001do i would like to call this meeting of the eastern township board of education to order pursuant to the open public meetings act adequate public notice has been given by the secretary of eevsham township board of education in the following manner posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the board of education office emailing written notice to the burlington county times and the courier post filing written notice with the municipal clerk of eastern township may i have a roll call please mrs cappello here mrs everhart here mr fizzicaro here mr captain here mrs knoll mr lanzalada here miss lee here mr megan mrs ryan here we have a quorum okay at this time i will ask for a motion to go into executive session and a motion to approve items 2.1 through 2.4 whereas
002in njsa 10-4-12 allows for a public body to go into closed session during a public meeting and whereas the board of education of eastern township has deemed it necessary to go into closed sessions to discuss certain matters which are exempted from the public and whereas the regular meeting of the board of educa the board will reconvene following the end of the closed session at approximately 7 30 pm now therefore be it resolved that the board of education will go into session for the following reasons as outlined in njsa 10-4-12 items 2.2 through 2.4 do i have a motion mr fizzicaro second it miss capello roll call please mrs cappello yes mrs everhart yes mr fizzacarro yes mr catherine yes mr lancelata yes miss lee yes mrs ryan yes motion carries thank you we'll see you
003at 7 30. [Music] you do my so do so do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] um do [Music] me do [Music] do um do um foreign um foreign [Music] i would like to resume this meeting of the eastern township board of education would you all please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance of the united states [Music] at this time we're having board member marianne capello read the mission statement thank you mrs ryan the mission of sorry about that folks the mission of the eve shim township school district is to promote excellence in an environment that engages students in meaningful learning experiences in partnership with students dedicated staff families and community the district provides a strong education foundation that will empower our students to achieve their unique potential embrace self-directed lifelong learning develop
004the skills necessary for appropriate risk taking and responsible decision making respect themselves and others problem solve individually and collaboratively and become contributing members of a diverse global society thank you mrs cappello at this point in time we are going to be moving into presentations dr smith the floor is all yours okay there we go thank you mrs ryan so we would like to let you come if you if i could have board president mrs ryan board vice president mr kenthan come around we want to recognize the team from mes that won first place in the state of new jersey 2022 stock market game for the elementary division we're going to call those students up one at a time to come down and we'll take pictures and then at the end if you know families want
005to come down and take pictures of all four of them we can do that as well and their teacher mrs mclaughlin i think is here miss walker do you mind coming down too thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] it's great that you could be here tonight for this and thank you for doing that work with the kids it's fantastic so first person to come down is adriana de bartolo mayo she's here adriana dewartolomeo [Applause] next up we have nadia alaba right here [Applause] okay thank you and then we have ava gurini [Applause] [Music] [Applause] congratulations and rebecca shapiro [Applause] so why don't we take some pics and families if you want to come down and get some pictures too please so now we're going to move on to public comment just in case anyone is not
006aware we have two public comment sections the first public comment is for what is on the agenda and the second public comment which happens later in the evening is for anything you wish to discuss the meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however if your questions pertain to student or personnel items or negotiations we ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public we ask that you limit your comments to three minutes per person it is also crucial please for you to give us your name and address before you speak up and also limit your comments to one time per public comment period is there anyone who wishes to speak mrs ryan before we start if i can say something that
007i always say after student recognitions which is that the families of those students are welcome to stay for the whole board meeting but if they would like to leave at this point sometimes that scene is another reward of having gotten the award so and we congratulate those families again thank you for coming and being here [Applause] thank you for coming up please state your name thank you good evening my name is brian wiscowitz first vice president for the eve sham township education association i'm speaking here tonight to address our association's concerns about the recent cuts made to the speech therapist program the current budget includes the elimination of another speech therapist position the third in the last three years this will make it extremely difficult for our current speech therapist to meet the needs and
008the therapy mandates of our students this is a group of students who require special services and they cannot afford these continued cuts if a student with special needs is unable to be appropriately educated in our district the board will be required to pay for that student to receive services in an out of district placement sending a student to an out of district placement costs our district a tremendous amount of money we ask that the board please relieve the strain on our speech therapists their schedules and most importantly on their students by reconsidering these budget cuts thank you [Applause] please state your name address yeah russ bowles president of the evsham township education association i would first like to take a moment to share our concerns regarding the 10-month secretaries in an effort to save money
009you continue to replace 10-month secretaries with two clerk typists to get out of offering benefits the need for consistency and an uninterrupted relationship between the secretary and student is vital our secretaries especially those on the house level develop relationships with the students that are more of kind of like a house counselor students trust in the secretaries because it's someone they see every day all day for three years not only is this consistency for our students it's consistency for our vice principles and its consistency for our staff you have to stop looking at these positions as numbers on a spreadsheet and start looking at what these people in those positions contribute to the district mr lanzalata at the board of ed meeting earlier this month you asked dr smith if there were eight people losing their
010jobs dr smith's response was and i quote i appreciate you bringing that up thank you eight positions being eliminated no one losing their job that statement was not true we do have staff members losing their jobs for one of these positions it's the person's second time being let go from the district due to cuts you continue to cut teaching and support staff positions while bolstering central administration by adding another curriculum supervisor there is a pe position that is being cut sidestepping by saying that position was not part of this year's budget doesn't change the fact that someone is losing their job and that that position will not be there come september 1st we have a speech department that's been decimated with cuts currently 14 speech and language pathologists service 730 students you are cutting another
011position and that person is losing their job again based on current projections we are on track to service more kids next year with less staff this will only hurt our students who need it the most just like when you cut the intervention specialist recent studies show that more students will require speech therapy due to the pandemic is this really the time to cut that position it is your responsibility to make sure they receive these services trying to fix the problem by getting rid of individualized speech sessions and moving them into group sessions is not the answer this will once again only hurt students etea is not saying the curriculum supervisor isn't needed we are simply saying that if you can find 140 000 to add another administrator you can find a similar amount of money
012to save three professional three professional positions that have a direct impact on district programs and student services i asked the board of ed to re-evaluate these cuts and renew the contracts of those individuals being let go thank you thank you um i just before we continue i would like to you to evaluate your your topic of discussion because the past two speakers that was not on the agenda so we're just going to work on discussing agenda items only and budget concerns were last months i belie i believe the renewal of staff is on the agenda this month renewal of staff yes but yeah i mean again i appreciate this okay and i appreciate the very strong passion the very strong feelings good evening everyone i have not been a meeting in a while it's good
013to see everybody but i think candidly candidly teaching staff members if a student tried to say well no this fits under that item in your classroom you'd say no i don't really think that's the answer you wouldn't you'd say you're being overly clever and you're trying to do something that should have been addressed at a budget hearing we're not making that budget okay no but but please just let me it's not being clever and this is these are not agenda items so you're making specific references to specific positions that are not on the agenda you're talking about actions that the board has already taken at previous agendas you can you can address it at the end of the meeting personally this position was in the agenda again it's in the agenda it's in there in
014the agenda they're hiring two clerk typists i appreciate what you're doing and you're talking about positions that aren't being hired those aren't on the agenda they are on the agenda mr donia look at it again without due respect the addendum item says a speech therapist position is being discontinued so how is that not in the agenda i don't understand wait before you continue before you continue anyone at the microphone needs to state their name and address but we do have to take a look at what specifically and i did ask everyone in line to take a look at what they want to reference to make sure that it was specifically on the agenda so just do a little self-check and if it is and we'd be more than happy to hear it now but if
015not can you wait the second public comment my name is tara talbot i live in westmont new jersey i'm referencing the agenda item that in the addendum that says that a speech therapist position is not being renewed at rice this year i've been a speech therapist working at van zandt for 17 years this january i also began going to rice preschool to help with the large number of new students who started in the program after winter break i'm here to present a statement in solidarity with my fellow therapists to object to the recent budget cut of another speech therapist in our district due to budget cuts over the past three years greater than 1.5 set 1.5 speech therapy positions equating to eight days of speech therapy have already eliminated that's eight days a week um
016this means the students who were receiving speech therapy services from these therapists including myself had to be absorbed into therapy schedules of our remaining therapists while we as a therapy team worked hard to maintain quality services despite these changes our high caseloads and intense therapy sessions have impacted our provision of services to our students the budget or not the budget but in today's addendum there is a cut to the speech therapy program once again was not in the writing of the budget previously and it didn't specify that a speech therapist would be cut at that time um sorry i'm shaking so much i can't read where i am it didn't specify that the speech there so we cut most of our staff members and parents were unaware that this cut was made even until just
017a few weeks ago we are here to say that we have great concerns about the decision to cut yet another therapist therapists have accommodated previous budget cuts over the past two years by increasing our caseload sizes greater than ever before being split across schools and even splitting students among therapists and that happened to my students this year we need to be very clear eliminating yet another therapy position puts us at risk if not of not meeting even the basic therapy mandates and legal mandates that we are required to by the students with special needs thank you thank you mrs talbott please state your name address for us mcewan i live on lakeside drive in marlton my colleagues and i are the specialists that guide our students with special needs in growing their skills and reaching
018their full potential we address speech communication language skills social skills articulation skills augmentative and alternative communication feeding voice disorders and fluency skills among other things we not only work directly with students to improve skills but we work tirelessly with families and the whole special education team to help our students to grow and flourish both at school and at home we perform countless additional duties such as serving as case managers to speech-only students completing evaluations writing reports writing ieps attending meetings providing consultations to staff training staff programming computer devices used for communication facilitating in-class groups and lessons billing for medicaid to get money for the district and other school-wide responsibilities thank you [Applause] my name is melissa mercer i've been a speech therapist at jagger elementary school for over 21 years without an adequate number of
019therapists our students with special needs are at risk of not getting the recommended and mandated services that they need do they do to the increased special education numbers the increased needs of our students with special needs and the recent effects of the pandemic speech services are more vital than ever the recent cut of another full-time speech therapist means that the remaining speech therapists will need to absorb even more students and we may be unable to provide the recommended and mandated speech services that are part of our students ieps this is of great concern thank you [Applause] name and address please my name is stephanie golden and i live in mount laurel new jersey i've been a speech therapist in district for 14 years we would implore you to recognize the deep price the special education
020department as a whole has already paid over the past three years with budget cuts in the past three years eshim township school district has eliminated 1.5 speech therapist positions one case manager that has also served as a learning disabilities consultant one learning disabilities teacher and multiple paraprofessionals in our special education program all while our special education programming class sizes are growing the budget for the upcoming school year cut another speech therapy therapy position as well as a health pe teacher who provides adaptive pe classes to our students with special needs it's important for all of us as a school community to recognize the impact these cuts have on all of our students the staff have that have been cut and continue to be cut are the same people who work directly with our neediest students
021these cuts negatively impact our students with special needs who desperately require a strong special education team they also impact our staff our special needs families and our school community as a whole thank you thank you [Applause] hi good evening please state your name and address please uh denise shira i live in medford and i've been a speech therapist in this district since 2002. just speak up just a little bit thanks i'm denise shaira i live in medford um i have been a speech therapist in district since 2002. it is important to point out that if a student with special needs is unable to be appropriately educated in a public school setting the school district is required to pay for that student to receive their education in an out of district school that can provide specialized
022services to that student examples of private schools that provide specialized education for students with disabilities include bancroft neural health archway programs kingsway learning center and durand academy sending a student to an out of district school costs our school district a significant amount of money per the state of new jersey department of education the projected 2022-2023 yearly tuition amounts for schools that eastern township school district typically contracts with averages approximately sixty seven thousand four hundred and eighty seven dollars per student per year and extends as high as seventy eight thousand one hundred and eighteen dollars per student per year as you know we have recently helped to meet the budget by bringing more students who are currently who are currently receiving out of district services back to the district by not providing appropriate supports and services
023for students we are at an exponential risk of having even more students in our special education program requiring an out of district placement thank you [Applause] let's try it out good evening name and address please my name is amanda bernardi i live on nottingham road i have a child in the school district receiving speech services and i've been a speech therapist for 10 years i started the school year working at three schools and now i work at four so i work at manzant de mesa elementary to macy middle and was increased to baylor in january four schools we serve students in our autism program in our multiple disabilities program in our learning disabilities program in our behavioral support program and in our rapidly growing preschool disabled program there are also students who receive in-class resource
024supports or speech language services within the general education program regardless of the program a child is in the commonality is that each of these students require therapy services that are imperative to their educational functioning another cut to speech services in this district may impact our students and the quality of services that they receive i'm concerned as an employee and as a parent thank you thank you hi good evening hi please state your name and address my name is nicole green i live on old marlton pike i'm a resident of eve sham and also have served as a speech therapist in this district for 12 years and have three children who are currently in our district lastly we would like to address dr smith the cabinet and the eve sham township school district board members we
025respectfully request tonight that you do not abolish yet another speech therapy position the overall cuts to our special education department and particularly our speech therapy department over the past three years have been significant and are not sustainable given the increase in the special education numbers and the intensity of student needs within the district we cannot absorb another cut to our speech department and continue to provide quality services to our students while we understand that difficult budget cuts are necessary we ask that these budget cuts do not be made at the expense of needed speech services for our students with special needs we ask that you find another way thank you thank you hi good evening please state your name and address my name is eileen mcewen i live on jonquil place here in marlton i
026recently retired after working for 23 years at jaggard school in the program for children with multiple disabilities i currently volunteer two days a week at jaggard which houses the programs for students with autism and multiple disabilities when i started here in 1996 our program was much smaller with merely a handful of self-contained classes a large percentage of our students with special needs went to private tuition-heavy schools out of district because we could not meet their individual needs here the costs were exorbitant under the leadership of previous directors of special education judy simkin jeff palmer and most recently nicole espenberg our in-district program expanded highly qualified teachers therapists paraprofessionals and other support staff were hired and the neediest students were brought back from the schools that required tuition and were educated here they benefited from learning
027and receiving services in their hometown in their neighborhood school in programs that met their individual needs they received therapies social programs integration with neurotypical peers and benefited from activities with positive social models none of these things would be possible in a tuition-heavy private placement nor would they be possible without the dedicated highly qualified hard-working staff in even schools again this year the superintendent has suggested cutting staff and services to these neediest of children it is virtually impossible to provide appropriate services to the current students with these additional staffing cuts since cutting two speech and language therapists last year our remaining speech and language therapists are stretched beyond functional limits as they struggle to provide mandated speech and language services traveling to several schools as well as provide required testing of these same students attending meetings
028with parents and other professionals additionally and most often in the preschool program these same speech and language therapists are required to take intake meetings for new students complete testing and observation of new students and attend additional meetings to present these individual education plans to parents during the current school year there were nearly 40 newly identified preschool students that's 40 children that were not on the rolls on the first day of school in the same 21-22 school year these three-time these three full-time preschool therapists have more than 30 students each with a visiting therapist taking additional students yet the superintendent wants to cut yet another speech pathologist from the rice preschool program district-wide there are currently more than 700 students receiving speech and language services the number of classified students is not going down discontinuation of
029specialized adapted physical education reading support and speech services will place the district out of compliance with individual education plans parents that pay attention to such things will have the right to file lawsuits against our district if we cannot provide the mandated thorough efficient free and most importantly appropriate education for these students parents also have a right to request out of district placements that do meet the needs of these students thank you please don't be penny wise and pound foolish thank you [Applause] is there anyone else was to speak on agenda items okay seeing none we're going to close this portion of the meeting there will be another public comment section at the end at this point we're going to move forward with the approval of the minutes i need a motion to approve items 6.1
030and 6.2 mr canthan second mr lanzalata any questions or comments regarding the minutes okay roll call please mrs cappello yes mrs everhart yes mr fizzycarrow abstain 6-1 yes to 6263 okay mr catherine yes mr lancelata yes miss lee yes mrs ryan um yes but abstain to 6.2 motion carries thank you at this point we're going to move to item 7 superintendents report and administrative items do i have a motion to approve item 7.1 through 7.6 mr fizzicaro second miss capello before we get into questions and comments i'm going to give the floor to dr smith thank you mrs ryan i'd like to start off by reminding of the important things that happen every day every classroom every school students smile they raise their hands and offer ideas they learn as they talk with each other
031and their teachers even in kindergarten i saw a kindergarten lesson the other day with students sitting across from each other in pairs talking about similarities and differences between baby ducks and baby chicks and they were sorting those similarities and differences into a venn diagram and then they explained the venn diagram to each other and to me kindergarten brilliant our students are eager to learn preschool through grade 8 and have been helped to be that way by their amazing teachers and families at home venn diagrams are in part about finding common ground even among what appears different at the same time our minds and hearts are understandably focused on what happened just a week ago in texas focused on the town of vivaldi's community and rob elementary school among the safety measures here in ibsham township
032school district that i explained in my message to staff and families last week one very strong deterrent that we have is a school resource officer assigned at each of our school buildings i mentioned that because nationally just 19 percent of elementary school students 45 percent of middle schoolers and 67 percent of high school students attend to school with the school resource officer here in eve sham of students attend school with the school resource officer and in the middle of ongoing losses of state aid totaling nearly eight million dollars over seven years this safety measure is assured for the next three years at least and perhaps beyond through a shared services agreement with our township to split the cost of our sros and i'd like to say thank you again to mayor vesey deputy mayor cooper
033our town council evesham police and chief miller for our collaboration in this way and many others towards the safety of our students only 19 percent of elementary kids nationally have an sro in their student in their schools lastly in terms of schools i would like to recognize that this month is asian pacific american heritage month here in eastern township school district we recognize and value and lift up all students all persons with respect and appreciation of our different cultures our differences and commonalities our venn diagrams and take actions directed against any person including on the basis of race or ethnicity very seriously the recently released state report that includes all school and district grades and harassment intimidation and bullying is linked on the bottom of our district website home page i'd like to highlight as
034well that board member anish kanthan is our first asian american board member in our district's history and perhaps the [Applause] and perhaps the first asian american elected official in our town's history i highlighted that last year as well something that significant behooves another shout out in part as it positively positively reflects the gradually increasing diversity of our town which enriches us all those are my superintendent comments thank you word president mrs ryan thank you dr smith any questions or comments regarding the superintendent's report from the board okay i would just like to comment on a couple things 7.2 it's good to see things returning to quote-unquote normal after the covet shut down with the return of so many clubs and activities and that's a testament to our staff so we appreciate getting the kids back
035to some sort of normalcy and also 7.4 i'm proud of our board of ed and all of our administrative for giving up a saturday to create goals that are important to the district working towards something that's going to be a great thing for everyone in this town so i would like to thank you all for giving up your time and with that if there are no more questions or comments roll call please mr mishindi mrs cappello yes mrs everhart yes mr fizzakero yes mr catherine yes mr lancelata yes miss late yes mrs ryan yes motion carries thank you moving on to item a curriculum instruction can i have a motion to approve items 8.1 through 8.3 miss everhart second mr canthan any questions or comments uh regarding curriculum and instruction from the board no okay
036roll call please mr mrs capello yes this is ever hart yes mr fizzakero yes mr captain yes mr lancelot yes miss lee yes mrs ryan yes mission carries okay moving to item nine finance and operations i need a motion to approve items nine point one through nine point two four do i have a motion miss capello second mr fizzicaro any questions or comments regarding finance and operations from the board seeing none roll call please mr russian team mrs cappello yes mrs everhart yes mr fizzakero yes mr catherine yes mr lancelata yes miss lee yes mrs ryan yes motion carries item 10 personnel i would like a motion to approve items 10.1 through 10.10 do i have a motion mr canthan second mr fizzicaro thank you any questions or comments regarding personnel from the board mr
037lanzalata dr smith a couple questions about personnel getting back to the speech therapist position uh how many students would you say approximately uh see a speech therapist and i have a follow-up question as well yeah so i can say when we looked at um so we collect data from different districts you have to when you're cutting eight million uh over seven years in order to be able to navigate and be able to make those reductions those necessary unavoidable painful reductions um in a way that's aligned with our mission right which means spreading them out so we have i'm looking into the spreadsheet while i'm talking to find the number that you're asking for [Music] so we have [Music] currently 85 what i can tell you is we have 85 students per speech therapist right now
038and we have uh 14 speech therapists okay um so we have it's 730 total students okay what we what we did is when we looked at and again these are these are paint uh painful things to talk about right and i i i go back to last year we cut four million dollars and looking ahead to next year when we project having to cut close to two million dollars with the reduction of this position we would increase from 85 to 91 speech students per speech therapist which puts us just below two other k-8 districts one that is larger than us and there aren't many that are larger than us and one that is just smaller than us thank you yeah any other questions or comments from the board regarding personnel okay roll call please mr
039vicente mrs capala yes mrs everhart yes mr fizzagaro yes mr catherine yes mr lancelata yes miss lee yes mrs ryan yes motion carries okay moving to item 11 policy i would like a motion to approve items 11.1 through 11.3 do i have a motion miss capello seconded by mr lanzalata i just would like to go on record that most of these policies are mandated um for first and second reading so i just wanted to point that out um but if there are no more questions or comments i'll ask for a roll call please mrs cappello yes mrs everhart yes mr fizzagaro yes mr catherine yes mr lancelata yes miss lee yes mrs ryan yes motion carries okay moving into committee reports do any committee chairs have a report they wish to share community outreach no
040eastern education foundation marlton rec mr lanzalata anything uh uh just that the eastern education foundation is once again having their golf outing uh next week it's supposed to be the biggest goth outing that they've had so far uh if you are interested in playing or donating please do so uh they're looking for helpers uh they're looking for players uh you know and they're just a great group of men and women who have dedicated uh you know their their time and their energy into supporting our our the students in our district uh if you are interested please go to their website at uh eastern education foundation.org thank you thank you anyone from the since our chairperson for finance operation isn't here mr meegan is anyone from finance wish to share anything upcoming meetings anything like that
041no okay curriculum instruction no miss ever all right policy the policies are all mandated i have nothing new to report for policy perfect okay um i do have something to say as far as like the pto and pta liaison committee i was just giving everyone else a chance to speak first but i would like to thank all the parents and the pto and the pta members for doing an amazing job honor honoring and recognizing our staff during staff appreciation week the amount of pictures the amount of effort the amount of smiles that went into that week spoke volumes of how our community feels about our teachers so kudos to everyone involved with making our staff feel appreciated every day but especially during that week um i would also like to thank the um pto and
042pta's president the movie night all the effort that went into planning that and although it was rained out it will be postponed um so keep an ear out for that and i would also like to thank the president of the eastern education foundation scott zielinski for all his work and last but not least our district art show was a huge success thank you to all of our art staff and congratulations to all the students whose work was displayed it was really great to have this event back on so thank you again for everything and that is the end of my report but if anyone else would like to comment question before we close this section okay seeing none moving into old business we don't have any old business and we do not have any new
043business so now we're going to move into open public comment the meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personnel items or negotiations we ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public we ask that you limit your comments to three minutes per person and also this section is meant for one comment per person i just would like to take it advisement also that three minutes means three minutes or we're going to have to keep a timed limit on public comment which we don't want to do because we want to be able to hear everybody so if you could state your name and address when you come up to the
044microphone and just keep in mind that this is public comment not public discussion back and forth between the public and the board that would be great so if anyone wished to speak now would be your chance come on up to the microphone good evening please state your name and address please yeah john jenks 39 carlton avenue um recent retired state of new jersey department of environmental protection bureau of technical services chief and uh research scientist and tonight i'd like to discuss or at least i'd like to mention at least our discussion or at least uh what is uh uh ostensibly a crazy um climate discussion and climate change now first of all let me say that i would think that all people that's that's republicans democrats jews christians muslims is hindu all people believe that
045there is climate change and that's not the issue the issue is what are we going to focus on on climate change don't you think we ought to focus on the big picture and the big picture is what you have in front of you what you have in front of you is a graph that is in virtually every quaternary geological textbook that graph shows you what the climate has been doing over the last uh 20 millennia the 20 millennium and for 10 10 of those millennia the uh sea level that's the ocean level the ocean level has has risen 120 meters now that's in in feet we'd know that as 350 feet and we think that i i personally believe as a ex-teacher and science research scientist that that's what we should be teaching our children
046our children should know that yes the climate does change it has changed and it will change again in the future and you know what the fact that it's uh the sea level has been rising four or five inches over the last 6 000 years uh is is something that uh you know most people should be aware of and that the sea level has risen 350 feet during a 10 millennial period and instead of beating our children up we're frightening everybody about global change they should understand what global change is and and you can't understand the global change by looking at the maybe two inches or three inches of sea level additional sea level rise that may be caused by human activity in the last 200 years you need to look at the bigger picture and
047the bigger picture is uh you know the new jersey coastline was 35 miles off atlantic city 12 000 years ago the uh and and i know there's a big concern about the ecosystem and the uh and the fact that the ecosystem has changed and of course it has changed and you know there's the great barrier reef the great barrier reef you know the people are throwing up their hands and saying oh what are we what are we doing here well the great barrier reef was part of the australian land mass 12 000 years ago look on the graph you can see it in front of you and it's in every cenozoic geological textbook the sky is not falling and that's what we should be teaching our children thank you thank you thank you so much
048[Applause] good evening good evening my name is eric sperazza i'm at 701 mount vernon court last time i came before this board i was filled with wild positivity and excitement about the future of this education system today my wife resigned from her position as a para now i slowly watched the para system get chipped away today we're talking about speech therapists and i want to just give a push back to the emotional intelligence of this board of education today right now we're about to entertain a conversation on grooming in this room now i have an adult daughter that recognizes herself as homosexual open public proud quite frankly the only kind of grooming i could be accused of is maybe too much time at the gym which i don't think our pundits would have a problem
049with and maybe some voltron cartoons if the next step in the degradation of our emotional intelligence is that my daughter one day can't have a child that says i have two mommies in school without being quote unquote accused of doctrinating indoctrinating other kids then what is the reason for anyone to move to this township going forward the time has come once and for all for all of you to put your kids first i don't know how many of you still have kids in this school system if any but i'm here to tell you the decisions you make in your week-to-week idiosyncratic routine on this board affect the rest of us you need to take a deep look into the emotional intelligence of this board thank you thank you [Applause] [Music] good evening name and address
050please my name is ryan albright i'm at 582 hotel road i know many of you by name i remember finally my time with mr smith at cherokee i had two topics i wanted to discuss the first one was concerning the cutting of the funding for the speech therapy am i allowed to address that in this period absolutely cutting funding for speech therapy in our schools is as i see it further evidence of a calculated piecemealing of our once stellar special resources program i understand that the topic pandemic which recently hit the grim benchmark of one million american deaths has been hard on everyone but for the love of god you are literally taking the voices away from people who already struggle to speak that is not a metaphor it is literal fact i shouldn't be
051surprised however because this is the same board that seriously considered taking away the health benefits from paraprofessionals in the middle of said pandemic these are not [Applause] these are not hard choices they're evil on the level of cartoon villains i want to talk about a different kind of evil now though um the evil that has been infesting school boards and local municipalities throughout the country and it's these q anon 1776 christian nationalists who are no different than the taliban in their quest to impose their extremist views at every level of society i'm just going to pause for a second can we have order when someone is at their microphone so we can hear everyone's views okay please excuse me if you're not going to be able to abide by the rules of this board of
052education and its processes we're going to have to ask that you leave so we can hear everyone please thank you now allow me please to make a point that has been lost in their conspiracy-filled minds there is no cattle of a cable of elite pedophiles in the basement of a pizza shop teaching kids human anatomy and sexual education is not an act of grooming no one is putting anyone in danger by treating lgbt students with dignity you can at the same time treat all students with respect and dignity and keep them safe what these cultists are doing is using the tragedy of sexual assault on a child to advance their hate-filled christian nationalist agenda trans people are not a threat to anyone but they are a threat to trans people to all lgbt people they
053are a threat to our shared communities and ultimately they are a threat to the very fabric of our society i say this because these kinds of displays as i mentioned before are infesting school boards and municipal governments across the country and because some on this board and their running mates are willing to sit down with them rather than recognize them for the unhinged and dangerous extremists that they are so please don't be fooled by their hysterical rhetoric they are using the indescribably awful situation of sexual assault to advance their own twisted ends in my closing my point is simple good sex ed includes teaching the prevention of sexual misconduct and we need good sex ed it is a part of the human experience and part of a student's academic understanding of their own body as
054well as vital for their own mental and emotional development okay that's your three minutes please don't let their psychotic and blind hatred control your policy that's your three minutes thank you [Applause] is there anyone else in the audience that would like to speak during public comment good evening name and address please good evening kristen sinclair medford new jersey what a lovely welcome i've received from your community it's really really nice to know i'm a terrorist and that you didn't have the courage to stop him right there i contacted you dr smith about a sexual assault that occurred in your school you didn't call me back you didn't want to answer me you told the parents to get the lawyers involved you couldn't talk to them this is true i have the hip complaints i have
055the hip complaints about a spanish teacher who sexually assaulted abused another student again you no you let him talk call me a terrorist no i am going to stop please can we have order while someone is stupid microphone i don't hear them i'm talking to you i understand but we're having difficulty hearing you because they're not abiding by the decorum that i'm asking for so i'm asking for order in this meeting so that we can hear all people clearly thank you this is what happens when you put out misinformation that nothing happened when it did then you have gentlemen like this losing their minds because i wear a cross since when is that a terrorist act that is why you need to be clear with the parents about what's happening in schools you can't use
056the hip process to hide it was every student who was in the spanish teacher's class interviewed to see if they were teased and bullied and when hib was founded was anybody else told like your sro that you're so proud of to watch the bathrooms after the incident occurred no and you know it and i will comment to mrs noel last time who was not reprimanded for speaking out towards us with disrespect my sons will go to a regional school the person you're transferring out of this school could be in my son's school so yes it does affect me i do have an interest in this school dennis megan who's not here tonight is allowed as a public citizen to go to a park in the same place where i am if that makes him a
057terrorist i'm glad he's not here that's shameful that somebody on the other side would play politics oh speaking of it was so lovely to see your education association here so worried about the students speech impediments that happened as a result of the masking that the njea enforced on them have a great night thank you is there anyone else that is willing to speak need i remind the audience that this is a public meeting and we need to show some decorum so that everyone can be heard let's have some order and some respect for everyone in the room please hi good evening name and address please yeah absolutely my name is annalynne smith i live on third street honestly i just want to say um to everyone here there's a child in this room please have
058respect for this child i don't care what you guys feel man please just directly to everyone so for you guys too as well please address the fact that there's a child in this room all this extra name calling all the emotions please check it because there's a child present so let's all act like adults and parents and respect this child that's here tonight thank you is there anyone else that would wish to speak good evening name and address please good evening my name is eric simkin i have two children to go to cherokee and i'm gonna i'm gonna pause excuse me i'm sorry there's a gentleman at their microphone that would like to speak during public comment excuse me if this doesn't cease we are going to call recess and i'm going to end public
059comment it is not okay you've been asked three times now we want to hear everyone so we need the comments from the peanut gallery and the audience to stop please thank you name and address sir my name is eric semkin i live in voorhees uh i don't view any of this stuff really as uh any issue except for parents rights and transparency and a lack of communications between the district and the people that live in the district i recommended last time i haven't heard anything public advisory committees curriculum we have the 2020 learning standards coming uh is it on the website i looked on there for a parent committee from 2015 i believe it's still on the website looking at mathematics we're talking about sexual education in health and pe is one facet and under
060dei we have gender studies as well and that's what the parents of children are concerned not everybody wants it some people do we have an argument now between the public it's up to you to fix it and solve it opting in to those things not opting out this is impossible it's ingrained in every single piece of legislation i know every policy i know every piece of legislation i'm involved in the legislation i'm testifying there at the senate committees that's how these decisions are made to follow the standards we need transparency and communications thank you anyone else from the audience wish to speak during public comments come on up to the microphone good evening name and address please sure my name is michelle walker my address is 270 greentree road in marlton first i want to
061say my children are also here and the same decorum that they're asking for was not given when they were working at my child just just come just direct it towards us okay so i would like to start off by saying that i am a disabled veteran a historian a member of the marlton community and a parent american history has not been fully taught correctly in this school district and in this country and the real consequences have been seen tonight specifically in relation to american indigenous people african-american slavery and subsequent impacts asian americans and other migrants who built this country as we've witnessed during public comments at recent board meetings across the nation we have seen examples of what happens when adults do not know or understand our history as a country recent public comments were
062in my opinion grotesque display of ignorance and homophobia there are people who seem and claim to be protecting children but they're spewing hate this is a direct lack of understanding and unwillingness to do anything for children without a fringe political agenda these types of dangerous comments and attitudes have inspired very real threats of violence against minority communities in this country that we continue to be plagued with today these fringe and hateful comments and groups do not represent martin we they are so small in number that they're forced to bring in non-eve sham residents some of whom are desperately seeking any form of political sound bites we the real residents and parents of eve shem reject any kind of false and homophobic dog whistle ideology stand behind our teachers administrators and most importantly the lgbtq plus
063community of marlton hates has no home here and we won't stand for it thank you [Applause] anyone else wish to speak come on up to the microphone state your name address good evening my name is ian smith quite frankly the hysteria uh is not needed at all and i can't remember one time i've been at a board meeting about 20 so far in the past couple weeks i haven't heard one word of hatred directed at a board i've heard frustration and i've heard no hatred towards any race gender or sexual preference and i think that as adults we should probably be able to keep that that way we're here to solve problems or at least i hope so i know all of you have a very challenging job you have a lot of unhappy people
064here tonight we witness a lot of unhappy teachers you guys have hard decisions to make all we ask is that you consider everybody and you consider the fairest solution nobody cares if a child wants to be homosexual or transgender or learn about any of these things all of these parents who i come with are asking for is a common sense approach they should have the ability to say i want my child to opt into this it's not a part of core curriculum it's not math it's not science it's not reading it's not any of the things that are going to propel our kids forward and they should be able to learn it but it just should be an option i'm not here to spread hate and i hope that people here earlier who have hate
065in their heart can find some sensibility moving forward because division is not the answer thank you thank you anyone else from the public wish to speak come on up to the microphone state your name address philip warren 357 holly road in marlton i hope this board can enforce the address requirements that you make the rest of us do on these folks who say they're from new jersey who don't give an address at all i was here at the last board meeting the former speaker is full we have to watch our language please sir because when this board recessed respectfully it was an overwhelming amount of hate it was an overwhelming amount of transphobia i was sitting in the back and i heard every bit of it and they directed it there and now they're acting
066all nice and respectful and saying that they're under attack and that's not true the ones who are under attack are the good residents and citizens of this town who trust our school system who know that is a public good that serves the whole community for better or for worse you do a great job and you have every organization has flaws and has moments and has to be accountable but it should not be accountable to fringe extreme self-serving agendas that we keep hearing and by the way opt-in and all these other things they say are common sense are not common sense common sense is embracing the school district voting for good people like yourselves and making sure that it works it does not mean imposing some system where the minority the extreme minority politically speaking gets
067to dictate what the rest of us have to do so don't heed a word they say don't appease them don't give them a moment of your time do the right thing and keep leading the school district the best way you can thank you [Applause] is there anyone else in the public that would like to speak come on up to the microphone yeah okay if if there's anyone else that like to speak can we just get us some sort of cue like a line going just so we can know how much more time we would like to devote to public comment just just to give us an idea okay i'll be short no that's okay just state your name and address please my name is dave bach um i apologize i actually live in marlton i
068pay taxes here and i do have a son in the actual school system um so i'm not sure if that's you know proper here i live in 27 burgundy drive and i wanted to thank everybody and this in the school district it's been a very tough couple years my son has thrived in it and that's basically it's been extremely hard you know for everybody you're doing the best they can you know with what's going on it's been great one thing that i really wanted to say tonight is the school board's in a political organization politics are not supposed to be around our kids it doesn't benefit our children the things that you know people screaming at each other does not benefit our kids people coming to get video clips for you know political campaigns does
069not benefit our kids we are supposed to be keeping politics out of that we're here actually for the kids so i just implore everybody to keep it local keep things with people who actually have legitimate concerns in this town people who have children in the school district pay taxes here not for this political stuff these political theatrics has been going on right now it's a little too much just needs to stop thank you thank you next up good evening hello good evening name and address please marissa elizabeth 307 70. i'm a resident of yvesham township and unlike a lot of people here i actually have kids that are currently in the district or who recently left the district in listening to conversations about the topic of trans rights i often hear the idea thrown around
070that there aren't enough of them to justify any consideration of any kind let's think about that according to the cdc the number of high school kids who identify as trans is two percent so translating that to eve sham that's 89 students in the evesham township school district that's 89 students we are saying don't matter at the very least because we know that from anything involving lgbtq youth a significant number of kids hide who they are due to fear being alienated ostracized and bullied so while we're focusing on stats let's focus on the real stats according to the american academy of pediatrics more than half of transgender male teens almost 30 percent of transgender feel female teens and 41.8 percent of teens who don't identify said they have attempted suicide people claim that kids shouldn't be
071exposed to education regarding gender identity in grade school but according to the children's hospital of philadelphia a child begins to have an innate sense of their gender identity between ages three to five if that child doesn't immediately fit neatly into a check box and many don't that is a long time to sit unsupported in fear and cognizance confusion at a critical critical time in their psychological and emotional development but don't take my word for it take theirs these are the words of an eve sham fifth grader who i know personally imagine that a young girl with a normal life has just come out as lgbtq to her classmates that girl's life has just changed because she has discovered something new about herself but the support she needs is nowhere to be seen the classmates who
072don't understand give her weird looks the classmates who do just sit in silence even the teacher is confused because the teacher was never taught what lgbtq plus means because of all this the girl who has expected support from her friends sits in awkward silence feeling she isn't normal when debating topics that those with a political agenda seek to weaponize sometimes the most critical thing is forgotten we are talking about kids we are talking about the health safety and well-being of real actual kids who are being threatened each day not by fictional what-if scenarios in the future but the very real dangers of hatred ignorance and homophobia my hope is that the eveshan township school district and its residents will remember that the goal should be to nurture and protect all kids not just the ones
073that don't engender hate thank you thank you [Applause] good evening name and address please my name is erica ballard i reside at 67 sweet fern court in eve sham i am a lifelong eve sham resident i graduated from bieler elementary demacy middle school and cherokee high school i'm a parent in this district i'm a taxpayer and i have worked with children in the field of behavioral health for 10 years when i was a student here we didn't have any curriculum that discussed same-sex relationships or gender identity despite this i made my first gay friend in this room like many other queer youth she experienced bullying assault and homelessness at the hands of bigoted family members and peers this trend among my friends continued many of us experienced assault intimidation and homelessness due to bigotry despite
074a lack of curriculum we were always able to find each other we knew how to spot our people we knew what people were safe and what places were safe we did not have the option to opt out of this education we were reminded regularly what people thought of us we knew who we were before we had words for it before we knew there were others and before we had any romantic experience we were always aware of our existence as a simple fact and not a political talking point as children we took on the endless task of educating the people around us so that our world could become safer so we would have one less person harassing us just for existing despite a lack of curriculum all of us remain queer to this day this is
075because educating people about a variety of identities does not create more people of that identity it reduces the amount of bigots it reduces the amount of violence we will exist no matter what the curriculum says it's your job to protect us and children like us thank you [Applause] good evening hi my name is tracy fox 3 30 over brooklyn marlton i too am a parent of a child who is actually in this district and to hear people coming here from out of town to use an alleged assault to turn this curriculum into something of grooming and anti-trans our kids have had years of heterosexual examples and you know what like the prior speaker said there is a large lgbqt community out there we haven't managed to turn them straight nobody's trying to turn your kids
076gay we are trying to make the kids that don't consider themselves heterosexual that don't identify with any specific gender that may have two moms or two dads that it is a safe space for all of them concerning opting in or opting out of this curriculum what happens when you opt out is the hatred we see from this group and they are a hate group on their website there was a parent of a 14 year old child who came to her mother to argue with her about why can't you just let these transgender kids be who they are and the mother said where did i go wrong i thought i raised my child better than that that's what happens when you allow people to opt out instead of showing them that we should accept everybody and
077when people say these children are too young to know what they are i am the aunt of a 12 year old transgender boy who knew from two and a half years old that he was born in the wrong body two and a half no schools indoctrinating him no teachers grooming him this was a child that when my daughter would go out with the grandmother he would go directly to superhero things and my mother-in-law would take my daughter and say bring bring her over there bring her over there but you can't bring the gender out of a child they know who they are they don't need hate groups telling them they don't matter until they're 18 or 21 and when you have teachers talking about this in the classroom they're not saying it's okay but when
078when their problem is second graders shouldn't be taught about gender identity why if a second grader is old enough to question what they're feeling why should they not be allowed to look at the front of that room and have somebody perhaps put a thought into their head that they realize this is what i'm feeling yes this is it and make it more acceptable so they don't have to wait until they're out of school to feel safe coming out because i am also the aunt of a non-binary nibbling who did not come out as homosexual until they were out of high school and did not come out as non-binary until they were in their twenties and they are now transitioning you do not go through surgery because your parents told you you could be a dinosaur
079that's three minutes thank you thank you so much good evening good evening um i will not state my name i will tell you that i am the mom of the person that my daughter was actually assaulted here in this school you know who i am you know what happened you called the disinformation you called it a lie this was reported on the tuesday this child stayed in this school until a friday you had this allegation on your desk tuesday wednesday thursday until me and my husband showed up here with a police report and then the police showed up here on a thursday until you took any action the police officer who you say who you're very proud of and you should be he's a retired state trooper he's very well known in this community he's
080done his job you never reported this to the resource officer as you should have well my daughter's at home crying wondering why no one in this school had her back and me wondering why no one decided to call me nobody cared it was another female student that there's no bouts about that another female said she was going to rape my daughter and nothing was done the second incident happened three days later nothing was done it was reported to you nothing was done my daughter to this day sits home with zero education mr smith this all just got worked out as of today she gets her first session of two hours of education tomorrow at my home because she can't step foot in this school she has been diagnosed with ptsd depression she can't go into
081the bathroom by herself now and all of you just sit there in silence and call the disinformation i have parents sitting behind me coughing thinking this was a damn joke last month when ian when everyone came here not for political but because he had my back as a parent all of you should be ashamed of yourself my child will never be the same she doesn't deserve to have someone say they're going to rape her and do nothing about it your counselor did nothing i still to this day haven't heard a single word from your counselor to offer her any kind of comfort this was your job as a school and you couldn't even handle that the right way you all should be ashamed of yourself thank you is there anyone else that wishes to speak
082at this point any questions or comments from the board oh one more oh okay come on up name and address please i'd like to acknowledge the traditional landowners throughout northern america and recognize that continuing connection to the water hold on just a minute can you stand here and this building stands as part of the leading homeland like excuse me respect for the people's past present and future we acknowledge your community i'm going to give you your three minutes but i'm asking you to state your name and address please getting there so like a land acknowledgement is done before you say that that's why i'm doing that so it's getting there we have procedures we just like your name and address for our records my name is my name is um dion and i live at
08321 jump street marlton so i actually um came you know i come here all the time and we speak about the land acknowledgement and we talk about you know um since december 2020 collectively dion and members of the school board and like staff have been speaking about uh you know we've shared a lot of correspondence in writing and in person about racial disparities in education and we shared that and we had a really open discussion we've presented solutions for how to address and improve this within our school district sadly we continue to experience defensiveness and roadblocks on your end and we've even submitted a proposal to you with solutions um understanding that schools don't have the resources to comply with things like the amistad law and mandatory indigenous curriculum dion did do all the research
084we did consult with expert curriculum advisors child specialists and other experts to put together quite a mild proposal we gave that to every single one of you and we haven't really received a response we've also held a diversity book drive to just so our children our children in the school district have access to books that represent them in their school library so we have come to the table and another example sarah like again discussed is implementing a land acknowledgement similar to how i started the land acknowledgement so understand you have processes just like you do the pledge could be nice to have a land acknowledgement to set that example for the students and to lead by example above the nj standards that you all speak very highly of i also just want to say that
085dion does stand in solidarity with all the children families who were offended and felt disrespected by some of the comments that have been made publicly we stand with the lgbt community we stand with children of color and we definitely want to keep working towards that dion does offer support to those parents and families so please reach out you can find us on our website thank you thank you okay any comments or questions from the word yes ryan before we get to that i was wondering if i could just make a brief comment on some of the allegations that were made tonight the board of education is constrained both based on rules of confidentiality process that it employs laws regarding the adjudication of claims that come before the board to not publicly address those unfortunately it
086is often considered that by failing to acknowledge or address those somehow some type of tacit admission or silent admission on behalf of the board of education either process wasn't followed or somehow there was a failure in what you've done that could nothing could be further from the case in that regard and while i will not address any specific student matter and quite candidly any lawyer in the state of new jersey would know that i would be prevented from addressing any specific student matter and so it's oftentimes very frustrating for lawyers to come before the board addressing specific student matters knowing that you're not going to be able to address them it's particularly even more galling when they do so and record it for whatever purpose that is but nonetheless this entire means recorded they didn't
087have to do their own recording they could get it off of youtube and i think the requirement would recognize that the board of education believes that it's following appropriate process it supports its students supports all of the students and offers services that are necessary and in response to any situation the health safety and welfare of all of the students of this board students at that forefront of everything that you do we have numerous conversations uh consistently with your administration in that regard um and in that regard uh that is the number one goal and it is the number one goal that you accomplish with great exceptional uh practice and precision you know every day the every day of the year and in particular the last couple years have been very hard on all communities and
088all communities i represent but nonetheless you know i didn't i thought it would be inappropriate to allow that to go unaddressed because while you might not be able to say something just because you don't answer a claim doesn't mean that you agree with what's alleged okay any other questions or comments from the board mr lanzalata a few two quick questions the the sex education curriculum that is now is being talked about and discussed tonight and also last month is that a state mandate so the the state sets the standards and the districts write the curriculum that has to align with the standards okay so so we have to teach that that that curriculum we have to teach the standards in all ways okay locally we can determine the curriculum itself we do a great job
089here we always have in writing our own curriculum you know organically so that it fits with the frameworks that are already in place not taking an off-the-shelf model that seems sutured or superimposed on other off-the-shelf models and creates confusion for kids but rather exactly the opposite where our curriculum is written by our team of in-house experts which are our teachers and curriculum supervisors and it fits in with things we're already doing so it makes sense for kids across that continuum of pre-k through grade eight okay my next question is is if there is a parent that does that believes that their son or daughter is not ready for something in the curriculum are they allowed to opt out when it comes to the health standards they are allowed to opt out um and in fact
090we have a faq document that's on our district website about the health and pe uh standards and i'll be including information this week that at that faq doc so parents can see but it does talk about that option okay so there are state standards that you can that parents are able to opt their kids out of just for that health health curriculum and that's been the law for years thank you miss everhart i'm a little confused are we in announcements yet or are we still talking about public comment are we in announcements we're still talking about public comment okay and having close public comments thank you would you would you like me to close public comments no okay okay i had not no well you are part of the board panel so yes your comment
091was part of public comment so yes no i have not closed public comment but i will do so now closing public comment to questions from the board i have an announcement or i guess i wanted to talk a little bit about uh i was i was so excited to uh be a board member again and participate in the reading recovery graduation as the board curriculum chair so it was you know really great to just be back doing what i used to do pre-coding so i just wanted to maybe end the meeting on a very exciting note for what we do for kids uh with our reading recovery program that we are so fortunate to be able to provide in in light of all of these fiscal challenges that we have so i might get a
092little wordy but it was just so exciting i want to say that we continue to be a leader of the reading recovery opportunity and train other districts so i had an opportunity to see representatives from our own district medford del rand and some other surrounding districts that had teachers there graduating from the program they spent an arduous amount of time learning ways that they can empower kids in their district to read and very exciting to see and hear that one of our previous bueller students was a reading i think i can share this information i don't think i'm violating anything but you know the story was presented to those in attendance that that individual participated in the reading recovery program years ago who has now come back to be a reading recovery teacher learning right
093here and at the eve location how to be a person who can share literacy with kids in her district okay so full circle really cool to hear that story and the most powerful different thing that i experienced after going to a lot of these graduations over the hundreds of years i've sat here and and loved it was a video or a slideshow of children expressing what having the ability to read has done for them and for me one of the most powerful things i heard was a student say i am able to read the directions at the top of my papers in school i'm able to read what i need to do all by myself very powerful and conversely parents were also asked to express what it was like to have an a reader in
094their home and a teacher a reader now independently reading in their classroom so moving it was wonderful so thank you to the board and to the district who allows this program to continue because that's where we are making changes for children great job that's it thanks thank you mrs everhart mr canton did you say did you have something to add okay yeah so let's pretend that we ended on mrs everhart's notes but i'll say something but he could pretend that was the end because that was great so first of all i had no idea what the wrap room was when i first started as a board member i don't know how many people do if you well obviously we all know now but if you google wrap room martin you'll see what it is it's
095a great organization that offers support services for students and i know mr hoffman attends regularly i know mr de blasio from vans and attends there's members from both boards who attend and also community members as well so it was a great organization i went to my first meeting in lieu of another board member last month so i just wanted to shout out the wrap room and all the work that they do um great organization and then i also wanted to shout out i know dr smith had added it in a couple of his friday emails and i'm sure it'll be this friday as well dion in partnership with the township is hosting their juneteenth event again um let's see on june 18th at savage field from 11 to 3. dr smith myself mr mclaughlik we
096were there last year every or almost every um talent show or act at the juneteenth event last year was a former student of our district or current student of our district so when we have these township oriented events i i still think that the greatest thing a society does is raise their children and that's highlighted in that event so we'll see you there next month thank you mr cantham anyone else okay at this point i'm going to ask for a motion to adjourn miss everhart second mr fizzicaro all those in favor i meeting adjourned you