001[Music] [Applause] [Music] um [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] like to call this meeting of the eastern township board of education to order pursuant to the open public meetings act out of the public notice has been given by the secretary of the even township board of education in the following manner posting written notice on the official bulletin board of the board of education office emailing written notice the berlin county times in the courier post and filing written notice with the municipal clerk of eastern township can i have a roll call please mrs cappello mrs everhart mr fizzakiro here miss fleming here mr canton here mrs knoll mr lanzalotta here mr megan mrs ryan here we have a quorum thank you at this time i'm going to need a motion to
002go into executive session whereas in 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 is deemed necessary to go into closed session to discuss certain matters which are exempted from the public and whereas the regular meeting of the board of education will reconvene following the end of the closed session at approximately 7 pm now therefore be it resolved that the board of education will go into closed session for the following reasons as outlined in njsa 10 4-12 items 2.2 through 2.4 any uh do i have a motion motion by miss ryan breve a second second by ms fleming any questions or comments roll call please mr frozen cairo yes miss fleming mr canton yes mr lanzalotta yes mr
003megan yes mrs bryant yes motion carriers thank you we will uh reconvene at approximately approximately 7 p.m [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] uh [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] please [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] bye [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] my uh [Music] hmm [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] we're reconvening this meeting of the yesham township board of education if you could please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the god united states of
004america and to the republic of which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all at this point in time i will read the eastern township school district mission statement the mission of the eastern township school district is to promote excellence in an environment that engages students in meaningful learning experiences in partnership with students dedicated staff and families and community the district provides a strong educational foundation that will empower our students to achieve their unique potential embrace self-directed lifelong learning develop the 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 okay at this point in time um we do not have any presentations i want to make sure i don't see the agenda okay we're
005going to move past uh presentations and go to number five which is public comment now this is public comment for agenda items only that means it's anything that is currently on this agenda all other comments for our for the end of the meeting after we're done the meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personnel items or negotiations we'd ask you to see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person again this is for anything that is on the agenda seeing none i will close that portion of the board of the meeting well not the board that makes no sense i don't do this for
006a month and i get tongue-tied all right at this point uh we're going to go to item number six approval of the minutes i need a motion to prove items six one through six two do i have a motion motion by miss noel and seconded by miss fleming uh any questions or comments pertaining to our approval of minutes seeing none let's go to a roll call please mr fizzicaro yes ms fleming yes mr canton yes this is noel yes mr lanzalotta uh due to absence i have to abstain from six one 6-1-6-2 mr megan yes this is ryan yes motion carries thank you okay we're going to go to item number seven superintendents report and administrative items i need a motion to prove items seven one through seven six do i have a motion motion
007by miss ryan second at my mr lanzalata uh before we go into questions and comments i'm gonna give the floor to dr smith for a superintendent's report thank you mr pascaro so this as this is our first board meeting since the return to school i'll focus my comments on where we're at this point in the year so our schools are open with every kid attending every every day and full days and if you stand outside our elementary schools any morning you know they the kids are masked but they're skipping into school you know and i think that it's important to focus on what we do have and what we have is kids wearing the grass down uh across they cut across from the sidewalk to get to the school door in our middle schools if
008you were to stand inside them you hear our students engaging in discussion raising their hands practicing ways of finding their voice and expressing themselves and it's a powerful wonderful thing this is my 26th year in education and for 24 of those years all the simple facts i just shared i took absolutely for granted right just the notion of all students attending full days every day but this is no small feat i was speaking with one of our principals today by cell phone and i heard in the background the sound of swings in the it was recess and uh that simple sound kind of symbolized that joyful noise symbolized the outcome of a very complicated process because actually everyone in town and everyone in our district makes that sound of that single swing possible it starts
009with the taxes right that every morrowtonian provides from kids at cherokee working local businesses onto all of our retired community members who whose kids may have kids by now the efforts of our board efforts of our township leadership our ptas our business community the efforts of every staff member right now are indispensable in making the sound of that swing happen on top of the fact that many of us as a staff thought at least back in june that this year might be a return to normal only use air quotes there a new normal but a normal maybe no masks maybe no temporary remote learning maybe more or less no more covered to cause quarantines just school in all its wonder guess what instead this year behind the scenes is another marathon and our nurses our
010teachers our custodians our drivers our administrators our secretaries our everyone's are stretching to keep things whole for the kids and our families right who last year had to juggle schedules remote learning days temporary closures again this year are going to continue to deal with changes and challenges as kobet is still with us some of those changes and challenges roll down far above a local level state level and national level it might manifest as bus delays as we stretch our busing capacity to keep things full it might manifest as the time needed by a school to prepare a packet of papers for a student who from one day the next goes out on a quarantine it might manifest as say a virtual back to school night and not yet quite at the point where we can
011have an in-person back-to-school night so that we judiciously are avoiding exposures and on and on but the reward is the sound of that swing during recess the sound of that student raising their hand and sharing thoughts in class whatever we know the kids are insulated the most that's right we are always trying to keep it away from the kids so that they can just experience as much pure joy as possible about being in school and to that end as well after a one year break we will have the sounds of extracurricular activities after school which are on the agenda tonight for approval and gratitude tremendous gratitude to our staff who have stepped up and committed to serving as advisors and coaches for those clubs a lot's changed perhaps in some of some of our staff's
012lives right in the last two years and they step up and they and they take on those additional rules we're grateful for that you know and if you look through and you see the activities and i'm just going to read a couple because they're just the titles of these clubs are so rich and i think act as windows into the the variety of um engagement that is offered for our kids kind kids broadcasting theater club yearbook safety patrol frisbee golf morning show happy helpers sign language and dodgeball i can't wait to see the happy helpers just gotta just picture what that looks like right that's amazing that's just to name a few these activities are gonna look a little different at each school right depending on the variables of staff availability and expertise but each
013school has many choices you know and this year in part through our extracurricular activities and other things like opening up our facilities to outside groups this year right because at the end of the day our buildings belong to everyone right and it was painful last year to not be able to open up our buildings because they truly are community buildings we are going to do that this year you know and we're very glad about that and that's another leap beyond what we did last year so we we continue to encourage everyone in our district community to remember that during a pandemic we all right all district families we live together under the same roof the school roof right and interconnected in ways we never were before and it takes everyone's sense of responsibility for each
014other to make that work and that helps us help everyone right as school administrators and school staff keep things safe i'll just give a couple examples but the little reminder plugs that means for example like when our children uh are showing symptoms or siblings of our children are showing symptoms of cobod let's be safe and just keep them home all right or when we take our children to get tested keep them home until the test results come in and then to share those results with us as soon as possible you know and again those simple steps help us help families and help kids and together all stakeholders all those working together it helps us keep those swings moving at recess keep those hands going up in class and providing all we can for all our
015kids every day every full day all year and that was a bit longer than usual but we have full days and every day so i think per minute i'm allowed a little longer so thanks thank you doctors are there any questions or comments in the superintendent's report um i i will personally echo uh dr smith your sentiments i uh for the the clubs and activities in particular you know obviously education curriculum is extraordinarily important in schools but a kid is truly completed as you know they they're completed by what else they do and sometimes your extracurriculars are where a child finds who they are that's where they start to really define who they are and it's like you said it could be something like um like theater or something like orchestra or i saw in
016in one of these i think was van zant maybe or maybe it was moral to middle uh where they have like a ukulele club and it may seem like something that is you know on it might be small or or insignificant on a on a spreadsheet but when when that child is engaged by that they're learning to love and i always believed extracurricular activities where that's always a big deal for me and to see them return for for me as as a school board president as a father as a teacher myself um and an advisor it's incredibly important because this is the foundation where they begin to learn to love what they are before they master it when they come to cherokee so after a year and a half of of feels like emptiness i'm
017just very happy that this is back i just want to say thank you for everyone who did that and um i feel like again we're just another step towards being completed of who we are so thank you any other questions or comments let's go to a roll call please mr frisicaro yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes mrs noll yes mr lanzalotta yes mr megan yes this is ryan yes motion carries thank you all right we're now moving into curriculum and instruction i need a motion to approve items 8.1 through 8.8 do i have a motion motion by miss ryan second hit by miss noel i promise i'll look over here first i feel like i always go left uh any uh any questions or comments pertaining to curriculum and instruction yes mr ryan i
018just wanted to give um kudos to the whole curriculum department teachers who worked so hard on updating our curriculum especially in the world language and science you spent a long time and we appreciate it and you guys did an amazing job after reading through it a curriculum thank you miss ryan any other questions or comments all right saying none let's go to a roll call please mr fisticaro yes miss fleming mr catherine yes mrs noel yes mr lancelot yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carriage thank you now moving to item number nine finance and operations i need a motion to approve items nine one through nine fifteen do i have a motion no of course not uh miss snow uh with the first mr lanzalotta with a second i literally looked over to
019your side any questions or comments pertaining to finance and operations yes mr every donation um is is huge and i want to say thank you to 7-eleven on green tree road they donated hand sanitizers to the schools yeah you can never have enough of that absolutely we don't want to run out yeah thank you miss nell any other questions or comments to finance operations seeing none let's go to a roll call please mr fizzakero yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes mrs noll yes mr lancelata yes mr reagan yes mrs ryan yes mission carries thank you mr rashenti all right at this point we move to item 10. uh this is personnel i need a motion to approve items 10 1 through 10 10. do i have emotion motion by mr lanzalata do i have
020a second second if i miss ryan any questions or comments pertaining to personnel miss ryan i just have one quick question it's i mean statement it is so nice to see someone who has been in the district for a while as an aide in an elementary school move up to a full-time teaching position i love that and i'm so happy for um ms jarzinski who's moving into demacia van zandt's going to miss you and i'm sure miss alexey will as well but the students at demacia are so lucky to have you excuse me sorry thank you ms ryan any other questions or comments pertaining to personnel seeing none let's go to a roll call please mr fizzy cairo yes miss fleming yes mr catherine yes mrs noel yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes this
021is ryan yes motion carriers thank you mr rashenti all right we're going to move into policy i need a motion to prove items 11 1 through 11 4 do i have a motion motion by mr cantham second by miss ryan any questions or comments pertaining to policy i'll say something again um as chairman of the policy committee i just wanted to thank all of our members of that committee for working so hard to revisit some old outdated um policies that were in effect so i appreciate you mr meegan for calling in and joe for being there in person and mr danteen thank you for all your hard work researching we appreciate it i think we did a good job and pretty happy with the way things are worded so thank you for that i'm going
022to chime in there too thank you miss ryan in particular for one of the bylaws that's zero one five two uh that one uh one that hopefully we will pass today is a revisement of board officers for president and vice president um this policy in particular this bylaw will cap the presidency at three years so it will term limit what the board president will be and then it will allow for another board member to move through i i just wanted to put my two cents into this a little bit and and uh just tell you how i believe this is really important and i'm going to speak from my own personal experience on this the i believe it's it's important that board members gain the experience of the leadership position and i believe it's really
023good that even three years and sometimes maybe even less than that there's a time that you need to step away and take a break i personally even before this was a thing i'm looking forward just to being in this after december to sit on the wings again only because you will feel in in this position sometimes that you know you're it's sometimes a little psychological and you know you you will need a break from it every once in a while and so why i think this is good is because i think for who will be here next and i am confident the person who sits in this position and in a seat starting in january is going to be phenomenal at what they do all right i think it is good for them as as
024it will be for me that they have a limit to keep themselves mentally fresh psychologically fresh emotionally refreshed because when we as a board and the leadership included is is at our our level to perform without the constant anxiety i think it ends up helping the entire district out and so i was very happy we did this and i was also um i was i was very glad about the input we got mr negan some excellent input um miss ryan's excellent input and mr dante did a phenomenal job with this and i just wanted to speak to that particular one because i thought that was so incredibly important so um yeah any other questions or comments all right seeing none let's uh go to a roll call please mr fizzicarro yes miss fleming yes mr
025canton yes mrs noll yes mr lanzalata yes mr megan yes this is ryan yes mission carries thank you all right at this point in time we will be moving into committee reports are there any committees that uh that feel they need to report anything to the board all right seeing none i am going to move us into old business i got none all right so at that point i'm going to move us into new business i have none of that either all right so now we're going to go to item 15 which is going to be open public comment i can get my there we go okay so now we're at open public comment for any item of interest this meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest however if
026your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personnel items or negotiations we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person is there anyone who wishes to speak seeing none oh yes i thought i saw a movement so that's why i was holding a little bit when you come up just please uh state your name and address my name is nicole lucas and my address is uh 102 kettering court in marlton i am a lifelong member i met mostly everybody on the board um i lived in marlton my whole entire life and i represent um dion so a lot of you know about our group and i don't typically attend the meetings in person but
027i do view them online and for those of you that are not familiar with our group um we really just are a local non-profit we're advocating to address issues with diversity equity and inclusion in our schools and our community we've been successful in hosting the book drive we've donated hundreds of books to the libraries here backpacks you know to back to school um and uh we've liaison with you guys and we're looking you know further um you know in the future but tonight i am here specifically about some comments that were needless last meeting and it's a little bit difficult for me to speak in public it's not what i typically do so i just felt compelled to come in person just to talk about some of the comments that were made last week about
028the critical race theory um the board knows i i think you know dion knows that nobody here is wanting critical race theory to be taught in public schools to children this is not a matter that anybody's recommending it's a term that people are not really understanding it's a catch phrase with no educational understanding whatsoever some of the comments were kind of troubling a public comment meeting regarding dr martin luther king was made about his famous line not judging some his children by the color of their skin but the content of their character and somehow that means not teaching critical race theory um don't even know how that point translates but you know either dr king's words were either shamefully applied to argue against any discussion of the different colors of our skin or our full
029american history or accurate information on black history or the historical enslavement of part of our population or maybe the commenter simply misunderstood what dr king meant i unlike many people prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt others may take the comment as disingenuous regardless i think education is needed on these topics another commentator stated that critical race theory is like diversity equity and inclusion and that's where i felt like i needed to come because you know dion would like to clarify and make sure it's noted to the public that that's not what it is and i think that the board is dedicated to you know you know we've talked with you guys you know that you want to make sure that every student is included is the practice of including involving people from
030a range of all different social and ethnic backgrounds of different genders sexual orientations etc equity is the quality of being fair and impartial and frankly there's an opportunity for us to do a better job and that's dionne that's that's what we want to do we want to help and i think that's what we've done and i don't think anybody thinks here that children should not be treated fairly so i hope not so i just wanted to you know say something about that because this is what we're here for and for parents to get up and say that really upset me um and i would just like to ask that any future commentators on the false narrative that critical race theory is being taught or being recommended to be taught or anything crazy like that um
031you know reach out to us that that's just we'd be happy to explain it to you that's not the case and now we can we can educate you on that we want to slay that political dragon that's a term that's thrown out there that's we don't want it to take hold on our lovely town and called the divide and misunderstanding so i just want to thank you guys thank you dr smith thank you members of the board and my fellow community members for your time you know i really want to know that we let you guys know that we are here to work on ways that we can fully implement new jersey's already existing curriculum you guys do a wonderful job here for the students and i'm glad to hear if the things are going
032to come back all the extras for the kids this is really wonderful news and we can help to continue to robustly implement the homicide commission's recommendations for teaching a fuller american history which includes black history dealing with racism the lgbtq community and persons with disability achievements and all the required middle school curriculum along with the required diversity course curriculum those are the efforts we continue to provide support for and training information for teachers and things like that um and i'll just conclude by saying that we are having an upcoming um cultural day the dance partnered with eastern township everybody's invited it's october 17th and we appreciate your guys support thank you so much thank you for your comments um i will say that i know you you were listening to it last last last month
033and hopefully in all of that you were able to hear our solicitor's comments in return back um his his comments do identify with what we are doing here so um you know just make sure i'm glad you're able to to capture that part but that was what mr donio said was incredibly important about what we are too just when i had ms lucas thank you so much for for coming and that was a very powerful statement really appreciate it slightly took down a serious moment [Laughter] what's that you said on this on october 17th or september where where is that a savage okay okay thank you we just we couldn't hear we couldn't understand you no we i get that um anybody else with a comment or a question or anything yes please please state
034your name and address for the board samantha hurley 11 light horse court um so i my oldest daughter attended bieler for half a year kindergarten when kova decided to enter our lives that very same week i signed papers on my car to sell my house my husband and i it was a really good time we had a house in the works we were moving it was supposed to be normal and then that house fell through we spent the rest of the year doing some fun remote schooling in vermont so i wanted to give compliments to that because we did it from afar while still being marlton student um this last year i chose to homeschool my first grader then i have a education degree myself and elementary and stay-at-home mom so it was like begging
035for me to spend a lot of time with my kids um it went really well and i sent her back this year as a second grader at mes um and i'm very grateful for her happy face her smile she's just had a tremendously great back-to-school experience i was very nervous on how that would go and she not that i let her know it but um i just want to thank everyone that kind of you know goes into that she she really um she smiles all the time so thank you um and continue all the great work teachers everyone very very grateful so thank you thank you oh go ahead doctor miss early i just want to welcome welcome to our district okay fantastic um and thank you for those comments especially out of the your
036ability to make comparative comparisons you know with different different modes of learning that you and your daughter have experienced over the past 18 months of the pandemic so um really appreciate that that window you opened thank you um you said you were in vermont oh we our educational staff is talent enough that they can reach kids even that far away that's that to me that's that's what makes this that's what makes this awesome thank you so much any questions other questions or comments all right i'm going to close that portion of the board for us um and that is going to take us we do not have a second executive session uh so announcements any announcements from the board mr cantham uh yeah so uh at the board meeting last month we mentioned that we
037were doing a backpack drive um partnering with the council there um so thanks to to everyone who helped us out everyone who donated um everyone who helped us out from the council councilman freeman the mayor and the deputy mayor as well as mrc and dion who helped organize and really drive it we ended up collecting 211 backpacks for our kids um so that's that's just spectacular yeah um and then as far as the cultural day just to echo um cultural day is october 17th it's from 11 to 5 at savage field um so that's being hosted by the township uh in conjunction with dion and then the human rights advisory council as well so hope to see everyone there thank you mr cantham any other announcements ah miss no sorry i just wanted to um
038thank the dion representative for coming i'm sorry i didn't hear your name nicole um absolutely agree with you and you know we need to move forward in marlton let's look around we are diverse i don't want to walk backwards you know we're in we need to do as much as we can to celebrate our diversity in fact it's in hispanic american heritage month and um you know we were diverse community let's embrace it so thank you for coming and any of those commenters you know they if they come you come so we are listening and i don't want my children to grow up in a town that is that thick or you know moving backwards and it won't happen on my watch so thank you for coming and you're welcome here thank you mr uh
039miss fleming anybody else miss ryan i would just like to say to all the staff welcome back and shout out to all the pto and pta for welcoming everyone back i saw some great pictures online and a lot of smiling faces and it was really nice of those organizations to welcome the staff back with open arms and smiling faces and just the kudos you're here let's do this kind of thing so welcome back to all the staff of you sham and uh thank you to all of our ptas and ptos thank you miss ryan anybody else all right at this point let's go to a motion to adjourn do i have a motion motion by miss ryan do i have a second second by miss fleming all in favor awesome all right we'll see everyone
040in october [Music] hmm [Music] you