Freehold Township Board Of Education Meeting August 30, 2022

001mr gargiulo here mr matthews here mrs o'sullivan president mrs patton president mrs thomann here mrs benditoli here mr amoroso here mrs lambert we have a quorum thank you did i get a motion to approve the minutes from the regular meeting august 16 2022 second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye i abstain okay thank you thank you sir okay president's remarks i'm not filling in for mrs lambert this evening i'd like to welcome everyone to the meeting we are getting ready for a new school year i want to thank all the administrators and the teachers for getting the buildings ready i know it's been an exciting summer everybody's anxious to get back to school and i'm sure mr dickstein will be uh speaking about that more but uh welcome to our last summer

002meeting of the year mr dixon good evening thank you for joining us this evening it is hard to believe that we are quickly approaching the start to another school year i would like to thank all of our staff members across the district who worked diligently over the summer performing the tasks necessary to successfully begin the 22-23 school year some wonder what everybody does in the summer it's actually somewhat more hectic especially as we start reaching the opening days of school but it's all worth it when those kids walk through the door we honestly cannot wait to welcome our staff back this week and subsequently see those kids walk through the door because that's why we put all this time and effort into getting it ready to see them back in our hallways for another exciting

003year of learning and engaging with each other as i said previously staffing has been a challenge this summer i am pleased to share that at this moment 7 36 on tuesday evening we are fully staffed that does seem to change sometimes by the minute but we are fully staffed at this moment as typical this summer did include several curriculum revisions and i'm going to turn it over to mrs montgomery to highlight the areas of the curriculum which have been revised this summer i'll come back and forth okay okay um sit in my chair are you good there mr amarosa okay okay um thank you how about yes all right i'm excited to share with you this evening some information about the amazing and extensive work completed by the curriculum department during the summer months as

004neil said many think that things are quiet around here summer is actually the busiest time of the year in the curriculum department before diving into specifics about the curriculum i want to take a few minutes to share with you information about curriculum processes and how and why curriculum work gets completed so first and foremost why why do we review and revise portions of the curriculum annually first and foremost our responsibility as a district is to maintain compliance with mandates from the new jersey department of education these new standards were released in 2020 and considering the impacts of the pandemic the state gave schools a grace period until september of 2022 to fully implement the requirements additionally implementation of new standards allows us to maintain our district's standard of excellence in education and continuously improve the

005quality of programs that we offer to our students while also making sure that our curriculum continues to align with our vision and our mission so i'm going to provide a brief review of the process of curriculum development for the benefit of the public and for members of the board who may not be aware of how this process works but as has been stated publicly at meetings recently the state mandates standards and our district is responsible for the review and interpretation of those standards and then we build curriculum based on the needs that we've identified in the district this process is not exclusive to the health and pe curriculum which i know many are interested and concerned to hear about tonight we do this with every single content area that we review and after curriculum is

006developed and adopted teachers then develop lesson plans in their classrooms based on the guidelines in the curriculum documents in order to prepare for the development of any new curriculum the first thing that we do is gather together a team of expert teachers this team is brought together for professional development to train around the new standards and the goals that are part of that curriculum development additionally curriculum teams complete what's called a crosswalk exercise which basically means that they do a comprehensive comparison of the old curriculum and the or the old standards and the new standards and this exercise allows the curriculum team to identify what areas of the old standards and the new standards are the same which often times more often than not it there's a lot of carryover as well as identify new

007concepts or concepts that have been moved among or between grade levels once this crosswalk exercise is complete curriculum teams make decisions about which standards will be addressed at particular grade levels after identifying target standards for grade levels curriculum guides are developed these are the roadmaps used to support teachers in the classrooms and these bullets on this slide are the components of every single curriculum that we write for every content area just like google maps you can find your way from point a to point b using several different paths right google maps gives you a toll option and a toll-free option a highway option or a local road option the same is true for our curriculum sometimes you have choice and sometimes the district will dictate right so in the case of our health curriculum as

008we'll be talking about some of the things in the curriculum are very clearly dictated but some things teachers will have choice about related to certain topics and we're going to revisit these components when we get specifically to the health curriculum and i'll walk through each of those parts of the of the curriculum but first i want to take an opportunity to highlight some of the work that's happened in our other content areas because it's really extensive and extraordinary so in the area of social studies we were mandated to review and revise our curriculum to align with those new 2020 standards we worked on the middle school curriculum during the course of this last school year this summer we focused on the kindergarten through fourth grade so all of our new all of our social studies

009curriculum is now aligned with the new standards and um and on the agenda for you for uh approval tonight grades six through eight um we aligned units with the new standards moving some previous studies to different grade levels because of the new standards alignment that was the crosswalk exercise that i talked about we had to move some units from from some one grade level to another to align with the new standards additionally we developed a middle school civics course that's in line with a new law and mandate that required a civics course in middle school so all of our eighth graders will be taking a civics course that's all focused on the constitution and american history around the constitution and we also developed a series of standards-based assessments aligned with those new units of study

010and language arts our eighth grade contemporary fiction unit was developed and new a series of new books were ordered to support that unit of study um as well as the eighth grade writing unit position paper unit was revised um in fourth and fifth grade i think i had shared with this uh with you this before we are we have developed a conventions of language companion guide those are things like um grammar and syntax and writing conventions those are all going to be taught on a companion guide in connection with our writing units so teachers will be trained to implement these companion guides along with their units of study that they're currently teaching as well as a development of benchmark assessments for grades four through eight that are aligned with the standards so we're making sure

011that our curriculum is is hitting all of the standards for our kids as well as implementing pre and post assessments for our grades three four and five students in linkit for our reading assessments or reading units in math the elementary grades developed assessments in linkit and for uh streamlined data analysis and we will talk about this a lot as during the course of the year but about all of the student assessment data that we're keeping in link it and the really amazing work we can do around student assessment analysis and how our students are doing and so the more data student data that we can load into linkit we are going to continue to do that um an alignment study of the bridges curriculum and standards-based report card was put together to help teachers effectively

012assess where their kids are at during reporting periods so we want to know that our our bridges curriculum is aligned with the standards and then help teachers take those standards to report out to parents how their kids are doing additionally we had a committee that worked on creating a number corner instructional guide for teachers we developed math screeners for our elementary grades that will be in linkedin to help us identify students who at an earlier age who may be struggling in the area of mathematics so we have these new screeners that will be in linkit to help us develop identify students and develop interventions for students and we also developed a plan to collaborate with teachers throughout the year to formalize middle school standards-based common assessments we'll be doing that over the course of this

013year putting standards-based assessments in for middle school as well and middle school related arts we as i i think i shared with you in the spring we are working on developing opportunities for more choice for our middle school students so our seventh and eighth grade students will be taking a project lead the way course that class was developed this summer curriculum for that class was written development of course specific rubrics um was um put into place for middle school our middle school related arts classes will be transitioning from pass fail grading to um to number grading or or report card gradings as the other grade as the other content areas are and so the teachers worked on developing rubrics to help assess students in their specific content areas and that will continue we will continue

014that work this year in terms of putting standards-based rubrics into genesis we worked on creating access and equity for our students to participate in in some of our middle school musical programs and then also as we have talked about and i know everyone's anxious to hear about are kindergarten through eighth grade comprehensive health and physical education this is not curriculum specific but certainly a lot of the work that's been happening in the curriculum office so i felt it was important to highlight for you all of the work we've been doing around data assessment and intervention so this has been a comprehensive and collaborative effort in the curriculum department but we reviewed all of our current intervention statuses and practices in all of the schools one of the goals that we have this year in the

015curriculum department is to really streamline our our processes for intervention so standard criteria for access to math and reading intervention entrance criteria and exit criteria was established for both the elementary school and middle school age students we collaborated the curriculum team collaborated with building level administrators to identify strengths and needs in in the areas of intervention in their specific schools we did a lot of work with linkit this summer about rolling out and implementing this new module that we'll be using this year called intervention manager which will help us to to really target supports for kids to do things like bring in student assessment data to pair student assessment data with intervention strategies and then also progress monitor right in linkit and and a streamline of forms and processes for doing that to make sure

016that we are adhering to the um tiered systems of intervention process we worked on developing our district goals around data this year which i'm excited to be sharing with the board at our september meeting around our district goals and the work that we will be doing towards that um my curriculum team took their data on a their data team on a road show so they met went to all of the buildings met with all of the building administrators reviewed each school's student assessment data and worked with the building administrators to set goals specific to their schools around their student assessment data um and then also we've identified our data coaches for this coming school year and the work that work and we've mapped out the work that we're going to be doing with our data

017coaches throughout the course of the year so all of this represents upwards of 500 hours of work from our correct collective curriculum teams this summer this works has been a really enormous undertaking and i'm extremely grateful to the district and building level supervisors the building administrators coaches coordinators and all of the teachers that worked on our curriculum teams this summer they did an amazing amount of work and our programs continue to get better thanks to their work and so i'm awfully grateful for that okay now we're going to spend a little time talking specifically on the work the curriculum team did this summer related to the revision of the comprehensive health and physical education curriculum with a specific focus on health as i know that's been an area of concern and attention the first thing

018i want to talk about is the spirit and the intent of the standards which is specifically to highlight the expectation that all students should participate in a high quality health and physical education program that emphasizes interdisciplinary connections and empowers students to live healthy safe lives that's the intent of this curriculum to make sure that our kids are safe and healthy and and that i hope that you see that as we as we go through the presentation this evening um first and foremost and i'm going to apologize because i'm going to be moving back and forth here between here and the computer um i'm going to share the standards so one of the things that is new and specific to these to this curriculum is that the standards have been re-banded and i know mr dixon

019has mentioned this at previous meetings previously the um health and phys ed standards were banded in grade levels of two when they rewrote this curriculum they banded the standards in in three grades so we have k2 3 5 6 8 there is 912. i didn't not link it here um but those standards are all linked here in my presentation they are published by the department of education thank you um and are publicly accessible on the state department of education website you can google new jersey comprehensive health and physical education standards and you will find them there thank you um so one of the things that the curriculum team agreed was important was to have a consistent naming convention for all of the health units from grades one through eight so every grade level has health

020standards that fall in one of these unit titles so we have four units for every grade level wellness safety and community skills substance abuse and prevention and personal growth and human relationships so for example um a second grader will be having a wellness unit as will an eighth grader and in a third grade class that wellness lesson may be about plan planning balanced meals or maintaining a healthy weight well an eighth grade wellness lesson may focus on mental wellness mental wellness or stress management so the the unit titles are the same but the standards and the lessons will look different by grade level the next few slides highlight the portions of the curriculum documents that i referenced back in slide number five so i've selected clips from each grade level criteria to each grade level

021curricula to share with you here tonight it would take far longer than this this evening's meeting allows to go through every curricula every unit every grade level but i'm going to highlight for you some of the specifics and i'm going to invite the board to please ask questions or any follow-up that you want beyond this evening's meeting so the every curriculum unit starts with a unit summary and a rationale and this highlights um why we're teaching this unit what is the purpose of teaching this unit and gives a brief summary this is a fifth grade this is the fifth grade unit for um um the the human growth and personal uh the um personal growth in human relationships and the uh for for those of you in the back who may not be able to

022see it it says the personal health and development unit includes skills and information to foster personal and mental health it addresses the fact that all living things have the capacity to reproduce individuals choose to express themselves in unique ways and gender role stereotypes may limit behavior there are many different types of families there are characteristics of healthy relationships including communication skills and knowing how to address and resolve conflict so that's a general summary about things that you'll find in this in this unit the next portion of the curriculum documents are essential questions and enduring understandings the questions on the left hand side are um this is from the eighth grade curriculum so just as a reference and the goal of these portions of the curriculum are for students to be able to answer these essential

023essential questions at the end of a unit so for example at the end of studying this health unit we would expect that an eighth grader is able to answer what routine healthcare promotes personal health um so recognizing the sensitive nature of some of the topics some lessons are going to be taught more extensively than others and other topics are going to be covered merely at us on a surface level this is eighth grade correct correct um the next section of the curriculum is also this is also eighth grade and this is con the content and skills section so this is the section of the curriculum that defines how teachers are going to address specific topics right this is now removed beyond the standards this is telling teachers what are you how are you actually going

024to teach it so for example you're going to notice in these content sections verbs that describe what they should be doing so for example there um there is a sent there are sample sentences that say compare and contrast right where in those sentences students are going to be doing comparing contrasting of things where in other cases students are going to be merely defining things right so some some of these content areas we the teachers will teach more extensively and in other cases they will just define in an effort to ensure curriculum support resources are all adequately vetted this is something that you will notice in all of the units for our health curriculum documents this statement ensures that resources used in the classroom are reviewed by the curriculum department before they're being used for instruction

025in the classroom so anything any resources that are linked in the curriculum documents currently are ones that my office has vetted anything that teachers want to use beyond these resources they have to have vetted by my office before they use in the classroom in addition to the curriculum i have curated some support resources that i want to share with you this evening because i think it because i think it's important for the board and the public to actually see what some of these resources that the health health teachers will be using in the classrooms so i'm going to share some excerpts from a variety of curriculum resources just to model for you how we've researched how we vetted some of the suggested resources and all of them i'm going to share with you which standard

026they address so you understand what the standard is and then how it's connected to this resource in the classroom okay so thank you very much so this first resource is a read aloud it's a story called what riley wore i'm a teacher just like you i think it is um it is to be used in second grade to address the standard around gender roles and stereotypes which sixth grade science and if you're anything like me you've wasted your plan time trying to find a video if you want okay so this is what riley wore and it was written by alana k arnold and illustrated by linda and this was put out by beach lane book on monday riley wore a bunny costume because it was the first day of school and riley felt shy it

027was true that no one else in class wore a bunny costume but it was also true that a girl who was crying asked if she could touch one of the ears and riley said yes the ears feel just like real velvet on tuesday riley wore a superhero cape to the dentist's office because teeth cleaning is scary and riley wanted to be brave the dentist asked what's your superpower riley said i'll have to get back to you on that on wednesday riley wore a ball gown up to dinner with otto and oma because they went to a fancy restaurant and ball gowns are the fanciest when riley spilled tomato soup oma used ginger ale to blot it out a kid at another table said they should leave the stain just as it was because it looked

028like a star and stars are cool thursday was universe day at school so riley decided that outer space jammies were the perfect thing to wear riley's teacher loved the jammies and asked riley to stand on a chair while they pointed out the planets on riley's back then everyone used scissors and glue and construction paper and made planets of their own it rained on friday so riley wore a colorful combination of rubber boots a police officer jacket and the world's best tutu the crossing guard told riley i had a pair of rain boots just like that when i was little the recess captain a big kid in the sixth grade told riley i like her tutu when the weather turned mild on saturday riley dressed in hard hat overalls to help dad run errands three guys

029at the hardware store called riley daddy's little helper and one of them gave riley a sticker riley didn't peel it away from its backing because maybe it would make a good present for our friends today when they got home riley tucked the sticker away for safekeeping and wondered if being a friend could be a superhero sunday was a lazy day or lazy home day riley spent part of it wearing nothing at all but when mom asked to want to go to the park where they put on one striped sock and one polka dot purple jeans the world's best tutu a crazy monster shirt red rubber boots round aviator goggles and a hat with dinosaur spikes at the park riley felt shy then a kid from school walked up and asked are you a girl or

030a boy riley said today i'm a firefighter and dancer and a monster hunter and a pilot and a dinosaur oh said the kid want played yes then riley reached into a pocket pulled out the sticker and gave it to the kid the kid smiled and riley felt wonderful be and then we've got the authors another standard address sorry i apologize i'll speak loudly another standard addressed in second grade is reproduction um that all living things have the capacity to reproduce so a resource that we have linked here for teachers to use is this game that they can play with students where students will match um an animal with its baby so a cat oh and a red panda cub not a match a cat uh not a cup match either oh there's a kitten and

031a cat so there's reproduction at second grade um in fourth third fourth and fifth grade we address standards around self-management skills recognizing um sort of emotional things that students may go through so this next video i'm going to share addresses two different standards discussing the impact of one's feelings and thoughts that lead to healthy and unhealthy behaviors as well as the standard identify different feelings and emotions that people may experience and how they may express these emotions for example anger fear happiness sadness hopelessness or anxiety [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] um moving into the upper grades one of the androids why he lied without teachers in fifth grade one of the standards is personal mental health pregnancy and parenting can be achieved through a variety of methods and there's two standards linked to

032that explaining their relationship between sexual intercourse and human reproduction and the range of ways pregnancy occurs i have a an instructional video to share that teachers can use in class yeah of course i can babysit tonight mrs robinson i love kids they're so much fun you have nothing to worry about i have a ton of experience um a baby i i think it'll be okay i mean how hard can it be in order for people to have kids a pregnancy must occur now that can happen when sperm which is produced in the testicles combines with and fertilizes an egg which is produced in our ovaries now if a fertilized egg attaches to the wall of the uterus the process of pregnancy has begun but how do the sperm and egg meet there are several possibilities

033the most common way for a sperm an egg to meet is during vaginal sex when a penis is inserted into a vagina which is a food that carries sperm is ejaculated and the sperm can swim up through the cervix and uterus and travel to the fallopian tubes where they may find an egg now if the egg is burning unite travel down to the uterus together and implant in the uterine wall then the problem of pregnancy has begun some people get pregnant with the help of a doctor through a process called artificial insemination this is when a semen is injected into the cervix or uterus by a healthcare provider the sperm must travel up to the fallopian tube internet with a night the fertilized egg travels down the fallopian tube to the uterus and implants in

034the wall and then the process of pregnancy has begun alternatively doctors can bring a sperm and egg together completely outside of the body in the laboratory and then later insert the fertilized egg into the uterus this process is called in vitro fertilization all of these methods may lead to pregnancy over the course of nine months the fertilized egg grows into a fetus and develops organs and bodily functions until it's ready to be born pregnancy and childbirth are just one way a family can be formed some people choose to adopt children and some people choose not to have children at all oh my god it was horrible babies were supposed to be cute and sleep all day so that is an example of a resource that teachers can use in my classroom to teach about pregnancy

035and reproduction in fifth grade another standard in fifth grade is that all individuals should feel welcome and included regardless of um their gender gender expression or sexual orientation so i'm going to share a video now that uh classroom teachers health teachers can use in fifth grade about how to be an lgbtq ally okay yep i'll queue it up and you tell me when [Music] yep thank you i'm so glad that you shared your feelings with me you know it's important not to keep those kind of things inside oh sure don't worry your secret is safe with me it's only running fishy here and he's great at keeping secrets [Music] you may be asking yourself how can i support my lgbtq friends and loved ones this is called being an ally an ally is someone who

036is not lgbtq but supports and stands up for people who are for example someone who is heterosexual can be an ally to those who are gay lesbian bisexual or transgender there are many ways that you can be an ally to your lgbtq friends and loved ones the most important thing you can do is let your lgbtq loved ones know that you are there to listen to if they need to talk knowing that they have someone to talk to can be super helpful another important way you can be an ally is to stand up for someone if they are being picked on or bullied because of their sexual orientation or gender identity if they are standing up for themselves it may help to have an ally stand with them if you hear others saying things you

037can say it really makes me feel uncomfortable when you say negative things about lgbtq people you can also get involved with lgbtq organizations or causes you may decide to join the gsa or genders and sexualities alliance at your school work together with your friend to start one sometimes people who are lgbtq feel like they're the only person around with their gender or sexual identity that's not true helping a friend or loved one find others that understand what they are going through is another um last but not we're going to talk about some standards in eighth grade there are factors that contribute to making healthy decisions about sex so there's a series of standards in eighth grade that include defining vaginal oral and anal sex identifying short and long-term contraception and safer sex methods that are

038effective and describe how to access them including abstinence and condoms and develop a plan to eliminate or reduce risk unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections so one of the ways that we uh teachers in middle school can teach this is um by just presenting an article they could read this article about can i get pregnant from oral sex um it's short it's brief it's very readable it's also an opportunity for students to ask questions of their teacher privately or to their parents at home if they want more information but this would not be something we would show a video about you sure yeah okay uh no okay yeah okay so one of the questions that the public may have is how do i how do i review the curriculum how do i see what the

039curriculum looks like so i'm going to show you how to navigate it um by sharing with you first that the curriculum is not posted yet because the board of education has not approved it yet when the curriculum has been uh if when and if the curriculum is approved by the board of education it will then be posted on the website and accessible to the public so you can go to the district website um and access all of our curriculum in the same place you go up here to the section that says curriculum and click on the link that says atlas rubicon and all of our curriculum comes up here all grade levels all content areas you can search by content area so here you would go by subject you would pick physical education and health

040and click browse and then all of the grade level curricula would come up and you can search by grade level by content area language arts math science and health and physical education it's all there um also one of the things that i want to share is that um we're mrs hintinger and i who she's the supervisor for related arts and the team of teachers we're going to be building uh parent information pamphlets one of the things that we have heard is that um how how can parents at home talk with their kids about some of these things so in advance of the teaching of these units we'll be sending home parent information pamphlets that um will one notify parents that these units are coming up that the teaching of these units are coming up and

041two topics that you can discuss with your students at home if you choose um the other thing that's important to note and we've had lots of questions about and i know mr dickstein has responded to this in the past is what if we don't want our child to participate in this curriculum um and and health is an area where parents have the option to opt their child out so i've identified the the new jersey state statute that allows for parents to opt out here that statute will be referenced in a letter every parent will receive in the genesis parent portal after the board of education approves the curriculum the letters will be pushed out to parents in genesis they will be grade level specific so you'll have an opportunity to review for your child per

042grade level what the standards are if you have a first grader the letter will reflect first grade standards if you have a second grader the letter will reflect second grade standards if you have multiple kids you'll get multiple letters with the standards in each of those grade levels um so you'll be able to review it and make a decision on a child by child basis and then in genesis there will be a form for you to opt out uh one thing i've i've had parents ask me is what if i opt out today and i change my mind or what if i forget to opt out and i change my mind this is not written in stone if you the form will come out at the beginning of the school your parents will have the

043option to up their child out at the start of the year and and then maybe come april you say gee my child has matured a lot and i think he or she may be ready to hear some of this material you can change your mind reach out to your child's health teacher and and change that option or you may forget to opt your child out or you may not want to opt your child out and then after the first health lesson your child comes home and you discover maybe he or she isn't ready to hear this stuff you can make that decision at that time there is no set uh it is not set in stone there this there is flexibility and input from parents along the way oh i forgot to mention for those

044students whose families do opt them out um we do provide alternate assignments for those students so that they will be learning other areas of health that are not part of the um human growth and personal relationships or personal growth and human relationships unit and then what do you do if you still have questions you should always start with your child's teacher reach out to the health and phys ed teacher they will be able to answer questions specifically about what that teaching is going to look like in their classroom beyond that you can reach out to your school supervisor principal or assistant principal again always if you have questions about the opting out process um if you have questions beyond that you can reach out to our district supervisor of related arts who is ms hittinger

045she's the supervisor at donovan school or always to my office the curriculum office here at the central office so i'm going to stop and log out and then take questions from the board can we going to switch back on the air oh can you turn the switch on thank you thank you does the board have any questions i do hi um how much is d e and i in all this curriculum uh diversity equity and inclusion in all the courses straight through every subject you know does it have d e and i there are there are expectations from a standards perspective around diversity equity inclusion in health and phys ed in language arts science and social studies yeah it's an it's a it's embedded in all of the curriculum follow-up question how much is climate

046change in the curriculum that is mandated by the i know but is it in every subject no it's um it's in science and social studies okay thank you i have a couple questions about the um math screening okay what grade are we starting that um that's a good question i'm i we had talked about doing it starting it as young as k and one yes okay um and you said that we're going to use the you're going to use the screening to help develop interventions and then we're going to use linkit to link it i think it was called intervention manager yes so that'll be our our platform for housing intervention plans for kids as well as using data like compiling data to look at kids who need intervention or where they need intervention so

047is that going to be similar to like for instance you know if you have a child who is struggling and they they do have an intervention program are we going to allow like is is intervention manager going to be something parents can see what interventions are being used okay because we haven't ever had that yes so there is a parent-facing feature of intervention so to explain the interventions it'll explain the different processes and correct and is it also going to explain the entry and exit criteria that yes which is something we haven't no we've never yeah okay so you'll know exactly where your child is why you're struggling has been identified for an intervention okay and here's the criteria so um intervention happens in sort of two pathways the first is um what i would

048describe as sort of the old bsi model kids whose whose assessment scores fall below below a certain level don't have to go through the process of having parent meetings and like their assessment data tells us they need intervention and they need it more immediately right so that information will be housed in lincoln as well because we can pull in their map scores and their nj sla scores and identify those kids really almost immediately okay that was my next question how like how soon from a screening process would we like for instance when are we going to start the screening i can push a button really okay so like are we going to start them october november we wait in september september okay and then in childhood the first two weeks of school and then the

049child's identified and they can start those interventions immediately instead of in the 16 90 days later in the first two weeks of school and the parent would be notified and then they'd also be given the criteria correct okay i just want to clarify that's math only no no that's everything that's okay language arts and math okay correct and then so if we're doing it between so that would go k through eight correct and then i i mean i will tell you from an intervention perspective at kindergarten we're probably not pulling kids for intervention in the first six weeks of kindergarten because it's their first six weeks of school right we want to get them acclimated to school get them acclimated to a learning environment but the classroom kindergarten teachers are doing all of their beginning

050of the year assessments so that's initial screening anyway okay um i'm going to have questions about the health and pee but i kind of just need to that's fine so one of the things i said in my presentation you know in order to make sure we follow the rules i will we in the next two weeks between our next board meeting we can put small groups of board members together i will meet with you we can go through the curriculum okay and a much more extensive way to help you make an informed decision because i'm gonna overview it okay absolutely just can i follow up to what carried his ass put your mic you should work on she has no batteries people took the batteries out of my microphone um now i forgot my question

051no with these with the um first with the kindergarten we do a preliminary screening am i correct in that we do yes okay we do prior to the kids even entering school like upon registration correct and then when you communicate with the parents regarding the intervention you are sharing with the parents at that time with the isolated skill oh yes absolutely so details about yes yeah and what the what the entrance criteria is for the intervention to be warranted okay yes mrs montgomery um i'm regarding the learning standards i'm not talking about anything else do you feel that specific to which content area health health yes please do you feel any of this is from the state point indoctrinating the kids at all so just your opinion my opinion doesn't matter in this regard mr

052gargiulo um my my obligation to the school district is to make sure we are in compliance with what the department of education tells us to do and that is to make sure that our curricula is aligned with these standards so my opinion doesn't matter i think what's important to remember along those lines similarly that it is what we follow what i think is important to understand is that any any parent and just to reiterate that doesn't choose to align themselves or think it's appropriate this is the only subject that the state of new jersey provides parents the ability to say please exclude my child and we honor that so that the forms we have committed i don't think we mentioned we have committed that parents need time so well the next it'll be up for

053vote at next meeting we will not we've committed and we've uh communicated to some parents who have inquired an email we will not implement any of the portions of the new health until after september 13th particularly the family life personal it's a new title growth in human relations personal growth in human relationships until after october 1st we want parents to have the time to go through the letter to see what your child in the specific grade level will and reach out to teachers reach out with questions and have plenty of time if you choose you know we don't want to start it any sooner than parents have the opportunity to review and and up their children out if they choose to do so opt-out is important absolutely the ability to have that is important absolutely

054and so just just like we have an obligation to um to ensure compliance with the standards to implement it in our curriculum we have an obligation to the statute and that statute says that parents have the right to opt their children out we have always offered parents that option we will continue to offer it what we're doing this year is making it more easily accessible and more transparent for families good can i have some follow-up on that please i know like when my kids were going through the health and phys ed um in the younger grades we were um we were informed of what was going to happen ahead of time we were given an opportunity to contact the teacher and talk that's going all of that will continue um and you know i heard

055that resoundingly from the teachers that worked on the curriculum committee that for them the most important part of teaching these sensitive subjects is being able to communicate with parents so that kids who are wrestling with understanding this information can have conversations at home right and so it's super important for parents and teachers to be in communication about this stuff so that they're so that we are giving kids the most accurate information that is helping them grow and mature yeah um and can i also when you got when when the teaching staff got together and devised this curriculum um part of what you're charged with if i understand the process enough and please correct me if i'm wrong is making sure that what how you're presenting it how you're meeting the standards the curriculum you're devising

056is as age-appropriate for the majority of kids in our district so like i might know my individual child but health and physic and teachers are acquainted with abnormal yes absolutely the broad specs broad spectrum of kids absolutely and really like like any of our curricula right we are meeting kids where they're at and so that opt-out feature really is important for parents know their kids best if if they feel like their child is not mature enough to understand this material just call the health teacher and say so it's totally okay mrs montgomery i have a question sure about that um will parents be able to see for instance those resources that you gave us as an example so i've got a third grader will i be able to see what resources will be used in

057third grade so that i could preview them first so those features of the curriculum are not parent facing on the website but if you want to see them you can certainly reach out to the teacher and ask they're it's they're not top secret they're just not part of the parent-facing component of the curriculum sure but any parent in the community that wanted to see them could contact their teacher again to see them in advance they would know exactly and the teachers are really willing and eager to share those with parents and for that reason of being able to have transparent conversations between home and school now will every teacher show every material or or giving them there there are some directives there are some things that are that are you know teacher-facing that oh and

058the directions are really clear in the curriculum this is not for kids to navigate on their own this is for the teacher to put on the screen and press play and then press stop and that's it right um because there are some websites that that have curricula for older kids that we don't want our younger kids navigating independently so that is super important did i answer your question i don't know if i answered your question well what i wanted to say if if there is a health teacher you know you you've given multiple sources they may decide i'm only showing video one of course of course however if there's something that they want to show that isn't identified in a curriculum they have to have that vetted through my office and our parents so for

059instance say you know the opt-out says i want to opt my child out of the new name personal growth human relationships what if you don't want to opt out of the whole thing so that's where being in touch with the health teacher is super important to understand what the lessons are going to be in the sequence so you can like say for instance you're okay with you know and think your child can handle certain things but you're not with others you can pick absolutely so so the statute allows for parents to opt out of the entirety of health okay or you can select the portions that you want to opt out of the thing that's most important about doing that that information will be in those pamphlets correct but the the parents who choose to

060opt out of singular lessons here and there that's where the communication with the teacher is super important because the lessons may not be in in the sequence or you know so it's really important for that parent teacher communication to happen to make sure that we're including kids for the portions that parents want their kids to hear okay and we're excluding for the portions they want excluded um question about that so the personal growth and human relationships unit which seems to be i've been practicing all summer the most sensitive well done area um how long does that last so is that like a a two week period of two well so it depends on the on the grade level it depends on the the number of standards so um fifth grade and eighth grade are kind

061of standards heavy so it may be a little bit longer it also depends on the schedule so in elementary school in a six day cycle they have um pe two days out of six during the health marking period that the or the marking periods that they have health one of those pe classes becomes a health class so it may stretch out over several weeks but it may only be five lessons in total and that makes sense okay um piggybacking off of that did you have more to ask about that no go ahead um i'm probably still going to call it family life but who made that change the standards like we the state of new jersey oh no the state doesn't doesn't dictate that we in looking at how the stan and working with the

062curriculum team and looking at how the standards are written and how they're organized those those are the themes right there's there are themes of wellness there are themes of um of substance abuse and prevention so one of the themes in the in the new standards is about personal growth and human relationships it's not all sex it's not all sex no i think it's important also i think i think you mentioned it but just to reinforce the standards are written in grade level bands so some of those for example the lesson that was shared um with the video for reproduction in fifth grade that existed prior but it was in sixth grade when they rebanded it went to fifth grade so that existed prior but they reshifted when they banned it in the in the threes

063so why did they make it younger because they rebanded so they s it used to be it used to be k2 right it used to be fifth or sixth grade and school schools could decide you could teach it in fifth grade or in sixth grade and our district had always taught that in sixth grade now it's in the three to five band so we didn't want to teach it in third or fourth because we didn't think that was age appropriate so kids are getting it in fifth and it's important to also note when we looked at the grade level bands that they put these standards in we always were cautious and the most controversial standards or those that may be difficult more difficult and more mature topics we put in the highest band the highest

064grade in that grade level band thank you the sixth graders that didn't get it in fifth grade how does that affect their hmm that's a good question sorry i mean so i mean anecdotally i'm gonna say there probably aren't a lot of sixth graders that don't know this stuff yeah right right so like in in in reality if they have a cell phone like they may just not have the accurate information that we would like them to have um so certainly we could i mean our curriculum doesn't doesn't allow for it now but we could include sixth grade parents in sending out those those information pamphlets to sixth grade families of what's included in the fifth grade standard so that they can at least have some understanding okay okay excuse me good question i guess

065that happens in general with curriculum though when it changes yeah yeah mike did you yeah you mentioned that um october 1st would be when the earliest [Music] all right uh that october 1st was the earliest that that's not a hard day where it would on october 1st but that would be the earliest now is there i haven't looked at the calendar are all of the back to school nights going to be prior to that no all except eclc okay which has no no right so there will be an opportunity to speak with the health and pe teachers at back to school tonight they'll be giving presentations on this as well for parents that can attend that yeah okay um a couple other things so we talked about the resources i think you answered it but

066just just to be clear um so there's a set of resources that they're gonna pull from anything that's outside of that for specific content area that has to be vetted through correct they can't just go out and say this looks good i want to give this to my students throughout these particular standards correct okay and that's going to be communicated with them when the standard we will be here curriculum's if the curriculum is approved we will plan to do um professional development with the entire health and pe staff um middle school teachers first and then elementary school teachers because elementary school teachers don't get to it till later in the year and we will go through all of that during the professional development time we'll go through all the curriculum documents make sure that they

067access resources um we can even vet resources during that pd time to add to it if we need yeah there are also some objectives or some standards should i say that have the eg so these are things that potentially can be covered within that standard but aren't required correct how's that have you struck through any of those i'm going to say one particular because i know it's been a topic it's masturbation so right so where we where do we stand so we from the standards documents that we were released by the state we elaine eliminated all of the parentheticals we took all of the parentheticals out from the standards document because the standard the parentheticals and the standards were not required just the standard we took all the parentheticals out and we put back ones

068that we felt were appropriate okay so and so those won't even be an eg the ego these essentially struck through and it'll be changing gears a little bit okay um so we're talking about the the tests in the k through eight are we designing those tests are those tests that are already in linkage that we're using currently we are designing okay um linkit has a lot of a lot of resources in there and we may use some of theirs but right now the one the specifically the bridges ones we're doing because they're aligned to our bridges math curriculum okay yeah and then with regards to the civics course um is that is that a marketing period a semester a full year so the um the law requires that it is a semester course um middle

069school is moving to semester so they'll have a semester um of science this semester of social studies so they will take that in in their semester of eighth grade thank you yes um i'm going to go on the switching of gears but back to the screening on the math and the english so we're screening kids and you're you're i i'm very happy to hear that we're starting to think about cataloging data and stuff when do you think that you'll have something that you could share with this board in terms of our intervention process how many kids are being identified how many kids are exiting um [Music] i would imagine that i would be so two things one it from a data perspective i will be presenting to the board at one of our october meetings

070our nj sla report results as as is required um oh sorry we're sharing or sharing i'm sorry um so njs i'll be doing an njsla reporting in in october um from a intervention perspective i would anticipate perhaps a mid-year maybe a december or a january update about how where how things are going where things are at um because it's a new process and um i i i don't know what i would have to report to you sooner than that but yeah in the interim i can certainly update the curriculum committee you know informally as we go and i will say i've heard from a lot of parents through the years whose kids are going through intervention what is this you know it's my first kid you know like why are they being identified so i'm

071glad you're kind of going through and clarifying that for parents so and also so that they can track the progress of their child absolutely they want to know how their child is doing and what we're doing to help them grow and improve one more question did you use a lot of the amaze videos you found them to be effective and fair i found them to be um age appropriate in terms of you know animation like they're they are they they address subjects that may be more difficult in an age-appropriate way does that make sense yes okay and and i i believe you did share the when you go to a video it's linked specifically that is a teacher resource teacher directed and the link goes specifically to that video i don't know if you could

072answer this question but i'm going to ask it anyway okay i'll do my darndest to protect the students and the parents that want to opt out of this completely to what extent is the district going to take measures to keep the material confined to that classroom in other words a whole class of kids could come out at the lunch table the whole hour they're screaming about what they just learned and then all the kids are getting an education from the wrong people correct so how do you control that i don't know that i can control that any more than i can control and right i guess what i mean is how how i mean would the staff be instructed to tell them to stop those conversations which are really conversations they were taught so they

073really technically could be having those right so i mean it's a completely gray area and i think it's a great question michael because i think in the same vein like if we're talking about a civics course do would we want to say to eighth graders don't go to the lunch room now and talk about your about the bill of rights and your constitutional rights like don't talk about the fact that you have the right to free speech right of course not we would never do that right so in the same vein i think it's important and and i know that you know i'm i'm i don't want to speak for the health teachers but i know that they would agree with me in saying that it's around these topics that are that are sensitive and

074mature in some ways and some kids are going to be privy to information that they may not be ready to understand from a maturity standpoint to really encourage kids to talk to adults about this go home and talk to your parents if you have questions come and talk to me at lunchtime if you want to talk about it the reality is um you know we have kids who and we've all been you know kids are kids are inappropriate sometimes right like so i i can't make a commitment that we can shield kids from everything inappropriate that they're going to see or hear or talk about but in the same vein kids are getting inaccurate information online all day every day and so the goal of this curriculum is really to counteract that to make sure

075that they have factual information from trained professionals and that they're not learning about about these sensitive topics from youtube or from instagram right and so that that really is our hope so we're providing instruction in a disciplined way for those who want their kids to listen to it and for those parents that want to opt out of it we provide that and we'll do our best to keep that as separate as possible again i mean i can't control it in any environment but what i can do and what the teachers i know will do is encourage kids to have conversations with trusted adults i mean that the trusted adult message is is woven into every grade level of this co of this curriculum talk with trusted adults about things you have questions about we've talked

076about that too in our committee meeting we talked about that in our committee meeting too the health and safety piece and about protecting children and knowing their parts belong to them that actually came up as something that's an important component of this that we want kids to continue to get yes absolutely absolutely and we want kids to be able to advocate for their own health and safety right and so that's part of this so while it does feel um like we may be giving kids information that they're not mature enough to understand kids as young as three and four from my years in preschool know the know the difference between a girl and a boy right they may not be able to to tell you the anatomically correct parts but what's most important is when

077they get to a certain age or any age that they can be able to say you're not allowed to touch me on those parts to somebody who's trying to violate them right like those are the messages we need kids to hear because that's really the essence of this curriculum and and god forbid should that happen they have a trusted adult that they can turn to and say somebody touched me on my parts that that nobody should touch me but my parents are my doctor right like those are the messages we want kids to have yeah yeah do we have any other board questions okay seeing none i'm going to open the floor for public participation so this is the first opportunity for public participation if anyone wishes to address the board please write your name

078address on the sign in sheet and state your name for the record statements are going to be limited to three minutes and should not be abusive obscene or defamatory in nature do you need a microphone okay okay thank you good evening my name is ginger mehmood i'm a resident of eight coachman drives south can you hear me pick it up okay good evening my name is ginger mehmood i'm a resident of freehold at 8 coachman drive south freehold new jersey and um i really appreciate his question earlier when i'm sorry i don't know how to pronounce your last name but neil thank you i feel like the meeting is completely different this time around because i feel like some of the board members are actually speaking a little bit of the way that parents want

079them to speak and that was my question in terms of we can opt out of the health curriculum but it is embedded in all of the subjects no health is exclusive or i'm sorry the the inclusion curriculum is embedded into all of the subjects so even if you were to opt out of health you're still going to have the same sort of messaging regarding communities in all of the lessons is that right so there's no specific curriculum regarding diversity equity inclusion there are standards that the state requires us to embed across content areas so yeah right so it will be embedded across all content which leads me to my other question because my son who's going into seventh grade last year and sixth grade in ela there was an english assignment and the book club

080now all of the books are hand-picked by the schools now so he couldn't do the the writing assignment based on a book that he wanted to it was all books on social issues and when i asked the question you know how come he can't just take a book that he really loves and and write the assignment on that we were told that that was not an option is that correct that they have to choose from these books that are already picked out which all are social issues so the whole unit the theme of the unit was around social issues yes so there's a series of texts and students have choice around those texts okay so that's my answer and then the other question that i have uh is wellness wednesdays is wellness wednesday is part

081of the health curriculum or is that separate and apart it is not part of the health care it isn't okay so one of the objectives in the wellness curriculum was that they would have these i guess it was 30 minutes every wednesday with a trusted adult other than their teacher can we opt out of that too because some of us don't feel comfortable with that either no no no but i would be more than willing to give whatever time you need to explain it to you in depth to help you understand what we do during that time if you don't know um but there isn't an option i only know as much as your email told me and it basically you know again it was more of that social embedding you know within everything and

082it seems like you're coming from all directions to make sure that's all covered so i think what would be helpful is if you would um be able to facilitate a meeting with you to probably uh most likely would be most helpful is to go over last year's um lessons so you can get a feeling of what they did last year which would be for wellness wednesdays yeah that would be a good indication for you i don't i i yes it'll clarify for you i think that would be and are those one-on-one or are they with the ten to twelve to one okay and the other question that i have is are we permitting any flags other than the united states of america that red white and blue in any of our classrooms or in the

083halls is the only flag that's being represented in the schools is it just the american flag or are we allowing other flags well okay other than new jersey and an american flag are we allowing other flags to be represented within the walls of the schools i don't know that that's come up yeah well yeah i mean they could wear i'm just asking if the school is putting different flags other than the american and new jersey classrooms well that's what i'm thinking in the social in the social studies classrooms okay i just wanted to make sure that they're they're flags that are representing our nation or our state or our county and that there wouldn't be any other flags represented in any of our classrooms that that we as staff members are posting around i don't

084think i think what you're asking is beyond our beyond the social studies and history or are we putting flags around the school that's not something we've done right specifically social flags representing any group of people because we're all american that's not something we've done okay thank you that's awesome i don't i don't know to get more specific we don't that isn't something put them around the school yeah neil can i just ask about the wellness wednesday for a second those are our teachers they might not be that kid's teacher but those are run by teaching stuff right yeah and a great deal of it is about like service learning more so it's not something that is mandated but it is a potential possibility that there could be another flag posted in a classroom um on

085a bulletin board or something like that representing another social group i i have not seen i that's not something i've monitored or seen or received any communication about okay i just wanted to find out if there's if there's freedom for them to express um a different flag represent represented in the classrooms of any sort other than the united states of america or state of new jersey or our county that's it you don't mandate it so then there's a little bit of freedom to do that well whether they're going to see it i want to my question is is it permitted do they have the freedom to do that i don't want to answer you quickly it's not something i've we've seen so i want to give it i want to do some communication with the

086administrators can i get back to you on that yeah absolutely and as far as the presentation tonight which i felt was really good when we talked about all of the information regarding the 500 and something hours putting together the curriculum but when it came time for the really important reason why we as parents are here that was all so small we couldn't read it so can we get a handout today that we can take home to have all the information on there for us we will consider posting it online my fear with posting online you were here and had the the narration but we really couldn't see it and it wasn't uh read line by line like everything else was and it's not in this we'll consider putting it online so any so you can

087access that's going to be very important this is the reason why we're here okay so thank you thank you my name is laurie brodino 41 revere place and my my question is why are we doing opt-out instead of opt-in like they're doing in middletown why is it being why because everybody's not here tonight who has children in this district that doesn't mean they agree with this curriculum if you do opt-in you have to post more information the onus goes on to the schools the board the teachers not the parents to have to figure out when to opt in or opt out why are we not doing that because we present but well they're doing it in middletown how are they getting i can't answer from middletown what i can tell you is that's why we

088posted the statute so we're going to be as transparent as possible while parents aren't here tonight they're going to get a letter in their genesis parent portal with a link but they are not going to see that video that you're teaching fifth graders about anal sex the video and all of that stuff video of tonight's board meeting will be posted there all of our board meetings are archived on the on the website and i understand and i imagine that some parents will access that but the majority of parents don't get that involved to even know where to access that information and i can't imagine that one school one one area people are being able to opt in but yet we're being told here that it's illegal to do that again well i can say is

089there are about 600 school districts in new jersey and we're aware of less than five that are doing opt-in the law but they are doing it the law is clear and we follow the law and that law is opting out but so they're doing it we're not doing it okay so then it's not legal well i would imagine that they would lose school funding if it was illegal and i don't think they're going to take the chance to do that but but i'll but i'll agree with you if that that can't be done then i do think that you need to give a lot more information on what you're teaching our children then you are planning to give i mean you you said we can't see the videos online you said we won't see this

090online you're going to send a very generic general information out without the details that's not what i said at all the letter that's going to go home to parents is going to include every single health standard in that human growth our personal growth and human relationships unit that that's grade level specific if you have a child in third grade you're going to get a list of these are all the topics that your third grader is going to learn in in this health so you're going to specifically say in fifth grade that you're teaching about anal sex we're not it's not a fifth grade standard it's an eighth grade standard fifth graders will not that that video you showed that was eighth grade that was an eighth grade standard but the video was a fifth grade

091standard video fifth grade video the video about reproduction yes the video about the sperm and the egg that's a fifth grade standard reproduction is a fifth grade standard so yes so you're going to be very specific on what you say about how you're going to teach about intercourse so it's going to be very specific so parents are going to know that's it that's not that's it i just i think i think it's important to understand that our goal we've we had the community roundtables and received feedback from the community so we are balancing our responsibility our legal obligation to implement the standards and the manner in which we're doing it putting in the highest grade level in a grade level band and form part i appreciate which we never did before it was an opt-out

092and we're doing the curriculum and here's the opt-out we're being specific so you can see your child st the specific things your child will learn in the grade in which they are without you searching you're going to get a letter with the link again as transparent as possible and we are covering those standards that are most um the ones that you're most concerned about at the highest grade level and at the most basic level you saw the video that's the lesson right and i understand and i appreciate that freehold township is doing that other schools are not so um because she she mentioned that anal sex was mentioned in that video it was not it was not it was not it must have been on the eighth grade it was yes it was the eighth

093it's on eighth grade yeah i just wanted to clarify that thank you um good evening jeffrey williams 25 casilda and my question is actually directed to uh board member gord giulio because you you actually used you used the word that um a lot of people use and i want to understand what your definition of a board member is and the word you use was indoctrination and it seems like again what i saw tonight isn't really indoctrinating any school of thought but you would use that word and i've heard it you know throughout you know over soccer fields softball fields wherever i happen to be and i just you know you had brought it up but i just want to see what your definition of indoctrination is and also what was presented tonight does that show

094any type of indoctrination in your opinion that's a good question i was being kind using indoctrination the word is grooming grooming so when you excuse me i'm talking hold on hold on so i'm trying to answer his question okay so when you um put information out like that that's very very highly sensitive to the people out there i've been studying this stuff and it's complicated it's not that easy right but the average person doesn't know that average parent doesn't know that so they're unaware they're busy there's a lot of reasons so when you do what we're doing you're grooming them okay so i hope i answered that i was using you know a nice word indoctrination same thing okay exactly that's that's exactly that's mr got julia's opinion he has the right to answer that

095next question hello renata brand uh excuse me mrs montgomery in your words you said that this was only a piece of what was the curriculum for health correct and i found what we saw to be at best offensive and at worst like uh who said before indoctrination what is the stuff that we are not seeing mr uh dickstein had said that there was be no information in the parentheses on the standards that included masturbation oral sex but there was a whole video no oral sex is not a parenthetical it's a standard there's a an 8th grade standard that says define vaginal oral and anal sex that's the standard and that's all we're going to do define it and that's 8th grade and that's 8th grade well this i'd like to know what other with the

096rest of the material that wasn't able to be covered because of the depth and the length that is involved we actually intentionally chose the most sensitive topics pick the most sensitive topics that was intentional knowing that that those were concerns among the community and again in your words you said that the information was sensitive and not appropriate for all ages so why are we giving this information to the kids because modified there are school districts that have uh refused it and i gave the papers out last time two weeks ago did everybody receive it nobody received it i bet right who read that resolution to refuse oh you read it good so there you go it's a legal document that was refused by that by that school board that school district did not have that

097school district adopted curriculum and they but they took a stand on saying they don't agree with it they modified it their legal obligation to adopt it again we have 600 school districts in new jersey and what was brought to us is five or less because the legal obligation is to implement the standards and again when we got when we took those standards and put our curriculum together we listened to what came back from those roundtables and covered them at the highest grade in the band and at a most basic level i don't think you covered it because there are plenty of parents that are not happy with the video that was seen and the video and the discussion that's being hacked and they they i'd like to give the opportunity for others to ask a

098question thank you for your comments next question please good evening everyone my name is dash depressed i'm at 81 a risk and you drive and um i don't have any questions for you more so statement um 12 years ago when my wife and i were looking to where to start a family we chose freehold because we are both very proud new jersey public school educators i am thank you i'm standing up here i'm shaking because and this is new for me because normally i can address a crowd some of you know my other job um i also as a member of the lgbtq family um this speaks to me because i am also a middle school health teacher i was a high school health teacher for 10 years now i'm a middle school health teacher

099for five years in an urban district and i could not be more proud i will tell you this this curriculum saves lives it's being demonized in a way i think a lot of people understandably are feeling afraid of something that in a lot of ways is new but i'm telling you that i'm not just a teacher i i'm proud to say that i'm a role model for my kids and when we teach this and i've been teaching this for a long time in my district the discussions and the questions i can't get them to talk about the food groups those assignments don't get turned in these do the conversations the one-on-ones teacher they say teacher depression i need to talk to you this is going on i think and this is not hyperbole i'm thinking

100of killing myself because i'm different we all have kids here and we love them this is part of that love now i will say that when i have the conversations with the parents those are awesome conversations because i let i we come with openmind and we sit at that table or we talk on that phone i invite them in i've actually invited a few people here into my home that have yet to take me up on the offer but it stands because everybody's welcome and we have those conversations and more times than not the parents walk away with oh i didn't know it was going to be presented this way the resources that you use the amaze.org and the tea and the i use those i'm telling you these kids are getting it and they're

101getting it from the internet and they're getting it out of context you wouldn't believe the questions i get about well someone told me if i do this this won't happen and it's outrageous we have to battle this we have to we have to meet them with the correct information because it saves lives i wish i had had these health teachers in freehold and where i teach when i was in middle school i would have suffered a lot less and i invite anybody i i just gave you my address i'll give you my phone number anybody that wants to talk about this i'm here as a parent as an adult as a teacher as someone who gets it i love my kid the way you love yours and i want to thank you all so much

102for what you're doing i i i'm i'm in it with you i get it right and mr gargiulo i just want to end by saying i am no groomer sir that is incredibly offensive to me my community and the teachers that do this work because we're not getting rich off of it we do it because we love it sir i respect your opinion thank you but the lgbt community said you're coming for our children that's what you guys said not me you know what i do respect you you know what i'm coming for i'm coming to save these kids from you sir you are the reason these kids are thinking about taking their lives and i congratulate you i live it let's not have a one-on-one here sir i've lived here has the right to

103make her statement we listen my pronouns are they them i didn't state that in the beginning but sorry some of you upset about that thank you for your comment i appreciate it thank you so much good evening my name is eric jaczewski i live at 37 jager road this is my first meeting um i'm a father of nine children all fourth grade and under it's a long story we'll leave it at that i just first want to say before i ask my question um i wanted to just say something to teacher dash we we met in the parking lot on the way in and i was telling her how cool i thought her car was you know and it turns out that we we actually don't really see eye to eye on the topics that

104we're discussing tonight but i think it's important for us to understand that that's okay and you know what i mean and i would love to come to your house and i'd love for you to come to ours um but anyway that being said i think that's one of the most important things we can we can gain from all this is that we need to come together as a community as a state as a nation but um what my question was um was this i've heard stories that if if some children even the ones who opt out come to school professionals and start to engage in questions about these things that at times that those conversations are kept from the parents my question is if that were to happen in freehold uh especially from a child

105whose family chose to opt out in wellness wednesday or any other time i wasn't even really familiar with that with that term but if that's what is discussed at those times i don't know but um if they were to go to a guidance counselor teacher anything like that and discuss gender identity issues or anything like that would that be shared with us as parents i have to check our policy and get back to you it's not something that typically and traditionally when students go to our counselors particularly with gender identity issues i i can't quantify for you how often it's rare that a parent is not does not know about it so i want to go back to our policy and check it before i respond to you if you signed in i will get

106back to you about that okay but i it is i know there could be a perception that it's like a regular occurrence there's so many kids coming down and having those conversations but a majority of the time the parents are aware when we're when that's happening i can even speak to the counselors to quantify you know before i get back to you it's fair but if they weren't i would just love to know whether or not it's a standard that parents would be notified if our kids had questions about these things that was one question and then the second question was um i know that assistant superintendent montgomery said that her opinion in these matters doesn't really matter and i appreciate that and i also appreciate the transparency of the board i thought even though

107it was hard to read i mean we will have access to all those things and you did choose some very sensitive topics and i i appreciate that um but my question is maybe not for the superintendents because i know you guys serve at the pleasure of the board right or you're hired by the board or employed by the board but as board members we we elect you guys right so how many of you found or find the standards that were discussed the curriculum that's being uh brought through and the lesson plans that are going to implement that how many of you just by show of hands find it inappropriate for the age levels that it's being given to yeah i don't think that that's really appropriate we're not going to take a public straw poll

108but individually when it comes time to vote on these issues board members can express how that we're not voting on anything tonight i get that a lot of us are i understand here to follow laws and that's your job i get that and i'm not saying you shouldn't do it uh mr trump or not we may personally believe in something or not as elected officials we represent all the people of freehold township and sometimes our personal feelings on a personal issue how we would do something with our own child may not be the good of the whole community so it's unfair to corner each individual board member but how you feel about these issues is going to determine in some way how you choose to implement them so i think we as voters deserve to

109know how you feel about this standards when we vote excuse me you will know because when we vote on the curriculum board members want to express their opinion on their vote they will at that time but we're not voting on anything tonight i will say that through the committee process we advocate for children families taxpayers as best we can you would you would be shocked by how many questions and over a lot of overthinking especially with this topic me personally i know and i'm sure a lot of the other board members we think about and ask questions that we think you would ask that we as parents also want to know so whether or not we vote yes or no i can tell you that i know miss montgomery listens to what we have to

110say um we do go through a rigorous process of trying to represent you that's why we're here thank you hi everyone my name is danielle d filippo i live at 24 iroquois drive i just have some questions obviously tonight's a very sensitive night in some regards and i totally understand that my i watched the board meeting two weeks ago where we talked about presenting tonight about the curriculum and then voting on it in a couple of weeks after this so everybody can kind of like digest it um my question though is i felt like for at least the second grader because i'm my son in second grade i felt it was very vague you know um showing a cat and a kitten and saying that that's what's going to happen with reproduction is vague and

111it feels like it's minimized that's all that the second grade standard requires but is there no um explanation of where that came from or what the definition is not required in second grade it's not a standard in second grade okay that's why it's age appropriate gotcha okay so that was that was kind of my question because it seems really vague are we having another like um board meeting related to what the curriculum will look like before you guys vote no so this was my presentation to the board i will be meeting with any board member that wants to you know look at the curriculum more extensively with me in advance so that they can make an informed decision for their vote when we meet on september 13th mr emerald so correct me if i'm i'm

112wrong and then um and and then depending on how the board votes then the curriculum would become a pub public for parents to view and then parents can reach out to health teachers at schools we'll do our communication so parents have that information so it's going to be more than reproduction in terms of like looking at pictures between a cat and a kitten kind of example that that's that's that's the second standard that's all second graders are going to learn about reproduction okay that's it okay um second grade the other thing that you mentioned was that teachers given this whoever teaches it can kind of tweak i'm not talking about resources outside but how they they teach it one of the concerns about that is they can say what they whatever they want to say

113well so the curriculum guide is very clear about what the expectations are that they should be saying right like here's the here's the roadmap um do teachers have the opportunity to bring their own style to a classroom sure that i mean that is the nature of human beings right um but teachers the curriculum is very clear about what the expectations are that they are to teach at every grade level in each of those units of study it's also important to understand i'm not again and just so you know the teachers that are delivering this curriculum there's a few in the district it's each of the phys ed and health teachers in the elementary and middle schools that those are the teachers it's a small group of teachers that will be doing this who are who

114will be trained by our district curriculum myself and the district curriculum team to make sure that they have all of the tools and resources to do right by this curriculum because there's more to it in general because it's a big topic you know it i don't feel like we got all of the information and so i think all of us are just on a guard to protect our our kids because we've had a really tough year all of us you know and a lot of things on social media doesn't help the situation and so you know for me to be honest with you like it's it's a touchy subject again not knowing fully what's entailed like my seven-year-old you know what seven-year-olds do they play video games you know my son still believes in the

115tooth fairy he believes in santa claus you know and then to put an idea a potential idea in his minds about things that i don't think it's a seven year old kid should know about because they're not worried about that they're not worried about reproduction and sex and gender roles because they look at everybody right now as equal and i just think that you know it's it's scary to think about what could come yeah there's and it's important and i'm glad you brought this up i don't know that we were clear it's important to know that in kindergarten first and second grade what you saw and in reaper that is the extent of everything that you had just said so there is no there there's there's no by second grade standard that covers any of

116those other topics other than reproduction and we're covering that with animals reproduce at the level that you saw and my last question would be um that for the students who opt out they're going to have extra material do you know what that would be so it will be health health activities around um other units of health outside of the personal growth and human relationships okay thank you so much thank you for your comments celebrity guest good evening everybody my name is k holtz i appreciate the amount of time that you've put into this the breadth and the depth that you've looked at everything and the critical thinking that's gone into everything i do have one question sure you mentioned that the uh curriculum if it is not you know if it's passed so can you

117just please speak to the fact that if the board does not pass it what the ramifications for that are sure so we are actually in the next school year 23-24 school year we are monitored by the state through the county office through a process called cusack they will evaluate our curriculum and if the standards are uncovered we will lose points in our instruction and programming component which could deem us we've been highly performing district that could lead to us being designated less than a high-performing district and there could be consequences we've never had this before so beyond that there could be additional consequences for not implementing curriculum but i have not ever experienced them at the minimum we would be impacted by losing points and instruction and programming which could deem our district not recognized

118as highly performing like it has been before the the other implication is that when you lose points below a certain level in that in that cusack monitoring that districts are required boards are required to implement um corrective action plans so we would be required to do it ultimately anyway they would write us they would tell us to write a corrective action plan to put the pieces of the curriculum that are not reflected in place in place so we they would direct us to do it and in the very worst case scenario if we get to the point that we are impacted so significantly that we're underperforming the state could intervene in running a district thank you do we have any other public participants i see somebody coming up my name is maria greco five horseshoe

119lane i have a seventh grader i have a sophomore and a junior um my daughter has enough issues learning how to write and spell correctly and i just feel like putting something extra on these children is just giving them more stress more anxiety my daughter comes home almost every night crying you know to write and spell properly i mean these kids don't even write cursive they don't know how to give change back and we're just giving them more responsibility as of an older you know child i mean these kids are very young and they're not mature enough to understand certain standards and certain things and i just feel and i'm sure everybody here is with me they're kids they're not adults they're not young adults and i just strongly believe that they just need to

120worry about school stuff you know let them be children why are we making them the adults when they're not adults yet there's certain things that i don't even know as an adult i mean i mean my you know and now we're putting more pressure more stress that they're gonna come home and who knows what they're gonna do when they come home on the internet so it's more problems for the parents also i'm just trying you know we're just trying to earn a living and trying to raise good religious kids in some cases i mean i don't can't afford to bring my kid to a catholic school but now i have my child going to a public school and now i'm trying to understand certain different things that i didn't want my children to know at

121a certain age can i i would love to address you because i i did go to catholic school i went to catholic school at st joseph's and tom's river that's where i did all my elementary school and in fifth grade i learned about vaginal intercourse that was part of the family life curriculum there so i i just wanted to just say that because i don't i think something that's getting lost here is that um while some of the components are new the general the fact that kids are having sexual education is not new at all so i think what would be helpful maybe is if people told us um like parts like be really specific about you know what are the issues so that we can you know just take that into consideration but sexual

122education is not new it's not new to this district it's not new i'm pretty old so it was quite a long time ago that i had it and in catholic school and not only that but my mother was the was a district supervisor and she did the curriculum for a public school district and she loved the the way that we did our family life and our sexual education at st joseph so much that she used a lot of that and and did that in the public school a lot of this isn't new i was going to jump on that earlier i just wanted to point that out thank you mr stoneman because i was going to jump on that earlier because uh i started like kindergarten like 1974. i remember running home with forms for

123my parents i have can can i take health because if you don't sign this i can't take health i have to go sit in the other room so this is not a new concept and back then just to learn about puberty some parents didn't even want you to sign the form if you just walk down the hall you could see puberty growing all around you but i'm just saying like this isn't new this whole opt-out thing i hear what you're saying and as a parent you have the option to opt out if you feel your child right but we don't know when we opt our children out that there's other children that are not so nice children to say certain things and discuss other things with other children that don't and are not aware and

124there's a lot of kids that are not mature enough to understand i just that's all i'm saying right you're you're yeah i again i going back to like i after moving from brooklyn went to a neighboring town and this family life curriculum while it's modified over time and even once i became an educator it's always been there i as a fifth grade teacher i taught all the boys you know family life that was one of my roles that i had to cover the iss so it's been around and there's been some modifications from the last standard adoption to the standard adoption but it's always been here and the op down has always been so as far as the religious concerns that's specifically in why you have the ability to opt out because they want to

125recognize that right i just and this is not meant in any disrespect but we are dealing all day with kids having these conversations and responding with in a dis like this curriculum they they're talking about it in school and we are dealing with the consequences of that outside of the family life curriculum okay so why can't we view everything before you guys before the educators you you give it to our children that you're going to okay yeah yeah because we should be able to see and understand it before we even so that when we when our children come home we know how to address situations and that's exactly what mr dickstein was just speaking to so on the 13th of september the board will have their uh their opportunity to vote on the curriculum should

126the curriculum pass then on the 14th letters will be pushed out to parents you'll have links and be able to access the curriculum at that time and be able to make a decision there'll be a period of time where you can review the curriculum and make a decision about whether you want to opt your child out right but it would be too late to make any changes on our behalf from the curriculum it's it's not uh we took that input we took the table process and we took that input because remember we have to cover the standard we took that feedback from those community roundtables and the extent to which they're being covered is based on not how we would take a history standard and cover it at the depth that we would so we

127did here there's no discretion on the standards that's given to us but we did hear from the community roundtables the feedback and concerns i know i was there yeah so that that is that's why you're hearing tonight the depth at which we're presenting some of these things or we'll be able to see it okay we'll have a link in that letter to great you said it's grade seven grade seven you'll click it and you'll see the entire grade seven health curriculum not just personal no all of the help all of the health curriculum not just that one domain all four we didn't talk this evening but the phys ed's curriculum was redone as well to align with those new standards so all and all of that will be accessible to parents okay thank you thank

128you can i just also add something um as kind of i learned through my parenting i had a sixth grader come home and ask me about that eighth grade standard way before it was a standard right the three different types of sex he had that conversation on the bus because all the boys were talking about it because they had cell phones so at some point we have to figure out how to deal with this and at some point we have to figure out how to get these i'm glad my kid came to me so i could give him good information because i assure you what he heard on the bus was not good but if he didn't trust me and he to do that right and he walked around with that in his head he

129definitely would not be safe let's put it down mrs greco you'll be happy to know on a separate note because we just talked about and i think we can all agree the issues with social media and what they're seeing and what they're talking about and a partnership with the rio township police they're going to be doing education for our middle school children and our parents on internet safety and what how to be mindful of what they're seeing and doing as mary shared um this has changed the development of our children right when when they're babies and and they have ipads in their hand so i i agree with marion having been a middle school educator for 25 years you'd be shocked well before these standards some of the stuff i learned from these kids they

130they are already talking to each other there's a lot of misinformation and and not necessarily good information not valid information and you know it's really about keeping kids safe so but as miss montgomery shared if and when the board approves the curriculum everything will be available on september 14th for your review and then there will be time to complete that opt-out and as ms montgomery said at any point you like change your mind you let us know but you'll be able to see it all it's just not anything approved to see right now okay thank you welcome do we have anybody new that wants to speak before we let anybody repeat thank you thank you how you doing tonya larkin 91 concord drive two questions one about when we receive the letters and explains the

131um standards and you said there'll be links in there correct will that take us to the exact content that'll be taught or how do we find out the exact content that there will be directions in that letter to direct you to where to find that content on the on the district website so like i navigated tonight you'll go to the section that says curriculum there's a link there that says atlas rubicon and then you can navigate to any grade level any content okay and it'll show us anything that the teachers can show to the kids correct excellent because i think we need that information in order to decide whether to opt-in of course and now i'm going to touch on something that no one's discussed very important topic where are we on school security uh

132so we the changes in do you want to address it a specific question or officers in all the schools okay so we are in the process of hiring another officer which would put our ratio at an officer to every two schools that is our next step then we talked about reassessing and being able to offer some off-shift work to our police officers um to rotate in and out on a more frequent basis so we've been we're increasing one we we had a couple of candidates so i'm just waiting for the word um so we'll have it like i said a two to school to one officer ratio i appreciate that and i'm glad that we're going up but how do we get to having an officer in each of the schools well i think it's

133a process there's a couple a couple of things one we want to make sure that um we have the resources to do it um and that it while it's not the priority resources also mean bodies and people who want to work so there's a lot of unfilled positions similar to the way we struggle with staffing this has been an unfilled officer position for months almost a year so we are thankful we have two candidates but to be truthful people are not rushing back into law enforcement to to potentially be put in this position so we're trying to gauge like we have a potential right now um and then where to go from there so it's not off the table but from a human manpower standpoint right now um it's very difficult well if they if

134you had the candidates would we be hiring them all or is there another obstacle um i want to say eventually yes right now the plan is to to see how we're doing with our with our three permanent our four permanent excuse me and it will be four permanent for our eight schools and the supplement of and the supplement of the extra hours of the officers right okay so right now where will i mean i know the middle schools each have an officer correct and then the others just rotate with the elementary we'll have a set schedule we haven't i'm working with lieutenant okay i'm on that now i just want to put on the record that i'm all for having an officer in each of the schools because i believe just a deterrence is important

135and i don't want that to go by the wayside i know obviously we have a lot of other important things to discuss it's all important um but that is top priority as well just because it's not in the news recently it shouldn't fall apart and please know i i don't just be just because it's not right in the news at this moment we don't drop our guard at any point we are um in the process of securing some new um video uh surveillance software and making sure that we have the access and the police have the access to moment by moment footage as they need to we are going to also be looking at and securing new software for our security um that will be more minute and very granular so we have more control

136we continue to have all doors you know locked and functional there's a one-way entrance as you saw from mr dickstein's letter you know no one really is getting into the building you're dropping something off it goes in the bin you're picking up your child we're bringing them out to you you know we want to limit the amount we are eliminating so i i know that it's hard to believe but there are some of our teachers that we hired from other districts that are kind of shocked um by some of what we have in place so target hardening is a very key part of what we do see something say something training making sure that we know you know should this happen this is how we respond so um again we don't want to wait until

137it's in the news but i can tell you that i personally and it's not about what i personally think we talk about this every day it never gets lost it is keeps me up at night i have a baby girl she's 21 she's always my baby she is she is why i function you have children this needs to be safe for all of your children and so please don't think just because we don't talk about it that it's not a priority oh i know and i appreciate that i just wanted to bring it up because like we said there was one meeting and it was all about that you know and then obviously this is the most pressing right now but i want to make sure that that's not forgotten and that's still being worked

138on it will not be okay well thank you one thing can you add on the the police rotation through the schools like that the patrol cars stop yes um our the patrol cars the the directive from the police department is if you're writing a ticket if you're doing paperwork pull into a school parking lot and park your car there besides that rotation of overtime that we talked about to supplement the officers who would be assigned to our buildings the officers are expected periodically during their patrol to walk a building in addition to our school resource officers so while it's not formally assigned it happens one thing i did want to share i think this is timely and since you did ask i think while we have a captive audience and i'm sure there are people

139watching at home it is very important when we do because we are reopening our doors to parents we want parents in the buildings it's very important to watch the photos that are taken and then shared we intentionally don't post any maps of our schools and i'm sure a parent with the best interest to say hey you're new here here's a map we had to call the parent and ask to get it taken down we don't want maps of our schools accessible to the public anywhere from for safety reasons so it's important now to share with our community i'm sure it was innocent right just you're new to the school here's a map um just when when our when our when we do have visitors in the schools just to be mindful of um that and

140and we don't publish or share a lot of our procedures intentionally for for the for them to be most effective well i think when you're not in the field you don't think that way yeah but i appreciate the fact that you put that out understood thank you okay thank you are there any other public participants before we go to a second round for anybody that wants to speed um do i need to reintroduce myself just go ahead okay so i'm just regarding the previous speaker maria she was just here and had a wonderful question she had said that you know her concern which is the concern of all of us as parents is that a lot of children are falling behind in other things like writing because that has gone to h-e-l-l and hand basket

141since we stopped teaching cursive and we know that cursive actually has a direct correlation to brain development that it really does provide some really wonderful cognitive enhancement to the brain but we're not teaching that anymore so my my question is why is there such a push on all of the sex ed and her question is basically you know it's not that you know that they weren't teaching conception at fifth grade at your catholic school but it was more about all of the other things that were being in some instances introduced to her children that are causing more um confusion and maybe introducing an idea to them that she doesn't uh want introduced which is the same with me i don't want to introduce to my children so my question is why aren't we spending all

142of these this time the 540 hours and and all of the resources on bringing back cursive and things that really do help brain development instead of focusing so much on creating a sex school do we have another speaker no response to that one there's no response needed for that you gotta go okay um i just had one last question um i i've heard some i've heard some schools are choosing to just to the point of for the parents who do choose to opt out the chances of it not being discussed with the kids who opted in at the lunch table or at the in the uh in the school bus or something like that i would imagine is very low so i've heard that some school districts are choosing to take all of the curriculum

143and kind of place it toward the end of the year that way it's up if it's opted out it can kind of like take place and then end with summer break and kind of give the kids who opted in a chance to kind of settle into that with their parents and maybe move on to other things so that it's not being openly discussed what plans does the board have to try to protect those children whose parents do choose to opt out that's us it's not the board and it's a good question it is a good question because of the way we run our schedules it's not possible so students in middle school have health semester one or semester two so if you have health semester one it ends by this end of the second marking

144period and traditionally the elementary schools while they do vary when they present health it's typically second and third marking periods when there is no ability to be outside so it limits one class to the gym it's still something we can explore maybe in elementary but middle because of the schedule it wouldn't it wouldn't be a possibility for all kids does do you guys plan to explore it for elementary or after your comment we can certainly discuss it and see if that's an option after after you're bringing it out as far as but as far as for the older grades there's there's no way you can see to to protect those other kids not in middle school because they're assigned health by semester so you have kids who have who have health september to february or

145end of january and that's it they're done that curriculum has been completed for them and this and then another group of kids comes in and gets that starts over again and over again with the second group we'll give everybody help i don't want to i don't have a solution to the issue but you can see that where my concern is if we do decide to opt out it it seems like it's i think though you know we can discuss your suggestion about it in the elementary schools okay okay thank you thank you do we have any other public participants okay seeing none um we're going to move on to the personnel committee mrs tomlin now take your time okay the personnel committee met tonight uh president or myself mrs ventitoli and dr diane brethauer and

146we discussed all of the items on the agenda um i'd like to move the following items retirement of marcy roche we'd like to thank her for her 16 years of service item number four resignations as listed position control as listed new employment as listed and if anybody is in the audient audience we'd love to welcome you to our district rescind offer of an employment as listed adjustment to start date as listed change of assignment salary adjustment as listed temporary change of assignment as listed temporary change of assignment salary adjustment amendment as listed salary adjustment as listed leaves of absence as listed district monitors class coverage translator interpreter as listed district mentors as listed district honoraria as listed additional compensation transfer of assignment room as listed school physician preschool screening as listed certified substitutes as listed

147non-certified substitutes as listed pbs summer committee as listed and additional compensation media as listed thank you do we have a second and do we have any discussion any questions i have a question um i noticed some faculty members who are new hires are starting later and that makes sense because they have obligations to their current district i assume but what do we do in district like to cover those classes like captions so it's important i don't know that everybody understands so for those who are here to explain that statute state statute is that a district can hold a teacher up to 60 days and if a teacher chooses to depart under and that district holds them they actually can lose their teaching certificate so of course teachers do abide by the 60 days and different

148districts do different things our goal here is we try to do what's best for kids which is if we can release the teacher because we have a replacement for that person we release the teacher and it's always been that way there are some districts now who out of principle are not releasing we know of one teacher who is going to be a daily sub for 60 days and they will not release her we don't do that however when they come here it's up it depends on the principal and it depends on what's happening with that teacher so for example we have a math teacher who's taking a new position on the agenda this evening she will continue to teach her math class until the teacher is released the teacher who is replacing her is released

149from her contract at one school we have uh a short time i believe in the month of september only interventionists are going to teach the classes because their primary grade classes um until that the teachers come so it really depends and um it really it really depends in uh another in another school we have a middle school interventionist who is covering um until a teacher is released in october so it's as a good question and as you're understanding and most of you who would understand we're not we our goal is not to put a daily sub in there who's not trained so we're trying to think creatively um our principles are wonderful in um coming up with those suggestions like what about this and thinking outside of the box and i really do write by

150our staff too it truly uh sometimes it's a conversation um among maybe several interventionists and a principal and someone says you know i'm most qualified to do this i'm jumping in so it's really truthfully a team effort um because as neil said we do what's best for children we would never hold anyone um especially first for a while we thought i was going to be superintendent slash teacher of spanish teacher spanish it was looking pretty pretty good there for a while yes it was um and i think can we go back can we i think neil and i probably love it yeah we wouldn't get him back um we would like to take a minute um one of the moves that we have on here that we sort of breezed right over is that uh

151jen fern one of our coaches is moving into a supervisor position at the katina school so i know it looks like it's just hey we transferred her to a different position but it's a really big deal uh so we wanted to say hi you know thanks to jen it's been a long haul and i just while we're doing that i just want to take a moment to say from from 8th grade 8th grade math to investing an unbelievable amount of time and resources to build her understanding and knowledge of elementary if you had a conversation with her during her interview she knows you wouldn't know she taught eighth grade math um i am confident that we have the right person in the position and that she will do wonderful things excellent do we have any

152other questions on the agenda here seeing none let's get a roll call miss cosolino yes mr garchula mr matthews yeah mrs o'sullivan yeah mrs patton yes mrs spellman yes mr fennitoli yes mr amoroso yes ocean carries thank you curriculum uh mrs patton good evening thank you mr amoroso oh i need the microphone sorry the curriculum and policy committee did not meet this evening mrs montgomery did make herself available if we had additional questions i'd like to move the following items item 2 course reimbursement as listed item three second reading of policies every student succeeds act student journalism and the regulation for the student discipline code of conduct [Music] first item 4 abolishment of policy school employee vaccination requirements item 5 student teacher practicum observation placement as listed item 6 update student teacher practicum observation placement

153is listed item 7 the professional development plan and the mentoring plan for the 2022-2023 school year item 8 the 2022-2023 instructional materials list item 9 the curricula for this school year and that includes english language arts pk through 8 math pk through 8 science pk through 8 and social studies pk through 8. item 10 the 2022-2023 field trip list item 11 the 2022-2023 emergency remote instruction plan and item 12 this school year school calendar and it was revised but thank you do i have a second on that motion any discussion any questions the school calendar when we looked at it um we there were the meeting that i missed june june meeting there were students here who came and presented about juneteenth when we re-evaluated the school calendar we recognized that we were closed for

154all federal holidays with the exception of that one so for consistency we are closed for all federal holidays we can re-evaluate that for next year i will tell you too the regional high school district also is closed out and we do try to maintain as close as we can with them but rather than judging which holidays the federal holidays on which to close and which to open the consistency here is without judging and we are closed for all federal holidays and that would likely be my recommendation going forward thank you on 12. you know okay i haven't taken the roll call yet but when i do you could just say no i'm 12. we have any other questions we're doing a roll call for this i'll do just a you know okay a regular goal

155other questions on curriculum none all those in favor signify by saying aye aye any opposition and we have one on 12. yes on 12 no the rest i okay thank you thank you sir excellent okay so finance facilities and transportation mrs dos oliver uh we did not meet today as a committee number two the certifications as listed number three the secretary treasury report as listed number four bills and claims thank you mr matthews for doing the bills and claims which is two million two hundred and twenty two thousand six hundred seventy one dollars travel and related expenses as listed transfers as listed settlement agreement as listed idea basic and preschool for the year 2022 grant as listed the so3 arp and title 1a as listed grant funded substitute stipends for 2022 2023 school year as

156listed approved contract with dell incorporated for 2022 2023 school year as listed competitive contract renewal literacy professional development as listed acceptance of bid for fire alarm maintenance and repair as listed award a bid for fire alarm maintenance and repair as listed commission for the blind contracts as listed consultants as listed specialized evaluations and services as listed and that is it thank you you have a second second discussion questions none all those in favor signify by saying aye aye any opposed okay thank you i have no old business to discuss um although i'm sure mrs lambert would be happy for me to remind everyone to think of retreat we do have some dates that are going to be floating around for the board retreat so um just watch your emails because we do need to nail

157that down we'd like to try to do it for september but monitor your emails for upcoming information on that cindy did share with the board the back-to-school night dates there's a google doc if you can just sign up for which you will be several of the schools have decided to return to general sessions there are some that are not but if you with those general sessions it's important for the principals to know who they're introducing so if you're attending if you can um just complete that google sheet the the back to school nights i believe start the sec second day of school and there's a week where there are four days in a row i will be attending all of them but if the board members who are available and are would like to attend

158just note it on the spreadsheet and that's a live spreadsheet so if you can't attend you can always change it too and we'll share with the principal's the day of who's coming how do we know which ones aren't because they're all listed with a date and a time and a location how do we know which ones are not in person they're i'm sorry they're all in person so i don't have a general session anymore and on behalf of the board we wish all our administrators and teachers a wonderful start to the school year we're excited we hope it's a great year for everyone and with that um i'm gonna move to the final public participation so if we have anybody that would like to ask a question on any issue this is the second opportunity

159for public participation if anyone wishes to address the board please write your name and address on the sign in sheet and state your name for the record and statements are limited to three minutes and should not be abusive obscene or defamatory in nature do we have any takers okay seeing none i'd like to make a motion to adjourn all those in favor signify by saying oh do i have a second exactly okay all those in favor signify by saying aye thank you very much nice job