001we will join this momentarily everybody all said okay i'd like to call this meeting to order due to the cobit 19 health emergency and in order for the board of education to conduct its business this meeting is being held via video conference and stream live 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 there is no disruption to the business being conducted by the board of education will the secretary please call the role mr karangelo here mrs chu here mr sismar here mrs gloss here mr hong here mrs lacks here mrs reese here mr winston here
002president becker here we have a quorum please rise to salute the flag pledge allegiance to the fire of the united states 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 in accordance with the provisions of this act the east brunswick board of education has closed notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time in place posted at the board of education offices written notice is also provided to the sentinel the new extra ledger at 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 videotape related broadcast individuals who speak at the board's public meeting should be aware
003of these videotaping rules good evening thank you for joining us tonight first thing on our agenda tonight are annual actions bernie did you want to speak for a brief minute about uh what we're going about to do certainly um so the annual actions are um actions that are taken in preparation for the new fiscal year um there are more or less standards uh to establish the benchmarks by which we will function over the next year that establishes uh certain fee structures meeting schedules a variety of cooperative purchasing agreements and services that are required for district operations thank you before i ask for a motion on the annual actions tonight is there anything anyone would like separated out seeing none can i please have a motion for items 1-26 on the annual actions agenda move by
004laurie second by marco angelo is there any discussion this is a roll call vote will the secretary please call the role mr carangelo yes which is true yes mr sismar yes mrs gloss yes mr hong yes max yes mrs reese yes mr winston yes and president becker yes motion carries next item on honor agenda is the superintendent's report thank you president becker good evening everyone after the board's approval of our recent grade restructuring recommendation to provide critically needed elementary classroom capacity we've already begun planning smaller group discussions with students parents and staff beginning next school year as we continue to explore over the next school year every opportunity to improve the excellence and experience of every child impacted by the first year of this transition in september of 2022 you the community can expect the
005same transparency with my communication you have witnessed over the past year we are pleased to announce that andrew chen and benjamin hong have each been awarded a national merit 500 scholarship we are very proud of these students this fall andrew will be attending stanford and benjamin will be attending columbia university again congratulations to both of them i'd like to take a moment to highlight some additional excellence from some more of the members of the eb team as i've done in the past this week we administered the ap spanish exam and due to an issue nationwide with the college board the exams took longer than usual to upload i want to thank the technology department as well as the high school counseling department and administrators who work together to assist our students and immediately adapt to
006circumstances that could have forced students to retake the exam if the uploads failed and beyond solving the initial problem this group demonstrated their student first commitment so because of the unanticipated extended time of the exam students were provided with bag lunches to this group thank you for what you do every day the ebhs visual arts department in partnership with ebef presents the east brunswick schools outdoor art walk from saturday may 15th to tuesday june 15th the art walk is a month-long installation of 180 pieces of student artwork displayed along the pathways between the public library and municipal complex the art pieces are representative of all 11 buildings and 24 visual art teachers and i am looking forward to that because i've seen some of the some of the artwork from the students so it's gonna
007be great just a few reminders friday may 28th is a single session day for students and staff there will be no supplemental instruction the district will be closed monday may 31st for memorial day and believe it or not the last day of school for students and staff is friday june 18th thank you thank you dr valesky first item tonight is a resolution of appreciation for the east brunswick education foundation i'm going to ask lew to uh announce and speak on this resolution as he is the board liaison to the foundation so recommendations whereas sin is inception in 1993. the east brunswick education foundation has funded seven one thousand five hundred grand totally over 2.5 million dollars in funding for technology equipment curricular program also visits school-wide cross-curricular learning events hands-on materials many books and much
008more to complement teaching and learning throughout the district and whereas from july 2020 to april 2021 the east bronx education foundation has awarded 35 grand a month into 55 000 to ensure that the organization's mission to enhance and enrich the curriculum for the students attending the responsive public schools continues and now therefore be it resolved that the east brunswick board of education appreciates the foundation's trustees for their and inexhaustible support for exiles in education and further therefore fought be it resolved that the east brunswick board of education recognized and applause the teachers and staff going above and beyond in support of the and to advocate for quality public education in east bronzing thank you lee wu may i please have a motion for the resolution so moved moved by me wu second by barbara is
009there any discussion all those in favor abstain motion carries congratulations to the foundation there's nothing i could add that hasn't already been said in that beautiful resolution that leo um so very nicely articulated they go above and beyond and in partnership with our staff and teachers who are always thinking about what's the next best thing we can do for our kids they bring so much to the district it is truly a partnership and we are so grateful for it that brings us to the good of the cause for the public 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 in order to be recognized use the chat feature select the zoom meeting post then enter and send
010your name to the host you will be recognized to speak when your name is called individuals will be invited to speak in the order in which we have received your request and participants are limited to three minutes duration is there anyone wishing to speak to the board tonight mrs becker there is no one in the queue at this time okay see now i close the public portion moving on to our agenda tonight before i ask for a motion on the board of education items is there anything anyone would like separated out uh i i just thought i was absent last time so what do i forget what i just abstain or for the minute minutes of the first one yes okay thank you anything else anyone would like uh separated out okay then can i
011please have a motion for items one through three so moved moved by susanna second by jeff is there any discussion will the secretary please call the role mr carangelo yes this is true yes mr sismar yes mrs guar yes mr hong yes mrs wax yes i'm back i got booted out yes abstaining on number one mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries before i ask for uh consent on the community program agenda is there anything anyone would like separated out seeing none can i please have an eye a motion for items one through four on the community programs agenda moved by jeff second by laurie is there any discussion all those in favor aye aye opposed obscene motion carries moving on to our curriculum and instruction agenda there is only one item tonight can
012i please have a motion for item number one move by laurie thank you second by marco angelo is there any discussion susanna uh thank you yeah i just had a question on that one it it it's great it looks like this is something different i don't recall seeing this previously on the agenda so if it's new i'm just wondering is it new and um it it indicates that it runs from three to four it's a one hour session so i'm wondering you know which students will be participating in this so i just wanted to know a little bit more about it because it sounded fascinating yeah dr bully can you certainly um it is a new opportunity um it's going to be available after school for students in the choral program in grades six through
013twelve so hammershaw churchill and the high school students so far over 200 students have rsvp'd expressing interest this session will be recorded and used in the class uh period for those students unable to attend and um you know during the school day they mostly focus on classical voice instruction preparing for concerts so this artist is going to give them an opportunity to experiment with more pop and commercial singing so we think it's going to be a very exciting opportunity that sounds it sounds great thank you i i appreciate that um that info i think it's it's absolutely tremendous it's taking our arts program in another direction it's keying into what the students are interested in um good work you and your team choice thank you and it's very cheap too if we have students for
014700 which extremely cheap right so two broadway tickets um all those in favor aye opposed obscene motion carries there are six items on our financial services agenda tonight i would like to ask for a motion for items one through is there any discussion will the secretary please call the world i had a question oh i'm so sorry susannah sorry i was just slow because i'm scrolling um i think i item four is the one that's the declaration of surplus vehicles right correct so i just had a question about that um i mean i'm just curious it's you know the water service is cost uh i mean you know as opposed to you know normally we would we would put the uh surplus vehicles out for um what do you call it like auction um you
015know they don't quite offset each other at the end of the day you know text it's kind of you know they don't net each other out so i'm trying to understand kind of the rationale for using this approach as opposed to you know paying the bill and and just doing these as separate transactions if if i could i'd like mr giuliani to weigh in but i want to give you the back story so it was actually a conversation with the township and they had they had seen that we had some vehicles in the yard that we were getting getting ready to prep for uh auction and they had an interest in it so this is really just a cooperative gesture on our part with the township rather than then do the transaction they have the
016mechanics to do the work on the vehicles um so it was really just more of an outreach and discussion between each of us that we had something they would like to have rather than go through the other cycle that you mentioned for us to sell them and for the for you know us to pay the water bill uh so that's really how the transaction started and then i i cleared it with mr giuliana and um you know he did a a um another cost analysis of the vehicles cost the township did one we did another uh but the variation we we don't believe is significant enough to not not recommend it and i would just add that you know we you know as as two governing bodies in town um you know we we try
017to do as much as we can to work together and i think this is um you know a uh an appropriate step uh in that endeavor we have something that they need we provide uh we utilize services uh in exchange for other uses of our facilities so it's you know for lack of a better term it's a quid pro quo um and i think everybody benefits uh from the transaction there's actually a law right right in the public bidding law um you don't have to go out to bid if you're working cooperatively with another governmental entity it's encouraged actually the bidding law to do just this so that you don't have you get the most use out of taxpayer funds on vehicles they purchase this is going you know intra east brunswick from one public
018entity to another east project public entity and ultimately it was the taxpayers who paid for these vehicles jeff did you have your hand up yeah simply i think it's a great i think this is so creative is this the first time we've done something like this actually it's not um we had another instance um i'm gonna say maybe about two years or three years ago um with um another vehicle exchange that took place well that's right we do i think so i think it's creative and i i think it's terrific that it stays uh stays home uh all the they can use them i think it's great so well done yeah because it would seem like somebody you know the uh the cut from the auction house and everybody else is being saved in between
019by doing the transfer this way okay yeah i was just curious it's the first i think it's the first time i've seen this but maybe it's happened before okay thank you any other discussion will the secretary please call the role mr angelo yes this is true yes mr sismar yes mrs gloss yes mrs reese yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries moving on to item five fiscal year 2022 school district final budget approval may i please have a motion on this item no moved move by laurie second second by leewoo is there any discussion jeff and marco angelo um yeah i just wanted to uh thank all in ball to put the uh budget together as chair of the finance i had first row seats to how this operates for the first time
020and uh i will have to say it's mind-blowing how all of the parts came together uh miss giuliana well done mr crosho well done the entire finance team and really uh honing down to the uh the individual department uh budget heads who uh who presented i got feedback from the board it was so comprehensive and uh i do applaud the ability and invite to our children and that bug we run pretty tight in this district and to see how the money is being spent absolutely benefit to uh staff and teachers and i love that that was really uh kept in mind so well done and thank you and it's been an absolute pleasure uh to be on this committee with you folks here thank you jeff mark cranswell i think you had your hand up
021and if somebody else said i i missed you okay that was an arm scratch um anybody else okay saying none i want to echo what jeff said um truly a a district-wide collaborative effort led by bernie and joe and their whole team dr valesky joyce everyone um every every department chimed in it was a fantastic effort and the dedication of our finance department i don't know if people realize bernie when are you going to start working on fiscal year 23's budget tomorrow uh very soon that actually will start this summer yeah we'll start getting administrators involved come september i i i in a way did literally mean tomorrow because i know there are years where bernie and his team just roll up their sleeves and the minute one budget is approved they start working on
022the next one this board also had a tremendous amount of input and put in so much time in coming up with this budget and um everyone deserves to be congratulated and appreciated for their efforts so will the secretary please call the role mr carangelo yes mrs chu yes sismar yes mrs guass yes mr hong yes this is lax yes mrs reese yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries moving on to item six can i please have a motion for shared services agreement between the township of east brunswick and the board of education of the township of east brunswick is there any discussion i actually had a question um or just wanted to highlight something bernie in the description for this budget for this agenda item uh the phrase resulted in substantial interest cost
023savings to east brunswick taxpayers just jumped out at me it's something we all love to see would you mind fleshing that out for a minute please and and talking about these substantial savings for our taxpayers certainly um so through uh in uh in exercising this opportunity to finance um through the township's ability to acquire short-term debt now one thing i want to make clear is that it is not the township of east brunswick that is paying for the debt it is through the school district budget but they're acting as our agent if you will uh to sell the notes uh to provide the financing but because of the township's ability to do this the short-term notes result in extremely low uh finance rates um you know think think in the you know one percent range
024and whereas if we were to um be able to go out to bond on our own it would be at least a couple of percentage points higher than that so there's a substantial uh savings uh that we achieve as a result of this and um we've done this for years um the township has has been very cooperative in assisting us they recognize the value taxpayers in doing uh this kind of a transaction uh and it's really a just a win-win all around so it's kind of like if you had a credit card that charged 10 interest and i had a credit card that charged five percent interest and you wanted to buy something really expensive and you asked me if you could put it on my card to take advantage of my lesser interest rate
025but you're going to make all the payments correct kind of yes that's a great analogy that and actually that was um explained to me when i first got on the board that was um a way of someone explaining to me about what shared services agreements are and i always thought it was a really good way to understand it so as you said win-win all around as jeff has said before keeping it in the town saving the taxpayers money that's what it's about so any other discussion will the secretary please call the role mr carangelo yes this is true yes mr sismar yes mrs guass yes mr hong yes yes yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries before i ask for a motion on the human resource agenda items tonight is there anything anyone
026would like separated out seeing none can i please have a motion for items one through three no moved move by laurie second by mark two is there any discussion this is a roll call vote the secretary please call the role mr carangelo yes this is true yes mr sismar yes mrs gloss yes mr khan yes yes 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 number one no moved move by laurie second second by lee wu is there any discussion all those in favor aye aye opposed abstain motion carries on our student services agenda we also have one item can i please have a motion for item number no i'm so sorry staff staff development so sorry
027my ipad went too fast we have one item on our staff development agenda tonight can i please have a motion for that item move by lori second by jeff is there any discussion all those in favor aye opposed obscene motion carries on our student services agenda we have two items tonight can i please have a motion for i uh before i ask for a motion is would anyone like either separate it out seeing none can i please have a motion for items one and two move by lee wu second by mark ii is there any discussion this is a roll call vote will the secretary please call the role mr carangelo yes this is true yes mr sismar yes versus gloss yes yes yes this is rhys yes mr winston yes and president becker yes
028motion carries um i was told that our student rep is not with us tonight i just want to confirm that lou are you at the meeting tonight he is not here okay and neither is the student okay okay um committee reports information items and the good of the cause for the board i actually have something to follow up with dr volesky about from last meeting when we were having a discussion about how to help make the transition better for our students staff and parents the great reconfiguration we voted on i had asked you if i know that for years there had been something in place like a hammershow pen pal program and i'd ask you um i was just curious did you were you able to find out this is something we still do we
029we do not do it currently however um you know i know there's been discussion uh i spoke to a parent this afternoon um who suggested maybe a a zoom format for the the students to engage with one another she called this specifically about um her daughter and um you know that kind of technology we use very well so uh that is certainly uh a very viable uh opportunity to explore introducing students to to hammershow and we obviously want students to be in hammershaw we want them to physically be able to to visit the building and to get into the building before they actually attend there and i think with the progress we're making on the recovery from the pandemic i i i anticipate that is going to be very achievable okay thank you so dr
030velasque i have a question for you i remember there is a introductory video about hammer shoot is that video still available online so the parents can access access it yes um the students actually produce their own video so i have to talk to dr gaskell about the the last production but the i don't know if the board recalls many of the board members were uh shown a student produced video it was pretty candid it talked about the transition it talked about how the students parents were very anxious about them going to hammershould and one of the students said that really wasn't that big a deal my parents were worried but i wasn't so that's kind of the theme of uh you know our students are resilient and um i know that they're going to do
031well and we're going to make this transition not only as we recover from the pandemic and and begin to reintroduce students back to full days of instruction with lunch in september uh but for the next year the transition we we are pledging to make it uh the best we can absolutely make it and i i do sincerely believe we have opportunities to explore things that we've never looked at before we have an opportunity to make that experience for every student better than it was before so i'm looking forward to it actually um you know speaking of videos years and years ago when we decided to put in a whole new report card in the district which dramatically changed the report card system we produced a video in-house it was a parent having a talk with
032a principal it affected the elementary school report cards and it was kind of a q a between the parent and the principal and they were asking questions that other parents had written to the superintendent about or called the superintendent about so it was kind of a q a sit down between the principal and the parent addressing a lot of the issues we might want to do something like that with um several of the principles the elementary school principals principal hammerschool um churchill and have parents instead of radiant or pulling just parents you know coming on and asking their real questions and having a dialogue about it and showing it to other parents and so many have the same questions that might be interesting and helpful to a video seems to be a good way to
033have a lot of people access our information we'll explore that with john mcminiman and uh you know john is a very very talented um video production video business he's the guy behind the scenes and so many of the the technical productions including these meetings tonight uh you know so i i think we can come up with some creative uh formats to communicate and to introduce students to uh to new environments and the parents too and give the staff also a chance to talk to to parents and um anything we do is is certainly to improve the communication and distribution of information is going to be great you're very right about the hammer shoulders because i remember sitting through it with my first one and and i was the same way and all the parents i
034think we were more afraid than the kids i think that's very common the kids went in there and said oh yeah this is easy i look at that building and i still have to think how to get around it and these kids within a few days they know exactly where to go how to get to classes so i think that video from kids for kids was great for the kids but was also great for the parents so yeah i agree with you that's great good good quality you'll like that for your boys oh yes anyone else committee reports information items go to the cause for the board okay mark that was a mark two that was an arm scratch okay we'll say it was seeing none we do have a need for a closed session
035whereas a board of education must discuss matters which are not appropriate for description in a public meeting and whereas those subjects the board of education intends to discuss are those matters listed in tonight's agenda the length of the closed session is calculated to be one hour after which a public meeting of the board shall reconvene and action will not be taken may i please have a motion to go into closed session move jeff moved by jeff second by laurie is there any discussion all those in favor just completely blanked out in favor of saying object okay motion carried we're in closed session thank you for joining us tonight board members please leave this meeting and uh log into the closed session everyone please stay safe you