BOE Meeting 2/25 @ 7:00PM

001[Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] stuff [Music] all right 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 to the secretary of eastern township board of education in the following manner posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the board of education office emailing written notice to the browning county times and the courier post filing written notice with the municipal clerk of evsham township can i have a roll call please mrs cappello here mrs everhart here mr fizzicarro here miss fleming mr canton here this this is noel mr lancelata mr megan here mrs ryan we have a quorum thank you i need a motion to go into executive session whereas an njsa 104-12 allows

002for a public body to go into closed session during a public meeting and whereas the board of education of eastern township seems it necessary to go into closed session to discuss certain matters which are exempted from the public and whereas the regular meeting of the board of education will reconvene following the end of the closed session at approximately 7 p.m now therefore be resolved that the board of education will go into closed session for the following reasons as outlined in njsa104-12 that's items 2.32 through 2.4 do i have a motion motion by mister lanzalotta do i have a second second kapow any questions or comments seeing none let's go to a roll call mrs capalo yes this is everhart yes mr fizzy caro yes mr catherine yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan

003yes motion passes we will be back at approximately 7 p.m [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] um [Music] so [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i'd like to reconvene this meeting of the eastern township board of education if we could all please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everyone for being here and thank you for everyone at home watching we're going to start out today with a with two presentations the first one being the new jersey school board member code of

004ethics training by our solicitor mr wildonia all right good evening everyone thank you thank you good evening to everybody i gave this presentation relatively recently so i'm not going to you know spend as much time on certain subjects one of the most important components of the board member ethics is recognize the difference between the school ethics act which is the rules or the law 18a about prohibited acts and this generally uh involves conflicts of interest and more specifically generally financial or other conflicts of interest including personal conflicts and then there's the code of ethics which is also in new jersey law 1812-24.1 and deals with how board members should conduct themselves as board members if you get anything from tonight though you know ask questions that's the most important role of a board member and

005one of the best ways to stay out of any type of ethical issue and to remember the general admonition that you don't run the schools you ensure they're well run the first point of contact in almost every situation should be the chief school administrator board members are advised to always go to the chief school administrator with questions and the sooner you go with a question more likely you're going to get your answer in particular one that might come up at a board meeting a very wise former board member of this board board member of the lenape regional and state board of education member who will remain anonymous um we used to come that's joe's dad by the way used to uh used to use the following formulation you hire one person that person hires everybody

006else so it's very important as a point of contact as a point of information as questions inquiry however you want to frame it talk to your t-school administrator here's the school ethics act i won't read it like i said it and this is all available it's on the board docs it goes over the prohibited acts um you have to be very careful it not only is about prohibited acts that might you have a conflict with family members might have a conflict with or others in fact there's a school of ethics commission opinion regarding who is in other and other can be almost anybody in fact is almost anybody including you know ex-spouses and and things along those lines people you might not think you might be acting in a conflict about um that doesn't mean

007you are prevented from advocating on your own behalf on your children's behalf again you just should be very careful of engaging in any type of behavior which a reasonable person might consider to be undermine your independence of judgment because of some other relationship then there's a code of ethics as i said this is uh written in the positive the school ethics act is written in the negative this is telling you really how you should conduct yourselves as a school board member a couple important ones i will confirm my board action to policy making planning and appraisal and i will help to frame policies and plans only after the board has consulted those who will be affected by them i will carry out my responsibility not to administer the schools but together with my fellow board

008members to see that they are well run take a look at jay i will refer all complaints to the chief administrative officer and act on the complaints at public meetings only after the failure of an administrative solution those are really that's really the one that probably comes up the most uh and it's often uh discussed in the following manner you're at the supermarket or you're at some other uh you know maybe at the ball fields for the rec department or what have you somebody comes up to you with a question and you know this provision of the code of ethics really says okay thank you you know you are a public servant absolutely people should come up to you and feel that that they can and you should you know be very cordial but the

009main answer is all right have you seen the superintendent have you talked to somebody in administration and then absolutely then take it upon yourself to refer that to somebody in administration but you are not to be the one uh really in the middle of that one of the things you'll hear from me is that if you're in the middle you're probably in trouble because you really shouldn't be in the middle of any type of dispute or question really you should be directing everything to the chief administrative officer i've shown for you if you have any family members who are either employed in this district or in other school districts there's a chart as to what you are conflicted out of voting on with regards to the local district that was contained in administrative i mean

010advisory opinion some other cases an update obviously social media endorsements they're much like uh you know analog or you know paper endorsements you have to say that you're a board member but say that you're not representing the opinions of the board okay very important in social media because that is the new frontier of ethics complaints is about board member social media use of course saying something like now if we could only do something about our local terrorists that destroyed dreams and burn features supposed to be futures that was posted on facebook with a picture of the superintendent generally not a good idea to continue compare the superintendent uh as a terrorist and this was this board member was penalized um there's another opinion here about social media remarks that were vulgar racist sexist and beyond

011them and beyond unprofessional um you know there are people out there who enjoy just watching public officials social media presence and trying to you know call them out on it in in the language that is used in this case it was ultimately found that that wasn't a violation of the school ethics act or the code of ethics because the person had not acted in a manner or voted on anything which displayed an animus towards any racial group or gender or sexual orientation or what have you but the school ethics commission did you know really admonish the board member this might not have been a code of ethics but you really should temper your language be aware of your language be aware that you are a leader so eventually this case was dismissed um directing staff

012you have to be very careful in this case a board member wanted to see certain resumes went to the office where they were kept by the human resources director and the administrative staff but the person wasn't in so they directed a secretary to go get the key to unlock the door to go to the file cabinet to get the resumes and this school office commission said that was improper you don't direct staff in that manner best thing to do is make an appointment you want to see something make an appointment talk to the chief school administrator and get make an appointment for yourself this was a case in which a board member started talking about the qualifications of a staff member this really came very close the line ultimately found not to be an ethics

013violation because all the information that was discussed was public and it was public information that anyone in the public could have gotten but you are charged with the idea that you probably have access to confidential information information that's non-public so you have to be very careful public statements in particular with regards to staff only the chief school administrator can make a determination as to whether the board will actually discuss the terms and conditions of someone's employment you know issued a rice notice otherwise uh again go to school administrator if you have a question regarding staff um in this case and i mean it gets to from you get some very weird cases here was a survey that was being sent out to stakeholders this is very recent right we've been surveying stakeholders a lot over

014the last year just to see where we are and a caller came in um on the board line at the next meeting where they were doing their final day of live sessions and the caller came in to bash somebody running for the board the sad part it was it was the person who was running for the board's dad so you know without even addressing that that family dysfunction um the question was you know was that a violation by allowing that person to do that ultimately it wasn't um but again in a in a board where there are people who are you know very very uh anxious or or there's a lot of anxiety you know acts that are any type of out of the uh out of the ordinary can could lead to ultimately non-meritorious

015but ethics complaints um leave you with my rules to live by and just a couple things first under the administrative regulations there are certain evidentiary standards that are necessary to prove a complaint under the code of ethics so if you're ever bored have trouble sleeping at night or something like that check them out under title 6a because they will go at great length as to what is evidence of this second if you ever have a question clearly you should go to chief school administrator i'm happy to answer any questions but you also have the opportunity to get what's called an advisory opinion you can actually write to the school ethics commission and they will at their next meeting evaluate it and they will advise you in a confidential way um in addition sometimes board members

016get advisory opinions about other board members you can do that however you have to put the board member who's whose actions you're questioning you have to put them on notice of it so that they can also supply information to the school ethics commission um so along these lines you know wind your watch what does that mean well you know minding my watch right now slow down you know if you're wondering about whether you should take some type of course action slow down because when in doubt don't i can tell you this i have never had to defend represent or otherwise work on or work on behalf of a school board member who didn't post something however it's when they post something and it lives forever right because nothing is private you are recorded this is

017being recorded you may be familiar new jersey's uh wiretap act is a one-party consent only one party has to consent to the recording of a conversation who's that usually the party recording uh they can consent for themselves and they can record you so you are being recorded you're also being posted on facebook then and played so just you know be very much aware it lasts forever it really does last forever i know people think that well certain digital media now it lasts forever and there are ways of getting it because everything is awesome until it's not i used to sing that the lego version everything is awesome does not because you know just because someone is talking to you they may be recording you in in what they consider to be a very friendly way

018and then turn around giving it to somebody else that's not uncommon if you're in the middle you might be in trouble you are responsible for your actions and at the end get an advisory opinion if you really have a question of a vote a very important vote maybe that's coming up but there's some concern that you might be compromised in some manner with regards to your vote get an advisory opinion they give a very quick turnaround they always they look at them at the very next meeting they meet every month on the last tuesday of the month and there's a full complement of them and they take their jobs very seriously so you will get a response and having that in your in your pocket is is a great shield 10 liter claim so with

019that unless anyone has any questions anyone on the board have any questions to mr donio all right so you have just you know fulfilled your requirement under cusack under governance to discuss ethics every year so congratulations thank you mr donio thank you dr smith the floor is yours for the next presentation of the 2122 preliminary budget presentation i'm probably not the only one who um with so much additional zoom calling in our life i feel like my body is like literally becoming uh like its resting uh position is sitting which is not good um so i want to present the preliminary budget for next year and i just you know in doing this i'm thankful for the opportunity that our board has every year to do a presentation like this at this earlier date a

020lot of districts wait till later to do it but one nice thing about us doing it now is we get more information out so that we can consider it and our town can consider it and people can ask questions we can have conversations as we move forward because of all years this year is it's a longer process right we've got as our auditor has said to me who has worked for over 20 years with our school district we have never had to cut this amount this high end amount before in a single year a little bit of history um and you can see that the number we're looking at for our budget next year is lower than is actually less than what our budget was three years ago part of that is due to dropping

021enrollment so our projected enrollment for next year 4300 10 students which is over a thousand less than we had at the peak which i can recall back my days teaching at cherokee the hallways literally becoming less full over time as we went from 0203 which was actually my first year teaching there up into the later aughts and in the early 2010s state aid a little bit of history there and then a bit of background on why our state aid is getting cut we are currently in year four of the seven year reduction cycle prompted by what's properly called s2 which was the school funding reform act which basically is taking money from some districts or one of them and redistributing it to other districts that are considered to have been more underfunded over the prior

022years as the state funding formula was redone to account for more current student enrollment and since ours is dropped we are having our funding cut so the 1.7 million that were in state funding that we're losing this coming year will be followed by another 1.6 the year after that and then two more years of decrease after that as you can see in this chart here so the red number is the reduction we're facing this coming year the total reduction is close to eight million dollars as it so happens today the actual those are the projected numbers the actual state funding reduction numbers were released today we are hoping for a little um a little less reduction and it is forty thousand dollars less so one seven two two four minus 40 000 is what our

023number is as of the numbers that were released today so not really any relief other impacts just for these are contributing factors to our situation this year chapter 44 loss that is um an 800 000 yearly loss that we will we have already begun to incur as it went into effect on january 1st um as uh our staff are able to switch over to the new jersey healthcare plan and this our district took steps early to have a very balanced healthcare plan and as a result the impact for us is is greater because the new jersey plan is is puts more of a burden on the district the personnel costs this year were extreme as as all districts faced and i think uh anyone following my weekly updates week to week saw the increase is

024just in um daily sub rate alone from 90 up to currently 140 dollars miscellaneous revenue over a million dollars and that is that encompasses many things in a typical year we rely on miscellaneous revenue generated through our ecc program teddy bear kindergarten and in the during the pandemic our enrollment in those areas has dropped projected loss due to decreased free reduced lunch enrollment so you know a very nice program offered this year by the us department of agriculture has been that students could receive free meals regardless of their free reduced lunch status and that's going to continue for the rest of the year one side effect of that has been a decrease in freedom-reduced lunch enrollment statewide so we're not alone all districts are going to be impacted negatively by this we do get extra

025funding based on frame reduced lunch percentage and so we're hopeful that the state may use free and produced lunch numbers percentages based on pre-coded numbers um in terms of the aid they can give to districts as that is probably more accurate and that is still in conversation and then our 1.7 million in cuts that we talked about earlier so when it came to figuring out how to address our budget the number one question is it should be and it is in every district is how can we continue to provide an excellent educational program while costing less money and that's the driving question you know this these buildings all of us here we give our time our dollars for the kids you know for children that's why district exists how can it continue to serve those

026kids as well as possible but doing so through a lower budget and then those corollary goals maintaining instructional program adjusting staff keeping the focus on student achievement and trying to limit spending in non-instructional areas which leads us to kind of the proportionality of the budget so this is looking at our upcoming budget the proportions 82.46 percent go to salaries and benefits which is a really constraining factor when it comes to cutting over four million dollars is you know when it when over four fifths of the budget is going towards salaries and benefits is um you know a lot of the area you know that's it's hard to not look at salaries and benefits as a way of achieving savings the these are the changes from last from this current year to the upcoming year by

027department by area you can see staffing district curriculum going down special education is going up that is due in part to increased out-of-district costs which fortunately our finance committee got to hear a presentation on monday by our director of special services ms espenberg kind of talking about that those are all necessary costs going down in elementary middle schools up in transportation i would say that percentage um one side note that percentage is our transportation cost this year was higher than budgeted so it wasn't as much of a 13 increase as it looked as it was on paper in reality it was less clubs activities that increases just due to stipend increases per contract okay so now we're getting into the reductions so not first non-staffing and it would be great we would love to have

028all of our reductions if possible come in ways that are not related to staffing and also not related to impacting our educational programming so this number was achieved by our departments our school departments our curriculum department each department across the district looking at what it spends and finding ways to cut typically in the in the range of a five percent decrease per department sometimes more we also eliminate our outside media services so that in that case it becomes inside media services which means it's just it's us so next piece um so we have currently one sro per school and what we are proposing in this budget is to continue to fund seven sros not eight so shifting from one per school to one per school building so currently there is one for dimacey elementary and

029one for dimacey middle with this proposed budget it would be one sro for the demacy schools together they are they are essentially like a duplex one building um and then in november to propose this ballot question to our town to hopefully be approved meaning that starting on january 1st the funding for our sros would come through this additional ballot question impact um the numbers are up there so it's per rated for the 2021 2020 school year and then each year after that it would be 437 500 an additional impact on taxpayers the um the the bottom there just a note that i think needs to be known now and each time we think about this moving forward is if the question does not pass our district is not permitted to fund sros for the remainder

030of the year there we cannot um put forward a ballot question and at the same time provision in our budget for that item correct correct i'm sorry yes thank you well yes so the school sro stands for school resource officer here why don't we do this my name is justin smith i'm the superintendent here what's your name i'm sorry great great i'm glad you're here thank you so let's do this if we can yeah no no no it's this is important stuff and i'm glad you mentioned it if we can just come back to it at the end once we've uh thank you mr mark next piece is transportation changes so um we project a savings of 144 000 through mostly um changing a few of the busing zones from bussing uh courtesy bussing zones

031to walk or zones as well as a limited pilot of subscription busing and i'll walk through this change has a impact on each school a little bit so we'll walk through each of these we're going to go backwards alphabetically and so the this is a map vans ant is roughly there okay and this is green tree road 25 miles an hour these students currently are bust this would become a walking zone some of this area used to be walking and um with each of these walking zones that we walk through right now please know that we will be in communication are already in communication with the township and once the final version of the budget is approved any needs for crossing guards will be worked out rice so there's rice school this neighborhood right here

032is currently a busing area will become a walking area on this map there's rice school in these areas here which are currently walking currently busting will become a walking area so these students walk this way down crown royal and there's a cut through there for those students mms so mms is right here roughly this is the briarwood neighborhood the students are currently bust there is contiguous sidewalk from briarwood down tomlinson mill and if student you know with a crossing guard here students can cross and continue to have sidewalk all the way to school another way to look at briarwood this is mes same neighborhood same situation jagger this area this is evans here this area becomes a walking zone and students can cross there's two different locations where we could have a crossing guard and

033they would walk say along aaron darrell waverly up to westcott and then turn and these are less than a mile from here in almost all cases these these walks are less than a mile colts gate so this is a little different this is converted to a walking zone but this is our pilot of subscription busing and uh there are many districts that use subscription bussing we are starting it at 350 a year and what that means is that um it's it's it's optional so a parent can opt into that um and it's 350 per student or the student could walk and we will arrange for a crossing guard to be here same for des from coldscape beehler so this area right here this is greenbrook drive and the area west of greenbrook so this area

034is currently bused to biller this will change and these students will go to des which is des is here so they can walk to des it's less than a mile and there are some current fourth graders in this group who would be fifth graders next year at bieler and we will give those families the opportunity to choose either to have their child stay at bieler to finish out or to become a des student for next year all right and before i switch off of the transportation changes the uh just a couple words about um you know the thinking that went into this so the amount that we have to cut 144 000 might not seem like a lot but actually for one first of all every bit helps you know so even the forty thousand

035dollars today that we kind of got back from the state um we welcome welcome every bit um a teacher a step one teacher with benefits is about seventy five thousand dollars a year so that actually represents two teachers which is two additional very important people who can make an impact on students and maintain our educational program walking is and i i think anybody as we think to ourselves about those of us who were walkers at different points or our kids have been walkers there are a lot of positives embedded in that opportunity not just from a health standpoint but an independent standpoint as kids can develop a sense of leadership and growth through even how they get to school any questions on that part specifically staffing so we have talking about all these reductions is

036kind of like it's a very big project right so we have two opportunities we have tonight and we also have march 11th thursday march 11th will be our special board meeting when we have the vote on submitting this tentative budget to the county office my intent is to provide specific details to these to this slide at that march 11th meeting there's a lot to talk and go through tonight just in the changes that we've discussed so far and which are to come after this slide um but i would say just in general you can see from the reduction amounts here that this is the bulk of the the budgetary reduction unavoidably because if we remember back 82.46 percent of our budget is salaries and benefits what we tried to do as you can see is

037arrange the reductions and positions so that a we're maintaining the excellence of the educational program and b we are taking advantage of retirements and vacancies as they come along to reduce the negative impact by having to let go of staff that is the last thing we would want to have to do and because in part because this year has been like no other with the pandemic we have had a few retirements and um so you know the number of we have 45 fewer positions through this next budget but we have 32 current vacancies or retirements which means that at that at the current moment that would be 13 people we would be letting go not 45. 45 fewer positions out of that amount within the paraprofessional support staff restructuring i do want to add that

038that number the bulk of that number comes from the phasing out of our paraprofessional benefits on january 1st of 2022 and that is done with great reluctance as all the steps in this budget are knowing that when we talk about numbers in all cases we are talking about names we're talking about bases we're talking about people who whether it's secretarial positions custodial teachers paraprofessionals support staff special services um they are that it is the people of a district who make it what it is and it's only out of necessity that we are discussing any of this going back to our primary question of how do we maintain the excellence of our educational program the benefits piece is a huge part of that a step one teacher with benefits is seventy five thousand dollars the cost

039of benefits for one paraprofessional is twenty five thousand dollars so we currently have 66 paraprofessionals who receive benefits if you do the math on that without that step that's 22 teachers lost additional beyond what you have listed on this slide other steps explored and considered but not being used and i want to emphasize i made it a different color because i really uh this is important because some of the things on there um you know that they're very big but we tried we've been trying to turn over every stone as we go through this process so we looked at the elimination of the middle school house system we looked at grade moving all grade five to middle school eliminating an elementary school none of those steps achieve savings that i discussed on this prior slide

040the goal behind those steps is in part to capitalize on increa being able to increase class size to need fewer teachers to serve more students but the savings do not justify the um the the the tremendousness of the the change represented by those steps our class size is increasing we are increasing our class size but not through those steps cutting educational programs at this point we have mostly avoided that solar expansion we looked into that there's really no feasibility at this moment for that if we had interest in report from accompanying a poor cell tower we would certainly be glad to talk about that but at this point we have not um established any interest in that facility use increase we did not opt to do that this year in fact our facilities this year

041have we haven't been you know in order to prioritize in person learning we haven't been running extracurricular activities and haven't been um allowing any outside guests so our facilities have gone have not been used this year as they have in prior years we did put out a survey to staff this was the idea that came out of our staff conversation so we went as a cabinet myself mrs mcgulick mr dentine mr shinty we went to all the schools and met with staff to collect ideas one idea that came out of that was putting out a survey to our staff to see if more staff would opt out of their benefits if they were reimbursed at a greater amount than we currently do so we provided a couple possible reimbursement amounts and the results of the

042survey did not show that we would not we would actually lose money if we were to change our current practice some additional steps that are being used so well some have already been taken so this year we eliminated four positions totaling nearly half a million dollars each of these positions is huge curriculum supervisor in other words an administrator learning disabilities teacher consultant school counselor media specialist and sale of property so we continue to look into selling any of our properties that would be a one-time revenue generator but again every bit helps bus advertising we are planning to move forward with that we anticipate 25 000 per year in revenue from that cell phone reduction we saved 16 000 in that method um activity increase our activity fee increases here have occurred roughly on a yearly

043basis so we continue with that again middle school will go from 100 from 150 to 165 elementary from 100 to and then that last step is an ongoing step and um so the superintendents of the lenape region districts like us um including us that have been affected by the sfra state redistribution in other words the reductions for us that i explained earlier so we have met with we had two separate meetings we had one with senator diego another with assemblywoman stanfield and some of them peters to explain you know our our not just the impact of s2 on our district but um just the financial cost of being in person this year you know um the aid that's been distributed to districts this year has not distinguished between those districts who've been open for in

044person in those districts who have been all remote and the cost of in providing education in person is greater flat out this year general fun comparison mr shinty i think there's a couple slides in here that we're going to tag team on so good evening everyone i'm john roshan i'm the business administrator for the school district and i'm going to go over a few of the slides this slide is showing a comparison of our revenue streams from last year 2020 2021 compared to our preliminary revenue projections uh for this year are for the next budget year 20 21-22 and you can look at the first line the miscellaneous revenue is down a couple hundred thousand dollars that that's due to the impact of not not being able to collect as much revenues that we have

045in the past from some of our programs that we have going here in the district the next line the fund balance that we're looking to move forward from this budget obviously is down because our expenses have been up greatly compared to previous years so that that's down as well a little bit the next line is the access surplus that's generated from our budget when the auditors do the um the audit at the end of the year uh any dollars over the two percent surplus that we're allowed to have have to be put into the next budget in the current budget we were we were able to put 925 000 in and at the end of this year's audit in june there's only 357 thousand dollars available to put in so that's another decrease in our

046revenues for next year the withdrawal from our maintenance reserve is up this year and that's partly because we put more money into the miscellaneous into the excuse me into the maintenance reserve however the capital reserve we didn't put anything into that so if you look at the two numbers together actually the amount is less that's going into the reserve accounts uh for the budget for next year um the emergency circle the emergency emergency surplus reserve there's only two thousand dollars left in it um we're putting that into next year's budget as well and obviously that's less than what we had to put into the current budget that we're working in i already talked about the capital reserve state aid as dr smith has said with s2 we're getting less state aid every year and this

047year we're being cut 1.7 million so the the amount of aid available to us is down external extraordinary aid is uh we're projecting to you know get the same amount of money there and we don't know that number until the end of the budget cycle which we won't know that until june of the end of the budget cycle so we don't we don't really know what we're going to get but we're usually safe with projecting 250 000. we get some money back from federal uh programs for the medicare reimbursement and that's pretty well flat too this year compared to what we have in our current budget so when you get down to the last line that's the tax levy uh increase and that's at two percent the maximum amount that we can increase um and

048when you add all those numbers up the current budget we're working in is 79 million uh 656 and this budget will be 77 million 799 000 so what it's approximately 1.8 million dollars less well that's the that's that's the law that they passed that okay the next slide that we're looking at here is the um the revenues if we looked at different scenarios as far as the tax levy increase the first column is if we had no tax levy increase our budget would be approximately uh 76 million five five five two if we just went with a one percent tax levy increase um our budget will be at 77 175 and at the two percent where we're at at 77 799 um this year there that we were not eligible for any waivers and we've

049used all our cap all of our bank caps so we had no money to move forward as far as from previous years where we did increase the tax levy to the two percent so that's where we are in the last column with the 77 799 066. so the next slide the reason why we went through all those numbers is if you look at um our tax levy and compared to what our actual projected appropriations are right now um going from right to left uh where the arrow is we're we're balanced we're you know we're zero the next two columns is basically the same thing because the two percent is all we have available to us so the next two columns are both zeros as well if we wanted to say we only wanted to have

050a one percent tax levy increase we'd have to cut an additional six hundred and twenty three thousand dollars from this budget that we've already cut millions from if we wanted no tax levy increase we'd have to cut 1.2 million dollars to get to that point okay so probably the slide that everybody's waiting for how how am i going to be impacted how much of my tax is going to go up so when you're looking at this the first column is uh half of last year's budget because our budget's on the fiscal cycle and your tax bill's on a calendar cycle so it encompasses half of for the um coming uh 22 year uh it encompasses uh excuse me the 21 year encompasses half of last year's uh tax levy and half of the projected 2122

051tax levy so uh half of the totals from each one gives you the total for the for the calendar year of 63 million uh 623.09 now the next line below that is the ratables and the raidables are up a little bit in the township which is a good thing it's always good when the rate levels go up because that helps offset some of the um the tax increases to the taxpayers it's not as up as much as it has been in the last two years but still it's up so if you look at the tax levy increase for our tax levy rate at 2021 it's going to be 1.2013 the current right now is 1.1838 so the difference is 0.03 i'm sorry 0.0175 so on the average assessed house in marlton which is 271 900

052the tax increase to that that house will be 47.50 per year so if your house is worth that that number which is the average the total increase to your tax bill from the school district will be 47 and 50 cents for the year and i'll turn it back over to dr smith now thank you mr ashinti so um we're near the end the timeline so today 25th district's got their state aid notices and that's part of that's another contributing factor to why we did not embed specific details about the staffing reductions into this presentation it might have you know it didn't turn out that way but you know we always hold out hopes that the state aid reduction would have been less and if it had been less today than it might have been they

053might have been able to make some adjustments with the staffing reductions that i'll be talking about on march 11th and because there wasn't we got it we've got pretty much exactly what was projected um there isn't going to be any ability to change the reductions we anticipate but had there been i would have rather not ended up talking about a reduction that wasn't going to be needed um and then march 11th that's our next quarterback meeting send the attentive budget to the county office and then may 6th is our special board meeting to adopt the final budget i would add um you know just just one last piece and um the um it you know it's the painfulness of talking through these cuts is on so many levels from very personal and local most of

054all and it also makes me incredibly sad for our state because i feel so strong i mean you know many of us here in this room are products of new jersey you know i grew up my kids are products of beef sham i'm a product of cherry hill and maple shade i i i feel like i owe a debt to the educational system of the state for helping me achieve my goals and we want to we work every day to provide that for every single child texas has oil florida has sunshine what's our resource here it is our educational system which is number one in the country and it's the human resources of our state that are our greatest resource and our human resources are part of our educational system and when i see the

055funding for schools get reduced um it is we are chipping away what makes our state as great as it as it is and i'm going to get off my soap box but i just need to point that out because um you know it is i i feel i feel like we can put this budget forward in knowing that it represents the best possible path at keeping our our education system here capable of preparing students to achieve their goals better than any other that could be presented and um so i welcome any questions thank you uh before we go into that i want to go through the board the board questions first all right and then from there uh that'll move it'll segue right into public discussion for agenda items only which will obviously be questions

056uh for the budget but i want to give give the board of education uh their first shot at questions that they have uh and any comments that they have as well okay so uh mr land's a lot of the floor is yours thank you mr fitzgerald um dr smith i have two questions for you um you spoke about your meetings you and the other superintendents of the surrounding school districts meeting with the senator adiago as well as assemblyman and assemblywoman stanfield and peters when you met with them what was the outcome of that and i know that you said that there's not much of a change possible a possible change in this budget but after meeting with them was there any anything that made you um think that there's possible um possible additions in future

057revenues for us or you know not as many cuts in the future for us um i i would say uh i'm glad you asked about that about those meetings because um it speaks to the complexity of the situation you know um so the 170 districts that are having their funding reduced through the um sra so our reductions in state funding are actually going to other districts you know who've been who are considered to have been more underfunded so that's the challenge is uh we're in a situation where this timeline um you know other districts are depending on increases that in part come through our decreases if that makes sense so um and and those um elected officials represent a combination of those two different types of districts what i was optimistic about from the meeting

058is that we were able to convey i think in ways that you can only know if you're living it every day the way you know education administrators and people um working in schools can see the costs of this year in particular so while s2 and the state funding situation is well known to them less well-known i think is um the cost of this year in particular you know and i harken back to uh i remember in september writing to the states to the um to the senate testifying at that point we could see the costs you know developing and it's only become more um true over the course of the year um so like for example like the one piece we expressed which uh and then they listen throughout and and have genuine concern um

059that that it's cost more for districts to provide in person learning this year than for districts to provide all remote learning you know the districts that haven't opened their just take ppe costs alone so you know districts that haven't had anybody in the buildings what have they needed their ppe for you know um yet there's been no accounting of that in the way aid has been distributed so you know that piece yes i i'm i felt i have i felt good that that um we were able to underline that for them did they say that there is a there could be future reductions in our reduction in our state reductions um i i felt like we helped them be able to go back and have more specific conversations about these differences um you know we

060here just just for example i mean and i'll i'll get to it a little bit more later in my uh traditional superintendent's comments but um we've been a full-day district you know all year so we've been a shortened day january february but from the first day of school in september up through winter break and starting again on monday we're full day one of the few districts has done that so you know a little nuance of that though is if you're trying to find someone to come work for your district as a substitute let's say and every rule has needed substitutes this year you can earn the same amount work in an earlier dismissal day in a different district than you can in a full day district so we've had to actually pay more for that

061now it's worth it because a full day is good for kids you know so we we did it but this has definitely been a year where there is a lot of nuance behind what looks to be the same on the surface district to district if that makes sense a second question if you don't mind oh okay i thought dr smith last month the city passed a bill the city council passed a bill very thankful to mayor vizi and the city council which will share the pilot funds future pilot funds with both the school district as well as the fire company for security purposes if the if the question on the ballot does not pass in november could we possibly use those those city pilot funds to fund our sros so um i'm glad you brought

062up the pilot funding because that's been i hope everybody here has heard about it but so our township has embarked on creating a program that would be able to set aside a certain percentage of what's called pilot funding for use by either the fire district or the school district that we could apply for in the form of grants to support public safety expenses really the public safety which would be our school resource officers so yes i do think um now the question is there's a couple there's a lot of unknowns there right so how much how much would accrue in the pilot fund would it be enough to sustain on a year-to-year basis a staffing cost like school resource officers those things we're not sure of yet um but certainly knowing you know we are

063thankful for any additional help and so even if we can't use it for school resource officers we will be able to use it there we have plenty of uh need so even if it doesn't go to that specifically thank you mr lanzalada other questions from the board dr smith i have a couple questions uh if you could help me out and just clarify a few things for me um talking about the busing zones correct we talked about saving roughly about 144 from from creating those those busing zones for those new walkers and pardon me if i start getting into an area where i can't talk about in terms of contract or something just please let me know when we look at this and again i just want to verify with you we are looking at

064reducing routes of a private bus company all right that's that's the goal correct yeah yes so if we work backwards the ultimate goal of those changes would be that any bus capacity because we have our own transportation office they're fantastic but our current our bus capacity through our transportation office is not enough to meet all of our busing needs so we do have to engage with a third party hillman in this case our third party this year um we do pay more to the third party for those bus routes that would cost us if we could do it in house so by freeing up busting capacity it will enable us to have fewer third-party routes and save us even more money yes okay because that's reiterating what i what i had personally talked about in

065august uh based upon what we had to deal with in terms of costs from that i would like to see that down the road just keep reducing all right and be able to rely on our own people all right and and allow our own people to be able to work all right so if this is going to save us 144 000 and pulls us away from that serpent i i i appreciate that move i appreciate that move thank you for that um second question and i apologize dr smith i have a couple um we the idea in the conversation was about covert relief that came up in a it came up a little bit but we did receive covered relief earlier in the year correct correct and how much do you recall remember how much

066that was mr shinty might know the exact number yeah i don't it just can be an approximate for me i i could while he's looking i can tell you that we have gobbled up every cent that we've been able to with regard to different forms of relief yes and and we've needed every penny along the way so um and it came in different forms cares act there was a digital divide grant that we were able to use to buy chromebooks 184 000 was that grant um and that that covered relief is he's finding a number that covered relief it's not blanketed if i recall wasn't that specific to certain things so it had to be really like for example uh some of the money had to go to pay for things to reopen school so

067like our thermal scanners that we bought that we use every morning at the schools the students come in yes it paid for that for example so so for the carers funding we've received a little over two hundred thousand dollars we also received the kovac grant from the state for 169 000 and we've put into fema for reimbursement of 95 000 and change which we're not sure when or how much of that we will get back um so that's kind of where we are right now and there's the possibility there's a possibility but again i don't count on money that i don't see there's a possibility that we have another bill being passed through the house and it's going to the senate and i believe there's school funding in there but will that even would that

068theoretically would that even affect this budget or we might not see that money until until the next budget so all mr shinjin i were talking about that money the other day and i'll let him speak to that but i know one purpose we talked about for it was um to help pay off the ionizers that we purchased yeah that we we gauge a four-year lease to purchase those ionizers which by the way is uh helping this air in here be safer and cleaner but um do you want to talk a little bit more about that well yeah we we have a 431 lease on the ionizers um that if those funds become available we would be able to use them to pay that lease off but also with the ionizers there there is replaceable parts

069that have to you know be replaced every so many years the bulb and the filters more frequent more frequently than that so we can buy those supplies through that grant as well so the uh that would offset some budget costs going forward because obviously the supplies wouldn't have to come out of our budget and then obviously the lease payment would have to come out of our budget for the next three years as well but you know that the funding isn't finalized yet yeah yeah yeah we have plans for to forget it put it that way but yeah i mean i look when it comes to federal funding and and state funding until i see the exact number and i know the check is coming to us to me it's never a guarantee so i i

070always i wait with dated breath but i was curious that if it were to come when and how it would be used so i appreciate i appreciate the clarification on that um going into and again if someone else has a question i i don't need to have to take up all the time right now so if there's someone else on the board who wants to chime in please i i don't want to take up everyone's time here um talk about the um obviously you mentioned the 84 of our budget is is staff salaries benefits all right you use the number 45 of the amount of staff that would need to be cut but you reduced it based upon you reduced it based upon the amount of retirements correct yes i would i would um i'm

071glad you brought came back that uh 45 positions positions okay oh yeah i should make that clear that's i don't want to i don't want to put any any any um unnecessary verbiage out there um so 45 positions but we were because of retirements and and leaves we were able to take that down to you said 13. so 13 yeah so we currently project 32 of those 45 we will be able to phase out through retirement and vacancy can we get that number further down well we it is i would project yes because um we still have a few more months left in the year and uh you know each year like you see in the agenda tonight there's another retirement or two as we move along um so yes i do anticipate that number

072one and and i thank you dr smith do the retirements that are coming in tonight do they reflect into that 13 or they added on they're already counted they're already accounted for okay i just okay i wanted to make sure and i would add and the reason i'm chuckling there is uh the if i was able to say if particular retirements would impact that 45 number it might lead people to try to connect dots on which actual positions we're talking about and i don't really want to get it i don't know i don't i don't want more i don't want to get there it's preliminary um but i just wanted to know in terms in terms of numbers uh now you you did say in your jesus trying to do this on my phone i

073have your budget presentation on my phone i apologize uh you did say in your um in your presentation you showed what you were trying to avoid not not doing and something that's near and dear to me and something i i personally always fear uh i always fear school districts seem to be very cavalier when it comes to their their programs they they say they turn around and they say that well you know what music's nice but we don't need it all right or they say industrial technology is nice but yeah the kids don't really need that they need math they need english they need science they'll always always go back to the regulars you have here that you're not cutting educational programs so we're talking about those those programs which i feel and i'm just

074personal to me all right i feel those are incredibly important programs we're we're leaving them we're leaving them dry they're fine so um at the without getting into too many specifics again i don't want you in the specifics yes yes i said the word cutting is accurate um it's impossible to get to the number that we're looking at without potentially trimming from the outside edges yes surgically in a way that absolutely minimizes impact on kids but you cannot um you know those for example those 23 staff positions so the professional staff was 23 positions so out of those 23 um you know it might not be a cutting of a program it might be a slight curtailment of a program there's a chance that a program can reduce the number of kids that can access

075it um yes speaking yes okay all right no no the reason i am trying to i know and and and i ask i'm looking at this in another at another end so like you know i i was looking at i'm looking at it in the eyes of a of a board member but also in the eyes of in education like i sometimes you can only fill the class so much all right i mean like in in high school if if you want 80 kids to take modern european history ap you might not be able to get all 80 kids into a modern european ap class um all right and then i'll give give one concrete because i i it always pains me if i can't answer a question as fully as i'd like to and

076so i'm i'm in pain right now about that um but i'll give i just give you the example like take an art program there is no cut to a program like an art program that makes sense where we're cutting a program so okay um i'm going to arrest my questions for now dr smith thank you i i i peppered you with with many questions i appreciate you answering uh mr lanzalata please as far as yours uh thank you mr fitzgerald um dr smith one more question i know we had spoken earlier in the year about reducing the amount of students that are sent out of district in order to save money i don't know if if it was reflected in in your presentation and if it was i apologize but i didn't see that um

077are we reducing the number of students that are sent out of district in order to save money so in the upcoming year so uh as much as so we work very hard to try to keep as many of our students as we can in district right we have in fact we have programs that help students of ours stay in district that other districts don't have our percentage of out-of-district students is lower than many other districts but we do as every district does has a certain percent of students who who have to be out of district because we just can't provide for their needs in the best way here um the uh the cost sometimes for even a single student like that can be very high and and uh so it could even lead to an

078increase from one year to the next again in ways that are necessary but um you know might not might not be an increase in the number of students going on a district but it might be an increase in the needs of those students if that makes sense yes i just want to address that i don't want there to be any type of public statement that the board is directing or is asking that you save money by you know addressing students in their ieps or their places i know that wasn't the question but that's how it might be interpreted by some so i want to make sure that that's the question is first and foremost in any decision with regards to student identifiers eligible for special education and related services under the idea is to to

079have them be taught at their home school to the greatest extent practicable while still allowing them for them to see succeed based on whatever uh abilities that they have but i just didn't because you'd be surprised people will hear that but you ask and they'll say oh you're changing my iep because you're trying to save money and that's not the that's not the idea at all the idea that all i i absolutely appreciate is we can do this here exactly and and it'll have that effect thank you very much and i appreciate you trying uh i appreciate you um clearing that up yes i i'd like to see the the the programs in-house and if they're in-house we would be able to save money and also increase jobs you know for our staff any other

080board members with questions dr smith the board no longer has questions but i asked if you could stay up there i'm going to move this thing to public comment for agenda items only which i'm going to read a short short thing about that so everyone here understands how we how we're going to operate on this all right this meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personnel items or negotiations we'd ask you to see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person we're going to try to keep us again for this for agenda items so that would be the budget uh if you have something that

081is not related into anything that we have in an agenda hold that back we have a second round of second round of comment at the end of the meeting all right but the budget is a part of the agenda because it's a part of the presentation we can have um just be aware though that when we get past three minutes uh we may we may cut it down so just just be aware of that okay anybody like to come and speak up i just ask that you please say your name and address and uh thank you debbie van kuren the eushan township education association president here we go again our paris will lose their benefits with all due respect dr smith you are once again trying to pit our professional staff against our paris by

082saying that you will save 22 teaching positions by taking away the paris benefits some of these powers have more than 20 years of dedicated service to this district what about the children they service do they matter will we lose these dedicated folks as they look for new jobs the etea along with njea already sat down with you and went over the figures that you sent to the state we've shown you that you do not have the deficit that you're suggesting we even pointed out that retirements made up a majority of your loss that you are suggesting we feel it is important for the public to know that this deficit doesn't exist the way you pointed it out on one of the slides you mentioned miscellaneous loss of 1.15 million the community and staff deserve to

083know what this loss is can you elaborate when i'm done speaking on that 1.15 million i would have had a better statement prepared if we had had this information prior to tonight's meeting the etea encourages the community to look for additional communication from us in njea i am requesting that i be granted another opportunity to speak if necessary due to the way that this meeting is set up we have many etea members at home staying safe who would love to call in with questions and comments but that is not an option you have purposefully silenced the community and staff by not taking calls this evening this needs to be changed for future meetings thank you miss van keren thank you for your comments i would just like to remind everybody that the opportunity of this

084preliminary budget presentation doesn't exist in almost every other district so this is actually a whole other opportunity for conversation that wouldn't occur most places um so so in terms of like people who want to speak once or twice or however many times tonight there will be additional time at future meetings as well um the uh you know and there's there's there's a lot of other thoughts going through my mind i would just add one more thing which is um we reached out several times to eta for um any amount of money that they would like to meet us part way about towards this reduction as the number very truly is real and the response we got was not one cent hello good evening thank you for your time we do appreciate what you're just uh

085giving your your name and address sir i'm sorry sure my name is guy purim and addresses to essex court and king's grant so during the course of the meeting i just shouted some some things down that popped into my mind prior to having some questions already prepared two questions and a comment then you can maybe answer the questions after i sit down please what science are the people using making these covet 19 decisions what will stop the walkers who become sick with cold or flu not affect school attendance or be looked at falsely as covet cases because now walkers would be in the elements as well as the extremely poor lightning within king's grant which creates another safety concern so my statement is why is the budget lower when taxes are higher is there not

086a health care waiver adjustment if your health care costs go up greater than ever certain percentage you could be given an adjustment that you're allowed to raise your budget up to two percent cap is that correct the budgetary cost per pupil number 30 out of 74 is our group kindergarten eighth grade with 751 people or more and astronomy indicates that we're not spending too much money or too little money on educating the children what i've current confirmed at being at this meeting is the constant word of loss we're losing our students in your own words why do you believe we're losing students this is a community that is known as the a rated school community which helps sells the community meaning parents buy homes to start families in this community in this certain current decisions

087on covert 19 is this not a chance to stop loss stop the loss of children's dedication stop the loss of community stop the loss of our future stop the loss of feeling of fear there is a teacher's oath which i quote i swear to fulfill to do the best of my ability in judgment in this convent i will respect the hard one gains of those educators in those steps i walk and gladly share such knowledge as in mine with those who are to follow so follow your oath so also stated in our conversation number of a face number a face when we don't look at our children faces not as covet numbers there was a lot of talk of elimination if we do not eliminate our fears we will eliminate our children's future use the

088science not the fear to make choices build the school's budget build up the community build up the kids with these three simple signs or in in this walls as we speak today respect sacrifice determination we cannot proceed to move forward when we're looking back we cannot proceed to be hopeful if we are fearful we all want to educate we all want to do well we all want to prosper and how we do that is building a community that is known for communication education and prosperity people moved to molten which was voted one of the best communities in 2018 to live in but if you're losing schools cutting schools have poor lighting bad roads fear what's the science say the whole united states the curve has gone down why are we stuck down raise up move

089forward the children want to come back to school the children want it we're creating a behavior of fear and laziness our job as adults parent or non-parent is to demonstrate hope through actions let's use what's on your wall as actions thank you thank you sir there was a lot in your comments i appreciate all of it um and as you were talking i was thinking about how much of it i feel applies to our approach this year and when we talk about the enrollment drop there are so many factors that go into that neighborhood turnover but one thing i can i can say is that there have been families who've actually moved to eve sham this year because of our reopening plan they moved from districts that were all remote and they came here because

090we were in school for a full day thank you can i can i figure back off that for a second in terms of the drop of population i've lived here a very long time when i moved here in 1984 i was four there were not a lot of communities here and throughout the 90s really the late 80s early 90s we exploded with with new communities and new new developments which brought in a lot of people one of those things about the comment about being a great town one of the things about being a great town after it's built up which we are pretty much built up at this point people don't leave they stay they stay after their kids leave and what we've seen over time is that the the population of town hasn't changed

091it's grown older but the they're not bringing in as many kids as they did at its height which was about 20 about 20 years ago and it's dropped precipitously it's not uh an eve sham thing cherokee goes through the same problem too and again it's because they're not building any more new neighborhoods we can't have any more i have to go onto somebody else but i just want to i just want to could you answer the covet science question or who's making decisions on the covert piece i'll let you finish but uh yeah let me just finish this yeah yeah just wanted to finish the population question for you um that that has nothing to do with anything that's going on covet related that is something that just has been happening over time in eve

092sham and a lot of communities just like yves sham it has nothing to do with the quality of the town has nothing to do with the quality of the schools it just happens to be that we're already built out and our population is getting older i'll let you answer the code question yeah yeah so um so the the all new jersey school districts were mandated to develop a reopening plan per the new jersey department of ed guidelines which are if you go to the new department website they have a website it's called the road back has a ton of links the guidance that and it's like a it's like links in a chain what the department of ed used as their guidance was our new jersey department of health what our new jersey department of

093health uses is the cdc so you know you can trace it all the way back but essentially it's all predicated on the center for communicable diseases guidance and that the key sort of detail and that guidance among many other things one masks right so you know master to be worn at all times when practicable and they um provide a list of exceptions um which uh you know again all on the road back website um and the six foot distancing is another is another key uh detail of that so that that helps hi just uh again state your name and address for the right it's dave demarco um 10 essex court um i guess just the kind of what he was talking about the uh the school's reopening plan right we're on i guess this is

094a hybrid plan that we're on um when when do we get back to five days a week when did the kids actually go back full time right um i i think you know i mean my my kids uh you know being two days a week and three days at home one of their biggest concerns to me was hey dad you know what um they've gone from a's b's down to c's and i i can't keep up with my homework because it's on the computer out of sight out of mind they're ten years old eight years old they're not used to checking their email every day you know we go into an office we sit at a desk we're expected to do these things my ten and eight year old they're not expected to do that

095and i don't expect them to do that so that it's not their fault that they're slipping you know what i'm saying when can they expect when can we expect to get our kids back in school full-time i i hear you that you know we're losing some of the budget and i i can only imagine that your budget is use or lose being a part of the federal government that was the way we operated user lose and if we're about to lose well then we we went to human resources and we got re-appropriated where we went uh and networked and we fought hard to the powers that be to get those monies that we were going to lose um i don't know what the you know the the game is here in town if we go

096to the county or if we go to you know congressman kim or who it is that's not my job you know but it's my job as a concerned parent to let you know that i need to impress upon you that my kids need to get back to school my wife has picked up she's a saint she deserves it better she does but she also deserves to go back to work she's also a school teacher camden city she wants to go back to school she wants to go back to work where do we go you know what i'm saying right so maybe you know you can take from what we're telling you and go through the powers that you guys got and let them know hey you know please help us help them there's not many

097of us here i'm kind of shocked i'm a little surprised heart there's empty seats right yeah you know but mr demarco i'm so glad you don't mean to get like uppity with you guys i i really do no no i'm so glad you came into it about my kids and yeah trying to you know get them on track you know as i'm sure all of you are too you know i feel like i feel like you speak there there are many parents who might not be here but are having the same thoughts and and uh they're probably at home watching you know yeah yeah and and if i can just you know dialogue for a second with my response because i feel like you've uh you know what you've articulated i feel should be the

098single most important federal and state goal right and and it's like the backwards design process the goal should be we want all our kids for all all families that want it should be able to have their kids back in school in september five full days a week that should be that should be stated like a man on the moon goal right because the only way you get there is to is to put it out as the goal and work backwards um but so often the guidance lags behind the actual facts on the ground where we're at you know and as vaccinations increase and covert rates go down what is the pathway to get all kids back in school five to three it's not decided by local districts you know what i mean like if you

099go back to those links in a chain the gentleman who spoke earlier and i was talking about that so those links in the chain go back to the state and the federal level that determines what happens on the ground in local towns like eve sham we absolutely we were desperate to get more kids back in school the only people more desperate than we are our parents you know and um as it stands right now even working within that constraint of the six foot guideline which exists for a good reason adam we currently have 70 of our students are in person and 30 are all remote of the 70 who are in person 48 of those almost half are four days a week or actually on a four day week they're all days a week on

100a five day week four days a week um and that number increases all the time we continue to work on a classroom by classroom basis seat by seat try to help more kids come back in for all the reasons you're saying i mean is the standard yep yep around yeah you ever heard that anyone ever heard that there's six right there your arms exactly that's exactly right i mean it's just it's common sense yeah so so two students with their arms length it's just you know i mean it's you know keep yourself at arm's length when you tell your kid my two goals keep yourself at arm's length we can do this together the federal government helps really i mean thank you sir anybody else wish to uh wish to come up and speak oh

101please name and address please corrine helibura 13 olympia drive i'm also a 20-year employee as a paraprofessional and i just like to say i am disappointed that again we're going to have our benefits cut i am the face of one of the persons one of the people who will be losing their benefits i am sad for real because this affects my family and i just ask that you reconsider it and i know there's probably a lot of people out there that are watching that may be in the same boat that i am and we work very hard every day and we work with our special education population and there is no social distancing in preschool it it's not and we've come back and we've worked harder than we've ever worked before trying to keep ourselves

102and our children safe and i just feel like it's a slap in the face that you would take our benefits away again we don't make a whole lot of money i didn't take this job for the money the new employee hired makes 16 something an hour i've been here for 20 years i make 20 something an hour i make four dollars more than your newest hire we've been the bottom of the barrel for a very long time we were promised and grandfathered in several years ago under another contract to be grandfathered in that if we had been there by a certain amount of time we wouldn't have we wouldn't lose our benefits and i just ask you to honor that because you're going to lose a lot of good people you're going to reduce our

103hours and therefore we're going to make less money and not have our health insurance either and i just ask any one of you if that happened to you how would you feel i ask you to find another way thank you [Applause] thank you mr celebra and and and you're i'm glad you mentioned that um this year everyone has worked harder than ever under the most challenging circumstances from in most people's careers and on top to layer on top of that the budget situation that we're facing is the worst possible timing and um so um and it's it's only with the most heavy heart that we're at this point um thank you again any other comments john janks 39 carlton avenue i'll stick with the agenda item number 11.4 curriculum and learning okay i don't have

104a really a budget comment but it echoes some of the comments that have been made already the executive summary for my comments is time to end remote learning you need to start sending the kids in person every day five days a week so let's look at the facts how many new jersey students between the age of 5 and 17 have died from covid19 since the beginning you know the answer i sent you a some information on this okay it's zero zero not one child not one of your students and or for that matter any new jersey student has died from kovid and i guess but we do have a concern about teachers and i can fully understand that okay so and i for two weeks two weeks ago i i asked you these questions okay

105and so how many teachers since september and the medical community has found a uh not a cure but certainly some some good therapies for kovid how many teachers have new jersey teachers have died since september uh i guess we don't know the answer to that question or are you afraid to answer the question are you afraid to ask the question maybe is it one out of fifty do you mr james do you wish us to google the answer right now i don't understand i mean i i asked you the questions uh you know two weeks ago that's all right i i'd like to reclaim some of my time the study coven 19 and the student learning in the united states the hurt that could last a lifetime was posted on the cdc website last summer

106what's the date of the study june 2020 they knew back in june that the problems of not going to school were going to hurt the minorities the disadvantaged and those poor people they knew that you've known this the cdc has known this it was on their website and it's just really one of the first of the many studies that are coming out it's the poor the underprivileged the minorities who are being hurt by not going to school and so what new jersey governmental agency has established the policies and procedures that effectively require local board of education that's you guys to discriminate and provide a substandard education to students and that is particularly detrimental to minorities that bastion of equality the new jersey department of education they're depriving poor and minority students of a quality education

107and i know that you're feel some obligation to follow their policies so here's a multiple choice question if a governmental entity decided to implement a policy that was known to deprive minorities and disadvantaged students of an equal education this could best be described as a progressive b liberal c libertarian d racist this is an ugly ugly topic it is an absolutely oblique ugly topic and assuming that you knew the answer to the top four questions and you were a minority poor disadvantaged single parent with school children what words would you describe the leaders of the state the department of education unfortunately even some of the leaders of the teachers union select as many words that it would apply would you describe them as anti-racist good be it benefactors helpful compassionate honest support for faucet or

108would your would your words be more like well these people are liars they're discriminatory they're shameful it's a rehab reprehensible uh policy evil bigots you know what painful if you were a white supremacist you could not devise a more evil racist policy than what the new jersey department of education is currently forcing on local school districts lenape on monday mr jenks mr jenks we are we're way past our time and i'm still trying to grasp and i apologize i'm still trying to grasp how this is a part of the agenda uh curriculum and educational math but it has to be a particular item mr jenks that's what i'm trying to understand okay we'll wait i'll finish i'll finish at the public comments that's perfectly fine that's perfectly fine if i can just uh respond to

109part of that mr jenks there's a lot there and what you shared um the but but just the the the word equity you were talking about you know educational opportunities that word was absolutely embedded at the heart of our plan going back to the summer and if you look at the educational opportunities that we've provided this year full day four days a week for our youngest learners all pre-k all kindergarten all first grade some second grade even now some other grades all in class support all specialized program students all esl students four days a week full day for students who are remote the best possible educational quality through live streaming and through our amazing staff so what we did there was trying to provide the most equitable access to growth and support for all of

110our students and it came at considerable cost all year long financial and in other ways and if you've been following you know there wasn't always and there still is an agreement about between eta the district between parents and school district and eta about the best path but all along we have all what what we have always said as our as our true north is how to support all kids provide the most equitable opportunities for success for all students and and we to the point where p like i said people have moved to eep sham from other places because they saw what was happening here are there is there anyone else in terms of agenda items only i apologize mr jenks i apologize to you and i i do not we do we have time at

111the end if you want to make those comments it's perfectly acceptable i have to unfortunately as the as the president i have to keep us restrained in our particular agenda how we do things um is anyone who has anything they would like to speak about agenda items only seeing none i'm going to close the floor all right so that allows us now to move into item six approval of the minutes i need a motion to improve items six one and six two approval of the minutes do i have a motion motion by ms cappello if i have a second seconded by miss everhart any questions or comments pertaining to approval of the minutes seeing none let's go to a roll call please mrs cappella yes mrs everhart yes mr fizzicaro yes mr canton yes mr

112lancelata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carriage thank you moving to item seven superintendents report and administrative items i need a motion to prove items seven one through seven seven do i have a motion how's it getting shy on me can i have emotion motion by miss capello seconded by uh mr cantham thank you uh any questions or comments pertain uh before you go into questions comments dr smith you uh want to talk about your uh discussional items thank you thank you i'm glad to have the opportunity to talk about something other than the budget uh which took up a lot of time because it is so important but we also have a number of other important things going on i want to lead off by recognizing the importance of this month as

113black history month and i want to share one little story so on sunday this coming sunday is the birthday of a woman who was born in philadelphia about 14 miles from here and lived there as an adult and she was celebrated worldwide before she was celebrated here and it was because she was black her name was marion anderson and um there's a museum to her in philadelphia and like a lot of our local history i think it's under-realized and under-recognized and i just wanted to take the opportunity of my superintendent's comments to shine a light on her tonight thank you schools update as i've done each time so this monday march 1st as we plan going back to december we return to our full day schedule and i want to make sure that it's very

114clear what that means that means we're returning to our regular dismissal times the way we were from september through december our cohorts which are a b a b and r stay the same but we are returning to our full day schedule that we were september through december the uh the goal of as as discussed earlier through some of the public comments um we are continuing to work on our goal of getting as many students back in school for as much time as possible and we recognize the increasing cumulative toll that this year and pandemic has taken on everyone but especially our children um and that is why we are continuing to work with that every day the in that spirit as well i also want to say that when the updated calendar is submitted um

115in march so we will you know we have uh had three traditional snow days so um you know that was um three days one was in december and two were at the beginning of february and so we'll per our calendar those days get ad made up and added on to the end of the year we've also had four count them four full remote snow days this month which means four days of lost in person so to recognize that in the value of that we will be converting the last two remote learning wednesdays so that's june 9th and june 16th into a cohort a day and a cohort b day respectively to increase the in-person learning and kind of try to mitigate the loss of in-person learning that we experienced as a community through those four

116or four remote snow days and the value of those remote learning wednesdays is commensurately less in june than it would be in may less in may than in april and so on so june is the most logical month to make that conversion and that's those are my comments thank you dr smith are there any questions or comments from the board all right uh i have one i have one question for you dr smith and uh pertains to the calendar for next year next year's calendar um i see that we have five emergency snow days in there june 22nd 23rd 24th april 22nd 21st um do we have any clarification or any guidance from the state in terms of continuing the remote learning on snow days have they given us anything on that so it remains

117to be seen what will be possible next year whether whether those full that full remote snow day approach we will continue to be possible i think it's predicated on a lot of other factors that are going to go into what next year in september looks like per se right where we're at with covet and other things so what i would say uh to be continued on that okay all right i i know that that's a i know that's a question it's out there in terms of um and it's not even just never sham it's in several places but i didn't know if there was any guidance placed upon that yeah it's been allowable this year and that may continue on but um you know i think probably when the dust settles on this winter and

118this year there'll be a kind of collective look back at um you know the pros and cons of those of that type of day and it may be left up to local decision or maybe a statewide determination okay thank you dr smith i appreciate that any other questions or comments all right let's go to roll call please mrs cappello yes this is everhart yes mr fizzakara yes mr canton yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes mission carries thank you we're now going to move to item number eight curriculum and instruction i need a motion to approve items eight one through eight three do i have a motion motion by mr cantham do i have a second second by mr lanzalada thank you gentlemen any um any questions or comments pertain to uh

119to curriculum and instruction seeing none let's go to a roll call please mrs kapala yes mrs everhart yes mr fizocaro yes mr canton yes mr lanzalata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes commission carries okay moving to item nine finance and operations i need a motion to prove items nine one through 9 18. do i have a motion motion by mr lanzalata do i have a second second by ms capela any questions or comments pertaining to finance and operations um can i can i ask a question on finance and operations i'm sorry i'm i'm loaded with questions tonight uh the the audit report are we are we allowed to just to just talk about that or ask a question about that okay because i want to clarify something i in terms of we have bowman

120come in and audit us every year all right and i just want to clarify because from my own edification here um are we in terms of of the conversations that that we've had in terms of of money you know whether we you know money that carries over from year to year to year i know that's kind of been a discrepancy in conversations that we've had uh in particular with with the the njea has bowman found anything there i mean they're they they take a nose like a deep dive into our finances i mean there's there's nothing there no there's nothing a matter of fact the auditor went through our surplus with the finance committee and explained all the uh surplus amounts and where they've been allocated to so they're all gone yes either they were

121used in the current budget or going to be used in the budget that we're putting in the audit report verifies that correct i just okay i just wanted to put that out there just to verify that just make sure that that there's no question about that thank you very much i have no other questions uh anybody else any more questions all right that being said let's go to a roll call please mrs capella yes this is everhart yes mr fizzakero yes mr canton yes mr lanzalotta yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries all right moving to number 10 uh personnel i need a motion to prove items 10 1 through 10 10. do i have a motion motioned by mr lanzalotta do i have a second second by mr camper any questions or

122comments pertaining to personnel mr lanzalata yes very quick thank you mr fiskars wanted to acknowledge uh for ten seven uh nicole mandry and lauren zarilla who received their master's degrees and i think that's fantastic and as you further your education you're only you know helping our our students uh become better you know become better students every single day so thank you mr lancelata any other questions or comments on personnel seeing none let's move to a role called please mrs kapala yes this is everhart yes mr fizocaro yes mr canton yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes mission carries thank you uh moving the policy item number 11 there is nothing in policy so we will move past that all right we're going to move to item 12 this is committee reports uh

123are there any uh committees or uh liaisons that wish to speak on anything that's going on mr cantham yeah so dr smith gave most of the curriculum updates already so i'll just touch on them briefly the first one we had this month from curriculum was the 2021-2022 calendar we did the second reading which has now been approved just to reiterate that does not have cohorts in its full day the second update is middle school movement so our middle schoolers used to be in their classrooms and the teachers were going to them now uh the middle schoolers are moving about the school and they're going to their teachers which is good for any sorts of normalcy we can give our kids full day as we already said is resuming on march 1st which is monday and

124as far as student update numbers these stats were already given but around 70 percent of our students are in day half of those are in day four days a week so cohort a b and then the remaining third students are still remote and that process to get more kids in school is still being done at the building level thanks thank you mr lanzalotta yes i've uh two things first for uh the mrc their lrc holds a sports unity program and it's it's a really great program that gets kids with special needs participating in community sports events and basically how it works is each child is is paired up with a buddy and the sports unity football season is starting on march 14th it's going to be a six week season and they're looking for buddies

125to be paired up with the special education students and the students the kids must be 12 to 18 years old and registration begins at the beginning of march so anyone that isn't you know interested it's a great great great opportunity for our students the second is that the community relations committee met with dion which is an organization you know within marlton and i just like to thank dion the members of dion for meeting with us we spoke about the diversity within the community within the school on equity within our school district and how to improve it you know every day and year after year so i thank you for your suggestions and your recommendations and we will continue to work with you in the future mr lanzalata i just want to say i'm i'm thankful

126for the community outreach committee uh making some of these uh these meetings happen uh it's good to have those conversations and and understand what how people are thinking and going forward so nice job to your committee on that dr smith you too any other yes mr everhart i just wanted to say that uh anisha and myself have been appointed as co-representatives on behalf of the eastman township school district board members for the sos committee so that's that consortium of people in the surrounding counties that are trying to get some answers to the funding formula and to finding out how we can get more money back to our district so i was on that actually with the prior administrative with the prior superintendent and the prior board so i'm going to continue with that and we

127have anish as a new board member so we're going to represent eve shim's desire to get some better money back to the district so thank you for that appointment dr smith any other uh committee committee reports miss ryan it's so nice to see you yes absolutely um we have a couple things the policy committee will be meeting march 16th the first time in this new 10-year new term for board members so i'm looking forward to that and also um the eastern education foundation golf outing this date has been set for june 7th save the day and it's going to be held at little mill thank you miss ryan i appreciate that any other mr cantham sorry yeah i just wanted to to echo what miss everhart said about the sos thank you for the the

128opportunity but um like dr smith said earlier i think it's it's challenging because anytime we fight for money we have to take it from another district right but at the end of the day we're here to represent eve shaman and that's our singular goal so i look forward to continuing that fight thank you all right we're going to move on to committee from committee reports and move to old business there is no old business i'll move past that to new business there's no new business all right at this point in time we're opening uh the meeting back up to public comment this is for any item of interest uh this meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest however your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personnel items

129or negotiations we'd ask you to see the superintendent after the meeting since you do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person we are again we want to try to give everybody a chance to talk if you could do that good evening state your name and address please good evening shout out 31 normandy road so like i said my name is shelter touri i'm a resident of malta and my child is anticipated to start kindergarten um in the following school year i just want to say thank you to the board for the time that you give to provide your service to our education community so i'm actually here to represent the group that jeff and uh jeff had spoken on about dion dion d-e-o-n diversity and equal opportunity

130network we're here as advocates we are made up of residents parents and alumni of evsham township school district and lenape regional high school district we share a vision across leadership and members of our group improving equity combating racial disparities in eve shem we need to recognize that demographics have evolved according to the nj department of education demographics in 2019 to 2020 students are 74 white your teachers are 96 white similarly to cherokee high school which is where they will be leaving middle school and going to you have 96 percent of teachers are white and you have 79 percent student body white statistically schools across the country disproportionately impose disciplines infractions and expulsions on black students over their white counterparts equally representation of black latinx students in advanced placement courses should be examined along with the

131core reading list within this school district both of which are now a part of the newly signed and updated amistad law this legislation need to be implemented more so than it ever has been despite it being signed in 2002 we also believe that indigenous tribal history in the middle school is most relevant given that the local high school that they graduate to is actually named after indigenous tribes we look to eliminate cultural appropriation of indigenous tribal customs portrayal given that research indicates these indigenous children are actually traumatized by seeing such imagery and have a higher rate of mental health issues and low self-esteem we are also looking to create a more create more education on local black history right here in eastern for example we have the underground railroads right here and in terms of

132indigenous history we have just come to find that savage field is indeed an indigenous burial ground dion aims to aims for greater success by involving the people most affected by this problem that being the bypoc community by plot meaning black indigenous and people of color dion also recognizes the importance of intersectionality as it contributes to many facets of identity and the impacts of complex factors of privilege and discrimination at the current time dion is amplifying the identity of race specifically voices of black indigenous and people of color students and parents of this district are awakened to the collective of unconscious and racial disparities and gaps in our system right here in yfsham township as part of any successful community-led advocacy group we intend to grow and it's important to understand and recognize the differences in

133organizational structure operations responsibilities and a wide range of stakeholders we don't want to just present issues and concerns and problems to the board to the superintendent to principals and teachers we would like to tackle them together we want to move in a direction that we all want to be at by establishing ongoing communication trust respect and we hope that we can resolve any issues as it emerges so we do look forward to working collaboratively together with all stakeholders not just as i mentioned the board and superintendent we also want to be speaking with school principals teaching staff along with any other interested parties to continue to strive to make eve shame a place of excellence that i've heard people get up here and talk about tonight for our children in this town in terms of

134just some some of the things that i've heard tonight um dropping things like minorities those figures and white supremacy it's interesting that um dr smith you mentioned that these programs are indeed open so it's concerning that these minorities kind of get thrown out there just sort of used against just as like a carrot it's not fair it's inappropriate and it shouldn't be done i also again want to thank um the board and the members that we've met with i do want to highlight i ask the board for the first time in eastern township's history you have a ban of color on the board i'm sorry to drop you in a niche i know you do not like the attention i am asking what did you guys do to acknowledge that and celebrate the fact that

135he is actually part of our history right here being the first person of color thank you thank you i just i feel like i end up commenting after every con but it's because the comments are very substantive and and uh you know are encouraging of discussion i just missed tori um you know i really appreciated our opportunities uh this month to me including last night to talk about curriculum personnel student discipline implicit bias training and many other topics that we want to continue to dialogue about and work on as our district seeks to improve because no matter how excellent any organization considers itself there is always a better you know and and we will continue to work towards that together and walk together towards that so thank you very much evening just state your name

136and address please indiara motto five tied water um i just wanted to make a comment about the um contribute to the covet discussion a little bit while it is true that there have been zero um pediatric vets in new jersey which i think we've been very fortunate to see there is a particular post covet syndrome that is only seen in kids about even as far as two to three months out and these weren't necessarily kids who were hospitalized with velvet there's just that's a positive you might just even have a vague history that they were around people with covet about two to three months before they get extremely sick so the syndrome is called miss c and the c it's multi-system inflammatory syndrome the sea is foreseen only in children we don't see it in

137adults it's have been since the start of over 88 kids hospitalized very sick and yes again none of them have died but this post syndrome is very dangerous so now we are discharging these kids we've sent them all home however not the usual way that you discharge a child from the hospital you don't send them bouncing out the door and say back to full activity now there's actual cardiac damage where now you have to write things like cannot go back to gym cannot until cleared by a cardiologist it is very new very different and again 88 kids in new jersey and just 22 from just december to now i think it's in my opinion it's okay to continue with a reopening plan that exercises a little bit of caution and follows the new jersey department

138of health and cdc guidelines thank you thank you very much any other questions or comments mr jenks we know it's you you don't have to state your name again i'm back all right i mean i appreciate everything you guys are doing and i understand it's difficult okay but i mean part of the irony here is black history month and and and we got people that are worried about uh you know implicit bias or something like this this is not implicit bias this is bias we all know that the minorities the kids who don't have who don't have a good start to begin with are going to be hurt worse than anybody else and and i'm not going to be quiet somebody has to speak for those who can't speak for themselves who can't be here

139tonight maybe it's the mother up on on winona trail okay who can't afford a babysitter so she can come here or maybe another uh parent up there on winona trail has to uh do a second shift work and tells her 13 year old you know uh babysit tonight for my for your you know your brother and sister they're not going to be here they're not going to be heard why does it take somebody like me to to tell you what everybody else knows i've got i've got a son i've got a son who and his wife who by the way are working at home okay they're so concerned about their children their two daughters education they hired an au pair a living living person inside to help their children learn and and get a good

140education how many of those winona trail families are going to hire an au pair it's not happening somebody has to speak for those who don't you can and here's the fix you have the ability to do what lenape regional district is doing on monday march 1st anybody who wants to go to school five days a week in person can attend i was told that by one of the girls today who who waited on me and said that yes i'm gonna go because i can go five days a week in person she's a senior can i can i just add to that real quick go ahead because i'm gonna be experiencing that on monday myself teaching there um it's not anybody they're going to cap it off uh they they're still going to have a cohort

141they're instead of having cohort a and b right they're going to have cohort one you know cohort a b and then cohort c so in a classroom you're still not going to have more than 15 kids in a classroom now i teach five different classes that average roughly about 30 kids so i'm going to see probably on average i'm going to probably see on average about 12 i would say no i'm going to go less probably 10 kids in person the rest will still be online it isn't this it isn't a blanket everybody if they want to come in they can come in there's there's going to be limitations on on top of that on top of that if if your class overflows past 15 it goes to if it goes i think over three

142then that class gets moved into another location that can accommodate that but not but it might accommodate that but it may not accommodate the the the uh the technology or needs that those kids may have so it's not a blanket anybody can come in i just want to want to clarify that thank you thank you i appreciate that no no problem anytime and it was the anecdotal so and then again i may or may not perfectly fine and she that that girl who might have uh waited on you is probably extraordinarily excited about that and there are kids that are very excited to get back into that life um and then there's some that that are they're they're set where they want to be there but that's one of your regions and can i just

143a personal question joe can i ask you when the kids come back who choose to come back who are those kids are those the kids who are the dnf students no we i taught at lenape for 11 years well we all know the students you know approach let me let me let me let me just answer that real quick and i know you're getting d's and f's get special help the the kids that are most troubled are the kids that that the school district was targeting first to try to bring them back in full time because we wanted to reach out to those kids to make sure that those kids didn't fall behind so we we began that practice of bringing those kids full time i have i would say i would have about five

144kids in in five total five kids in five classes there that fall within that range uh and those kids have been coming in five days a week i want to say since by no i'll say november 1st i would i would make that argument that's and that's again it's anecdotal to my story uh but that's that's what i've seen so they've they have targeted those kids initially over there i just wanted to add that in there for you and so why don't we do the same so just um we act we are um so we have 48 of our kids who are coming in person or in four days a week how do you identify those 48 well and i'll get to that in a moment but let me also share another detail so the

145there are 46 percent of the students in the lenape district are full remote 30 of our students are full remote so that makes up a big difference if half of your roughly half of your student body is full remote that means you only have to get the other half in we have 70 percent of our students in person so 70 percent in what two or three days 30 remote of that 70 half of them are in every day that we offer in person learning okay okay of the 70 50 are in five days a week 50 of 70 is 35 so 35 percent of the students are in person learning five days a week is that correct correct okay correct just just wanted to make sure i had the numbers right yep and and uh

146to the piece about how we identified is the students who needed it most so we're like our youngest learners our students in our special education programs i understand those guys and so on and so forth and we work through um very thoughtfully to try to provide the resource of in-person instruction to students who need it most all year long then we continue to as do many districts i would also add that um and i and i i really uh i do feel a little discomfort when we talk about district of district because each con just because you know i do think different importance 600 districts in the state i understand each district has its own unique context that has you know a comet trail of of many conversations going back for years that have that

147are all part of the present what i can say for us is that our days are full days right our days are full days and um a district that might be in five days a week but is in for shortened days if you added up the instructional minutes of in person you know that's another way to look at it right um the uh and when it comes to uh i'm so you know we have a a very um happy constellation of circumstances right now that is exactly as we hoped and planned it would be so we you know when we set the state of march first for our return to full day back in december we anticipated two things the weather would be cooperating and a decrease in coveted cases in the region would be

148cooperating we have both those things right now so um you know i don't know any of the rest of you felt it today but i felt just the first whisper of spring today okay didn't we all then we all it's fantastic right and that not just on the psychological effect but it enables outdoor eating because when we were a full day in december temperatures were lower than they were today you know so so it definitely is auspicious and uh and the the decrease of covid within our region right now has returned us to where we were in october mid-october in fact so um which we were full bore full day no problems you know so uh so that's really good you know and uh and i just that's another variable as you peel back the

149layers of each district and what they do there are so many variables right so it just strikes me though but go ahead i was going to say uh we're we're starting to move move quite a bit into this i apologize um is do you have anything you want to close out with i think you can find the room and ensure that the kids are six feet apart or the kids don't need to be six feet apart joe you need to be six feet apart from the kids and and let the kids and the parents decide whether or not they want to send the kids to school the kids can be right next to each other they in general now not for every single person in new jersey but in general the kids don't have the

150problem that the adults have thank you thank you mr jenks hi state your name and address please hello my name is audra gillen 33 rockingham drive i am also a paraprofessional at eshem schools and i will also be affected by the january 2022 removal of benefits i'm very sad and disheartened by this news and i'm asking you to find another way the paraprofessionals play a very important role in the children's lives and this year especially have had an even greater impact on the students and their learning and their success so taking away my benefits is not a solution for the current budget issue and there's got to be another way thank you thank you anybody else with a comment or anything else please come on up good evening state your name and address please my

151name is erica i live in the knightsbridge development what's your last name i'm sorry soyper thank you hi i just wanted to thank dr smith and i wanted to read a letter because i know so many people are so narrowly focused on the chaos we're living in right now with pandemics and politics that um just going back to basics i i have a concern about overuse of technology in the classroom and i just think that a lot of people don't see how you know even before covet which has just really turbo charged it every aspect of our society is kind of getting digitized from our shopping to our doctor's visits to our school and our work i just wanted to read a letter that i wrote to dr smith who kind of brought up a

152relevant point he mentioned the book walden by thoreau which and dr smith is so smart and we're very fortunate to have him he really can pick apart complicated material and break it down into a digestible format from an educator's perspective but he had brought that up because it was relevant how that novel spoke to the complex relationship we as humans have with technology as it pertained to the original industrial revolution and i think now we're going through a new sort of industrial revolution where we're seeing all sorts of new technologies impact our lives in ways that i think it's just going to exponentially increase for our children and our children's children so i just wanted to read a response that i wrote to dr smith dr smith i'm writing to express my sincere gratitude for

153your kind words and thoughtful reflection your message is a tremendous source of comfort for a mother watching her young children caught up in a world that is changing so rapidly with so much uncertainty your allusion to walden brought me to tears it highlights the true complexity of man's relationship with technology and inevitable progress it reminds me that throughout history humans have struggled with a double-edged sword of technological innovation that societal benefits often come with a cost i am watching a seismic shift impact nearly every aspect of our society from the way we work and learn to the way we shop and see our doctors telehealth amazon zoom and google classroom are moving us away from the physical into the virtual realm and as a mother that scares me it's hard to stay positive and not

154envision a cold mechanized world where every outcome is predicated on data analytics where the human element becomes increasingly redundant when i was a kid quantum computing artificial intelligence and synthetic biology were the stuff of science fiction but i'm beginning to suspect they will influence the future for my children and i feel overwhelmed realizing there are others like you that appreciate this conundrum that recognize what's at stake if these issues are not addressed brings me great comfort your sincerity and intelligence are true gifts and i feel very fortunate that you are the superintendent of our district you are a parent so you recognize the importance of human connection you know that children need the physical to hug hold hands and to look into other human eyes for guidance and reassurance this is essential for their development

155and emotional well-being you understand as an educator that learning has a social element that is lost through the filter of a screen you give me hope hope that your kindness and good spirit can navigate the path ahead that you can use your influence and eloquence to promote awareness that you can advocate for our children and ride the rails in the right direction it is no doubt a difficult task and you are only one person in one town but i picture thoreau as you stroll by walden pond i imagine on occasion he would toss a single stone into the water it would land in the pond piercing the surface and after the initial splash he would stand by the water's edge and watch the ripples propagate towards the horizon thank you this is soifer thank you

156for coming tonight i it's it's it's very it's a gift actually it's a gift to me that you came because to correspond you know by email and then that you came in person to share that i really deeply appreciate it um i i so often feel like there are we live in this time where answers are more and more elusive and even we think we have them somewhat in hand it just turns out to be another set of questions and whatever that means the one thing that gives me solidity and a sense of reassurance is that we all together are working on them together and uh and so you coming here tonight to me embodies that thank you so much any other questions or comments seeing none we're going to close that portion of the

157meeting uh we do not need uh sorry uh do we have any board member announcements mr thumb this is the most i've ever spoken at a board meeting oh uh so so most of the the board members know i also am the liaison for the human rights advisory council uh with the mayor and council as well as a member of community outreach so um i just wanted to thank uh mrs torre and dr amato for from dion today for coming and sharing their thoughts and the continued meetings we've been having with them thank you anybody else seeing none we're going to close board announcements there is no second executive session uh so i need a motion to adjourn with the note that we will be meeting on march 11th here correct march 11th here in

158uh demacia at 7 pm uh do i have a motion to adjourn please someone just give me a motion ah mr lanzalata do i have a second second by by miss everhart um all in favor all right have a wonderful night [Music] so [Music] she [Music] you