East Brunswick Board of Education - February 18, 2021

001[ __ ] mark okay i have 7 29 i'm just going to clean my glasses it should take approximately 30 seconds and then we should be able to start i'm bernie i don't see bernie yeah i don't see burning either i just sent him a text joe are you able to see um i see one two three four five six seven board members i don't see libro or heather do you i know i do not sure if they may be having i had some trouble getting in and i'm still having some connectivity issues all right i'll hang them back and forth good evening everyone there he is [Music] okay i just texted leewoo and heather let me see if i hear back from either of them otherwise we will start i hear bernie yes hello the melodious

002turns of the tones of bernie's voice yes oh there's heather okay well i haven't heard back from libroo but it is 7 30. so if everybody's ready we'll start okay i'd like to call this meeting to order due to the covet 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 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 that there is no disruption to the business being conducted by the board of education will the secretary please call the role

003mr carangelo here mrs chu here mr sismar do you see mr sismar on screen yeah mark you're you're a mute i think he's having some technical issues but um here yeah for a minute thank you mr hong mrs lax mrs reese here mr winston and president becker here before we rise to salute the flag i'm going to ask everyone to remain standing after the pledge of allegiance for a moment of silence immemorium for albert m simon a moment of silence will be observed in memory of albert m simon who passed away on february 14th a 57-year resident of east brunswick al served as an east brunswick board of education members for 12 years from 1973 to 1985. he is survived by his wife of 60 years charlotte seven children 27 grandchildren and six great grandchildren

004our our thoughts and heartfelt sympathies are with his loved ones we owe mr simon a great deal of gratitude and debt for what he brought to this district he and so many former board members are the reason why we are in such a place of excellence as we are today because of all the groundwork and legwork that they did before us we honor mr simon and again i ask after the pledge for a moment of silence please remain standing we will now rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance with liberty and justice thank you the new jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to advance notice oven to attend meetings of public bodies in accordance with the provisions of this act the east brunswick board of

005education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place posted at the board of education offices written notice is also provided to the sentinel the new york star ledger the home tribune and the municipal clerk of east brunswick all board of education meetings accept executive session discussions are videotaped for later broadcasts and individuals who speak at the board's public meetings should be aware of these videotaping rules good evening hope everyone is safe on this wintry night we will start off as always with our superintendent report dr valesky thank you president becker good evening everyone i'm proud to share with you that all 18 east brunswick high school national merit semi-finalists have moved on to become national merit funds wow this is a very impressive accomplishment for a single

006school and it's a testament to the great work of our students teachers and the entire east brunswick community this is a scholarship that requires high scores on the 11th grade psat as well as maintaining very high academic performance throughout high school high school careers only about one percent of students are eligible based on these requirements and they apply for this scholarship with an endorsement from their high school principal all 18 of the current students and finalist status will receive a certificate of merit and some will be selected to receive the national merit scholarship congratulations and good luck to all of them on friday february 12th over 1 000 certificated staff members and full-time instructional aides took part in 57 workshops that were offered for academic and student services personnel supervisors department chairpersons and teacher leaders

007took staff through various workshops focused on instruction along with student social and emotional learning the day consisted of two one and a half hour sessions in the morning and one two hour session in the afternoon where staff learn various types of technology implementations and assessment practices that ultimately will be utilized this school year and then finally on wednesday february 16th 41 11th and 12th graders from east brunswick high school were inducted into mu alpha theta math honor society the guest speaker was mr chiang kai-hoo he's an east brunswick high school alum and a 2017 graduate of columbia university who spoke on the importance of mathematics and critical thinking in the real world the virtual ceremony and celebration featured pictures of all inductees and invited family friends and faculty thank you i just have to say

008i am i am constantly amazed surprised and proud of the incredible dedication and commitment our students have especially to achieve such academic excellence during a year like this a year like no other and bravo bravo to all of you we are moving on to several presentations and we are going to start out with the annual audit presentation bernie yes um thank you very much good evening uh this evening um is the required uh report on uh the results of our school district audit uh ending the period june 30th 2020. first we'll have joseph crotchfelt director of financial services provide some background information and then mr scott clelland partner with wisson company our independent auditor will report on his work and the results of the audit so um joe uh bernie are you going to pull

009up the it's coming okay great thank you um so first of all thank you for allowing me to present the 2020 comprehensive annual financial report um as you can see on the screen um we have received the two awards for several years in a row the first one for seven years in a row the second one for five years in a row so that's a pretty good accomplishment um and very proud of that uh bernie next slide so the governmental funds have four separate funds the general fund special revenue capital projects and debt service next slide party the general fund captures the day-to-day operations of this the district salary benefits utilities uh supplies and materials um the expenditures were up a little bit from the prior year uh but very consistent under fund balance the

010again very consistent fund balance of 25 million dollars that's not free balance there's reserves legally required items the new item for the 2020 year was the the last item reported the 93 63 000 um due to the savings uh of transportation not running in the negotiations that mr juliana did with the transportation companies who are able to bring that money forward and offset uh some items in the current uh budget next slide special revenue fund that captures all the the grants uh whether it's federal state um local including the evf and uh pta uh you can see there's slight increases in the ida and nclb which is the title funds the new item there is the last item reported the cares act due to covet that was the federal um stimulus bill that they put

011out we received 529 000 for that and mainly it went to the purchase of computers so we had total expenditures of 14 million dollars again very consistent with the prior year the other item the last item reported did increase about five million dollars that captures the items the construction the capital purchases that we we purchased through these purchase funds so we account for that in the special revenue fund and board by all means if you have any questions please chime in the capital projects fund that's where we do construction not related to lease purchase we had 5.9 million dollars and about a 3 million dollar increase over the prior year and that was mainly due to the ecip program that we are involved in bernie if you hit an accident it'll pop up um as

012the board and publics know we entered into an energy savings initiative program we did various improvements uh and it's paid for through the savings so you know the district has been very proactive in trying to reduce our carbon footprint and i'll be being energy efficient next slide the last governmental fund is uh debt service our balance of bonds payable as of the end of the year was 70 million dollars about a decrease of 5 million dollars due to refunding due to paying down of debt next slide debt service fund analysis uh the most important thing to take off this slide is the last bullet point um we are legally able to borrow four percent of the annual uh people average equalized value so if the board chose we could go out for bonds for an

013additional 233 million dollars and that's been consistent over over the last several years next slide then we have our enterprise funds the enterprise funds operate with a motive to to make money um the child nutrition program you know we we had a difficult year due to covet we totally had to change how we operate um the grab-and-go meal program since march we did you know had a decrease in operating revenue of about six hundred and fifty thousand dollars uh we had a decrease in operating expenses of about five hundred thousand but it wasn't you know the revenue going down because of the type of service we were doing really impacted the change in that position typically we we bring in about 100 000 profit a year which is uh you know a low amount but

014where we want to be with child nutrition so we can make various improvements this year we lost twenty three thousand dollars it's the first time i would say in seven probably eight years that we lost money in this fund in the the lunches uh the bottom bullet there were also decreased compared to the prior year next slide um excuse me joe before you move on to the next slide i had a question um you use the term when you introduce a slide the enterprise funds um are geared to make money for the district and that's not a phrase one usually associates with a school district so if you could just explain for anyone who's watching just briefly uh embellish a bit on that concept sure so yes right the district is not in the business

015of making money right we're here to educate to have a budget that's balanced in accounting terms the enterprise fund allows the district to make money now in child nutrition we don't want to make money we're not trying to overcharge the parents or the students for the meals that they're they're taking but as we get into the other slides you'll see community programs and facility rentals it's an opportunity for the district to bring in money make a profit and put that profit towards the general fund to offset taxes to allow the district to balance the budget and implement programs so it i believe our district has done an excellent job especially in community programs of returning money to the district to allow us to to not cut things you know over the last several years so

016you you know we're always looking for those opportunities it's provide a service and also try to make a little bit of money so kobe definitely had an impact on on these financials for june 30th thank you for that clarification so when we get into community programs um you'll see we had a loss of 374 000 so our revenues decreased um 1.2 million because we we were offering the number of programs the early morning the after school programs for the last three or four months of the school year so if we're not running programs there's no revenue coming in unfortunately we still not from a financial standpoint unfortunately we still had the same expenses we were required to pay all of our staff per state law which helped people through and prevented unemployment but the bottom

017line is it had a negative impact on our financials so typically we make 800 000 in this in the community programs fund so it's a decrease of 1.2 million that you know we made and we were not able to transfer any funds over to the general fund so again as a direct result of co-fit next slide so for some of these rentals um we did make a profit of 138 000 but our revenues were down 550 000 uh marks through uh the beginning of june is really the the uh the hot spot for dance recitals and that's where we take in most of our our facility rental money from jm pack and we weren't able to do that so we saw a decrease in revenue of 550 we also had a decrease in expenditures the

018net result we made 138 000 typically we're around 500 000 so it was a 370 000 decrease from prior years next slide financial facts we had cash inflows and outflows very consistently prior year we have a a good cash on hand balance next slide uh bernie you can just flip through the next several slides um and as you're doing that i just want to make a comment you know for just like the education piece of pivoting to remote and continuing to educate students we had to pivot in so many ways from the financial operation whether it's hr how we were operating through payroll paying vendors serving children meals offering virtual enrichment programs we we continue to offer virtual early learning academy so you know in a school district before covet working from home doing remote

019just like instruction it was a foreign concept um but i'm proud to say from a financial aspect we were able to do that and still stay in compliance still maintain separation of duties still make sure that the district is in good financial position despite the impact of copen and that's not done by me that's done by you know the board dr gillespie uh mr juliana uh and the whole central office team and all the support staff that go along with it so um you know i just wanted to make that comment and really this final slide says it it's a team effort i i've done this slide a couple times uh last prior years and it really is a team you know we all have our roles and we try to do it the best

020we can um and i think we do a really good job so in the audit kind of supports that so that's my presentation i know scott has his presentation more on the audit and the outcome of that and i'll turn it over to him unless the board has any questions thank you joe i appreciate the hard work and the success of of what's been achieved ernie i couldn't see everyone did any board members have any questions indicate that they had any question on joe's presentation um i don't have a view of all the board members with uh the screen up in this manner but um i don't i didn't hear anyone uh asking uh to comment all right when we go back to gallery view if anybody uh did want to ask a question please

021just raise your hand or chat me thank you so um welcoming scott clelland from wisson company good evening scott good evening bernie thank you for inviting me tonight as well and um i look forward to presenting the results to the audit you're going to control the screen again yes good evening members of the board i appreciate again the opportunity to be here to present the audit for the 2020 fiscal year earlier in the week i had the opportunity to meet with the administration and finance committee to go over the audit in detail and what i'd like to do tonight is just piggyback off of what joe had gone over and speak more from the results of the order perspective and some of the obstacles that we had to deal with from a covey perspective first

022of all i want to thank dr valesky and bernie and and joe and tara and all the administrative staff for really going above and beyond this year with helping us get an audit done we did the entire audit remote and it involved a lot of questions and feedback going back and forth with various phone call meetings encrypting data sharing back and forth and as usual the administrative staff stepped up and did a tremendous job helping us get the audit done with the covet crisis the audit is normally due on december 5th and due to the covet situation and the lack of information being provided by the state division of pensions the deadline was moved to february 5th of 2021 just a week or so ago and i'm reporting that the report was filed on time

023with the state in accordance with the revised statutory requirements the audit takes a bit of time and again it again you guys did not miss a beat we were very concerned going in regarding how are districts going to handle the compliance to all the statutory requirements and also to handle not letting the internal controls slip and during our testing of all the major systems and all the key controls that are operated by the district the district did not miss a beat controls remain strong you have a very very strong administrative finance team in place that you should be very very proud of because they really really do a great job as joe kind of mentioned the audit is all inclusive on this slide we look at administration we look at instruction we look at student

024services we look at transportation related items and there was extra time spent with bernie this year going over how he settled up the transportation contracts because it was a unique situation out there and he did a very good job managing through and negotiating those contracts operations the enterprise fund operations like your facility rentals like joe mentioned and then also you have internal service fund operations or your self-insurance for your health plan which is administered in a separate fund we look at your capital improvements and we also look at your debt service and one thing to mention in the debt service area uh the district is very very proactive in looking at your existing debt and when the opportunity does arise they take full advantage of refunding a debt to identify savings and the refunding of

025older debt from a 2010 or 2012 that took place this year will result in over three million dollars of savings to the school district over the next several years from the interest perspective uh scott i just want to interject here for a moment uh because uh for clarity of the you know in in terms of the public refunding of debt that's um a term uh in the industry but essentially it's a refinancing so by refinancing the debt uh in our um our capital debt uh we were able to um to ultimately uh see that the district will save in excess of three million dollars as uh mr clelland noted the order's objective is we are required to perform procedures which includes inquiry observation confirmation testing transactions testing for controls and testing for compliance and the

026ultimate goal is that we have to provide an opinion an opinion on those financial statements as to whether they are accurate and in performing our procedures this year even under the covid 19 situation and the pandemic everything we requested everything we had to verify all the procedures we were required to perform by our standards were performed were able to be performed and we were able to become comfortable that the financial statements are fairly presented in accordance with u.s general accepted accounting principles for us to render an unmodified or a clean opinion on those financial statements which is the highest level of opinion that can be placed on any entity's financial statements as part of the procedures of the audit we also look at as i mentioned previously internal controls over those financial statements and we

027also have to look at internal controls over compliance for such things as bidding and quotes and all the other requirements of the state of new jersey and i'm happy to report that there were no findings that were identified that uh would result in any issues or and no findings at all identified during the course of the order which again something you should be very proud of especially under the pandemic circumstances next slide um we also are required to look at your federal and state programs your largest federal program normally is your idea program for special ed students and that's the program we looked at again this year and we also look at various state programs and in all of our procedures we did not identify any internal control matters or lack of compliance for how

028your funds were spent for your federal and state programs uh next slide uh the report that was presented this evening when you have in your hands is a comprehensive annual financial report which includes the introductory section which is a district prepared area which talks about all the nice accomplishments and some of the issues that were dealt with from covet 19 the financial section is where the orders opinion is located as well as the financial numbers and related notes the statistical section is an area in the back of the report that has 20 schedules that have statistical data such as debt limits number of teachers teacher student ratios it's a good document to look at for general information and then the fourth category is your single audit section which is where the information related to your

029testing of your federal and state programs is documented next slide uh so i mentioned earlier the results of this year the operating results were very very good again uh district is remains in a very strong financial position uh even though we had some losses in some of the enterprise funds due to covid and as usual the financial records were in excellent condition as joe mentioned you should be very proud of the fact that you've received the international asbo certificate of excellence for seven consecutive years and the gfo certificate of achievements for five consecutive years you are one of i think two or three districts that actually is able to receive both of these awards um so that's again very proud accomplishment that you should always abort be very proud of thank you next one as

030i mentioned earlier there were no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies and really were not any findings this year's all for two consecutive years and in auditing your grants we also had a clean unmodified opinion on compliance next slide i think that's it right yes so just in summary um you have a very very strong financial picture you have very very strong financial people in place that do a very very good job and take their job very very seriously and you're very lucky to have a strong administrative group like you like you do there in east brunswick and the boards be very proud of of what you have accomplished from dealing with this pandemic as well as all the different accolades that continue to come forward to east brunswick public schools so with that i'd be

031more than happy to open it up for any questions you have and again thank you again for inviting me to tonight's presentation thank you scott um any questions from board members i did want to also um offer congratulations to our finance team for consistently being awarded those two certificates of financial excellence it's a testimony to their work and dedication but joe i'm going to go back to the slide that you showed in your presentation of the puzzle pieces because it is a great slide because i think that rules and regulations are only as good as they are carried out um not just in terms of accuracy but in terms of collaboration and coordination and i think every single member of this district administrators support staff all employees of this district share in these awards to

032a certain extent because it is the way that they carry out the financial efficiency of what is said to them that makes us so successful so um kudos to everyone did i say something of course um i just wanted to to um along with you thank mr giuliana mr crossfelt mrs rosaving they are key players in making the finances of our district so solid but i also want to thank the board of education because for the community who's listening uh behind the scenes when we had to remove ourselves from our buildings march 18th of 2020 the board quickly geared up with what i believe where were frequent uh meetings we had meetings almost every week and finance meetings were reconstructed uh by breaking the board down into components of three members a piece we would

033have them all the same night so we would have compliance but we would go through and and we were sharing information with the board at that time about what the immediate impacts of the pandemic were looking like what we were going to have to do to balance our budget last year what we were going to have to do to plan for this year so scott i appreciate your audit and your team and um it just goes to show all the hard work that was put in behind the scenes and such a positive result for the uh for the taxpayers of east brunswick and the the prudent uh fiscal operation of the district i can't say enough about these people mrs becker yep so um before moving on i would like to express my sincere thanks

034to the team we have a number of members of the financial services department online tonight and i want them to know from me how much it's appreciated uh the hard work and the dedication that they put forth uh each and every day um i i don't think they approach um their responsibilities as just being a job they truly care about this district and it is a family and um i'm very proud to be associated with this team and for the diligence that they show each and every day and i thank you very very much for all of your work you make all of our lives much calmer and we breathe easier because of the work that you do now that was very very lovely bernie thank you um before we proceed i just want to

035mention that i've been getting text messages from several board members who are experiencing various internet problems either with visual or audio and um just apologize if they have to keep going in and out or rebooting so uh just wanted to let everyone know that's what's going on okay um great audit presentation thank you skin scott now i believe we have three budget reports bernie jeff yes we do um so let me uh just take a moment here to get the right slide up and and we're off to the races so this is continuation of our budget discussions and presentations uh on the 2020 or 2122 school district budget um tonight we have three presentations the first one i ask dr figueroa to speak with regard to athletics thank you very much mr giuliani can everyone

036hear me okay yep okay great good evening everyone i'd like to review with you to propose budget for athletics for the 2021-2022 school year athletics helps our students develop positive character traits lifelong values and leadership skills it also helps our students explore their physical abilities and healthy and social environment with their peers during covert times we've had our athletes tell us that sports have helped them relieve stress both physically and mentally provided them with something relatively normal during these difficult times we can go on so these some of the areas covered by the budget the athletic programs and the competitions uh tonight i'd like to review for you some of the areas that take up most of the athletic budget so if we can go to the pie chart okay let's start with athletic uniforms

037athletic uniforms are 13 of the budget we're on a four year cycle this is a cycle that was created by mr juliana uh mr crotchfeld mr yanazzo four years ago we're actually we'll be starting again 2022 on the new cycle what's good about this cycle is that every four years the teams get new uniforms not just the varsity team what that means is that there are no more hand-me-downs so there's no more varsity to jv they'll be the freshman everyone will get new uniforms and i think our our athletes really appreciate that also i'd like to point out another big area athletic officials fees 26 on your screen now the new jersey interscholastic athletic association or the njsia have three-year contracts for officials that we must adhere to and that's what those numbers are for

038uh last i just want to talk a little bit about the contracted transportation oh that's 28 as you see on your screen that's transportation that's needed for athletic events that we cannot cover with in-house buses now last year our transportation costs and mr giuliani correct me if i'm wrong we're about 55 percent of our athletic budget uh but thanks to the board and the work of dr valesky and mr juliana we were able to have two additional buses that we can have in use next year that will save us an additional 123 000 i also want to just mention uh that when he is aboard our new supervisor of athletics mr malta and i will review each sport this spring and this fall and we'll come up with some recommendations as we move forward for

039the coming years do you have any questions on the athletic budget bernie can we go back to the full gallery view thank you any board members have any questions comments jeff anything you wanted to add i did get a chance to preview this the other night but i'll tell you uh the reporting of the budgets i did mentions to uh mr julian the other night and uh mr crossfelt and at all uh the reporting and the way that they're laid out the pie chart uh it makes it so clear uh and really easy to understand i know these budgets which i've dealt with for years you can get lost in the muck and and uh so i can just let you know i greatly appreciate and hopefully the public does too that um the explanation

040of uh where things go and how and how they'll be spent uh i think it's great so i do apprec for both myself and uh all that uh have an interest in seeing it thank you okay any other questions thank you so much lou um bernie special ed yes so next is special education and we will be coming back to dr figaro in a moment but first we have special education and uh i would invite miss kelly bond mrs bond to speak on her department thank you very much and and good evening to everyone thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening and to share the proposed special education budget i'm always happy and proud to share the the important work of the special education department uh i have sincere respect for all the

041people within it that make the department great so i want to take a moment to thank all of them and also uh to thank this board dr valesky and dr figueroa for all the support that has been given to me um since joining the team uh the department and then in turn the students uh within it the proposed budget supports the mission and the principles of the special education department the heart of our work is truly to take care of students in addition our actions must align with the new jersey administrative code and federal regulations um this slide demonstrates many of the requirements the staff within the special education department are responsible for so we our goal is to strive to create quality programs to meet the needs of all learners the proposed budget helps

042us provide the many services needed to ensure the fidelity of all of those programs that we offer while remaining in compliance with the law the next slide lists many of the services that are offered by the special education department in order to meet the needs of the whole child we do perform a variety of different types of evaluations to ensure that we look at each child through various lenses and in turn to ensure that we're providing an individualized and exemplary educational experience that truly meets all of their needs the social and emotional supports that are offered within the special education department are critical always but even more so as we enter a school year following an extended school closure due to covid the next slide uh demonstrates a downward trend of out of district placements

043over the past 10 years you can see on this slide here in 2010 2011 we had 93 students in out of district placements uh fast forward to our proposed 21 22 where we anticipate having 46 students out of district this number can fluctuate dependent on student needs however we do based upon at the actual numbers in which we have at this time and and this downward trend is something our department is really really uh proud of and um you know the reason that this can happen is because east brunswick has successfully created many specialty programs that allow us to educate students in the least restrictive environment and in their community schools due to the support of the board and the hard work of the entire department we offer a wide variety of specialized programs to

044meet the needs of our diverse population one change that will occur for next year is we're going to be adding an elementary autism section and um this does not require any additional teaching staff because we will be decreasing a preschool section so we really look at our projections to make those decisions on what is needed and the last slide is a visual representation of the proposed special education budget inclusive of many of the items that were included in the previous slides so our budget is um you know truly fiscally responsible but but keeping in mind at the heart of what we do and and that's making sure that we meet the needs of all of our kids and uh and take care of the students in our in the best of our ability so thank

045you so much again for your support and your time and i'm happy to answer any questions that anyone might have um i see a hand raised um jeff barbara was that your hand raised you have laurie you have jeff okay i saw jefferson laurie then who bernie we will then lee will jeff flory lee thank you um you're breaking up your return to that slide with [Music] can you hear me now is that better yes yeah uh i all right so apparently there's a thing a camera thing so ms bond can you if yeah uh the slide before that one please can can you speak to for those who don't quite understand the mechanics uh behind out of district placement what this actually means from a savings standpoint and and and why this is so

046important that we're uh able to contain uh many of the other uh many of the areas that are needed right within the district as opposed to out of district placement um tell us can you tell or either you or mr giuliana speak to the impact of this uh drastic change over a ten year period um i don't know if mr giuliani if you want us to speak to more of the fiscal impact um for for us it's important to have students in district schools and in their community schools as often as possible um to comply with the law number you know one of the reasons for the least restrictive environment but also for students it's it's it's wonderful to have the opportunity to be in your community school so because we've increased in our self-contained

047offerings and our specialty programs we're able to educate students within our um within our schools the fiscal impact is is quite great given that out of district placements are are quite expensive so looking at this shift over time and and you know we chose to put three different years on but it has steadily decreased since 1011. um you know there were no spikes or anything it was a true decrease over time i'll speak to the the fiscal aspect for a moment um and uh mrs bond is absolutely correct this has been a steady decrease over the years uh just put some some dollars uh to this and miss bond is absolutely correct the um in terms of the tuition costs um are are costly they are they are expensive and and because they do they

048are for specialized programs uh that students require um if we use an average of 75 000 per student as a benchmark some would be more some would be less but if we use that as a benchmark the reduction in the number of students in out-of-district placements since 2010-11 has resulted in an excess of 3.5 million dollars in reduced costs now some of that has gone to offset uh creating programs in district but certainly uh the net impact is favorable to the bottom line and the children more importantly and just as and just as a follow-up to that and with that with those savings um could you speak to there's been no compromise uh in bringing this back in-house and is there any indicators that say we may actually be doing uh a better job uh

049how bringing these students back in keeping the controls the psychological impact of staying in the district and all the accoutrements that go along with that what have been your findings uh as as both uh from the um instructive instruction along with the book called the psychological impact of being able to stay home you know having a student in our schools has a variety of benefits one of which we have the ability because our continuum of programs that we have in districts we have the ability to have students participate with their general education peers as often as possible when they are in house with us we also have connections with athletics so we have students who serve on athletic teams in a variety of different ways participate in our clubs when they're a member of our

050school community at a district student certainly have that opportunity but with transportation and the travel time it's it's it's much more readily available for them when they're a member of our school community so we find it to be extremely beneficial i think it's also beneficial as students move on we support students ages 3 to 21. so when you have students who are remaining with us through the age of 21 our in-house child study team high school child study team and counseling department working with those students on post-secondary goals where they're going you know i i would love to keep you know every child we can keep in district we should be working towards thank you very much welcome bernie could you put us back on gallery view please thank you lori did you have a

051follow-up question no actually that was the comment i was gonna make was um you know looking back at those slides 10 years ago when i first got on board that was one of the criticisms is how much we spent to send kids out of district it was something we always wanted to work on so to see that a decade later we cut that number in half this is particularly um encouraging so thanks thanks appreciate it thank you uh leewoo yes uh i have two easy questions for miss van so totally how many students are receiving the special education at this moment amounts 46 among them so by the cost percentage how what kind of percentage of those 46 out of district placement in the entire uh special ed budget sorry i'm muted i apologize um

052so we have approximately we have about are you asking how many total students we have receiving special education services yeah this is my question number one so we have about 1500 students that are receiving special education services speech you know and full ieps and then your second question was the percentage of the budget 46 students are out of district placement the cost on those 46 by percentage uh amount of entire food entire budget by percentage how much is that so i'm looking back at the pie chart here and it looks like um we have so if we look at uh strictly um the special education department budget um 36 of the special education department's budget is allocated toward out-of-district tuition however uh that's there's also uh out-of-district tuition that is paid under the idea grant

053so that's not the the total amount that is within the district general fund budget is not all of the tuition to look at it in terms of a percentage of the special education department budget really doesn't uh provide the information that i think you're really looking for i don't have a bottom line on the current budget at this moment but keep in mind that the various services that are provided in the in-district programs child study teams and so forth those are not contained within the special education department budget those are salaries and those are accounted for separately but mr hong i i will provide that information i'm making a note of it and i will get that information to you in terms of the the percentage of the overall budget the reason why i ask

054this question is to help taxpayers understand that why we are trying our best to expand in-district placement instead of sending our students to other school districts doing so will save us a lot of money that's it thank you yeah there's a and if i can supplement i mean there's no question um in my mind that um an in-district program is much more efficient um in terms of services for students not only in terms of its effectiveness in the program that's provided the quality of the program that we can control but also in terms of the financial impacts um without without a doubt without a doubt in my mind thank you very much you're welcome so that's why i said my question is easy question heather i see your hand raised well i have a comment

055and then a question i just wanted to say kudos to the administrative team for bringing back so many students from out of district placement i know it is a huge financial gain but also from a special ed perspective and actually from the full full school population it's not just the least restrictive environment that we're required to provide which is fantastic but it's also a better experience on the whole i mean what ms bond was saying about the access to sports is completely true but also the access to clubs and peers and the people that you grew up with around you i also think it's worthwhile to mention that it's important for the other students that you need the full diverse community to be in your school where you can know and grow up with all

056kinds of other students when kids go out of district they are you know travel as far and they're not so much present in the community so i think that's really valuable and the other thing is i wanted to thank the administrative team because bringing back students in district is not just i think people often think it's just creating like one classroom it's hire one teacher create one classroom get paraprofessionals and we're good and it's very very intensive on the administrative side on the child study team it is a lot of work to create strong programs and i think east brunswick has that and i just think it's fabulous my question is super simple though i think it's for bernie is esy included on the budget for the summer in the like is this budget esy

057for 2022 or is this budget esy for 2021 so um not reflected in the pie charts but the budget that we are we are working on is esy 2021 because the fiscal year begins july 2021. i knew that's when the fiscal year begins but i wasn't sure when we started esy and i really didn't know thank you yes y will begin in july i forget the exact date but it's um i think around mid-july second week or so thank you you're welcome anyone else um something i like to just point out to everyone every year to those who are watching that um the district the schools the private schools that accept our out of district placements are under no legal um there are no laws or regulations in the state to cap their tuition correct

058kelly so we are literally at their mercy if they want to increase the tuition rates every single year they can and again we if a student needs that kind of specialized education we are more than happy to provide it but i i have often thought it unfair that these schools that school districts are have a cap on their budgets but yet these private schools can increase their tuition whenever they want i just want you to mention that that's a good point yes thank you for mentioning that i appreciate that anyone else thank you kelly thank you very much so we are now back to dr figueroa welcome back and um dr figueroa will now speak to the student services budget thank you mr giuliani i'm happy to review with you the proposed student services budget

059for the 2021-2022 school year in student services we make time to strengthen relationships help our students find peace in their day we work with students academic or social and emotional challenges we work to make sure that we know when a student needs extra supports so you see here some of the base parts of the budget the student services budget encompasses school counseling student assistance specialists and nursing needs tonight i'd like to point out a couple of additional areas and a little bit more detail so thank you mr juliana going to the pie chart um i want to point your attention first to the health and physical education instruction budget which is only two percent but i just want to um remind you that uh although it's only two percent for this coming year each building

060has funds for health and physical education that we will utilize as well so our new supervisor of health and physical education uh mr meyer and i will be working closely with our principals uh to take stock of what each school has and what each school needs and will look to make sure that schools are equitable and resources are shared accordingly i just wanted to point that out to you i'd like to take a make a quick mention actually to improvement of instruction that's six percent of our budget for the coming year this is for cultural diversity and equity this includes aligning curriculum teaching practices maintaining a culture that reflects the value and diversity of the entire community this year we're working on needs assessment focus groups and administrator and staff training that's i would like

061to discuss briefly with you some health services which is obviously the lion's share of our student services budget 87 percent of our budget um effective school solutions or ess which i'd like to discuss further with you in a moment is a big part of that uh part of the health services is also health supplies 504 needs nursing substitutes medical services flex program screenings also our school physician consults on policies for us physical exams for students in need also approves medical home instruction and medical he's consulted on medical emergencies as well so just talking about effective school solutions which you can see in front of you is such a big part of that pie effective school solutions or ess that we contracted with this year ess clinicians offer psychiatric care supports to students with behavioral social

062or emotional challenges they conduct weekly individual group therapy conduct monthly or bi-monthly family therapy there are monthly parent support groups and monthly newsletters this year the ess worked closely with students with school avoidance uh de-escalation and with reducing stress mr juliana has up the therapeutic counseling chart which i'd like to go through with you in a little bit of detail um if we look at 2020 2021 this year you'll see that east brunswick high school had one clinician the case of 11 the total possible could have been 15 churchill one clinician again the maximum would have been 15 may not have been optimum but maximum would have been 15. hammershould had half a clinician queso to five the flex program had half a clinician uh with a case of seven there was no focus from

063this group on professional development it was done as needed when it could be done he proposed for next year 2021 2022 would be to add 1.5 clinicians to what we have this year that would allow us to have one clinician at high school with caseload maximum case load of 15. churchill one clinician also 15 hammer shoulder one full-time clinician a case of 15 and the flex program one full-time clinician with a case soda 15. in addition we would have half of a clinician or half-time clinician that can focus on professional development the professional development piece um is important for our staff um and that's something that will help our staff to work with the needs of some of the students that have behavioral issues now looking ahead which would be two years down the road

064what i will propose to you next year but i just want to give you an idea where we're going um and this does have an impact on what ms bond's presentation fantastic presentation ms bond had done what i'd like to propose two years from now will be two clinicians with a potential caseload of 30 for the high school two clinicians a churchill with a 30 caseload potential hammer schultz still would have one full-time clinician a soda 15 flex program also won full-time clinician with a case sort of 15. by having the extra clinicians professional development would be embedded throughout the buildings which is important for ongoing professional development for our staff but a big piece of this also we would have the ability to look at possibly bringing in even more students in district because

065of the additional supports and behavioral needs of our students that are out of district so that is uh a real a realism something that i would like to say i know this bond is working on that as well so that is that is our goal just something to if you look at uh what the next couple of years um may look like uh are there any questions on that or anything barbara oh thank you thank you for that rapport and uh mine's more of a comment uh and for for the public and for us in general as a thank you uh for this commitment to uh having these kind of support services as we all know the pandemic makes these kind of counseling services even more important than ever and it's amazing that you know

066our financial department and dr volesky and yourself mr farrow and everyone involved uh ms bond and all that to have this available uh when funds that we're bringing in are much lower and the fact that you planned ahead to have this available hopefully will help a lot of our students with a lot of issues that they may have pre pandemic post pandemic and moving forward uh in their lives so thank you thank you mrs i just want to mention that without the board's support and the vision of dr valesky and the support the financial workings of mr juliana and his team um you know we wouldn't be able to get to this point but thanks to you we're able to move forward and again it affects the students in our district greatly and that's that's

067what we're here for make things better for our students anyway possible any other board members have questions um heather now i just have a comment as well i appreciate the way this presentation fits with the special ed presentation because the increase in a clinician to the flex program and the increased numbers projected in the schools has a direct relationship on the emotional well-being and behavior of our students and that can actually stop students from needing the move to out of district or escalating to a point where their services are looked at in that way i think it's a great deal of forethought on the part of the administrative team to not have those students leave the district it's better for them to be here but also from a cost standpoint it's just wise so i

068appreciate that we're moving upwards especially with the full-time clinician for the flex program thank you ms gabs i appreciate you saying that um you know i do want to also mention um that the least restrictive environment is always what we're focusing on as responder told us earlier with our students so to bring students home and we'll keep students home um that's that's great fiscally but it's also best we believe for our students and our family lou i actually had a question um very good report thank you um our attendance i guess our virtual attendance at extracurricular activities that we've been able to maintain throughout this pandemic which is so crucial again to the social emotional development of our students to have that connection to extracurriculars um what would you say about the the attendance during

069the pandemic as opposed to uh pre-pandemic well we've always had very good attendance pre-pandemic surprisingly i think what happened uh during the pandemic is that we've had a lot of students that would normally maybe not stay after school or not be involved that were able to be involved because they can just click on so the numbers are are good some areas better than we expected some areas about what we expected but i think if you ask the students they would tell you and and i'm sure the the staff as well that uh we're all looking forward to everybody being back in school full-time and um hopefully we'll have even more students want to get involved and and realize that if i was wasn't involved before uh the pandemic i missed a golden opportunity but i

070still have an opportunity to get back into our clubs and activities and our sports so we're looking forward to that but what's interesting um totally agree what's interesting though about what you said is there's so many different reasons why a student may not be able to participate after school whether it's a transportation issue or a family responsibility issue and they have to get home it might be something to think about to continue even just limited several remote virtual extracurricular activities so that those students do have the opportunity the ones who really want to participate but just have to get home for whatever reason physically so i that you know it's another takeaway it's dr voliski you mentioned several times about um there are several things we've we've learned and accomplished during this pandemic that can

071be translated into what will be our regular normal quote-unquote school year and hopefully um and this this is definitely a good takeaway absolutely the the primary focus is getting students back in school and but we have we have clearly discovered uh some uh some some hidden benefits of using technology and we've all grown administratively and and in terms of our use of technology uh so i think our application of technology to augment our face-to-face instruction back in school and returning to some sense of normalcy is going to make us a better school district yep anyone else barbara just a quick question um about ppe uh was under um it said on the areas not yet approved is that uh something that we're gonna continue how like just maybe you could update us on the ppe

072situation we do have uh monies allotted for ppe what we did last uh or this year actually is we purchase ppe um when available and we do have some extra ppe um but we also have um some funds for additional ppe for next year this is juliana i don't know if you want to add anything to that so uh mrs reese what we are planning to do is uh continuing to look at uh what's uh what's happening in terms of the pandemic what kinds of uh steps we need to continue to take and those that won't be necessary so we're not just adding things into the budget that may not be required so um we're keeping those on hold right now until we get a better handle on what the future may bring for us

073okay thank you okay bernie want to bring it home certainly so uh just briefly um as a reminder we have a number of budget presentations coming up march 4th and march 18th when we will be coming into the closing days of the tentative budget the governor is still scheduled to provide his budget address february 23rd state aid data is released two days after that budget address so that's when we'll find out what our state aid is the tentative budget adoption is scheduled for march 18th um it cannot be delayed beyond that uh we will then have a public hearing on may 7th certainly the time from the tentative budget adoption through the up to the public hearing uh we will continue to have conversations and uh potentially make modifications to the tentative budget final modifications

074will need to be presented if there are any at the public hearing the final budget adoption will then occur may 13th and that is it for the budget for this week thank you good job everyone okay next we have a presentation on block scheduling at churchill junior high school in east brunswick high school uh dr velesky did you want to introduce us or just uh dr bully um i'm just going to introduce dr bolli who's going to drive the presentation we're going to present to the public an abbreviated presentation that we already presented to the board of education uh to give the community an overview of our proposal to the board for block scheduling and dr boley has members of her administrative team along with dr mike vanella principal at the brunswick high school mr

075matt hannah's principal at churchill junior high school uh these are the two schools where we would propose to implement uh block scheduling so they've been intimately involved in discussion and the analysis uh that went into this so dr boley you want to take it away certainly thank you good evening uh our slides burn ready here they come okay great okay so uh thank you block scheduling provides a better student learning experience understanding from our students and our parents the stress and the heavy workload that many of our adolescents bear the high school scheduling committee has been studying this topic for a few years now and we can say that one positive that the last year has provided us with is an opportunity to rethink how we are approaching teaching and learning and we know that

076as we transition back our classrooms now more than ever need to be more student-centered with time during the day for both social emotional learning and addressing potential learning gaps with that in mind this is the time to implement block scheduling to most effectively structure the school day for our students block scheduling also provides a better teaching experience longer periods will provide the time for teachers to get to know students better as they plan coherent instruction to thoughtfully improve student learning through collaboration coaching and providing individualized feedback the added time will allow teachers to make the important transition from the traditional role of giver of knowledge to the much more appropriate facilitator for learning the block period will be structured in a way to allow students to explore content in depth and make deeper connections be

077more active in their learning and provide time for reflection it's important to note that over the school year the total number of instructional hours will continue to exceed the minimum number the minimum number of hours per course that's required by the new jersey department of education currently students have a typical caseload of eight classes and this will remain the same with our modified a b block scheduling no course offerings or electives will be reduced with the move to the modified a b block schedule there will be no longer any quarter electives as they will all be modified into a semester or a full year course the quarter electives that were previously offered will be expanded to include a semester's worth of material or combined with other quarter electives to create new and exciting semester elective

078offerings for our students our students with special needs will benefit from the block schedule by having the opportunity to be exposed to extended time within each subject block scheduling will provide instructional benefits through increased time for small groups reinforcement of the lesson the practice of the skills introduced and instruction related to iep goals and objectives this structure also allows for flexibility that can be used for social breaks interaction and movement as needed block scheduling is better for higher level courses such as ap because of the depth of these courses this format will provide extended blocks of time for reading writing critical analysis and discussion without interruption block scheduling will provide more time for students to apply what they learned in the same room with an expert this format is better to cover big ideas concepts

079and texts in longer blocks of time it also allows for the day off for students to complete the substantial reading that all ap courses demand with longer periods students will be able to dig deep and sustain engagement in ap activities regular practice testing will be chunked into segments this schedule also provides the time for a daily standalone homeroom period for community building and social emotional learning activities a grade level cohort will stay together for their homeroom period all three years and have they all have the same counselor this schedule provides a midday longer lunch period break you can see here that lunch a will be scheduled before periods three or seven lunch b will be scheduled in the middle of periods 3 or and lunch c will be scheduled after periods 3 or 7. we

080realize that successful implementation will require ongoing support and professional learning opportunities for staff some of the initial steps will include revisions to our curriculum our pacing guides and teacher planning to ensure that the additional time is utilized effectively for additional information one may visit the district website at www.ebnet.org and there you will also find a feature to pose any additional questions that you may have thank you thanks dr bowley any questions from the board questions comments leeway dr bollis thank you very much for a great presentation are you going to post your slides on the district website to help parents understand this blog scheduling thank you leo yes i am as well as the uh an overview video that was shown at the a couple board meetings prior that'll be on there as well as

081in addition the faqs that were compiled will be there for parents and we'll add to them as parents uh put features in through the chat on the website thank you very much um joyce i imagine that we're going to be incorporating a lot of um this introduction to block scheduling into our student orientations this summer would it be possible to provide some kind of even if it's virtual orientation for parents who who want to come kind of a town hall format but to give parents an opportunity to see the slide in detail and um perhaps submit questions but just to have a forum so that they have a total understanding of of um their pieces yeah that's a great idea um we are we are um planning for student orientation for those students who are

082incoming to the to the various buildings and also for students who due to covet and remote learning are not new to the school per se but have not physically been in the school yet so including the parent piece is a great idea okay thank you anyone else we would like to also look at using some of our opportunities with our pta parent nights at the schools to offer parents the opportunity to come and ask questions and and have more specific related to the building based um items that's a great idea yes whatever opportunities we can take pta meetings back to school nights i don't think that this is just going to be something that that parents and students but right now we're talking about the parents we'll just have questions about in august and september

083i think it'll be an ongoing ongoing process as it is for all of us the learning process and we also might get some some um good feedback from parents in terms of helping us to tweak things so i think it will also be um important to try and come up with some kind of mechanism to constantly get feedback from the students what's working what isn't working you know an ongoing not professional development for them but to provide ongoing forums for them where they do have an opportunity to let us know uh what's working and that's what what's not working president becker like like you suggested the feedback loop but we will include the teachers as well and that feedback loop oh well that goes without saying it but but also i think this is um

084this is a change uh that was was well thought out uh before it became as a recommendation to the board but the pandemic really created this environment as dr bully said for us to explore acceleration of implementation uh and align it with our recovery from the pandemic but i think um not just tonight and not just the pta meetings this this will require ongoing communication with the public and you know check in with them at a variety of board meetings between now and the start of the uh 2021-22 school year uh so they can understand what we're about to undertake and so we can kind of prompt their thinking about asking questions because i know everyone's lives are really busy right now and they will continue to be busy uh so it's our responsibility to

085keep it on the on the top top shelf so people understand it's important and we're ready to answer their questions uh dr valeski ongoing professional development for the staff is absolutely crucial totally agree and has to be ongoing has to be um seven days a week almost in terms of opportunity to get feedback and to ask questions and to discuss with their department chairs and supervisors and building administrators um i often think though that we we forget that the students can also provide valuable feedback to us because they're the ones along with the teachers in the classroom who are really seeing um our plans translated into what's working or what isn't totally great heather are you scratching your hand or raising it both okay um scratch it's all things um i didn't want to ask

086what are we planning to do or do we have a plan i'm sure we do but do we have a plan to evaluate the effectiveness of this as we move forward besides a feedback loop are there criteria that we'll be looking at long term to see the benefits dr bowie yes so of course um you know the feedback and the the qualitative uh data from the stakeholders is critical but also taking a look at um you know we have quarterly data reviews with the building administration so understanding any trends or changes in any of our student achievement data or social emotional data visits to the counselors anything such as that definitely will be monitored i know the counselors do a great job in tracking um the patterns and trends of what students are presenting with

087when they come down to talk so all of that will be taken into account i i want to emphasize what dr bully just said it's it's not just about the the quantitative data it's about the qualitative piece too and about the the uh the stress or the the change in feelings that students have in this kind of format and the teachers as well we think it's going to be successful we have every hope it will be successful but we that that's a piece of this that's why we are so passionate about this because we think this is a mechanism that will reduce the stress uh of many of our students and um and but professional development will have to be a piece of this implementation to reduce the stress for teachers uh so they they

088can be prepared to implement this seamlessly um dr bollier or dr volesky could you just speak for a minute to the process of looking at best practices from other districts and block scheduling models from other districts that you investigated as part of your process of coming up with a model for east brunswick well you want to talk to that you might want to involve some other members of the team at this point because they were directly involved in that definitely so i do know that the high school scheduling team of which mr hannis has been a part of um has been uh studying this for a few years now i'm not sure if dr vanilla is on the call here but uh matt if you'd like to speak to the process that the the group

089went through over the last few years sure sure dr bully so when we started the process what we wanted to do was look at schools that were in similar district factor groups similar performance levels size um and we also wanted to look at different types of schedule it wasn't that we settled in on one type of schedule saying this is what we want to move to we really did take the perspective of what is the optimal use of instructional time so we looked at several different models including was our current 42-minute period maybe the best fit some of the other schedules that we looked at were the a b style block where you have four periods one day and four periods another day um with classes in uh in a time frame of somewhere between

09065 to 85 minutes range we looked at schools that use a rotating drop block where you have an eight period day and you drop two periods per day that entails a few things with lunch that are not feasible where this where the school would have to have a unit lunch where the entire student body is eating lunch at at a single time it also impacted some of the the um the senior privileges that our seniors at the high school have with things like late in and early out which are privileges that many students like when they get to their senior year and we still wanted to be able to offer to those students who are interested in that so that's why um when making the determination to look at the a b block that that

091seemed to be the best fit but we also did site visits getting out to different schools to look at the a b style block versus the rotating drop block and having students come along teachers come along so that we could get input from all the stakeholders and and see what does it look like when you're actually going through that schedule um and what would be the best fit for us do your teachers go along i didn't know that that's that's that's great i'm i'm glad we involved them at that level yes and we also in this analysis involved a critical piece of this was uh mr rochefelt whoever sees child nutrition operations and how do we accomplish uh serving students in this block um and so he was a he had to be a critical

092piece of that that factoring and could we make this could this be achievable could we actually accomplish this and miss becker if i may uh matt and the scheduling committee also um had a parent evening session at the high school and a student session where they got uh feedback from both the parent group and the student group who participated discussing the the um the need for something to change regarding the scheduling the workload and the daily stress and pressure great good to hear anybody else comments questions great presentation great work by all of you yeah thanks dr billy thanks mr hanna's thanks academics team all of you appreciate it good job okay uh sorry i just need to get back to the agenda okay okay thanks to everyone who gave presentations tonight we are now

093up to the good of the cause of 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 host and enter and send your 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 the board of education recognizes the value of public comment allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest to protect the privacy of all students and staff concerns regarding individual students and staff members should generally be addressed by first meeting with the appropriate administrative staff public

094participation will be limited to three minutes duration is there anyone wishing to address the board this evening bernie is there anyone in the queue i see no one no messages here asking to speak okay seeing none i close the public portion and we will move on to this evening's agenda uh for the board of education agenda we're going to be tabling item 2 the 2021-2022 school calendar at the request of several board members for further discussion so there are five items remaining on the agenda can i please have a motion for items one through five on the board of education agenda so mostly mobility is there any discussion mark mark says the numbers is uh policies still on that yes okay uh policy one no i'm sorry i'm sorry i i spoke too soon uh

095one one three four and five does not include policies okay so we're going to do six later mark you want to separate out um i'm sorry when i said i meant there were five items left i meant that um sorry i didn't mean to confuse you apparently the motion on the floor is uh for items one three four and five policies is not one of them okay uh and this is a roll call vote discussion i didn't see any other hands okay uh mr carangelo yes mrs two um i've seen from five and yes to the west mr sismar yes this is gloss yes yes this is lex yes this is reese yes mr winston yes and president becker yes motion carries can i please have a motion for item number six policies first reading

096moved by jeff second by laurie is there any discussion mark mark sismar hi thanks on policy 152 uh since the bylaws were opened up for board elections was there any discussion about adding a candidate's statement or a question and answer period where board members could ask a candidate questions that was not a conversation that arose during the policy committee meeting is that something that we can talk about to see if anybody else has interest in that i would uh i would like to see that as a part of the policy so bernie how would we um do we open a discussion on this now do we put it on the agenda can we take off this policy and put it on the next agenda for a full board discussion okay so i i think that

097uh part of what we will need i think for purposes of getting through this right now uh we can um modify the um the motion to exclude 152 that would be the first thing and we can go through that process and then uh with regard to the suggestion i think the first thing would be um to ask mr jacoby board attorney as to whether that is something that uh would be appropriate to put into uh the bylaw so the first thing would be and mr jacoby would do that separately of course would it be would it be is it appropriate also to put this as an agenda item for a full board discussion not just the policy um committing just so i understand president becker you want to take it out of post committee and

098you want to bring it to food yeah i want to give this way everybody will have an opportunity not just the people on the policy committee okay full board discussion marcus you were thinking of mark is that what you would since i was going to bring up 165 also um their bylaws to me that's separate than a policy introduction of change um i would feel that bylaws would be something that the entire board would have input on and i do have a comment about 165. what was the reason to change it to seniority alphabetical order for a roll call vote so um mr sismar the reason that came forth on 165 was uh in the instant situation that we have uh with a brand new board member who's first on the list and perhaps not

099having um having the um the experience of being on the board that may desire to have a later vote in the calling order so that's that's pretty much what drove um recommending a modification there and having it in seniority alphabetical order okay i have two comments on that one would be um for lack of a better word i think our board members are independent thinkers and i wouldn't think they would need to follow in seniority uh order to vote and also if we look at robert's rules of order for meetings any member can pass during a roll call vote and they are again asked at the end of that roll call vote for their response if they're not ready to vote when their name is called so not only would junior members be allowed to

100institute the past any member of the board could institute a pass at any time so i don't i don't see the reasoning to have all senior members vote first and then have junior vote junior members vote later again um can we can we again take these two the by the way my suggestion would be to table these these two blocks and and if um you know dr valesky or uh mr gelato could just said to me what the red lion changes are i can look at it a lot of what happens in the bylaws flow from state statutes so the state statutes in 18a dictate what uh roles are in terms of voting etc but i can take a look at it and i can also address um mr sizzamar's inquiries about uh statements i'm

101assuming that statements if you're running for a board office internally in the board office and i'll look at that as well um and i can give back a memo on that so that the full board can consider it at your next meeting so i'll just table those two this evening because i don't know what changes were made to those two policies no as much information as you could provide matt and get it to us ahead of time before the meeting that would be great yeah my pleasure mark was this what you were envisioning when you brought this up yes thank you okay terrific all right so then i'm gonna modify the motion bernie we need a motion to amend uh the original motion to remove uh those two bylaws bylaws 152 and 165. what he

102said moved by jeff second by mark mark ii is there any discussion just a voice vote on that this is a roll call vote let the voice vote first that's oh oh voice voice so yes all those in favor yeah voting on amending the policy to leave out those two uh opposed abstain motion and now it is a roll call vote for the remaining policies that's correct okay perfect so um going on to the roll call mr carangelo yes this is true yes mr sismar yes this is gloss yes mr han yes this is lex yes this is rhys yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries moving on to our curriculum and instruction agenda i'd like to combine items one through three is there anything anyone would like separated out if not can

103i please have a motion for it i'm sorry there's an echo um somebody member of the public not have themselves on mute no everyone in the public has this mute okay all right um am i the only one who hears the echo no i do as well that's weird i have all my other devices off okay uh i'd like a motion for items one through three and a quarter agenda tonight don't move jeff moved by jeff second by mark two is there any discussion uh this is a roll call vote with the secretary please call the roll mr carangelo yes this is true yes mr sismar yes mrs gloss yes mr hong yes yes this is rhys yes mr winston passed i just wanted to see what happened cause i'm winston and it happens again

104president becker yes motion carries okay um moving on to the financial services agenda can i please have a motion for items 1 through 12. who is that all right everybody's in slow motion move by laura second by barbara is there any discussion could everybody mute themselves um unless they're motioning or i'm hearing echoes from everybody i don't know if it's just me okay that's better can i please any discussion on financial items one through twelve seeing no one the secretary please call the roll mr carangelo yes mrs chu yes mr sismar yes mrs gloss yes mr hong yes this is lex yes mrs reese yes mr winston yes and president becker yes motion carries moving out to the human resources agenda can i please have a motion for items one and two so move by

105jeff second by mark ii is there any discussion secretary please call the board uh roll roll board board roll mr carangelo yes mrs chu yes mr sismar yes mrs guass yes christopher hong yes this is lex yes this is rhys yes mr winston yes and president becker yes motion carries moving on to the um i'm sorry i just lost my place student services student services thank you i'm doing agenda on my ipad um student services agenda can i please have a motion to combine items one through three so move by laurie second by mark two is there any discussion seeing them will the secretary please call the role mr carangelo yes mrs chu yes mr sismar yes mrs bloss yes mr hong yes yes mrs reese yes mr winston president becker yes motion carries we

106have one item on our transportation services agenda can i please have a motion for item one so move by laurie second by susanna is there any discussion all those in favor obscene motion carries all business we have one item on old business can i please have a motion for quoted contract award student transportation services heather second by jeff is there any discussion not my second i'm sorry i didn't i didn't second it i don't know okay thanks jeff um mark two were you raising your hand you had discussion yes second i was second okay we have second do we have discussion we have second seconds do we have a discussion all those in favor aye all right opposed abstain motion carries uh committee reports information items the good of the cause first we are going

107to lead off uh with tony our student rep how are you very good to see you nice to see you too how's everything going i'm doing well i hope all is doing well with the entire board as well um the first thing i wanted to touch upon in my report was the uh motion that you guys just approved uh to change to block scheduling and i appreciate and i speak on behalf of the student body when i say that i appreciate entertaining and being willing to make such uh a drastic change to the scheduling that we consider normal just for the possibility of it enhancing the student experience and the learning experience and the development of skills that are helpful not just in high school but will be helpful uh in higher education such as

108time management and um you know not dealing with every class on every day um i have friends in other towns who know nothing but block scheduling so i know that if their students are capable of it then the east forensic students should be just as capable and i have no doubt that it will be a success so thank you once again for being willing to take such a lead in other news a survey was sent out to the seniors today in regards to prom and this is a very exciting topic because it's a return to normalcy or some sense of normalcy and it gets the seniors excited for you know the potential possibility of an event where everyone can kind of come together and the survey just shows and highlights how important the student opinion

109is so that way uh an estimate can be made based on how many people will arrive and whether it's possible to have an indoor prom or whether it's only outdoor given the physical restrictions and constraints uh mandated by the state but a lot of that is still in development but even just it got a lot of students extremely excited today when that survey was sent out so i wanted to touch upon it and another thing is the uh what dr figueroa brought up earlier today about athletics i wanted to mention how some student athletes are very excited to be able to play the sports that they want to play and also something that's a little different is that they can have their parents in the stands so in some cases so this is nice for

110parents to have the opportunity to watch their students or watch their children play and you know it's it's nice to see that it's still continuing despite the pandemic um and another thing that's new is that there are some of the games are being live streams so that way parents who might be away from school or might be working late or completely away from east brunswick they can be able to tune into the games and sort of similar to block scheduling how this is something that was implemented in quarantine but has a lot of benefits that are unforeseen and it was a nice kind of trial run and we can trust it to be used moving forward uh that will most likely probably be a staple of future athletic events so yeah just ties into the

111idea of something and not everything that has come about during quarantine is bad and you know we can stick with it in the future and that uh concludes my report for tonight i'm so glad um we're able to put a smile on on everybody's face about possibilities about prom did you read the part of that that uh memo about the fact that board members would get to go to the prom this year i didn't read that specifically but that sounds extreme oh yeah we'd have to wear what we wore to our senior proms so um really i'm noticing oh dr dr no i'm sorry that didn't involve you just the nine of us oh goodness gracious don't worry only kidding tony um and also um thank you for bringing up the fact that uh parents

112are able to watch uh something so simple uh as a sport parent for so many years something i just took for granted and it's um it's really a wonderful thing to be able to watch your child play um in something that they're passionate about so the fact that we can do this again in some way shape or form is great um and i want i would like ludo way in here too because i i think we need to clarify something uh just to emphasize what tony just reported we are allowing two family members at home events but that that is the limit because we have to maintain uh social justice we still have capacity things we have to worry about capacity issues but thank you to all the parents who have come because you have

113demonstrated once again for east brunswick public schools that we are able to implement this very quickly and safely and effectively and if it wasn't for the parents being so cooperative this would not be possible so kudos to all of them and i have to give a shout out to john mcminiman who who is you know he's he's listening tonight uh but his video skill set and and the way he conducted the live streams of the games just phenomenal and his picture within a picture and holding the scoreboard so you can watch the score and you can watch the athletes it's just i mean like john just thinks of everything i'm just really proud of the team that we have and and the quality of the program and providing that service to students and parents both

114but as tony said that live stream event i think is is something that we can we can keep for the future if you can't make it to the game you can log into your computer and you can watch that competition from your your room while you're studying or you could if you're away you know so you can support your your classmates and your your um you know east brunswick students from afar tony have we had a virtual beard done um i don't believe so i think they are trying to however i to be honest president becker i don't want to misspeak and say that uh there has been i was just curious you still reeling from the fact that board members are going to show up at the prom and what we wore to our

115senior proms victor president becker may i just add uh thank you again no you can't come to the problem you mentioned that uh john mcmenamin i also want to thank john and uh also want to uh mention uh a special thanks to dr vanilla and his team for getting uh you know the protocols in place and working with us to get those protocols in place to make sure that parents could almost immediately start coming to games um i could tell you that just from the parents at the boys senior night the other night there was so many thanks and kudos to the team and to the board for allowing it to happen so quickly a week earlier there was no chance for parents to be there and then uh you know that quickly we were

116able to turn that around so just uh thanks to the uh dr vanilla and the administration at the high school for his team for that yeah just one last thing that the governor announced at his um this press conference on friday and we we invited our first parents on that's great it's wonderful for the parents great for the kids but just nothing like watching your kid tomorrow jeff jackson i went to uh i was out can you hear me are you freaking out was that my daughter's game live and i'm taking a second i was at my daughter's game live it was awesome uh everybody uh so organized walked in they kept me outside for 15 minutes so they could uh sterilize the space which i thought was fantastic i took my temperature when i

117walked in the door told me i had to sit on an x and i didn't move and and it was great because the cops told me i don't have to sit on an exit i did it but uh no it was uh it was really great and it was so well organized i appreciate how fast you got it done and it was really cool to see my kid play live again so thanks thanks to everybody involved good stuff susanna now i just want to add to all the comments about you know just hearing um you know just such a wide range of areas in which the pandemic has has affected um you know our operations ranging from you know we heard from the auditors who were so impressed of you know finding a clean audit

118when you know we had to change all the the way we do business right um just just overnight change the way we do business and yet come out of that with a clean audit and and just how outstanding that was to hearing you know what we're doing on the basketball field and we've been talking a lot about you know what we've been doing in the classroom you know and even to this board right um i had been a fan of going paperless for a long time and guess what we're paperless now a choice of our own survived and we've saved a lot of trees um so you know there's you know i think the we are just so resilient and it's just so great to hear that and and from tony's report you know how

119the students are just you know finding just new ways to appreciate the little things like okay you know let's let's you know let's figure out you know how we're going to deal with promise there or graduation it's just uh wonderful so just great thanks across the board to everybody thank you tony thanks again um any committee reports information items for the good of the cause for the board i don't think it needs to be said but i'm going to say it anyways i almost wanted to make a motion because you always hear you know people saying there should be a vote of no confidence for this or criticism about that um i kind of wanted even if it's symbolically to have a vote of confidence from the things i've seen and you know from the

120comments of mrs chu and everybody else tonight i mean from dr volesky on down that the teachers taking on more than they ever have security showing up on snowy days i mean i don't think people know you know everything that goes on every day and it's no fault you know because the board is very transparent with everything that goes on but um like i said maybe symbolically a vote of confidence that the board has the back of the staff as cops would say we got your six i mean uh exemplary all around you know from the top on down so thank you very much maybe a symbolic vote of confidence thumbs up for voter confidence good idea mark thank you lee woo is that a thumbs up hands up or hand raised hundreds got it

121okay so last thursday uh i had a police committee meeting so i missed the ebef monthly meeting but uh president levitt he did send me the report so i want to uh tell everyone that during this difficult time ebef still approved uh four grand more than worth more than sixteen thousand five hundred dollars it's a really great addition to our uh school budget at the same time he wants to let everyone know that this year again there will be no uh pie dinner his partner in excellence dinner but ebef will publish a celebration of excellence at journal so hopefully you know through this publication ebef can risk some fund so the ebf can support our teacher more in this during this difficult time so if anyone in public is willing and is able to help

122ebf please come out either contact jeff jack levitt directly so any penny accounts thank you okay susanna um just wanted to report the policy committee met on february 11th and as you saw on the board agenda there were a number of policies that were presented for the board tonight um i i wanted to mention there were 88 pages of policy that were sent to us for review and i i just want to thank um the administrative team for their hard work on staying on top of all the policies a lot of this is um you know updating policies to make sure that we're compliant with the laws and and the laws are always changing um it's a lot of work i know when i got the packet for the policy committee my eyes kind of

123bugged out it's like 88 pages uh but you know that's just reading it you know the people that are working on it and you know making sure that it's correct um you know it's a lot of work so i just want to thank you all for that okay anyone else okay seeing none we do have a need for closed session whereas the board of education must discuss matters which are not appropriate for discussion in a public meeting and the board of education intends to discuss matters as follows those items listed in tonight's agenda the land for the closed session is estimated to be one hour after which a public meeting of the board shall reconvene and action will not be taken can i please have a motion to go into closed session move by laurie

124second by mark ii is there any discussion motion carries board members want to remind you to please log out of this session and into closed session for those of you who joined us tonight thank you stay safe you