001i'm going to call this meeting to order due to the covid19 health emergency and in order for the board of education to conduct its business this board of education meeting is being held by a video conference and streamed live via youtube on the district website at www www.ebnet.org just give me a moment here i will post this information in addition members of the public may provide comment at this meeting for zoom by entering the url as indicated on the web on the uh screen now and the meeting id and password 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 i will now proceed with the roll call mrs becker here mr angelo here mrs chu here mr sismar
002here this is gloss here mr hang here this is lax here mrs reese and mr winston i'm here we have a quorum so we'll be rising for the pledge of allegiance but i do want to make a statement uh after the pledge of allegiance we will take a few silent moments to reflect on yesterday's attempted insurrection on the united states capitol with that being said please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under [Music] the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public body that which any business affecting their interests is discussed and acted upon
003in accordance with the provisions of this act the east brunswick board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted at the board of education offices located at 760 route 18 east brunswick new jersey written notice was also provided to the sentinel the newark start ledger the home news and tribune and the municipal clerk of east brunswick all board of education meetings with the exception of executive session discussions are videotaped for labor broadcast it is the policy of the board of education that videotaped meetings are not edited for any purpose individuals who speak at the board's public meetings should be aware of these videotaping rules good evening everyone this is the reorganization meeting of the board of education it is held the first board
004meeting in the month of january uh and it is the time at which newly elected and re-elected board members are typically seated uh due to the uh pandemic we administered the oath of office earlier this week to the board members that were elected and re-elected before we proceed on the agenda the first item of business is the appointment of temporary chairperson so may i have such a motion so moved moved by mrs becker second second by mrs lacks is there any discussion all those in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries now as as i was saying a moment ago with regard to administering the oath of office we typically would administer the oath of office at this time but since we administered earlier this week i did want to share with the board and
005members of the public the individuals who did receive the oath so let's just take a few moments good afternoon my name is bernardo juliana i am the school business administrator and board secretary for the east brunswick public schools today is monday january 4th 2021 and we are here to administer the oath of office to susanna chu susanna raise your right hand and please repeat after me i susanna chu i susanna chu do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new jersey and the constitution of the state of new jersey and that i will bear true faith and that i will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to
006the government's established and to the government established in the united states in the united states and this state and the state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people and i do solemnly swear and i do solemnly swear that i possess the qualifications that i possess the qualifications prescribed by law prescribed by law for the office of member for the office of member of the board of education of the board of education and that i will faithfully and that i will faithfully impartially impartially and justly perform and justly perform all duties of that office all duties of that office according to the best of my ability so help me god so help me back congratulations thank you [Music] please raise your right hand and repeat after me i will relax do
007solemnly swear do you solemnly swear that i will support the constitution already in the united states new jersey and the constitution of the state of new jersey and i will bear true faith and i will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and the legions to the same and to the government's established and to the governments established in the united states in the united states and this state and this state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people and i do solemnly swear and i do solemnly swear that i possess the qualifications that i possess the qualifications prescribed by law prescribed by law for the office of member for the office of member of a board of education of a board of education and that i will faithfully and i
008will faithfully impartially impartially and justly perform and justly perform all duties of that office all duties of that office according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me god so help me god congratulations what over there that's really bad today is tuesday january 5th 2021 and we are now preparing to administer the oath of office to mark tarantula sir please keep your right hand raised and repeat after me yes sir i mark carangelo i'm mark carangelo do solemnly swear [Music] do solemnly swear that i that i will support the constitution of the united states of the united states and the constitution of the state of new jersey of the state of new jersey and that i will bear true faith through faith and allegiance and allegiance to
009the same to the same and to the governments established in the united states established in the united states and this state and this state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people and i do solemnly swear and i do soundly swear that i possess the qualifications that do possess the qualifications prescribed by law prescribed by law for the office for the office of member of member of a board of education of a board of education and that i will faithfully and that i will faithfully impartially impartially and justly perform and justly perform all duties of that office all duties of that office according to the best of my ability so help me god so help me god congratulations sir thank you you are now officially a member of the board of
010education i appreciate that thank you i'll do my best congratulations to mrs lax and mrs chu and mr carangelo thank you thank you the next order of business is nominations for board president at this time i will accept nominations bernie just just a quick question uh in procedure ask a procedural question go ahead in the event that there are more than one candidates running for a position is there an opportunity for those candidates uh although i didn't see it specified in the bylaws for them to perhaps present their value and what their intentions are and lack of a better word a campaign speech uh to help shape our opinions if two people are uh running a post teddy's friend mr jacoby i hear i have background somebody's got somebody needs to knew daniel d francesca
011needs to mute thank you i couldn't hear um no so the under robert's rules of war what happens is you take a series of nominations um they do not have to be seconded and then after the nominations are solicited the contemporary board chair mr giuliana will call a roll for each of the each of the members um people can speak when they're when their name is called um they have the right to speak then but you there's not a debate or a dialogue in this everything and that can't be altered through motion um mr g kobe not that i'm not not if they're aware of because you you got your bylaws say you follow robert's rules of orders and that's the roberts rule of orders where there's not a debate uh over it it's just
012a nomination uh to see the chair uh but again each of the members when they speak um can you know each member has the right to say why they're voting one way or the other way thank you mrs lax uh you're recognized i can go ahead with my nomination yes i would like to nominate vicki becker for board president vicki is the personification of grace under pressure as she is undoubtedly shown through her leadership this past year during these unprecedented times an incredibly dedicated board member for 20 years she has always made the needs of the district her highest priority she is consistently attending pta meetings at our schools years after her children graduated making sure to stay in touch with the ever-changing needs of the district parent this past summer he scheduled weekly meetings
013to ensure that our covert readiness plan for school opening could best be the needs of all of our staff and students it is obvious to anyone that meets her how much vicki values education she is passionate about this district works tirelessly to not only maintain our great rankings but to constantly strive to raise the bar of excellence in academics athletics and the arts having a strong personal connection to all three you could say that vicky has always been the mother hen being the first welcome call a new board member receives reading for coffee not doing covet of course reviewing agendas and generally answering questions about all areas of wordsmanship but i also see her as a lioness bravely protecting and advocating for her ebps brood being a leader is not easy as the head of
014a consensus-seeking board with nine individuals with sometimes differing opinions who do not necessarily agree on every issue vicki encourages us to share our views discuss and even disagree in an open and respectful manner i look forward to our continued source and strength at our helm this year as we hopefully embark on a path back to normalcy thank you mrs lacks are there any other nominations from the floor going once going twice seeing none i will now accept um a motion to close the nominations second by mr winston the nominations are now closed and we'll proceed with a roll call vote for vicki becker as board president the order of the role is an alphabetical order mrs becker yes mr carangelo yes mrs chu yes mr sismar no mrs gloss i'm proud to vote yes mr
015hong yes mrs lacks yes mr winston no motion carries congratulations mrs becker thank you very much um i appreciate the opportunity to help lead this board this year will be about transition of leadership and mentorship and consensus and working together to support dr valesky and his team our administrators our teachers our students and parents to weather the rest of this pandemic and god willing to deal with what public education will look like when it is over i'm proud to be a part of this group we agree to disagree i have great respect for everybody in here and together we do wonderful things i'm very proud to be one of nine board members in the east brunswick public school education thank you and now mr giuliani i do the rest of the meeting you may certainly
016take over at this point okay the next item on our agenda is nominations for board vice president can i uh this is true yes i'd like to nominate lori lax okay okay and um i i nominate lori lax for board vice president um first i want to wish laurie a happy birthday i think you just turned 30 right so i don't know if i have that have that a little off or not but happy birthday um lori is a lifelong resident of east brunswick and is a product of east brunswick public schools her husband mike also grew up in east brunswick and this is a family that has given so much to the community they have both been acted in so many community organizations and foundations i just cannot uh list or mention them all
017um but if you've been around town i'm sure you've you know run into them or seen them around this is a family that loves this town loves his community and and to quote her husband she works in the shadows never seeking glory or a pat on the back as she is always there for her family and others so well uh well said mike uh in my six years on the board though i've gotten to know lori and i've gotten to see lori's passion and dedication to the children of the community she's an advocate for excellence in academics arts and athletics she's a strong advocate of all the initiatives we have to ensure that our children have a safe and secure environment in in which to learn she knows that great schools are not just made
018up of buildings and books this is a people business great schools are created by great people and she's always looking for ways to show appreciation for the hard work of the administrators the teachers and the support staff we've been facing these unprecedented challenges and while we may not always agree on all the issues um as laurie stated earlier you know she among with you know many others on the board understand that we we can only move this district forward by working together and i really do look forward to working together with this entire board thank you that was lovely susanna are there any other nominations from the floor for vice president yes jeff yes thank you i first i want to congratulate our newest members to the ep board of education and mark crandall i
019wish you nothing but best and most success in your role and i'm very happy to have you on board so i thank you uh for volunteering for this as well as welcome back and congratulations to our incumbent susanna and laurie i'm happy to see you back and um i'm looking forward to working uh with you in the future the nomination for the vice president position should not be taken lightly especially in these unique and challenging times when we're facing uh specific uh facing issues specifically surrounding the covid19 virus and an impact on the educational community currently in a lengthy and a time-spirited conversation with our board president vicki backer in december we focus much of the conversation on the elements of change in direction and remaining mindful of the much uncharted territory which we are
020now facing and will be facing soon hopefully we will begin to feel and see the benefits of the vaccine and its impact uh and then rejoining the path back to something that looks like normalcy well i clearly asked president becker what she feels she would be able to do from her position regarding this she corrected informed me of the limitations of her position she felt that my lack of understanding of her role was an impediment and she was probably right and well she emphasized the role of the board is not to run the district but to assure that the district runs well one couldn't help but feel the executive role must abandon these traditions that may have shaped the passive role in which ms becker described but instead evolved to take a stronger and more
021proactive approach in navigating these uncertain waters president becker further went on to say that she feels that what she does and what she has done in her tenure on the board sitting as an executive role for approximately 25 of those 20 years that she's been here has been effectively uh effective and well served to this district and i would agree with that i believe based on the circumstances and the area in which she came from i think she's done an exceptional job based on those days she has indeed effectively served her position well and with that i am comfortable saying that her capabilities though are limited uh and admitted by her and she will uh she will need an experienced person beside her who possess certain sets of skills required in their professional and their
022private life is for those reasons i nominate mark sismar to the position of the vice president mr sismar a career and retired law enforcement professional has been called upon many times under varying situations to lead through crisis the very merit of his career lends itself to pragmatic well thought out solutions to some of the most difficult challenges his efforts have earned him many awards and recognitions throughout his life and continues his life working in a leadership role in school security for neighboring school districts as committee chair of the security committee mark has been instrumental in formulating the effective strategies that have to date protected our most cherished assets our children our staff and our administration while other uh while others on this board bring certain skills to the position we are in desperate need of
023skills now that mark sismar and his track record uh uh and his track record proudly speak to president backer will be continuing to do what she has done so well for many years she will continue to organize this board set at the agenda and inform the culture that is so important to the success of this district which are the responsibilities of the president's role mr sismar roles vice president would be a perfect symbiotic compliment to mrs becker's strength and would no doubt help the superintendent and his staff move and evolve the district through the recovery and onto the future and transcending where we were 12 months ago it is unfair to expect dr valesky to bear the sole burden of the demands now please upon us and he deserves to have the most qualified individuals
024leading this board so he can run the district and we can be assured that this district one runs well it is my hope that mark accepts this nomination and this board looks beyond the scope of figurehead leadership and embrace the hard fact that this recovery will have to be a huge team effort with the most qualified individuals at the helm thank you thank you jeff that was lovely are there any other nominations from the floor bernie do you see any hands that i don't i do not okay then can i please have a motion for closing nominations of board vice president jeff moved by jeff seconded by heather matt i need to ask you a point of order yes as we have two nominations for the role of vice president do we take a separate
025roll call for each person in the order they were nominated or do we take one roll call where people indicate if they are voting for mark or lori you take a separate roll call based on the order of the nominations so the roll call first promo relax followed by a roll call for mark sismar if either one of them gets the majority of the membership into this evening there's eight members so you'll need to have five affirmative votes the bylaws and although i do understand that that is impossible to do with these virtual sessions does state these for these uh for these votes during the selection process that these votes are done by a piece of paper and and uh in private uh i see now that we're moving that to a more public forum
026and i was wondering if there's an alternative to that to adhere to the bylaws well mark the bylaws this came up several years ago the board has always done it publicly the vote has to take place in public um the bylaws do permit for a paper ballot but i i don't you're asking the wrong person because i barely can turn zoom on i have no idea how you can do a paper ballot uh in a zoom world um nor do i i'm just acknowledging the bylaws yeah so the probably wondering if there were work around um no because what we've done in in all the years that i represented east brunswick and this exact issue came up they've done it publicly where they do a roll call following robert's rules of order there's a nomination
027and then there's a vote on each of the people who've been nominated um and in terms of the bylaw doing a paper ballot where the board secretary would collect it and then call out who has the votes i don't know physically how that could even be accomplished in this virtual format so i apologize but i i don't need either but i so if i'm understanding you correctly you're stating that we're abandoning the bylaws by what motion um bear with me i don't think we're banning the bylaws i think what we're doing is holding the bylaws what's that upholding the bylaws are specific to this topic bear with me matt um while we are while you're doing that research who's bringing up the bylaws right now the the uh only means by which to collect um
028a vote other than a voice vote being that we are virtual is for uh each board member to individually um message that to me however the other thing is that upon and matt i'm not sure if this is permitted but upon uh receipt of each of the votes each is read aloud as to the individual uh and an individual making the vote and who their vote is for yeah correct that that's you could do it that way if by by using the message but it's important to keep if you're if people are going to be writing their their vote down the only person who should be collecting it knowing who it's coming from would be uh secretary bernie bernardo giuliano so um i i don't know how to use the chat feature to be uh
029in order to do that i would be absolutely important that uh in selecting the chat feature that uh it is sent directly to me well wait a minute wait a minute is this something that we get to vote on whether or not we wish i'm trying to get your your your by the way your website's not opening up right now do we need to take a short recess perhaps or is this something before you even research it is it something that the board of education gets to decide who gets to make the decision whether we do it the way we have been or the way jeff is suggesting we have a suggestion from a board member so vicky you have bylaw so i'm just trying to get to the copy the bylaws but you're the
030east brunswick board of education website is not responding bernie can you help him out here please i will do that president becker i'll take care of that we apparently have a technical issue on our website great yeah it's not it's not my computer because i just tried my phone as well so just what i mean is i want to um give jeff the proper guidance here does jeff need to make a motion that he would like to motion that this is something we have once we find out what the bylaws say no so vicky if the bylaws say that in in a contest and i don't have the bylaws memorized i do recall several years ago um the biola's do permit for either written ballots or a voice vote and i just want to read
031what the bylaws say specifically um before i opine on something without being able to look at it and i'll ask again matt and bernie do you need a short recess to research this or no if i can get a copy of the bylaws i can look at it and tell you in two seconds the problem is i can't access your website to get the box okay i just want to make sure that this is handled correctly bernie can you get on the website i'm trying it seems to be down yeah i just tried also president becker yes juliana mr jacoby the uh it appears that blackboard our service provider for our website is suffering some kind of a data attack and so the website is not reactive right now they're working on it but we
032may have to resort to looking for a paper copy of the bylaws um i am in the process of um attempting to uh get an alternate um alternate view of the bylaws so if you just bear with me please yeah i'm trying to access it on on my different my ipad my iphone i can't get it yeah you will not be able to get it on any device the actual website itself is physically not reacting are you in touch with nick i am okay thank you victor uh matt i have uh been able to uh locate a copy and i'm doing a uh i'm going to send that directly over to you all right great by email i'm going to send it to you by email terrific thank you bernie [Music] tell me when you
033find this did you send it bernie i'm waiting for it to finish sending i was just able to get into the site it might be back [Music] so i'm not able to get in um is somebody trying to to get into the meeting oh my god so your bylaws say voting shall be take place by a written ballot after nominations are closed board members will be provided a blank piece of paper and shall write the name of the person they wish to see elected on the piece of paper the about to be tallied by the board secretary and the person with the majority vote of the members of the board president and constituent quorum shall be elected in the event no candidate receives the majority vote of the board of uh members present and constituting
034quorum the procedure shall continue until someone receives a majority of vote so i think that uh mr giuliano's suggestion of people using the chat feature and individually emailing mr juliana i have an echo um the board secretary that would comply with the bylaws um you guys could if you guys want to go the other way when you don't have a contested vote you can you guys have always typically done it where i haven't seen a contested vote before where you've done it by roll call publicly um but mr giuliana is going to have to publicly state who got the the majority votes so your biologists do say that you can have a vote to suspend your bylaw uh and conduct it under robert's rules of order because your bylaws also state that you do file
035robert's rules of order so typically what we've done is filed rules of order which is just a nomination in the roll call vote but in this instance um you guys would have to have a motion to suspend the bylaws if you're not going to do it this way bernie um i think barbara reese may be trying to join the meeting late have you received um a call from her or i don't have anyone uh waiting to come in i know doom is sometimes a little touchy um and so what i suggest individuals is that they just keep trying foreign okay so um please advice as to what we are going to be doing based on your bylaw what you're going to be doing is bernie suggested each individual board member will have to use the
036chat feature the only way you could do it is via email to bernie individually i don't know if people have the ability to have separate computers and do that i would rather not do an email map because um email service um might be impacted so oh okay yeah because your email took a long time to come through so if people go down to the bottom of the screen in the middle it'll say share screen and to the right to that there's a box that says more you click on more and there's a chat feature hurry there's a chat feature click on chat click on chat and what you'll see is it there'll be a chat a chat will come up it says two it says everyone do not click on everyone if you click on
037the everyone button you'll see there's a list of people all of you will be listed you want to just click on bernie juliana's name and then you can type your message and you would either write mark or lori and then you'd hit send the moment you type it it gets so i'll do a test let me do bernie tell me if you get this i'll do test guys with all due respect i have no idea how to do this come on okay mark do you see the chat button on the bottom or do you want me to call you i'm sorry i can't hear you marketing right now okay so there's a chat button on are you on the laptop okay so if you hit the chat and you look over and you look over
038to the right you will see on the bottom it says to everyone click on that click on that and it will be there'll be a list of people's drop down menu well i got a problem because it just went out on me yeah you can you know how do i get back to the club how do i get back to the conference down here i don't see it the chat win the chat one second all right my daughter's helping me by the way i know mark i know and this is your first meeting don't worry many of us have our kids as our tech supporters so uh that's in many households all right so i got bernie right now i just want me to type gotcha you type your name type the name and hit
039and hit enter it's a first meeting and this is a hard thing to do anything just finally it doesn't say oh enter i'm sorry yeah just hit the enter on this i did it okay so so everyone should do that and send it to bernie juliana bernie will then tell you the votes did bernie did you receive my vote i've got a bunch of them coming in now so okay bear with me please absolutely thank you so bernie you shouldn't announce anything until you have there's eight there should be eight votes uh members of the public uh this is not for you to vote so please refrain from texting me mark angelo are you good i'm just validating i just want to validate before i finalize but i have um i do have eight votes
040and i'm just going to double check so just bear with me please absolutely i apologize for my incompetence in this no no incompetence it's your first meeting and most of us couldn't figure it out i had someone pointing behind my back where it was also you're doing fine thank you vicky okay okay folks i have a tally and i'm going to read the vote uh board member by board member and who they're no bernie you don't read a board by a board member you just say there are five if you read the bylaw you count the ballots should be tallied by a board secretary and the person with the majority vote of the members of the president constantine shall be elected so you have eight votes i do you have to determine which one of
041the two nominees have the majority votes if one of them has five you will announce that or you know let's say i'm one of the nominees matthew kobe got six votes he he's got the majority of the vote of the quorum president and therefore that matthew cody is nominated as vice president that's how you'll handle it i do have a majority vote the majority vote of five to three is uh in favor of laurie lacks uh matt i do believe that um also does have a right to know how the board voted uh under robert's rules right your bylaws don't say that yeah there's no there's no preclusion for you saying who voted for who in your bylaws so you can say who voted i'm going to uh announce uh just going down the list
042um in favor of uh laurie lacks we have mrs becker mrs chu mrs gloss mr hong and mrs lax in favor of mr sismore we have mr carangelo mr sismar and mr winston i want to um congratulate lori lax and i want to commend mark sismar for always wanting to step up to the plate and be a vital part of this board and leadership and commend jeff for nominating him and again congratulations lori i look forward to working with you this year as we will all work together before we go on to the rest of the agenda i also wanted to welcome mark crangelo to our board welcome mark we broke you in tonight with technology now if somebody could tell me how to get rid of the chat feature from my screen i'd appreciate
043it you go and the chat feature um if you have the chat feature up in the upper where it says chat at the very top yep over to just to the left of it there's a little carrot going down close i got it hit close okay if anybody else needed to know how that worked there you go um i also would be remiss if i did not say something about todd simmons todd simmons is not with the board this year todd was on the board for 15 years he gave a lot of himself to this district the students the people who worked for it he was a very very good board member he was very knowledgeable he served on every committee he was president for many years he was vice president for many years and
044we want to recognize his awesome accomplishments to this district and wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors thank you we now will proceed with the rest of the agenda we are on item nine which is the adoption of new jersey school board member code of ethics what i would like to do before we do a roll pull vote on this we did this last year i would like each of us to go around and say one of we will take turns of course it's by zoom so um i can't point to people or say we're gonna go around in the order of the table but i will go first and then basically we'll go in the order of the roll call the alphabetical order on the agenda if somebody does not wish
045to read one of the ten just say pass and the next person can go ahead but i think it's important that we read these out loud number one i will uphold and enforce all laws state board rules and regulations and court orders pertaining to schools desired changes should be brought about only through legal and ethical procedures mr carangelo you're next pass okay mrs chu could you read number two please i will make decisions in terms of the educational welfare of children and will seek to develop and maintain public schools which meet the individual needs of all children regardless of their ability race creed sex or social standing mark i'll confine my board action to policy making planning and appraisal and i will help it frame policies and plans only after the board has consulted those
046who will be affected by them heather ernie could you turn my camera on it's telling me i can't start my own camera okay why don't we come back never mind go ahead tether we have your beautiful voice all right number four yes yes i will carry out my responsibility not to administer the schools but together with my fellow board members to see that they are well run leewoo please five i will recognize that authority risked with the board of education and will make no personal promise nor take any private action which may compromise the board 6 laurie i refuse to surrender my independent judgment to special interests next would be barbara so um jeff please number seven i'm gonna pass i'm not able to actually bring this document up right now on on my system
047so i'm gonna have to pass okay i will hold confidential all matters pertaining to the schools which if disclosed would needlessly injure individuals or the schools but in all other matters i will provide accurate information and in concert with my fellow board members interpret to the staff the aspirations of the community for its schools lori would you please read number eight i will vote to appoint the best qualified personnel available after consideration of the recommendation of the chief administrative officer number nine i will support and protect school personnel and proper performance of their duties and lori will you please finish with number ten administrative officers sorry i'm reading from one screen i will read i would refer all complaints to the chief administrative officer i will act on such complaints at public meetings only after
048fire an administrative solution can i please have a motion for this code of ethics moved by laurie second by leewoo any discussion this is a roll call vote with the secretary please call the roll mr angelo yes mrs chu yes mr sismar yes mrs gloss yes mr hong yes mrs lax yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries i'd like to combine items 10 through 15 on the reorganization agenda can i please have a motion for that second by mark the new mark is clear any discussion seeing none will the secretary please call the role mr carangelo yes this is true yes mr sismar yes mrs guass yes mr hong yes mrs lex yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries i understand now we're up to a board member prohibited act in
049school ethics training by matt matt's something we all look forward to every year i'm sure i'm sure you do um so you you the board just read the code of ethics so my i have a you'll see right here this is a powerpoint presentation that uh emailed to all of you so that you guys have this at your fingertips but let me just start out by saying that the code of ethics which you just read mandate how you operate schools and schools are a different unique form of government as compared to say the municipality and if you noticed when you were reading through the code of ethics it talks about that you work as a board you don't take action without board authority you work through the school administrator it's your job to make sure
050that the schools are well run you do not run the schools that's why you hire chief school administrator dr valesky you set policy and you make sure that dr volesky follows that policy and i've used different analogies in the past basically you you guys are the coaches on the sidelines you're setting the plays you're setting the policies and then you're giving it to your quarterback dr valesky and saying go out and make these plays and you can call in on audible but at the end of the day it's dr velesky who makes the day-to-day decisions and if you remember one of the one of the code of ethics that you just read says that you will vote on the best qualified personnel based on the recommendation of the chief school administrator so dr valesti make
051the recommendations on who to hire and then you vote on them the reason that the law is designed this way is because many board members have family members i.e their children enrolled in the schools so you guys have awesome responsibilities you set by far the biggest budget in the town you are educating the kids the town you set the policy for the entire district to operate and for all personnel including the chief school administrator to follow you establish what is the curriculum you implement all the different laws and regulations the state of new jersey sets forth to be followed but the day-to-day operations of the district lie with the chief school administrator and the other uh personnel that you have the assistant um superintendents uh bernardo giuliano as your business administrator etc now the there's
052a body in in new jersey through the department of education it's called the school ethics commission and the school ethics commission oversees and governs um the school ethics act and they do two things they issue advisory opinions or they render decisions and they render decisions if a board member is accused of unethical conduct so bernie can you go to the next slide please yes sir and the school ethics act it mandates that members of the board of education avoid conduct which violates their public trust or with which creates a justifiable impression that the public trust is being violated it identifies prohibited acts that would be conflicts of interests and it includes the code of ethics of school boards members which you just read aloud and adopted by a roll call vote could go to the
053next slide okay so no school and i'm going to just summarize these and give you quick examples no school official or member of his immediate family shall have an interest in a business organization or engage in any business transaction or professional activity which is in substantial conflict with the proper discharge of his or her duties in the public interest so the example here would be uh you you could have a matthew kobe has a law firm i couldn't be a board member and be the the lawyer serving the law firm that would be a conflict because i have a financial interest in my business organization so the most important thing is if you're involved in any businesses you work for a business that's doing business with the board of education you have to recuse and
054cannot vote on it and you cannot attempt to have the board hire your employer or do business with your employer that's what this stands for next one please no school officials shall use or attempt to use his it says his but it should be his or her official position to secure unwarranted privileges advantages or employment for himself members of his immediate family or others so as a board member you're not you can't use your position to get unwarranted privileges for yourself or your family that doesn't it's not limited to employment it's also limited to special treatment for your children special dispensation in terms of grades for your kids you're you're here as a role as a board member and you have to really separate yourself from your family um and not do take anything that
055would be would be an attempt to use your position as a board member to gain an advantage for your family or yourself next please no school school official shall act in his official capacity any matter where he a member of his immediate family or biggest business organization in which he has an interest or has a direct or indirect financial involvement that might reasonably be expected to impair his objectivity or independence um so to summarize this this again is saying you cannot act in your official capacity if it involves you or a member of your family or a business organization in which you have an interest so you can't take a vote on um you know your your spouse has a business uh that has applied to do work for the district you could not vote
056on that that would be a violation of this and the at the end of the day what i will tell you is as we go through these every one of these there's case law on this from the school ethics commission so what i advise board members is if you ever have a question whoever have a concern there's nothing that's urgent that you need to take an action on if you're worried about it recuse yourself don't vote on it but generally if you have a question before a meeting because you know what's on the agenda talk to dr valesky talk to bernie giuliano and they can reach out to me and i can give you guidance on if it's a matter that you need to recuse yourself from rather than vote the one thing that the
057school ethics commission has found over and over and over again it's those board members who have the foresight to ask the question if they ask a question and i give you wrong advice you're going to get a pass the school ethics commission said you took the advice of legal counsel and you voted on a matter even though you shouldn't have um but generally speaking there's case law out there so we can give you guidance on it the other thing that the school ethics commission does if you remember at the beginning one of the first slides it says they render decisions if somebody files an ethics complaint but they also give advisory opinions they will not give an advisory opinion on something that you've already voted upon but if you have a situation that's coming up
058that you think might be unethical or might create an ethical conflict we can seek a advisory opinion from the school ethics commission and in writing they'll tell you whether or not you can vote and a number of years ago we had a board member who who officiated games uh as a referee through the njsia and this board member asked a very interesting question that there was no case law and what was that question the question was i never officiate games in which east brunswick participates however i've been asked to officiate eight state tournaments and playoffs in which east brunswick might qualify is out of conflict we wrote to the school ethics commission the school ethics commission rented a ruling that no it's not a conflict you can officiate uh those games because that's at a
059state level and you're not you normally preclude yourself from it but if the east brunswick girls soccer team makes it to the state finals and you're one of the officiators there you can participate so that's an example go on bernie no school officials shall undertake any employment or service whether comp see or not which might reasonably be expected to prejudice his independence of judgment in the exercises of his official duties again what this is suggesting is that you can't take any type of action employment or service that could uh be expected to prejudice your independence of judgment this one comes up often there's questions of whether or not a board member can simultaneously serve as a member of a pta or an education foundation i've actually written and gotten advisory opinions that a board member
060can serve serve on a pta or the um an educational foundation uh without violating this but what the school ethics is ruled is that if something comes forward from the pta or the um the educational foundation in which the board member is undertaking that service he or she has to recuse themselves from any voting organization so again if you want to get involved in some type of service or employment before you embark on it if you think there could be a problem please talk to dr valeski or mr giuliano and then i can write for an ethics advisor opinion so that you can avoid any type of ethics violation next this one says no school official or member of his immediate family or business organization in which you had an interest shall solicit accept a
061gift favor loan political contribution promise of future employment basically if you expect that it's going to influence you to vote in the discharge of your official duties simply put this is the quid pro quo prohibited act somebody can't say hey i'll make sure i hire you if you get my my spouse a job in the east brunswick district that would be a violation you can it does say you can accept political contributions but there can't be any promise or a favor conferred on the person making a political contribution to you again an example i'll give you a political contribution if you hire my child to be a teacher in a district that would be a violation of this provision and frankly that would be a violation of criminal law so you can't if anyone ever
062approaches you and asks you to do something in exchange for something the best answer is thank you i'm not interested next please so this is no school official shall use or allow to be used his public officer employment or any information not generally available to the members of the public which you receive or acquire in the course of and by reason of your office or employment for securing financial gain or helping members of immediate family now if you recall in the code of ethics that you read aloud one of the most important items for board members to remember is that almost every meeting we go into closed executive session in closed executive session there are certain items that you can talk about so for example contract negotiations with the union the acquisition of potential property
063but the one thing that you talk about almost every meeting is something involving personnel or students and those are confidential highly privileged communications that can't be revealed to anybody ever and so under both state and federal law you're mandated to protect the privacy rights of students and personnel and this is one of the prohibited acts where board members get in trouble when they disclose private information especially if it's done to assist any business organization etc an example of this would be um the board is looking to acquire a piece of property and you go out and you tell your realtor friend about it and somebody uh starts a bidding war uh to help you know secure an advantage for a friend or a family member so this is very important that when you when you
064have access to confidential information which you do often you've got to protect that uh with the strictest of of um just protect it outright next please no school official or business organization in which you have an interest shall represent any person or party other than the school board or school district in connection with any cause preceding application or other matter pending so basically uh what what this law says is that you can't you have one master and that's the school board you can't uh be involved in a litigation that's against the school board upon which you're a trustee and a member and you can't take any action that would in any way jeopardize the district that you represent what it says is this provision shall not be deemed to prohibit representation within the context of
065official labor union or similar representational responsibilities so you can be a member of a union but we'll get into later on what what you can't do in terms of votes if you are a member of a statewide union but here you can't be adverse to the school district um and the biggest area where this comes up is where board members get involved in litigation against the school district there's one exception to this and and we will talk about that briefly which is you have the right to represent your own family in litigation against the school district and what does that really mean it means that if you have a child who has an iep and you need to go through due process or go through mediation to secure the rights of your child uh so
066that they get a free and appropriate education that is not a prohibited act and board members can advocate for their their their family in that instance next please so this is a general says no school official shall be deemed in conflict with these provisions if by reason of his participation any matter required to be voted upon no material or monetary gain accrues to him as a member of any business professional occupation or group to any greater extent than any gain could be expected of any other business or member so for example this would be uh you have a son and your son plays on the east brunswick's football team and there's a whole group of of young men and or women or that are playing on the east brunswick football team and the board votes
067to buy new helmets and new shoulder pads you're permitted to vote on that because your son or daughter who's playing on this team is not gaining an unreasonably expected advantage greater to any extent than any other kids where you would have a problem in this is let's hypothetically say that your daughter was a world renowned oboe player but there's no other oboe players in east brunswick an east brunswick orchestra doesn't have an oboe and you push to get them to buy expensive oboe and you vote on it and the only person who's going to use that elbow is your daughter that would be a violation of this act next please so no elected member shall be prohibited from making an inquiry for information on behalf of a constituent if no fee reward or other thing
068is promised and so basically you're an elected official people will come up to you they'll ask you questions uh for information you're you're permitted to get it what we suggest though is that whenever somebody asks you something what you want to do is notify dr volesky of it and generally dr valesky will respond back um to the to the inquiry but if somebody asks you about um you know is east brunswick going to have a um string quartet concert coming up you're permitted to say yes i'm aware that they are i don't know i'll find out for you i'll talk to dr valesky and get back to you so as long as nobody's making a you know a promise or seeking some type of favor uh from you you can inform your elected your citizenry
069that you're representing if they make an inquiry to you as a board member next so this is the one i talked about before nothing shall prohibit any school official or member of his immediate family from representing himself or themselves in negotiations or proceedings concerning his or their own interest so this is the case where i was talking about if you had a child who had an iep you have the absolute right to represent yourself and your family before this board next please this one's not applicable to you this is members of the school board so you can you can skip that so right now we're going to be finished going through the slides because the next slides are the the code of ethics the one thing that i wanted to alert you to um that
070the the biggest area that i have seen with uh ethics and ethics inquiries are if you have a family member who is a teacher in another district or if you're a teacher in another district there's many many rules about your participation in negotiations and whether or not you can vote on a contract as you're aware mr giuliano has sent out a questionnaire to you over uh i guess email bernie not yet the board hasn't received it yet they'll receive it after this meeting i have to see so if you remember in the last several years we gave it to you in paper copy free to fill out but given the virtual world that we're living in we're going to get it to you via email and we'd ask that you fill it out what we
071do is we go through and analyze it for you to make sure that you have no conflicts so that you can vote on any of the collective negotiation agreements and or participate in the collective negotiations process and or participate in grievances etc um the the one area and i can tell you i know that none of you guys have any family members that work for the district but the ultimate preclusion is if for example say you're a board member and your spouse is a teacher of the district you would be precluded from participating in negotiations and or and voting on the actual final collective negotiation agreement you'd also be precluded dealing with any type of grievances etc so again we try to be proactive that's why we have you felt these questionnaires and let me
072just summarize and finish up by saying there's nothing that is urgent that needs immediate action if you have any questions or concerns we can give you guidance and we'll put our guidance in writing to you so that you can rely upon it when you're making a vote coming up at a future meeting the one thing i can't do and the school ethics commission won't do is they won't correct something after you vote on it so it's always better to read the agenda and if you have a concern or worry please make sure that you get re reach out to me so that i can provide you guidance so you don't violate the school ethics act and that's the training for this evening bernie because we're not going to go through the rest of it since
073we're already ready thank you very much i do remember that last year you did caution us about several things about the use of social media in regard to ethics if you wouldn't mind yeah absolutely very so the use of social media um there's two laws that govern boards of ed generally there's the open public meeting act which we're at right now we're having an open public meeting for the public to witness the the business of the board uh to make public comments etc and another another law that uh impacts sports greatly is called the open public records act oprah and so all communications documents etc unless they're a privileged document are public records and so what i tell board members is it's imperative that you only use your official east brunswick email address for board
074business you do never want to use your business email address for board business because if an open request comes in and they want all emails saved from vicki becker and she's been conducting board business on both her east brunswick account and on her business account she'll have to produce those business emails and i can tell you that your employer will not probably be very happy with that no i will be unemployed yeah i actually had a case a number of years ago where somebody was at a major bank and they were using their bank email uh for board business and the bank ended up terminating the employee for doing that it was a violation what about what about texting so texting is also a public record so if you are texting or emailing things uh
075make sure that what you're writing you're comfortable with because if somebody gets a hold of it which they're entitled to the public records act it's a public record so my suggestion is is that when you text or email you should be professional it should be appropriate and you should only be using um and you have to maintain it i don't think that texting is really appropriate other than if somebody says i'm going to be late to a meeting and they text you that's one thing information official should be done on the east brunswick eb net email and the reason being is that when an oprah request comes in it goes to your business records custodian that's mr juliana mr giuliana does not have access to your cell phones he doesn't have access to your text
076he has access to the email systems and he can comply with the oprah request but if you're conducting business via text and somebody asks for your text guess what you have to produce them and i've been in many many oprah cases where they have asked for board members to produce texts related to it and the records custodian has to go and have you produce your texts not a very very positive thing the other very important thing if you remember i said there's two laws that govern boards of education the open public records there's many laws but the open public records and the open public meeting act one thing that is absolutely imperative is you as a board have incredible power when you come together as a board but you can only come together as board
077at an open public meeting and the law mandates that open public meeting is published with at least 48 hours advanced notice that the public can come watch participate speak and you can only conduct business at one of those meetings where boards and elected officials get themselves in trouble is they start emailing one another in group chats via email well there's a nine you have a nine member board if five or more members of a board are engaged in email communication via email you're having a public meeting in violation of the public meeting act and the individual who handles violations of open public meeting act is this uh uh kind of powerful female down in new brunswick it's called the middlesex county prosecutor so you don't want to do that so it's imperative that when you're
078emailing do not use group emails email each other individually or if there's a need to email everybody my strong suggestion is you use blind copy you if you have to send out an email to the whole board saying you know we have to cancel the meeting because of a snowstorm you would blind copy just so that people don't accidentally start engaging in an email uh communication that could be deemed a violation of the open public meeting act matt one more thing about social media about a platform like facebook or instagram we are entitled as individual citizens residents people to have facebook pages or instagram pages um where where is that line where we have to separate being a board member from a private citizen on social media so you you you everyone has uh the
079right to use social media that's the way you communicate that's the way you get you're permitted to do that absolutely the one thing that you can't do as a board member is you can't speak on behalf of the board in your role so if you're on social media and you're talking the school ethics act has ruled that you have the right to use it but you have to say that this is my opinion not that of the boards i'm not speaking on behalf of the board now this used to come up a lot like letters to the editor in the newspaper that's kind of gone by the wayside because no one uses letters to the end of the newspaper it's now more on social media so if you're taking a position let's hypothetically say you're
080taking a position on the candidate for mayor in your town you're permitted to do that there's nothing illegal about it but you have to say that you're speaking on your own behalf not on behalf of of the east brunswick board of education the one thing that's very very very important is when you're using social media and we've been involved in litigation in this on behalf of different elected officials when you use social media whether it's facebook or twitter and i'm not a social media guru but let's use facebook for example once you start using social media and you're talking about items that could be related to the board etc you've created a public forum and so the one thing that you actually cannot do once you've done that is to start blocking people because once
081you've blocked people you've created a public forum and if you've blocked people you are now exposed to individual liability for violating their first amendment right of free speech so it's really better frankly that the district use one facebook one twitter you have an official thing and the board communicates with dr valesky and the board and dr velesky put out the message the board wants on the board's official uh schools twitter facebook social media platforms if you want to use twitter social media etc for your own uh things you're free to do that that's not a problem but just be very cautious you're doing it on your own behalf you're not doing on behalf of the board and be very mindful that once you're doing it you're creating a public forum and you're elected official if
082you start blocking it you're gonna have a problem um this i mean as you know it occurred it occurred with president trump he was using his i think facebook or twitter account when he was running for office and then when he came into office he continued using it and started blocking people that was ruled you can't do it you created a public forum it's open you're not allowed to block people so just be mindful of that and if you have questions or concerns again talk to dr valesti talk to uh mr giuliana they'll get in touch with me and i'm glad to give you guidance on that so that you don't step into a first amendment lawsuit unwittingly thank you so much matt does anybody else have a question for matt mark mark mark one
083yes thank you matt if there's a possible ethics violation who's responsible to notify the school ethics commission so uh the school ethics commission if there's an ethics violation um the school ethics commission can be notified by an individual board member a member of the public um a school ethics a school administrator or a a school teacher could file these charges i've been involved in ethics charges where a school teacher filed it against the board member i've been involved in ethics charges where the whole board votes to have the board president file ethics charges on behalf of a board member and i've been involved in cases where one board member versus another board member on filed ethics charges i've also been involved in cases where members of the public have filed ethics charges against board members
084um so it they'll the the bottom line is an individual has to file the ethics charges and sign the certification when they file ethics commission the one thing that's important for you guys is if ethics charges are filed against board members board members under new jersey state law have a right to be indemnified for your role as a board member so if a citizen files i just had a citizen recently file ethics charges against one of my board members immediately notify the insurance carrier and the insurance carrier provides coverage for the defense of those ethics charges ethics charges don't don't have damages like a typical lawsuit there's findings and the school ethics commission can dismiss the charge or they can send it for a hearing before an administrative law judge and ultimately the penalties are
085they can reprimand you center you suspend you or remove you from a board of education in my 26 years i've only had two board members removed from boards of education for their conduct one of them was not so long ago uh and it involved with the school the to give you an example the board member had a social media blog site and was blogging about employees the union uh all kinds of stuff and saying i'm doing it under the first amendment i can do it the nja hired an attorney and the attorney had represented an individual that was being blocked about and filed ethics charges that board member was removed from office um and the other one that i was involved in a number of years ago which the board itself filed ethics charges against
086the individual board member it was a board member who was releasing confidential information very very sensitive information dealing with an employee who was going through a very serious medical condition and thought it was appropriate to talk about it on at the time was an nj.com blog and he identified himself on the blog he was removed from the board because he violated the one of the most sacrosanct rules is you can't disclose confidential information and one more question on the uh there was a case at asbury park in 2004 you gave us a bunch of cases last time and the board member was removed for directing a staff member to remove a recommendation that was on the agenda that hospital board member asked his students no i couldn't understand anything you were saying you were talking
087about asbury i don't have the asbury park if it doesn't work i'll try it another time yeah you can i mean you can so basically what what happens is um i i don't know the name of that the facts in that case specifically i'm glad to take a look at it if you want to uh you know send dr valesky an email i can take a look at the case but the school ethics commission has all their cases online if you go to the ethics commission there's a whole series of cases year after year after year um and we have a database at my firm i can research case for you but i don't know that case specifically so i couldn't answer a question for you yeah if we had i'll ask a question later
088it was in the training we had last year you gave us the booklet of examples yeah from strauss yes and it dealt with removing stuff from the agenda uh yeah i i just don't know that case this year i did it this way [Music] all right mark i the reason i did it this way without doing it like the last couple of cases was i try to make this a little bit more user friendly in this virtual environment with a powerpoint matt quick question for you thank you very much matt can you hear me yeah i hear you jeff okay good just a real quick question uh when we were talking about social media in the in my opinion uh clause and not that of uh of the district if approached on a specific topic
089that has come up in in session where there was a vote made and an individual asks you to discuss my vote and my reasoning am i in violation of anything um so the the action is already taken so let's hypothetically say you there's a big bond uh you're going to re you're going to re-uh do the fields and you voted no board members wanted you members of the the public were asking well why did you vote no mr winston by not redoing the field well i think that if somebody at the grocery store asks you why did you vote no and you could say i didn't think it was fiscally responsible i don't think that there's any preclusion from you uh on social media saying the same thing because the vote's already taken place so
090i can support my position should it arise yeah if somebody asks you that question you could you could answer that question you have the right and as yeah thank you now the one thing jeff what i'd say is let's hypothetically say the board voted um you know five four to vote and you were in the minority on something you wouldn't go out and say the board's a bunch of you know idiots for voting that way they shouldn't have voted that way that would not be appropriate but if somebody asks you the question why would you vote no on redoing the fields mr winston you say i didn't think it was fiscally a prudent given these difficult times etc you would have the right to justify why you voted just like you would at a public
091meeting absolutely okay i appreciate that thank you man okay anybody else have any questions bernie do you see anybody i see no hands raising awesome okay thank you again matt greatly appreciated good questions board members okay now we're on to our regular agenda dr valesky can we please start with the superintendent's report thank you president becker congratulations to our new and returning board members as well as the new board leadership i would like to wish everyone a happy new year or maybe i should just wish everyone a new year with my sincerest hope that it is happy and our greatest hope that we can look back on 2021 and remember it as our recovery from the pandemic and a full return to in-school operations as i stated my message to the eb community earlier today
092i was astonished to watch the events at our nation's capital unfold yesterday on live television i get to look at these situations through the lens of a parent and as a superintendent and i watch very closely how my son reacts to events like yesterday this very unique and isolated environment we find ourselves in amplifies my responsibility and our collective responsibility as a school district to help our students process what they are witnessing on the national scene in addition to dealing with a worldwide pandemic let me simply restate what i messaged earlier our teachers are committed to creating safe spaces for the discussion of these recent and unsettling topics especially as events will likely continue to unfold over the coming weeks above all we want our students to feel safe and know they are supported by
093the entire east brunswick public schools community as we remain physically disconnected we have provided a variety of high quality resources for parents and guardians to help guide discussions at home they are located on the homepage of our website for your convenience and accessibility as always please contact your schools or my office directly if you need assistance in connecting with any of the vast resources within east brunswick public schools that are available to our students and their families the east brunswick high school annual gift giving drive along with the student council class council drive through toy drive that took place on saturday december 19th was a great success it was estimated that about two thousand toys and two thousand dollars in gift cards were collected in addition to gifts provided to over 25 needy families in
094the area 35 to 40 bags of gifts and clothing went to the um i was on a zona family shelter in edison 10 gift bags went to a group home in edison and 10 bags of coats hat gloves went to the elijah's promise ten families in east brunswick were also the recipients of gift cards thank you to the students advisors and high school staff for their time efforts and generosity in making this event a tremendous success the learning model forms are now available on parent access for students in the elementary schools as well for students in hammershould middle school if you do not submit a new form for your child they will automatically continue in the remote learning model the learning model forms for elementary and hammersmith middle school students only will close tomorrow january
0958th at 3 pm learning model forms for students in churchill junior high school in the east brunswick high school will be available through parent access beginning january 19th later tonight i will have a discussion with the board of education about our preliminary plan to return to hybrid instruction even after tonight the volume and frequency of covet infections will be a major factor in my recommendations on when we finalize our return to hybrid instruction and if we need to adjust any return dates because of newly discovered safety concerns as i committed in tuesday's message tomorrow's message at 3 30 p.m we'll provide updates for the community based on information we have at that time thank you thank you dr valeski and now we have a presentation on block scheduling proposal dr baleski would you like to
096introduce us please yes ma'am so the um we had previously communicated with the board of education about a proposal for block scheduling dr bolli and your team have put together a video that we share with the board members we'd like to share with the community over the last two years members of the administrative team have been investigating block scheduling as an option for scheduling for our students and obviously during the pandemic as we closed our schools went to full remote back in march of 2020 block scheduling was really the the option we had to consider for delivery of instruction of our students at home as we begin to look at our return to instruction and what the vision of east brunswick public schools will look like post-pandemic we believe there are a lot of merits
097and considering a block scheduling modified block scheduling format so i'm going to let dr bully lead the presentation discussion i do want to clarify that we have invested a variety of stakeholders in the accumulation of data for this presentation uh and one important piece of this is this would involve negotiations with the east brunswick education association uh the current contract does not have provisions for the execution of block scheduling we currently are within you know the parameters of of negotiations but this would be a consideration i just want to make that clear so dr bully do you want to go ahead and begin the presentation and include any members of your team in the administrative team the broader administrative team to help support that certainly thank you dr voliski good evening everyone i'm joyce foley
098assistant superintendent of academics and joining us this evening is nicole tibbetts director of curriculum and student achievement trudy atkins director of professional learning evaluation and assessment michael vanilla principal of east brunswick high school and matthew hannis our new principal of churchill junior high school thank you for allowing us the time this evening to share our proposal to shift to block scheduling at churchill junior high school and east brunswick high school in september we believe this schedule will help us to meet the social emotional and academic needs of all of our students this schedule shift will provide only four longer instructional periods daily allowing for more instructional time leading to more time for students to apply the skills that they just learned and more time for teachers to provide individualized attention and support this schedule will
099result in a decrease in the daily workload for our students this schedule will provide a standalone homeroom period offering time during the school day for classroom community building social emotional learning activities and so forth and with this schedule also comes an extended mid-day lunch period allowing students to decompress see their counselor or chat with friends so i'd like to show a brief video overview and then be happy to answer any questions in an effort to maximize instructional time for students block scheduling is being recommended for churchill junior high school and east brunswick high school for september 2021 this video will provide an overview of the block scheduling proposal this visual depicts the previous nine period day schedule last used in march of 2020 prior to the 19 break and the proposed new block schedule as
100you can see fewer classes in a day would help to balance the workload for students and teachers personalize the school environment provide extended learning time increase the amount of time students are engaged in their learning provide opportunities for social and emotional learning over the school year the total number of instructional hours will continue to exceed the minimum number of hours per course required by the new jersey department of education reorganizing instructional periods into longer blocks ensures that our students are still receiving the in-depth instruction needed to meet or exceed the new jersey student learning standards while maximizing opportunities for social emotional learning and reducing student stress there are many benefits of block scheduling for a student's social and emotional well-being this scheduling model reduces stress while still offering a broad and rigorous curriculum provides a
101daily standalone homeroom period for community building and social emotional learning fewer class changes will improve school climate discipline and cleanliness because teachers will see fewer students each day they will get to know each student better and be able to offer more individualized support provides for a longer student lunch period students will have fewer classes quizzes tests and homework on any one day there are many benefits to teaching and learning with block scheduling this scheduling model provides more time to teach coach assess and reteach with less wasted time transitioning fewer startups and endings result in more usable instructional time encourages teaching in depth and promotes higher level thinking skills allows students and staff the ability to focus on only four courses per day longer class periods encourage teaching with a variety of instructional models the 82-minute
102period would be structured in a way to provide direct instruction of the day's topic ample time for students to use that knowledge in meaningful ways and an opportunity for the teacher to assess which students are understanding the material and who may need additional support during the bulk of the class period students will be engaged in various ways with some examples listed here this time allows the students to apply the skills or strategies just learned into context successful implementation will require ongoing support and professional learning opportunities for staff some of the initial steps may include revisions to curriculum pacing guides and teacher planning to ensure the additional time is utilized effectively thank you for your time and consideration of this proposal we look forward to discussing this topic with you further thank you mr juliana question
103any board members have any question leewoo yes uh thank you very much dr podi and your team but i do have several questions for you so um but not every one of my maybe that's my concern so number one so so you have uh four class basically for each day for a b class for two days you have eight class so normally or at this moment we have nine periods for each day which means we have the options to teach nine different subjects so if we switch a b uh scheduling so i don't know if if we can provide student enough options for their choose or selectives this is number one number two so we have the uh blog scheduling abs format how can you handle the year-long class or the ap class they need
104longer time and number three so if a student is sick out for one day or few days and the makeup effort will be huge how can you or the teacher can make up the the absent uh student for for his missed class and the last one is so now we have almost 82 minutes for each class so that means this is will cover a lot of material so i i don't know if every student in one class can kept the paste and some students maybe can you know uh can handle the material easily but some students they may not care about the pigs and for those students if they cannot uh keep up with this space they will have uh emotional stress how can you help those students so this is that's my concern or
105questions thank you good questions so um currently we do have um as you said the nine periods and one being lunch so we wouldn't be reducing any instructional periods as far as uh if a student was absent the teachers are still implementing the canvas learning management system um they could still if they're well enough at home follow along in the instructional model or log in we feel that the instruct the extended period will allow the teachers the time to formatively assess student understanding of the content and the time to provide that individualized feedback and attention to small groups of students mike or matt or nicole anything to add to that um thank you dr polly i would just add as far as the pace goes that um currently in a 42-minute class the pace is
106very very fast and so we actually think one of the benefits of this is that it does allow more time for the pace to be more appropriate for students so that they have a little bit more time to comprehend and analyze and practice and get support from a teacher before they have to quickly even run to their next class so we actually think the change in pace is a benefit in a block schedule or maybe actually use different wording the content so i don't know this 82 millions class will cost the same amount of content of material as the 42 millions class so if we give students too much material in in one period or what or one block so some student may not get it and they will accumulate his or her frustration and
107will accumulate his or her emotional stress that is my concern so generally right now um because the classes are 42 minutes what happens is the teacher you know introduces the lesson has a small activity to get the students up and running and one day we'll really do a lot of the direct teaching and because the class is wrapping up so quickly they can't really move to the application and give a lot of practice within the same day so you're talking about for those students they have to be able to retain what the teacher taught them the day before with limited practice kind of live right then when the teacher is working with them um and so we really actually you know again same thing and and i'm sure that dr vanilla and mr hanus can
108add to this as well we actually think providing the time to apply immediately while the teacher is still right there and you haven't now done eight other classes since you were taught that skill uh is is a bonus and a benefit to this model yeah bill build it on uh what ms tibbett said what uh the other part about it is to make those synthesis connections if you saw in the presentation that dr boley had to be able to provide and apply uh to higher higher level thinking in that longer period is appropriate and the feedback loop is so critical uh when you have a longer period that teacher is going to be able to make that personalized learning gonna be able to flex group those kids instruction and provide that focus and support in
109the areas that are needed and i do think in the long run the students will benefit from that feedback loop as well as that personalized learning mr hong to speak to that example um recently i was in an 8th grade english classroom the english teacher started the lesson and and we're using not quite an 80-minute period in the current situation we're in but started the period by allowing students to review an assessment that the students had recently taken and look at the feedback that the teacher gave the teacher then asked the students to reply to her with examples of the feedback with what they was to ensure that the students were understanding the feedback correctly and then they had a differentiated activity that allowed them to focus on different aspects of the feedback for example
110it was an english class so one might be one group of students might work on learning how to blend quotes another might learn how to find other supportive evidence in their text and while that's going on the longer period allowed the teacher to get to those individual groups to provide that differentiated instruction and then as dr vanello just said with that feedback loop at the end of the period the synthesis synthesis time the last 15 minutes the teacher came back to regroup with the class and the students completed a google form which then shared an example of what they learned in the lesson to ensure that they were understanding those objectives for the day leewoo do you have any other questions yeah i have one more question absolutely for this uh blog scheduling let's say
111for for one class just say english class so in the a day a and here monday he'll have monday and wednesday and maybe friday so under our ninth period the uh current format maybe he will have english english class on monday tuesday wednesday every day so how can you evaluate the impact basically this kind of gap between the teaching for the same subject so how can you handle this kind of issues um are you asking that this how is if the student's not seeing the teacher every day if yes that's this is my for the same subject so it's not going to be cheap be part of every day so if every day this will help students remember where or learn where but you have won this gap that's correct so we feel that the
112the extended learning period will would allow for uh deeper learning and more critical thinking and more application of the skills and strategies that are being taught in the in the class period um and again to reiterate what's been said prior that feedback from the teacher and that personalized individualized attention would be available during the longer extended period um as uh mrs tibbetts said with the the current schedule the periods are so quick and taking attendance and settling everyone down and teaching the lesson and then there's a very short time for any kind of application and and closure anything else to add team uh if i may dr bully so now i'm in the professional development realm but for many years i served as the science supervisor and prior to coming to east brunswick i did
113teach in the a b block for 19 years my previous district and i taught ap biology i taught honors anatomy and physiology and i taught academic biology in this fashion uh mr hong and it it really does in some aspects it mimics 21st century learning in that children will be going on to college and having class monday wednesday friday tuesday thursday potentially um the the amount of of deep learning that can go on in the 80 minutes versus you know something very quick in the beginning try to get the meat of the lesson in and then try to sort of close very quickly um again i mean my experience is in science but for for any uh hands-on type of classroom or really any classroom that is not hands-on it can become hands-on because you've
114got that time um to really delve into whatever content you are studying so i've found great success um i have hundreds of facebook friends who are physicians and lawyers and they've done very well coming out of an a b block and if i can add on to that and i know there's a lot of other questions one of the things that's challenging for students right now is to have to think really deeply uh in you know ap bio for 42 minutes and in five minutes now they have to be thinking about math and five you know 42 minutes later they have to be able to apply all of this to english and 42 minutes later they have to move to the next content area you can even think about in your own work when you
115jump from meeting to meeting to meeting and you don't have a minute to kind of think in between or really you know analyze what it was that you just did at that first meeting it's very easy to almost kind of forget about that first meeting because you're so quick into the next meeting and so the same holds true for our students that allowing them the time during their period to comprehend and synthesize everything that's happening we we strongly believe will increase their ability to retain the instruction during that period and just to build on what ms tibbetts said um you know one of this start this started years ago and there's been a lot of research with a lot of students and staff and ironically it came out of me meeting with with student leaders
116in a discussion of that nine period day and what it felt like and i literally became a student for a day and i put on my sweatshirt and my jeans and i followed through it i went through that period day and we talked about it and many students said they felt exactly how miss tibbetts said uh eight classes eight homeworks multiple tests or assessments that may take place uh and really came out of us saying is is the eight period day or nine period day that we have right now and 42 minutes optimal and really the students told us that they felt that this longer and then we've also talked to schools across the country and locally um site visits that we had and there was a lot of work that got in with students
117and staff having these discussions and uh not it's not 100 but there is a strong consensus that moving in in this direction is a benefit for our students and dr vanella you also had feedback from parents correct correct correct and this all started what the initial question was very simple it was is the current nine period day the optimal schedule and the overwhelming was no people all stakeholders felt that the answer was no and more instructional time will be beneficial and really links in with our work that we've done with danielson uh our student-centered learning and our personalized learning so it really fits into what we are doing currently in teaching our children label yeah i'm done okay i saw laurie's hand heather's hand and susanna and jeff so laurie then heather then susanna then
118jeff laurie had the floor you definitely see the benefits of this and i know some of the things we've talked about um getting some extra time i can tell you as a parent i think it's a lot easier for kids not to have six different tests in a day so um i i'm admittedly a fan i just have one question um when we talk about double periods like your verbal thing or ila things like that how does it affect something like that i mean this is great i'm just curious does that um have any negative impact on a double period going to 82 minutes i mean i guess it's losing technically two minutes is that correct dr vanella you want to speak to the scheduling sure there were that was this is one step we
119had an 82 minute 83 minute and an 84 minute was was where we're at depending on the way you give it with lunch if you went to the 84 to 30 mike you're frozen can you hear me yeah okay so it as i said before i know what you heard but uh right now this goes with an we're we are right in that spot of an 82 83 or 83 minute as a possibilities with the flexibility and 84 would be an apples to apples across the board with a 30 minute lunch and 83 would give a 34 minute lunch and at 82 would give a 38 minute lunch but so the fact of the matter is that ability to have that would be in apples to apples with your courses the only change and i
120think we will ask this earlier about ap courses uh there is one spot with our ap sciences where we had double periods uh we would have the ability to move it to a seven and a half credit course where those students could meet twice in the first half of the in the first semester and once in the second semester and that really would benefit our ap students on getting that information front loaded uh to prepare for their ap test and mrs lax if i can just add on to that the um the double period that you're speaking of as far as verbal goes is not a model that is currently used at churchill or the high school that's a hammer shoulder elementary model so there is no impact as far as minutes for any of
121those types of courses that you might be thinking about mislax what it might do though is in the transition from hammer shoulde to churchill is it would a little bit more closely mimic what the students have with the double period for subjects like ila in terms of the length of time that they would be meeting with their english class at churchill in that transition thank you i believe it was susanna then heather than jeff um thanks i i first want to thank everybody else for all the questions because those questions are really helpful to to gain a more thorough understanding of of this and i have to say when i i watched the video i i was very excited about it because i kind of you look at these small segments of time and the
122kids running around the hallways um that's a stressful day and um i also like the longer lunch period you know because kids are just so stressed out these days uh and my question had to do with um you know we're not the guinea pigs uh and i think dr vanella and dr atkins both addressed it somewhat and um i just want some more assurance that we're not the guinea pigs um that this is a deeply researched issue uh that you know that we we we speak to those districts that are doing it um you know if you can talk a little bit about if there are any other leading new jersey districts that are doing this and what kind of downsides have they seen i mean certainly i i see a lot of upsides i
123was i was very excited when i saw it and you know uh lee and laurie had some you know really good questions i just want to make sure we don't have any blind spots that we've missed and take advantage of benchmarking and talk to others that have done it yes so susanna as you know matt is just recently coming from the high school so he's been part of the process for the last couple years in researching this with mike and the and the staff and i know that they've you know reviewed a lot of professional literature as mike said they've looked at national models as well as local models and did site visits um mike or matt if you want to add on to that sure so what we did was in this process is
124we created a committee our instructor learning committee and we had subgroups and each department uh really worked with that and worked with students so they would come to our committee they would go back to that department they would bring a list of all these questions we would make contact uh we examined uh montgomery west windsor princeton hunter and central westfield and then we also uh researched others across the country uh to see what their schedules were and it really came down to this being the one that fit best for us and i think there was just about every stone was unturned in these discussions uh with student staff as well as uh with our ptsa so i feel very comfortable with what we've done i think we are not the guinea pigs i think we're
125able to go into this with where we already are at plus what we've learned and i think we will be able to be very successful with the transition okay heather all right i sort of have a eclectic laundry list here um and i would start by saying just in my own personal experience i've been teaching a 90-minute period for years i completely enjoy that myself i know it's like a spoiled thing and it's fantastic i do have concerns about the lack of content or the lack of touching of each class each day though for students um i did want to ask where well i did want to actually ask for if there's been research you'd be looking you've been looking at i would love to read i really really would um but i also wanted
126to ask if we've considered the needs of our special education students at this level because i know the research says that special education students for retention do need daily contact with the information and i don't know that every other day even for an extended time meets that need um i do have concern about attention span i mean the average adult attention span is like 20 to 40 minutes so it's a it's a lot to keep kids going that long i know the hustle of the change every so you know every 40 something minutes is difficult but also maintaining for that long is also difficult um i do question about ap classes i know i was asking earlier today how many actual oop classes we have thank you for that information but ap classes right now
127are testing every week and under the current model kids are looking at two contacts with the teacher before every test that's not a lot of content you know when you have questions there's not a lot of time with your teacher i mean there's time but there's not a lot of daily context so you're processing but you may not actually have the instruction available and most ap classes science is excluded but most ap classes do seem to lend themselves more to direct instruction than you know group work and application um in class so that was a concern for me especially with the speed they go trying to prepare for may instead of june um i also just wanted to ask just trying to visualize this how many lunches a day do we have at the high
128school and how early would lunches have to start in the day to accommodate a 38 minute lunch so heard of the principles so right now heather we have four lunch periods in this model we would go down to three lunch periods uh and it would be very marginal the difference at that would just about be the same time that lunches would be starting and uh the considerations for our special education students with regards to the special needs students ms squats we do have ways to implement for our where we have anchor programs such as our bd ed programs there are ways that you can schedule so that when right now the students currently have an anchor period period 1 and period 12 that we can set the schedule up where they still have an anchor
129period period one and then on a b day the period five periods so that they if they're if it's a situation where maybe they're starting their day with a class like pathway to careers or something of that nature it can be done so that they receive those on a back-to-back day basis for students in the special needs population as well as our programs special programs that might go out to job sites that they can be kind of scheduled within their own schedule system to work with those programs still on a daily basis yeah heather with their you asked a few things is there anything else yeah there was one question about attention span i think to refer to dr atkins in one of the pieces in dr boley's presentation was the the professional development in
130working with teachers um to adjust teaching strategies in that 82 minute period or 84 minute period so that it's not just really extending a 42 minute lecture out to 82 minutes but um you know setting the table with a uh introductory activity getting to the application period and then coming back together with the feedback loop at the end of the lesson dr vanilla i have a question for you wait a minute lee wu i'm sorry i'm sorry um we're just trying to go in order after heather jeff was next yeah still and i had this question i'm so sorry so it's part of the last thing to build off of my question okay so dr vanilla you said we will have three lunch period instead of four so that means for each lunch period the
131surface number will jump up about 30 percent is high school cafeteria as the high school cafeteria have this kind of capacity to serve 30 more students each period yes it does and we've been in in discussions with joe crossfeld in detail throughout this process discussing this i will tell you normally our 11th period lunches are is usually one of the smallest months based on the issues within the nine period day scheduling process where we had a very low number of students with within their less than less than 200 kids were usually in that lunch so you only add those to the new to the other three lunch periods and we would have enough room for each student to sit and eat and it's enough time to be able to serve and feed all students mike
132you would just balance the lunches right the three lunches that are balanced across the platform yeah this new schedule makes it makes a lot cleaner for this for the scheduling process and chapter back to mrs gloss's question regarding ap and not seeing them every day have you uh mr hannis uh considered that dr atkins in your experience do you have any comments to add to this uh i i can offer uh one experiential from ap biology um there were 54 chapters in the ap biology book that i uh taught from many years ago um so 54 chapters right you think like a chapter test you know every week so what we did was we went to a thematic approach there were 12 laboratories in ap biology at the time it may still be laboratories and
133and we dove into the material in a thematic approach around each laboratory that was required so taking i mean this will be my job in the professional learning right to help and support the the supervisors academic supervisors in looking at the content and finding ways to go about approaching the content so that you could have an experiential activity in every class so the pacing guides and the manner in which the curriculum is offered would change as i did many years ago by creating a thematic approach to studying ap biology if that's helpful that's helpful i totally see how it can work with ap sciences i'm just struggling to see how it can work with ap history like apush and world history i i don't know how you make that content thematic to get prepared for
134the exam on time and i really did want to know i'm not trying to be difficult um but i haven't had the opportunity to have anyone actually in the high school to eat lunch when do lunches start now so on on a normal day they would start at 10 34 at the end of fourth period period five will be in the first lunch um and with the block period the period three would be split into the three lunches it would be approximately about the same time 10 10 35 10 38 ish thank you jeff i this might have been answered off of lee woo's uh questions i thought i heard it in there and maybe you didn't respond any impact you know in any way uh of electives elective availability you know will there be
135enough time throughout the year to experience several subject you know subject matters what's the impact it that that was a big question in our group um and our specialist teachers uh actually had those had those questions and those discussions with teachers from the the other schools that we were in contact with and we did not from what we were told and what we see within the schedule that we have no significant impact that would uh that would hinder students taking those electives or the arts okay all right good i appreciate that thank you you're welcome any other board members have any questions at this time okay most of the questions i had were answered um you all did a great job of asking questions um uh just to sum up uh i think we probably
136could use some more information on the impact of special education for the block scheduling i know there was a question about asking specifically which other pro high profile high schools are currently using block scheduling the impact of not meeting every day uh not just academically but socially and emotionally i think we could do some more research on uh and the thematic approach for ap classes uh we could probably use to be have fleshed out a bit more and actually the only other question i had is either dr velesky or dr boley will this have any effect on our flex school program in regards to their schedule yes uh mrs tibbetts yeah nicole nothing significant adverse uh no so miss canard who oversees the flex program right now um has been a part of these conversations
137and has been considering this uh for the flex program um the flex program actually right now is scheduled in a block format so the the students are already doing that quite honestly because of staffing purposes but we found have found a lot of benefit for those students so we think they will fall into this schedule fairly seamlessly dr velesky what is your expectation at this point in terms of next steps for you and the board to develop uh discuss and take consensus what do you what what is your time frame well we want we would like to accelerate the time frame we'd like to get the board's questions answered uh but as i stated earlier uh miss becker the um this would be part of a negotiation with ebea we are currently uh utilizing block
138scheduling in our current instructional delivery but that's by agreement with ebea for the course of the pandemic so this would require some negotiation with them but i would i definitely as i told the team before we made this presentation and i think dr bully and all the administrators did a great job tonight we want to make sure that the board's questions are answered and that everyone is satisfied that this is something that that we want you to believe as we believe this is something we believe will meet the needs of so many of the students in east brunswick public schools um at in in a variety of spectrums uh and especially in our post-pandemic environment uh we believe this is a model that will help support our students not only in their academic pursuits but
139in their social and emotional supports as well so um our challenge right now is to get answers for the board if any board members have any questions you can filter them to me or dr boley directly but we want to make sure that we get the answers uh and you know as always if a board member has a question we'll filter the answer back out to the entire board but i would like this to be an organic process that could occur between now and the next board meeting and potentially respond to board members the entire board and get those questions answered before our next meeting thank you mark mark two how does this affect the teachers we've been focusing on the students but you know what is the impact on the teachers are they succeeding
140with this yeah that's a great question so um principles again if you want to share your experience in working with your staff alongside your staff in the process and and any feedback you're receiving from your teachers in the buildings now i i could with what the feedback that i've been getting is uh the thumbs up with the fact that they feel that they can go into much deeper discussions uh it opens up their pedagogy with a longer period they can do different activities uh they can reach more students so it's been very the feedback to me at the high school has been been rather positive certain elective area teachers in the arts um practical arts technology courses classes like woodshop it allows you to get into into projects more into depth um obviously it would
141also still require additional support um with looking at pacing guides the use of the 84 minute period um we are fortunate to have the support of instructional coaches who can work with teachers through our profession professional learning models that we use at our department meetings and faculty meetings to provide ongoing support as needed as we get feedback from the staff just like we do from students i've also heard from teachers that having less classes a day and a longer period allows them to build deeper relationships with their students and get to know them better thank you any other board jeff did you have another question yeah real quick real quick take your time with all the uh yeah it's okay uh with all the schools that you have looked at which is a great list
142um i don't know what what how long they've been doing this but is there any quantifiable data uh using uh assessments uh statewide assessments park whatever uh that would show any type of disparity benefit uh is the you know zero i i mean how has that i'm sure it's been looked at what's the results of that do kids tend to do better in block just quantitatively or qualitatively as well kissing on testing believe i believe dr bullies quantitatively quantitative the numbers the scoring uh jeff you're frozen i'm sorry quantitatively now am i back kind of can you hear me yes we can hear you you're visually frozen okay uh dr vanilla quantitative data quantitative right okay vanilla i'm not sure in any literature if you recall off the top of your head uh any research
143here or if you want to look into that and share that i i think it'd be it'd be prudent if i went back with specifics the general research showed at least even if not or better performance with it i will tell you the schools that we talked to using park as an indicator would not be a good one because not many of those students in those schools were taking that assessment yeah and and that was a bad example but you get where i'm going with i know it's horrible but at least quantitatively something to say look at these numbers hear where these kids rank these are the schools they end up at whatever something we could use that would show a differential we'll collect an average so we'll also add if there's anything qualitatively because
144i think how kids feel about the day and their stress level is important oh no and your presentation on that i completely agree with there's nothing i can dispute on that it would be much better but i'm just i'm just wondering from the academic impact going forward you know is it better yeah and i'm not suggesting use that even as a reason to change it up from this i'm just curious on its educational impact on a quantitative basis you know it's a good question and i think susannah had was the one who had asked specifically if they're you know if you could give us examples of other um similar uh an academically similar uh level that are using block scheduling so again i think that um victor you could if you and the team who
145yes did an excellent job tonight could put together a packet of information based on the questions you've been hearing tonight that will go a long way towards helping us to be able to come up with even better questions next week yes great job team all right dr bull anything else to wrap up no thank you thank you all great presentation tonight thank you that's all thank you okay um we now have the good of the cause to the public members of the public may provide comment at this meeting through zoom by entering the url meeting id and password provided into the web browser of your computer that you see before you on the screen in order to be recognized use the chat feature select the zoom meeting host then enter and send your name to
146the 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 on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters or community interest participants will be limited to three minutes each is there anyone wishing to address the board tonight bernie is there anyone in the queue there is no one in the queue okay seeing none i will close the public portion moving on to our regular agenda tonight we have the board of education agenda i'd like to combine items one through seven i'm going to ask for a motion for that but i'd like to know if there's anything anyone
147would like separated out seeing none can i please have a motion for items one through seven on the board of education gender move by laurie again second by leewoo is there any discussion on any of these items and mark angelo i just want to call your attention to items one and two minutes for november and december seeing no discussion will the secretary please call the roll mr corantello yes sir you want to vote um i believe we have talked about you abstaining on items one and two because they represent minutes of meetings you weren't at right i abstain for items one and two and then for the remainder of the items yes thank you mark thank you so noted this is true yes mr sismar yes mrs gloss yes mr hong yes mrs lacks yeah
148mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries moving on to our community programs agenda we have one item on the agenda tonight can i please have a motion for contract award i'm sorry who was that laurie moved by lily second by chad is there any discussion i'm sorry but some member of the public i think somebody needs to mute themselves there's just a bit of background noise thank you so much okay is there any discussion on this item all those in favor aye aye opposed abstain motion carries moving on to a curriculum and instruction agenda can i like to have a motion to combine items one through five but first i want to know if there's any item anyone would like separated out seeing none i'd like to have a motion to combine items one
149through five no more mobile second by jack is there any discussion this is a roll call vote will the secretary please call the roll mr angelo mark just mute yourself please yes thank you mrs chu yes mr sismar yes mr squash yes mr hong yes mrs lax mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries moving on to our facilities agenda i'd like to have a motion to combine items one through four i'd like to know if there's any item that anyone would like separated out see none can i please have a motion i'm sorry did somebody say yes oh okay he's moved by mark too do we have a second okay lori second by laurie thank you this is not a roll call vote so all those in favor opposed obscene motion carries moving on
150to our financial services agenda i'd like to combine items 1 through 19. is there any item anyone would like separated out saying none can i please have a motion to combine items one through 19. move by laurie second by jeff is there any discussion seeing them will the secretary please call the role mr carangelo yes this is true yes mr sismar yes mr squash yes mr hong yes this is lex mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries moving on to our human resources agenda i'd like to combine items one and two is there anything anyone wishes separated out seeing none can i please have a motion to combine items one and two so moved move by leewoo second by heather is there any discussion will the secretary please call the roll mr corangelo yes
151this is chew yes mr sismar yes gloss yes yes this is lex mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries moving on to the student services item can i please have a motion to combine items one and two move by laurie second second by libu is there any discussion will the secretary please call the world michelle angelo yes mrs chu yes this is mar yes mrs gloss yes mr hong yes this is lex mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries before i ask for committee reports or a student rep report speaking of committees um it is always my feeling that we get our committees together as soon as possible so that the business of the district can go on with that effect i would like to ask bernie to please send everybody a copy
152of the current committee list if you would if you would all be so kind as to send me an email and let me know of your current committee assignments which ones you are still interested in staying on and what you would like changed and i'd like to invite and encourage all of you to perhaps go out of your comfort zone and if there's a committee you haven't served on an area that you feel you would like to learn more about that would be a great committee for you to let me know that you would like to serve on i would like to have all responses back by sunday so that lori and i have the time to discuss my goal is to get the administration the committee assignments by monday tuesday the latest so that
153we may continue we are in the middle of negotiations we are in the middle of budget season we have to get the committees going so again bernie will send you the current committee assignments please look at them give me your feedback by sunday let me know what you'd be interested in and what you're not interested in continuing to serve on and then laurie and i will get back to the administration by monday or tuesday dr valesky does that work for you you're all choked up i can see i try to use my i'm sorry i tried to use my bar to speak and it didn't work but yes that works for me thank you okay and now our student rep tony how are you happy new year happy new year family had a pleasant holiday
154and wishing you a happy new year tell us what's going on yes happy new year and happy holidays to all of you as well um i think i can speak on behalf of almost every senior that we are largely relieved early january normally marks the final college deadlines and uh it's nice to be done or at least close to done as there are still some stagnant deadlines um but yes it's the process is largely complete um i'll try and keep my report brief no it's okay take your time um the one thing main thing that i wanted to talk about was uh the role that politics and the events that occur play into the student experience and normally like under normal circumstances uh they exist in two completely separate spheres and i think this is
155largely important and really good because um it doesn't let the chaos and the turmoil of politics hinder the progress of education and then when big events occur um it's a little odd as a student to continue to do homework when it seems more pressing things are occurring but the thing that kind of supports this and the thing that students need to understand is that some teachers have to operate on a really tight schedule especially those that have national deadlines such as advanced placement exams and they simply can't afford to come to breaks so uh despite what occurs there still needs to be continuity and there's still options and outlets for these students to kind of get these ideas and out of their head and talk about what happened um and in person there's normally conversing
156and some classes serve as an outlet but i just wanted to bring this up because it's a interesting balance between addressing things that occur and but also not letting it dominate what uh we're trying to achieve here at school and another big thing to take away is that these terrible times and challenges like either the political events are endemic they still don't divide or slow down our community as dr velesky mentioned the tour drive occurred as part of the organization from class and student council and this was largely successful in providing toys to disadvantaged children over the holidays and this occurred despite the pandemic and the despite the rising cases and overall i think it's just a great testament to the tendency of our community and our student body to stick together and improve as
157opposed to just depart and no matter the degree of difficulties that we face or the types of challenges that arise i don't think that will change um that was what i wanted to talk about there and then uh on the topic of blog scheduling that was brought up i'm sure i'll bring this up later in other committee reports once i uh also get the opinion of other student leaders but i wanted to personally vote or say my advocacy of the block scheduling um i do emphasize with uh i believe it was ms squash that uh brought up the fact that we won't see each teacher every day and i know to you guys it may seem that passing time those five minutes in between each class is just opportunities for mischief but some students including
158me see it as a chance to connect with other students that i might not have in class but i think these negatives are largely outweighed by the benefits brought up by dr and her team and one of the things that i feel like to students is going to be really important that it might not be visible right now but is the fact that you don't need to do homework for each class every day so this gives a lot of chance for students to have intellectual developments outside uh of justice's school and it also gives students the chance to you know time manage in a different way that is more fitting what is seen in college you don't have to do math homework on the day that you're assigned the math and you can do other
159things accordingly and i'm a little uniquely adapted to this because i took two lab sciences last year so i ended up having a 90-minute instructional period for four out of every five school days so in terms of the attention span issues it was an adjustment at first but i largely got accustomed to it and i felt very successful um in providing at least a continually educational but also like interactive experience uh and yeah those are some of the big things about block scheduling that appeal to me um i'm sure i'll talk about this later when i also hear the opinions of other students but yeah that's it for my student report thank you so much that was very well put greatly appreciated and we always need to hear want to hear but need to hear
160the student's viewpoint so thank you for representing that thank you president um board members committee reports information items for the good of the cause for the board laurie you'll notice um with your agenda you have the building and grounds minutes from december 10 of 2020 it's nice to see that we're not in the buildings there's a lot of work going on in the different buildings so you'll notice a whole bunch of project updates another thing that's nice to see continuing and i know we um approved is um some pta gifts you know a lot of we talk about what we can do within the confines of the budget so you will notice that a buddy bench will be installed at lawrencebrook as a gift of their pta and the water bottle filling stations when the
161kids get back to school which i love because i'm not a big fan of water fountains so children have the ability to hydrate um so just take a look it's in your packets but just wanted to draw your attention to that thank you lori anyone else so uh the curricular community uh we had a meeting on november 30. so i just want to thank dr baldi and her team for the great job it's a really great pleasure working with you guys and i thank you very much for providing new class and update class to us students thank you anyone else bernie do you see anybody that i don't i do not okay we do have a need for a closed session so the board of education must discuss matters which are not appropriate for discussion
162in a public meeting and those items are the intent to discuss are on tonight's agenda length of closed session is estimated to be one hour i'm so sorry but i think somebody needs to mute themselves thank you so much the length of the closed session is estimated to be one hour after which the public meeting of the board shall reconvene and actions will not be taken can i please have a motion to go into closed session move by jeff nick and susan second susanna any discussion all those in favor uh opposed abstain motion carries board members just want to remind you please leave this meeting and log into the closed session meeting thank you everyone else for enjoy for joining us tonight have a safe evening you