001i'd like to call this meeting to order due to the covert 19 health emergency and in order for the board of education to conduct its business this board meeting is being held via video conference and streamed on youtube on the district website at www.ebnet.org in addition members of the public may provide comment at this meeting through zoom by entering the url meeting id and password you see before you on the screen upon joining the meeting your participation will be muted to ensure that there is no disruption to the business being conducted by the board of education will the secretary please call the role mr angelo here this is true here mr sismar mrs guass mr hong hey mrs lax here mrs reese pierre mr winston here president becker here we have a quorum please rise
002to salute the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands for liberty and justice for all the new jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed and acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act east forensic court of education has closed notice of this meeting to be published at the board of education offices written notice is also provided to the sentinel of the newark star ledger the home news and tribune and the municipal clerk of east brunswick all board of education meetings with the exception of executive session discussions are videotaped later broadcast
003and individuals who speak at the board's public meeting should be aware of these videotaping rules good evening and welcome to our last meeting before the end of this school year unbelievable how did we get there took a lot let's start off the meeting with dr valeski's superintendent report thank you president becker and good evening everyone i'm happy to report that a variety of school activities have occurred over the past two weeks marking the end of this school year fifth grade moving up ceremonies for all eight elementary schools were completed this week and have been a big success and i want to give a shout out to john mcminiman for the production of those events tomorrow friday june 18th is the last day of school for all students and staff graduation for the class of 2021
004will be held on j doyle field at ebhs beginning at 9 30 a.m tomorrow morning i'll apologize in advance for the traffic and congestion tomorrow morning but i promise it'll be worth it as we send off our seniors in one culminating event marking the end of a difficult school year for my final report this school year i want to express my appreciation for the entire east brunswick board of education support of my recommendations over this past school year i want our community to know that some of the issues have gone through vigorous debate but without reservation i can say this sport has been introspective and proactive this board student-centered focus is at the epicenter of what distinguishes east brunswick it's not just words it's your actions in support of me and the administrative team to
005ensure the district is well run thank you for your leadership steadfast resolve and commitment to the east brunswick community that ebps will remain a premier public school district no matter the circumstances that need to be navigated to achieve that goal thank you thank you dr valesky i'm sure at the uh good of the cause of the board we'll be hearing more about uh our appreciation for all the stakeholders this year but thank you for that very lovely and touching thank you victor okay now for the good of the cause to the public members of the public may provide comment at this meeting through zoo by entering the url meeting id and password you see before you on the screen in order to be recognized use the chat feature select the zoom meeting host then enter
006and send your name to the host you will be recognized to speak when your name is called and individuals will be invited to speak in the order in which we have received your request the board of education recognizes the value of public comment and educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest participants will be limited to three minutes duration is there anyone wishing to speak to the board tonight i have no one currently in the uh in the queue no one is in the queue okay seeing none i close the public portion we have several resolution of commendations of recognition tonight our first one is for the 2021 all eastern orchestra recommendation whereas two east brunswick high school seniors hannah were accepted to
007the 2021 nathan hall eastern orchestra and whereas musicians were selected from applicants across 11 states and washington dc hannah and varun participated in the virtual weekend experience and whereas as a role model for excellence in the arts maroon and hannah are an inspiration and motivation for their peers and have brought honor and recognition to their school the district and the entire community therefore be resolved that the east brunswick board of education recognizes and commends east brunswick high school students hannah lee and varun and their teachers dr arvind gopal and dr brian talk for this outstanding accomplishment may i please have a motion for this resolution is there any discussion i would just like to say that that in any year this would be an outstanding accomplishment to accomplish it with the added stress duress of
008a pandemic is extraordinary we are so proud of you any other discussion all those in favor hi hi opposed obscene motion carried well done for our second resolution of commendation the new jersey state seal of biliteracy i would like to invite our beloved superintendent of world languages ruth chang to read our resolution thank you mrs becker whereas 51 eastponzo high school seniors have demonstrated intermediate native proficiency in a language other than english and whereas we have an echo bernie are you picking it up yes we do ruth one minute please we don't want any of this to be anything less than perfect ruthie may continue thank you whereas these seniors have met the english graduation requirement and whereas the state of new jersey department of education certifies that these seniors have successfully qualified for the
009new jersey state seal of biliteracy approved by east brunswick school district now therefore be it resolved that the east brunswick board of education recognizes and commends the following seniors for having earned the new jersey state seal of my literacy yusuf chokri abdullah el-dasuki michael sun aaron ma honey wong emily dong jasmine liu brandon gao sophie gao abigail hortenoy filza siddiki rihanna nag ariba khan elizabeth minkowski janvi pai julie hamm srinidhi ayasa maya jula caitlin wong christina chen vincent beckler harner core kevin ernst gavin march guy plonner kia thakur shriya virgiswarin eunice kim neha rani marazaki jordan baker maya iskewitz gabrielle ignacio nikita yangar navni riley chase yusuf chohan emily chu enya madawa madurowala katherine costa alexandra gramulia adam ahmadi liliana cantillo srianz biswal minta kaune and jennifer ugly congratulations can i please have a motion
010for this resolution i moved moved by second by barbara is there any discussion laurie very bittersweet because ruth chang is part of the reason that our students year after year and so many of them attain this honor and this level of achievement so it's so fitting that you read this and i'm so thrilled to see you reading it i'm so happy for those 51 students and their families and i'm hoping that whoever um takes up the challenge and fills those big shoes of yours is going to have more and more and the best tribute we can have to you is to keep building on that number and have it get larger and larger every year so congratulations to you your staff and these wonderful students and their families thank you susannah um i just also
011want to echo thanks to um to ruth for everything that she's done for the world language program um and and also just you know to to wish you well in retirement um we're going to miss you dearly and i am just curious do you happen to know how many languages are represented by the students here in the in the test they've taken uh we have about 45 languages spoken in east brunswick here i think i have um probably about 12 or 13 different languages spoken here we have students who are native speakers who also were tested portuguese russian arabic um hindi hebrew in addition to the five languages that we teach that's amazing so kudos to the families who maintain their own language at home kudos to them for continuing that it's fantastic great okay
012thank you so i 100 agree with what uh laura and susanna said ruth i want to thank you for so many years devotion to our world language program i believe on many of all our students will miss you i will miss you too thank you thank you for your support and ruth it's a teamwork it's teamwork i don't think i could improve on what my colleagues have said they've said it so beautifully but i just wanted to tell you i i don't believe a school district is just an inanimate organization it has a heart and a soul and you have been such a part of that heart and soul thanks teamwork teamwork it is teamwork you have mentored and established an incredible department devoted professional teachers who have inspired our children to reach for the
013stars in terms of the languages they can learn and all of these children certified by literacy skills you're absolutely right without the support of their wonderful families it couldn't be achieved right but you have been a piece of our heart and soul thank you i just want to share that the students are the ones who now have the ability they have a skill set to build bridges of communication and understanding right beyond they can reach beyond borders now so kudos to these students i don't think i took a vote yet bernie did i oh you did not okay all those in favor aye aye opposed abstain motion carries well done all of you excellent job students excellent for our third resolution of commendation i'd like to invite jeff to please read it thank you president
014becker i like this one resolution of commendation to the students bodies of 2019 and 2020 and the 2 2020 and 2021 school year whereas the student bodies of 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 21 school years were required to quickly adapt to an unfamiliar learning environment resulting from the kobit 19 pandemic and whereas the student body's remarkable resilience underlying that twice in adapting to very different worlds both inside and outside of the classroom have exemplified the very essence of the east brunswick public schools and whereas the students will carry and benefit from the experience as they continue to learn importance of adapting to unusual circumstances throughout their lifetime now therefore be it resolved that the east coast board of education gratefully acknowledges and applauds and commends the steadfast perseverance of the student bodies of 2019
015to 2020 and 2020 to 2021 school years well done students well done can i please have a motion move by laurie second second by leewoo is there any discussion i would like to say that this this resolution was worded perfectly and to me the word that jumps out is perseverance it categorizes everything our students have done i cannot begin to imagine myself in your shoes you're just incredible to have made it through the pandemic to have accomplished what you have just incredible thank you for every ounce of courage dedication and commitment it took thank you lori that was so beautifully said um and you know it's funny we talk about all the the working parts and the people the administrators the staff and teachers everyone's done so much and you're right the students are the
016ones that stepped up day after day whether they were in the buildings or online and what amazed me was seeing the fact that they still were able to create that sense of camaraderie that you forgot sometimes that some kids never met this year except across the screen and you know i saw with my own kids they'd have study groups and things like that that they were able to do form relationships and just be kids and it was just so wonderful to see and you know what a great resolution thank you so much for that congratulations to all these kids because you not only survived these two difficult years because that's such a negative connotation you you did such a great job you thrived you helped each other and you'll come out better for it so
017enjoy your summers because you definitely earned them yes yeah to the students you know we've had some spirited conversations in my house over the last 16 months and and i can tell you many of us in this room have been through some crazy times in our lives and we talk about them proudly as old people uh remember the time of the gas crisis remember this remember that but i'll tell you what you have a story to tell and you have something to be so proud of that you were able to accomplish the things in this locks and mrs becker said and what this resolution said you have done something that in all likelihood no one will really be faced with again you came through it in amazing shining colors and i'll tell you i cannot
018be more proud of a group of kids in this township i think you're amazing and your stories you will tell your grandchildren about these last 16 months they're gonna tell their grandkids and grandkids and grandkids so take a mask squeeze it in your in your scrapbook have your uh have have dr volesky sign it because that is uh that's that's money it's it's it'll be a memory that you will really listen so great job kids jeff did you take a peek at my graduation speech for tomorrow i i something was stolen off my computer i just assumed it was you now nobody has to come to graduation tomorrow they just basically heard my speech okay thank you so much for that um beautiful reading jeff can i uh all those in favor opposed abstain motion
019carries to our students oh yeah thanks folks yeah okay and now on to our regular items we have one item on tonight's board of education agenda can i please have a motion for item one move by laurie second by lego is there any discussion mark was that a hand up to motion or a hand up to discuss um okay i'll get you next time any discussion all those in favor aye post abstain motion carries on our community programs agenda we have one item on the agenda tonight can i please have a motion for item one no move is there any discussion all those in favor barbara discussions i just wanted to commend the community programs department for the variety of programs here you have coding enrichment i mean during a very unusual year like we
020said they offered both uh virtually and in person so many different programs and they made it really wonderful for the students that they had both programs before and after school so just a thank you out to them any other discussion all those in favor aye opposed stain motion carries moving on to our curriculum and instruction agenda we have two items on the agenda tonight before i combine them would anyone like either separate it out seeing none can i please have a motion to combine items one and two on the curriculum agenda move by laurie second by jeff is there any discussion suzanna um i just have a question on the uh the chemistry textbook noted that there's a one-year pilot of online digital resources so i was wondering what our game plan was to assess
021the digital resource and um you know what what we would do with it in subsequent years and and is that standard for textbooks to make that an option um or are the textbooks tending to come with you know digital resources dr boley would you mind sure they come with digital resources uh this is a new uh set of resources available for the teachers to try out and pilot so before we commit to the purchase uh we thought that we would just try them out and see if we're finding bang for about there but that would be the trend that that textbooks are coming with the digital resources and that would be the plan to utilize both going forward right yeah right um this book has some opportunities for students to work out some of the
022situations in it so um it's it's it's a quasi textbook workbook so the digital resources provide um you know additional videos um instructional materials students can access at home and in the classroom great thank you so much i'm sorry libra i'm sorry so talk about it how many teachers will participate this pilot program this year i think they're about six okay thank you joyce do you anticipate that um digital resources coming with textbooks will eventually allow us uh not to have to replace the actual hardcover textbooks but rather and it will be a cost saving measure to have a digital version only yes um in many situations we are moving in that direction it's much easier obviously to update the digital resources than um a print book that's out of date quickly so yes we
023are moving in that direction currently but president i do want to caution the board that the textbook publishers are very savvy to the to the changing dynamic and the digital format will still cost the district money uh even though we won't have physical hard-bound copies in the future they will still charge us for every digital copy we use and license and that's an excellent point dr velesky i was actually thinking also of how it would save the kids shoulders in terms of not having as heavy a backpack to schlep around okay for for the uh our children will not carry the books but to plus their eyes there are many debates about the hard copy textbook and electronic textbook so we need to take a careful look before we adapt or switch to fully attack
024electronic textbooks absolutely and i i i think we have every indication that our curriculum team and dr valesky are not rushing into anything li wu but it was a a good point any other discussion all those in favor mrs becker if i may i'm sorry this should be a roll call we didn't indicate that on the agenda you did not indicate that on the agenda but that's okay we will do a roll call for you call us i'm so grateful thank you mr carangelo yes this is true yes mr han yes this is lax yes this is reese yes mr winston yes and president yes motion carries moving on to our facilities agenda there are two items on it tonight before i ask to combine them is would anyone like either separated out seeing none
025can i please have a motion for items one and two on the facilities agenda [Music] move by jeff second by laurie is there any discussion all those in favor opposed abstain motion carries i hear a bit of an echo again bernie is it um apparent to you also yes it is i'm not sure where it's coming from but uh there is a little feedback okay i think it's jeff moving on to our financial services agenda before i ask for a motion to combine items 1-15 is there anything anyone would like separated out scene none can i please have a motion for items one thing i moved by laurie second is there any discussion okay well the secretary please call the role mr carangelo yes this is true yes mr hong yes this is lax yes
026this is rhys yes mr winston yes president becker yes except i do abstain on item number 11 report of awarded contracts thank you moving on to our human resources agenda there are four items on it before i asked to combine these items would anyone like anything separated out see none can i please have a motion for items one through four so moved to larry second by marco angelo is there any discussion will the secretary please call the role mr carangelo yes mrs chu yes it's rahab yes this is lex yes mrs reese yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries we have one item on our staff development agenda tonight can i please have a motion for item one so moved move by laurie second second by jeff is there any discussion all those
027in fever opposed stain motion carries on our student services agenda before i ask for a motion to combine items one through eight is there anything anyone would like separated out seeing none can i please have a motion for items one through eight move move by lori second by leewoo is there any discussion barbara i just thought it it would be nice just to explain to folks about number six about effective school solutions how the superintendent in the district is working in the board to try to prepare for uh people folks coming back full time to school and uh and offering special uh social and emotional supports perhaps someone could explain it better than me but excellent excellent point barbara thank you for bringing it up dr valesky and thank you mr reese and you know
028the uh the board was very supportive of this program and expanding this program but leading this charge for the district so got to figure out would you mind saying a few words about this for the absolutely and thank you again uh miss reece uh for bringing it up and dr velasque if you ask me to speak briefly about it um we have uh looked at the uh our student body we realized that this has been a very traumatic time of many reasons in many ways during kovid um the board has been very supportive of our concerns and our issues when making sure that we were as prepared as possible when students come back to school that they have the supports that they need to help them be academically and socially emotionally successful um so that's
029really the goal for us and again i can't thank the board enough for the support um a tremendous amount to our students um as we move forward so thank you again and thank you lou and your staff this program could not possibly be a success if it wasn't for the dedicated staff you have who will implement it any other discussion this is a roll call vote for the secretary of state mr angelo yes mrs chu yes mr hong yes mrs lax yes this is rhys yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries we're now up to committee reports information items and for the good of the cause of the board and tonight i would like to start out with a presentation from our new student representative nora hennessey we are so glad to have
030you we welcome you um and we look forward to hearing from you by the way um you have to come every single meeting in the summer you're not allowed to miss one only kidding nora you will not be graded on this there will be no pop quizzes we're just happy to have you so the floor is yours thank you for the introduction i'm very happy to be here um i might come to some this summer i did just want to talk about our end of the school year events and about everyone being able to come back together after being virtual for so long we had our senior awards and our varsity awards which got some parents in the school and a lot of the students back together uh even though it did rain for the
031senior awards um and then we had this senior night i believe that was last week um and that was a big hit i think there were over 400 students that attended that and they had a lot of fun i've heard from a lot of my friends that it was very enjoyable just to be able to be together with people and their friends that they haven't seen in a while um and then we have graduation tomorrow as everyone knows and we have um i believe tony talked about the increase in tickets allotted per person which will allow more families to come and more friends to watch their students graduate um and that is mostly all for the end of the year uh going into next year we have student council was aiming to plan a beginning
032of the year event to welcome everyone back to the school and kick off the school year and we'll work on planning that over the summer so i may have some reports on that and i believe we are we are setting up a homeroom representative uh for each home room next year and that will be our principal's council that we will uh we're hoping to get a wider variety of students and their insight on the school for a more broad report for here and to the principal beautifully done nora thank you so much and you got two thumbs up from dr valesky and and a partial thumb from dr figueroa that's very a partial thumb is good so to start us off tonight i just simply want to say piggybacking on that wonderful resolution that jeff
033read yes our students were amazing this year last year as i said before i cannot imagine being in their shoes but every stakeholder in this district rose to the occasion and surpassed it and got us through a very dark time in a very positive way from the top down dr velesky and his incredible central office team all our administrators all of our staff our support staff all of the parents and guardians and families we could not have done this without your support and participation and i know for many of you it was an opportunity to finally learn that calculus that you managed to get out of in high school but you had to revisit with your students i heard from a few parents that they actually enjoyed being the mentor for the homeschooling when our
034children were on remote because it gave them an opportunity to go back to the classroom so to speak of course it wasn't it was just a few most of most of the parents it was a tremendous amount of work and finally again to our amazing students to the township of east brunswick to all the officials who cooperated with us and made everything possible all the initiatives we had to do to all the residents to all the businesses this was truly an undertaking by a village and we are profoundly grateful okay i see laurie's hand so we are a village and i just want to reiterate this village was led by a very important patient person dr volesky it was actually very nice for me to get to see you get accolades by all the parents
035at some of the past events that we've had with the national honor society the senior awards because you sir take the brunt of everything you get to hear everything you've done wrong every complaint is going to come to you so we thank everyone i don't think we thank you enough because you are the head of this organization and you take care of everyone from your staff to the students to the parents to every stakeholder that that vicky has mentioned so kudos to you again because while we thank everybody else um we've seen you take a lot and you've done it with such class and such grace and those parents that came up to you night after night at those events to thank you it was good to see that they recognized the work that you
036put in because we all talk about the students and the staff and and they wanted to make sure that that um didn't pass us by and speaking about the events what ms norris said is so true it's so nice to see some normalcy i love seeing all the signs because it's not just the graduates from high school it's the fifth grade and they had their moving up hammer shoulder had an end of your party and it was so nice to see 600 kids running around hammer showed eating ice cream eating ices just being kids and laughing so um we're all going to make it and you know good luck to all of us and i know they said good luck to you in retirement ruth but i'm still very very upset that you're retiring so
037i wish you the best but you know i wish you weren't retiring so yeah i hope you miss us a little i hope retirement is good but i hope that there's some twinges of darn i miss that joke yes absolutely absolutely yes thank you any time bernie i just want the record to reflect that i did mention dr boleski's he's the one vic you know we get it too certainly people bring the board for the good the bad the ugly i was kidding that a lot of the pressure rests on on his shoulders what you said was lovely i was kidding i just wanted to absolutely well i i thank you for those very kind words but i do have to acknowledge uh karen mandler and janet angeline in my office who have talked to
038a number of very upset parents over the many many months and have have been you know helped me be the face of the district and and so we have the entire central office team has been the face of the district out and about communicating the same message so i'm so proud of them um for what we together as a district board members and administrators have accomplished i'm just very proud you really should be because a lot of the board members here are parents and some of them still with kids in the district some whose kids went through and will be going through so you know we we appreciate that on that level and your staff is absolutely terrific but you you sir at the end of the day i don't know how many parents out
039there realize that you will take phone calls from parents angry parents happy parents you know you don't hide behind anybody and i think that's just very adverbal and you do have a terrific staff he did good well thank you but i think the representative tonight nora and then tony before her uh who's going to be you know graduating tomorrow i think they represent a student body that as you said earlier as jeff so eloquently said you know they're they persevere they're resilient and and they represent our future and i am so confident uh that we are all in good hands with the capabilities all these young people have demonstrated over the last 15 months thank you dr velasque and again beautifully said lori yeah they get better nora you're gonna do terrific i have no
040doubt you're so well spoken and every year we have a student that comes and knocks our socks off and we think what are they going to send us next year how can they be better you know tony was terrific you're it's it's uncanny you're all personable and bright and the reports just make some of us feel like we're back in the high school and um yeah you are our future and that makes me very very happy i see jeff's hand up yeah i i don't want to embarrass dr valesky anymore and keep praising him for his death first i think it's i think it's been very well stated and and another thing that dr varesky uh did was put a little spring in the parents step uh in getting the kids back to school and
041uh the tip of the hat to the patterns for persevering uh through all of this uh we need to give them a resolution but you know if you do take if you do i'll i'll take it i think it's great um parents uh what i've gotten into feedback i know you've you you've fielded a lot of days um and i guess the positive ones don't call you but i i heard a lot in this township and there was an enormous amount of praise and the fact that you could add pandemic management to your resume makes you uh that much more special i think i think you did an outstanding job i know the parents truly are for the most part very happy um so i know i am so so with that uh thank you
042very much to you and your staff karen and everybody uh to a job exceptionally well done thank you any other board members susanna um i just have a committee report to give um and on the theme of our amazing students um this past tuesday the human relations council hosted a facebook live event and it was called unity at east brunswick high school so if you missed it it is available at the east brunswick human relations council facebook page and a diverse group of students got together to share their experiences and perspectives about how they connect with their backgrounds and their cultures and one thing i wanted to point out is that many of the students pointed to and highlighted the benefits of the many extra extracurricular programs and clubs that are available at the high
043school as as being uh invaluable to them uh in in terms of growing and learning as individuals and within groups so there was a lot of accolades for the benefits of completing in the programs and the variety of the programs and the programs that that bring students of of all backgrounds and cultures together um were all highlighted uh in that evening event i was just so impressed by the uh the young men and women who spoke at that uh at that event um and talked about their you know their experiences so i encourage you to listen in if you didn't have a chance to do so uh at the live event thank you and and of course i you know i just want to echo everybody else's praise for the entire staff students parents the
044entire community um you know the days are are brightening up now and really looking forward to graduation tomorrow uh before i call on laurie again was there anyone else uh laurie again and then barbara stuck her hand in okay barb laurie after laura is fine lori barb i thanks i just want to i forgot since we're speaking about events i just wanted to tell everyone now that school is out and we should all be outdoors the annual vfw post 133 benefit 5k walk slash run barbara we know because barbara and i have walked flash fun on on july 25th it is co-sponsored by the vfw and the east brunswick education their pride in public education if anyone has come to it before it's a great organization it's a great event it's a lot of fun
045you do not have to run you can walk it um but i just wanted to tell everybody you know look for it uh you can still sign up they give you a t-shirt and they have the road closed off it's a great event and it's a worthwhile cause so again it's july 25th um if you want information you can go to the vfw website um for any of the board members i have this the sheet here but i just wanted to do that and don't kill me vicky you know it's funny i have to just thank you as well because you ran these meetings during the pandemic and we all talk about zoom it really is not fun no one likes doom and i have to say as someone who can't stand being on the
046hollywood squares and you never know if someone can hear you if there's feedback you ran these meetings for the last 16 months like a rock star so good for you all not knowing who to call on where to see um as long as we're all talking about you know all the good that people have done it's no easy feat so thank you so much and now we'll stop talking thank you so much lori that was really very lovely and of course it couldn't do it alone even though sometimes i feel like i'm ruling my world from my the real world from my family room um everybody on this screen we got through all these meetings i like rock stars like pros so thanks to everybody here but thank you lori it was lovely barbara i
047i thank you uh i just my sincere and heartfelt thank you to everybody it really uh our fellow board members but dr valesky you know i it's been said i'm echoing what has already been said but to you and the administration the principals the teachers the staff the parents and families honestly i think some people just take it for granted some of the things that we have had here that even the things like the meals like with the distribution of the meals that's a massive operation and the fact that it's continuing in the summer it runs so well so many people have been helped by that and things like the technology being able that we you know you had uh your staff and worked so hard so diligently in the technology department to you know
048when we had a trouble with something when there was a computer that was broken it got fixed right away uh you know just there's so many different examples of even with uh having a vaccination clinic i mean it's like a one-stop shop so really i don't i'm sure i you know i represent the whole board to thank you for all that you've done all that your staff has done and the parents have been amazing and the kids but if if it wasn't for the fact that we have such a wonderful uh superintendent administration our assistant superintendents the whole the whole central board it wouldn't have happened and i think sometimes when we're in these friends we just think well this is how it works but it doesn't work that way every place else and it
049really works well here and we thank you for for everything and this seems to be the night for shout outs and barbara you touched upon something very important um this was a year when we needed technology more than we've ever needed it before and last year too and nicholas electronica are you here tonight i think i see you i i am here president becker um you guys are the real rock stars uh everything you and your staff did to support all our teachers our administrators our students and our parents was mind-boggling mind-boggling dr valesky had the foresight to prepare us with the technology going into this not knowing that we were about to enter a quarantine that was only supposed to be a few weeks and that extended 16 months so to speak what you
050did nick you and your staff was enable education to continue in east brunswick and we are profoundly grateful your statements humble me and i really give great praise and thanks to the entire i.t department very dedicated group of people thank you good job nick president becker if i could mention one one more thing real quick okay um you know what we do uh as an organization is all about relationships and i can't go without saying that you know we have we have a good relationship with east brunswick education association and the east brunswick principles and supervisors association and they've been partners at the table in the planning for every next step that we took um and have been supportive in the communication consistent communication so i applaud dr dana zavicky and mr andy scanlon who
051who lead those organizations uh for their efforts and you know it's just everybody's focused on students and from the board on down i said it earlier the student center focus is what is the hallmark of our success and and people who have people reached out to to me today who have been relatively temporary employees at east brunswick and that's what they're impressed about the people they're working with that are the the tried and true east brunswick employees how everybody is student centered and they haven't seen that in other districts they've been working in so you know kudos to everyone it's just been um it's been an experience we don't want to repeat but everybody not only stepped up to the challenge but they exceeded the challenge so thank you talk about running a meeting remotely
052how about running an entire building remotely as our building leaders did we're just running your classroom remotely as all our staff did as you said dr valesky it was a mammoth effort and done so well anyone else wishing to speak we do have a need for closed session the board of education must discuss matters which are not appropriate for discussion in a public meeting these subjects are within the exceptions the open public meetings act and the board of education intends to discuss matters as follows those items in tonight's agenda the length of the closed session is estimated to be one hour after which the public meeting of the board shall reconvene and action will not be taken and i please have a motion to go into closed session moved by laurie second by jeff is
053there any discussion all those in favor opposed abstain motion carries we're going into close good night thank you for joining us keep your fingers crossed for good weather tomorrow for graduations happy summer you