are there any questions seeing non mrs sugars i opened up the online

125voting you may cast your votes board members until i get juice but yes okay i'll put you down as a yes all righty we have a unanimous yes vote okay great thank you mrs sugars next we have our business and facilities agenda and i'll turn it over to mrs schultz to move that agenda thank you the superintendent recommends and i move the following number one approval of bill list and number two resolutions do i have a second mrs neary are there any questions seeing none mrs sugars all righty this is sugars you can i can voice vote yes as well yes and mrs sugars i need to abstain to henry shine on the bill list please all right we have a unanimous yes vote great thank you mrs sugars i will now turn it back

126to mrs schultz for the human resources agenda great thank you the superintendent recommends and i move the following number one termination of employment certificated number two termination of employment non-certificated number three appointment certificated number four appointments non-certificated number five assignment salary change certificated number six assignment salary change non-certificated number seven other compensation certificated number eight other compensation non-certificated and number nine other motions do i have a second mrs matlack are there any questions seeing them seeing none mrs sugars okay the online voting is open and we have a unanimous yes vote okay great thank you mrs sugars we don't have any items for our policy and legislation this evening or strategic planning so that will bring us to new business did we have any items for new business okay that'll then take us to old

127business did anyone have any items this evening for old business mrs tom i am not sure if i um this is the right chapter as um regarding the the school starting september i know that we're going all false going back to school but is there an option if someone is sick for whatever reason could be flu virus whatever and they had to stay home for a number of days it's an option for remote learning yes thank you as there is not an option for remote learning as it existed last year we were able to provide remote instruction last year based on an executive order from the governor based on the impact of the pandemic we still have in place there's policy that addresses homebound instruction for a child who may be ill children who are

128ill a family can secure a note from a physician the note from the physician is then sent into the school sent to the district we send it to our district physician district physician reviews it to see whether it's appropriate to provide homebound instruction and that's where we have a tutor that will go out to the house more traditional homebound that's existed in the past but no as of right now there there's no ability for us to provide virtual instruction as we provided last year thank you dr molash okay was there anything else okay that'll bring us now to our second public comment and second public comment is for any topic again each comment shall be subject to the three minute time allotment when the light turns yellow there are 30 seconds left to speak when

129the light turns red the allotted time is up and please remember to state your name and municipality and if there are any students we ask that they speak first so that they can leave a little bit tall all right i'm a small gal so try to this will work there you go okay so hi hello my name is gina liu and i live on do i need to get my address no no okay nice i live in cherry hill and i am once again here wow if you hear me in the past two meetings it's nice to meet you finally in person what a miracle um i wasn't here again to pull at the board look into the great opportunity that is the implementation of later star and this really isn't my first time here

130saying this but i i'm here on again a tuesday august evening because i've truly seen firsthand the impacts of what chronic sleep deprivation looks like at the high school level our high school students here at carrio eis are very very high performing but with that comes this almost toxic environment of chronic deprivation there's this whole thing about oh well i slept only five hours last night well i slept three hours well i didn't sleep any at all and i'm just running on pure caffeine and adrenaline so it is um i understand as parents sometimes not be in the school it can be hard to recognize this but it's really an issue and the decision to push the start time will reflect the support that the board has for all cherry hill students it will be

131a triumph of the board the students the teachers and the cherry hill district as a whole and on behalf of cherry hill students for later start times i would like to thank the board for consideration your kindness has felt appreciated by all the students who are present at the past two meetings and also on behalf of the cherry host students earlier start times i would like to ask for the board to add back in collins i say behalf because as you may have noticed i'm the only student here tonight because a lot of us can't drive um so getting a ride here can be difficult and becomes a barrier to students who want to use their voice and we don't want kids illegally driving here so you know there's also that so adding collins back

132would allow for the community members not just students but also a lot of parents who i mean you guys are all parents but parents source stuff on their hands and coming in and sitting for what was it like an hour and a half you know um can be hard sometimes so the community members of cherry hill to express their thoughts and concerns on mars that affect the whole district thank you have a great evening there we go thank you so much thank you gina nina mintz 20 robin lake drive thank you for having me and i want to thank all of you on your work on behalf of our students uh i'd like to speak today with regards to the question of critical race theory in the cherry hill school system basically the reason that

133i'm here today is to advocate for excellence in cherry hill schools and excellence of education and not indoctrination the communications by the school insisted that crt critical race theory is not present in cherry hill schools so i'd like to read the definition of what crt is crt is a marxist type ideology that focuses on excessively on race and teaches that america is a systematically racist country and that white supremacy is widespread it utilizes racial divisiveness as a tool to dismantle traditional judeo-christian values and to dispel the idea of american greatness in diversity and equity training sessions teachers are indoctrinated as to the basic tenets of crt they then go on to indoctrinate their students with this racially divisive and often anti-american social justice viewpoints those viewpoints are whites are oppressors and whiteness and white privilege

134are bad resulting in white children being ashamed of the color of their skin blacks are victims and america is and always has been systematically racist country and rampant white supremacy what i saw in the presentation today is the very example of crt in practice in our schools where you are dividing our kids based on the color of the skin and not on the character of who they are as individuals i'm asking the board of education to listen to parents and remove any crt materials from cherry hill schools and that includes seo it includes cultural responsive training it includes comprehensive sexual education and diversity equity and all those other names that it's being called and focus on true education excellence in math excellence in sciences excellence in reading just basic education okay what i've seen tonight

135is focus that is completely we didn't talk about all those things that we are sending our students to school for to learn about i know each and every one of you have the best intentions and are looking out for a kid i'm saying that this whole focus on racial division is tearing our community apart thank you [Applause] hi kimberly gallagher 1537 hillside drive i'm here to speak tonight for all the community members who are unable to be here in person as you can see i needed to bring my children here tonight to speak at the public comments this was a difficult decision as i knew my children would be better at home so they could go to bed at their normal time but i wanted to make a point to the administration and the board

136not everyone is able to make the same decision that i did the change in requiring in-person comments strangles the voice of the community and limits engagement the administration and board of education always speaks of equity in school for students but does not provide the same consideration for the community and taxpayers there are many families with a single parent who work at night who are concerned with kovid and many other reasons that do not allow for the community to show up to carusi middle school every second and fourth tuesday of the month to speak about his or her child the district and the use of our tax dollars limiting comments to people who are privileged enough to be here in person limits representation and it is unequitable the administration said recently school will not go back

137to the way it was before covet so why will the board of education meetings open comments to people open up comments to people on zoom and through email you should want to hear as many voices from our community to understand how to better serve our students thank you thank you mrs gallagher [Applause] hello my name is um jennifer sharman and i am with the cherry hill um i live in cherry hill i have four kids that have gone through cherry hill three have graduated one is still in the school i am a nurse for 27 years i work for a medicaid health insurance company so i am going to speak about the masks requirement i do understand that you guys are following orders from the governor i understand that but it's also your job to

138ensure the health and safety of our students and i we pay tax dollars for you guys to speak on our children's behalf so am here to give you some education regarding some of the the what's going on that's not reported in the news and that you're not getting from your governor for medicaid i like i said i work as a nurse as medicaid is for the weakest populations the most needy populations and a lot of our elderly and high risk populations and as a nurse i have been reviewing i review medical records and what you're being told out there is not true the everybody is saying that in the news that the flu levels are down because of mass well that's not true they weren't even testing for the flu they only tested for covid

139and anybody who tested negative was potentially coveted there's no flu that's why it doesn't exist right now and only covet exists the second thing is last year our numbers for medicaid in the population hospitalizations and er visits were down last year down not up down by 12 percent and the top two illnesses that were reported for our statistics was for sepsis and respiratory infections covid was number three and number five so the reason why there was sepsis and respiratory infections is because people are not wearing masks properly and they're wearing them prolonged and my what i am trying to speak to you guys today is to make mass optional prolonged juice is not the intended use for masks masks were intended as a nurse to be worn short term and to be changed frequently not

140to be worn all day and for hours on end you start to have especially with children for one thing because they don't wear them properly they don't take them off properly proper taking off a mask is like this okay children don't do that children lean on their faces i've seen all of you today meeting on your faces touching your mask frequently that promotes bacteria that promotes all kinds of viruses fungal infections we've seen people with having fungal infections on their faces the health of our students is at risk here and i need you guys to speak up on their behalf thank you thank you good evening my name is nick gaudio i am a resident of cherry hill i'm also an engineer i specialize in risk management and there are several points i want to

141make today one is that just like the previous speaker said i understand the state mandate on the masks beyond the state mandate prior to the mandate being issued or after the mandate is lifted please realize that there are developmental risks in the lack of childhood experiences lack of socialization lack of exercise of exercise and many other issues that far exceed the children's risks that are mitigated by wearing masks if there are even any risks mitigated in that case masks should be optional they should not be mandatory if somebody feels more comfortable wearing a mask wear a mask if you don't want to wear a mask you do not wear a mask number two my daughter is entering rosa this year going into sixth grade she just had orientation this morning she came home and told

142me that there are no lockers being used this year in middle school i don't know what the history was last year i don't care what the history was last year i've had three back surgeries several of my family members immediate family members mother and mother-in-law had back surgeries and neck surgeries as well i was so excited that my kids get to live in a time when they don't have the heavy backpacks that we had when we were kids mine used to weigh 60 pounds she was told that she's going to be carrying all of her books all of her supplies and belongings including her jacket as well throughout the year if they have to wear jacket jackets if it's cold to every class all day long talking about risks what is the risk in using

143a locker versus the risks in carrying excessively heavy belongings throughout the school day it's absolutely asinine there's no reason to close lockers not let students use lockers number three i just wanted to make sure i'd love all the board members to nod in agreement that there will never be a mandate in cherry hill public schools for children of any age to get the covid vaccine i'm just looking around no nods of agreement i'm going to assume that there is a favor and you are all in favor of children being forced to have medical procedures okay it's noted and finally the crt issue that the previous speaker spoke about i just wanted to voice my support for which he said in reference to uh not having any favor for discriminating against our students by posing them

144against each other and shaming them for the way they were born thank you very much for your time i hope you all take it to very seriously into consideration thank you mr guardia have a good day [Applause] sorry i can't speak in this good evening cherry hill school board dr milos my name is kristen sinclair i live at 89 christopher mill road medford i'm here as a member and an attorney for the child advocate coalition llc i represent parents across the state i am both a mother an attorney and a cancer patient you may not be able to tell that from the way i look now but in 2019 i was on chemotherapy i know what it's like to be immune compromised and have children and still lead a normal life i was still in

145treatment during the pandemic so when i tell you i saw the world and i knew what was going on i did i work with a partner who is a medical biostatistician of 25 years she conducts clinical trials and phase one through three drug trials you need to understand that the masks are medical devices under an emergency use authorization you have not obtained informed consent from the parents for their use you cannot compel them to give you consent or not receive a free and appropriate public education without some sort of liability so who will take that on governor murphy right now took it back from you he's doing you a favor but once his mandate is lifted these children are going to have until they're 18 plus two to come look for somebody to sue for

146these side effects that are occurring and there are class actions against murphy there are class actions forming so i'm here to let you know as a person who works in this town whose family grew up here that i appreciate everything you did last year but it's time for you to stand up to the governor i know the town may lean one certain way but you're going to have to do better for the parents who feel differently i urge you to put out a survey and if you have 40 of the parents that are asking for mask optional then let the governor know hey we have a little bit of an issue here maybe you know maybe you'll find out you have more than that i will tell you my partner says that children have a

147near zero risk if they are healthy of dying or being hospitalized for coven 19. same with the delta variant we're not seeing absurd in pediatric hospitalizations so you need to think very hard about what happens in the next few weeks i am going to be asking towns across the state to join together and unite and urge governor murphy to remove his mandate and allow them to continue with their mass optional plans i know your school was never there and that wasn't going to be your intention but i still think you might want to think about it maybe just a letter let people know that you've heard them give them a chance to be heard because if they are not heard then you've accepted the liability so i thank you for your time have a good

148evening thank you mr senpai good evening i'm gabrielle clark 1205 liberty bell drive with the change in the board meeting format the options for submitting public comments have been greatly reduced by doing so you're limiting access and creating the perception that the administration is not interested in hearing from the taxpayers of cherry hill please open up the lines of communication instead of shutting them down many people who'd like to comment do not have the ability to come in person due to having to work having to find child care or only having limited time and not having two hours in the evening to be here and waiting on public comment time allowing people to submit public comments without having to be here in person provides more equitable access next i like to comment about communication in

149general we talk about transparency and i've heard dr milosh say that he's being transparent as we embark on this new school year i'd ask you to take a critical look at what you're releasing to the public and what you're holding back since i moved into this district two and a half years ago there have been many communication missteps from the public relations fiasco about the tuna fish sandwiches to telling parents the night before in-person learning was to start that it was cancelled to blind signing the board about the renaming of the mahlberg building which was embarrassing and i imagine did not give the honorees and their families the impression that the district had done its homework certainly good communication starts with the basics of making sure that the message is correct how many times was

150a written communication sent out in the past 18 months that needed to be retracted modified and resent to fix a mistake definitely more than a handful of times i expect a district of our size to engage a professional proofreader to ensure there are no mistakes not paying attention to the small stuff does not give me a lot of confidence about the big issues as administration you can do better as a district we can do better and finally i'd like to say that communicating after the fact is not the same as transparency transparency is being open about what's going on such as sharing information as it becomes available sharing what went into the decision-making process or even saying that you don't know but are working to find a solution those are all options that help build

151trust build trust with community that you serve it sometimes feels like over communication but you need to re use all the channels that you have available so that you get the right information out the right message and you squash the rumors that are spreading misinformation out into the community i'm asking to make i'm asking you to make an extra effort to be more transparent and more professional in future communications i know that this district can do better to serve its taxpayers and ultimately our students thank you thank you mrs clark lauren greenberg 508 brian drive um i want to touch on a couple of things tonight uh the first one which i know is really first and foremost in a lot of parents minds is quarantining our quarantine is going to be necessary if kids

152are out for 10 days what's the plan for educating them we can't go through this process that you just described in answer to miss tong's question of work being you know doctors coming in and all that if kids are considered exposed and they're forced to quarantine what is the plan i have not heard that addressed anywhere in any of these presentations and i think it's something that needs to be talked about parents are working are they going to have to stay home for 10 days with their kids are they going to miss two weeks of school and how do these kids get educated during that time nobody knows we're one month from school and nobody knows the other thing that i wanted to touch on i hope that what nick said about the lockers is

153not true last year the kids were not even allowed to touch a ball during gym i'm hoping that this is not the case this year that they can go back to using paper and writing and you know touching things it we know that this does not kova doesn't spread with touch so let's not you know be so fearful that this is the way our kids have to live during their school school days it makes no sense especially given that this summer they're all doing you know somewhat normal things um the other thing is are masks going to be allowed to come off outdoors are they going to be able to play at recess or are they going to be forced to be six feet apart at recess these kids need some normalcy so please please

154give them back some of it um it's it's so necessary when you talk about their social and emotional growth this is such a big part of it um and again i just want to echo what what several other people said about community engagement and public comment um i think you should reconsider taking comments via email and zoom because there are many people that cannot get here i myself had to have a babysitter tonight um we talk so much about equity and things being equitable that's not equitable when you tell people they have to be here to comment so that's all thank you thank you hi beth becker cherry hill um regarding the the path forward plan does the district have a plan in place to respond to parents who refuse to send their children with

155a mask and or refuse to enforce proper mask wearing dr milosh said in the beginning of the meeting that it's district policy that everyone wear a mask in schools at all times and yet tonight here there are people without masks proudly unvaccinated people here without masks currently using their victory on social media to mock the district um [Music] also as a board of ed candidate uh mr gaudio should know that the board of ed cannot respond to a public comment during a session like this so regarding the african american studies course first of all i'm so glad that the district is at the forefront of this work i'm really proud to be a parent in the district but i have a few concerns is the course addressing the concerns that the students had when they

156demanded the course and what is the end game is the goal to educate the students about the african-american experience or is it to say here are the basics of what you need to know about the african-american experience and let's have a conversation about race in america um the background knowledge is important but the conversation and engaging with the world is uh as we all know the meaning of it the purpose of education um how does the course meet the needs of all students coming into this class with vastly different background understanding along this vein thank you for including a parent university um [Music] how does this course protect black students to make sure that they're not being leaned on to educate the rest of the class i was very happy to hear that the first

157days will be a lot about setting the ground rules for discussion but i'd like to hear more about this i'm also concerned um that the teachers teaching this course are just being brought into this conversation now if that's the case and didn't get the benefit of the months of work that the curriculum committee had i'd also like the district to know that there are members of this and other communities that are encouraging parents in our district to send letters to their children's teachers demanding to see lesson plans that touch on the subject of race gender equality race gender sexuality or equity as well as ask that they follow one man's formula for teaching controversial subjects a man by the way who doesn't believe children can think for themselves until seventh grade something i think any

158parent in here could dispute uh this is the latest volley and an assault on truth and public education that goes back at least to the scope's monkey trial and i'm just giving the district a heads up so that it can formulate a unified response so that teachers don't have to navigate this on their own thank you thank you mrs becker palanieris cherry hill i'm incredibly proud of our school district's commitment to cultural proficiency equity and character education and the evolving work that cps has been doing the state of new jersey puts out the list of religious holidays permitting student absence from school whereas according to the statute regarding student absence from school because of religious holidays the commissioner of education with the approval of the state board of education is charged with the responsibility of

159prescribing such rules and regulations as may be necessary to carry out the purpose of the law uh with the dates and how students cannot be penalized for missing uh school and this was adopted by the state on may 5th 2021 i'm deeply concerned about the continued practice of non-inclusive scheduling when it comes to important events on the calendar for excused absence holidays the current case being 13 full or partial back-to-school nights as well as the boe candidates forum and west seniors college night being scheduled to take place on major jewish holidays i recognize the challenge of calendar scheduling however what accommodations will be made for parents and guardians who are unable to attend back to school night this year what about the students that cannot attend college night will educate will educators be made aware

160of this ahead of time i'm sure that in a district as large and diverse as ours there are likely other communities of faith that are faced with similar challenges i would like the board and district to consider creating an advisory committee on faith in our community so that we will be tasked with finding inclusive ways for our district to schedule events to accommodate all people's faith thank you mr ciaras oh 17 edgemoor road first i'd like to talk about the bond implementation plan now i have to learn those words thank you ben okay um i am very confused and concerned at your timeline okay i i don't understand what mr garrison will be presenting at the back to school nights um maybe i'm overreacting to this but now we're talking i would really like to

161know what the bond what the board members want in this bond and i think the majority of our community members want to know you've had several great discussions on the bond okay but standing here before you in the hopes of supporting a bond i don't know what this board of education wants in a bond and i need to know that to be able to support you this is a far cry from what was done in the past as far as finding out what you want finding out what the community wants and how we can proceed to quite frankly sell a bond to get some of these buildings fixed so please help me understand how we get to this timeline and allow enough time to get the stuff submitted to the state unless they're going faster

162mr garrison i don't know if he's still in the room the other thing about attending board meetings it's not a privilege it's a commitment i made that commitment for years i'm still making that commitment my children are long done but it is a commitment it's not a privilege if you want community engagement then you come out you listen to the dialogue i'm really sorry that people have struggles i worked a full-time job had several responsibilities myself i that's still ongoing and i even made the effort to come tonight i did not like what happened when mrs sugars had to sit here read letter after letter including quite critical letters regarding her own performance as a district community member i'm not perfect and i don't expect the rest of you to be perfect but it is

163a commitment to come to these meetings and it's a commitment to participate unfortunately we're allowed to do that i would like to talk briefly about crt but the one word that really strikes me is intersectionality theory when it's used as a noun it's a theory that the overlap of various social identities such as rates and other items contributes to a specific type of systemic oppression and discrimination the other words i like are inclusive and accessible i'm running out of time but they mean to include integrate all people in all groups it also means accessible easy to approach reach enter and speak with and i hope that we can all do that respectfully thank you thank you miss seinhorn good evening my name is mary burns i'm from cherry hill i had correspondent with dr milosh

164in january in regards to this cruelty beautification program and you had stated that your intent was not to remove all the trees over 70 trees being removed from this property from november to august of this year the impact on the community was devastating you know the lack of transparency between the project manager and the community and the neighbors left a lot of questions we were told the trees were being removed because they were going to fall in students there was a fear of snipers in the trees standoff shooters it was just horrifying so we live with trees being cut down put through chippers for weeks and i'd like to know the um if there was any studies done for the impact it has on our environment i had a thousand dollars worth of damage done

165to my roof from squirrels eating through it was this just haphazardly done or was there any background checks and things and the impact it would have in our community and if you saw coming in there it's not anything but beautiful thank you mrs burns okay if there's no other public comment dr milash did you have any comments you'd like to make yes thank you mrs neri um thank you for everybody coming out to the meetings now before i go through and just provide some responses and some generalized information to the comments that were made uh for the board members at each of your spots tonight there is a small container of tomatoes uh that were harvested from the garden that the alternative high school students and staff maintained that they plant in the spring and

166then maintained during the course of the summer vegetables are harvested we weigh them and are donated to the cherry hill food pantry the students and the staff wanted you to you know see this and and to take home some of the small tomatoes that they have harvested there are probably larger tomatoes in each one they are heirloom tomatoes they are not always the most attractive of the tomato blends but they are absolutely delicious if you've ever grown heirlooms it's intriguing how they grow and the shapes they come out you know color and that kind of stuff as you know there are community gardens and a number of our schools this is one that that runs every single year during the summer traditionally the alternative high school principal which mr giordano um ms bell who is

167her secretary uh and mrs cohen who works with me do the harvesting and the weighing and take the stuff over to the food pantry so they wanted you to know that they were thinking about you so a little gift for you from the students at the alternative high school we have done there's there's a lot of work that's been done across the district in terms of landscaping in terms of the grounds you know unfortunately the grounds in the landscaping were like the buildings often you know that appropriate pruning and maintenance and taking care of what of what it was and what it is was not done over the course of many decades so there has been a lot of work that's been done it's part of a multi-year plan which will also include the reintroduction

168of native trees and native plants you know when you specifically look at the property here at carusi there was some significant issues in the grove of trees between the tennis courts and roosevelt there was disease and damage to trees there were safety issues with trees that were hanging over the courts you know which are used for tennis and for pickleball we've had students that use them there were concerns about what was going on in the trees during the course of the nights and the weekends that could not be seen from the street there was some some issues with some of the invasive plants that were in there that were choking out uh you know the trees and and causing additional issues so there have been trees taken down and and things done throughout the community

169a community like ours um you know especially where you have uh more mature trees you know we've seen in storms throughout the community over the last few years as trees have come down and caused pretty significant damage um you know in the community so as stewards and is trying to be good stewards you know the land part of our responsibility is in order for things to be healthy they have to be pruned they have to be well cared for and taken care of so they can be healthy and continue to thrive and continue to grow we talked about the bond mr avaria gave an extensive update tonight there will be additional information i am sure that will continue to come out there is a lot of information that is available about work that needs to

170be done as i mentioned earlier with mr avaria on the district website you can find the long-range facilities presentation that was done a lot of information from the previous bond and there will be ongoing public discussions and that will come to a time uh when the board makes a firm commitment about what will be included in the bond and as mrs neary said uh in her comments earlier in the evening there is not a bond that is built there's not a bond that's been constructed that does not it is not there we are aware of the problems that exist and the issues that need to be addressed in terms of facilities but there is not a bond that has been constructed we will certainly go back with the principles when we are together we'll have

171all the principles together at the end of this month on the 23rd and 24th of august and we'll certainly review the holidays we'll also work with our community partners that also schedule events and work with them to be cognizant and aware when scheduling about holidays the african american studies course there are multi-layers about what we expect with that class we do believe that the course addresses the concerns and goes well beyond the concerns that were raised by students by alums and by community members in terms of what has been researched and what has been prepared you know there are um it's a multi-layered approach in terms of the learning that we want students to be able to do during their course of their time not just in that class but within our school communities during

172the meeting that dr morton ran yesterday with the road forward committee there were discussions about sharing of materials and about supplies and about what that would look like at the schools and the recommendation is for supplies to be able to be shared phys ed other classes were appropriate to go along with the reinforcement of proper hand hygiene you know and making sure that we are cleaning and doing what is appropriate but also involves the use of equipment outside uh and the use of equipment in pe uh expect when we have the there's a draft of the continuity of learning plan that is online i expect that when that's presented in final in in a final status on the 24th of august that in there will be the plan for what will quarantine look like we've

173received guidelines and the guidelines at this point have not changed regarding quarantine the only thing and mrs weddington i don't know whether you can address i know that there was discussion about close contact that if if a child that is positive and then close contact as long as everybody is masked has that changed that has not changed the department of health provided some updated guidance but that has not changed the changes for people that are vaccinated not for not for unvaccinated okay so we'll review in the continuity of learning plan to make sure that the rest of that is uh updated can we always strive to improve our communication um sometimes i will say that transparency is messy um you know and and i think you know this board for sure during the course of

174the last year and what we have done has tried to be as clear and put information as we have it and we know it out there as soon as um you know we know what it is and and where it is you know sometimes that certainly does look messy i agree for that um if there are questions about children that have attended orientations uh there are questions about what was said in those orientations or about what lockers look like or anything specific uh encourage parents to contact the principal of that building directly and have that conversation about what's going on the in-person comments there were comments about critical race theory uh in cherry public schools you know and and um that so the curriculum for the african-american studies class that was that was uh discussed

175tonight as well as the rest of our curriculum uh is curriculum that we write it's done internally we rely on the experts that we have in our school district not just the the small men the few members of our administrative team but the experts the the classroom teachers we work with with folks from the outside to provide their expertise and perspective for us and then it's our staff members and it's people from cherry hill that actually are writing the curriculum we are not using critical race theory in ontario public schools um and i will say that at every meeting we are not using critical race theory in cherry hill public schools that has not been adopted it's not appropriate to be used in in a school setting at this level it's something that a collegiate

176and honestly at a graduate level where it's applicable to be employed with students and for con for discussion we are not using critical race theory if folks tell you that we are they are misinformed or they are refusing to listen um to what it is that we are saying they can look at our curriculum that's online and we have it through rubicon atlas the african-american studies is not available yet because it doesn't you know that we're going through the formal approval process we're not using critical race theory in classrooms critical race theory also is not a synonym for diversity or for equity or for inclusion or for a host of other words that go through ontario public school district has done incredible work in the area of cultural proficiency equity character education there is a

177long straining standing tradition of it being addressed uh involving people from the community involving students involving staff members within cherry hill critical race theory is not the premise of the course it was not part of the discussion about why the course was going to be created it's not it's not part of the discussion with a companion course that's being developed as well in terms of social justice uh it's not part of it the african-american studies course is an extension of what is expected by the amistad commission mandate which is a state mandate passed in 2002 right new jersey was the first state in the country to require the teaching of african american studies in african american history in public schools this is a national natural progression of that education we've received similar comments i've received

178emails we've received calls from people within the community from outside the community that have talked about critical race theory um and honestly it's a it's a false narrative that people are trying to create it certainly is a national discussion that's going on there is no doubt about that and i know that that you know as many national things do that comes down into the community here in cherry hill it's a false narrative and for people to continue to say that is wrong it's not appropriate it's incorrect and it's baseless it is baseless in what they are saying we don't indoctrinate students that's not our role we teach students we educate students that's not different today than when the public school district opened we're not here to indoctrinate students in any one political way or in

179any one line of thought we are here to expose to educate and to provide opportunity for students to learn and to thrive and to become better people right to go out and make the world a better place so we'll go through the mission statement that i shared in the presentation earlier right we're very clear about what it is that we do indoctrination has nothing to do with what goes on in a public school district i would also contend the definition that was read of critical race theory is not an appropriate definition either but that's a separate piece to go through we do use the new jersey student learning standards we have had concerns raised about you know what's taught in health education there are mandates there are standards that are there i'm sure that we'll

180continue to hear for people that have questions it definitely looks different now in terms of what's taught what's educated today than it ever has been before we always welcome conversations we are always willing to meet with anybody i will meet with folks i will talk with folks members of the central administrative team we have staff members that are willing to sit down and to talk with people to answer those questions all people have to do is reach out and to contact us but again you know the the negative narrative that continues to try to be perpetuated continues to try to be forced to the front or to be brought forward it doesn't exist here in cherry hill right and and honestly it's something that i feel we feel as a as a district as a

181group again this board of education took the step to make african-american studies a graduation requirement at the high school level an incredible step right outlining the commitment that we were here the board of education last october adopted an anti-racism policy right for very specific reasons and to show the commitment that the school district has we can and we will continue to do better um [Music] about the school start time again there's there's a discussion that's taking place on thursday afternoon um dr morton dr morton dr perry mrs neary and i are meeting i think electronically right electronically with a group of students um dr morton as the assistant superintendent part of his direct responsibilities are overseeing the secondary schools he'll be working with dr damon who's the principal of high school west and dr perry

182who's the principal of high school east we'll be convening committees of students they will look at school start times and school end times because we need to talk about start time you have to talk about end time they'll be going through discussion about that that'll start in september eventually that'll grow and there'll be parents involved there'll be staff members involved they'll be reported out to the board later in the fall i think that is dr mahan dr morton miss mallory that's it right all right thank you mrs near oh you know what mrs near can i also so i was gonna didn't really fit in the presentation i didn't want to interrupt dr mayhen's presentation but i have one of my favorite quotes a james baldwin quote so last week last monday was james baldwin's

183birthday um and he was deceased but august 2nd was his birthday so my favorite james baldwin quotes for folks to think about is it is certain in any case that ignorance allied with power is the most ferocious enemy justice can have dr mayhen shared a baldwin quote at the end of her presentation this is one of my favorite album quotes so that kind of struck me as she was presenting thank you mrs neri thank you dr malash well that brings us to the end of our meeting we don't have any items for second executive session this evening so i would like to make a motion to adjourn do i have a second mrs stern all in favor okay great thank you