001e e e I'd like call this meeting to order going to ask that any viewers please put yourself on mute thank you due to the covid-19 health emergency and in order for the Board of Education to conduct its business this board meeting is being held via video conference I'm sorry but I need somebody please mute themselves somebody who joined Zoom needs to mute themselves thank you it's being streamed live on YouTube on the district website in addition members of the public May provide comment at this meeting through Zoom by entering the URL meeting ID and password you will see before you on the screen upon joining the meeting your participation will be muted to ensure that there is no disruption to the business being conducted by the board education will the secretary please call the
002role Mrs Chu here Mr sisar here Mrs guas here Mr Hong here Mrs LAX here Mrs ree here Mr Simmons here Mr Winston here president Becker President we have a quarum please rise to salute the flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands stands one nation Nation Under indivisible for all the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies again I'm going to ask those who are watching through VI Zoom to please mute yourselves thank you so much the board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the Daye time in place posted at the Board of Education
003offices written notice is also provided to The Sentinel The nework Star Ledger the home news and the Trib and the municipal clerk of East Brunswick all Board of Education meetings with the exception of executive session discussions are videotaped individuals who speak at the board's public meeting should be aware of these videotaping rules good evening we're going to start off this evening with the superintendent report Dr veski thank you president Becker good evening everyone as I announced earlier this week on Monday November 16th the district will move to full remote instruction until Monday J January 11th I have heard from some in our community who are disappointed and quite frankly upset about this decision and in spite of the Herculean work of our custodial staff to clean and sanitize all our facilities our safe EB bubble
004was about to be compromised without immediate intervention we potentially would have been forced to close anyway combined with unnecessary covid exposures on top of it and just in aside I spoke with the head of the middle sex Department middle sex County Department of Health tonight he did conf confirm that so far schools have not been the spread of covid-19 but covid-19 is beginning to infiltrate schools from outside because of community activities and Gatherings we are ready to bring more students back on November 17th and I know this shift to remote seems sudden because it was safety always comes first then we can reassess and to that end we are immediately reassessing services that students depend upon and how we can safely deliver those services to meet the critical needs of selected students I want the
005East Brunswick Community understand that all while adjustments have been made for November 17th uh and they've been deferred until uh January we are planning to return to face-to-face hybrid instruction when it is safe enough to do so unless covid transmissions in our community between now and the New Year derail our efforts you will continuously be updated on each new step toward our return now for some news and updates that are more fun on Monday October 26 24 students were inducted into the high school chapter of the trim music Honor Society our membership now includes 51 high school music students the selected distinguished students have met the criteria as a triam candidate for student membership and will serve as a good example always willing to assist those students who are striving to better themselves in the
006music department on Monday November 9th the district held a virtual ESL literacy night for K to12 Ells and their families Church Hill and high school families met with secondary ESL teachers and counselors to learn about Naviance and how this will help their children in college in career research process Elementary elll families learn tips and tricks for successful learning in our current educational envirment the East Brunswick Public Library spotlighted opportunities for adults to learn English we are thankful to the ESL and counseling department for their collaboration Memorial School along with their student council worked with the East sponsor procreation and parks department to honor our veterans the students created posters that were shown during a pre-recorded Veterans Day ceremony that included the veterans Alliance mayor Brad Cohen and Town Council Members ebtv air this program on
007Veterans Day yesterday American Education week is November 16th through November 20th this week highlights the importance of providing a high quality education to all children congratulations to our girls tennis team on winning the njsiaa sectional tournament this fall we had four student athletes who signed letters of commitment to play their sport at the Collegiate level we wish them well as they continue their academic and athletic careers first quarter report cards can be viewed online through parent access on Tuesday November 24th again that's Tuesday November 24th hard copies will be made available at the request of anyone without internet access and just a reminder that Wednesday November 25th is a single session day and schools are closed on Thursday November 26th and Friday November 27th for Thanksgiving like to wish everyone a safe Thanksgiving and a
008holiday season thank you thank you Dr veski we're gonna start off this evening with a proc pres president beger uh regarding the report is there an opportunity just to ask a couple of clarification questions or uh is that an improper procedure um Matt is this an appropriate place for board members to ask questions about Victor's report or should it be under the good of the cause of the board you're muted Matt Matt you need to un mute yourself I'm unmuted now sorry about that they can ask a question about Victor's report that's not a problem Jeff oh yeah um Dr veski thank you um for the report you mentioned uh can you help me or help the public understand a little bit more about what went into the decision uh at this time I I
009like you are getting a lot of questions and you know inquiries regarding decisions why when now do you mind answering a little B to no not at all um thanks for the opportunity Mr Winston so you know obviously we were all on break last week and we we acknowledged that um people gathered and some people traveled we encouraged um everyone who had planned travel uh to quarantine if they were in an area that required that quarantine before they came back we encouraged our staff that if they were traveling to let us know so they we could make accommodations for them so they didn't reenter our school environment um so as we returned on Monday we started to get immediate reports of people who were reporting symptomatic uh Tuesday we started getting more reports of people
010symptomatic uh and then literally the um uh hours before I had made the decision uh somebody gave me a heads up that the Urgent Care Centers need brunsw were were packed uh I physically drove to every single one uh the parking lots were completely full and people were standing in lines around the facilities waiting to be tested I talked to the middle sex County Department of Health they were overwhelmed with testing request and the backlog for testing was starting to push out to instead of like 24 hours it was longer than that I I don't want to give a definitive time but it was taking longer than a 24h hour uh to 48 hour period um and even into including last night after we already made the decision staff members were reporting uh to uh
011our HR director that they were symptomatic they were waiting testing uh and we expect that wave to continue all through this week uh and that was before the um the go well before the governor's announcement today that he is going to allow townships to impose an 8 o00 curfew on um non-essential activities but uh we started to see the trend and I wanted to make sure at this point we had not had a person-to person transmission within the boundaries of East buun public schools and I wanted to prevent that I wanted to prevent the Integrity of the safety of our people so we would be able to return my thought was if we start a spreader type of activity we are going to be in a position we won't be able to return because we
012won't have staff to staff our building uh and and it'll be a vicious cycle um so this was simply a stop Gap and and I understand some people have reported you know and have reached out to me and they're they're quite upset and I understand that and I understand they're right to have that feeling um but I'm simply trying to protect the interest of the masses of East brunic Public Schools teachers students and the families they go back to um so that we can remain as well as possible and as safe as possible I'm confident we can do that um but as mentioned in the report we do have students that have critical needs uh that we need to address even during this time and we are going to find ways to do that in
013a safe manner so the the parents of those students uh can feel confident that we're researching uh the best options and we'll be discussing uh in fact options with the board in close session tonight well thank you I mean I for one think those are all prudent decisions and I I agree with you and did actually witness myself the lines but using the same criteria that you're that you mentioned and bringing the uh virus perhaps home or amongst the masses can you speak to me about what uh your decision is going to be on the sports programs and other programs where folks gather I noticed that wasn't mentioned in the it was not but we are going to I am working with uh a number of other superintendents in Middle sex County uh and we're
014looking at options to um actually slide or modify the schedule to later in the year so those are discussions that are ongoing right now so Sports at this point though are also part of this uh shutdown we are everything sports related or anything non-instructional Mr Winston is still scheduled so I left that caveat out there and the reason why is those are decisions to be made yet it's not to say that we are going to continue with it it's to say that we are going to address each component in its Singularity because I don't have an option for the board to consider about a modified schedule for winter sports or about sliding the schedule or who we compete against and those are things I want to share with the board before I make an announcement
015to the community I'm very confused now but you do have the option to suspend Sports at this time for the same criteria that you had used that you had just stated am I am I right about you just said that it was I do have have that option but I bring the virus home all right but we have how do you delineate between the two I'm just our our our athletes have been really respectful and really responsible about maintaining their safety and about making sure that they're protecting themselves and the rest of the team uh so they've created their own bubbles but that's not to say that as an organization we need to look at it because there we we have all as superintendant of at least the Brunswick we have talked among ourselves about
016maintaining that safety for all of our students for the officials uh we still want the students to have a season it may mean that we have to slide that season uh to make it happen uh safely I I'm having trouble understanding the delineation I didn't didn't shut I didn't shut down Sports um I didn't I didn't shut down all District Operations in its totality the instructional part yes because we were having teachers that were reporting to work and then we're reporting later that they they might betic so we want to make sure that we address that issue first uh then we were going to look at sports we are going to look at every element of our utilization of the building right now sats are still scheduled in our building uh we have different activities
017that um that are non instructional that we can tightly control but everything is under review we are going to address them individually thank you Dr veski um what um will happen to the rest of our extracurricular activities will they um any clubs or um we are virtualized in in so many regards uh president Becker that uh a lot of that will continue as as it's going right now okay anybody else the board wishing to say anything questions okay seeing none we'll move on with our agenda tonight thank you Jeff um we're starting out tonight with a proclamation for American Education week um Lori if you would please uh do the honors and read the proclamation sure whereas public schools are the backbone of our democracy providing young people with the tools they need to maintain
018our nation precious values of Freedom Civility and equality and whereas by equipping Young Americans with both practical skills and broader intellectual abilities schools give them hope for an access to a productive future and whereas public education employees be the administrators Teachers Health and student service workers media Specialists custodians bus drivers clerical workers Food Service professionals skilled trade workers school security officers technical employees or substitutes work tirelessly to serve our children and communities with care and professionalism and whereas Public Schools encourage Community by bringing together adults and children Educators and volunteers Business Leaders and elected officials for a common purpose now therefore be it resolved that the East Pro Board of Education proclaims November 16 through 20th 2020 as American Education week can I please have a motion for this resolution moved moved by Barbara second
019Jeff second by Jeff is there any discussion Lori um I just wanted to say that this is one of my favorite weeks every year I look forward to because it's a chance for the parents to see exactly how spectacular our teachers and staff are so if they didn't know already based on the way these teachers have had to teach these kids and and take every obstacle that's been thrown at them um this is just one other thing that makes me a little sad about the way that our year shaping up so I'm glad that despite the fact that our parents won't be sitting in our buildings watching their children learn um that we're still acknowledging how important this week is so I thank you to all of our staff um and the Educators that uh
020make every week National Educators week but but to you guys thank you for so much that you've done I to me the most um important phrase in the proclamation you wrote ReRe Lori is public schools encourage community and it it's bringing together adults and children Educators volunteers Business Leaders elected officials so it's it truly is a community effort and that goes to every aspect of our community obviously we start right here with our incredible public education employees extends to the students and their parents but the entire town has come together as the proclamation said again volunteers Business Leaders and elected officials for a common purpose and boy if we ever need it to be United it's now so I agree with you this is a very special American Education week that we're celebrating and that
021we indeed are lucky enough in this District to get to celebrate every day anyone any other discussion all those in favor I opposed abstain motion carries now we come to the good of the cause of the public members of the public May provide comment at this meeting through Zoom by entering the meeting ID and password provided on the screen in front of you in order to be recognized use the chat feature select the zoom meeting host then enter and send your name to the host you will be recognized to speak when your name is called individuals will be invited to speak in the order in which you have received your request the Board of Education recognizes the value of public Comon and educational issues to protect the privacy of all students and staff concerns regarding
022individual students and staff members should generally be addressed by first meeting with the appropriate administrative staff participants will be limited to three minutes duration and I want to remind the public that the good of the cause of the public is an opportunity for members of the public to come and speak to the board it is not a time to have a dialogue so please don't mistake our sitting and listening to you as anything other than we are sitting and listening to you this is your chance to show and give us your voice if there are questions they will be duly noted by the board secretary and the superintendent and someone on their staff will get back to you with answers but the good of the cause is not intended as a dialogue it's intended as
023a time for the public to come and speak with that being said Bernie is there anyone wishing to address the board tonight yes so far we have two individuals in the queue uh the first individual is Heather James is Jam welcome Heather if you'll unmute yourself thank you yes hi thank you hi Heather hi thank you so much for recognizing me I apologize I'm not allowed to start my video it was actually stopped by the host or you would be able to uh see my face but anyway um thank you again so I appreciate you having the public here I just wanted to you know note my frustration with the fast transition to Virtual I understand this is not a time to ask questions but I do have a few I'm a parent of Elementary
024School student and there have been no cases at our school there's been very little spread within the elementary schools and you know we have a lot of working parents in this district four business days is is not enough time to secure the kind of child care that is necessary for an elementary student moving from hybrid to fully virtual I mean this you know a high school kid maybe can be left in home alone or something but an elementary school child can cannot and so you know I find it difficult to see the public health reason for such short notice when I mean there there are no there are hardly any cases in in the elementary schools at all and so I just I don't know I just wanted to really Express the the burden for
025working parents that is caused by such a short notice and I I did wonder why it was not possible at least to keep the elementary schools open for longer to give us more time um you know maybe to consider only closing the high schools because that's where there seems to be um more spread you know and then I was also wondering about the The Learning Centers at the schools which seems like you know they seem like they will be closed um as well so um I did have also have questions about non-instructional activities but Jeff asked some of those so yeah I guess that pretty much sums it up but um thank you for your time and I definitely appreciate any response to the questions thank you Heather and by the way I didn't mean
026that you're uh there this wasn't the place for questions this is absolutely the place for questions what I meant is that you may not necessarily get an answer tonight if we don't have one and that's what I meant about an administrator following up with you um but Dr veski as well as the entire board listens to everything the public has to say Dr veski I noticed that you unmuted yourself yes ma'am if I could um of course I I completely understand the concern as a parent I I I understand the frustration of of such short notice uh but I felt as though given the the data that we were presented with in just a matter of 24 hours the number of people in the not necessarily in the elementary schools but within the elementary schools
027orbit and people who could potentially come in uh we were encouraging them to stay out to get tested uh we had enormous numbers of absences on both Monday and Tuesday those are numbers I have um in my head right now we were in excess of a 100 absences and I think excess of 120 absences on Tuesday so this was something I wanted to get ahead of and I know it's frustrating for parents but as I said earlier I want I'd rather be safe than make decisions based on the fact that we've kept everybody safe first if we had an outbreak and and that began to spread then then we are way behind and we can't keep up with it especially given the significance of the testing and people who should have gotten tested uh or
028potentially would need to get tested May defer that because they go to the testing centers they encounter long lines they don't want to wait and they simply say you know I'll take my chances to see if the symptoms get worse um by that time they may have been around other people it's a difficult situation and I understand your fr ation but believe me it it it's something that I felt we had to do in spite of the The Angst I created for a lot of people thank you Dr veski and thank you again Heather um Bernie uh who's next uh next we have uh Dana zii if you please unmute yourself welcome Dana good evening everyone first of all you so much tonight for acknowledging American public education week um and recognition for strong Public
029Schools um of course New Jersey for the second year in a row has been named number one in the country for public schools and I'm confident that East Brunswick has been a major contributor to that that wonderful acknowledgement um I want to thank all of our 1,450 members of the East brunic Education Association for their dedication their diligence and positivity as they navigated through hybrid learning and now remote learning and I want to thank our support staff for keeping our building safe and clean and prepared every single day we have done an amazing job want to thank the East Brunswick principles and supervisors Association for supporting our members of the East Education Association and a thank you also to Central Administration for valuing the work our members have been doing we made it through an
030entire marking period safely and with great success so thank you very much for your acknowledgement thank you to all of my members and you know I look forward to more successes as we go forward thank you thank you Dana is there anyone else wishing to address the public Bernie uh no we have no one else in the queue okay seeing none I close the public portion now we're going to have a public hearing on the school level self assessment for determining grades under the anti-bullying bullying Bill of Rights so I just wanted to remind people as a public hearing um the public has the right to com on this issue and this issue only after the presentation so I wanted to put up the screen again to give you the meeting ID and password and
031link to the website if you indeed wish to speak on the issue we're about to get a presentation on thank you Bernie and I believe the presentation will be L take care of that yes thank you Mr and good evening everyone the commissioner of Education developed a program to grade each public school and School District's efforts to implement the anti-bullying Bill of Rights Act or the abbr this time period was from July 1st 2019 through June 30th 2020 a rubric was developed by the Department of Education and each school was asked to self assess their schools implementation of the abbr now on your screen you will see the uh self assess ment consists of eight core elements HIV programs training additional staff instruction curriculum and instruction or Hib related information Hib Personnel School Hib reporting
032procedures Hib investigation procedures and actual HIV reporting it is required that the self assessment be made available for public comment the self assessment results must be approved by the Board of Education and submitted to the state by December 1st 2020 the school district's grade will be the average of the grades of each School in the district each school safety team was charged with assigning ratings based on the criteria and available documentation supporting each score the Department of Education will post all school and School District scores on the New Jersey Department of Education Home Room page and each School must post the grade received and the district score on their school's web page the school district must post the district grade grade which is the average of all the school self assessment scores on the district's
033homepage the scoring for each component of each element was as follows zero was does not meet requirements partially was one meets all requirements to and exceeds requirements was three some important notes uh based on our 201829 HIV self assessment the areas that required attention were additional training for Bully prevention climate Comm committee or the bpcc and additional training for Community programs the morning and the after care especially uh in order to address these areas multiple trainings were arranged the anti-bullying Specialists were trained as trainers through alas they facilitated summer professional development for the bpcc and the safety and climate teams also a training program was developed by our anti-bullying Specialists and Community program staff was trained as well based on our 2019 2020 HIV self assessment we did earn a perfect score we will however
034continue to have our school safety and climate teams meet to focus on building School climate through activities as well as mindfulness strategies health and wellness now three years ago our district total average was uh 77.7 uh two years ago it was 78 and uh the district total average for last year was a 7 78 again which is a perfect score now so much of working with students um regarding hibs surrounds counseling and social emotional health rather than discipline um so we will continue to support health and wellness even virtually through individual group counseling sessions social skills training student observations additional meetings to address concerns uh through RTI inrs 504 IEPs parent phone email and virtual sessions collaboration with outside therapeutic providers and make referrals for outside resources also will collaboration for Student Success Through grade
035level meetings collaboration with classroom teachers virtual suicide risk and threat assessments and virtual class lessons we'll also have training for parents to support their children during virtual instruction our child study teams will continue in-person evaluations virtual IEP meetings they'll monitor student performance and propos appropriate program modifications if necessary they'll monitor implementation of the I AP including all related services our Student Assistance Specialists will continue to work as our anti-bullying Specialists our 504 coordinators our safety and climate team co-chairs they'll also be doing social emotional programming uh substance abuse support and counseling our school counselors will facilitate itate inrs meetings monitor RTI interventions College and Career planning do academic advising and counseling create student schedules parent presentations and facilitate college fair and college visits just to give you a rough idea of the number of some
036of the supports and students that we serve last year we had 5504 total students participating in groups we had 177 students uh receiving support through 504s 1,591 through supports through IEPs we had over 34,000 counseling session case notes log that's through our student assistant Specialists and our school counselors I want to take this opportunity if I may to thank Dr veski and the board of education for for board of education for allowing us to partner with ENT effective School Solutions or ESS our Student Assistance Specialists collaborate to make referrals with ES ESS provides therapeutic intervention for most of our at risk students ESS provides therapy for individualized period of time utilizing curriculums in Anger Management substance abuse and bereavement when appable ESS provides monthly parent support and ESS also provides professional development and support for
037staff so thank you Dr veski and the Board of Education uh for your support um that is my report this evening um are there any questions so first I want to ask if there's anyone from the public who wishes to address this topic in the public hearing and this topic only Bernie is there anyone in the queue there is no one in the queue on this topic okay seeing none I close the public portion of this hearing Lou I actually had a question for you um the lanes that we go to to try and provide social and emotional support is wonderful um in terms of of training and educating we often think of um our School Employees in terms of giving them the training they need to facilitate the process I'm wondering if we could
038do a better job with educating our parents on what the process the HIV process looks like from start to finish I get a lot of questions from parents parents what happens if my child is a victim or um written up in an HIV report do they get interviewed am I there when does the board get involved does the board get involved what does an appeal look like who can I talk to so I I I just think I mean it's great that we're getting high scores but we we are a district that never rests on its Laurels and I think that we probably could do a better job educating parents on what the process is well that's absolutely uh Miss Becker thank you very much and thank you for giving me an opportunity to talk
039about this um one of the areas that we are looking into is doing more either parent uh uh evening uh where we uh do educate parents um we also have um materials that we give parents we use the opportunities also at our um back to school nights or other venues where parents either virtually or in person have been in the schools also if there's a parent that has a question or concern our student assistant Specialists do most of the training in the buildings for staff will work with students and will'll work with families I work alongside of um uh Danielle block to help work with the Student Assistance Specialists on a regular basis so student special student assistant Specialists are really the key for each individual schools information center when it comes to anything HIV
040if someone has a a concern or um is you know needs additional information they can always contact my office and I'd be happy to either sit down with them or to reach out and speak to them on the phone you know however it may be as long as we're socially distancing thank you and I'm I'd expect no less you you and your staff are are incredibly committed to doing the best thing for our students staff and parents but I was even thinking about something simple um you know it's kind of like what to do if like um a one sheeter what to do if your child finds themselves involved in an HIV investigation either as the accused or the accuser just kind of bullets you know what what will follow what happens the day after
041what you know what what does it look like from the child's point of view um what do the parents need to do just kind of a and I think it's something that we could do for a lot of our processes um that we facilitate with stakeholders other than our staff mainly the parents come up with a what to do if kind of thing on the website or even on the individual school websites so that it would it would be a primer of source for parents sometimes um knowledge can make a situation less scary just just just a thought agreed we can definitely update uh our processes on the website and look to put more information out to the schools so that uh and also I think we could brang it up more often when we
042are meeting with and talking with parents so thank you Miss Becker great suggestions anyone else yeah I I have a question for you um figure does a Mr doctor you're doctor figureo now right yeah I just want to make sure I get the title right yes call me that you'd like Mr still works a question for you now during this period of time where everything's going to be virtual obviously the shift on HIV changes quite a bit and I can't imagine it takes a vacation so can you tell me a little bit about how you're going to this adapts in these periods of uh of virtual learning so I imagine the Rules of Engagement are a little different yes well as a matter of fact and and thank you for giving me this opportunity to
043to speak about this and uh and my my team met today basically to discuss just what you're saying um what we do now is we will make sure our student assistant Specialists our counselors our child study teams um our Specialists will reach out to students more on a one-on-one and group basis to say how are we doing what's this situation like hey you know you had an issue with this last time can we talk about it this is something that is an ongoing process already for students who are are virtual who have issues but now with many of students as we know there's a certain amount of stress and fear going back into now from uh you know hybrid going back to uh to all virtual uh we've had some some parents with concerns with
044that so we are making sure that um we do reach out that we do make ourselves uh extremely available uh right away because I think uh you know and we one of the things that that we have been doing believe it or not is there have there are virtual students who have not been in school all year physically that have had HIV issues on the outside in their neighborhoods in the park we're dealing with those that's part of what we do and and a big part of what we have done is really tried to even if it's a virtual counseling session with the student with the parents on both ends we really tried to make that a major part of uh what we try to look for in in in getting students to understand behaviors
045and also to get to the root of why some students um you know will use bullying tactics or issues you know at at certain times now I'm happy to hear that now you mentioned that you're going to be doing reach out um is there a uh a subset of students or is it your intention that the uh counselors uh reach out to their roster entirely in their student population and if so how frequently will they be doing that well we absolutely will want to reach out to students that we know may have some uh history of issues that we are presently working with uh we will be reaching out to all students at some point during you know the next few weeks hopefully we can get students when we get students back in school we
046can do some more uh you know grouping uh with students uh in person but we will continue to reach out and to try to uh make sure we um have communicate with every student in in the district at some level whether through their student assistant specialist through their school counselor through their nurse through an administrator through their favorite teacher um speech therapists it could be a number of ways that we reach out and then we communicate as professionals to see at what areas and what lengths and what you know Services um we may need to provide for certain students I appreciate it I hate to see this kid suffer in silence absolutely agree thank you thank you youf Barbara I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank Dr Figaroa and Dr veski and the
047whole team of the virtual um counseling and all the different opportunities have been online I've been seeing sources of strength continuing um a lot of the wonderful programs that we have in person are virtual the counselors are reaching out to the students uh I'm sure there's always you know further reach out but from what from what I've seen we're just we know it's a tough time and the pandemic and we're I'm very thankful for all that you're you're doing us I'm sure we all are for all your efforts thank you thank you Mr thank you Board of Education we have a tremendous team and uh we we really appreciate all of your support thank you anyone else okay okay moving on to our agenda tonight the Board of Education agenda can I please have a
048motion for items one two and three so move Jeff move by Jeff second second by leeu is there any discussion this is a roll call vote Mark did you raise your hand sorry I'm sorry we didn't no oh okay you were just motion sorry okay uh this is a roll call vote will the secretary please call the rooll Mrs Chu yes Mr sisar yes Mrs guas yes Mr Hong yes Mrs LAX yes Mrs ree yes Mr Simmons yes Mr Winston yes president Becker yes motion carries moving on to the community programs agenda there is one item can I please have a motion for item number one so move Jeff move by Jeff second by Barbara is there any discussion all those in favor I I opposed abstain motion carries moving on to our facilities agenda
049can I please have a motion for items one and two too so moved move by Leu second by Heather is there any discussion I I Oh Susanna go ahead and then I had a question too go ahead yeah just a question for Mr Juliana about the um rtu Replacements um is any of this tied to the uh esip program U because I know the EIP program had funded um you know some some rtu work and and is this part of it or is it separate no uh the esa program actually did not fund any uh rtu Replacements uh these rtu Replacements are separately funded um these are absolutely essential at this time because they are essentially nonfunctioning and we need to get them up and running before the weather gets too bad okay understood yeah
050I was hoping we could get some incentives or you know some some help from the EIP program on this but um I guess they they didn't find any Energy savings opport well part part of it also is not only the the Energy savings that might come from it which um I I would venture to guess was not uh to a level that would have warranted or Justified um Replacements in these cases um but also um you know balancing out of the available funds that would come back to us what are the priorities to be done and we've gotten quite a lot if you remember uh the amount of funds um that uh went into the project if I recall correctly were well in excess of $10 million right so there's quite a lot of work
051that has occurred uh since the esa project began okay thank you you're welcome Hey Bernie was anything in the vault um uh oh yes in the vault um yes when that underground Vault was um was found what was in the vault were um two live Transformers that belong to PSG okay so this has been a long time in coming in finally getting that uh Vault um removed it's taken years literally Jeff you were a graduate of East brck High School correct well that's why I was asking understand the Vault contains some information from the year you graduated no I just lost my ID in 1979 and I'm still looking that's awes I just see if it was there that's the only place I didn't ow us do you still owe us money for that listen
052statute of limitations I don't know Matt no go ahead okay all those in favor I oppos abstain motion carried onto our financial services agenda can I please have an item a motion for items one through 13 so move Jeff move by Jeff second by sorry second by Susanna is there any discussion seeing will the secretary please call the role Mrs Chu yes Mr sisar yes Mrs guas yes Mr Hong yes Mrs LAX yes Mrs ree yes Mr Simmons yes Mr Winston yes president Becker yes motion carries moving on to our human resources agenda can I please have a motion for items one through three so move Jeff move by Jeff second second by Heather is there any discussion um I actually have something um for the secretary I would like to uh PLL uh for
053a future agenda line one on page 10 of the Personnel agenda noted I don't need to to uh do a motion that's sufficient we're good okay thank you okay is there any other discussion seeing none will the secretary please call the role Mrs two yes Mr sisar yes Mrs gu yes Mr Hong yes Mrs LAX yes Mrs Reese muted Barb Barbie muted fro I was frozen sorry um yeah yes except abstaining on number one noted if you were frozen did you need a sweater go Bernie get it Mr Simmons yes Mr Winston yep president Becker yep motion carries moving on to staff development can I please have a motion for item one so Mo move by Leu second second by Susanna is there any discussion all those Jeff yes no okay all those in favor
054opposed abstain carries moving on to the student services agenda I'd like to combine items one through six may I please have a motion for that so moved moved by leeo second second by Lori is there any discussion will the secretary please call the role Mrs Chu yes Mr sisar yes Mrs gloss yes Mr Hong yes Mrs LAX yes Mrs ree yes Mr Simmons yes Mr Winston yes president Becker yes motion carries moving on to the transportation services agenda can I please have a motion for item one so moved move by Heather second second second by Lori is there any discussion I actually have a question um when we are given what we're about to do with uh going uh fully remote for students um next week through um that date in January what happens to
055our um bus contractor s obviously we won't be transporting students Dr veski Juliana obviously our contracts remain in force and we will we will be doing professional development we will be cleaning our buses and utilizing that time to ensure Safe Transportation Services when we return Mr Juliana do you want to elaborate um I would like to uh but I'm going to defer to Mr jacobe because this law re the law recently uh was changed regarding Our obligation uh to contracted services so Mr jacobe perhaps you can uh speak to that yeah I think it's important that everyone knows right now so what happened is the law changed back in the um spring and what they said is that during a a public health emergency declar state of emergency whether it's covid-19 or some other emergency
056we do not have the to cancel the contracts we have to keep these people the contracts in force uh they only get paid their actual expenses so if they have any savings I.E they don't aren't paying for fuel wear and tear they can't charge us for that but the whole purpose is they don't want to have a an overrun on the state unemployment system so we have to keep those contracts in forc and the other reality is with busing is busing there's tremendous shortages of bus drivers and busing throughout the state so we don't want to be in a parallel situation where we cancel the contracts for approximately six weeks because remember we have Thanksgiving and then the Christmas recess or the winter recess um you're going to need those buses to come back in
057January so we will not be able to cancel them that's state law that was passed in I think it was April this year I'd like to supplement on that also and Mr jacobe correct me if I'm if I'm wrong but um one of the changes um in the law uh well prior to the change in law uh one of the things that the district uh was a leader in in the county is uh or was um uh working with each of the contracted services not only those servicing East Brunswick but other districts throughout the county and um in having them provide appropriate documentation to prove that they actually incurred costs um certainly we we would not want to be paying for uh contractors that did not have ongoing costs for staff um what we yeah
058what we did in in there was actually some litigation but overall we were able to negotiate considerable savings for the district and for other districts throughout middle sex County and the whole purpose is is that the contractors have to certify that they're not firing their employees they can't use this as a an opportunity to fire their employ employees and get a windfall they have to certify to us that these people have remained employed and if they don't we don't have to pay for them so the whole purpose is to keep people gainfully employed during these temporary shutdowns just of course very important thank you thank you gentlemen is there any other discussion Mark we probably don't have the answer to this but would these private companies be using their drivers to do other Roots during
059the during the school day I know we have to pay them I know we have to maybe you don't have this answer but is there any uh requirement on their part um not not to be using these employees during the day on on the on the taxpayers tab to do other private work well I I'd say a lot of a lot of your drivers you know are District employees um and then the ones that are not the private ones not not the emplo what the law provides is they have to be ready so if for some reason Co drops down and you you reopen just like let's say hypothetically you reopen the day after Thanksgiving they have to be there and ready to service you so I think it would be highly unlikely that they
060would pick these routes there's not work to be picked up um you know can an individual driver most of these companies what they have the drivers do is you know work on the buses and do other things sometimes they deliver meals um assisted delivering of meals for the free and reduced children um but I haven't seen that in any of the districts so far throughout the state where where somebody's been basically double dipping great thank you and if and Mark if we ever learned of that the first person we' contact is the middle six County prosecutor and the Attorney General because that's a criminal that's a criminal activity thank nice job anyone else all those in faor abstain motion carries I believe our student rep Den is with us tonight good evening there you go
061Tony how are you I'm doing well president Becca how are you good thank you we're looking forward to hearing what's going on thank you um the first thing I wanted to talk about was the high school student uh opinion on shifting to online and generally it's well received and understood um I guess prioritizing caution is very important and the notion that preventative measures are much better than reactive measures is extremely valuable and understood by the students uh especially with the trends uh that are leading to higher cases and it kind of matches the trends that I was talking about in my last report um with students there being a slight shift and more students shifting to Virtual as opposed to students shifting to hybrid so it kind of plays into that Trend and it still
062you know takes that cautious measure and also uh for the staff as well thank you to the staff who had been coming in every single day of school and now they have to prepare for this shift online so thank you to them um and then for the students specifically seniors uh now is kind of grind time for college applications and a lot of one of the bigger deadlines was November 1 and there's like mid November ones and then December 1st so shout out to my seniors who are going through that and then uh speaking on events uh unfortunately two large and traditional events had to be postponed to the spring one of them being homecoming which was originally planned for uh two weeks ago and then uh one of them being the Powderpuff game which
063was supposed to be next week those aren't canceled those will postpone to the spring so hopefully we can still see them this year uh just at a time where you know safety and I guess it it safety is less of a concern um uh but luckily last for the past two Saturdays we were able to hold a food drive which was held by NHS and um working with in conjunction with MC Foods as well at the mall and large turnout for the community from there about 2350 pounds of food was collected uh as MC food stole me and uh it's good that there was at least one event that brought out the community during this time and that's it that's all for the report um tell me do you do you hear of a lot
064of students taking advantage of the virtual tour that colleges are offering in place of the regular inperson tours and do you think that there's a value to them that people are getting something out of it I mean nothing can replace being there but yeah no as you mentioned nothing can really replace being there but um people have been using virtual tours especially since uh a lot of colleges Clos campus March which is right around when people would start going um just to get a feel of the school just to see what it's like and I still think that uh especially for students who are seriously considering schools if they get accepted they will go and visit and at least walk around campus regardless of whether they can go into the building or not but these
065virtual tours have been a great way of getting like a first impression thank you I was curious about that thank you for joining us tonight okay uh committee reports information items for the good of the cause for the board uh I know Heather and Susanna and Heather had she wanted to speak Susanna go ahead uh just uh from the human relations Council there's a Unity walk tonight at 7:30 it's um a virtual uni Unity walk as most of you know um the human relations Council has been holding this Unity walk as an expression of unity in the community for the past few years I want to thank Dr veski for submitting uh a statement for for the video tonight so it's on Facebook live it'll be available for viewing later and uh it's it's just
066an opportunity for the community to um just you know Express positive messages so look forward on East Brunswick human relations Council on Facebook thank you thank you Susanna I have Heather and Barbara wishing to speak Heather you need to unmute yourself Heather mine is not a committee report I just wanted to thank Dr veski and the administrative team for devising a plan that was so thorough and allowed us to open and offer a hybrid option from the first day in September um our students had the opportunity to see their schools to Walk The Halls my own children that are in the schools both transferred to new schools this year and that was a big deal to be able to be in the buildings and to meet their teachers and we gave the opportunity to begin
067the school year with a choice that most dists really were unable to provide um I always love that in speaking to Dr veski he often says we evaluate things one half day at a time uh he and the team have remained so transparent and open with the communication and just very data driven so I also respect this decision that they've made that now is the time to move to remote learning until January and I want to thank him and the teams for their endless hours you know just dedicated to safety and monitoring the very latest Co information and I also appreciate the hours that are going into Beyond just the learning setting um that have gone into creating modified activities and working on the opportunity to work with other districts for safe Sports I just
068wanted to say I feel our 8,000 plus students and my own students here at home are just in the very best of hands thank you thank you heather okay I got Barbara and then Mark thank thank you can you hear me yes okay uh this is a community programs advisory committee meeting we had one on October of the 26 and uh just uh wanted to say thank you to all those involved uh amarie Gilbert the manager of community programs and Janetta canara out of school time coord and Joe crell the director of financial services uh they were very thorough in in explaining to us the huge efforts really I mean again similar to what Heather said a thank you to our Administration Dr veski and to all the people who put so much effort into
069the uh Early Learning Academy The Adult School the EMP program enrichment uh there's so many different areas there's sat ACT prep remote Learning Centers just uh English um ESL for adults adult school so there many different areas and she went through for us all the cleaning protocol calls and the curriculum updates and enrichment opportunities uh in fact at one point um for the after care they were having a virtual tutoring for the students uh so that as they did their homework there were teachers available to help them with their homework so thank you to all involved and for providing the support and for all the hard work that everyone has done thank you Barbara Mark you're up um I'm aate but I never think it's too late to uh thank all of our veterans I
070don't think we would have anything we have in this country obviously without the men and women who have made the sacrifice to be a veteran uh Victor I thank you for bringing it up I know the programs that you in the schools are fantastic um and on a different note uh I think it is I would love to see Sports move I guess my my internet's not going good um I would love to see Sports move because I like to see Sports on but it is a tough pill to swallow to have sports occurring and in school instruction not so um I hope you do come with it an out of that to be able to move the sports they go on but it's just it is kind of a conflicting statement and uh you
071know it's just I know I know you'll do the right thing Dr veski but it's it's a tough one to to not have one and to have the other so thank you anyone else from the board seeing none uh we do have a need for a closed session whereas the Board of Education intends to discuss matters as follows those items in tonight's agenda and the length of the Clos session is estimated to be 1 hour hour after which the public meeting of the board shall reconvene an action will not be taken can I please have a motion to go into close session so move move by leeu second by jff is there any discussion all those in favor opposed abstain motion carries board member I want to remind you to please log out and log
072back into the closed session for those of you who joined us tonight thank you and stay safe e