001[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] do [Music] my [Music] i like to call this meeting of the evesham township board of education to order pursuant to the open public meetings act adequate public notice has been given by the secretary of eastern township board of education in the following manner posting written notice on the official bulletin board of the board of education office emailing written notice to the berlin county times and the courier post and filing written notice with the municipal clerk of eastham township can i have a roll call please mrs barbara giovanni here mrs everhart here mr is here miss fleming mr canton here mrs knoll mr lancelata here mr megan here this is ryan here we have a forum thank you at this moment i am going to ask for
002a motion to go an executive session where as an njsa 104-12 allows for a public body to go into closed session during a public meeting and whereas the board of education of yves shrimp township has deemed it necessary to go into closed session to discuss certain matters which are exempted from the public and whereas the regular meeting of the board of education will reconvene following the end of the closed session at approximately a little after 7 pm now therefore be it resolved that the board of education office will be the board of education will be closed session for the following reasons as outlined in njsa 104-12 and that's items 2.2 through 2.4 do i have a motion for executive session ah motion by ms barbara giovanni seconded by miss everhart any questions or comments uh
003roll call please this is barbara giovanni yes this is everhart yes mr zacchara yes mr campin yes mr lancelotta yes mr megan yes this is ryan yes thank you we'll see everyone roughly around seven o'clock [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] do [Music] i'd like to reconvene this meeting of the eevshrim township board of education you could all rise for the pledge of allegiance okay we are going to move into presentations mr pisacaro i would be very honored to present certificates to two of our board members tonight who have earned level two
004certification from the new jersey school boards association so um do we have a they have a mic or uh all right here we go feels different to stand up level two certification is achieved through completing over 20 hours of professional development as a board member this is quite an achievement and to have on the same board two members complete that is wonderful and to be able to recognize them tonight is my great honor the first board member is trish everhart can you get an elbow bump good you can see we haven't done a lot of fanfare at these meetings during a pandemic and our second level two certified school board member elaine barbara giovanni would you please come up congratulations then we're gonna you can stand in between and then miss robert giovanni if you
005could stand a little bit longer here so i wanted to take a few moments tonight just to recognize the wonder of you okay and and you've been on the board since 2015 you've served on the finance and operations committee the curriculum committee the technology committee you've been liaison to national school boards association to town council to the ptas to the wrap room you brought with you 31 years experience in our district and most of that at jagger'd in first grade right and i always i always felt like when you were talking i could just feel the that veteran lens you know as as everything you were saying is coming through that lens um and yet you also were the one of the first people to always think of like a fresh idea you know so
006you had that blend of veteran experience but um outside the box thinking that plus your dedication and heart there's a lot to miss you'll be sorely missed tilling sorely sorely missed um but we wanted to present with you this plaque to commemorate your time with us and i would hug you right now but i just do it all the bump so [Applause] so thank you so much and i really appreciate it i love my time serving on the board and i'm grateful for everyone on it and hard road ahead but i know everybody will think outside the box and try to make everything successful so i really enjoyed my time with you guys so carry on thank you all right getting ourselves uh back in i'm not used to doing a presentation like this is
007a long long time to be done something like that slight yes as you barely see us on the edges of the picture that's got to be 20 20. now we're going to uh now we're going to move to uh item number five public discussion discussion of agenda items only this meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personnel items or negotiations we'd ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person is there anybody here would like to talk about any item any agenda item foreclosure is that an agenda item i don't believe school closure is not an agenda item that would fall
008to the to the second public comment thank you though for your question on that all right and moving on all right this point in time we're gonna move to item six approval of the minutes i need a resolution to approve the november 19 2020 regular and executive session minutes uh items five item five point uh item six point one and six point two uh do i have a motion motion by mr lancelotta seconded by miss fleming any questions or comments pertaining to approval of the minutes seeing none let's go to a roll call this is barbara giovanni yes this is everhart yes mr pizzocaro yes miss fleming yes mr hampton yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes this is ryan yes commission carries thank you moving to number seven superintendents report and administrative items i
009need a motion to approve items seven one through seven seven do i have a motion motion by mr lanzalata second it by oh miss fleming all right repeats um do i have any uh before you have any questions or comments dr smith the floor is yours thank you mr pizzacaro just like to provide an update on our continued reopening of school so we've completed 65 days so far this year seven of our eight schools are currently open for in-person learning all full remote students whose parents chose to switch to in-person through our post-winter breaks learning survey that we put out in november those students have been switched into in-person learning or will be switched by january 4th district-wide we began the year with 72 percent of our students learning in person as of today district
010wide 68 percent of students are learning in person for a decrease of four percent we are staying with our regular full day while we continue to explore possible options for a shortened day during january and february only just to have as an alternative if needed and this exploration is just another step in our process of always reflecting on any aspect of what we do i'll include more information in my friday email for families tomorrow but i just wanted to make sure everyone was aware that at this point we're staying with a full day while we continue to explore this has been a difficult year when many things that people might never thought possible happened like students literally not being able to go into a school things that had stress and test patience and sap our
011spirits and i just wanted to give a shout out to a group of people who helped create a stress reliever as today's snow day by all accounts was a stress reliever and i want to say thank you to a demacie middle school teacher mrs colitis colitis and her seventh grade writing students they wrote to me different essays on ideas for how to improve school and i met with them at google meet and we talked through their ideas it was a great conversation and the strength of their voices was an inspiration for the snow day student voice survey that all our students completed and in this survey the students had three choices and they chose to have traditional snow days for the first three snow days if we needed them and guess what the weather delivered
012and today was our first traditional snow day so just you know any students who are watching you made that happen and um you know again it came through inspiration from your fellow classmates in one of the schools um i received even photos today from staff and parents of their children playing outside in the snow and when you think about this is our first real snow in two years i think everybody felt just some joy in going out and doing that it made me think that the value of anything can't truly be measured without a counterpoint and the value of today wasn't created today it was created every day this year all 65 days together worked together to give today its value as a break from as close to a typical routine of school as we
013as has been possible to achieve a snow day feels more and more like a snow day when school feels more and more like school and so the power of today those photos those emails expressing thanks are a testament to our staff and all roles who have worked and supported stu and students and delivered excellence day in and day out and ways beyond what many districts have asked to do what they have done and are doing to achieve a sense of normalcy of regularity so that a snow day can be savored like a snow day that is the height of extraordinary and among so much to be grateful for this year for that and for so much more i'm grateful to our staff those are my comments thank you dr smith are there any questions or
014comments pertaining to the superintendent's report or administrative items seeing none let's go to a roll call please this is barbara giovanni yes this is everhart yes mr pizzacaro yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes mr lancelata yes mr vegan yes this is ryan yes okay thank you mr roshinti moving now to item eight curriculum instruction i need a motion to approve items eight one through eight six do i have a motion motion by mr kantham second by miss barbara giovanni any questions or comments to curriculum and instruction seeing none let's go to a roll call please this is barbara giovanni yes this is everhart yes mr president yes ms fleming yes mr canton yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes this is ryan yes thank you moving to item nine finance and operations i did
015a motion to prove items 9 1 through 9 13. do i have a motion for finance and operations motion by ms barbara giovanni seconded by mr lanzalata any questions or comments pertaining finance and operations dr smith thank you mr fiscaro just on on the topic of donations it's impossible to encompass all the time and resources that are donated from our community to our families it's going on all the time i feel so privileged because i get to see it both through conversation with principals and emails that go out from the schools and i just wanted to take a moment to highlight a couple sources of that giving so we've had an anonymous community member donate masks for schools all year long okay hundreds the martin women's club the yshan township police department shop with a
016cop program the marlton business association the administration building staff prince of peace st isaacs and all of our school ptas and etsd families who have been giving all year long again it's impossible to name everyone but thank you thank you so much to what everyone is doing to help each other during these difficult times thank you thank you dr smith any other questions or comments okay let's go to a roll call please this is barbara giovanni yes this is everhart yes mr zacchara yes miss flemming yes mr canton yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes this is ryan yes all right moving to item 10 personnel you need a motion to prove items 10 1 through 10 10 do i have a motion motion by miss fleming seconded by mr lanzalata all right he's got
017it uh any uh questions or comments pertaining to personnel seeing none very talkable group today let's go to a roll call this is barbara giovanni yes this is everhart yeah mr pizzacaro yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes yes mr megan yes this is ryan yes okay i'm going to move to item 11 policy but there is no policy to approve tonight so we're going to move past that and head into committee reports is there any committee head that wishes to give a report on their committee mr lanzalata yes i'd just like to thank uh mark natalie and the democratic committee of yvesham that met with us on the 24th of november they welcomed dr smith as well as the the board representatives dr smith talked to talk to them again talked to the community
018just about what we're doing you know the great things that we're doing in the eastern township and you know talked about the the hybrid in person learning uh talked about what's going on with the budget took questions and answers and uh you know it was it was a really beneficial night for everyone so thank you thank you mr heinzelada any other committees all right uh seeing none we're gonna move to old business um there is no old business so then we're gonna move to item 14 new business uh there is no new business to present correct on that all right that'll take us to item 15 and this is open public comment for any items of interest this meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest however your questions or
019comments pertain to litigation student or personnel items or negotiations we'd ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments three minutes per person we will first work with the uh with anybody in the room that wishes to speak and then i have two statements to read after that please state your name and address good evening john janks 39 carlton avenue regarding substandard education and the reduction of class time as we all know it closing schools remote learning is substandard education the kids parents the teachers the university studies yale rutgers devil all find remote learning is substandard and furthermore the scientific studies show that remote learning disproportionately hurts the poor underprivileged minorities blacks and hispanics so if you disproportionately hurt minorities that's the
020definition of racism so just so we all agree remote learning is a well documented now a racist policy i'm not accusing you of being racist maybe you just don't know it hey you remember only 13 of our children are minorities yes that's a policy we can live with now let's get to some additional data and science after all we do what the science says reducing class time schools who are protecting the kids well you all ran for office on kids first time for the children's etc etc so we have to protect their kids from what blowing their noses sneezing coughing or do we protect the children from dying well what is a data show not one child new jersey child has died between the ages of 5 and 17. since the beginning since last march
021not one child between 5 and 17. new jersey doh statistics therefore the board of education doesn't have to uh protect the kids from covet 19 their immune system takes care of that so let's protect the teachers i can understand that completely and since june of course we know that the medical community has now treatments for cobit 19. so we need to ask the question how many new jersey teachers have died from covid since let's say september or the summer when we've gotten some therapies this leads the question of what is an acceptable risk we know that the children the risk for k-8 children is zero not minimal it's zero so let's look at the adults back in the spring governor curfew saw the death rate as high as 300 people dying a day well we
022can understand that was unacceptable so we go to lockdown shelter at home etc now with a rate around as high as recently 50 a day the governor's not ordered lockdown you can go to the restaurants box stores walmart most retail stores bars and gyms so 50 people per day social distance and mask puts adults at an acceptable risk according to the governor back to my question what is acceptable risk for the morbidity of teachers is it 1 5 20 per month per year what is your metric for acceptable risk we know what the governor's metric is let's say for purposes of example it's one or twenty or a hundred would you ever allow the schools to reopen if it was one or twenty or a hundred so you're responsible for making the decisions and please
023explain to me uh what two questions how many teachers have died from covid in new jersey and two do you have an acceptable risk policy with regard to communicable diseases thank you elaine for your service we appreciate it actually we appreciate all your services thank you john thank you mr jenks oh please i'm sorry no no it was a prepared statement if you would like copies i'd be hated we got them an email thank you i appreciate that thank you so much good evening my name is evan scott i live at 106 williamsburg court my first question tonight is on december 8th i read an article in the marvel marlton sun titled enrollment open for etsd's tuition-based 2021-2022 preschool program could you tell me tonight who wrote that article um is that an article that
024was printed in the sun yes yes sir um so i believe her name is there's often a writer that that does the articles in there about school district uh items madeleine um the last name starts with an m that's how i'm thinking battle in the car is that who it what did it say in the bi part now so in this article in this instance and this is a growing concern not only at the municipal level but it now seems to be happening here this is submitted content so submitted content meaning it was entered into the marlton sun by a government source not by the marlton sun itself so would you be able to tell me who wrote that article i'd have to uh it probably was created by multiple people so i'd have to
025uh take a look into that but i certainly could follow up with you okay and i appreciate that and just the follow-up if we were able to find that it would be great and the reason why i say that is we're faced with a situation where we have the government producing its own news without attribution now i don't have a problem with the school district publishing its own news pieces and giving it to the marlton sun or any other news source but with attribution so we know who produced it who provided you know the information etc etc okay so my next question is on the townships human rights advisory committee which mr camp in europe a part of uh recently it's been discussed about providing implicit bias training for school teachers and employees my question
026for the board is would you consider receiving that same training prior to mandating it for employees or have you already received implicit bias training as a board member has anyone received implicit bias training as a board member any training that we've had done is through the new jersey school boards and you know there's some bias training done through through school boards i am not privy exactly to what the human rights council is referring to that that level hasn't come up to us yet so i can't really answer that i don't think we have the ability to answer that yet until we saw something solid on our end okay and i think that i think lenape regional would probably end up saying the same thing too yes and i agree and i just think that it
027would be important for public-facing officials to have the same training before they mandated for employees so that we're all singing from the same shooting music which i am in favor of by the way i think it would be a good thing to have that kind of training all right hey thank you very much thank you very much anybody else okay uh i have two uh prepared statements to read uh from uh that were written in this last month too i'm going to try to read this again i'm going to do this with the uh as best as i can with the emotion that is asked for in these letters so uh please pardon me as i as i do this all right and again these are letters written by uh two members of the public
028this is not a view of the eastern township board of education the first one is from nicole puglia a second grade teacher from buehler elementary school all right good evening dr smith and board of education as you are aware we are in a global pandemic and have made it quite far this school year for in-person training we're learning i'm sorry in-person learning since the decision was made for schools to return it was my fear that my colleagues and other students and families would be in a situation to test positive or have to quarantine you have heard from many of us over these past few months recently i reached out as a concerned mom and teacher upon the closure of buehler i have felt no other option to keep my children safe than to have them
029in a full remote setting my husband's district in delawarean tried one school at a time and it did not work out and they had to shut the whole district down my extended family attends mes and it has heightened my concerns once again i implore you at this time to make the decision to implement full remote learning until after the holiday time and people are safe i wish you all good health throughout the holiday season thank you sincerely nicole puglia and miss puglia hopefully i've pronounced her name correctly it's one of my uh one of my my nervous little tips about this so i thank you for your letter and i appreciate your appreciate your words just want a second that thanks to miss puglia um having been in her classroom and seeing what she's done
030this year fantastic stuff and um i appreciate you sharing your concerns from a parent and staff member lens thank you okay i have one more scroll down to it this is from debbie van curin the ega president good evening dr smith and board of education members my comments tonight are on behalf of the etea members and our students families the news that i heard this afternoon is so disheartening many families were just told what we all feared you must quarantine going into the christmas holiday this happened prior to thanksgiving break to our members and students in our schools our staff has worked so hard and has done all that you have put on our plates to keep our schools open our staff is feeling very beat up and under appreciated our staff feels that the
031health and safety of us and our family members is the last thing on your priority list while the world continues to navigate the pandemic our staff comes to school each day worried that we will be exposed and take covid19 home to our elderly parents and at-risk family members our principals continue to try to cover these classes and keep us all safe but there's only so much they can do to beat a dead horse the indoor lunch is not socially distancing in any way students are not six feet away they do not remember to put their masks on before getting out of their seats it is not working this is a huge covet 19 exposure risk to everyone in our buildings the etea has asked you to close our schools for in-person learning so this would
032not happen again like it did at thanksgiving break you rejected our request and now many students and staff members are unable to spend christmas with their families due to quarantining many of our teachers come to school each day with a handful of students in front of them and the majority of the class at home working remotely recently some parents made the choice to have their children switch from the hybrid model to an all remote model to lower their family's risk of being told you must quarantine through christmas parents made this decision because you won't make the decision to close our entire school district for in-person learning you continue to try the one school at a time or one class at a time game we have made it more than one third of the way through
033our school year tonight on behalf of the students and staff i urge you to close our entire school district for in-person learning until sometime after the holidays board of education members will one of you decide tonight to take the next step to close our school district for in-person learning this will be a huge way to show that you appreciate the unbelievable dedication that has been shown since the first school day in september thank you debbie van curan that's all the statements that i had thank you mr president thank you miss van kieren for your comments just want to reply to a couple pieces first care and compassion are at the heart of everything that we're doing it's why at different points different of our schools have closed for different lengths of time and the reason
034that they close is preventive out of care and compassion to make sure that there isn't a problem it's why one of our eight schools is closed now so we have been willing to close a school or schools and again that decision is made out of an abundance of caution and compassion for our staff and students and we will continue to do that because we have to balance it against the compassion and care that we have for everyone and there are schools and all the schools that stay open it's safe to have them open and some of the every one of those schools almost is larger than entire districts in our county so you know it's it's a difficult difficult balance like everything in this pandemic where we have to have compact compassion for multiple groups
035of people and weigh that every day and it does weigh trust me it does weigh every day um but to close a school that's safe where there aren't haven't been any cases because another school was closed instantly shows puts puts puts harm into the lives of hundreds of people and that's a really hard decision all the time and i just want you to know that caring compassion are in every decision at every moment which is what makes this so difficult and the other last thing i wanted to say is i think your phrasing was the school by school game is how you phrased it the school bicycle game and because of our care and compassion this is the opposite of a game this is absolutely serious and so uh while i will agree with you
036on many many things that word game i will politely push back on and say that has absolutely zero to do with any of this this is serious thank you that will close our public portion of this meeting and now we're going to item 16 board member announcements are there any members of the board that wish to give an announcement um miss everhart i just want to say to elaine it's been very interesting to sit with you on this side of the table i remember you on that side of the table causing uh us to review a lot of things and to have a lot of conversations because you and your husband used to uh you know approach us with a lot of food for thought items at that time from that perspective then you came
037over here and and you dutifully did the same you would come to committee meetings and you would sit side by side with a lot of us board members and you would challenge and question and offer your experience and advice you and i fought are should i say we have battled a lot of things because we didn't always agree with perspectives or curriculum changes or things that were going on in the district but we always at the end of the day were able to come back to center and appreciate each other's perspective so it is with a heavy heart on one hand to say goodbye but i am also happy for you because now hopefully you will have more time to enjoy your retirement and i look forward to seeing you on that side of the
038table again and thank you for all of your mentoring and uh experience and just being a great board member that you brought to the table it was a pleasure sitting beside you thank you good luck thank you trish i really appreciate that and i have to say the same thing i i didn't get a chance and i i apologize um you you're a absolutely tremendous person and i've really gotten to know you really well on this board since you've been elected and i'm going to miss you you bring a very a very um very awesome perspective you're always going to have conversations i've i've always had some very enlightening conversations with you um you've been nothing but um but polite and graceful especially to me and i've i've always appreciated every moment i got a
039chance to work with you and in you know in this in this i guess next phase outside of the board of education life please do not ever be a stranger um you know please please always feel free to give a call or come by to a meeting or you know you you're you're always welcome you're absolutely utterly always welcome and and i will miss you and i thank you for everything that you have done that certificate does not give you justice to who you are and what you've done on this board so thank you elaine this son i just wanted to also thank um elaine when i first came to the board she gave me lots of information and showed me the ropes and um taught me you know things that i needed to do
040and so i really appreciate that it will be very sad seeing you leave but utter joe's word so please make sure you come back um the input is very invaluable and i thank you again and i hope you enjoyed lots of good things after this thank you melissa thank you joe and everyone else i really enjoyed my time on the board and my husband said to me now don't start any problems at your last meeting i said i never start any problems i just offer so i'm going to say i will miss it and but i've enjoyed working with you all and thank you all for the kind words appreciate it i can hear joe's voice saying that i can hear that as clear as day this meeting any other announcements all right um with
041that being said have a very very safe winter break be merry be festive but be careful okay we are obviously not out of the woods yet okay um do love you all everybody who's listening and i want all of you to be safe okay so that being said happy holidays we have a reorganization on what day is that we are do we have um this is the seventh okay uh our reorg is at the seventh it will be here in damasi all right um at that point i will need uh elaine to give me a motion to adjourn i wish you that we adjourn for the evening and merry christmas and happy holidays to everyone and who will second that adjournment miss fleming seconds all and all in favor aye happy holidays everyone [Music] foreign
042[Music] so you