Dover Public Schools BOE Meeting - 8-17-2021

001thank you thank you so much we're trying to test it test one two three miss mendez when you speak on that microphone you may need to come really close to it so you may want to keep your mask on yes okay no problem yes because it's annoying microphone you know what you may be tested while they're testing yes go ahead hello can you hear me my name is daniella mendez and i'm here today seeking an appointment to dover's board of education i'm going to start by sharing with you some details of my environment growing up my mother who is italian-american battled with a drug addiction and was in and out of jail my father who is puerto rican was distracted by women and fast money so i was i was raised by my grandma or

002as i call her agualita she did the best she could as far as providing food love and shelter i remember coming home from school being bullied and smelling the rice beans and fried pork chops she freshly prepared for me and in that moment the stress would disappear i was important to my abuelita and that means more to me than she will ever know but i was alone in figuring out how to navigate life growing up in a low-income environment and questioning my identity i'll always remember one classroom activity in elementary school where the teacher instructed the class to write a letter to one of our classmates i wrote a letter to a boy who would play with me during recess one of my poorly put together sentences was i like you shortly after handing in

003the assignment i was called to the guidance counselor's office scolded for using those words in my letter and suspended now imagine the trauma of being six or seven years old and writing an innocent letter to someone you think is cool and just because you are both identified as the same gender you get suspended these were adults tasked with educating and caring for the future generation stealing a child's innocence and creating a lifetime of trauma by forcing their ignorant adult beliefs on children as the years went by although the odds were stalked against me i was able to slowly figure out who i am i was able to meet students who struggled with being othered by the school system and their peers just like me we became a support system for each other since all the

004adults in the school district failed us eventually the pressures of school bullying and an identity journey left me without the support necessary to graduate from a traditional high school i earned a general education diploma instead since then i made a promise to be a creator of change i made a promise to serve my community and all those who like me growing up dealt with mental health issues poverty homelessness bullying and discrimination which led me to begin studying social work with a specialty in mental health i became the president of the lgbtq alliance in college where i was able to help bring safe spaces to the college and create a support network for anyone who struggled with mental health issues bullying and discrimination then i was presented with the opportunity to share my story on national

005tv and travel the country meeting and performing for people so i did just that in the hopes to offer anyone like me a light at the end of the tunnel and let them know that it does get better i then went on to compete for the title of miss gay new jersey in 2016 and i won with that title i became the spokesperson for the beacon light fund a non-profit organization that assists those living with hiv and aids i traveled up and down the state of new jersey meeting people and performing for them in the hopes that through my art i could make them forget about their problems for just a minute just like my abuelita would through her cooking after my contract as miss gay new jersey was up i went on to secure

006a position on the board of the beacon light fund and in the years that followed we were able to raise thousands of dollars to assist those struggling with hiv and aids in the tri-state area i had the honor of being a part of a team that has organized and facilitated food drives to feed communities struggling during the holidays we also put together clothing and wig drives to set low income and marginalized communities up for success so that brings me to present day i am here seeking appointment to the board of education of dover because this is the community i fell in love with many years ago so many of my closest friends grew up here they're actually here today and i have the honor of calling dover home for the past few years i want

007to serve the dover school community and help ensure that all students have the tools to navigate the school system including those students who may be struggling with their gender and sexual identity i am also running for one of the three-year term seats my name will appear on the november 2021 ballots for all dover residents uncontested demonstrating my long-term commitment to the dover school community my candidacy coincides with the implementation of the new state mandated diversity and inclusion curriculum which promotes and i quote economic diversity equity inclusion tolerance and belonging in connection with gender and sexual orientation race and ethnicity disabilities and religious tolerance according to the victory fund there are currently 986 lgbtq elected officials in the country or 0.19 of all elected officials with the lgbtq community making up over six percent of the

008total population there needs to be an estimated 28 000 more lgbtq lgbtq people in elected office to achieve equitable representation i will potentially be the first transgender elected official in morris county and possibly new jersey my run for office sends a message to all that anything is possible i commit to becoming a certified board member to the new jersey school board association and to contributing to the health healthy working relationships between the board the district and our community i commit to working together with the board the district and our community to continue the mission and vision of welcoming all and providing opportunities for our children in a safe and accepting learning environment to become creative empathetic resilient and who choose to make an impact i hope to be appointed so i can get started on

009learning more about the district and the board now instead of waiting until the uncontested election and starting january 2022 thank you all for considering me i'm daniella mendez peace and love thank you miss mendes we're going to hear from mr robles good evening um i guess the questions are at the end after i speak yes okay great thank you uh once again for giving me the opportunity to be before you this this evening it's great to see you all in person it's been a while and i want to share that you know we recognize the efforts that you guys have gone through to bring the meetings in person uh it doesn't go for i don't take that for granted but i appreciate the work that you guys are doing and also the the staff in

010the schools and everything like that really appreciate it so once again i'm before you to offer my intention to run for the board hopefully you guys consider me uh as you know i've lived in the community for over 35 years my family we all grew up in the dover community and graduated from the dover school system we really believe that the dover school system is improving and going in the correct direction i think a lot of that effort comes from yours your hands and obviously the the students who are very well taught and i think the district is really doing a great job in raising our students much better than it was many years ago however i would like to emphasize that when i was in school many years ago as well i believe what

011i received in this school district was uh really well and served me well and to develop into the career that i was able to uh work for for the last 20 years at a pharmaceutical company and i believe the leadership that i gained that experience from my pharmaceutical experience at the company that i work for is something that can be valuable to the board of education position that you guys have open i've been able to serve in the community as well volunteer in many occasions my family is very involved in the community and we look forward to any opportunity that we can to serve the community to be part of the community and living here we obviously have a vested interest in the work that the board of education does our daughter who attends academy

012street school values the work that is being done at the board of education level and obviously it impacts not only her but all the students in the district so my interest is not only with the students it's with the community i think as a member of this community for so many years i have seen the good and the bad and i think we are in a better place now and we can get to an even better situation than we are i know it's not going to be easy and i know that the efforts that you guys are going through in making some of the decisions that you're making for the schools for the community are very important and i want to be a part of that i know the last time i was serving with

013you all it was on a temporary position as well i'm looking forward to if given the opportunity to also put my name on the ballot for november i know that right now that's not what we're talking about at this moment but i want to take the opportunity to let you know that i'm interested to make this a long-term commitment and obviously this temporary position it's something that i think will be a step forward towards that accomplishment if i'm given the opportunity to do that thank you for the moment that you've given me to serve in my previous tenure i think what i showed in my time here was commitment and a valuable expertise in many areas that perhaps were of a good uh influence in the board position that i fulfilled i'm hoping that if

014i'm given this opportunity once again to do nothing less and do more than what i did last time and really i appreciate your time and i look forward to engaging with you all if i'm given this opportunity thank you once again and have a good evening thank you mr robles board at this time we would um we as the table would need to have a motion to nominate someone and then we would have a second and then we would have a discussion questions and what yes go ahead i think if you're going to have any questions you want to have questions do you want to have questions before the nomination if the board wants that question correct yes if we ask one candidate one question that same question needs to be answered by both does

015the board want to ask questions um prior to nominations ms if i may i i would like the opportunity for the board to ask questions before a nomination thank you miss viveros did you say something i was just asking if if we were able to make a motion at this time i would like to make one okay one second uh ms viveros we're asking board members if um they may have questions before nominations um mr odes would you be interested in hearing questions from the board before we nominate yes or no yes miss mullen yes miss nutting yes all right miss ruiz you made your point um mr miller yes and dr cena yes okay um and miss viveros on the phone would you like to hear it perfect all right so if um someone

016can go ahead and ask our candidates questions and you too can come up and be ready to the microphone to answer them for us please who would like to go first questions comments if i may miss grasalas yes uh miss um bruce i want to call you miss carol go ahead thank you um and thank you mr robles and miss mendes for your interest in serving on the board and your contributions to our community um would you please share with us um why you did file for the november election or or did not do so but but still plan um to run for the vacancies open in november again the question it goes to both candidates we may go in the same order we were before um your question was why did i file right

017why did or didn't you file um for the november election well thank you for your question i filed because like i said in my statement um i made a promise to be a creator of change and this is my community and this is my first step in being a creator of change thank you mr robles i plan to uh put in my name as a writing candidate because i think it's valuable opportunity to be an influencer of the work that the board of education is doing i think my experience from last time showed me that it's really we need candidates who are experienced in leading by example and also willing to get their hands you know involved in the work that you guys are doing and i think my experience from last time showed me

018that that's the kind of work i want to be doing for the near future thank you mr robles any other board member have questions or comments i would like to ask a question of both of you candidates what is unique about you um that you haven't mentioned already what what do you bring to the entire district for our dover students i didn't mention it specifically but i think what is unique about me is i have a unique understanding of marginalized communities i have a unique understanding of communities that aren't always given a voice because i come from that community um so that's what i bring to the table i bring a unique understanding a fresh perspective thank you ms mendes mr robles i would say that the unique uh experience that i bring is having

019been raised in this community i have seen the struggles of students near me i've seen my own struggles and i'm hoping that that's something that i can use to identify with the student community and they can see in in myself someone who is willing to do whatever it takes to help them get to where they want to get to our students and up after school as well so it's not just a member of the board but someone who lived the experience here in dover perfect thank you both okay is that it any other questions i just have a clarifying question if i may miss chrysalis will the board have the opportunity to discuss before the motion or after the motion so typically would be during our discussions after the first motion second motion and the

020discussion okay yes say that again if you're going to do it as a motion one second ms as a formal motion then typically the discussion will be while that motion correct ms viveros yes if i have a question for the two candidates if i may yes please go ahead what are two of your top goals for our children perfect thank you did both of you hear that okay so she asked what are two of our top goals for the children correct um i don't think that at this moment it's fair for me to list any goals um i think that i would like to have the opportunity if i'm appointed and when i do take a seat to sit down with each of you as a collective and figure out what are the issues facing

021you know our district before i would you know make a comment on that but thank you for the question thank you ms viveros did you hear the answer okay perfect mr robles yeah i'd agree i wouldn't have any personal goals to to really bring forward at this time but i do think as a collective team my goal would be as a team to continue improving uh special education areas of our school district i think i've seen a lot of improvement recently but that would be one area that i would like to see focus or continue focus in the near term and also as we continue to expand the bilingual aspect of our education that's also an area that's very important and i think it's very valuable to a community like ours thank you all right

022i see no other um hands motions to ask questions or comments and we move forward i ask the board to please make motions to nominate your candidate yes go ahead ms viveros i would like to make a motion that we nominate benjamin robles okay is there a second for that second miss nutting okay questions comments about the motion on the table ms gorsalis if i may yes miss ruiz i of course had the privilege of serving with mr robles on this board for a few months before so i know that mr robles has some familiarity with the board of education process i'm concerned that while there are three vacancies um in november for three-year terms and one vacancy for a two-year term um and and mr robles is a very active member of our community

023and certainly could reach out to any of us to learn anything he didn't know about the board of education that he didn't file for any of those positions and a writing candidate could have a difficulty actually making it on the board i don't know if mr robles intends to write his name in opposition to one of the three members or to fill the two-year slot um either way i i i would feel more encouraged by a candidate that is fully committed to the board not just for a few months appointment but for an appointment plus a full three-year term or should there be a two-year term available so whether or not we vote to appoint mr robles i would certainly hope that he would consider writing himself in for the two-year available term allowing us

024to have a full board come january so that the three candidates who did file can be seeded in january and should he write in then be seated as well for a remaining two-year term thank you mr reece any other comments ms mullen so we know how many candidates have filed and the numbers okay i was unaware yes and ms gorsalis just to answer uh miss mullen's question if i may go ahead please um we have the privilege of of miss tia nutting and mr scott miller uh being willing to give more of their time for three more years on our board and as we heard from ms mendez she has stepped up to volunteer her time for three years what we do not have is a candidate on who has filed for the two-year remaining

025term that was left vacant by our colleague melissa giraldo does that answer your question ms mullen perfect are there any other questions or comments about the motion we have on the table all right then we are ready to move with our vote mr minkowicz please miss catano yes mr miller before i vote i just want to say both candidates are both qualified to be on this board i've worked with mr robles and so i have to choose experience at this time for to fill the vacancies so it would be yes ms mullen yes and i do want to echo what mr miller said we have very passionate individuals who really care about our community which just makes me feel wonderful so but yes ms nutting yes miss ruiz no dr senor thank you both for

026putting your names out there i know that isn't uncomfortable and is it requires a fair bit of bravery um but i vote no miss riveros yes miss gracalis no five yes and three no motion carries that means that uh mr robles you have been voting uh voted on to the board congratulations ms mendes thank you so much for your time i look forward to your um campaign thank you yes ms grasalis if i may yes ms ruiz while the motion carried i still would like to make a statement before we take the oath of mr robles yes go ahead mrs rice thank you this is going to be a little tough for me you guys know i get or you folks know i get emotional i apologize when i first joined the dover board of

027education in the laws regarding the rights of transgender students were different i listened with frustration to reports of the way children children's gender identities and their corresponding special needs were ignored i spoke out and my pro protestations fell on deaf ears i was told nothing could be done parents rights had to be protected there weren't enough restrooms the strauss esme policy on the use of bathrooms was less controversial than the inclusive policy drafted by garden state equality these were just some of the justifications i received in response to my protest a lot has changed since then in 2018 governor murphy expanded the law against discrimination i'll refer to that as led and it more broadly protects a person's gender identity or expression including that of children of our students specifically lad not only prohibits discrimination

028against students based on their gender identity or expression it mandates that students in public schools be permitted to use sex-segregated facilities such as bathrooms and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity or expression notably new jersey school districts now have policies regarding the rights of all students including lgbtq plus identifying students which closely match the policy of the so-called controversial guard and state equality policy that was originally drafted in lgbtq inclusive education became mandatory in new jersey the makeup of our board has also changed significantly in these past two years today we have a more diverse board and the opportunity to appoint a new board member and i'm so grateful that we have two candidates willing to step up and join us in this work those of us that have ever tried to recruit

029new board members can agree it is a difficult task how do you convince working parents who may already be volunteering their time with the pta or a community organization to give as much as 20 hours per week to boardwalk work to be subjected to close scrutiny and criticism to be required to take vacation days from work and spend weekends at new jersey school board association trainings and to be responsible for the student achievement of over 3000 students for three years straight with no financial compensation for their time thankfully daniella bendez did not have to be recruited and no one had to convince her she stepped on up on her own to ask how can i serve and i'm looking forward to her election in january um when she announced her candidacy and in her testimony

030today she shared her gender identity she did not have to nor is her gender identity a factor for us to consider in our deliberations as to whether to appoint her on the board but in sharing her gender identity here publicly in a board of education meeting she opened up herself to our entire community and inspired others in our community to step up and serve and hopefully inspired our students to know that their gender identity is not a barrier and that they too can step up to serve in whatever way they wish and that our community will welcome them and accept them and celebrate them as we did with ms mendez today so i i just wanted to note that historic moment in our board's history and in our communities history um and celebrate even though

031i didn't focus on you mr robles celebrate your willingness to serve and welcome you i just could not let miss mendes's courage and candace candidacy um go without comment you know i've always got something to say so thank you for listening thank you mr miller i just want to say if there were two positions to vote for today i'd be voting yes to both and if i get elected i look forward to working with you miss mendes thank you may we proceed with the oath at this time for mr robles oh okay so i'm freezing cold so if i shake a little bit it's because i'm i'm freezing cold oh it's not because you're nervous combination okay i benjamin robles do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the

032constitution of the state of new jersey and that i will hear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the united states and in this state under the authority of the people so help me god i benjamin robles do swear solemnly swear that i possess the qualifications prescribed by law for the office of member of a board of education and that i am not disqualified as a voter pursuant to r.s.19 nor disqualified due to conviction of a crime or offense listed in nj njs 18a 12-1 and that i will faithfully impartially and justly perform all the duties of that office according to the best of my ability so help me god welcome mr robles to the table board of education um mr crude is going to give you some directions

033for tonight we're going to wait a few minutes for that and then we're going to move to the public comment section of the agenda the board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters to ensure fair and orderly expression of such common each statement shall be held to a time period of three minutes public comments limited to items on this agenda should be entertained for approximately 30 minutes upon the discretion of the president officer please understand that comment that public comment portions of our agenda are not structured as question and answer sessions but they are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board the board may or may not respond to public comments however all comments are

034considered and will be investigated and addressed as appropriate please be courteous and mindful for of the rights of others when providing comments comments may not be abusive obscene threatening or irrelevant please understand that students and employees have specific legal and privacy protections the board is not permitted to respond in public to comments about students or employees please be advised that you are commenting at your own risk any public comments that are directed at a particular individual or individuals could subject you to legal liability for defamation if you have a public comment please step up to the podium is there a signing sheet there needed for anything nope just state your name first name and last name for the record please we can't hear you can you come just closer to the you don't have to

035take your mask just i was going to say just come closer to the microphone nope it's it yeah miss ruiz i was going to say could you use this miss resort thank you you may want to just move down here miss reese if you want and we can just use that microphone instead thank you for your flexibility mr mccourt it's fine um i'll keep this brief i won't lie that i am a bit disappointed that um that the board did not collectively look over on that wall over there and see the word courage and choose to make an historic appointment this evening i will say having been through this process before that i know exactly what miss mendes is feeling right now experience isn't everything especially when you're considering such a short amount of time

036that is going to pass between now and january but that's okay because i look forward to being one of the many voters in november that will help make the history that this board failed to make tonight thank you thank you mr mccourt yes please please approach the microphone not the podium thank you yes sandra winter 15 harvard street dover um i also i want to read can you come closer one second 15 harvard street's over thank you sorry i should know better sandra whitner did you get that mr minkowicz thank you so i wanted to echo mr mccourt's comments of course he took the words right out of my mouth thank you tc um but i want to also congratulate mr robles on your appointment um and to ms mendez i want to say um

037having also been through this process in a similar fashion not too long ago don't let the specter of exp of the word experience stop you because even the experienced people can always learn more so like mr mccourt said i look forward to voting for you in november and i look forward to seeing you up here in january thank you very much thank you miss whitner can you hear me yes my name is maria chacon i live in 82 east blackwell street gilbert new jersey sorry i would like to share that as a parent of a child who is lgbtq and as a person who identifies herself as a lgbtq it feels like you're not at all on a lonely island a very lonely island where these kids who go through this every day suffering by

038themselves going through depression and i was hoping that we would be able to be courageous just like uh tc mccourt said um to do something outside of the norm to uh to vote somebody in that really would speak to the to the community to parents like myself or to be able to protect kids like mine so i hope that you all can educate yourself on the importance of inclusivity and diversity and how to be better role models and help our kids like for example the middle school does not have support for lgbtq i'll just bring that up right now um and i will be helping daniella on the road to getting a position on the board of education thank you very much and uh excuse my emotions but uh i'm driven by passion and for

039the love of my child thank you thank you miss chakon never excuse yourself for your emotions thank you for expressing them any other public comment or i see no other interest in providing a public comment correct i will move forward with the approval of minutes for july july 19th for special session and july 20 executive and regular session is there a motion on the table to approve those minutes so moved and mr miller second any questions or comments all right mr minkowitz roll call please ms catano yes mr miller yes ms mullen yes ms nutting yes mr ruiz yes mr robles dr cena yes ms vavaros ms grisalis yes ms grasala's point of order yes um mr robles did not have um he did not have access to those documents so i don't believe he

040is eligible to vote on those correct mr robles you may um i will stay correct if you don't have access to anything on the agenda you may abstain to all thank you dr senor communications i'm sorry ms grasala's another point of order yes what would that be i'm just unsure if we have all the accurate i know we swore mr robles in but i was under the understanding that that was pending background checks etc that we do not yet have confirmation of so i just want to be clear that any vote is a valid vote my understanding is part of his certification tonight when he was sworn in is that he is eligible and that he's not convicted of a crime ah but it is i agree it is subject to um confirmation and going

041through the criminal history review process but technically uh mr robles is eligible to vote because he's been sworn in but i had i do recommend that on items that he's unfamiliar with or hasn't been shared the information with that it would be prudent for him to abstain on those on those items thank you thank you for the point of orders uh communications right we took a vote yes is there any communications that was uh presented to the full board i have none did anyone receive any that need to share none at this time administrative reports please thank you this evening just before i provide my remarks i wanted to first of all uh thank mr minkowicz this will be his last meeting with us and thank him for his efforts in the district and certainly

042wish him the very best in his next endeavor i'd like to uh introduce to the board mr raymond slam who's with us tonight i know his family is also in attendance uh i think maybe a little one is being walked around the building as we go uh but i i asked ray if since the business administrator board secretary worked so closely with the board members if he would just provide a few introductory remarks so if you wouldn't mind right we have that microphone here at the end i think i see them coming through the door right now she was getting their personal tour uh you have to come yes pull it closer to you they just made it back in the room yes welcome she was getting a little restless but uh you've got the

043cutest audience she got dressed up for me and everything she's got a little dress on her first board meeting starting at a young age but i just wanted to introduce myself i just want to introduce myself and also say that i'm very much looking forward to joining the dover team i saw a lot of passion tonight both in the community and at the board level uh and i'm looking forward to serving the community uh and i'm looking forward to getting to know each and every one of you and just thank you very much for the opportunity and i'm very excited to start you thank you for coming and thank you for introducing us to your family we are a family here too it takes a village so we appreciate that thank you for having us

044good evening on august 6th governor murphy issued executive order 251 this executive order reinforces full-time in-person learning for all students in fall and mandates the indoor use of face masks in all schools for all students staff and visitors certain exceptions apply for students who may have specific needs for physical education classes for eating and drinking and for playing musical instruments in keeping with this order all families and staff members were advised of the mask requirement in the dover schools effective august the 9th the school district is actively monitoring health recommendations and transmission levels at both a regional and a local level the district is continuing ongoing communication with the dover department of health in fact mr igliano and myself met with the members of the department of health this morning and we are cooperating with

045zoo fall health our school doctor in sharing information concerning vaccination clinics for individuals 12 years of age and older two clinics are currently scheduled at casa puerto rico one on august the 18th tomorrow and another on august the 25th those have been publicized and we are repeating them tonight so that our public is aware of those events it is important to note that the district cannot provide a remote learning option at this time and that only specific cases of class or school quarantine may permit such an option to be employed this evening i am also happy to share some very positive and progressive updates relative to our district technology and the technology infrastructure for the dover schools prior to the end of the school year all teacher laptops were collected many of these laptops were

046at end of life or at capacity and during the month of august our teachers have been invited to the administration building where members of the technology team have provided those teachers with brand new macbook pros and have assisted the teachers in the transfer of their existing files teachers who prefer to receive their laptops upon their return to school will be provided with them at that time in conducting this rollover the district is equipping its teachers with the most current and most effective technology tools they require as they provide the very best delivery of instruction for our students last week district administration received training in the school messenger system school messenger replaces the honeywell instant alert system and will serve as the primary communication tool between our schools and our families school messenger offers some significant

047upgrades to the previous system with an ability to identify groups of students and families in a highly specific manner as an example specific participants on athletic teams or extracurricular activities or specific grade levels of students can be readily identified by the system from messages that may be pertinent only to that group the system also allows for integration of messages with the school district's social media platforms reducing the need for multiple messages to be created communication with our families continues to be among the highest priorities and our move to the system will further progress the district in this area of this summer has been an extremely busy one for our technology department and i'd like to share two other very significant upgrades as we are all aware cyber security is an area of concern for entities

048on a global national and local level this summer our school district significantly upgraded the security of its network through the palo alto firewall the district has just completed installation of this new next generation firewall where today applications can easily bypass a port-based firewall hopping ports using ssl and ssh sneaking across port 80 and using non-standard ports i hope that you're impressed mr miller that i'm using this terminology doing good app idtm addresses the true classic uh traffic classification visibility limitations that plague traditional firewalls by applying multiple classification mechanisms to the traffic stream next generation firewalls help us address our school and security risks associated with the rapidly growing number of applications traversing our network we have improved our security posture by enabling applications for users or groups of users both local mobile and remote and

049protecting the traffic against known and unknown threats and i do just have to emphasize that there probably isn't a county roundtable meeting where a school district isn't reporting issues of being hacked uh in some instances of having their funds endangered or in fact having to pay ransoms so this is an extremely important upgrade and one that we're very happy has been completed the firewall also integrates our users and devices not just ip addresses into policies creating and managing security policies based on the application and the identity of the user regardless of device or location is a more effective means of protecting our network than relying solely on port and ip address protecting against all threats both known and unknown to protect today's modern network you must address a blend of known exploits malware and spyware

050as well as completely unknown and targeted threats and this process begins by reducing the network attack surface by allowing specific applications and denying all others either implicitly through a deny or ll strategy or through explicit strategies in a final note regarding technology our district has moved to zendesk as its new help desk management system this replaces school dude this is a major upgrade and it will be a significant improvement particularly in the ease of submitting i t support requests and the ability to track the work response tickets the move to this new system underscores the importance the district places on supporting its users and our users are our families our students and our staff as we all become increasingly dependent on technology the need to address issues in a timely and effective way as they

051arise is again among our highest priorities this evening i'd also like to highlight the employment of a number of new staff we look forward to welcoming our new staff at the august 30th convocation and we are truly enthusiastic in regard to the quality and experience and skills of our newly hired administration teachers and support staff that will complement our existing outstanding dover educators i'd like to draw attention to one individual on tonight's agenda stephanie zosaia is being appointed as our grade three bilingual teacher at academy street school stephanie has been employed by dover as a class assistant and was a member of our staff who accepted the invitation to join our tcnj partnership program to become certified in bilingual education stephanie has completed the program and is our first participant to join our teaching staff

052as a result of this initiative so i'd like to congratulate stephanie and also mark that milestone which is extremely significant for us finally on tonight's agenda the board will note three generous donations many thanks to staples and to costco for their continued support of our students they are attentive and caring community partners and we thank them for their partnership i'd also like to thank home depot for their support of a new event the community day at eastover elementary and dover middle school mr jaime and members of the school staff have planned this event inviting parents and students to attend a day of planting and beautification of the grounds surrounding that school building in september home depot upon mr jaime's request actually a cold visit to the manager of the store has as graciously provided all

053the supplies that we will need this event will actively work to highlight the beauty of our schools while at the same time engaging families and strengthening the joint dedication to our grounds and facilities that serve our students each day and that completes my report thank sorry miss grasales before we move on i do have a question yes go ahead thank you um i i did email this ahead of time but then i have another one i didn't so okay if you don't have the answer to that second given our partnerships with zoo fall and st claire's might it be beneficial for our community um for the district to partner with experts at zuffa and or sinclair's to present a workshop on the vaccines pros and cons for minors in english and in spanish that is

054preferably in person but also recorded for later viewing i i guess at the beginning of the vaccine we were all saturated at the beginning of the pandemic we were all saturated with information about the virus and and the vaccine and there's just so much information right now that uh the parents in our community are having a really tough time figuring out what to do about vaccinating their children if it is this covet vaccine right i'm not talking about all vaccines because it is so new um and and maybe something like that would help them make the best decision for their family and for our community i i certainly have um i will inquire from both entities based on our meeting today with the department of health and outreach to zoo fall in regard to some

055of the ideas that came up that meeting i would imagine that both entities would be extremely available and interested in that so it's great suggestion and then along those lines dr mclaughlin mentioned that there will be two clinics what i thought i heard was that one is tomorrow august 18 and the other is august 25th both at casa puerto rico four miners specifically could you just give more detail it is anyone can attend but the flyers do emphasize uh that they are for the for the dover schools that they're targeted towards the dover schools and any individual 12 years of age or older would be able to receive their first vaccination their first vaccination clinics both the 18th and the 25th are first vaccination clinics and then the uh individuals who are receiving that vaccination

056would receive a date for a follow-up second vaccination okay and where are those flyers available i just haven't seen them but i'm not on social media they have been on social media they were also emailed to all of our parents uh but i certainly can re-send them to anyone who's interested thank you miss grasalas yes since we're interrupted um could i just take this opportunity to thank um dr mclaugh dr mclaughlin and mr igliano for many of your initiatives and um something that is very near and dear to my heart as a teacher is providing professional development for our teachers and it is wonderful to see that the fruition right that this program where we try to get as many teachers as we as possible um certified in the by to teach the bilingual program

057um it's awesome to see that to come to fruition so thank you both for that thank you to miss zosaia i'm sorry if i mispronounced that um but for her and all the other teachers that took advantage of this to further their skills and also for mr jaime for walking into home depot and asking for money so that's i think that shows uh the initiative of our administration and our teachers and really doing whatever it takes even a trip to home depot to provide the very best that they can for our students thank you thank you okay good evening i want to start tonight by acknowledging that there are only 12 days until staff report back for the 21 22 school year and there are 14 days until our students arrive time really does fly

058over the summer and this summer has been no exception to that rule a lot of work has been done by the dover administration to ensure programs are organized and ready to run positions are filled with qualified candidates and that classrooms are ready for our staff and students this is no small task given the size of our district dr mclaughlin acknowledged the technology department for all of their hard work over the summer and i would like to acknowledge a few departments as well let's begin with facilities grounds and maintenance in speaking with mr o'brien today the bulk of his department's work is beginning right now the process of preparing buildings for staff and students is challenging in a normal summer but this year was even more challenging as you know we held an expanded summer program

059where each of our schools hosted students for summer learning with that summer program now concluded the buildings and grounds department has aggressively begun to ready the buildings for students and staff for september i would also like to take a minute to express my appreciation and gratitude for our dual language teaching staff and the supporting administration for that program we have had several planning meetings with dr willam and dr field where we have continued to expand on our work to be ready to launch dual language i appreciate the teachers attention to every detail with this new initiative and to ensure our program is a successful one the building administration has worked on scheduling ordering and materials and again have taken every step to prepare for a smooth beginning i look forward to reporting back to the

060board on the successes of this program another area that i'd like to highlight is our registration office registration is always busy but this summer they've registered 148 students from june 24th to yesterday that is approximately 35 days of school with another 22 students that are waiting to complete registration this averages out to be four students a day but those numbers do not tell the whole story registration as you might know is not a quick process often our registrars are spending time with following up with families answering their questions inputting students into our student information system we appreciate all of their work that is entailed in making parents feel comfortable and secure when registering their child for school our new district translator who is with us here tonight and who has just passed her one month

061mark with the district has also been very very busy to date rosa has assisted with over 25 translations which is inclusive of multiple page documents slide presentations and also has done a variety of interpretations during meetings and phone calls i want to thank rosa for her work so far in the district she has already made a significant contribution by translating our kindergarten and first grade report cards the other day we really appreciate it thank you [Music] although my report tonight only captured a few departments or individuals i do want to thank everyone involved in getting our schools ready for staff and students to return as miss grasales said before it truly does take a village to open a school district and that village is working hard for our students right now thank you hi everybody

062there are four uh addendum items on tonight's agenda for financing facilities they just came in the last couple days uh the first one is to approve longo associates proposal for science classroom renovations at the high school in the amount of 222 thousand eight hundred and forty two and this is for the furniture so we went right to the distributor of the furniture to save uh quite a bit of money rather than put the furniture in with the bid uh so uh that was uh mr o'brien's uh doing um and it and it turned out uh to be a good idea uh the other three items are for approval of architect proposals for temporary office trailer at academy street elementary school for fifty one thousand dollars for hvac installation at academy for forty four thousand dollars

063and for hvac installation at east dover for thirty three thousand dollar thirty three thousand five hundred dollars uh the rest of my items are informational bids are being solicited this week for the science classroom renovations at dover high school the bids are due no later than september 16th transportation item bus number four was put out to bid a couple weeks ago the bus had high mileage and was in need of upkeep and repair and the bid price came in at 9 800 which uh the transportation coordinator was happy about she didn't think uh she would get that much in the bid uh another uh transportation item thomas bus company informed us that we might be eligible for a grant for our next bus whichever whenever that is to procure an electric bus at half price

064uh because of our socioeconomic status in the community uh the the company said that we we would probably be approved if the committee wishes to go that way so that'll be a discussion item at the next finance facilities transportation committee meeting and then i sent a long list of summer project items to the board i won't read all of them but i will point out a couple highlights the tennis courts refurbishing is being planned for the fall i know that has been discussion for a few months the asbestos abatement went well in the high school lobby you can see that new ceiling track and tiles were installed and it's all cleaned up and completed as well two classrooms a and b as best as tiles were removed the new tiles were installed all the playground

065in the district all the playgrounds in the district were inspected and repairs were done all the school gym equipment has been inspected and repairs are scheduled for august 30th we do have a new security burglar alarm system throughout the district that is all under one company and all under one system so it all um ties in with each other the prior systems were a hodgepodge of a couple companies and this is going to work much better uh last two items uh i'll mention this for maddie uh because he saved some money he changed the elevator company and uh saved the district half the contract cost of the old elevator company and lastly he removed a bunch of dangerous trees from an element from east over and from academy street so that's my report it's a

066great report thank you miss chrysalis i do have a question uh yes miss ruth thank you i didn't email this before because it just came to me so i understand if there's no ready response just yet regarding bus number i'm sorry regarding the electric bus we were informed that we may be eligible for a grant that would cover half the price of the electric bus and then obviously we would pay the other half so my questions are do we have any evidence that an electric bus would improve or or decrease the air pollution no noise pollution in our community would an electric bus raise or lower our insurance costs and i don't know anything about pricing for buses let alone electric buses is an electric bus at half the price more the same or less

067than a regular bus at full price those are excellent questions what i would suggest if if anyone else has questions can you please email those those questions and if anyone else has questions uh regarding the electric bus please email them to me i'll put a list together and when we get the finance and facilities committee to discuss it we will have the representative from the bus company uh be available uh whether in person or uh virtually and that that's a good idea because they are extremely expensive the electric buses are about 300 000 and the uh conventional buses if you get a diesel up probably about 120 000 so that's a great question apparently they would provide all of the hook-up and auxiliary things like a charging station he said that all that all comes

068with the grant so uh those are excellent questions please please forward them to me ms yes go ahead um this question i apologize again as with ms ruiz this just came to me um with the renovations to the tennis courts being completed in the fall does that preclude i think it's girls in the fall but whichever girls or boys tennis occurring in the fall because i know that was on our plan this year yes so it's girls tennis in the fall boys tennis in the spring so this we are moving ahead with our new tennis team and we actually just hired a girls tennis coach uh which is exciting someone with a lot of experience um so this year uh the team will be practicing coming together and doing scrimmages they will not be competing

069interscholastically because of the condition of the courts which are extremely poor we will be transporting our students to cooperative sites and mr bullock mentioned several to me that he is working on and is optimistic that we will have so that we can move forward with the program because the court repairs require a certain temperature for those repairs to be done and we want to make sure that that we get this done in time so that at least for this spring we can move forward without having to borrow anybody else's space so so that's where we stand with the with we also i do need to let you know that for a number of months we have been trying to get a contractor to give us quotes on the court but almost every contracting situation right

070now has become extremely difficult in terms of getting any work done so we do we do have a a current quote uh that i know that um that mr o'brien is looking at as a matter of fact he showed it to our we had a meeting with our architect this week and he showed it to him and they're looking at it just to add some of the specifications for feedback there was a previous question from the board about the tennis courts so it's a good opportunity to answer that i and i apologize i forget who asked but someone asked me if our tennis courts were available to the public and they uh they are they will be uh as soon as they're safe uh for anyone to be on some of the cracks are pretty

071significant and um i'm gonna show off a little knowledge that i just gained i understand that the ground was not properly tapped when the when the courts were initially installed meaning that they were installed along a slope that was still settling so that produces cracks in very uneven areas however the when the courts are repaired there will be areas that are pre-designed so that there's give and take and that the cracks won't reestablish um that's the extent of my my knowledge uh but i did did pick that up yesterday uh when we were examining the issue but i do want to answer the question about the public i know there was a period of time that the courts were locked i understand that was in regard to a specific situation which is no longer um

072around and uh we will when those reports are redone they will be open to the public and we'll have similar signage that we have on our track to inform the public when they can use them thank you very much for that very thorough answer miss chrysalis yes thanks molly i have a question about the temporary offices at academy street um who will be in them and has that changed what you thought there isn't any space in academy street and up until this point when the guidance counselor has visited academy street because we haven't had anyone permanently housed there they have used mr marion's office to do counseling sessions so um that's one issue we also have a new uh school community liaison we have a new sro and we also have had a traditional shortage

073we've had an ongoing shortage of speech therapy space so the trailers would be used for offices for those individuals and they would also be used for speech and language thank you on on that note um dr mclaughlin would the space that's being freed up by those offices be used for classrooms so the offices no offices are being moved out of academy you're just creating a new office space yes yeah there's no we're not gaining anything inside the school okay thank you may we move forward with uh board of education reports yes mr miller you're the first one okay i had a mars county educational services commission meeting last wednesday we conducted normal business but nothing uh to report to the board tonight thank you miseries legislative report please thank you miss grasales on july 23

0742021 governor murphy signed the laura wooten law which requires civic construction at the middle school level currently new jersey is one of a minority of states that does not require civics instruction for middle school students under the legislation the new jersey center for civic education at rutgers university will be directed to prepare civics curriculum guidelines for local school boards ensuring that middle and high school students study the values and principles underlying the u.s system of constitutional democracy the function of government and the role of a citizen in a democratic society the new law also directs um the civics education center at rutgers to provide professional development and other resources for high school social social studies teachers to fulfill the requirements of integrating civics into the existing united states history course beginning in 2022 2023 each

075board of education is required to provide a course of study in civics at the appropriate grade level and importantly this law honors laura wooten the longest continuously serving poll worker in u.s history she worked the polls in new jersey for 79 years before passing away in 2019. on august 6 2021 governor murphy signed an executive order requiring all students in preschool through 12th grade as well as teachers staff members and visitors to wear masks inside all schools dr mclaughlin spoke uh about our covet precautions so i won't dive into them too much by w i would like to share that this mandate was in response to the seven day average for newly confirmed cases of covet 19 rising to five times higher than it was in july and covid related hospitalizations more than doubled in

076the past month and this mass mandate is in line with the recommendations of the center for disease control and the american academy of pediatrics according to the cdc although fewer children have been infected with covid compared to adults children can still be infected with the virus get sick from covet 19 and spread it to others and children under the age of 12 are not currently eligible to be vaccinated according to the our new jersey health commissioner less than half of the eligible children between the ages of 12 and 18 have received the vaccine in new jersey concludes your report thank you miss nutting there's nothing to report at this time we haven't had a meeting nothing from morris county njsba now thank you uh dr mike blochman nothing to report ms gorsalis yes mrs marlon

077i attended the connecting dover meeting and we have a new organization offering resources in morris county in that center for great expectations and they have a lot of resources just point of order we'll do it during community relations oh okay community relations thank you administrative approval is there a motion to approve a through b on our agenda so moved second thank you mr miller and miss nutting any questions comments about these um items none that i see okay uh mr minkowicz may we have roll call please ms catano yes mr miller yes ms mullen yes ms nutting yes mr ruiz yes mr robles of stein dr saner yes ms riveros yes miss grisalis yes i'm very excited and i want to thank mr jaime for his out of the box thinking and really putting himself

078out there for our kids so thank you very much mr jaime if you're seeing this miss molly may i ask you to lead personnel items no but i can thank you i move upon the recommendation of the superintendent the board approves the following personnel uh resolutions and that's one through 37. one item has been hand carried tonight and i believe that is item 37. perfect yes i can read 37. um item number 37 approves daniel kerr as interim principal at dover high school at a per diem rate of five hundred dollars effective august 19 2021 is there a second second thank you miss nutting second are there questions or comments about those approvals uh dr mclaughlin would you um walk us through the process in regards to the um uh assignment for the hand carry

079motion sure yes we um we have a temporary need at the at the high school in the principal position in i believe early july it was posted as an anticipated need at that time we were not quite sure of what the time frame would be but we believe at this time we will have a need until october the first i did not put an end date on the resolution however because sometimes particularly when when needs are medical in nature they they extend so the individual has a start date with a per diem rate that is the same rate that we offered to our last interim principal when we had a need at the middle school thank you for that mr minkowicz may we have roll call please ms catano yes mr miller yes mrs mullen

080yes ms nutting yes ms ruiz yes mr robles olefstein dr saner yes mrs riveros yes ms grisalis yes ms cattano may you update us on negotiations please yes uh thank you mr sales we are finalizing the um memorandum of agreement we just got some dates to meet with the dssa in september and more to come on that thank you miss nutting's curriculum and co-curricular please yes we did not have a meeting this month but we do have some approvals and some attachments that were received i would like to make a motion for the board to approve the following resolutions 1 through 15 i believe second comments or questions about those agenda items mr minkerwig's role call please ms catano yes mr miller yes mrs mullen yes ms nutting yes mr ruiz yes mr robles hell

081of stain dr saner yes ms faveras yes ms chrystallis yes ms malin may you uh want to hold on communal relations hold on what i i do have something yep that's where i was going with community relations go ahead mr miller um well just to say that we didn't meet but i did get some dates that i'll be sharing with the committee to meet with mine hill's community relations committee so i'll be sending that out tomorrow and miss mullen if you could give us the report on connecting dover i attended the connecting dover meeting july 21st and there's a new organization that's now servicing morris county center for great expectations and they provide a lot of support to a variety of catchments from early health health relationships to support trauma substance use individuals to helping

082out young mothers they have telehouse prenatal and postpartum support and they've have a partnership with rutgers so they have been servicing somerset hunterton i believed middlesex and now they have a grant to service morris county and then bob howitt who has provided a lot of resources to our community over the years in helping students connect with college and the work he has done has started a little spin-off in hackettstown so he's providing a resource to those individuals hispanic individual families trying to network um establishing a networking system up there and there's going to be a free cultural event in dover october 9th 11 to 3 and you'll be getting flyers and i believe some of our staff and students might be participating in that event so it should be exciting and rental assistance is available

083and there's resources to help individuals with that process thank you and there's a meeting tomorrow if anybody wants to go you know just let me know thank you both for that update mr salas i have something as well okay we've talked about um having at least one board member at the town hall meetings i was present not in my role as a board member but as a just an individual resident but thought it would be exciting for everyone to know that at the town board of aldermen and mayor's meeting the last one i think was august 10th sorry i took notes on on my phone um there was uh there was there was a presentation about upgrades to our community parks water works jfk and crescent field which of course would be a benefit to

084our our entire community and our school community so i wanted to share that um and about vaccine clinics as well which we heard about today so i just wanted to share that and hope that um one of us will be present at the next meeting thank you i believe we had assigned the community relations with that duty did we not but we also had discussions on the fact that the the real i'm sorry the public saying that they can't hear you well so speak a little closer louder i i think one of the things that we had talked about was that the real impact on the school board is really the planning board and since i'm a member of the planning board that was one of the things that i would be bringing forward but

085um and i think we also talked about all the meetings that we are attending i don't know that we were going to attend the board the the town meeting because that is a more dedicated amount of time so that's something that maybe we can discuss going forward if there we get another board member that wants to on the committee that would go to the town meetings that would be great yeah i think we we had that discussion i think it's important for us to solidify what we're going to do i think our presence at the town hall is important so um if one of us can think about if they can commit to that um uh make that commitment and maybe we can make that decision ms grisalis if i may sorry dr sander go

086ahead hold on doctor cena go ahead and mr solis uh that is a lengthy commitment uh the attendance at the town meetings is a lengthy commitment that those are long meetings um one suggestion may be that each board member attends one meeting per year um to kind of share the wealth or the responsibility so we could talk about you know having a sign-up sheet or something like that so we can all participate that's a great great idea thank you ms ruiz um my recollection is that we agreed that the community relations committee would attend the mine hill board of education meeting the victory gardens town hall meeting and the dover town hall meeting clearly that's not so i do request that at some time soon we finalize and and i would support dr saner's suggestion

087because it is a big commitment of time in addition to our commitment of time so and one of the things i wanted to bring up in new business is our meetings not conflicting with their meetings um so um doctor saying can i ask you to start that sign-in sheet and make sure all of us sign up um for um to cover a town hall starting next month if yeah because they already met for august thank you right everyone in agreement with that i feel like i made that decision on my own but i wanted to make sure that we're all on board with that yes and it was easier when you could watch it online yes yeah your time changed again you still can you can but not live you could the last town hall

088meeting was not um was not broadcast yeah but i hope that future ones will i i don't know yeah okay can we move forward with our policy ms vivero's um update you're on the microphone ms viveros thank you mr silas i would like to make a motion that the board approves the following resolution number one and number two second thank you miss muller for the second are there comments or questions about the policy items none okay mr minkowitz but we have roll call please ms catano yes mr miller yes ms mullen yes miss nutting yes miss ruiz yes mr robots out of stain dr saner yes mrs faveros yes ms grusalis yes miss mullen finance and facilities please move that the board approves the following resolutions one through eleven seconds fifth hold on a second

089one through fifteen taking into account the hand carries the addendum that we received yep one sheet addendum thank you yes thank you team right here yeah one through 15. i see miss mullen motion who's second thank you second miss yes perfect thank you comments questions we do you know we want to acknowledge the wonderful annual scholarship contribution from douglas engineering who just has been helping our students over the years and then when they finish giving them employment if they wanted it's been such a great partnership for our students so that again is exciting and the 12 through 15 where it's already discussed earlier perfect uh go ahead uh are you done miss mullen yes okay dr cena uh thank you mr sales um i had a question regarding uh disbursements of fifty dollars for phone

090internet and networking could you explain this please for i think 14 staff members yes we um we made a change for staff members who previously had district provided phones which uh for which we paid for the device and the data charges each month we moved to a reimbursement for those individuals so that for a number of reasons one sometimes the phones were not compatible with our other technology in most cases it required the individuals to have two different phones uh with two different numbers uh there was a management of phone numbers that was required since the phone numbers remained in the district even if a person left meaning that phone numbers would be reassigned and it also interfered with contacts that our vendors and other individuals who communicated with the district might have had for

091folks who were in the district so we move to the uh the reimbursement which allows individuals to utilize their cell phones but acknowledges the fact that school business is conducted and it's basically awash financially for that to happen it also removes an oversight piece that human resources had for for the lines thank you i wanted to share some kudos to maddie is that maddie's last name maddie o'brien mary o'brien all right i wanted to for saving us money for great idea of purchasing the furniture separately then so i'm very grateful every penny that we can have away from other expenses and towards our students is is a win-win so thank you so much maddie o'brien for that um i also wanted to highlight and appreciate um that the alarm system is an all one system

092i i can't believe that that was not an option before or or the situation before so i'm very grateful that they are all in one system across all the schools correct i heard correctly right so i'm i feel like safer and i feel like our kids are safer and our staff are safer by knowing that there is an alarm system connecting with one company so thank you for that and those who work towards that may we have roll call please ms catano yes mr miller yes ms mullen yes mrs nerding yes miss ruiz yes mr robles dr saner yes ms fraveros yes mr sauers yes informational uh dr mclaughlin yes so uh we will as as we have promised to let the board know those were using our facilities the dover fire department requested and

093was granted permission to use the high school parking lot near the tiger wrap trailer for their annual hose and apparatus testing and that occurred on july the 30th and also occurred on august the 13th so the um fire chief came over with paperwork and and we're happy that we were able to accommodate that need it's great glad our facilities are being used more and more great to hear that if we move um to the agenda of old business is there any old business none was emailed to me does anyone have any okay perfect i do have three items under new business one i will begin with miss ruiz you had an item two percent thank you miss grasales our board has discussed the possibility of a dover school district budget specific training with the new

094jersey school board association meaning a training with our finance documents in front of us and we are welcoming a new ba soon with a heavy heart saying goodbye to mr minkowitz so now may be a good time to explore uh and schedule that training maybe it could coincide with um the new ba's training or maybe it's wiser to do it after that person has been trained so then they can kind of turn key their training to us i i will let it for uh maybe the administration can guide us on that um but i as this would be for all of us we would need uh mr crude's guidance as to whether we would have to announce a special meeting like we did for the board goals of course if we want to be trained

095you want everybody to be present so we'd have to coordinate our schedule so it would seem like quite a process that may be best begun now so i'd like for us to discuss this possibility um so that we can do it sooner rather than later in the 2021-2022 school year i dr saner and i know dr mclaughlin um had some comments um and then ms nutty well i think there's a lot of logistical issues and it's a lot to put on a new employee in the district i do think that at some point during the school year this would be very valuable i know that i've served on the finance committee and i always have questions it's very very complicated and i would personally like to be better prepared so i support the idea but

096understand that this may not be able to happen for a while due to logistical issues miss nutting while i understand that it's definitely needed and we do need to understand what's going on and a better explanation i think it would be actually better served to actually try to do it for maybe january or in that time frame so when we do have our new board member we're all being trained at the same time dr clark when you have comments oh did i hear someone yes if i may i think there's just it's almost like a crib sheet that we should get before we even go into the training because we get so many financial reports every month it's just really to highlight and a lot of the reports overlap so you read the same numbers

097on different reports they're they're presented in different ways um the numbers are the same but they you know but they have to tick and tie so you have like two or three reports all with the same numbers all with different things pulling in so i think almost a crib sheet of how to read those reports and what numbers we as board members should be keying in on you know our capital outlay what money is still left what's the encumbrances the reports we got this time ended for this you know what yeah so um except for our check registering which are grouped by categories so it would be good to know what those categories stood for those numbers you know those kind of things can be started even before we have the training and it would

098be better to have in my opinion a hard copy of something before we just go through because we've all been to the finance trainings that the school boards have given but i think we want something a little bit more concrete in hand at least i would benefit from that more cater to us it's what i'm saying okay that's what i would like to yes two so two things um i certainly support the idea of a training i think it's good for um for the district to provide that uh i think that once mr slam is here and on board it would be good to schedule it for a time short time after that because again as as he begins he may make some adjustments to the reports the the other piece uh that we'll be

099discussing at the finance and facilities committee meeting is that uh i've reached out to new jersey asbo to do a business department review which is an area that they uh it's part of what they do uh it's a service they provide we contract with them for that and it's it's not an audit per se because we have an audit but it it looks at it's an audit of business practices and it it will provide a good uh baseline for mr slam as he enters the district uh to work from any recommendations that they may have they may also make recommendations in regard to the pro to the reports that we provide and then i think when we do schedule the training we would have to consider who the best provider of the training is uh

100because asbo does do a lot of training and they are the business experts uh in in the state so that might be an entity that we want to consider thank you thank you a quick um new business and then we uh are going to discuss board goals really quickly well depending um meeting dates for upcoming board meetings i wanted to propose to the board if you would like and agree that they are part of our agenda perhaps state the next three months in the end of their agenda i i feel like sometimes it's confusing for our community not to know especially when they're conflicting again with town hall so i wanted to know if you all would be in agreement to ask our administrators to include that at the end of our agenda for example

101today in august we would have september october november stated on the agenda i agree i agree thank you board goals we wanted to make sure that we have a whole process and thank you to dr mclaughlin who brought it up to my attention we formally have to close that loop and agree to those board goals i know that we had sent a google doc out and people had the opportunity board members had the opportunity to comment on the logistics of what the boards looked like i believe there was two members who made comments to it i'm going to give dr cena the floor so she can give us a quick summary and see if we can close that loop tonight um ms grasalis as i've been looking at these and i apologize i'm kind of

102springing this on you we had talked about actually kind of discussing it and trying to finalize them tonight i'm concerned that that is not the most efficient way to do that as there are significant changes and suggestions okay so i would propose that you and i go through uh there are some grammatical and structural changes let's make those and then list the questions and allow board members to suggest language or you know solutions to that and then maybe give board members a week then you and i can finalize them send them out with the september packet and we could vote on them then okay i am in agreement with that board members what are your thoughts feelings and that way it gives mr robles a chance to kind of get the inside scoop that you've

103missed all right all good with that ms smallin yes okay miss gracias i think there's at least one or two things we can discuss now for example one of the comments talks about school community versus community school to choose one those two they actually mean two different things so a a community school think of a noun right we are aspiring to become a community school district um the school community is everyone it's the people it's everyone in our school community so if i say you know i i understand i would love a vaccine clinic available to our school community that's different than i would like a vaccine clinic at our community school so just if uh mr miller one second um dr mclaughlin and mr plan what terminology are you using currently in the district

104so we can be well we use both terminologies we are we are certainly um and we've said to the board we've stated to the board that that as a goal we're already a school community right every every school is community but but we are in support of our district being a community school district and all that is inherent in that concept thank you thank you and i'm making notes on the document for us to to review okay did you hear okay just wanna make sure we are heard all right um any other comments or questions on those board goals mr miller you had your hand raised but remember to come close to the microphone and project yeah i appreciate the time to look at it more because it's not fresh in my memory so because

105only two board members commented on them yeah and i for some reason i don't recall that okay we'll send it out again and make sure that um please everyone take a look at it if you don't receive it within this week or week and a half then you have missed something what mr sales if i may yes dr saner just sent it tonight that's okay we should be looking at it so it's probably at the top of everyone's email right now okay thank you miss ruiz are there more items that you want to discuss i i like that we clarified that one item what i don't want to do is waste the board's time with wordsmithing are there other specific questions or comments that you or anyone uh the board members who made comments would

106you like to address now that would help ms grasalis and i get this done quickly make it a closer to final draft document for you to see i i don't to respond to dr sanders question for any board member looking for the document we're talking about if you're not already looking at it the subject in your email should say goals for discussion tonight and the email came from dr senor mr miller i do see your name on there and i think i see everybody else's name on there and it's a link to a google doc all right we'll make sure mr miller that you receive it can we move forward with public comment i have one just related item to the to the board goals please so uh just um and i think this is

107fine in terms of timing but uh i it seems appropriate at this point to just bring up that i think the once the board has adopted its goals then i would like to proffer the district goals because we did make a point in our retreat of indicating that they would be as connected as possible so that would mean an october adoption of the district goals which certainly is i think an adequate and appropriate time frame since many times the month of september is really just getting your feet on the ground in school before you approach the goals so i i would certainly share those with the board in advance of the october meeting but just just so that everybody kind of has a time frame perfect okay mr solis and i think that the board

108goals are nearly we're really just word smithing and a couple small changes so i think dr mclaughlin as it suits your time frame i think these are ready the the ideas behind them are ready to go thank you please make sure we share those with dr mclaughlin and mr giuliano as well thank you okay we're moving to the public comment section the second public comment section the board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters to ensure a fair and orderly expression of such comment each statement shall be held to a time period of three minutes public comments not restricted to items on this agenda should be entertained for approximately 30 minutes upon the discretion of the presiding officer

109please understand that public comment portions of our agenda are not structured as questions and answer sessions but rather they are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board the board may or may not respond to public comment however all comments are considered and will be investigated and addressed as appropriate please be courteous and mindful of the rights of others when providing comments comments may not be abusive obscene threatening or irrelevant please understand that students and employees have specific legal and privacy protections the board is not permitted to respond in public to comments about students or employees please be advised that you are commenting at your own risk any public comments that are directed at a particular individual or individuals could subject you to legal liability for defamation if you're interested in making a

110comment please come to the table at the end the microphone at the end of the table please and state your name and last name hello can you hear me yes okay hello i'm nicole lorelli um mr mclaughlin with all due respect as lengthy as your speech was on the newest technology for our schools and our students i feel your concern should have been more for the safety of our children that you will be responsible for in 15 days i'm not sure what's more concerning the fact that my husband and i and i'll speak for maybe us maybe you are one of three parents here wanting to know what's going on with our children and 20 on life um our schools plan to be fully attended yet we have been fully we've never been fully open

111during this pandemic um what is the plan how many kids to a classroom what are you doing for maths again doing to make proper ones making sure they're being worn how are lunches being served in classrooms in a full auditorium how many kids just a few questions from my list parents deserve and need more answers for the precautions being taken of the safety of our children thank you very much any other comments hi everybody my name is uh franco lorelli i've been living in this town almost 37 years now i'm also a night foreman at a different district now it's a little disconcerting that you guys say that i think somebody said something about facilities that we're about to start working on the school that's kind of cutting it close now mind you we did

112drop ceilings in our school also we did asbestos all that stuff you guys are saying and i just heard that we're starting work now that's kind of rough but that's not one of my issues one of my main issues is that we are going now in a second year with this pandemic school-wise i have a five-year-old and a six-year-old that is going to be attending north dover for the third year now and i have heard nothing about what we're doing cleaning wise how we are disinfecting the classrooms how we are keeping these children three feet away because i know that standards changed last year it was six feet now it's three feet i have heard nothing there's no emails about it there's no communication about it i don't understand how i understand you guys have

113a a board meeting that you have to do when you're talking about everything that goes on in this district but i think the main concern is focusing on the elementary schools because those are children who are just starting their school careers and on top of that we have to teach them at home because that's our responsibility how to use a mask how to sanitize your hands but at the same time how do i know you guys are doing your job now i don't see anybody here with a custodial background or anybody speaking up about chemicals that are being used what chemicals are being used how we are disinfecting i think that's a big deal and unfortunately this conversation that everybody's been having here had nothing to do with how we're taking care of the cleanliness

114i'm looking around this area right now i have a very keen eye on what needs to be done in a building because i am a knife foreman there's a lot that needs to be done in this cafeteria alone and my kids are in an elementary school these floors aren't done there's cracks in the wall the vents are dirty we're breathing all this air in i don't understand why there's no communication no emails no nothing on top of that last year my kids were getting frozen lunches how is that possible i like i said i work in a different district i see how they do things there and it's nowhere near how we're doing it here i just think we should step it up a little bit better and start focusing on what really matters not

115you know i understand the electric bus i think that's a great idea but i think what really matters right now during the pandemic is how we're going to keep the kids safe and how we're going to keep the disease away from the children so i appreciate your time i appreciate you guys coming out tonight thank you so much have a good night thank you any other comments would anyone like to re make comments or questions from the board okay i can i can provide a response uh we have uh continued to post our plan our comprehensive plan on the district website there is a a applicable plan uh that exists on the website at this time for covet re-entry which we're still abiding by in terms of our protocols there will be a new plan

116and new details that are posted at the end of the week in keeping with the new executive order that i mentioned that does change things significantly in the state for every single district in the state because with full-time in-person learning for every student every day the ability to maintain uh three foot distances will not be consistent we will certainly try uh to maintain a three foot distance wherever we can but certainly if you're aware of any full classroom uh three foot distances uh may not always be able to be maintained we will continue with the cleaning and disinfection system that we have elaborated on specifically in in terms of the electrostatic guns that are used those will continue to be used in the district all the cleaning and disinfection and this will be in the

117message on friday to reinforce so that parents know that we are certainly continuing to pay attention to this but i do want to emphasize things change it can it won't be what we had last year with hybrid instruction when with smaller groups of children you could keep greater space masks those those are non-negotiable through the executive order that we've talked about a couple of times this evening i do want to emphasize that all all of our ventilation systems have been professionally cleaned over the past year we brought in a company to do that we've expended uh considerable uh resources uh for that happening so we are committed uh but we're also certainly open to hearing feedback and if people feel at any point that we are falling short of that we're not answering questions we

118are always open to hearing that as i mentioned i'll be sending out a message at the close of the week to all of our our parents and staff so they have an update in regard to um to where we are for the september 1st opening uh there was another piece too that might have been misunderstood in the report when we say that work work is beginning in our schools we're not we're not talking about the infrastructure work there's been ceilings replaced asbestos removed a great deal of work has occurred to our schools throughout the course of the summer what had to wait because of summer learning with students in classroom was floor waxing in class in in classrooms touch-up painting those types of cleaning that might occur in a normal classroom a normal hallways when

119you don't have students you can't wax when students are in the building regularly so that's that's part of um that's part of what we had to do to adjust to summer learning loss and we dedicated ourselves to expect to extensive programs in each of our schools because we knew that that was a priority that does make it more challenging for our custodial and maintenance staff as was mentioned to do the work that they have to do in a compressed time period but um we know that they will because they come through we have a great great staff great supervision and again i just want to emphasize that we're dedicated to that um i offer these comments not in any way as a rebuttal just as a clarification and and i want to mention again that

120we are always open to feedback and to suggestions thank you dr mclaughlin thank you community for bringing up your questions we are here for you to keep us accountable as your elected officials so i i know i speak for the board uh appreciative of you coming here and it's great to see you now as an older person i know you since you were little uh miss grasales i just have a follow-up question ms ruiz uh i heard dr mclaughlin explain that there's a comprehensive plan on the website i imagine that that's referring to our comprehensive plan in response the pandemic could we just get more uh pinpoint of where on the website that is should be in the news announcements section uh and i will again check tomorrow to make sure that the most recent

121plan is there so when you say comprehensive plan are you talking about the safe return plan right on the first page just if other folks are watching and and have similar questions now they know where to look okay and it's also there in spanish and um it's dated june 24th so when you say a new plan will be posted at the end of the week it's because that june 24th plan is in accord with previous state guidance and now you need to correct correct because the executive order has changed conditions since june it's the the executive order that that was issued on august 8th has changed some of those conditions okay so it is important um sorry you could come need to come back up in order for us to be able to hear your

122comment um we have closed um the public section i have not correct no so you're concerned yes you can certainly i hear you but i don't hear you so please make her a second comment and while you do that it is important to know if you're looking at the website through a mobile site our cell phone mobile site is not the same as our looking at a computer and um the directions that you were giving ms ruiz is really um only for if you're looking at a computer the mobile site is a little different and uh and navigation of it is uh is not as easy as looking at from a computer um i i i will open it for this um gentlemen um what is your second comment well what she's saying is pretty

123much trying to say oh well there is info well there really isn't september 1st is right around the corner correct now so you're saying we're upgrading our technology but the mobile site is bad i said it correct but we're talking about that we're upgrading our technology last year's technology was horrible i don't know if you guys have students at home or children at home that use the tablets that you said that were filthy by the way i don't know if you guys saw how hard it was for the systems to actually work so we're talking about technology hopefully it's different but now we're not doing hybrid now what she was saying is that she's trying to you know pus oh there is information well september 1st is right around the corner there's people who don't

124have access to that website um shouldn't these things be emailed mailed paper mailed stuff like that because last time i checked usps stills works so i understand we're in the technology world but not everybody has that so that's not a good answer thank you thank you okay i moved to close the discussion section yes just want to let you know that on on the phone mobile app you just scroll down and the safe return plan is the third item if you just scroll so it's it's pretty easily accessible both on the mobile app and on the desktop perfect thank you okay closing public comment section is there a motion to return the meeting at 8 41. so moved second all in favor any opposed thank you for coming what them didn't even look at the

125little piece of paper with the extended agenda oh my goodness thank you