001[Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i 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 the eastern township board of education in the following manner one posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the board of education office two emailing written notice of the berlin county times and the courier post and three filing written notice municipal clerk of epshin township may have a roll call please this is cappella here mrs everhart here mr fizzycarrow here ms fleming mr canton here mrs knoll mr lanzalata here mr meegan here mrs ryan here we have a forum thank you at this point i need a motion to go into executive session whereas
002an njsa 104-12 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 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 do i have a motion motion by miss ryan second by uh mr lanzalotta any questions or comments let's go to a roll call please mrs capalo yes this is everhart yes mr fizzy cara yes miss fleming mr canton yes mr lancelata
003yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries awesome see you everybody at seven o'clock approximately [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] my [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] down [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hmm [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] i'd like to reconvene this meeting of the eastern township board of education if everyone please rise for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the crime of the united states of america
004and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with the created judgment this point at this point i'll be reading the mission statement of the eastern township school district the mission of the april 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 educational foundation that will empower our students to achieve their unique potential embrace self-directed lifelong learning develop the skills necessary to 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 at this point in time we're going to be heading into presentations and dr smith i leave the floor to you know what all
005right so like we did last month we are going to recognize students tonight feels fantastic and we're going to first recognize the winners of the marlton elks essay contest so we may have mr and mrs machias with us oh fantastic if you could come on down please if you'd like we'd like you to stand with us while we recognize the um the winners of this essay contest mr mrs mayas are officers within the marlton elks just down here with us to be great yeah thank you and if you don't while they're coming down if you don't know where the martin elks is at the corner of trough and he's brought medford road so it's very prominent and we thank you so much for being with us tonight so uh yeah i was going to go
006i was going to go number three is this all it's so our first we're going to start with division one that's grades five to six and the first winner is midori johns uh the essay that you so greatly wrote and hmm here it is there it is thank you and i knew you didn't remember congratulations thank you so much all right our next winner is alexander lamarca and then we have gabrielle lippo m congratulations great job congratulations very good you've done a wonderful job and thank you so much for all your achievements we have a copy of your essay because i know you don't remember and your parents would love to say it here you are and you have a certificate from the school district and also your turn around so your parents can see
007you there you go and boone did such a great job although all of our students did a wonderful job 243 participated in this essay contest just from this school district and boone did such a good job that her essay not only did well in our district of nine lodges that's from all the way up in heights town all the way down to deptford that we sent her essay to the state and from there it was sent on to our national didn't make it in the national but you still receive a state award so so not only do you do you have that in your hand but i can't help this thank you i'm juggling i would like to present you with this let me hold this thank you this is a certificate of excellence this
008from the elks grand lodge americanism program this is our 2020-2021 essay contest and the theme of this essay was how can patriotism be demonstrated the new jersey elks americanism committee states that our state contest winner in division one with his fifth and sixth graders eboon has placed third place in the state and this award is presented to you today congratulations to boone you're very welcome also as a state winner she also receives a gift card and enjoy spend it wisely and well thank you our next winner is lola rotenovich [Applause] catherine ceriano thank you so much you did a great job and this is for you a copy of your essay save it and come back again next year all of you over there awesome and then our last winner from division one is lucy
009[Applause] wilkulesky thank you sir and then division two this is grade seven and eight our first winner is sean montier [Applause] monterroyo congratulations sean job well done you placed very well you play second in division two of seventh and eighth graders congratulations and then our other winner from division two grade seven and eight is soha kanjali very nice and congratulations you have won first place in division two of the seventh and eighth graders who participated so thank you very much and congrats the children um their elk certificates and gift cards were sent with the rest of the 243 certificates we printed for the district we do this every year normally we have a citizens and youth award banquet but because of covid uh we weren't able to have it last year and we're working on
010maybe a picnic this year uh we'll see but um just like to let you know that's how they received their gift cards from the elks lodge and their certificates uh they all did such a wonderful job we had four runners up this year at division one that's how great and competitive esa's were um and it's fantastic that we have a state winner it's only the second time in history of um me being on the committee for 12 years that we've had a state winner congratulations it's really tough to do thank you sir let me go thank you sir very much thank you so much congratulations all students you can return to your seats thanks again to the moral knowledge for all the wonderful support for our students all right so we have another award mr
011donaio's joining us up here this is this is cool this is really cool so there's a holiday card design contest that cooper levinson which is the law firm that works at many school districts including ours facilitates and students can submit designs for the holiday card and if i'm correct there are 2 000 submissions approximately so if we do a little math 2 000 submissions 5 are selected as the winners that's out of all two thousand and out of those five two are from our district okay and this is not the first time we've had winners from this district in fact we get to see each and winners pretty regularly okay so that tells you you're dealing with something you have great writers and you have great artists in the school district but if i could
012just take a second it's a really meaningful thing because our holiday art contest is really to promote a charity that was developed by our founder jim cooper and it's called legacy please and it's about addressing food insecurity for students throughout the south jersey area a lot of kids go to bed at night hungry i can say this year was unlike many years because of covert 19 and the rules and regulations schools were providing meals to anybody and everybody who wanted them and in several districts i hear about the number of meals i was at a board meeting just recently school district produced 700 000 meals for the children of its community and it's really interesting because schools get a big wrap about doing things but it's always the schools that are asked to do the
013most meaningful things when it comes to children and there's a reason why because you do it well so kudos to the school districts thank you for letting us get this message out um and we're going to call it the winners right now and and uh before we do if um so that both winners are from martin middle school we have mr hoffman sitting right there see mr hoffman if you or you can stay there if you want or come down if you want okay we we put middle school put on an amazing eighth grade graduation last night that went quite late so uh and we all if kate gormley who is the art teacher is here she can come on down oh fantastic yeah and and repeat winners are not an accident and that really
014is from the staff of miss gwinley thank you and thank you for always having your submissions as well thank you amazing amazing i'm so glad you could be here fantastic so all right our first winner anthony abrams that's yours as well i usually haven't described what's going on in the car oh yeah so you want to tell us a little bit of what's going on in your card right here okay so it's um what's it called so it's a car this cardinal couple it's a male and a female they are at their home and it's a tree house like a birdhouse they have a little wreath a sun that says home sweet home as you can see there's a little plant there and there's a bunch of snow everywhere and yeah that's good it's great
015and and our theme is home for the holidays so even the birds have to come home for the holidays as well so great job and our second winner two out of i'm just gonna say it again two winners same school same teacher same district out of five total overall in the state vanessa vittorio tell us what's happening in your card here um it's a family in their living room on a meet with their uh like a google meet with the rest of their family on christmas eve so even during coven looking for the holidays can also mean a google meet how awesome is that right the kids each got a 50 gift card teacher got two gift cards to spend for art supplies and what have you it's our privilege and our pleasure and congratulations
016to you if we can all squeeze in congratulations again there we go so i'll just say at this point um families who came for the presentation part we are going to move on next to the board part which just english is a funny language but that that's a sounds like boring part but um the board part so if you want to stay you're welcome to stay if you want to head out enjoy the sunshine you're welcome to do that but thank you so much for the students and the families that came for coming tonight and we look forward to just all the ways you find to express your talents in the future so thanks again [Music] we are reconvening once again okay at this point thank you dr smith for the presentations it's nice to
017get back into that now we're moving into public comment for agenda items only this meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however 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 you do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person remember again this is for agenda items only public for any items of interest will come near the end okay anybody seeing none we'll close that portion of i the meeting all right at this point i need to go to item number six approval of the minutes i need a motion to prove items six one and six two motion by ms capello second it by mr kantham any questions
018or comments on approval of minutes seeing none let's go to a roll call please mrs cappello yes this is everhart yes mr fizzicaro yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes mr lanzalotta yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries at this point in time we are going to go into what is called a consent agenda consent agenda is where we combine item seven which is superintendent's report administrative items uh number eight curriculum and instruction number nine finance and operations number ten personnel and number eleven uh policy uh into a singular motion all right so i will need a motion to approve items seven one through seven seven eight one through eight seven nine one through nine twenty two ten one through ten eleven and eleven one through eleven four do i have a motion
019motion by mr lanzalata do i have a second second by ms capello uh before we go into any questions or comments i will give the floor to dr smith for his superintendent's report thank you mr pizzacaro so um the last my last comments of 2020 2021 school year hard enough to stop by saying we made it only possible school in a pandemic due to the teamwork of so many people i just want to take this opportunity to say thank you to every single person who's been integral along the way to supporting our students this year and that means from our staff who've gone above and beyond all year in their roles each day to our families who've worked to support the learning each day in person remotely to a board of education and i'm flashing
020back to the summer and all the work that went in and all the work that went in every month as we went through the school year multiple meetings through committees board meetings special meetings our ptas and pto who work so hard to keep a sense of trying to provide what we would normally do for kids the ed foundation our township leadership local community organizations who provided resources and more it took we know it takes a village our village is called eve sham and it's with great pride i think that everyone can look back at what we accomplish for kids this year and we wish everyone on that basis also a wonderful and well deserved summer our staff and our families it may seem uh premature to pivot from that to talk already about next year
021since the school district just ended yesterday but i do want to talk about next year a little bit and that's basically because of uh there's a federal deadline this week in fact today for all districts nationwide to submit what's called their uh return to school plans okay their safe return plans for this coming school year so we are going to talk a little bit about the next school year and uh the purpose for that deadline and for the submission of those plans is so that districts can get access to the american rescue plan money which is otherwise known as sr3 money um and the purpose behind that money is to get all districts to open up for in-person school in september and we might scratch our heads and say haven't districts been doing that like
022we've been doing it since september full day et cetera but not everywhere has been doing that so in fact some of the biggest districts in the country didn't do it at all so that's part of the urgency behind the timeline and the money is to make sure that all districts nationwide open for in-person learning in september so that's why we're talking about next year right now a day after the prior school year just ended so in that sense it's important to keep in mind that all these plans are drafts right so it's june 24th we have over two months until school opens and we we know we saw last year where our plan was constantly updated as changes went along and guidance changed because we were always looking to stay on the front foot and
023do right by kids so the guidance for this coming year the 2021-2022 school year hasn't been released yet so the only guidance that school districts have to base their plans for next year on is based on the current guidance from the school year that just ended we really look forward to the guidance for next year when it comes out we anticipate july that it'll come out um and we will absolutely be pouring over that and looking for ways that we can um improve change adjust our plan according with the new guidance the plan is agenda item 7.4 it's been on our homepage since last week i did email it to all families and staff twice along with a google form for collecting feedback and i want to dive a little bit not into the weeds
024but just into a just like an overview of some highlights from the plan so i'm going to talk about sections one and three miss mcghulik who's going to our curriculum instruction director is going to go over section two and section one as we look through it first and most importantly it states that we will use this coming year a traditional five day per week full day schedule which is just what we ended the year with okay so for us i mean everything we did this year is a tremendous resource for how to do school next year um we will be having basically all the traditional attributes of school traditional movement between the school day mixing of cohorts lunch and recess just like we've been doing and something we're going to bring back which didn't exist
025this year is extracurricular activities in sports so that's exciting next in section one is masks okay this is probably i would say the most current topic right now the current state guidance is that masks are acquired in schools that there are some exceptions which you can go on the doe website and see and then the exceptions that have been there all year thus our plan requires mass in schools i along with the superintendents of the nine lenape region districts recently sent a letter to governor murphy asking for basically immediate re-examination of that mask mandate um and so we sent that on our friday and i don't want to say that that caused a change but the very next monday after that letter was submitted governor murphy did announce an additional exception to the mask mandate
026which was that mass are not required indoors in conditions of extreme heat okay which was i know for the districts in our region that don't have ac in their classrooms was very very welcomed right because it becomes a health risk for kids if they're in on air conditioned spaces in june wearing masks for us the immediate benefit was that we made masks optional on our in in all of our on air conditioned spaces right so for us fortunately we have ac we have air conditioning just about everywhere where we don't have is on buses so our buses became masks optional and that helped us continue to be able to get kids into school safely so we're glad for that and do thank the governor for that exception we do anticipate and hope that the state
027guidance when it comes out probably in july for the next school year is going to have even more avenues and pathways for school districts to um you know mat other mask options basically you know beyond just the basic requirement and the exceptions that currently exist we would we really hope that that re-examination continues [Music] and the districts get more more tools and more pathways with regards to masks other things in section one social distancing we'll continue to do that to a greater extent possible um we did go below six feet this year but we did not see any problems come out of that so um you know again we'll be great as we can in terms of social distancing but we will be below six feet for sure um because we'll have all our kids
028back buses same thing next year windows open we will allow volunteers and outside guests this coming year we did not do that this year so we're very excited about that that'll let us bring things back like for example the fire education program that we that the our great fire department provides um field trips we didn't do those this year and at this point we're kind of on a tb determined status for field trips just until we see what the protocols are in place in the places that we typically go on field trips in terms of sanitation continue to do all the cleaning that we've been doing continue to use our ionizers which we've had in place for months now which give us that merv 13 equivalent filter protection against coveted and other airborne illnesses contract
029tracing will be continue to be done just as we did this year which is in close coordination with the county health department just like last year we'll use a health statement of assurance which we did through genesis parent portal last august we'll do that again that families and staff will complete before the school year starts and we will continue to share and communicate information about vaccination with families i've pushed out um and a number of my updates information about where people can go to get vaccinated and um you know so we'll continue to do that and that brings me to the end of basically of section one so i'm going to toss the all over to mrs magulek for section two thank you um so section two is ensuring continuity of services so that section
030really talks about professional development and how we provide that to staff and different opportunities and plcs we talked about in there which is professional learning communities and using that as a vehicle to deliver interventions and extensions by our teachers talking to each other um analyzing data and it really talks about um you're starting this school year out as dr smith had said you know that consistent daily full-day schedule building those fall routines and structures that were hard to establish in a hybrid model building on those and do going back to some of the additional we still did baseline data this past year but being able to do some additional baseline data plus there will be the state is going to be doing some fall testing as well with the start strong so using baseline data
031to make decisions in terms of instructional and responsive planning for our kids and where they're at focusing on social emotional competencies so for us in our district we use responsive classroom we use responsive teaching in middle school so establishing those social emotional that mental health and and wellness kind of initiatives and then in terms of academic competencies those academic behaviors growth mindset and then looking for places where we would deliver our tiered interventions so for us that's differentiating within the classroom but we also have what's an irs program in place at each school there's a team so they deliver what are called classroom interventions or recommendations they have what's called supplemental supplemental interventions and then there's more intensive interventions that are done by a specialist and that team makes decisions about where kids are it
032might be something where there's a you know either a learning identified need it might be something that's behavior it might be something that's social emotional and then the last part of that really in that tiered place would also be looking at our specialized program so if a student would need to be evaluated for child study team or esl and and just kind of again looking at what's most important every year is student growth so where kids are starting and that they're grow making growth and progressing and again that whole social emotional and academic piece being a focus and i'll turn it back to dr smith thank you ms moolik so uh section three is is the public comment section just talks about sort of what districts have done to to listen uh and share so
033uh like i said earlier we posted the plan on our homepage last week on june 15th emailed it communicated it to staff and families last week we have the google form which is also on our website to collect feedback from any and all stakeholders community members parents staff anyone can communicate with me directly as well we have the board meeting tonight we have july we have august continued communication we'll leave that google form feedback open so you know because again this is a living process um and we without the guidance that that came out yet um we know there's probably going to be changes ahead um so we want to keep listening and have people keep sharing uh so far just uh you know um in terms of that feedback form this is useful info
034so when i checked last check which is about 5 pm today we had 71 comments total so out of the and just come back to the mask because i know that's a the main topic right so 71 comments total out of those 71 58 addressed masks in some way and 13 did not and and the way the form is set up it doesn't ask specifically it has one really general question which is basically like share your feedback with us right so um people weren't forced to talk about any one topic out of the 58 comments that addressed masks 43 were against masks think math should be optional and 15 were four masks think masks would be required so if you do a percentage on that that's 74 percent i think math should be optional 26
035are four masks um i would say you know it's one of those things like um [Music] the little voice in my head i guess my dissertation voice my that's the doctor part the doctor voice goes off in my head saying okay it's not scientific in this way in that way in this way right because someone can submit multiple times to the form um and uh often if you have like you know since the plan says since the plan is adhering to the current guidelines and says master required that's sort of the default so it's more likely that people are gonna you know people who agree with that aren't gonna submit right um if it said mass or optional it probably would increase the percentage of people who were saying mass should be required um another
036stat just for our thinking um as of the last day of school we still had 20 of students remote which is interesting you know so we started off the year around 72 percent we dip down around 69 percent during the height of covid in the wintertime and then we kept climbing back uh slowly towards more kids coming in and where we topped out was 80 so that was our 80 in person as of the last day of school that was our highest number highest percentage in person all school year it didn't mean that you know there's still 20 percent of families who basically aren't going to have the option that they had all year because governor murphy said there's going to be no remote learning so you know that's a that's a pretty big shift
037potentially there um like i said so we'll cons we'll definitely uh continue to solicit listen appreciate feedback throughout the summer and uh that's my that those are our comments about the the return plan so thank you dr smith any questions or comments from the board on not just dr smith's comments but for everything that is up in the motion miss everhart i just wanted to give a shout out to those retirees that are leaving the district specifically to mrs nasal i know that there was a shout out to her last night at graduation so good luck to you very passionate dynamic individual that's leaving the district but going on to that second chapter so wishing you best of luck and also to laura lutz who um was uh senor lutz she was our spanish connection
038here at mes and at rice i remember back in the day when she was traveling on a cart and uh i had personal experience with her with my daughter and so i just want to wish her a lot of luck i know she has a lot of grandbabies and again congratulations to everyone who's retiring but specifically to those two good luck on your second chapter uh switching gears though while i have the mic can i just go to finance for a minute um i just it's not on the agenda but i did bring up these two questions at the finance meeting and i had said to mr rashinti and dr smith that i would bring it up ask the same questions here for the benefit of the board just so that everybody else on the
039board could hear the answers that were given to the finance committee regarding these two topics so i had a question regarding where were we or how are we doing with bus advertising so if we could have someone from the committee or dr smith or mr rashinti to address that that's my first question it's a great question mr heart thank you because uh it's like one of those um topics that we should keep circling back to periodically um i spoke with our mr clawkins he's the gentleman who runs schoolbus advertising.com which is the company that is overseeing the bus advertising for us as of this week we have two companies who are potentially interested and gonna do it um not finalized yet i'd love for that number to be more like eight or ten companies um
040so since we're talking on the subject i would just say um you know uh worse for anyone looking and it's it's inexpensive and absolutely eye-catching right if you think when there's an advertisement somewhere where there wasn't before when something is somewhere where it wasn't before everyone sees it everyone will see the advertisement you know and to have your company associated with a trusted brand of our school district right which is serving families the same families that businesses serve um is actually like a peanut butter and chocolate combination so i would just encourage all businesses to keep thinking about it reach out to me please if you're interested i will put you in immediate contact with the company that's helping us and in order for you to learn more but it's a service to the community
041to your business to our families win win win thank you okay thank you very much for your comment i also had a second question which was where were we on the land purchase by the council if we could update the board with the same answers that we discussed at the finance meeting thank you another another great question so um yes so we have two properties that our township we're very glad for is interested in purchasing one of them is in cambridge and one of them is in country farms the cambridge property we have approval from the state already for that the country farms property which is the larger one we are in the process of getting approval and that does take time and i'll use the word months it takes months to get approval for
042that um it is in the pipeline and progressing um not currently approved but will eventually be and uh you know in terms of sequence the that would be the property that um is most desirable to sell first because of its um immediate use value so um you know we'll have updates in the in the months ahead but um it'll likely be country for the country farm space that sells first once the approval is finalized thank you dr smith any other questions or comments mr ken all right um from well miss miss fleming um mr cantham has a floor and then i'll i'll get to you oh no problem thanks and then mr lane's a lot i saw your hand too so okay um briefly from the curriculum perspective i know we talked about the safe
043return plan um and we've been talking about grants all all year so i'll save those two updates that are in the agenda uh if you have any questions you could ask me or mr mcgulick after but um the one update i did want to share was about the summer reading um theme be kind for our one district one theme i just wanted to say there's not only a variety of perspective there but also a variety of form we have a graphic-ish novel there which i think is really cool so i just wanted to mention that and then from the finance section 9.5 i wanted to thank the dharma and daniel walker foundation for their extremely generous donation in support of our district libraries um via the dion book drive it was uh very generous so
044thanks for that i had the opportunity to hear them speak about their foundation um at a community event uh last weekend and that was that was really great it was very inspiring so thanks for that thank you mr ken mr mr back in just a second that um what you said about the donation because i i uh at the uh yeah no like we both got to meet with mr mrs walker at the juneteenth event that the township organized in the dn organized last saturday and um very thankful for that generous donation of books a thousand dollars that's that's uh quite quite a um a gift so thank you again to the walker foundation and i would i'd add too if the books are ordered and we're excited they're on the way i i was
045like the voice of god i had no idea where you were coming from i looked over here and i'm like like marianne's not moving um all right uh miss fleming the floor is yours um thank you miss fleming mr lanzalotta thank you for your patience thanks thank you mr mascara um i'd like to piggyback on what miss everhart and what miss fleming said about our retirees but i'd also like to congratulate the new hires that were in uh 10 10 agenda items 10 10. a special shout out goes to dan foursier who is my neighbor i'd like to just say welcome to the family to all of the new hires and also congratulations to all of the eighth grade graduates i'm sure we're going to get to that but i just wanted to make sure
046i i acknowledge all of you congratulations any other questions or comments miss ryan um i just wanted to thank the walkers for reaching out and i was glad i could point them in the right direction and hook them up with dr smith and the district truly appreciate your generosity and i do want to give a shout out to all our custodial staff i mean the past couple weeks have been hot and they have set up for lead graduations they have set up for graduation itself and they've done an amazing amazing job so shout out to our whole custodial staff thank you for keeping us safe all year and thank you for all your hard work they were they were fantastic last night the graduations they they were absolutely fantastic uh and the graduations the graduations
047mr hoffman i know um mr menelli's not here but uh seamless and and great transition into the outdoor spectrum it brought me back to uh into 1995 when i was out on there as a middle school student so it was uh yeah it's a little flashback there but nice nice job excellent job by everybody involved any other questions or comments all right seeing none we're gonna go for a roll call again remember it is for items uh seven through eleven not the convenience store mrs cappella yes this is everhart yes mr fizzakaro yes miss fleming yes mr captain uh yes to everything except for 9.4 line item three because that's me is that are you abstaining or now oh abstaining from from 9.4 line item three yes everything else okay thank you mr lanzalata yes
048mr megan yes mrs ryan yes to everything but 10 uh nine point four board member driver on the state abstain please okay uh motion carries thank you at this point in time we're gonna be moving into committee reports are there any committees that have a report that they have not shared yet all right uh mr lanzalata thank you mr prescher i'd like to just thank uh principals irene romanelli and nick de blasi as well as the dion representatives for meeting with dr smith and the community outreach committee on june 14th discussed was the east the evesham juneteenth celebration the dion book drive as well as their proposal for equality and uh equity for all your students it went very well and it looks like there's a great relationship being formed between the dion group and
049the eastern school district so thank you thank you mr lanzada anybody else miss everhart i'm not the committee chair for the ed foundation but i just okay well i just wanted to talk about the golf downing i i worked at golf outing and i just wanted to say that it was a successful event i can't remember the last time uh that the ed foundation golf event was sold out so coming off of the heels of a pandemic and having a sold out event of which we get proceeds from that for uh genesis and and uh metamorphosis uh so thank you to everyone who participated in the gotham i also wanted to say that this year they recognized the service of our school nurses which was something different um they recognized other individuals as well but
050i the fact that they recognized all the hard work and commitment that everyone in the district does but specifically to the nursing staff who helped us have a successful school year so thank you to the ed foundation for that and i'll turn it over to you well i really don't have anything else to add other than thank you to the eastern education foundation and all those who participated in the golf outing the district appreciates your efforts in supplying us with extra funds for some great programs and thank you miss everhart for working and supporting anybody else all right seeing none we're going to move number 13 old business there is no old business so we'll move to item 14 new business surprise surprise there is no new business all right not not the end of
051june right at this point in time we're going to item 15 open public comment this meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest however your 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 let your comments the three minutes per person anybody wish to speak just if you can give me your uh your name and address sure brittany relvis 127 crown prince drive um i usually have three children in tow they are not here because they are out of the country so it is my job to speak on their behalf i want to speak on the mask mandy i think it's disgusting what we're doing to
052our children i think your answer of following the guidance of governor murphy is an excuse you know there's a lot of moms here that are supporting you know each other and trying to do the best for these kids you know last night was lenape regional you know language was changed there to make mass optional um medford mask optional you know these are our surrounding districts these are our babies you talked about a health risk well let's talk about a mental health risk um you know i work for the state of new jersey i work with parolees it's been a long 16 months for everyone but when my guys coming out of state prison have more rights in state prison than my children do in their classroom i have a big problem with that one thing
053mentioned in your safety plan it talks about the correct wearing a mass well as i sit here for almost an hour there's multiple board members that with my mass knowledge i would think that they're not correctly wearing those masks so if we're just doing it as a show we could stop now it's time to fight and stand up for our children i pay taxes here my kids go to school here we had a conversation i know i'm not supposed to call anyone out but i asked a very specific question about my children and what the enrollment date was to unenroll my kids so that money wasn't counted for my three children and i was told that's not how it works i know that's how it works you guys have a right to do what's right
054by these children and what you're doing right now is not right i understand you sent a letter but then you went and you put mass mandatory in your return to school plan that's talking out of two sides of your mouth it's time to stand up and fight for these children my kids are in portugal right now my five-year-old calls me every day the first question she asked me is do we have to wear a mess when we go back to school this is disgusting okay i'm not going to get into all the headaches and migraines my twins have dealt with i finally pulled him two weeks early because one was throwing up in a bag and my five-year-old wasn't allowed to play in free time anymore because her teacher felt that she wasn't wearing her
055mask correctly but again as i stand here i see that people don't know how to wear masks correctly and the fact that we are going to put that on these poor teachers too because they should be massless as well to teach these kids um i think it's time for you guys to step up as a board and do what's right for our children here in eve shame i'm done thank you thank you same thing uh name and address please lauren golden 137 holes elaine um i want to piggyback off of what she said about the health and welfare of our children what these masks are doing is inhibiting their health the way that they learn my children have been suffering i've gotten numerous phone calls from the nurse headaches chest pains stomach aches nosebleeds never
056happened before this year my eight-year-old daughter has come home with a different mask on multiple times because while she's sitting there taking a math test her nose starts dripping with blood can i tell you before september that child never had one nosebleed niece would you like to come to walk she would like to tell you how much she does not enjoy wearing a mask how bad she wants to see her teacher's faces and every time almost every day i come home from school i come home telling my mom that i've been to the nurse because of nosebleed nosebleeds headaches chest planes and trouble breathing and um i've been going to the nurse after i come in from lunch and recess because i've been running around on the playground with the mask on because they say
057i have to wear it while i'm playing and it's making me happy have trouble breathing while i'm running around and it just makes it hard for me to breathe concentrate in school because um the mask is like kind of blocking a little bit of your sight so it's hard to concentrate in school because it's hard for you to breathe good job you want to talk though stage right here you want to say something okay it's okay there i got it what we discussed earlier before what she wanted to tell you about that all she wanted to do all here was see her friends faces her teacher's face and anything else maybe what i'm having trouble learning what [Music] it's okay sorry she's a little shy in front of you guys yeah baby it is it
058is intimidating i think i totally understand that you did good honey but from what i know murphy has left it up to the board of ed and what you guys need to do is do right by these kids let them get the education that they deserve thank you thank you name and address please nick salford ate wellesley way uh i'm a medical biostatistician i'm a product of the lenape regional high school system i've graduated from lenape and i've recently tested testified at the assembly of the state house to discuss the statistics regarding children in covid19 i have come here today to present to you what i presented to them here is a pie chart of all of the different debt causes of death for school-aged children between the ages of 5 and 18. you can
059see here out of all the deaths right here from the time from 2020 january 2020 to may 2021 three three died from covet 18. 80 died from accidental injuries 32 died from homicide and suicide is 37 children i have hidden here the rate beyond coven children die from homicide 11 times more than coven 19 within this time and yet we do not require children to wear kevlar vests to school for their protection three died from covid and we still require them to wear a medical intervention by definition of the fda that mask that you're wearing is a medical device if you go to the fda website it's under emergency authorized use it is for the prevention of disease okay so it is a medical device that you have on your face according to the fda
060this pie chart shows that there's no reason for medical intervention over half of the people have already had immunity probably up to 70 percent the amount of children that will die from cover 19 or even be hospitalized is shown by the the cdc to be only about uh 0.001 percent to be hospitalized is point zero zero two percent it's hardly anything your child's risk of dying in a car an accident is one in seventy five hundred and yet we still let them get in cars every day okay what you're doing is putting a medical device using a medical intervention which is a mask on children that they do not need a medical intervention and it is a medical device according to the fda and i know what a medical device is because part of my
061job is to do clinical trials and what i do is i take a medical device and put it on a population of people and do a study does that sound familiar to you i take a medical device like a mask and put it on a population of people that's what you're doing in the school you're conducting a clinical trial just like i do now i realize the governor told you to do that but it doesn't make it ethical and it doesn't make it right and it doesn't mean that you know what you're doing when you put this mask on the kids at school you're collecting adverse events where's your adverse event report from the mask where is that you have a nurse's log where is the reporting system that you do parents have adverse events
062their children are going to doctor's appointments who's liable for that you never had one parent sign a consent form for your clinical trial that you're doing in the school and you can tell me you're not doing a clinical trial but you're putting a medical device on their face as defined by the fda that's what you're doing and you have no incidence reports you take no responsibility for the mask you don't have trained people making sure it's worn properly not wet and taking all the safety precautions plus you just don't know what you're doing and i realize the governor told you to do that but it doesn't make it ethical and it doesn't make it right and now you know and somebody's going to be held accountable and it's not going to be governor murphy it's
063going to be the people who put the mask on the kids every day those doctors appointments and those adverse events and the timeless lost learning from masks is your responsibility it's yours and eventually it's going to come and you're going to figure it out and it's going to be very uncomfortable i'm glad i'm not in your position because if i was i would leave the board because i would lose my job because it is unethical to do what you're doing and i'm just letting you know that it's coming the law will eventually come up and it'll eventually meet up to where this is it's unprecedented but it's eventually going to catch up to you thank you thank you anybody else your name and address please don't i'd twist this or something thanks yeah um joey
064tug larry uh my address is uh for one for cedric lane and i go to i i'll be a sophomore this upcoming year for cherokee high school i've been in this school since through sixth and eighth grade and i just think this mask stuff needs to stop because it's like it's almost like these kids don't have a say and i don't think that's right and for example i have a brother who just graduated sixth grade and since probably 2020 of the fall me and him started playing sports and it's all like a same group of kids all the same kids at school who are doing much more than at like at the desk it's they have lower risk of even getting this virus than from playing soccer or any other sport and being with each
065other and even in those conditions no one has gotten the virus i've been doing wrestling for high school there was only one case of covet on my team and there's many kids in all these sports and i don't know the exact like numbers but i'm sure it's not a lot and with the masks too uh about in uh this year last year i went to school i have pretty bad allergies so i went to school and i started to sneeze and i snot would build up in my mask and it was basically just drenched when i came home my parents were shocked it's not coming down my chin it was just the most horrible thing like i ever experienced being in school and i think and i know i'm not the only kid who's gone
066through that i've had friends who've had stuff like that and i know there's so many more kids who've had so like it's just not right because it like what she said only three kids that's nothing compared to the amount of kids that are in schools so that's oh i can and that before i end i just want you to think what it felt like for me being in the school with a wet mask for like probably five hours a day and trying to get through that day so that's all i have to say thank you thank you [Applause] right anyone else how you doing name and address is that good doing a great job gary actually let you know [Laughter] thank you um good evening i'm sheldo tori woodlands development i'd like to acknowledge the
067traditional landowners throughout northern america and recognize their continuing connection to land waters and culture the land on which this board is meeting on is being held on part of the ancient homeland and territory of the lenie lenape people i pay my respects to people's continuing past present and emerging and i respect their continuing presence in the homeland and throughout the lenape diaspora i represent dion where a local community-led advocate group addressing diversity equity and inclusion that land acknowledgement that i just read i read it the last time that i was here last month as well it took me probably 25 seconds and i really encouraged the board to act on implementing that into your meetings i know that we have talked about it before and um it would be it would be a really great
068example to not just your students but to all of your staff and to everybody in the community to join the likes of eshim township council and eastern township human rights advisory committee to actually open your meetings doing a land acknowledgement in addition i'm also here to say thank you to dr justin smith mr anish kantham jeff lanzalotta irene ramanelli and mr nick de blasi for meeting with us on thursday last week we went through the dion proposal summary which we have talked about for several months now basically the goals and we talked about the goals and the importance of having an inclusive interdis disciplinary curriculum the urgency to increase in hiring diverse faculty providing faculty and staff with guidance from outside entities that are specifically trained to educate professionals on implicit bias and tactical dei
069and offering multicultural extracurricular activities to students so we hope that you guys found the proposal summary and that conversation helpful we did provide quite a lot of research and data and also resources on how these things can be addressed in eastern township school district we want um what dion is you know with the partnership that we have with the school district we want to be better than just the standards we want to be better than new jersey minimum standards we'd love to be an example to other districts who want to come to you as professionals and get your advice on how they can do these things in their school district so thank you for attending that meeting it was really um it was a really good conversation we had also um dion as mentioned earlier
070dion partnered with eastern township to hold the town's first juneteenth celebration this past saturday june 19th it was held at savage field which we know is an indigenous burial ground probably more important to add indeland acknowledgement given that we have the history right here um i along with nicole lucas we were not only hosted um the day we also had spent many weeks earlier to try and organize that liaison with the township the program was very robust and included um several local students and alumni of evsham township school district who sang danced and read poetry sorry commemorating on the richness of black culture and we also celebrated the end of the dion book drive which you guys have also been talking about throughout this meeting so we have entered it it was a really successful
071two months it started april 21st and ended on june 21st of the past monday i just wanted to let you all know that we collected over 350 books we raised 2 and one hundred dollars worth of cash and gift cards um for amazon so this far exceeded our original goal of collecting 250 books uh we'd like to also thank daniel and darwin walker from their foundation who donated um a thousand dollars towards the uh dion book drive and thank you mrs mcgulick for liaising with them on the purchase of those books it's really appreciated we also want to say thank you to rastelli's um food market who donated 300 worth of amazon gift cards to us so on the day we had the education chair for the southern burlington county branch naacp mr clinton law
072who um came and he commented on the book drive and he commented on the partnership with dion um he also you know just expressed here the importance of all students being represented in what they read and exposing non-minority children as well to children of diversity from a young age so he along with dion members attended and presented books to a group of students so current students within ysham township school district they came up on stage they were there with um dr smith and mr kantham and it was really good to see you guys attend and mrs mcgulick as well we really encourage that um all board members trying to attend these things too it really is important to students to be able to see these faces who make decisions in their education we also wish
073to extend the sincere thank you and generosity to the support shown throughout the community and we're excited to continue to work to work with um the board and to work with you dr smith and mrs mcgulick um for for you know in the future for a better curriculum in a more diverse friendly um schools thank you thank you very much name and address rick wells buckley lane marlton i've been paying property tax in this town for 30 years first thing i want to do is congratulate these people that had enough passion to come here and complain i'm very surprised that there wasn't 3 000 people here just like these people here the board of ed's throughout this country are being attacked viciously by parents because their voices are not being heard their children are suffering
074they're wearing masks i had i i dealt with a kindergarten grandson remote kindergarten i mean 180 days horrible horrible uh i'm not wearing a mask because i've been doubly vaccinated i'm assuming you're all wearing masks because you haven't been vaccinated that's what cdc told us i'm i'm surprised that you're wearing masks may i ask why you're wearing masks are you told to wear a mask or have you not been vaccinated no no one on the board is is going to talk about their medical history or what they've done i'm not i mean we're not doing that uh again i'll rearray i am surprised that there's hardly anybody here i was expecting not to be able to get into this room but it'll change every month that you're supposedly having meetings more and more people will
075be coming here because they are outraged you've seen it in loudoun county virginia in california people have had enough people had enough wake up see how these kids are suffering i assume you don't have kids that are in school obviously or you would do something about it i mean governor murphy he got it wrong from day one by not protecting the elderly okay so keep an open mind these kids are not getting sick in school thank you thank you all right seeing no other comment we are going to close that portion of the board and we are going to move into board member announcements are there any announcements i think we kind of covered everything yeah all right um mr lancelata very quick thank you mr pittskara you know i just wanted to reiterate one
076more time a huge thanks to all the staff uh for all throughout throughout the school district as a teacher and a parent i know how exhausting this school year was and i have to tell you that despite all the mandates despite the rules despite everything that we went through the teachers here really came through the whole staff really came through and it was an extremely effective school year despite all of the obstacles so i want to throw out just a huge thank you to everyone who participated this year and helped out you know with all of our students so thank you very much anybody else it's a daunting year exhaustion is all around and i would just close out by saying to everyone who's listening and those who i hope really aren't and are on
077vacation mode that uh every single one of you deserve your vacation um parents student and especially staff for everything everything you have done i know it is it's been i don't even i honestly and you know me i don't even have the words for it at this point i think i've exhausted my vocabulary this year uh but you all deserve a very restful and rejuvenated summer and i wish you all the best in health and happiness uh for the coming months and thank you for the best that you could give us which was amazing thank you at this point in time i'm looking for a motion to adjourn motion by miss ryan seconded by mr lanzalotta all in favor aye have a wonderful summer everyone [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you