BOE Meeting 3/25 @ 7:00PM

001[Music] so [Music] so [Music] i'm going to start this out a little a little different than normal um usually when we begin a board meeting it's before executive session and there's there's no one really here uh because this is also live stream i have to start off with by getting a countdown to basically be on camera so i'm going to do that do that now and then we'll start the uh sort of scheduled board meeting so thank you all for your patience better when you are ready just let me know i'm ready to go i like to call to order this meeting of the eastern township board of education 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

002manner posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the board of education office emailing written notice to the berlin county times in the courier post filing written notice with the municipal clerk of yvesham township may i have a roll call please mrs cappello here this is everhart here mr fizzicaro here miss fleming here mr catherine here mrs noll mr lancelot here mr megan here mrs ryan here we have a quorum thank you at this point in time i ask that we please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance indivisible with liberty [Music] um [Music] um [Music] you [Music] team [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] ah [Music] hmm [Music] um [Music] hmm [Music] ah [Music] hey [Music] [Applause]

003[Music] um [Music] um [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hmm [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] good [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] [Laughter] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] of the eastern township board of education if we could all please rise for the pledge i pledge allegiance and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all welcome back everyone uh we have uh moving into presentations we have none for this evening all

004right so we will be moving uh strictly uh first into public comment of agenda items only this 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 superintendent after the meeting since you do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments at three minutes per person all right uh is there anyone here for agenda items only good evening debbie van curan etea president tonight on the agenda there is once again a calendar change that the board is being asked to vote on i want to urge you to vote no to this change remote wednesdays have been a back and forth conversation since the beginning of the school year when we developed

005our restart plan during this pandemic everyone has been in agreement that remote wednesdays are crucial to making this crazy year work we all want life to go back to normal but we can't sacrifice the students who have chosen to learn remotely this year these remote wednesdays have been crucial for our staff to work in small groups to catch up those students who are behind due to the circumstances of this pandemic remote wednesdays have given our students that time to get small group instruction that is needed and wouldn't necessarily be an option without remote wednesdays our middle school staff will especially struggle to meet the needs of the remote students our staff has been using the remote wednesdays for office hours to catch up with the remote students with upcoming irs meetings id meetings and iep

006meetings that are already scheduled how will we have enough sub coverage for our teachers who have been attending those meetings during remote wednesdays is this a fair thing to put on our building administrators we are already struggling with getting enough subs to cover absences board members please listen to our concerns before you vote on this calendar and to summarize i have a few questions for dr smith number one dr smith how will you cover our heavy load of spring iep and id meetings when getting subs is already an issue number two is taking away crucial remote wednesday is going to be in the best interest of all students especially our all remote students and those students who are behind due to an ongoing pandemic number three for clarification when do you expect teachers to meet

007with these remote students and number four can you tell us this evening how this would look on a normal day in a classroom i look forward to your answers before the board members are asked to vote on changing the calendar well first off uh i think um you know in-person board meetings are a nice way to facilitate conversation during public comment the best way to facilitate conversation is to have one anytime you know so i would like to say that i think it's a little interesting that those questions get asked for the first time from you in a public meeting which i'm glad to answer but this is not the way conversations typically occur is there a reason why you waited until today it just was brought to my attention by several members this afternoon

008that they wanted me to speak on behalf of this topic okay so i'll answer some of your uh your questions in a in a way that i hope um encompasses them but i also don't want this to become a series of questions from one member after another all right when the best way to have a conversation and communication was something you spoke about last meeting right isn't that true that's correct okay so i think that probably that's a two-way street right well i think some of our members met with you this afternoon and they didn't feel like they got answers so they had asked me to bring it up this evening okay so it's very interesting i think that um so i did i did meet with um uh blue seven this afternoon right one

009person reached out and i met because conversation is much better than email and it's much better than a public format right the biggest takeaway and and this is underlying your question is that reaching kids is hard always reaching kid is reaching kids is hard before a pandemic if you teach 130 kids you're always struggling to find time to reach 130 kids one-on-one so your questions are really driving it education itself in a lot of ways ips inrs all the factors that you named we have talked through an administrative team and we have solutions so you know that that part i appreciate bringing up it is not enough to stop thousands of kids from coming back into school because we want to have a meeting with 10 people okay to your piece about meeting one-on-one i

010would be glad to meet with any teachers any groups of teachers talk about that but really having meetings in small groups to talk about things shows respect for the individuals respect for the importance of the task and respect for the context and all the variables so i'm not going to have a conversation here about generalities which wastes time but if you want to have a discussion about context and individuals i'm always ready thank you very much seeing no more public comment we're going to close that portion of the oh mr jenks i am so sorry uh thank you i appreciate it um board members i'd like to address both uh you folks and the teachers quite frankly tonight uh agenda's uh item 7.5 attentive budget and uh items we'll start with the exec one my

011executive summary uh and that is teachers be careful what your union asks for you might just get it uh and of course the revised reopening plan which was just uh just proposed if if you really want to keep your jobs teachers i'd recommend you demand the board approve the following in-person learning and that is five days a week for all students and teachers beginning this monday and the reason for that is fairly clear we all know that the kovid is a black swan for those of you who may have read the book and there are two aspects obviously it's a deadly nature the deadly nature of this thing is critical but it's also there's also a technology response to this issue the deadly nature of the disease is easy to understand however the response by

012the technology is going to be a sea change and it already has uh in the way that people work and within one year it's estimated of course you know a quarter of the americans are now working at home this fax has not been lost on the entrepreneurs in silicon valley and beyond folks at microsoft twitter facebook instagram now recognize their ability to facilitate this novel approach to work and if it works in the office they're going to make it work in the educational enterprise they see this is a multi-trillion dollar gold mine that is waiting to be tapped california is currently looking at hybrid options for elementary and secondary school learning and the social media and tech giants are pouring millions and millions into startups okay to get a piece of this trillion dollar action

013let me explain the remote hybrid tech model of of uh learning in uh in the uh enterprise first of all you what you do is you put a 65-inch screen in the front of every classroom and a team of two or three teachers the best in the district perhaps teach that grade level the entire grade level this is being done in california by the way the students fill the classroom and teach your assistants make sure the students don't fall asleep have enough pencils and are not causing any discipline issues and so they have the right notebooks and other materials simple first so for each grade level you need two or three teachers in each grade level look at california look at california [Music] and so instead of having 350 400 certified teachers you need 40.

014in it it's working and it's starting in california so instead of making 100k a year these teachers uh have the opportunity and i'm sure you would give them the opportunity to uh make you know uh be a teacher assistant making twenty five thousand dollars a year if hybrid learning gets a foothold in the state of new jersey or in this district i would really encourage the teachers to take a very s critical look at remote learning do the math you want to save 20 million dollars in your budget remote learning is the answer and if it's going to be approved in california you can be sure it's coming to new jersey your educational association has been an advocate of remote learning if i were you i'd be screaming at your union reps telling them do

015not let remote learning get a foothold in either this district or this state it's the old story be careful what you ask for you may just get it technology has eliminated millions and millions of jobs mr johnson as sure as the sunrise in the east it's going to eliminate some more i'd be happy to uh i'd really like my comments to be included in the minutes of the meeting all public comments are in one way shape or form included so i appreciate that yeah by the way it was john jenks carlton avenue that's right i i jumped the gun on that i apologize for not for not seeing you get up i'm sorry i apologize for that didn't mean to call you off is there another public comment in the back please come on up

016and please if i if i um if i close up public comment before you get a chance to speak stop me okay it's just i can't i can't see who's speaking uh and and secondly i will try to give you as much affordable time as possible but do not take it as a sign of any type of disrespect if i tried to close uh close up your your comments so to wrap it up i'm sorry please guys good evening my name is phil woznick i'm a teacher at walter middle school for 27 years i have a question regarding regarding the wording from the part of the revision plan um the wording is the revision is at least six feet of distance the plan now is going to read at least six feet of distance with

017a maximum extent practicable so i guess what i'm asking is can you put a quantitative value on maximum extent practicable when receiving children 24 25 children in a classroom dr smith sure thank you mr wosdick um so this we've been following cdc and the njduh guidance all year and the update announced last friday by the cdc which was followed up this week by the njduich document establishes three to six feet which we will be within in those cases where we need to go below six feet but always to the maximum extent practicable okay but the wording is maximum so shouldn't it be three to six feet then because this is kind of vague is it not maximum extent practicable if you look at the document it's entirely based on the cdc and doh guidelines all

018right so thank you anybody else wish to speak seeing none i will close this portion of the board thank you everyone all right we're going to move to item six now uh and that's approval of the minutes i need a motion to approve items six one through six three do i have a motion motion by ms capello uh seconded by miss ryan any questions or comments pertaining to six uh to approval of the minutes seeing none let's go with the roll call please mrs cappello yes this is everhart yes mr fizzagaro yes miss fleming abstain mr catherine yes mrs noll abstain i missed the meeting mr lanzalotta yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries thank you moving to item seven now this is superintendent's report and administrative items i need a motion to

019prove items seven one through seven eight do i have a motion motion by mr lanzalata second up mr cantham uh dr smith uh the floor is yours for any informational items in your report thank you mr fizzakero so i'd like to start off my comments by thanking everyone who yesterday emailed called tweeted and more relating to the sos support our students legislative day this is a timely day for us in particular as a district given the financial challenges we're facing due to reduced state funding which was catalyzed through s2 four years ago and is it is a seven year state funding reduction sequence that we are currently in year four of so support our students for those who don't know it's an advocacy group representing the over 130 districts who are having their state funding

020reduced through s2 i did want to dedicate a few words to an email i received from a parent this week which i thought was um represented a viewpoint that i've heard less often but which is very important basically this is a you know a parent in our district a local business owner whose business has lost significant revenue due to the pandemic this year and i know we all know that the pandemic has brought economic hardship on many families and including many business owners who've lost revenue to even greater amounts than the already tremendous percentages that our district is having to cut this year and uh that's been in our thoughts and in our minds as we've worked to provide as much support as we can for families through in-person learning and the best remote learning

021that we can provide the uh the budget this year is actually lower than our budget in 2018-19 but our residents have sham won't feel that because even though our budget is less than it was in 2018-19 our taxes have to keep going up in order to make up the shortfalls due to reduced state funding so every year the percentage of our budget funded by local tax levy keeps going up and the percentage funded by state funding keeps going down um regarding our reopening plan so um as mr wallastic mentioned uh the it's a it's a minor but huge revision to be able to enable this option of going less than six feet for bringing work students back in for more days of learning many districts have already done this or are starting to along a

022timeline similar than our similar to ours so we were looking at april 12th for bringing back all remaining elementary classrooms and april 19th for all remaining middle school classrooms and it just was very fortuitous that the cdc released their guidance update last friday which was followed this week by the new jersey department of health which has been following the cdc all year basically uh you know sort of underlining emphasizing the direction we're already on the um all classrooms have and will continue to have a minimum of three feet as we essentially shift all cohort a and b students to cohort a b leaving us was essentially two cohorts an in-person cohort attending every every day in person and a remote cohort which is attending remotely every day the um and pending approval of this reopening

023plan this evening our schools will communicate starting tomorrow with families about this shift i will add at the new jersey cove activity level report that was released today shows our southwest region to be in the orange time which is high risk the new jersey department of health recommendation at that level is three feet or more for elementary and six feet or more from middle school we have three more coveted activity level reports between now and april 19th which is the date we've scheduled the return of all middle school students and in the meantime we'll be watching and observing as we have done all year those additional covet level reports and continue to make decisions based on that data supporting health and safety of students and staff so if we are still orange or high risk

024by the time of the april 15th coveted level report we may need to delay the middle school shift right because that guidance says six feet or more for middle school and we need to go below six feet to bring all the rest of the middle school students in the nj deuce guidance does say three feet or more for elementary when you're in the orange level so for elementary we're good why are we doing this now well for one thing we've been doing school in person all year we know it works and can be done safely and in april and i don't think anyone would have predicted this but it will be 13 months over a year since we were able to provide full in-person learning for everyone who wants it over a year and you

025think about the young lives we're talking about those kids and it represents a significant portion of their entire life for me i'm in my 40s but if i was in elementary school that would be a huge part of my life that kids have not experienced the feeling of just going to school every day for a full day and our goal is that in april starting april 12th we'll be able to do that for elementary and april 19th from middle school like i said the cdc and the njdoh just are confirming that path we're on so to that end as well on the revised calendar that i've got on the board agenda for approval this evening as i announced uh last friday all remaining remote learning wednesdays have been converted to in-person learning days mrs manchin

026brought that up in her questions many good reasons for this for one we give back a full fifth of any given five-day week to kids coming into school and our remote classes continue to be served in all the variety of ways that they are the um [Music] the health and safety component of that day which was part of its initial creation to create a buffer between cohorts a and b by now we have had many weeks where court a and cohort b came in on adjacent days we've seen no negative health or safety impact from that plus by having more kids in school together and and merging the cohorts the the health and safety piece of that day which was to keep those cohorts separate ceases to exist so on the scale of needs the

027arm the heavily weighted arm of all the positives that day surmounts the challenges the adjustments that have to get made to continue to provide as much as we can for example like the meetings that we have scheduled on those days we will adjust and things like that but to to not do those days because of that is a tremendous cost and that is my superintendent's comments mr thank you dr smith doctors i have a question am i allowed to ask just gonna okay i'm just taking a look at the calendar and i noticed and this is just clarification i know the answer but i just wanted to make sure everyone else is aware you do have a and b on the calendar as well um continuing into april may and june and i just wanted

028um you to clarify why those letters are still there if we're collapsing the cohorts for anyone out there listening thank you miss ryan that's a great question um it's been a year where we've seen you know i think back to uh i think the word that got repeated twice on an opening slide for a reopening plan was tentative tentative right i mentioned tonight the covet activity level reports and it would be you know to remove those days would be a little bit premature just since we don't control clovid in in new jersey in our region in the community so um hopefully we will not need those a and b days anymore after april 19th but again they're there if we do essentially thank you miss ryan any other questions or comments the only comment that

029i would add on to this um tom in terms of talking about uh families and students uh something i brought up to you before and i just wanted to kind of reiterate it again um we pocket students and families into two groups those who go full remote and those who want to come back full-time and i i know that there are parents that are kind of like in between that they're they want to bring their kids in full time but they're more in a kind of a weaning in factor um i know that there is no way to build that into what we're doing but i i just hope that as a district will be try to be accommodating to if there's mitigating examples of uh you know auto immune disorders or anything along those

030lines but they're battling you know anxiety at home and there's a lot of issues there and i just want to make sure that even if it's not built here we are just sensitive of that um mr pursue i'm glad you brought that up because um actually two reasons one um so of our two cohorts that we're um planning for one is in person and one is remote so the remote option remains in place our cohort r stays as it is and any parent can choose cohort r and choose remote at any time um and and i i also want to say i saw um governor murphy announced um earlier this week that um there would be no remote learning for um the fall and i think that and our goal here certainly is you know

031to offer five full days of in-person learning for anyone who wants it but i do you mention autoimmune and i do want to say that um i think you know as more thought is given to that proclamation that there are you know that there may need to be a remote option for particular students who are um in particular medical situations and i i didn't you know i just want to that that sometimes can't be it's a lot of complexity to come to a tweet but but i think that that's something important that we should keep keeping in mind as we look to september i appreciate that yeah it's it's funny as as you talk to people there's people who are like completely elated to come back and those who are still nervous and then there's

032just those people in between so the idea that we're being thoughtful about that is very important to me any other questions or comments i'm bringing the students back uh more students back so what does it look like for the teachers actually in the classroom are there many teachers that are still having to teach the in-person and then students at home so i know some have to be um i'm just thinking of an example in my neighborhood a first grade class it was full remote one friend decided to send their kids back in the other friend they still want to be remote i'm assuming the remote they're going to have that same teacher that teacher is now going into the school and teaching in person half the class so they're still going to be managing the

033two cohorts and how often how many classrooms is that happening in yes so i'm glad you brought up because we have a we have a group of all remote classes and some of them have been slowly converting to hybrid classes so that parents who want to stay remote with that teacher we're talking elementary level because elementary level has dedicated remote classes so those students are staying with their remote teacher if the parents want to stay remote but the teacher herself is is coming in person and students in the class who want to choose in person can can come in person then with that teacher if she's able to come in we have some some staff who are teaching for medical reasons remotely and will not be able to return to in person and in that

034case we find seats for those students whose parents want them to come in person in other classes at that grade level that makes sense classrooms so they're not being taught by that same teacher so yes so if a teacher if a teacher is teaching remotely because of um medical reasons of their own then that they will have to stay remote because of their needs but there might be students in that class whose parents say okay we're ready to come in person and so in order to do that they would have to go to a different teacher because the teacher that they've been having for the remote class can't come in person that makes sense because okay i was thinking like i think it was maybe cherokee that this happened and they also they had a

035substitute you know managing the students in the class so we're not doing that okay just trying to keep this all straightened yeah it's there's that's there's many many more parts to all this so and continue to be because even as complex as it is the landscape that it it's a complex machinery with many wheels turning and but what it sits on what it rests on is itself always in motion because the larger landscape regionally state nationally is always changing with guidance and so on sure and just one other quick comment because it make what joe said about anxiety and what you're describing elementary now you're putting a seven-year-old in the classroom with a different teacher correct and different students than they've had and that could cause some anxiety which brings me to miss mcgoulick and

036the federal funding that you talked about in curriculum and there's a portion you're doing the grant writing to get those funds there's a portion set aside for mental health in our district i just hope that we talk about or somehow bring that into the lower grades these kids have anxiety so i don't know what you were thinking to use that mental health money for but i'd like to see more support for this you know at the lower grades for these students that's my two cents and and we definitely are already looking at that and we used to spend that money i know we do a lot but i'm just saying we're getting money now let's you know do everything we can because it's been tough on the kids as it has been with all of

037us but you know we can't forget about the kids any other questions or comments all right let's go to a roll call please mrs cappello yes mrs everhart yes mr fizzlecaro yes miss fleming yes mr captain yes mrs noll yes mr lanzalotta yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes mission carries okay moving to item eight curriculum and instruction into motion to prove items eight one through eight seven do i have a motion motion mr canton do i have a second second if i miss ryan are there any questions or comments pertaining to curriculum and instruction all right seeing none let's go to a roll call please mrs cappello yes this is everhart yes mr fizzycarrow yes ms fleming mr canton yes mrs noel yes mr lanzalotta yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries

038okay now we're moving into finance and operations i need a motion to approve items 9 1 through 9 19. do i have a motion motion by miss fleming seconded by miss knoll questions or comments pertaining to finance and operations seeing none let's go to a roll call please mrs cappello yes mrs everhart yes mr fizzagaro yes miss fleming yes mr canthan yes mrs noel yes mr lanzalata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries thank you moving to item 10 personnel and motion approved items 10 1 through 10 10. do i have a motion by miss fleming seconded by miss ryan any questions or comments of personnel miss uh miss everhart i just uh want to say congratulations to those that are retiring i want to do a special shout out to mr summers

039um i over the last before kovid i guess i went and attended with another board member elaine barbara giovanni and sometimes with miss knowle and mrs ryan we would go to county school board seminars and different dinners where we would learn about a lot of different things as school board members and i want to say that on several occasions several over two years time i attended meetings and there would be stuff there about safety and security and technology different topics and mr summers would be there in attendance as a representative from the school district and he was so respected and revered by other individuals in the same area and i just want to say that i was so grateful that he was you know our guy and uh that he kept us in the forefront

040with technology um i remember as a board member a couple years ago going to see wow i think ipads in kelly cam's class a long time ago i'm really dating myself there but you know the introduction of ipads at this at the elementary school level with dave dave silver who we were just a little nervous about putting technology in the hands of these little people and he was wonderful just setting them up and having this stuff with little people as they grow and develop in the school district he's kept us along with his staff but it's his night tonight so i just want to say he's doing a great job and and i wish you a lot of luck but i'm sad that you're going but i i see that you're cultivating a nice group

041of individuals here mr case and i wish you godspeed and a good job and thank you for putting us where we are today so good luck well i don't know how i'm going to piggyback off that but i do want to say um congratulations to all those retiring but i do want to give a special shout out to mr summers i don't know if we could have gotten through this remote learning without you and your team your expertise is invaluable and we thank you for your years of service and thank you for training the up and coming future mr summers and frederick we appreciate you guys more than you know thank you any other questions or comments seeing none let's go to a roll call mrs cappello yes this is everhart yes mr fizakaro yes

042miss fleming yes mr canton yes mrs noel yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan i told him i was going to say no but i'll say yes [Music] thank you all right we're moving to item policy i need a motion to prove items one uh 11.1 to 11.4 we do have policy on here now motion by ms knoll seconded by miss ryan any questions or comments about the policy revisions miss ryan um i just wanted to let the board be made aware that the policy committee met and most of the policies that we are agreeing and approving tonight at least for the first reading are state mandated there is no wiggle room in wording or anything like that it's you know required by the state so the other items that we discussed as

043far as rewriting a couple of the policies are not on the agenda because the wording hasn't been finalized between mr dante and i and the rest of the policy committee so they'll be on the agenda in the upcoming months but these are pretty much state mandated so i just want to give everyone a heads up on that thank you miss ryan any questions or comments for our policy seeing none let's go to a roll call please mrs cappello yes mrs everhart yes mr fizzy caro yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes sir this is noel yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes this is ryan yes nation carries thank you and now we're into committee reports uh miss ryan gave her a policy committee report so i appreciate that uh any uh anybody else wish

044to share uh their committee reports skip okay all right um there are a couple here so bear with me um first of all regarding the reopening plan and this was already approved from the curriculum and instruction perspective um i think we need to emphasize that the calendar as ms ryan uh clarified earlier still has a and b cohorts on it despite us planning otherwise so everything is still tentative we're obviously changing the wording from the six feet down to the greatest extent possible and i'm glad that we waited until the cdc to lower it to three feet so we did that i know other districts were changing it early but i'm glad we we waited on that the other thing is an update on our student population as far as who's in class and who's

045not we have now 73 of our kids in person at least two days a week uh that is a four percent increase from last month and then of those 73 we have 65 percent of cohort eb so four days a week and that is an 18 increase from last month which is great um the other thing is as far as the grants are concerned so i know mrs noll spoke about the mental health grin so i have an update on that there are three different grants that we applied for it's called sursa and sr2 for the curious that is the corona response relief supplemental appropriations and the elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund the first one for cersa and sr2 is around 900 thousand dollars this one there's a lot of red tape with

046all of these grades but um this one we're allowed to use for air quality which i think is good because we did purchase the ionizers and that doesn't only affect uh covid but it also helps with the flu it helps with allergies help with dust mites things like that so we'll be able to buy replacement parts so we can ensure that ionizers are in the classroom and in the buildings for much longer than covet lasts we're also allowed to use it for bridging the gap of learning loss so i'm not sure how we're exactly going to articulate that but i think that's good um we were also given around sixty thousand dollars for learning acceleration which is another good thing and then like mrs noel said we have about fifty thousand dollars for mental health

047which brings me to my other mental health update mental health awareness month is in may the town council and the human rights advisory council are currently exploring some sort of round of seminars around mental health awareness month coming with that is a acknowledgement that our kids are obviously the the most affected in this time right i remember back to our august fifth meetings we were all in the room fiddling with our mass right but then kids were in teddy bear like there was no problem at all but just because they say there's not a problem doesn't mean there isn't one so they are at the town council level looking at how they can incorporate uh some seminars for the kids as well so i'll keep you guys updated on that um let's see oh last

048thing is uh sos so anyone who sent a letter for sos thank you for that um one day is is a good wake-up call for the state legislature but we have a lot more work to do so thank you thank you mr canton any other committee reports miss ryan well mine wasn't really a committee report before i'm so sorry i just um i just wanted to let everyone know that the um board policies that we're going to be taking a look at are policy zero one four five board member resignation and removal um we have to get a couple things clarified as far as language the next one we're looking at um is zero one five two election of board officers we're gonna get more language written for that and then the third one that

049we're looking at that's not on the agenda is 2415-20 every student succeeds act complaints and we just have like the strauss esme is some conflicting language so we're going to be taking a look at that so those are not on the agenda but they were discussed in policy thank you ms ryan any other committee reports seeing none let's uh we'll close up the reports all right item 13 is old business uh there is no old business in front of us nor an item 14 new business there is no new business in front of us all right this takes us to item 15. um a couple things real quick about this we're going to open public for any items of interest first off i want to say thank you um two weeks ago we had a

050budget meeting and i see a lot of familiar faces and i had asked you just in the kindness of your heart to please be respectful and you guys were above and beyond that call of duty and i i really appreciate that and of course i i will ask that again um in terms of that uh just be respectful of of the uh of the people up at the at the mic and of course the people here responding um when you do come up uh you know i'm gonna read this statement and just kind of give you a couple other things and then go forward with this the meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest however your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personal items or negotiations we'd

051ask 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 a couple things before we get started number one i have a statement that was emailed me i'm gonna read that one first so we can just you know just do that so it gives you guys the time that you are allowed it a lot it there uh like we said it's three minutes uh but we're going to try our best to allow you to finish up your points uh but please again i am i will never never uh be willfully disrespectful of you uh to to cut you off i will just please ask you to to wrap up that final point um state your name and your address

052also is incredibly important as well um there's only so much back and forth that we can do all right so i know that there are a lot of questions there but again that takes into that that time account all right first thing before anybody comes up i have a statement here that was emailed from the dion leadership that i'm going to read all right and is is as follows our parent resident and alumni group the diversity and equal opportunity network known as dion appreciates the budget issues the district is now facing and wishes the board well in dealing with the shortfall which is no easy task and affects so many things we wanted to let you know that we will be proceeding with an educational proposal for additional readings and subject areas to be infused

053into the curriculum for the january 2021 updated amistad law which also strongly supports new jersey department of education amistad curriculum to assist we will also be working on a book drive to assist at the difficult financial time a week like this for example where certain grades are reading colonial time readings is a perfect time to add additional resources and emphasis on the homicide curriculum we wish the district success in addressing the budget shortfall and look forward to additional meetings and working with dr smith and his staff as well as any other ways we may help sincerely deon leadership and members and again what i read was from dion and is not a reflection of the board of education all right um that is the only prepared statement that i have so at this time i

054would welcome anybody up here who wishes to to speak for any any item of interest and i and if i can i just want to say thank that to that statement i just want to say thank you to dion for the support that they're um talking about and planning with regard to book drive and any other anything else so we appreciate it very much and look forward to continuing our work together thank you dr smith okay just uh just form a line and just please make sure that there's there's distance and space there's plenty of time good evening tracy brown from marlton middle school um i'm actually speaking on behalf of our eta vice president who can't be here this evening hello my name is russ bowles clearly not i'm a teacher at demacy middle

055school and a vice president for the eshen township education association i wanted to be here in person tonight but i'm attending project lead the way training for our school district over the past few board of ed meetings we've heard dr smith state numerous times that e-t-a-e-t-e-a has done nothing to help the district with their budget shortfall that's just not true at a meeting in early december etea recommended that he approach the township to try to sell some of the properties the district still has we just recently found out during a meeting with members of the township committee they were the ones that approached him to purchase the properties why did they have to initiate this transaction this deal will give the district an estimated 700 000 more for their general fund we also made the

056recommendation to take away funds that each classroom teacher receives for classroom supplies this would add another estimated twenty seven thousand to the general fund most recently we recommended the district explore switching to the state health insurance plan this move could save thousands more we also have a broker that should actively be negotiating to lower our premiums after making this recommendation mr riccenti did not think it would save anything have you explored this option yet how much could we save and does it hurt to investigate this we continue to hear about the money the district lost but not too much about the money the district has received the cares act provided the district with 764 the second round of ess er allocations provided the district with one million twenty seven thousand six hundred seventy four dollars

057the most recent american rescue plan provided the district 959 000 that money along with the sale of the property is giving the district an additional estimated two million nine hundred forty nine thousand four hundred thirty eight dollars you've asked the members of eta to give back financially to help balance your budget why as of this morning you've still not communicated any changes to your plan you still plan to increase class sizes you still plan to take away a school counselor in the middle of a pandemic a time when they need a counselor more than ever and you're still planning to strip our dedicated paraprofessionals who have already been grandfathered in of their well-deserved benefits at our meeting last monday i asked you how can you expect eta to give back financially when you're still sitting

058on that money money that can be used to save the paris benefits so i ask you again what are you doing with the american rescue plan money what are you doing with the property sale money did you investigate switching health plans will you save our powers benefit thank you miss brown and mr bulls just wanted to say a couple comments uh in response to that um the the property sale just just for the record conversation started on that early after my arrival here so you know that the months i don't remember which month you shared in there but it was prior to the those times that you shared prior to december yes um the uh the relief money we're continuing to look at how we can allocate that in different ways you know it's it's

059we want to be strategic and thoughtful with that so um continue to look at do it dissipate being able to update folks um in the time ahead on that um the idea about um the healthcare um i don't know mr rushingto if you want to um talk about that a little bit i know the number that was shared when we looked at that when mr bulls brought that up was a possible possibly about 70 000 that could be saved you know and we are looking into that possibility if that if that is indeed what our broker feels could be saved um but the number that the total amount of savings from that suggestion was seventy thousand dollars one second the the money from from the stimulus package uh we don't know what the are we

060we're not aware yet of the riders of what what they're for because it's not just like it's not just a blank check no it has specific uses that you that you can put put it towards so um the sr2 money we have those uh that was released from the doe so we're looking at those and looking at the money and trying to be strategic um the the second round of money the coveted relief from the bill that president biden just signed we have some preliminary information but nothing from the department of ed yet on that thank you dr seuss i'm sorry ms van kjorn and i would add that the property sale um the money from that you know is is will take time you notice on their agenda tonight is a resolution just to

061apply to the state for the ability to sell the country farms property so you know that process takes quite a long time and it's hard to um spend money that we don't have yet on that so thank you debbie van curan etea president um i just wanted to comment on that 959 000 according to njea we were told that money could be used to fill gaps in salary and benefits so i'm hoping that that information that njea gave us is correct and then that would make that an option for helping out with number one the guidance counselor that's really important and the also the power of benefit so hopefully you know we can come to an understanding and get that same information across i would like to revisit the proposed budget that was recently approved

062and submitted to the county tonight i'm sure you guys are expecting me to say this i would once again like to express the etea's disapproval of lowering our powers powers to make them ineligible for health care starting january 1st there must be another way to balance this upcoming budget without stripping some of our lowest wage earners of their benefits tonight i employed employer dr smith and the finance committee to look for other ways to balance this upcoming budget i also have a few questions i would like um to ask either the finance committee or maybe dr smith or mr shinty maybe they can give some answers for these number one it is our understanding after having a meeting with township that you were offered their grant writer and as of tonight we just were curious

063if you had a chance to reach out to the townships grant writer for assistance secondly which grants have you applied for um i was glad to hear that mrs mcgulick is working on a grant but i was just curious if there's any other grants that you've received responses about maybe that you've applied for and are able to tell us any additional funds that perhaps might be able to help with this budget shortfall and number three it is our understanding that the money that you will be receiving from the sale of the properties was not formally attached to any particular line item in the budget so it sounds like legal you have the right to use that money where you would see fit and could that money when we finally do get it possibly go to

064allow our powers to keep their hours so that they are eligible for benefits so i'm hoping that you know some of those ideas would help fix this budget problem i look forward to hearing some responses thank you can i can i ask you one more question because it just the whatever money we get from from the properties is a one-shot hit so let's just say magically at 750 it would that would only cover for one year but if we're taking an annual hit of 1.6 that's not going to fulfill the obligation past the singular year correct correct okay that's i just want yeah joe could i just make one comment on that if that's true at least that would give more power as a chance to get closer to that 25 year so we're looking

065for anything anything that can help them of course we want to save all of them and i know that there's a proposal to save a handful of them but we're just going to keep fighting this because it's it's not fair for them to lose their benefits absolutely and debbie i just wanted that to be clarified i didn't want you to think i didn't want you or the memberships to be under the belief that that was just a continual no we do understand that's a wonderful okay all right i i wasn't in in objection i just wanted to make sure there was a clarification thank you and thank you mr and kieran corrine hell of your 13 olympia drive obviously i'm up here again asking you not to cut our hours and therefore eliminating our eliminate

066our benefits as you start to bring more and more children into school they're going to need our support more than ever not just the special ed kids but the regular egg kids too some of these kids haven't been in a building for over a year they're going to have to be reintroduced to what's appropriate to do in school classroom management they may be struggling with anxiety or emotional or social deficiencies we're here for every student not just the special ed kids you're still advertising for more classroom needs if you're going to eliminate the hours of 56 is it roughly 56 mr smith dr smith uh 66 66 at this point we're able to carry benefits for the the five who are going to be 30 23 years of service or more as of july 1st

067so it's 62. okay so at 62 if you're eliminating our benefits how many hours a week are you eliminating our benefits if i'm a six if i'm a 32 hour employee what my what will my hours be reduced to and then how many more additional classroom aids do you need to hire to offset the hours that you're cutting the rest of us i just want to make sure because that you're asking questions as you go along like you have three minutes i don't wanna i'm not trying to i mean this in a helpful way like if you don't mind going through all your comments first and then i'll be glad okay so that was my comment so if there if you're reducing 66 hours what will our hours be reduced to how many more people

068will you need to hire to cover us you have dedicated employees that have been trained and we've been working here a very long time so for you to cut our benefits is pretty devastating so that's my question so i think i had a chance at the prior board meeting during the presentation to talk about how the hour the reductions of hours that's something that's still being discussed and looked at we certainly are discussing that and we have scenarios that we're looking at administratively none that i would be sharing here right now during public session but someone who works 30 hours or more earns benefits and someone who doesn't work 30 hours or more a week does not so that's the dividing line and um and we will certainly working backwards from the goal we will

069certainly make sure that we're able to continue to support our students in all the ways that we right and i just want everyone to understand that coming out of a pandemic these kids are going to need support more support more than ever all the kids so i ask you to please reconsidering cutting our hours thank you karen ahern um second vice president etea and a 30-year employee of the school district it upsets me to be standing here again fighting for the promised health care benefits of our paris i'm not going to spend my three minutes telling you about their worth you already know that and i'm sorry if this frustrates you dr smith but i'm going to ask a few questions after threatening to take away health insurance during a pandemic beginning january 1st 2021

070you announced at the october 2020 board meeting that you would not be stripping the benefits of these valued employees we had hoped that that meant you would work to find another solution to your budget issues yet here we are again my first question is how many times did your finance committee meet between that october 2020 meeting and this past february 2021 meeting where you announced that taking benefits from our powers was the only way to solve your budget shortfall my second question is at what specific meeting was the decision actually made in other words just how much effort was really putting into coming up with another solution and as a follow-up to that question what were some of the actual solutions that you considered any cuts and programs any cuts salary reductions or freezes for

071any group or groups other than etea did you consider consolidating any buildings as a result of the ld classes being shifted to vanzant there's no one answer that you can give to any of us that will justify what's being done to our paris i just feel that we are are all looking for and expecting transparency mr fizzicaro at the last meeting you talked about the struggles your dad had when he was on the board i remember your dad well i remember the tough decisions that had to be made by his group i remember this though your dad would have never made a decision that hurt the little guy thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i i i have to be fair on that one um my dad has made a lot of difficult decisions and a

072lot of people unfortunately got to got hit by things in the lennope regional district uh that that he was a part of unfortunately and i got to be fair on this um my dad is my dad is one of my role models and he is a he is an incredible human being to me uh but my dad was on the board of education in lenape regional when that crisis in 2009 hit and i could be honest with you they risked a ton of staff all right he's not proud of that all right when they had to make those decisions to cut benefits all right they they they did that to us uh and i was a son and i worked there all right so he's had to make difficult decisions just like this and um

073you know i i don't i don't think my dad would be very happy that we were being pitted one against the other in fact i think he'd be highly disappointed by that idea um and i know that he's watching now so i i take that i take that personally nicole fellaini nine cardinal court um so i've written via email to all of you and only have received two responses um from two board members that in itself is disappointing and um i won't forget that um i'm here to tell you all that um taking my daughter out of bieler out of her home school is doing a disservice to her educationally as long as as well as emotionally talk about mental health and the pandemic these kids have already what'd you say 13 months have gone

074through a pandemic and now you're going to rip them out of the school that they're comfortable in and put them into a totally different environment um now my daughter used that main email yesterday saying that the vandant teachers are nice i don't doubt that for a second that they're not nice but so were rice teachers silver marlton elementary school teachers so were demacy teachers and silver baler teachers van zandt is the only school that my daughter has not attended so far and that being said she's had panic attacks stemming from her experience at rice different different subject and every morning that she went to school she then spent two years at biller her second year being this year in a pandemic has not had a panic attack once in the morning now you want to

075uproot her again put her in an entirely new school where she has to get to know all new specialties to specials teachers which means gym art all of those specials i know you misunderstood when i said specials teachers and you told me that she might have the same teachers at vanzana she hasn't feeler special not special not the special ed teacher the special teachers so she has to get to know all of those and they have to get to know her that is important for this for the special ed for the special teachers to get to know each child is important for her education so not only that she has to get to know a nurse who they go to when they're hurt or when they're sick she has to learn where those nurses offices

076she has to learn where the gym is where the cafeteria is where all of these things are she has to learn and overcome before she even gets the educational piece of it now i understand budget cuts have to happen i get that but you seem to be picking on the little people i mean the paras who are huge in our school system and these kids and there are few of them but you are taking the most vulnerable kid and you're picking on them they don't they it's not their fault that we are in this situation their education my daughter's education should not suffer because you need to make budget cuts she's not a number on your spreadsheet she's not your bottom line she deserves equal and fair education and that means for her stability she

077deserves stability and a foundation for her education and she does not deserve to be at a different school every year it's not right it's not okay i don't necessarily have any questions for you other because you're not really answering them in my emails you're beating around the bush you're you're you're not helping all of your responses are a joke because they're not answers to my question so you're not fooling any of us clearly so please please stop looking at the budget be a human being be you're a father right come on anyway thank you i just want to say uh miss felia if you if uh it's hard to talk about a specific student during a public comment session but um ms espenberg is here i'm here if you if you stay around or if

078you want to talk tomorrow i'm glad to talk more but i do think if you haven't had a specific conversation yet with any of our special services staff but yeah but but again i would say a conversation is is a really valuable yeah and my conversation my recommendation was really because again the success of your daughter and all our students is our goal that a conversation with the experts in our special services department dr bland mrs espenberg case manager all good people is all right well i'll just piggy back right off that my name is crystal whalen i'm hr court uh good good evening tonight i'm urging you at this time in a public forum to please reconsider consolidating dealer and vans and special needs children upgrading these special needs kids from dealer vance and

079will undoubtedly have a negative psychological impact on these children as well as academically and socially have any of you taken into account with the mental capacity for this is the psychological damage we'll be doing by switching them after the year they've just had have you performed any studies i know you've emailed me and there haven't been have you spoken any licensed therapist i know that there hasn't these kids needs continuity and structure all you're doing is moving them to now larger classrooms longer bus rides introducing them to entire new staff which i'm sure is all wonderful a new regime and a new school and away from everything that they know and structure for these kids for my kid is everything continuity is everything i find it disturbing that still most of the parents were not

080notified and still have no idea about this move but you did tell me that they would be spoken to at iep meetings normally iep meetings will happen after may 6 which the decision would have already been made i urge you to really consider moving these kids terrible for them we need to worry about their mental health and and that's not enough thank you my name is jessica wilson and i live at 31 north maple avenue in marlton i'm a kindergarten teacher at bieler i've taught in two different schools and worked at jaggard for many years before becoming a beeler bear i've taught three different grade levels throughout my years in eve sham and have had the opportunity to work with numerous of our hard-working paraprofessionals i felt compelled to speak tonight as i've witnessed how

081much they do to support our students and teachers they are a huge asset to our district these educators go above and beyond for the children in evesham township it's been stated that the cuts that are being made are an effort to minimize the impact on students if ours are cut and paras are no longer eligible for benefits we will lose our paras that will have a direct negative impact on our kids i understand that these are challenging financial times for our district we have to find another option let's make the right decision while we still [Applause] can lisa falzone 12 and slight place dr smith and board i'm a paraprofessional at helen alveolar elementary school i've worked there for 11 years starting as a launch aide i've worked at a self-contained ld one two split

082classroom for many years a multiple disability kindergarten classroom and currently as a resource classroom aide the training and guidance i've received from three principals all the teachers i am fortunate to have worked with other paraprofessionals and students has been invaluable each day i truly learn something new i am filled with pride when i say that i work at bieler elementary i feel i speak not only for myself but my co-workers when i say we love beeler and we love our beeler bears we love the students we work with our teachers and staff simply are the best i believe that the staff working at any of our elementary schools would probably say the same of their school teachers and school workers are considered front line essential workers i believe it is unethical to single out one

083group of people mostly women by the way and eliminate jobs and reduce hours in order to discontinue benefits thereby reducing staff to be clear not all paraprofessionals receive benefits now there is a small number of us that do there will be a great disservice done to our students if paraprofessionals hours are reduced and benefits eliminated especially when those individuals that cannot afford to work without the bonus of benefits have no other option but to find other employment there will be a great disservice done to our students if teachers are eliminated class size will increase and in-class support will decrease students will not be able to be helped as they could with understaffed classroom my question to you dr smith and board why is it us why don't we deserve benefits don't you receive benefits don't

084you deserve them why aren't your benefits being taken away i was hired with benefits i believe i should be able to continue to receive benefits just like you we are in this together we need to work together to find a solution if i were in your position dr smith i swear i would do everything in my power to save my people my co-workers won't you dr smith do everything else in your power to do the same hi good evening my name is nina mccluskey i live at 59 king avenue in marlton um i did email my the letter to the board uh just for time purposes i am right i'm letting you know i'm writing i was to implore you to reconsider the consolidation of the learning disabled programs to be sent to demacian vanzant

085for next school year i've been employed for eshen township since the year 2001 i worked for biller with many of the co-workers here in the self-contained program four years ago i moved to marlton middle school and i work in the sixth grade transitional resource i have to say i'm working i'm actually working in the same classroom that i went to sixth grade and uh many years ago i'm here today to speak to something to give um the voice to the people who don't have a voice in these decisions and that's my students um i'm gonna draw my goal is to draw your attention to how greatly the proposed changes will affect students who most desperately need our help my experience on the front lines may open your eyes to unintended results the ld self-contained programs

086cannot be compared to md or autism specialized programming when making decisions to have split grade levels these are typical children who often has dyslexia or adhd my children are bright creative and can read on or close to grade level by the time they reach high school with the proper placement and specialized instruction they can and should be mainstream for social studies and science these main amazing individuals are very capable students i've had many former students go on to college and beyond keeping the class model to closely mirror a mainstream class will allow a typical experience and seamless transition when they are mainstreamed my students are only in my room for language arts and math they are mainstreamed with their homerooms for all their classes giving them the least restrictive environment to learn they have my

087support in social studies and science it's the perfect balance when i worked at bieler one of the things i did notice was the kids were itching to get the middle school and what a lot of them were is because they just wanted to go back to their home school middle school is a big transition a tremendous time for transition social change and growth i've had students who have severe behaviors in elementary school come to middle school with a fresh look a fresh start this includes meeting new students having one class of learning disabled students could result in the same group of students being in the same class with the same peers for up to eight straight years there will be a very clear and distinguished group of students who are recognized as being in the

088ld class how will this affect their social and emotional learning this is a stigma that we do not want to give our students i've spoken to many teachers in the md in autism classes who also experience the children being together and they say these kids have been together for years they know how to push each other's buttons for some students they may never get to attend their home school with the kids in their development or even their siblings they may always have to have a van show up to bring them across town to dimacey or vanzant thinking of this brings tears to my eyes a big part of middle school is working through awkward social peace this is a challenging part of their development middle school is a painful middle school students are painfully self-conscious

089i protect their privacy and give them a typical experience at all costs i can't imagine how utterly embarrassing my students will be having to attend a different middle school than their peers it pains me to think that existing students will have to ex switch to demacy after attending mms that's not right we can do better and last what the state says and what we know as teachers on the front line are two very different things learning disabled classes work best with less than 12 students you cannot cut all the students at take all the students at mms and put them into demacy yes i know the class sizes may change but in some of those classes they're going to double i've been in education for 25 years i worked at overbrook school for the blind

090in pennsylvania and we know the class size is the indicator to student success my students often improve two to three years in just one year if we can catch them up by providing small classes we can save money in the long run because they'll need less services i don't need to remind you again that class size is the key to student success please look at the numbers new jersey teachers are number one in the country eve sham is known for fantastic special education programs people move to our town for the schools and move from out of state for our special education programs we're hitting near the five-minute mark i'm so sorry please do let's continue the tradition of excellence and please let's do what's right for our children and keep these self-contained classes as they

091are thank you i i also want to thank you for for sending that letter ahead of time uh because in case of a situation like this i we do have that as reference so thank you for doing that i appreciate that yeah i'm back john johnson carlton avenue um and now i know most of the comments tonight are uh you know near-term issues um however what i'm looking at is a much longer horizon at the future of the educational enterprise and there is a technological steamroller out there and quite frankly uh they are targeting the educational enterprise and that includes all your tech companies uh right now um and how how do you know or how to you know why should i know this well i i've got a very close personal uh relationship with

092a person who is a venture capitalist um who i mean it's a small operation they only do um you know a billion and a half of uh venture capital money but the big guys out there the guys who can afford dumping a hundred million dollars 200 million dollars into a startup looking at a enterprise like education where there's trillions of dollars of potential revenue these guys are targeting the educational enterprise and and who are they they are the the technology the facebook the microsoft youtube these guys are looking for an opportunity to take away uh or to do remote learning all the time and and and i know this because this person that i talk to talks to the people he's a vc guy he talks to the people in california and that's a and

093his company is too small for them to get in on the ground floor but there's a lot of other companies out there who are looking for exactly that remote learning is bad for teachers and it's bad for teachers salaries and and that's what they're doing they're looking to take teachers salaries ja and teachers jobs away and they're looking to give basically tech you know assistant teachers assistants focus on us it's got to be between us i'm sorry man it affects them they're the ones they're the ones who are going to get targeted i'm well aware and you guys are going to be pressured okay to cut your budget by it could be 20 million dollar you could cut your budget okay by 25 now what person in marlton doesn't want their their taxes cut you

094the teachers and you folks have to resist this remote learning and that's why i have pressed so hard for you guys and i've heard applauses tonight okay for the people up here these teachers need to applause you folks okay because you guys are starting in person learning a lot quicker than a lot of other operations that's who needs to be applauded is you guys who in the middle of april are ready to send all of our children back to school in person learning that's the goal that should be it and you know what everybody else has to deal with it the kids are going to be better for it the teachers are going to be better for it the entire community is going to be better for it because their parents are going to be

095able to do what they've always done go to work and get a job during the day that's really with the issue facebook microsoft youtube and twitter are not your friends please come on up it's okay swear i'm not going to bite you janelle dakotas a springmill court washington township um dear dr smith and board members last time that i spoke i discussed the importance of keeping the powers benefits and tried to paint the picture of what they can do or what they do on a daily basis tonight i want to address the challenges some of the challenges that we have faced since the initial loss of benefits to our newly hired paraprofessionals so all of our new paraprofessionals that were hired with reduced hours and i also want to ask you some important question due

096to the cutting hours our powers have to come at javert and either 7 40 and stay until 2 o'clock or come at 8 15 and leave at 2 30. this has made a short in the morning for student arrival and at dismissal time two of the most critical times in a school day fortunately we have dedicated staff and a wonderful principal that has worked tirelessly to provide us with coverage to be able to safely get the students in and out of the building many of our special ed population require one-to-one physical support getting off of the bus to come into the building and classroom upon arrival the support staff has to help them with eating implementing behavior plans and bathrooming at dismissal many of our students require the same physical assistance that i mentioned during

097arrival how can we safely complete these essential and personal routines without enough consistent trained staff members as you are all aware fail to fill in sub coverage have been been an ongoing problem in eve sham the consequence of this is losing our support staff to go cover another classroom this in turn is having a negative impact on the students such as loss of one-to-one instructional and behavioral support if we do not have enough support we will not be able to safely meet the needs of needs of our students which could lead them to having to go out of district we know that is the last resort and we do not want to do that the answer is we program for our students that programming requires all of the previously mentioned duties to be performed by

098support staff so my questions are how are we going to address the anticipated loss of our most experienced and trained paraprofessionals what happens when we are not in compliance from the students ieps how will our students with special needs be able to participate in the after school clubs without the support of paraprofessionals please reconsider cutting hours for a most dedicated experience in trained support staff thank you cindy carey 119 borton's road and little mill section of the township good evening i am a tax paying resident of yvesham township for over 29 years i am also a paraprofessional at rice school for the past 14 years i raised my three sons in this district at marlton elementary school marlton middle school and cherokee high school when my second son was born i stopped working full-time and

099became a stay-at-home mom i was actively involved in the marlton elementary school pta serving as secretary and president for a number of years i also volunteered for the arts goes to school program for 10 years after my youngest son entered marlton middle school i decided to go back to work part time as a kindergarten aide the next year i was offered a full-time position in the autism preschool program my second year in the autism room we had a child who had a stuttering issue the speech therapist came in one day and put a piece of masking tape across the table she told me that whenever the child got stuck on a word or was stammering i was to lead him over to the tape run his finger along it slowly and get him to slow

100down his words this was a very active three-year-old the next day she stopped in to check on us and the child was jumping on the classroom trampoline with a piece of tape placed diagonally on his shirt she left the room i thought i was going to be fired she came back with an occupational therapist they thought my idea was genius not only was he using the tape without interrupting his play but he was using his body awareness i was only treating this child like i would my own there are 64 other full-time paras in this district who have used the same motherly instinct in their jobs every day it takes a village a village of well-trained experienced employees who are dedicated and passionate about the children they work with to reduce our hours reduce our

101paychecks and cut our benefits would be a disservice to the children of our district full-time powers are placed everywhere throughout the school on any given day i have my teacher sub certificate so i am pulled to cover classes when teachers are at meetings with parents or the child study team i do not get paid for this time if i am no longer a full-time para i will constantly have to monitor my hours so that i do not go over 29 hours two years ago my teacher had her baby five weeks early i subbed for two weeks until a replacement teacher was hired last year a teacher had emergency surgery and i subbed as a teacher for six days i would not be able to do this if i had part-time status i have also been

102a one-on-one aide for clubs which are 45 minutes after school only full-time paras are able to attend the after-school clubs because we already have hours for benefits if everyone goes to part-time status again our hours will have to be closely monitored every day in my three-year-old class we talk about kindness we stress treating classmates kindly it is a pandemic we are working with children who constantly take off their masks we are holding hands toilet training taking temperatures and wiping noses we are essential workers and we are risking our health every day we need our health benefits more than ever please be kind i attended both of the power meetings with dr smith i'm i'm so sorry we're we're just we're heading we're heading in far beyond the territory i apologize can you just it's my

103last character okay fantastic fantastic at the last board meeting there was a last minute change to the proposed busing issue it seems that selling the property to the township has given the board enough money to keep the sros and resolve the bus issue i don't understand why the money from the sale of the property was not considered to be used for the power benefits while i side with the colts run parents and i don't think their children should walk surely some of the parts of the bus plan to change the children to walkers is feasible the money can be found to save our powers thank you hi joan mclaury 53 marlborough avenue i work at jagger to the paris as a paraprofessional you are taking away from the lowest paid but you are taking away

104so much more from the children our title is parrot but we are so much more we are teachers and yes some of us do sit one on one every day with children and teach them we are behavioral speech ptot systems we are custodians we are bus aides we're lungies nurses counselors we're detectives trying to find out what what the children need what they want how they learn we are safety patrol we are their biggest cheerleaders when they're successful and even when they're not these are just a few of the hats that we wear they know they can trust us and if we make a promise we keep them we are their advocates most importantly we're their advocates we're the voice when they don't have one we are the ones on the front lines every day

105with the children and yes that includes all the children just like karen said as one of their advocates i would not feel right if i didn't come to you the board and ask you to come visit the self-contained classes the preschool and see for yourself the most needy and vulnerable population so you can understand how difficult transitions are for them how they can set them back up for a whole day staggering powers would be another obstacle they would need to overcome when they already have so many how is that in the best interest of the children i ask you to come and see the broad spectrum of the needs the children have and how losing and unfortunately you will lose trusted trained experienced caring vested dedicated parents and this will affect the children and their

106success in school and life if you haven't seen what a typical day looks like how can you possibly make an informed decision also i'm wondering if you looked at how much money the paris have saved you i'm sorry i'm dark by not having to send more children out of district have you looked at the turnover rate of the paris who are employed with no benefit how they come and go this is just a short-term fix a band-aid that will leave lasting scars on the children the paris the district and the town we all know families moved here for the program some of the powers who started this program sit in these chairs today they made it successful that is dedication at its finest you can't put a price on it i asked you to please

107do the homework the children are the ones that matter and i ask you to please keep all of the children in mind when you make this decision thank you good evening my name is susan beck i live at 548 justice drive and i've i've worked as a preschool a paraprofessional in the preschool autism program for 16 years throughout the discussions and presentations that we've had on the school budget these past few months it's been stated that the goal the ultimate goal is the quality of the students education but what you're proposing to do to reduce the power professionals hours to be able to cut their benefits shows a lack of understanding what the power professionals bring to the special education program in our district the experience that the full-time paris have and the knowledge of

108how it is applied in various situations is irreplaceable in the end the quality of our district's education will suffer and this is why i implore you to keep us as full-time employees and preserve our health benefits and i do have a question for you i'd like to ask why the paraprofessionals are being singled out they are the to have their benefits cut we are already one of the lowest paid groups in the district cutting our compensation even further seems unconscionable thank you my name is hope phillips i am a fifth grade multi-disabled teacher at jaggert elementary i'm also a product of eastern township school districts having attended van zandt and demacy in middle school here right in this cafeteria i have been teaching in the district for five years during those five years i have

109worked at demacy elementary bieller and jagger school i have worked in many different special education settings ld pull out inclusion and now m i have worked closely with many paraprofessionals during my short tenure in eve shim and can say without hesitation that these employees are the glue that hold together our schools and classrooms i would not be able to do my job successfully without the support and help of my paraprofessionals they work tirelessly to support each individual student's needs this includes and is not limited to toileting needs hygiene care academic instruction emotional support behavioral data tracking and after-school club support without these individuals our students would not be successful or able to participate participate in an inclusive school environment i fully understand the debt our district is in but who is the answer to the

110debt that our special education students will feel with the loss of many paraprofessionals at the hands of this proposed plan thank you [Music] [Applause] hello my name is tracy bulke i live at 12 panama road in chatsworth i am the third fourth grade md teacher at jaggard elementary school i've been a jagger for 16 years all of those 16 years i've been in a self-contained teacher with power professionals in my classroom the success of our self-contained classrooms are completely reliant on our paraprofessionals some of our self-contained classrooms can have up to four or five aids and in the classroom for support we do this to support the individual needs of our students many of our power professionals in our self-contained classrooms have been a jogger for over 15 years our students have benefited from the

111years of experience and training these aides have received over those years they are invaluable to the success of our program unfortunately if the benefits and ours are cut from our most experienced aides our programs will suffer during previous board meetings it was proposed to bringing children back from out of district and my question is to be able to be able to bring students back from out of district we will need these most experienced aides thank you uh good evening my name is joanna inglesis i live at 401 cedric lane uh i'm not a teacher i'm not a paraprofessional i'm not any type of educational professional i'm a parent of two elementary students and i wanted to come here tonight originally to implore you to send the kids back to school full-time five days but you

112beat me to the punch um and now i want to thank you uh for sending these kids back and being one of the first in the area to do so um so thank you um this pandemic's been really hard on the kid i also want to thank all the teachers and the paraprofessionals because i think that they've all done an excellent job from what i can say um i really i've been impressed with everybody especially you ms knoll i've sat here and your comments especially the last two board meetings i've been at um have really impressed me a lot um and i really want to thank you um i just want to say thank you and i'm a mom too so i've gotten i really um i really want to say thank you your comments

113on the school busing last meeting i would like to hear more about that and also your comments um tonight about the mental health i think are very important i would like to hear more about the grant and i would like to hear more about the plans for that i know a lot of the meeting lately has been dominated by the budget cuts and it's kind of it is important i agree but i also think that our response to this pandemic and addressing our children's needs is also important um there's been a lot of [Music] issues that our children have been facing and a lot of our children's needs have been ignored during this pandemic and i really think that there's been a lot of mental health issues created by this pandemic that need to be

114addressed and while the teachers and the board have done an excellent job uh addressing the educational needs of our children remember learning is not the same as in-person learning in my opinion uh i agree with a lot of your points mr jennings about the remote learning i think that it's a dangerous path to go down i work in the private business community and we are trending towards remote environments and i can see what you're talking about mr jennings where it could go down that path and i don't want my kids in a remote school i want them to attend a live school um so i want to thank the school board for their efforts and sending the kids back to school and i'd like to thank the teachers and the paraprofessionals for sending the kids

115back to school i think they've done an excellent job um and i would like to hear more about the efforts to address the children's mental health because i've heard too many stories about suicide about children facing mental health issues because of this pandemic and i think that we have an emergent need to address that in the school and in our society today thank you i have to lower this hi um my name is uh delena jolene and i'm at marlton middle school and i've been there for 20 years so i recognize a lot of the faces out here um i'm going to keep this pretty short because i know there have been a lot of speaking speakers tonight um as someone who's been here for 20 years these people are like family to me so

116i know we get a lot of emails where we are referred to as family but you know these people have seen me get married and divorced and have children and and and through deaths and everything and so when they stop me in the faculty room and they're having a heartfelt conversations i'm talking about the paris they have heartfelt conversations with me about what they're going to do when they lose their benefits and how they are going to strategically plan for the rest of their years um i it's heartbreaking um it stops you in your tracks and i feel like as a family member of these people that i would be remiss if i didn't get up here and say something in behalf of those family members um i just like to say that on a

117day-to-day basis the teachers the paras all of us who are here we love kids and we're in the business of not just teaching curriculum but teaching them integrity of teaching them fairness and in teaching them to keep their promises and if we do this to our parents if we do this to our family members we are providing a poor example we're providing a poor example for them of how to live and how to act and how to be in the world so i would encourage you please to work harder to keep those promises that were made and in doing that we will keep the promises to our family members and we will live the ideals that we're trying to instill in our kids [Applause] alex falzone 12 ensley place i was wondering if you could

118dr smith let me know what the mission statement is for esham township schools secondly the teachers all the aides all all the staff have been through tremendous hardships no one's fault obviously it's a pandemic budget cuts no one's fault the teachers have had to do a very difficult thing they have put their lives on the line and they've succeeded they have done more in this township we have heard complaints countlessly from friends in other townships compared to what these guys have done it's nowhere close okay they didn't try they did and that's what we need from you guys we don't need trying we can get that from anyone out there on the street trying we need you to do we need you to lead leadership during difficult times is difficult leadership during easy times is

119easy this is extremely difficult as you have mentioned you could see this train coming down the tracks for a long period of time so why the delay in selling properties why didn't it happen sooner i still don't think you answered the first question that you were asked tonight who initiated the conversation regarding the sale of property there are additional properties that could be sold do we need a an enormous building on maple couldn't we sell that it's prime real estate these thoughts should have happened a long time ago now we're down to crunch time and it's panic city should have never happened okay these things should have happened in advance so as a parent as a resident 25 years and a taxpayer we need your leadership to do the tough things not to go after

120the easy things or the low-hanging fruit such as benefits repairs or even positions those things should not be happening these guys came through you have to come through for them and in this day and age all we can hear you know we're going to do more for women the majority of people here are women and yet they're getting their benefits taken away in this day and age we're fighting so hard for equal worth i sit home and talk to my daughter and say you know what your generation is going to have things that our generation didn't that they shouldn't have to fight for so we're going to give them an example by cutting the salaries basically less than half and expect them to do the same job that is not equal pay for equal worth

121not even close thank you very much just uh that there was a just i want to thank you mr calzone i was going to address a couple things that were in there just so they don't kind of hang out as loose ends for people if they they need information so we did it we had an appraisal done on the administration building and the recommendation the very clear recommendation was its best use is to continue its current use as office space okay our operations building on main street is a very uh cost-efficient space centrally located with easy access to roads there's reasons why we're selling the country farms and we're selling the uh the cambridge park property and there's reasons why the other the other properties are not um as to the mission because that that

122is what it's all about right and it's right on our website but if you look on there you see it talks about students students student students it's why all this is here it's why we're here tonight it's why we have extra budget meetings it's why we listen to voices it's why we appreciate everyone coming tonight because it's really hard to do right by kids especially during challenging times it's this complicated work which is why it is in fact the hard decision to put forward the budget that we have the opposite of easy it's very hard to put forward a budget that affects people negatively it's hard to put forward a budget that cuts over four and a half million dollars it's hard to have cut positions during a school year it's hard to do many

123things in this budget it's all very hard hard for everyone sitting here hard for everyone involved most of all incomparably more for our staff who are affected if that budget was different if those hard decisions were not made instead of 45 positions being cut it would be many more which gets back to the mission all those supports that we're talking about and there have been so many great shares tonight mental health academics what our kids need imagine trying to do that with 20 fewer staff on top of the 45 we're already losing that's the hard decision it's hard to talk about it but at this point i need to thank you good evening genie guida 9 john quill place i am a faithful loyal jaggered paraprofessional and i'm sure right now you're all wondering gee

124genie how did you start your morning today all the paraprofessionals at jagger today received a survivor kit from our teachers and a select group of our special education children first thing in the morning this is what we came into they teachers know that we are hurting that we are upset and they wanted to show us that they care and that they support us and have our backs so while i feel dr smith that you may not find value in us our teachers and our children respect us my family friends neighbors will say to me why do you stay when you are being treated this way and the only answer that i can give from my heart is that we do it for the children we love them we care for them every day they depend

125on us and as much as they need us we need them thank you so much please do the right thing right seeing no one else is lined up i'm going to close that portion of the meeting i do want to make one comment and this is very important a lot of you came up today and it is our it is our job and our responsibility to listen to you no matter what it is how it is we're our job is to take your your anger it's to take your frustration it's to listen to you that is a major part of what we do but i want you to channel everything you said here tonight and i want you to also channel it to the state government we have been urging the entire lenape regional district

126there's 130 school districts have been pushing and pushing and pushing always come here always express your views to us always tell us how you feel but please take what you said tonight and put it towards that as well because if that egg cracks and weave can solve that everything here simply goes away that is the cause of all of our consternation so tonight what you said it always matters but take what you said write it to assembly to the speaker coughlin write it to governor murphy write it to steve sweeney who i know that name boils many of our bloods write it to them all right let them know exactly how you feel today because that's what we've been doing that's what we've been doing we've told the entire township and and and lenape regional

127did the same thing and mount laurel did the same thing in medford and so on and so on and so on channel it there too you're always welcome here to come here and express yourself i will never deny you that nor this board but please i am urging you do that too that is just as if not more important than what you say to us your passion in what in your words here express that there too please is it is the one thing i beg of you throughout this whole process please do that for me do that for yourselves do that for for the students of this district do that all right at this point in time uh we will move to uh board member announcements are there any board member announcements mr cantham all

128right i'll be quick um first for the statement from dion i look forward to the book drive i think that's great and i also appreciate them despite being a curriculum based committee mentioning the budget struggles i also look forward to their proposal about our curriculum in the new amishad law um around the letters to the state legislature again that that mr sacara was talking about i did see a lot of typed statements i guess tonight if anyone has a type statement and you don't want to send it to the state legislature you can email me and i will send it i will compile a document of everybody who wishes anything and i will send it over to all of the all of the leaders on the state level at the state assembly in the state

129senate department of education whatever it may be um if there's anything we can do as far as getting those statements into other hands that'll alleviate stress from you you can email me and i will do that thanks thank you mr kendall i appreciate that anybody else miss fleming thank you mr canton i also appreciate that i really do appreciate all of you coming um it is certainly heartfelt i i encourage you as i did the last time we had a public meeting for the budget please the passion the the strength that you have as a team of individuals and a group of individuals get the letters together i i would um piggyback on mr canton send them we can get them to where they need to be but it's not just you it is your

130family it's your older children the children in your classrooms what a perfect opportunity to for maybe a writing lesson or something of that nature certainly you as the teaching staff would know much better than i but i encourage you to do all those things again i also agree with mr fisa caro we have heard we have listened um it but again it is going to take all of us and not just state level your local level your congressman your senators send it to them all um the more voices we have out there they can't stop you know i know they could stop listening i guess but at least in the long run then we've all made an effort to do the best that we could again nobody i don't sit here with any of these

131members and say let's bring this up let's cut their pay but again it can't be just coming here we don't control those dollars they they we don't go to this state and say yep we would like these amount of dollars cut we would like these amount of dollars given to us so please it's not to to take away from anything you've said today please get the already written letters into the right hands and and i would join uh mr canton in helping get them to where they need to be thank you thank you miss fleming any other comments seeing none at this point i will ask for a motion of adjournment do i have motion motion by miss ryan seconded by miss fleming all in favor aye you