001um [Music] um bernie it looks like a couple of people have been muted so you i'm trying to keep up with them i can see it good evening everyone good evening hi jeff hey jeff wait don't talk hey susannah good evening good job hello how's everyone everyone hey i'm hi everybody i made drop in and out i was on my computer i'm having internet trouble so i'm now on my phone but i can't see my agenda because i'm on my phone so if i can i'm going to try to go back on the computer mid meeting just to let you know okay what do you have to do and i see mother is on so it looks like we have everybody i have 69 in a minute somebody's not on mute they're feeding bad yeah
002there's [Music] if you are joining our meeting we're asking that you please put yourself on mute until such time as the good of the cause where if you want to talk everyone will have an opportunity one by one but until then except for board members we're asking that you please put yourself on mute thank you so much in advance for for cooperating all right president becker i have 6 30. they call me president one more time our perez exclaimed um all board members ready everybody's on board okay let's call this needing to order due to the cobin 19 health emergency and in order for the board of education to conduct its meeting is being held conference and stream live via youtube on the district website at www.ebnet.org in addition members of the public may provide
003comment at this meeting through zoom by entering the url meeting id and password for you on the screen your [Music] i'm sorry there's a few people who have not muted themselves so join our meeting we're thrilled to have you with us tonight but we need you to mute thank you so much upon joining the meeting your participation will be muted to ensure there is no disruption to the business being conducted by the board of education and we'll go back to our regular screen and will the secretary please call the roll here mr sismar here this is gloss mr hong kia this is lax here this is rhys here mr simmons here mr winston here president backer here we have a quorum please rise to salute the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the
004united states and to the republic one nation individually law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced murder servant to attend the meetings of public bodies we still need some people to mute themselves i'll give everybody a few seconds i know it's it's hard to get everything at the same time thank you in accordance with the provisions of this act the east brunswick board of education has closed notice of this meeting to be published at the board of education offices written nervous was also provided to the sentinel the new york star alleged the home news in tribune and the municipal clerk of east brunswick all board of education meetings with the exception of executive discussions are videotaped for later broadcast individuals who speak at the board's public meetings should be aware
005of these videotaping rules good evening i hope everyone is safe after the storm that we experienced this week that you those of you who lost power get it have it back or we'll have it back very soon and we're going to start off this evening with the superintendent's report uh president becker as we previously discussed at last thursday's meeting we're going to run the video uh that was put up on the website yesterday it's just under i believe about 17 minutes so we'll we'll do that and i'd like to make just a few clarifying comments after that video runs absolutely just give me a moment while i hear that video up while mr juliana is doing that um i'll i'll make the clarifying comments the um as people begin to read the policy board is
006going to take action on tonight the restarted recovery plan uh part of this was a mandated policy through the board's policy service strauss esme and they were working in conjunction with the department of education with mandates at that moment uh since then uh just recently governor murphy mandated that mask will be worn 100 on school property on buses on school property in schools so that's reflected in our appendix but that will be updated under the strauss estimate policy and we expect revisions to the strauss estimate policy to occur uh all the way up until the start of school there will be minor tweaks so i just wanted to make that clarification for the community that we bring bringing back the policy for those edits for clarification all right mr juliana has the are you ready
007to go yes we're ready to go [Music] okay hi east brunswick most of you know me for those who don't especially with a mask i'm victor volesky superintendent of schools and because we can maintain social distancing and safety in my office where we're recording i'm going to remove my mask for clarity previously my messaging to you has been by phone but the current situation we all find ourselves in is different so today my messaging is different since mid-march when we all shifted to distance learning we have been aggressively planning our reopening of schools earlier i assured you that every decision in our recovery phase would be framed by analysis of the spaces we utilized for teaching learning gathering and transporting placement and organization of students and staff in those spaces integration of medical social and
008important emotional supports with academics communication that is timely accurate and consistent for families and township leaders of course environmental safety and lastly security since that time our plan has evolved to exceed the requirements mandated by directives from the department of education i want to thank all the stakeholders who contributed to this plan parents staff administration east brunswick education association our principals and supervisors association community leadership and of course our board of education everyone shared the same passion to make this plan the absolute best it could be under the conditions and constraints that we know at this time the plan had to be flexible and adaptable as we know these constraints may likely change between now and our anticipated start of school i pledge that we will implement this plan with compassion we need to be
009deliberate and consistent with this plan's implementation but we all understand there will be a relearning phase during its rollout above all safety will remain our dominant decision factor thank you to everyone who responded so quickly to our survey it is clear that one choice doesn't meet the needs of all families in addition to the survey some of you have reached out to me personally some of you are ready for your children to return to school and some of you don't feel ready to send them back yet maybe later but not under their current conditions in fact the first two requirements on the department of education checklist for reopening schools released this past monday august 3rd are that we implement a schedule for the 2021 school year that includes in-person instruction in some capacity and provides
010public school facilities for at least 180 school days and that we incorporate a policy regarding full-time remote learning services in accordance with the department of education guidelines early on with our earliest conversations with the board of education parent choice was a priority and i'm proud to say our plan included both doe requirements for in-person and remote instruction before the checklist was released so join me let me show you how our reopening plan can work for you and what your children will experience depending on your individual choice for the beginning of this school year east brunswick public schools is committed to delivering high quality instruction for students in spite of changing circumstances the district's reopening plan includes resuming in-person instruction at all facilities with reduced capacities scheduling decisions have been informed after careful evaluation of health
011and safety guidance and mandates from the center for disease control and new jersey department of health as well as state mandates and the governor's executive orders lastly we have incorporated input from stakeholders about the needs of all students and the realities unique to east brunswick public schools constituents after review of the entire reopening plan parents will be permitted to choose between one of two different styles of instruction beginning september 2020 either a hybrid approach which allows for some instruction in school and some instruction at home on a rotating schedule or a full virtual learning approach parents will be asked to commit to their decision for the first marking period of the school year it is critical to ensure that all students regardless of where they will be during the day receive a high quality education
012all students will participate in virtual learning to some extent it is important to note that virtual learning will look and feel different than it did in the spring of two thousand twenty students will all receive a district issued device and all instruction will be delivered on one of two platforms google classroom for grades k through 7 and canvas for grades 8 through 12. instruction will be primarily synchronous meaning that all students will have scheduled times to log in to connect with their teacher for live instruction throughout the day standard grading assessment and attendance policies will be enforced students in grades k-5 whose families choose the hybrid model will come to school for two days in a row be virtual for two days in a row come to school for two days in a row be
013virtual for two days in a row and continue that cycle they will participate in in-person instruction with their teacher until dismissal at 1 15 pm after students depart school and have appropriate time for lunch they will have a final hour of instruction virtually regardless whether they're in school or in the virtual setting let me show you how this looks if your child is in hybrid group one in this case the blue group your child will arrive at school by 9 10 am and participate in person with the teacher until 1 15 pm all special area teachers will come to your child's classroom as scheduled the rest of the students in the class both the red group and the orange group will log in and participate in live video conferencing for portions of each period and
014complete independent assignments at 1 15 pm the blue group will be dismissed from in-person instruction and all students will complete the remainder of instruction virtually the afternoon sessions will be a combination of whole group and small group instruction depending on the lesson two days the hybrid groups will switch the red group will arrive at school by 9 10 a.m and participate in person with the teacher until dismissal at 1 15 pm the rest of the students in the class both the blue group and the orange group will log in and participate in live video conferencing sessions for portions of each period and complete independent assignments at home at 1 15 pm the red group will be dismissed from in-person instruction and complete the remainder of instruction virtually those who are in the full virtual group
015in this case the orange group will log in at 9 10 am for live video conferencing sessions and complete independent assignments under the direction of their teacher while they have breaks throughout the day instruction will continue throughout the entire school day if your child is not feeling well enough to attend school for any reason you should keep your child home however if they feel well enough they should participate in virtual learning for the day this will allow your child to be marked present for instruction at hammershow churchill in the high school an attendance capacity of approximately 25 percent of the entire student body will be scheduled each day students whose family select the hybrid model will be broken into one of four groups if your child is in group one in this case the blue
016group your child will arrive at school by the start of first period the rest of the students in the class will be learning virtually for the day virtual students will log in for live video conferencing sessions for portions of each period and complete independent assignments under the direction of their teacher on day two these same students the ones in the blue group will participate in in-person instruction for another four classes in their schedule at the end of in-person instruction the blue group will be dismissed to complete the remainder of instruction virtually the afternoon sessions will be a combination of whole group and small group instruction both synchronous and asynchronous depending on the lesson after two days group two in this case the red group will arrive at school by the start of the first period
017and follow the four period block schedule for two days the rest of the students in that class will participate virtually by logging in for live video conferencing sessions for portions of each period and complete independent assignments under the direction of their teacher after students are dismissed from in-person instruction they will complete the remainder of instruction virtually while students learning virtually will have breaks throughout the day instruction will continue through the entire school day if your child is not feeling well enough to attend school for any reason you should keep your child home however if they feel well enough they should participate in virtual learning for the day this will allow your child to be marked present for instruction if your child is in group three in this case the green group your child will arrive
018to school by the start of the first period the rest of the students in the class will be learning virtually for the day virtual students will log in for live video conferencing sessions for portions of each period and complete independent assignments under the direction of their teacher on day two these same students in the green group will participate in in-person instruction for another four classes in their schedule at the end of in-person instruction the green group will be dismissed to complete the remainder of instruction virtually the afternoon sessions will be a combination of whole group and small group instruction both synchronous and asynchronous depending on the lesson after two days group four in this case the mustard group will arrive at school by the start of the first period and follow the four period block
019schedule for two days the rest of the students in the class will participate virtually by logging in for the live video conferencing sessions for portions of each period and complete independent assignments under the direction of their teacher after students are dismissed from in-person instruction they will complete the remainder of instruction virtually while students learning virtually will have breaks throughout the day instruction will continue throughout the entire school day the health safety and wellness of all our students and staff is our number one priority we'll be taking precautionary measures to ensure wellness but we need the help of the entire east brunswick community please make monitoring for symptoms of illness a daily activity in your home parents should assess their child at home prior to coming to school for any signs or symptoms of illness as
020well as taking their temperature consider having a thermometer by your toothbrush or your keys as a reminder to self-monitor prior to school upon arrival all staff and students will be screened for a fever next please ensure that your child has a clean mask to wear to school each day all staff and students are required to wear a mask throughout the day think about mask as part of your outfit you can't go to school without your shoes you can't go to school without a mask visitors to school will be extremely limited however any visitor that is admitted must wear a mask any student or staff member that begins to feel or show signs of flu-like symptoms will immediately be assessed by the school nurse after medical assessment they will be quarantined in the school's isolation room
021and wait for pickup by a parent or emergency contact it is imperative that all parents update their emergency contact through parent access to include someone who is available to pick up the student within 30 minutes following current cdc guidelines if a student is sent home from school ill they must remain out of school for 24 hours fever and symptom free without fever reducing medication these guidelines are subject to change and the district will be monitoring these guidelines and making adjustments as necessary for a student to return to school they must present a doctor's note that they have been cleared to return if the treating physician required a coveted test this required a coveted test the student may return after receiving a negative coveted test result if a student tests positive for code parents should immediately
022contact the school nurse who will contact the county department of health the county department of health will work in conjunction with the east brunswick public schools to do contact tracing notifications and determine those who need to quarantine for 10 to 14 days dependent upon recommendations and current cdc guidelines regular lunch as expected by students and parents will not be served during school hours school meals are critical to student health and well-being so to ensure students receive complete meals the district will distribute meals similar to last year's grab-and-go model each custodian will be dedicated to the specific zones of their building to which they are assigned the district's facilities cleaning practices will be expanded to supplement existing practices including wiping all seats and touchable areas with an orbio cleaner and disinfectant hepa vacuum the entire floor
023surface sanitize the interior with an electrostatic sprayer dispersing hospital grade disinfectant hand sanitizer paper towel and soap dispensers will be checked and refilled as necessary throughout each day social distancing may not be possible to achieve on every bus run therefore in accordance with the new jersey department of education report entitled the road back restart and recovery plan for education dated june 2020 these minimum standards shall apply parents are encouraged to review appendix c of the district's restart and recovery plan for details regarding parent responsibilities and school bus ventilation cleaning and disinfecting students are required to wear a mask on buses at all times morning and after care will be offered on all days that students attend in-person instruction there will be no occasional use program nor will emergency drop-ins be allowed into the programs all
024students and staff will be required to wear face coverings exceptions for face coverings include while eating or doing physical activities within their assigned group while maintaining social distancing additional information will be provided to families utilizing community programs i am asking parents to complete their parent access forms by friday august 14th to select which instructional model they will choose for each of their children parents are asked to commit to their selection for the entire first marking period together we can do this now together we will do this for the benefit of all east brunswick students all east brunswick families our school community and the east brunswick community thank you thank you dr valeski do you have some closing remarks or follow-up remarks just want to clarify for the community and everyone uh logged into the meeting
025tonight we have a frequently asked questions uh portal on the district website under the tile that talks about our recovery uh where this document where this video is and i would encourage parents to visit it daily we will update it daily everyone who calls in and asks a question we're trying to populate that faq with all the information so people have that at their fingertips i know this is important decision for all parents it's an important decision for students so we're trying to keep everyone abreast of the latest developments real time on our website if there's anything urgent that we need to update the community with i will do that via blackboard as i have done in the past so that parents and families get an immediate notification or there is a forthcoming change or
026a modification to our plan okay now it's time for the good of the cause of the public members of the public may provide a comment at this meeting through zoom by entering the meeting id and password you see before you on the screen in order to be recognized use the chat feature select the zoom meeting host then enter and send your name to the host you will be recognized to speak when your name is called individuals will be invited to speak in the order in which we have received your request the board of education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest to protect the privacy of all students and staff concerns regarding individual students and
027staff members should generally be addressed by first meeting with the appropriate administrative staff all participants will be limited to three minutes speaking duration you will probably receive a one minute warning from mr juliana if you choose to speak and i ask that you state your name and street address for the record unless of course you are a student minors do not have to reveal any identifying information about them we would never ask that so i'm going to ask if there's anybody who wishes to speak to the board tonight this is becker we have a couple of folks lined up uh we have uh first christopher guerra uh mr guerra i am unmuting you now and you may proceed yes uh christopher guerra 151 applegate lane um i don't understand the viability of this plan if
028the students can go to school why can't they go to school for a full day i'm not understanding how anyone is being protected i think you're actually harming the students in doing this you're causing more issues this is going to be a bigger upheaval uh than they needed after what has happened over the last few months um and as far as a working parent like myself you're backing me into a corner um that is putting me in a position i i don't know where my son is gonna be able to go i can't afford all the extra child care that i'm gonna have to now produce you know banking on a normal schedule i'm not even talking before care after care just a normal school schedule like everyone has become adapted to over the last
029100 or so years of you know the customer going to school every day i understand that you guys are not babysitters but the children need to be in school so the parents can work this makes absolutely no sense i if they're going to school two days a week or you know two days at a time they're still going to be you know around people so if an infection is going to happen an infection is going to happen two days or five days that's still gonna happen and by only putting them in two days and now they're going to have to go to child care providers or they're going to go to groups of students getting together for you know for the virtual learning afterwards um you're still no risk is being mitigated all we're doing
030is putting the children into an upheaval because this schedule is unnecessarily confusing with the two days and then switch to a different group two days one minute sir even if it was even if it was something like two days you know everyone goes to virtual on wednesday and then back two days so you can do maybe a deep clean on wednesday when no one's there that would make even more sense i think this is gonna be unnecessarily confusing to a lot of people to a lot of students i think the virtual learning is a complete not a failure i understand you guys are changing it but i from what i saw the last three months of the last school year my son was a different kid he hates where he loved it and was flourishing
031beforehand the kids need in-person instruction they need to be around other kids even if they're wearing masks and half the socially distant they need to be around other kids they need to be children again and i think this plan is completely failing at that time yes so um mrs becker that was um mr uh guerra thank you sir thank you for coming and uh next up we have um svetlana bogal yubova hello everyone i will have to read so it it would be much quicker i totally agree with the previous gentleman that this plan is total failure and we had opportunity to go over the 120 pages plan in our uh house uh house didn't lose power fortunately actually many families still do not have power in his brand switch so we have to it
032should be a great concern as well because they cannot actually go through the plan and they cannot present in a meeting it's not in the interest of the of the child or the student this plan as a parent i have experienced the problem of online education for elementary level kids it's simply not working our child already lost three months of education and the current plant is the manual uh manual to more disaster which such one kids will not only have quality education but any kind of at all we should not approve something like that in addition to disastrous learning gap of our children the plan doesn't address social isolation social delays and mental problems that our kids have experienced and mental health is totally not addressed in the plan kids suffer tremendously and not many
033families can afford private uh therapies also psycho psychological services drastically decreased due to demand place uh to face sessions in the charity are not currently available available due to corporate this is the only type of therapy that works for majority of elementary level children online therapies doesn't work charity doesn't work i can prove from our own experience mental health in our children is left behind with such a plan i also want to able to see any specific section related to special education and children with special needs they absolutely cannot be accommodated and accommodated by no professional adults at home distract person even available that represents the majority of parents or of care or caretaker that the quorum how a minute um ma'am one minute uh okay um jump into something else i'm fully aware that
034the proposed plan should not represent parents but because it's hardly really rely on parents or caretakers uh helped with short two days of school or elementary level children it should provide for qualification and help for working parents because we cannot afford child care like that or we cannot actually go online and be whole day with our kids especially elementary kids i can propose the plan which actually work uh i have a lot in my list i will post it in the chat but uh because i don't i have limited time i can propose the plan which actually worked and i went through this with my own experience um to solve the epidemic related problems absolutely seemed similar to covet uh back in my childhood childhood time uh our school district implemented a.m and pm learning
035and divided the school kids into groups basically it's like uh in the morning group and uh afternoon group uh time's up time is up uh thank you thank you for coming and talking to us tonight um next we have um sanjay i do not have a last name i'm not sure if that's a first name or a last name and so sanjay i we need you to mute unmute yourself please yeah can you hear me yes we need your first and last name and yes yes please yes this is sanjay lal uh sixth could you spell your last name please l-a-l-l thank you all right no i appreciate the messaging and the thought that has been put together of course you guys are the experts and you must have thought through lots of you know
036pros and cons and options various options so i appreciate what has been put through a lot of it makes sense of course there can be differences in opinions i do have a few questions right so one of the points was mentioned in the video was that for remote students portions of the class or part of the class would be video conferencing for remote students that part is not very clear if if an example can be provided as to how a typical class would be conducted that would help clarify and help in our decision for remote versus hybrid that's question number one the second point that we have is if i have further questions can i post it on the website or is there an email that i can send my question to that's my question
037number two my question number three is regarding the content and the quality of delivery both like since this is a challenging time and different right none of us have the staff the teachers we are not set up to deliver education in this scenario but we need to rise up to the challenge given that we are already six months into this scenario starting from september onwards i would expect that we are able to do the teaching and impart education at a higher level than what we had during q4 q4 is understandable it was sudden it was new but going forward in the new year we do expect the level of education being imparted and the content and the delivery to be much higher may not be as regular classes but still decent enough for a school
038district like east brunswick so can you explain what measures are being taken towards that these are my three questions thank you thank you sir hi i think somebody joined and we just need you to mute thank you so much president becker if i could just add clarification after mr wallace's comments uh anyone who does have questions we have set up a questions at ebnet.org and we will try to get back with you within 48 hours or sooner if we can and answers to those questions will get populated into our frequently asked questions site on the um on the first tile of our website where you saw the video the faqs are are hosted there as well uh we are um we will work with the academics we'll we'll create a document that will give more
039clarity to the community about what the class structure will look like and we we have all committed his organization this is for everyone who has spoken we've committed as an organization to continually improve upon what we did in the spring we have very talented teachers very committed teachers very committed uh administrators and board members we are consistently trying to improve upon what we've done thank you dr valesky i'm seeing some questions being submitted by chat and i'm trying to jot them down and i'll wait until um everyone has spoken and then um address them with you dr valesky so uh next um we have robin zernitzky hi yeah can you hear me yes we can okay hi thank you um three tracy drive is my address so just like the gentlemen before me um i
040have i have several questions so i'm going to try to get them in in time and hopefully you can address each of them um the first question i have is although you have a source and an email where we could send questions my opinion and the opinion of several other districts in the in the surrounding area is that a forum may be a better place to do that whether it's done on a school-by-school basis via zoom or via some other tele virtual method i think that might be a better way for people to get together and understand this a little bit better i think that the the program is definitely a bit complicated um i did read that that page cover to cover uh 101 pages um and i did have a very lengthy discussion
041with our principal to understand it better i do think i have a better understanding but i think it's also very good to hear other people's questions and sort of reflect on those questions in the same way as you reflect on your own so i'm just putting it out there we do have three to four weeks before school starts and i think that's something that can definitely be pulled together easily my second my next questions are related to the virtual so are teachers being trained to teach in person and via live stream and by that i mean to multitask in the ability to engage the students that are virtual be able to respond to questions that are being put on the screen you know they have to obviously notice kids in person that have their hand
042up how are kids that are virtually going to be able to ask those same questions so as to be able to keep up with what is being asked second question with any equipment purchased to ensure that the children who are virtual can adequately hear the teacher realistically they're going to have a mask on um is there microphones is there speakers is something going to be purchased to ensure that this will all be like adequately heard um my last question is actually a repeat of the prior gentleman's question is it possible for you to take us through what a virtual day would look like in the sense of you know the independent work versus so the synchronous and the asynchronous work like how will that all work it'd be really great to see an example um
043in some way thank you thank you uh mrs becker um next on the queue uh we had um a question from uh we had a couple of questions from zi would you like to get to those in the order in which these things were received well first i i wasn't quite sure dr valesky did you want to respond to so the if i could um dr bolly are you is your audio on yes it is uh wouldn't it be easier if we provided an example to the community of what what a day looks like if we gave an example rather than trying to explain it on zoom that we we put it out to the to the entire community certainly okay um can you talk about the professional development for teachers in the uh synchronous
044asynchronous teaching and and handling that with uh live instruction certainly we have extensive training being planned for our staff in providing concurrent instruction front loaded a few days before school is starting full days as well as ongoing in the afternoons throughout the um the school year so our teachers will collaborate at grain level and common planning times they will work closely with their supervisors and department chair persons as well as their building administration to and we will are committed to ensuring that they have all the training resources and staff development necessary to provide excellent instruction for all students and i wasn't i wasn't quite sure i think i need clarity on the hearing supplement or the hearing devices oh sure um i think my concern is you know you speak through a computer or a
045device you're wearing a mask how will their voices be amplified so that background noise is is sort of at a minimum and their voices are able to be heard you know through the computer i mean i'm speaking to you right now and i have you know muzzles on my family i'm just kidding but you know you can hear me but no one is talking in the background there's not 10 students in the background talking or shuffling paper or any of that so that that's my question is is anything going to be considered to be purchased to ensure that their voices are easily heard to the students yes we are working with the it department and vetting the best options be a microphone or some kind of headset that would allow the teacher's voice to clearly
046carry to the students online and in the classroom just to clarify dr bolly that's um equipment for the teachers to be utilizing it correct thank you and and it's and regarding the forum recommendation we had a very systematic way we were we were delivering this information to the community the principals were we're told today that they should begin communicating directly with our school communities beginning tomorrow and if the principles once we reconvene on monday morning after they've had a chance to reach out to their school communities if a forum is is the best way to communicate with the school each school community then we'll investigate that and figure out a way that we can get information to parents so they can make the best decision possible for each of their children thank you appreciate it
047bernie an answer to your question i think we'll continue with the people who are lining up to speak and then we can go back and take care of all the questions that we we've seen through chat very good uh so next uh we have bill lenihan uh mr lenahan uh you need to unmute please yes thank you uh named bill linehan uh one question hopefully it'll be quick uh i did read through the documents and the frequently asked and and i saw that if a student or teacher test positive that you know you'll do contact tracing but earlier this week a message went out that a single 12-month employee tested positive contact tracing was underway but the high school building was closed until further notice is that going to be the threshold of the precedent
048set when you bring back all of the 10 month employees plus the 12 month employees plus 25 of the students that's it thank you if if i could that that will not be the precedent um we were look we were simply closed the building as a precaution awaiting guidance from the department of health uh because we didn't have accurate information uh the the night before so as a precaution we closed the building and rather err on the side of caution but that i don't expect that to be the protocol we have refined that um and have a better uh a better way to uh react to those situations should they occur okay thank you would you is that something that you're going to share or is it sort of a fluid uh no if if
049we have um part of the governor's requirement that everyone wear a mask uh is part of the protocol that the department of health related to us that direct contact can be avoided in other words if somebody were to test positive and all the the occupants uh of an area where that person had been if they were all massed up they are unlikely to be direct contacts it would be if they removed their mask or had some interaction without mass protection so we're in our in our plan one of the issues is we're maintaining smaller populations so we can maintain social distancing but now with the added requirement that all students all staff and whatever limited visitors everyone who enters the facility was must wear a mask 100 of the time unless they are eating uh
050in in those occasions will be very limited uh because we're not serving lunch in the schools we're doing grab-and-go um so unless you know there's there's some other kind of uh issue like if they were in the nurse's office and had to be examined but otherwise people will be required to wear a mask 100 of the time thank you doctor thank you sir thank you for coming tonight and who's next please we have uh john shafer who is next and uh there we go mr shaffer would you kindly uh unmute yourself sure thank you john schaefer six buck lane let me start with i'm laughing a little bit because of robin's comment about the kid being muzzled and i was in total agreement so hopefully they don't fly off in the middle of this this
051question um joking obviously so i won't repeat some of the earlier questions but i do want to take things a couple steps further one i do appreciate your efforts the amount of time and effort and cost that probably went into building that thoughtful document i can't begin to fathom um in the in the abridged time frame so i think that's great i also concur that you do have talented teachers that's part of the reason we moved here was for the school systems and i've come to personally know a number of these teachers and and the principal and some other um staff and they're tremendous i will say though i am a little disappointed in this plan um i won't repeat the first caller's questions i think all that stands i think you have the the
052subject of working parents again admittedly schools not a babysitting station and then you have the social aspect of schooling i will let that sit i think you think you're getting that i would like to take this into two pieces one might chill if you have two children right will they be in the same group or are you gonna put them in separate groups because now you have a dynamic where you don't know who's on first so to speak right is child a going this day is child b going this day and then if there's busting for one now you're doubling the cost because there's busing for both so why not there's a number of uh logistical concerns so the question would be if you have two children in the same elementary school of similar age
053will they be in the same group so that's one question the second side would be you really didn't go into especially not in the video there was a purple bar but you didn't go into ieps right the the inference would be the the four-day in-person learning would be for special ed and i absolutely concur i think that without question children with uh many different services whether otp so on and so forth they need to be there five days but you have it's a spectrum right you have other students who have an iep yeah um how are you going to handle that because when i read through the document it looked like a lot of that for lack of better terms was punted to the the schools to kind of make a decision well we'll try
054it virtual and see how it goes and i will tell you right now with two children with ieps they the virtual um uh services were not good they were not effective they did not work um i think you should take that into consideration so i'll relinquish any remaining time thank you thank you and president becker really quick mr schaefer the uh we are working to align siblings so that that that led to the complexity of the scheduling between the elementary schools and the secondary schools and why it looks a little more complex so we can to the extent possible align older siblings with younger siblings for child care after dismissal because we knew that was going to be an issue for parents for working parents especially those that depend on older older children uh and
055obviously you know if you have younger children we're trying to align them as well the special education services we intentionally did not address a lot of it in this this video because the services are so distinct and specific for each child in our district and that was to come through our special education department and the communication started going out today but they are running a concurrent um uh explanation to our our families who have uh children uh that are identified and so that they can get those services and we have we we recognize the remote services uh needed to be improved and that's an effort that we have taken on since march dr velasco just to clarify when you said that we're aligning the younger students as well i think the gentleman was referring to
056if you have more than one child in the same elementary school yeah sibling alignment i'm sorry i'm in the same cohort that's what we're trying to do to the extent possible we're trying to make sure that siblings are aligned together on the same schedule okay thank you thank you thank you for coming john who do we have next bernie mrs becker at this point uh it's the various questions that were posted okay um i had jotted down a couple um somebody a few people wanted to know considering the facts that children will be wearing masks and distancing how will band and chorus work what will that look like dr bowley yes band and chorus are following the cdc and the nj siaa guidelines for social distancing students will be masked uh in regards to playing
057their instruments there will be a slit in their instrument in their mask that they can play their instrument and the bell of the instrument is also going to be masked and in terms of our chorus group in terms of singing and vocalizing and harmonizing with the masks um what will that look like do you have a can you tell us a lot of the instruction will be occurring outside the students will be social distancing and wearing their masks as appropriate according to cdc guidelines okay uh i have jotted down another uh question somebody had asked it who came to speak and also a few people um texted me personally they wanted to know about the professional development in terms of teachers um having the capacity to multitask that we're going to be asking teachers to
058do something very unique and that is teach virtually and in person at the same time and that's a skill set that uh for anybody um how are we addressing that specifically in our professional development we have three full days planned for professional development before the school year begins many staff members are already engaging in professional development this summer as well as half days in the schedule for staff throughout the school year to meet with their department or their grade level cohort team with the supervisors with the department shares with their building administration that we can meet the professional development needs of all of our teachers okay bernie did did you have some questions shouted down i see a question here from a gentleman asking uh or uh i would like to know how the virtual
059learning students will be graded and how the exams will be taken so um the the grading and assessment practices um that we have employed in east brunswick will resume um and assessing student understanding and mastery of content will be implemented in various ways not just paper and pencil tests but online quizzes opportunities for projects presentations written assignments certainly some uh formalized testing will occur but certainly students will not be coming into school and testing all day when they're in school they're going to be engaged in creative opportunities they're going to be having experiences and um labs and and things that cannot be done virtually so that precious time in school with their teacher will be for those types of activities okay mrs becker i did not receive any other individual any other questions directed again
060i want to reiterate what um dr volesky said we know that your questions will continue uh we want them to we want you thinking about this and as you think about something you have questions and there are various ways that you can get in touch um with the district uh dr valeski mentioned your question becoming part of our uh q a on our website there is an email address it was infrared eb network questions ebnet.org eveningnet.org when in doubt you can call the administration building and find out uh the best way to get your question to someone and um dr valesky was there anything you wanted to say otherwise i will close the public portion just one thing president becker i did see a piece in the chat about cleaning and i want everyone to
061understand that even before the pandemic we took cleaning to to new levels we we actually we don't have to worry about a supply of disinfectant or about supply chain issues early on the district was proactive and our maintenance department mr juliana bought equipment that we actually produced our own disinfectant uh the product is called orbio it is a hospital grade disinfectant it's used for hand wiping with microfiber towels and we we clean not only dust surfaces but the undersides of chairs under sides of desk any touch points we've learned from experience where children touch things and we've watched but we've supplemented that with electrostatic sprayers that are going to spray a hospital grade disinfectant that covers the surface and kills the virus we we are we are taking this seriously and what you saw as
062as the standards in the document are the minimum standards they will probably be done much more than that but those what what the public can expect as a minimum mr giuliano did you want to add anything to that that that pretty much covers um what we do um i think the other thing and i'm sorry if i if i missed it and what you just covered but um did you mention the electrostatic cleaners so um i think we're pretty well covered with that and then i think there was also a note regarding of um our ventilation systems so i i will say that with regard to our hvac systems um they uh have all they all have regular and frequent uh filter changes um and they have all been um prior even to the pandemic
063but we have them all upgraded to the maximum merv filter that they can handle and when i say that they can handle we can't go up to the highest mirv because it will have a detrimental effect on the equipment and actually will burn out motors because of the restrictive airflow however the highest that we can go on any of the units we are implementing that and have implemented that so that's an important point and all of our facilities uh with the exception of the high school are fully air conditioned uh churchill is uh is nearing completion of the air conditioning project which will ensure that all the classrooms are air conditioned in that facility and i think that pretty much covers okay and there's nobody else in the queue i do not see uh no
064no one has asked okay i will close the public portion i thank those of you for coming very much moving on to our board of education item agenda can i please have a motion for items only items one two and three don't move mark second second by libra is there any discussion this is a well called vote i'm sorry we're getting back from mom from someone okay again um we're very happy to have so many of you join us we're just going to ask that you please keep your microphones on mute thank you so much okay um will the secretary please call the roll this is true yes mr sismar mrs gloss yes mr hong yes this is lax yes this is rhys yes mr simmons yes mr whit mr winston yes president becker yes
065motion carries moving on to item four submission of restart and recovery plan to open schools meaning the board is being asked to approve submission of the district restart and recovery plan to the new jersey department of education may i please have a motion for that don't move move by todd second by mark is there any discussion board members yeah mrs becker yes todd dr volesky that was really an outstanding and understandable video um i know that you couldn't cover a 100 pages in there but um i think you got to the important points and thank you for that thank you i also want you to thank the administration um but also all the parents who gave up parts of their summer to take part in the individual school restart teams i think we can all
066agree that there is no such thing as a perfect plan out there i think we can all agree that there are so many variables and circumstances beyond our control and this is at best frustrating at worst maddening we all want what's best for our kids we all don't pretend to have all the answers but i think what we tried to do is come up with a plan that would get 8 500 children their proper education and 1 300 staffs the opportunity to do their jobs in a way that would be safe and conducive to learning we will tweak it as we go on the situation will change as the situation in the state in the country changes i'm sure um and i thank all the parents for being so engaged thank you for partnering with
067us hang in there we're going to make this work any other board members wishing to speak yeah i i do yeah all right i heard a lot of the comments tonight i agree with every one of them on both sides i completely get it i don't know how working parents are going going to be able to accomplish this in this plan or quite frankly any hybrid plan um the rules that have been handed down to to us i think made this particularly challenging and i think dr blusky and his team answered to every one of those rules and every one of those suggestions and in really thinking about this the last few days i have to say to the community don't hate the player hate the game uh you know it's not it's it's not
068this plan it's what we were told could be in this plan and i think that uh dr velasque and his team answered all of those those things what wasn't mentioned as in terms of handing down the information from the department of education the federal and state government was addressing the probably the the largest concern which i think the first caller had with uh being faced with an extremely tough decision it stinks and i'm sorry uh to this community that this is going on uh and i do hope that this changes uh i don't i i hope that uh well quite frankly i believe that this school should not restart until uh there's a handle on this because of what we've seen evident in other states that have and uh so i'll vote for the plan
069i am against this entire process i want this uh children to be safe and i'm particularly concerned about the teachers so um that's all i have but my opinion though thank you thank you jeff any other board members wishing to say anything susanna i i just want to say um it's difficult to be a parent right now it's difficult to be a teacher um and it's a tough job to balance all of these interests and i all i can say is you have the full commitment of this board to to look out and just try to do the right thing thank you and the other board members if you want to speak and i'm not seeing you just um leave both hands in the air or nope okay um there's no other discussion will the
070secretary please call the role chu uh excuse me sorry i was waiting for the student report um student report is later oh okay okay okay we're still we are going through the agenda okay thank you so much thank you anthony this is true yeah mr sismar yes mrs wasps yes mr hong yes yes mrs lacks yes mrs reese yes mr simmons yes mr winston yep president becker yes question harry's moving on to our community programs agenda can i please have a motion for item number one by todd is there any discussion all those in favor all right all right motion carries moving on to our financial services agenda can i please have a motion for items hi thank you second by jeff is there any detention this is a roll call hall with the secretary
071yes mr hong yes mr slack yes mr simmons yes mr winston yes president becker yes martial aries on a human resources agenda i hope all of you saw the people's agenda there are now three items can i please have a motion for items one through three don't move by todd is there any discussion this is a royal call vote will the secretary please call the roll sorry who seconded on that yeah jeff thank you sir uh yes roll call vote mrs two yeah mr sismar yes this is gloss yes mr han yes mrs lacks mrs reese yes mr simmons yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries moving on to our i t there is one item can i please have a motion for it is there any discussion i i have a question
072on number one absolutely all right so um for those who are on the line this is for technology department purchasing of a firewall associated license for about 64 000 but i'm more interested in the next section in terms of bandwidth uh this is the number one complaint i've heard from uh students and staff in the district uh that the bandwidth of course has been um terrible where they have difficulty times either staying on or being on or downloading documents within the school so that being said before the contract was awarded to this company uh evaluate usage and determine that the nine gigabyte speed would be sufficient mr winston i'm just checking to see if mr electronica is on with us right now okay yes i am online nick can you would you have answered mr
073winston's question please yes absolutely so uh currently we're at three gigabytes and we actually have quite an extensive traffic analyzer system so we can see what usage is every day what our plans are for next year in terms of video conferencing we know what all the statistics are we kind of know what the benchmarks are so when i went to my network department with where they felt we needed to be i basically doubled that so nine gigabytes is without a doubt going to be sufficient for our needs with every classroom nick that would be uh running the zoom or running the canvas and live along with the general internet access say in the high school where 25 of the students are constantly uh engaged so what we're doing we're shifting so last year we did
074a lot of zoom zoom no longer has the free licenses for public education but as part of our microsoft subscription we have access to an enterprise tool called teams which also supports video conferencing and we will have a couple of uh team servers on premises okay traffic inside our premise on our side of the firewall we could do internal video conferencing all we want without affecting that external bandwidth though we'll really be able to minimize traffic and uh in addition to that the firewall that we have that we're purchasing has very extensive capabilities to be able to disable certain applications disable certain services if we needed to disable byod for certain hours of the day we have a lot of flexibility to really control the bandwidth that we're using all right and just a lot
075nick just the last question is that is this the package that you wanted or do you wish you we bought a different one but you felt the cost was too restricted no so the cost really is when we are going to nine gigabytes that's really where i think we need to be in three years i i don't think we're gonna get anywhere near that um nine gigabytes is is a crazy amount of bandwidth last year we were barely topping [Music] there were times in the beginning of the year when everyone was downloading the applications where we were topping getting close to three gigs but on an average day we're not getting much over one gig good deal thanks for clarification i feel very confident okay this is mrs becker so mr latronica question does microsoft
076teams have any limits on how many people can participate in a video conference though the limits are very similar to zoom it's 300 participants for a regular conference but unlike zoom presume they have webinar licenses which we would have to pay extra for but with teams we can just assign those on the fly and have up to 10 000 participants and we could also line live stream events like we're doing with this board meeting and have unlimited uh viewers thank you should we mr electronica perhaps be looking at teams for having these meetings so the one downside about teams is um it's really geared more for east brunswick participants you know the security is there for them um you know there are some enterprise presume they're great but many of our administrators have already adopted
077using teams and once they start using it they love it every teacher's class list will be integrated in there so it'll be easy for them to control the security to their students there's no chance of a zoom bomber coming in you know but it it's kind of a new tool so we need to kind of get everyone on board with with teams and thank you nick anyone else with any questions for nick okay um i did get a motion and second for this correct yes you did mrs becker we just need your question i'm sorry talking to you when you say something okay all those in favor aye motion characters moving on to our student services agenda can i please have emotion for items one through three move by todd second by jeff is there
078any discussion this is a role called vote for the second please yes um yeah mr sismar mrs yes mr hong yes mrs lax yes mrs reese yes mr simmons yes mr winston yes president becker yes martian countries okay we're now up to um [Music] committee reports an information items anthony my crystal ball something tells me you wanted to give a report how was how's the summer going it is good thank you i'm sorry uh for uh jumping in a little too early there no worries good evening uh first things first is i wanted to congratulate mr hanis on being named principal churchill junior high uh i speak on behalf of the students when i say thank you for all the great things that you've done for us as students and i'm sure you'll continue to
079do those things uh now it's august and it's uh the i guess midpoint of summer which for a lot of seniors means that it's time to start thinking more about college uh luckily evhs offered the uh boot camp to kind of help guide parents and students were a little unaccustomed to the process so that's been going well uh i also wanted to reference a storm that knocked out a large majority of students power two days ago and students today are still feeling the uh effects of such storm and um onto the return plan which i think as mentioned by a former board member was explained very clearly in uh dr golovkin's video so thank you for that um but it's also a little too early for me to determine what the student preference is in
080terms of the two options uh i'm fairly certain that they're relatively split as is as is meaning that both the options are valid and it really boils down to a matter of personal preference and on my personal behalf near the beginning of july i was heavily geared towards online learning i didn't think that the situation would be safe and i didn't think that a return plan would really uh allow for me to be comfortable but as i as i as me and other students were allowed to give a little bit more input on the return plan and really see it develop i became a lot more accustomed to it and now on my personal decision i think i'll be doing the hybrid mainly because i feel more comfortable going in uh for the two school
081days out of expo days and um yeah that was just my personal uh choice and continuing with the return plan uh there will continue to be more student input on revising and i guess accounting for variables that might have gone unaccounted for even though i'm sure most of them were were most of them weren't accounted for so yeah i look forward to seeing the revisions made and suggesting some myself and uh with other students that's all for tonight thank you anthony thank you for taking the time to come to speak to us tonight are there any uh information items or good of the cause on the board um i had somebody actually email me a question they said that they weren't able to go through the chat uh they try several times so their question
082was that they are assuming that the strict guidelines for the maximum number of people in any given building at one time must have been a huge factor in determining the logistics for the number of days in school for each grade for the number of hours that they know a lot of people will be critical of two days half day hour virtual but they are going under the assumption that you had very strict guidelines to work with that were not flexible at all and you this was in reaction to that and they wanted a confirmation on that um actually yes um there the guidelines that uh for occupancy the building uh do not apply to specifically to schools although we use them as a general guide but the distancing is a factor uh also when you're
083talking about the logistics of actually trying to serve lunch that that becomes a factor in the gathering of the number of people and being able to maintain social distancing even with mask so we're trying to do both we're trying to um if in every occasion that we can that the distancing and mass combined together provide the greatest level of safety but also when we started looking at aligning siblings that became a factor in our scheduling our capacity but one of the other things i want to make clear to the community is that even though our secondary schools are built right now on 25 of the total capacity so that is if everyone decided they were going to select the hybrid model we have the room in the high school based on the 25 model to
084bring all those people in and maintain social distancing and the same way with the elementary schools it was built on a 50 capacity the reason why those numbers fell out that way is because if conditions change and we are the virus becomes contained in some way or they administer a vaccine and at some point when we try to re regather our students we can scale this up and increase our capacity in secondary to 50 75 and ultimately 100 and the same with our elementary schools but we have to maintain that sibling alignment to the extent that we can because of the child care concerns that many people brought forth tonight we are we are sensitive to all those as mr winston said you know these these are factors that um this was a huge puzzle
085with constraints that continue to change and evolve as the board knows because we shared you had a meeting every week and we talked about the changes within the week but as i said in the video this is the best plan for east brunswick at this point in time and it will it will continue to evolve it's a living breathing document it's fluid absolutely but it but it will but i need to make clear that when we open schools we need to follow that document consistently because that that is the that's the piece that will um provide the greatest level of safety for everyone we have to follow the plan okay thank you anybody have anything seen no we do have a need for closed session the board of education must discuss matters which are not
086appropriate for discussion in a public meeting the board of education intends to discuss the following matters those items listed in tonight's agenda the length of the closed session is estimated to be those in available opposed motion carries thank you for joining us tonight everyone please stay safe board members please log out and uh log into the closed session good night you