001okay and that was it all right so i can use what i print at home okay saying that over and over again oh i hope so considering what i what i do thank you you just let me know when it's stored so we have to tell them to start the campaign and it's can you hear me can everybody hear me okay i'd like to call this meeting to order the mission of the freedom township schools in partnership with our community is to prepare all students to be responsible citizens and lifelong learners a notice a notice listing the time date and place of this meeting was posted on the public bulletin board of all freehold township schools on the entrance door to the administrative offices of the board of education on the district website at the
002office of the freehold township clerk published in the asbury park press on january 8 2021 and sent to the news transcript on january 6 2021 notice of the location change was posted on the public bulletin board of all frail township schools on the entrance door to the administrative offices of the board of education on the district website published in the asbury park press on june 5th 2021 and sent to the news transcript on june 2021 i'd like to invite whoever liked to join us in the pledge of allegiance united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all roll call mr amoroso mrs costanza here mrs casolino yeah mrs holtz mrs o'sullivan mrs thormann all right mrs vandatally here this is president
003mrs lambert president okay i'd like a motion to approve the regular meeting minutes from may 25th 2021. okay you have that all in favor say aye aye any abstentions no okay i'd like a motion to approve the executive session meeting minutes from may 25th 2021 all in favor say aye aye and no no abstentions okay enrollment for enrollment um april 2021 we had 3 619 students for may of 21. we had 3600 622 and may of 2020 we're at 3714. thank you um for president's remarks this evening i'd like to uh thank all of you who are joining us in our first live meeting we also thank you for your patience while we tried to get the technology together to continue to live stream our meetings for those at home that wanted to continue to
004view the meetings from home they liked the format and we had a very large turnout with a lot of people so it was nice to keep the community together i know there are some people who are um upset that the meeting isn't a dual format with people come joining us from home who are calling in with public participation i'm just asking for your patience as we work through this because we would like to continue to do some type of live format going forward we have to figure that all out but once our board meetings are live we follow the live format here um in addition i want to acknowledge that every member of this board has received numerous emails regarding issues in the district with regard to masks no masks we saw your emails we
005read your emails what you have to understand is there are three over 3600 students in this district for every email we received asking us to remove a masked mandate we received an email asking us to keep it in place because the parent felt that that was what was safe for their child i will tell you that neither of those are how this board operates and most importantly how this district operates mr dickstein will elaborate further on the thought process and the rules and how we follow them from day one and i want every member of the public here to know that whatever decisions the superintendent makes regarding this district he has this board support what we personally believe as nine individual members as an individual person as a citizen is one thing the decisions that
006we make sitting in this chair for the benefit of over three thousand six hundred students may be another regardless we support mr dickstein wholeheartedly in whatever decisions he makes for the for this district moving forward so with that said i'll move on to the administrative report good evening this evening we're going to start as i have the privilege of recognizing our staff members who have completed 25 years of service in the freyro township school district throughout that time they have contributed to the outstanding educational program provided in the district they've dedicated this time to help the children who have passed through their classrooms learn and grow academically and socially i'm proud to share that the following staff members completing the last 20 the most recent 25 years of their careers in freehold township are and
007if they're here please stand i know several responded that they would be remote from the laura donovan school tammy campfield from the west freehold school trish diaz from applegate school gisele dombronski from the eisenhower school elaine gardner from the eisenhower school melissa steger and from the donovan school trish woods i'd like to thank mrs diaz for joining us this evening and recognize her for outstanding service many people are aware of the announcement made via twitter from governor murphy his statement reiterated information that has been in the road back document since its inception since our schools are air-conditioned it seemed logical that the provision for making masks optional during excessive heat for health reasons did not apply in freyo township therefore it was determined that students and staff would not be required to wear masks outdoors
008or on school buses for the remainder of the school year to my surprise many school districts across the state began interpreting the guidance differently some superintendents determined that masks were required in air-conditioned spaces but optional in non-air-conditioned spaces later last evening and throughout the day today more superintendents began making masks optional regardless of whether or not their schools were air conditioned i conferred with our board attorney discuss the confusion that seems to be across the state resulting in districts implementing different practices regarding masking later today we also received a clarifying email from the department of education that was more wordy but reiterated exactly what the governor had said it wasn't helpful although i do not believe it was his intent to modify the executive order mandating masks in school the governor used language that is
009vague and broad who defines excessive heat is excessive is excessive heat the actual temperature the heat index is humidity factored in does the status of air conditioning even need to be taken into consideration my rationale regarding our practices relative to kovid from the beginning of the pandemic have been based upon my obligation to abide by the law regardless of opinion the content of executive orders are required to be implemented i felt obligated to reevaluate our practices because of the ambiguity in the governor's recent message therefore effective tomorrow masks will be optional for staff and students when inside the schools [Applause] not torturing children anymore that's abusing them thank you students and staff will be required to wear masks in hallways during arrival when transitioning in the hallways throughout the day and when in the hallways
010during dismissal since they are large gathering areas additionally classrooms using desk barriers will continue to use them throughout the last day of school staff and students who prefer to continue wearing masks during the school day are still welcome to do so and at this point um i will be sending out uh communication later this evening to all of our staff members they have not been informed yet uh and all of our community but honestly this was going on from the time that we left today until this board meeting i printed this at seven o'clock going back and forth between the considerations at the end of the day the rationale has been the legal obligation and you can't change your rationale midway when it's convenient so we do believe it is the obligation ethically to do
011this thank you [Music] and to conclude the administrative report we do have to give our bullying report since the last meeting there have been two cases of harassment intimidation and bullying and both were founded thank you this is the first opportunity for public participation there are two opportunities to speak or present a comment to the board the first opportunity is regarding items that are on the agenda tonight only the second opportunity is for any item you'd like to address the board with um for the this first opportunity for public participation if you wish to address the board how where's the podium oh okay um please go to the podium state your name and full address for the record um your statement should be limited to three minutes in length and should not be abusive obscene
012or defamatory in nature so if anyone would like to address the board please feel free to do so [Music] um [Music] i think you just have to go real quick thank you can you hear me all right i just want to clarify am i able to ask a question or can i only make a statement george falcone 510 east freehold road freehold new jersey am i able to ask a question or so just to clarify you are making math optional while the students are in the classrooms just not in the hallways correct okay and i just want to say as a parent i interacted with you and ms lambert on i'm sure you're aware of our interaction i want to say thank you thank you for hearing us thank you for listening and i had
013a whole bunch of information which i'm sure you already have about how harmful this is emotionally psychologically physically for our children but you guys stepped up today and i want to say thank you thank you and my son my son actually he's been sent home six or seven times with headaches vomiting we pinpointed it to the time where he started wearing masks he actually has a genetic disorder that contributes to that so he'll probably want to say thank you too um thank you thank you you're welcome thank you for not letting me wear the map thank you very much and thank you for hearing us and thank you for taking action appreciate it good evening lisa johnston i do live in freehold but i'm here as the freehold township education association president one of the
014items on the agenda was our 25-year recipients so as the president-elect right now vice president as of july 1st president of the freehold township education association i just wanted to say congratulations to all of our staff members that have been here for 25 years thank you so much for all that you do for our students for our community for our administration it's been a heck of a year and a half we're almost there we're not dropping the ball and you took that 25 years of experience and just turned on a dime and kept it going so thank you to all of our staff members but especially tonight to those that are celebrating 25 years with us thank you so much [Applause] and anybody else okay hi my name is paul gilardi i live at 231
015round hill drive in freehold um i wrote this uh before obviously the announcement you make but um although that is clearly talking about what's happening for the rest of the school year i think it's what i wrote is applicable to the upcoming year as well because i don't know what you plan to do for that so again my name is paul gillardy i'm a father of two my daughter currently attends second grade in west freehold school i'm not here today to discuss the facts and science around masking or how the virus impacts children that information is readily available and easily searchable with that said i'm looking for the school board our leaders neil dixty and michelle lambert to take a stronger public stand against the masking you know different than the letter that was sent
016previously because again this is talking about the upcoming school years so masks are not required for children anywhere but schools right now um i don't understand uh why schools are the anomaly or maybe anomaly in the future and the only exception is impending weather uh if mass regulations can be relaxed in part then clearly they can be relaxed completely ultimately its parents who have should have the choice to how they protect their children each individual parent not the schools and certainly not the government our daughter stayed virtual the entire year uh we did this to avoid the psychological damage that surrounds the masking of children currently teachers have to constantly interrupt class to police the children they keep friends away from each other and they have to consistently remind the kids to put the mask
017and keep it above their mouth and their noses all of this while trying to give our kids a proper education this has created an environment that's more like a juvenile detention center it forces good-hearted educators to act as prison guards soils the teacher student relationship and detracts from the educational experience overall as i mentioned we kept our child school this year but the virtual option goes away in september so what happens to families like mine without the virtual option i ask you do you believe that you should get mass or force vaccination or go somewhere else um from a documented email from neil dickstein to another parent it would seem to indicate that you do when a parent reached out with similar concerns mr dickstein replied saying there were plenty of private schools but that
018is not a proper response we relocated the freehold from new york city and large part of that was due to our children getting a better education and now we find ourselves unable to take advantage of this due to policies that are not based on science or logic we annually pay ten thousand dollars in taxes that specifically go towards schools and you receive funding from from each child that is enrolled again talking about the future if a stand is not taken uh in favor of bodily autonomy you will see an exodus of children from the schools and you will see a reduction in funding our children are not just a number to us and as cliche as it may sound they are our future they are entitled to a free and fair education by the new
019jersey constitution and it should be an environment that considers their physical and emotional well-being as well that's all i have to say thank you so your question uh when you preface that it was about next year we are uh expecting uh i believe it's going to be called the road forward um a guidance document from the new jersey department of education allegedly by the end of june that is going to i i cannot it's supposed to provide guidance i don't know what that guidance will say um and as far as advocating it's not all public so yeah that governor's letter to the governor and the joint letters from the monmouth county superintendents were made public but there's times that we're advocating where the public's not aware we have been advocating with our local legislators we
020have their cell phone numbers have been texting we maintain emails i shared with some parents within the email that i've emailed and contacted the governor several times with not even an acknowledgement of the letter that i of that i sent it so we do we just don't always publicly advertise that we do that and we do it more often not just during the pandemic either when we feel that there's that there's issues it's it's ongoing it but during the pandemic we have been doing it so um okay um as far as the the statement um unfortunately yeah unfortunately um there are i i know that there's facebook groups and sometimes things are taken out of context the comment that you shared in my response to a parent was out of context and not connected to
021masking it was simply about values and if the values of the state the new jersey student learning standards which were required to implement don't match the values the only alternative because we are required by law to do that is to look into private schools it was not about masking my name is frank brooks at 12 buckingham way freehold my son eric is one of the top students in warren donovan school if not the top student in that school what we witnessed this year with him being completely demoralized to the point we had to pull him and my daughter megan from the school to start remote which wasn't working first either my daughter megan is still being homeschooled will be for the remainder of the year uh my son eric uh basically by the end of
022the year just wanted to spend the last month back in laura donovan just to be able to say goodbye and have some closure he'd been there since kindergarten it's the only school you'd ever really know his mask wearing is killing him he hates it he comes home angry every day and i know you just said that this is going to be voluntary for him to have it but we're still walking into hallways into classrooms off out of class he's had a baseball game right now where nobody on that field is wearing a mask they're in a dugout huddle together wearing a mask we were at a bar not long ago crowded around playing trivia with a packed bar nobody's wearing a mask everywhere in this country let alone this state we're not playing this game
023anymore and to be perfectly honest with you the coveted threat was over the day they let kids go back to school we put it in perspective if there was a toxic fume leak in laura donovan school and school said to you yeah it's a deadly leak and if your kid gets this he's going to take it home and kill grandma but we can go to school just put a mask on and they'll be fine anybody here would have sent your kids to school nobody would have said to get to school that threat was over the day that they sent them back to school [Applause] we have a kindergarten class that has now spent the entire year ever seeing a teacher smile at them kids that have learning issues learning to just pronounce words that have
024not seen a teacher pronounce their words but a facial expression not coaxing answers seeing them smile to them this has been their introduction to school this year it's disgusting all right this is what these kids have gone through now i witnessed when my son was remote learning and we had the two cohorts going half the week back and forth the gym class where you have the gym teacher remote the kids at their desk exercising doing burpees running in their mask and the whole time between everything telling the kids keep your mass on don't get close to the person next to you make sure your math pull your mask over your nose while they're exerting themselves in class this is child abuse this is not [Applause] yes very good as far as following governments this country
025was founded on a major principle that we the people we the people consent to be governed when that governance is no longer mr brooks your time is up thank you for your time we received your emails and we heard what you had to say and i want to thank you very much thank you i'm sorry his time minutes are up this is not 40 minutes thank you very much don't forget come september you'll be segregated you got your vacs no match for you it didn't your kids would be in the mess is it right for murphy's mouth [Applause] mr brooks i'm going to ask you to take your seat my my follow-up is uh to that is going to [Applause] be my follow-up is going to be just to clarify again i explained from the
026beginning that we're a local board of education and i understand what you're saying about the government completely and that experience that we're not pleased with either that these children have not seen their teachers and this is their first experience but we took as board members like mrs lambert said we all have our own opinions they don't play into our roles in these positions we take oaths both of allegiance when we're hired by the state department of education and oaths to be board members and we have to abide by those oaths and today and those are your opinions i hear you and that's why we're here no your opinion is that we're not putting children first and if we're going to go through this there'll be no more responses this evening i'm trying to explain to
027you that i've dedicated it's not personal my children go to this school district as well i care about every single one of your kids i also have to follow the law as a superintendent and you hear tonight their first time there was flexibility i instituted change so it doesn't matter whether i agree or disagree with statements i've never shared once my personal opinion regarding this but you the audience we've communicated what even what mr brook said about september we understand and don't are not happy with the fact that some of these children their first school experience has been with masks six feet apart we we don't differ on that opinion but we are obligated to follow the law and today when the first communication came regarding that we took action today so please understand that
028at times where we hear you and whether we agree or disagree personally we also need your support in communicating that beyond us and so when we are that guidance comes they need to hear comments like mr brooks who has spoken today and i didn't get your lore i don't want to say gilardy we need that voice also to go to our local legislators and our governor i know and and i heard from some a couple of people that they also feel that it's falling on deaf ears there and i'm sending them and not getting acknowledgement from the governor's office our local legislators have tried to help um but the gov i so we have to continue i unders i respect you being here i i we want our community to be more involved with our
029board but at this moment you you saw the word the actions behind the words we moved forward as soon as we could once we took ambiguity um from coming out and seeing what was happening we took action between you know the end of this the end of the day and now to be able to do this so we hear you and we are taking action but we still need your help and i i believe that you're doing that but we still need help in communicating that beyond i'm telling you that i am that letter was just one example but we need you to continue to do that um i made i made my um request and it was included in that monmouth county superintendent's letter that i contributed to we asked for no masses in
030september that's a clear thing we asked for um so keep it up in the community we hear you and we respect your opinions we want to hear them but the authority that we have sometimes is not there and that's where we need your help in in that communication beyond you know feel free to keep emailing come to the board meetings we hear you but we need your help beyond that as well oh hi everyone i'm johanna dolan um 364 dartmouth way serve on the board of the laura donovan school as vice president can you repeat your address please 364 dartmouth way in freehold uh thanks for uh being here thanks nice to see everybody in your beautiful smiling faces um so my question uh for you guys is since the children have suffered with the
031masking with the distancing with all of those um limitations on their natural you know instinct to socialize and be together um i believe they've suffered a great deal of psychological damage um and so what can we do as educators and schools and leaders to we need a new program we want a path forward we need to sort of put all that happened behind us and now say how can we undo all the damage that we all can kind of we're a part of not knowing the consequences of that so for me i just keep telling my children you are a person you are not you you lost your identity wearing dirt it's it's dehumanizing it's demoralizing we've talked about that um so as far as social emotional learning and even in laurdon in the elementary
032schools what can what can parents do we were shut out of that school we did not have a presence in our own children's school we were not allowed in we were not allowed to watch them play in field day and why did we let that happen because we're trying to abide by the rules too but what i'm asking for our leaders here today is when you have laws and rules that do not serve us and violate our rights that's when we need to stand up and be heroes and be courageous thank you and pave the way forward not follow along with what are you what's the guy tell me the way let's pave the way let's break new ground and say no we're going to teach our children how to be individuals how to have
033a voice how to be strong how to be leaders and and i just hope that it's not too late i hope that the damage can be undone so i'm just putting that forward for you guys to think about over the summer what new programs and and ptos would be happy to implement any kind of socialization and integration and anything we can do to sort of heal these wounds um so i'm hoping that that's something we would love to hear feedback from we'd love to give feedback i'm sure and um i'm that's my my goal because we can't go back so let's just like we said let's go forward so thank you for hearing me out thank you so we did um in our spark program this summer we made time in the middle of the
034day for students to engage in those type of activities and social emotional learning um thank you for pointing out some opportunities we will re-institute our pto liaison group that we didn't have this year due to the pandemic and the need to do it virtually and the lack limited number of activities that could be implemented so we will be re-engaging that group maybe we'll do it sooner than september to get some input from our pto leaders in each of the schools um we we are we have every summer we're working to build our social emotional learning um curriculum and you know we we acknowledge from the beginning that school is a social place we're not only building children's academics you know we're building their character and providing them time to to socialize with their peers um
035you know it's not that the rows and desks where you sit all day and and just work it's not our philosophy and this year did uh um some opportunities that that were not provided because of the distancing that had to happen so we took advantage of as much as we could getting them out when it was nice to be able to socialize so i hear you and i think that some of your ideas um as far as what we can look into is good and i think i will engage the pto liaison group to get some ideas and maybe consistently across our elementary schools and potentially our middle schools we can come up with some ideas that the ptos could support for honoraria not just during the school day but potentially outside the school day
036to rebuild that so i appreciate your comments thank you because of the people at home the only way they can hear okay shanna pizzuto 33 royal road i had this whole speech written but you know again like everyone else said thank you for taking away the mass for the next two weeks and we will have to revisit this come the fall but um i do have a question because i have a kindergartener and right now he is at his desk six feet apart and there is only a week and a half left of school and he picks a box every morning and sits at his desk and plays by himself is that what's going to have to happen the next week and a half or maybe they can get back in the pods or the
037centers or whatever they they used to do i mean for the next you know eight days i'll look into that thank you thank you very much i'll look into that i appreciate it thank you for letting us know thank you glenny serrafino 16 buckingham way so i think from everything that's happened and i think everyone's anger from all the parents is everything the board was asking you have to understand us the teachers were like you have to understand us and us as the parents never received a how can we help you i feel like we did everything on our own and we were just thrown into this with not having an educational background and when we asked for help was well this is what you have to do i feel like when we asked you
038for questions you were like well i just have to give you information of this is the school you have to pay for and this is it um i feel like we didn't get a a tutoring thing for our kids or saying you know what the school is going to be doing a tutoring program how can we help you guys understand our kids that are doing math or reading and they're not understanding do you know what it is to pay 85 to 100 an hour for tutoring it's insane and then the one thing was oh go to spartaca and pay a hundred dollars a day for your kids to help you with school or go to the ymca it wasn't helpful for us and now you're putting us in in the place that a lot of
039parents were working from home a lot of parents had lost a job and there was no sympathy whatsoever from the school to our parents why the parents are upset was because we didn't see the sympathy from your end coming to us so the part that you guys want us to understand you when you didn't understand us and that was the reason you received all the emails and all the phone calls was because there was no type of sympathy whatsoever towards the parents to how to educate our kids meetings with the parents how to do things together we were all going through this together you didn't have to go at it with knowing how these kids are going to eat or what parents were able to work for the kids there was no questions on that
040and that's where i think a lot of the parents were upset seeing how one family lives yeah we live in freehold but there's parents that have lost their jobs there's parents that can't afford things and assuming was the worst part out of the whole situation no type of communication with the parents how can we help you we didn't receive that and i'm coming on my end because i have two kids one that needs needs and i didn't get any type of help whatsoever in tutoring i have to pay for it myself so i just feel like that was like why everybody was so upset about it and everybody emailed you that way okay so this year you're correct we with with the restrictions in place we did not offer it but in now that we
041have grant funds we are in every uh school elementary and middle besides spark and elementary middle next year we are putting in programs after school to be able to provide that academic support to all of the students throughout at least next school year if not the school year after okay thank you you're welcome it's a regarding curriculum okay is it an agenda item if it's not on the specific agenda you have to wait for the second opportunity okay okay good talk um i just want to tell you that we appreciate the steps and efforts that you are making your name and address please oh i'm sorry cheryl palu 290 round hill drive freehold um i just want to thank you for the efforts that you are making i do feel that you could you know
042be a little bit stronger especially regarding coming into september next year you heard from the parents i have the same situations with my sons you know i had them in the school i took them out i homeschooled the virtual was not working for my boys just they have their own issues and i think the computers were also giving them their own you know problems the one thing i decided my older son i took them out of school because i didn't want to have to wear the mask all he did was chew on it and move it around it wasn't doing anything truly and i homeschooled them for a little while but the virtual situation didn't work so i decided to put it back in after easter break and come to find out he's just on
043the computer almost all day anyway so that to me is very concerning i mean the whole objective is to get you back in the classroom write read paper books i know there's new ways to teach etc but i feel like it's a crutch almost now you know because of our situation maybe you know teachers have to accommodate the kids that are virtual so i feel that that's an issue and if we're moving into next year if there is a virtual option which i hope there is for other parents that's going to be another you know concern of mine to consider um as far as uh you know i i just wanna you know our constitution of new jersey right states that all political powers inherit in the people government is instituted for protection security and
044benefit of all people and they have a right i'm sorry i'm gonna have to interrupt you if this is not related to the free old township school district or what is on our agenda this evening yeah this is not the forum i understand i just want to remind you that there are laws that if they're not just we do have the right to object and you know firmly and not sit and just take it from our our government you know and to just i understand what your rights are i'm just telling you this is an inappropriate forum to just understand thank you so much so just to make those considerations moving forward regarding virtual and the like and i'll just talk on curriculum and folks do me a favor because i really can't hear your
045names please uh there's a pen and paper up there please write your name and address up there otherwise you may not like what i write because you might recognize who you are all right stephanie calendrino 11 buckingham way um my question and i don't know if you have the answer yet but there's probably been some talk about it and we thank you for removing the mask the last eight days of school however next year with math we don't know right has there been talk about it's going to be mandated for children that aren't vaccinated if the vaccine is out so right has right now the information that we have there's no connection to the vaccine and communication with us as a school district and i think part of that is because most of our children
046will they're not of age that they can even be vaccinated but it could happen come september just like you're thinking about like it could happen same here like i don't know we haven't gotten any information um it's good our students won't have that opportunity it hasn't dropped down yet i don't know i don't know if it well i know they're saying it might and then it's still a choice among parents if they choose to do it so but we would never i'm not i don't think you're asking this but as a school district we have no intention unless mandated which i don't think would happen to require a vaccination for students but that's a parent's choice okay but will it then come down to if your child's not vaccinated you have to wear a mask
047versus if you're vaccinated you don't i can't i can't answer that only because i don't know what the guidance i would hope not um you know when we get that guidance we hopefully will have the opportunity to give feedback and have a little more uh leeway to be able to uh personalize it for our community in our school district so it's it's difficult because we should have had it by now we should have had in april we've been preparing for next school year um scheduling wise and and trying to you know prepare for that we're committed we're moving forward with a full day with lunch related arts um and well they are in person already but a full school day so we're lacking that information i'm sorry i can't answer that for you today i
048hope not okay is all i can say and then my other question i know giovanna talked about it too but with schools being so different this year and the kids missing so much do you foresee there being restrictions next year on what we can do because when you look on twitter and social media every school is doing something very different there was bounce houses at west freehold today there was a band concert at eisenhower so how is that going to come into play next year because i mean i have two young ones you know that and they've missed pretty much everything at this point my anticipation is that whatever normal means at this point that i don't anticipate without having any guidance my hope and anticipation is it would look like last last last september
049did in that we would be back in full operation okay um that that's my hope that's that's what i would like to see um i do understand that different schools are doing different things are appropriate so who decides that we do have meetings and our principals collaborate so they are doing um in the spirit of doing similar things but i understand and have seen the same on twitter yeah um hopefully you know we we encouraged and all agreed to disappointing because if your school's not doing anything it's kind of upsetting i do i understand and my hope in september is that we don't have to have conversations about restrictions okay and then one last thing um so i am coming into the pto next year at lara donovan i would recommend having the pto meetings
050sooner than september because i think there's a lot that want to be discussed so i have that down here i think it's necessary okay perfect that's it thank you thank you all right any of any other comments for the board no okay seeing none i'm going to move on to um our personnel committee ms costanza oh and when you move the agenda we are tabling item number 10. okay so the personnel committee met last evening um in attendance was mr amoroso mrs slamberg dr brethauer and myself we reviewed the agenda we reviewed job descriptions for the lead nurse the receptionist slash office assistant we briefly spoke about administrative course reimbursement and then we spoke about updates on the hiring process for supervisors and the tech secretary i would like to move the following items number
051three retirement dan spacusa lead custodian donovan elementary school 26 years of service i do want to take a moment and say that i worked probably for 15 years with dan it's probably one of the best custodians we've had in the district he is kind he has a spotless school and he was a lot of fun to work with and i wish you along with i'm sure the board much success in your future endeavors number four resignation as listed number five rescind employment as listed number six contract renewals as listed uh number seven new employment the following people have been um appointed positions in the district melissa villa yasa moyoli leanne mercadante kelly fleshner and samantha pace i would like to personally welcome back leanne mercadante she had been here previously moved and is now back
052so congratulations to all of you for receiving those positions number eight change of assignment as listed change of assignment and salary adjustment um this is actually a pretty big deal these are basically like promotions so um marissa mattis has been appointed the school nurse for the eclc for next year michael manning who i've also worked with is now the lead custodian at eisenhower middle school and danielle perella is the now supervisor of instruction at erickson school danielle i know you're here you were here oh there you are stand up congratulations to you all on those great positions number eight change of assignment as listed number nine change of his oh wait i did that already sorry i have the i i know okay number 11 reappointment of the health office assistance as listed number 12
053job descriptions as listed number 13 job description correction as listed number 14 stipend teacher assistance as listed number 15 district pbs coaches as listed number 16 curriculum committee as listed number 17 data coach name correction as listed number 18 summer computer technicians update as listed number 19 summer iep meetings as listed number 20 summer work as listed number 21 spark summer program as listed number 22 non-certified substitutes 2020 2021 school year as listed number 23 non-certified substitutes 2021 2022 school year as listed and that's it does anybody have any questions okay seeing no questions can i have a second all in oh no from number 16. what was that mr sorry um calling in from california i need to abstain from number 16. okay thank you thank you yes mrs o'sullivan yes mr stallman yes
054with the exception of 16. thank you mrs venetoli yes mrs patton mr lambert yes all right moving on to curriculum and policy mr sullivan the committee met yesterday and the following people were in attendance mr dickstein mary carlino and myself we discussed the agenda items regulations 75 10 the use of school all right all items on the agenda regulations 7510 use of school facilities the safe return arp esser number three plan diversity and inclusion law consortium for education and excellence equity i would like to now move the following items on the agenda i would like to move regulation 7510 use of school facilities as listed the approval for teacher practicum observation and placements as listed home instruction for the students for students to receive bedside and home instructions as listed and that is it your
055curriculum any questions okay can i have a second all in favor say aye aye aye did you get that yep thank you moving on to finance okay i'm just gonna jump and do the committee part and then i'll go back to the assignments and signatories thank you mr amoroso for your advice okay i'll just get to it the financing facilities committee did not meet this week i'm going to go and do the section i finance appointments and signatories number one legal depositories the superintendent recommends authorization that the provident bank be named as legal depository for funds of the freo township board of education for the 2021-2022 school year number two signatories as listed number three retirement savings program as listed number four annual appointments as listed number five the uniform minimum chart of accounts as
056listed number six board attorney the superintendent recommends approval to appoint the firm of kenny gross kobats and parton as board attorney for the njsa 18a 5-1 for the period of july 1st 2021 through june 30th 2022 at a cost of 150 per hour number seven labor attorney also the appointment of kenny gross kovats and parton at a cost of 150 dollars per hour number eight special education attorney the superintendent recommends approval to appoint the firm of the mikado law group as special education attorney for july 1st through june 30th at a cost of 1.65 per hour number nine auditor uh appointing jump perry and company at an approximate cost of 34 000 for the year number 10 the tax payment schedule um can i go bob can i go right into the other stuff uh
057number two certification um pursuant to nj ac 6a 23a-1610 16.10 c3 the board secretary certifies that as of may 31st 2021 no budgetary line items account has obligations and payments contractual orders which in the total exceeded amount appropriated by the board of education pursuant to njac 6a 22a-16.10a and njsa 18a 22-8 and 18a 22-8.1 number three the secretary and treasurer's report number four bills and claims um that were approved by myself uh number five travel and related expenses as listed number six transfers as listed number seven pace stipends as listed number eight consultants as listed number nine school bus emergency evacuation and safety drills as listed number 10 toilet room facilities as listed number 11 the ecip payments as listed number 12 certification declaration for an extraordinary under unidentifiable service health insurance broker as listed
058number 13 approval of extraordinary unidentifiable services health insurance broker was that twice 14 approved contract with open systems integrators for 2021 2022 15 approved contract with dell for 2021 16 approved the contract with vancon inc for 2021 through 2022 number 17 approved contract with core bts inc for 2021 through 2022 and that is it for me does anybody have any questions i hope not can i have a second all in favor say aye michelle i need to abstain on which one do you have stain on paint all right [Music] which one what number is there something no i'm i said i okay thank you yes um number eight as well bob [Music] hold on i don't know if we have the votes for seven so you guys are on no on the special education attorney
059and not the other number eight yes sorry says who's a no or an abstention on number five jen was in a 1-5 i think mary was for number five number eight number eight okay i can't hear either that's why i said to say it out loud do you want to repeat it if number eight is known what are the other ones that's it okay thank you are there any other nodes or abstentions so we make sure we're clear on the vote then on the remaining all in favor say aye aye aye moving back to i guess old business new business um again i'm just going to remind everybody we have to pick a date for our retreat so we'll hope to do that this week so we can um post it for the public posting
060um i just wanted to remind sorry i just wanted to uh remind the board that we sent our correspondence on june 9th at 7 30 eisenhower chorus stardust and back in black will be performing the 14th at 6 o'clock the barcelo band will be performing our graduation for eighth grade the 14th monday the 14th at barcelo what's seven o'clock six o'clock is uh barcelo band the 16th is our uh eighth grade graduation ceremonies four o'clock for barcelo seven o'clock for eisenhower at freyo township high school our rain date is the 17th at the same times and for those who aren't aware or care each year we rotate so the middle school that's four o'clock this year is seven o'clock the following year and so on okay okay neil you forgot the movie uh the what
061lion king will be released oh thank you production on friday okay okay anything else um i just wanted to uh before we move on to the next part of public participation i do want i saw as many of you object when i did cut some people off before you have to understand this is a board of education meeting while it is a public meeting and i am a constitutional purist so i i respect the first amendment your public comments here have to be related to the business of this school district in that regard this meeting is limited it is not a forum to take on any political undertaking you may take so in that regard i would need to cut you off and limit your comments to the business of the school district and the
062students only or you know administration anything involving our district so with that i'd like to move on to the second opportunity for public participation of any kind [Applause] do i have to restate my name cheryl palu 290 round hill drive um i'm sorry please sign now thank you okay before we start i just want to remind everybody your comments need to be limited to three minutes and should not be abusive obscene or defamatory in nature okay um i'm here to discuss the new inclusive and diversity bill that was passed into law march of 2021 that is in line with now the new 2020 new jersey learning standards um the laws that were recently passed by governor murphy one back in january of i think forced the school districts to teach children about gender sexual identity
063sexual orientation sexual rights as young as kindergarten now why do we want to cause our young children to question their gender identity or cause undue stress and confusion this doesn't make sense to me it appears the intent is to force a state-mandated ideology onto our children hiding underneath the cloak of inclusion and anti-bullying i think we should just teach our children to respect each other behave kindly and compassionately toward others regardless of differences follow our sore for four i think our school does strive to do that but these laws i feel are violating parental rights and religious liberty [Music] i mean you cannot legislate behavior it doesn't work let us uplift our children and point out their strength stop defining them by their sexuality but by who they are as a person you have the
064authority and discretion on what how much where the subject matter will be placed in curriculum the language of the law is clear in an appropriate place you define the appropriate place health is the only option i see so parents have a choice to opt their children out discussions on gender sexual identity and lifestyles family life are not the school's responsibility nor it should be it's a violation of our rights religious liberty god chose me to parent my children not the state it is my fundamental right to direct their upbringing the state continually exerts their power gets in between the parent and child and the school board sometimes go along in many cases for example they adopt this board adopted in 2019 transgender policy 5756 it's a violation of parent rights over to minor children it
065states the school district shall accept a student's asserted gender identity parental consent is not required a student need not meet any threshold diagnosis or treatment requirements there is no affirmative duty for any school district staff member to notify a student's parent or student's gender identity or expression you are you're complicit i believe you're complicit if damage caused by a child allowing them to make life-altering decisions that which they cannot possibly comprehend the consequences of such decisions how is it that a school nurse cannot give a student an aspirin without parental consent yet you'll placate a student suffering from gender dysphoria this is a huge issue it's not simple i request new moratorium on this policy your time is up right now i'm sorry well i request a moratorium on this policy so that it could
066be reviewed it does more harm than good i do have others to say i'll just give you a copy of my notes thank you thank you for sharing um a couple of things just to clarify because i understand that not everybody in the who's not involved in education understands the the procedures so i just want to make them clear first some policies are mandated meaning their law and were required to adopt them as a board they are actually law and if you do not adopt them you're held accountable um the second thing is um as far as the standards i just want to clarify those i read the diversity inclusion i just want to clarify one thing for you and i did point out to our county ad specialist there is um conflict the i
067just want you to understand i know you're more just because we've got i know you're more familiar regardless of what that says the standards for the 2020 comprehensive health and phys ed standards will not be implemented in this district until september 2022 so i understand what that bill says but we are not prepared um to do that we don't have people working on that curriculum so that component of it will not be implemented until september 22 2022. what you're saying regarding the rest it is broad and there's i'm not we haven't we haven't looked at it the commissioner of education is supposed to provide guidance legislators who are not educators pass bills that become law and then the department of education needs to interpret them and provide us guidelines we have not gotten guidelines yet
068so i hear you because the the bill says kindergarten through 12th grade it's not clear and i don't have clarity at this point but i hear you and i understand what you're saying frank brooks again um mr brooks can you do me a favor i had trouble hearing you but it's not it's not a problem thank you no problem thank you um i did um i have more of a question uh there's not too much of a chance of governor murphy not being governor another term and he has publicly stated his support for some very controversial things such as critical race theory 1619 project as well as the lgbtq curriculum my question to you really is how much autonomy do you as the board of education actually have as far as doing you mentioned before
069if something is passed through his law you have to do it under penalty what penalties it's a good question let me answer the first part and then i'll answer your penalty part the first part is what happens is the the state board of education publishes student learning standards and they give us those standards so by this grade the standard which must be addressed or autonomy is how we address it but it still needs to meet the standard that's provided that combined with your other question on what happens if we don't implement we have state monitoring and we lose points on that monitoring and could be subject to uh corrective action plans as in implement what we are supposed to implement right i mean what what is the actual i know i'm sorry i'm sorry it's
070a point system so our monitoring is uh four different areas it's called cusack you can look it up qsac and there's different criteria and every different piece of criteria is assigned a point value when you don't meet that area and and we have no control over not our student achievement it's student growth so we have no control over that area they tell us how many points we get if we can't show proof of those other things we lose additional points and run risk of not being an effective school district as designated by the department and also having to write a corrective action plan which the expectation would be on the state to implement what you didn't implement again that that doesn't seem to say what is the actual penalty like for instance i know um
071the penalty is we don't pass monitoring the state has no problem pulling funds from us and putting it elsewhere even as a punitive way because we're not voting in a certain situation and they'll easily just cut funds with no real explanation so again we have schools kids are learning to read and write they're learning mathematics they're not learning whatever this controversial um curriculum is whatever may end up being on that what is the actual real penalty because i mean the point system would ever find what does that mean does that mean we wouldn't we wouldn't pass monitoring and eventually what does that exactly mean like what do you what is that we would be entailed it takes days weeks months of your and deeper and time they'll do it and eventually they can withhold stated
072they will do it for you well they can revolt with whole state aid whenever they want we just proved that last couple of years they can just turn here and say we don't care how many taxes you pay for your schools we're taking 35 million dollars away you're not getting that so they eventually can take they can eventually take state control remove employees from the district they can remove administrators they can pull administrators uh certifications and then they would not be employed you're a branch of a governmental entity whether you like it or not whether we agree or disagree with certain mandates if a mandate is law it is contrary to this board or this administration to go against that for the very specific reasons at the end of the day the state will come
073in and do what what is mandated regardless the only thing you've done in the process by violating that mandate is hurting the multitudes of families in freehold township don't forget if they do pull state aid you're affecting every family in this town families who are hard hit during covid who are having a hard time paying their property taxes to begin with do you think they want their taxes to go up you're you're talking about things that you know are divisive in a district in so far as not everyone may agree with with how you feel having these items in or out of a curriculum these aren't clear-cut answers well by the way my question was only what actual power would you have as far as implementing this not so far as to say pro con
074of it but my whole thing was obviously it was it's a law as opposed to being recommendation i'm just curious to know what your limits of uh your power is as a school board as what sort of control we have as far as curriculum what's going into it and where we have to address the standards how we address the standard is our discretion but the standard has to be addressed at one point i want to make for mrs palu and also for you mr brooks is the new jersey student learning standards are approved by the state board of education their meetings are still virtual they had one today but if you look up new jersey state board of education you will have the opportu so that is uh i think i believe the governor appoints
075the members of the state board of education but the commissioner of education also sits at those meetings and that would be the place during public public participation that's your place where prior to getting to us where we have to do it that's the place for comment so i encourage you if you have feedback about those standards or anything like that to to find when those meetings are and participate and i believe they're virtual right now thank you very much i appreciate it no problem helpful [Applause] george falcone 510 east freehold road um i just want to kind of address a little bit of the mindset and the way this whole thing is set up from a parent's perspective we the parents are supposed to be the main voice behind what what is taught to our
076children how it's taught right what is acceptable and what's not acceptable i'm hearing a couple of times this leaning towards i don't want to say hiding behind but really like when you say you have no choice you have to follow rules you have like we're we're the voice of our community we decide how where children get taught what they're taught and you know for for you to say oh i have to at what point does that end where you say i have to listen to trenton where does that end because in my mind you have an obligation and i said to you directly to follow an unlawful harmful order you have an obligation not to do that right you have an obligation not to do that mr falcone can i just interrupt you it is
077your opinion that it was an unlawful harmful order it is not everybody's opinion so to insert on into this school board or mr dickstein that he was not doing something correctly by following the law is wrong i i you know you follow the speed limit because if you don't there's a consequence other people might feel the proper speed limit should be 65 miles per hour well there's not even a debate you know allowed to happen though like i have so much information that you blow your mind i've explained to you you can argue with your legislators you can bring it there but to bring it to me i wasn't even speaking directly to that point i was speaking in a general mindset right we voted you there miss lambert we voted you there you're there
078because we said you can be there we can take you out right hold on i'm not you know what i will tell you this much when it is your time to vote exercise i will believe me trust me i will but listen mr dickstein you told me in an email your only boss is the board no it's not we're your boss we voted them they hired you they we can replace them and fire you right that's the mindset that should be in place we are in control of our children's education not you you're mistaken and i don't disagree with your philosophy that you're saying the state has laws that govern restaurants that govern from health departments i am not in control i'm the superintendent of the school district where my children attend i don't have
079the control over what they are taught by law we are required to teach the new jersey student learning standards and parents voice comes into play when those standards are proposed at the state board of education level it's not up for my interpretation or my opinion in any way maybe points and money aren't the most important thing sometimes it's not it's not about money it's the it's the law it's it's the law some laws are meant to be broken right i'm sorry i i can't respect you listen i respect your all service i respect your leadership and please don't take this as any disrespect my obligation as a parent to speak my mind i just feel like i need to do that i respect all your service and i respect you mr dickstein and your service
080thank you would anyone else like to address the board okay um oh okay hello my name is maggie gurgas five summer drive freehold thank you for your time and the opportunity to speak today uh first of all i want to say that i'm very proud of the parents of the freehold township for standing up and you know trying to protect your children and being their voice i'm here today because i'm i am a mother of three i have a nine-year-old a seven-year-old and a six-year-old whom attended west freehold until the end of december 2020 where my husband and i decided to pull them out of the district i pulled them out of the district for several reasons i'm only going to state two of them the first one is i felt that the educational curriculum
081was lacking the bridges mass math program is i thought very weak up until last year we didn't even have a workbook next is the non-existent spelling curriculum i was asking for four years since my kid was in kindergarten why aren't they learning any spelling and every teacher said it's just not part of the curriculum and this has forced me and other parents to supplement but not every parent can supplement additionally there was the constant use of chromebooks they were on chromebooks for the majority of the day even in on homework so i felt that was taking away from their skills you know just to hold the pen and paper and open up a book the second reason is the as the other parents were saying it was the lgbtq learning standards which was passed by
082governor murphy several parents and myself met with mr dickstein and his team before the shutdown and we were asking how they were planning to implement and if they were going to give the parents an opt-out solution i felt that the answers we received were unclear and very wishy-washy and i felt that they were taking away from my first amendment rights which i'd like to read to you just as a reminder for all of us the first amendment says the cons that congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech press or right of the people to petition to assemble and to petition the government for a ready redress of grievances i'm here to peacefully assemble a petition for all of you to
083redress these learning standards and give us an opt-out solution every parent has a right to teach their children about sexuality on their own terms on their own beliefs this indoctrination of these topics without the parents knowledge is unconstitutional and i just want to say an example of this was in october of 2019 west freehold celebrated rainbow day when i asked why the children were asked to wear rainbow the principal at the time said it was a day just to wear different colors i came to find out that was national coming out day the parents did not know about this they were not privy to this and the kids were wearing colors not knowing why this is indoctrination i pulled my kids out because i will not allow my children to be indoctrinated and go against
084my personal beliefs just the way the state gave you guys guidelines how to reopen post you know during the pandemic you have the authority to push this curriculum and as you feel fit for freehold you know freehold better than governor murphy and that's why you're sitting there and it is your job to represent freehold i am asking you to go back to the basics let the kids be scared i'm sorry your time is up thank you thank you [Applause] i'll allow mr dickstein to address it first the rainbow day was an extreme leap in understanding of west freehold as house colors and they wear their house colors regularly once a month on a friday and it was a coincidence nobody connected it to rainbow day or even was aware until there was a concern brought
085forward and i addressed that at the time again we have not implemented any of the legislation for the lgbtq students with disabilities it's all one diversity and inclusion bill i explained that that's it was this was very early so yes the answers are still wishy-washy we don't have the guidance we haven't done the work it's not happened yet that's the rationale behind why there's no answers the work has not been done and it's not for implementation until next school year um and as far as spelling we have purchased a phonics and phonemic awareness program comprehensive for k2 and beginning next school year in grade three we'll be implementing as children move up from grade three into the up upper grades a word study program which is aligned with spelling it's just word history and and
086spelling combined and vocabulary bring back cursive writing okay yeah if you have a comment please come to the podium so that the parents at home can hear and it can be recorded properly you have to go to the podium um yeah i just wanted to answer the microphone i know this i can't oh there we go that's better okay thanks um regarding curriculum um the reason why i wanted to bring it up early and neil we sat and miss brother and um we sat about a year and a half ago is because i want to be in front of this issue not behind it i feel many occasions you know we're behind the blow all the time and we're trying to you know change things after they already happen so i just wanted to put
087that out there um that i think parents want to understand what's going to be implemented how how it looks before it's done and if there's a way that we can bring in parents to really take a look at how things are going to be i'm happy that this is not going to be implemented in until september 2022. the health and comprehensive standards correct the other diversity inclusion bill yes that's 2022 but the history and disabilities bill is this both so the new jersey student learning standards for health and phys ed are september 2022. right the diversity which is part of the diversity inclusion bill but that it will knock that component of it will not go until september 2022. the other parts of the diversity inclusion bill and the um i don't know the name
088of the other one but i know to what you're referring the history component of it will be in september 2021 and when i was questioned about it i did make the commitment that prior to the beginning of the school year when it is completed that i will communicate with our parent community prior to the beginning of the school year right so um exactly so that again it's in the law says where appropriate you have the authority to put it and minimize it you know probably history of social studies i would think um and again i just want to be part of you know implementation in a sense or you know decision making process i don't know if there is even a parent committee or um that can work with the board when it comes to
089curriculum i think parents today are more aware of things that are going on and i think they really do want to be engaged the pandemic kind of squashed a lot of that you know so i just wanted to add that and it was a disappointment to us that we could not we this district welcomes parents into the schools and it was not um we were disappointed that we had to eliminate visitors this year as well and looking forward to regaining that involvement again next year yeah yeah us too thank you also we did receive several emails requesting the community relations committee to be reactivated and we are going to work on that and there will be parental involvement in that so if there are concerns brought brought forth um you know with regard to some
090of the specific curriculum concerns i'm going to reiterate what mr dickstein said that the state board of education is your starting point i understand the establishment clause you can take the the lemon test seven ways to sunday and at the end of the day when someone's core value system is rooted in a religious belief a school cannot foster that opinion either the establishment clause prevents neither um you know exactly religious belief it's it's really meant for um true conscious so you know you can if you start with the state board of education i would advise you to go there look at the third circuit case for black horse pike look at some of their analysis there and you'll know where your legislators are leading where your judiciary is leading and and if you start there
091it's you you would have less problems here yeah yes that's the best advice i can give you at this point in there okay okay thank you thank you [Applause] would anybody else like to address the board no okay um seeing no one i want to announce for the parents and community members viewing from home that we are going to go into executive session shortly and when we come back from executive session the line the live stream will be turned off um there is going to be no action taken after the executive session so people who are here present you're welcome to stay till the end of the meeting but it know that no further action will be taken so for the people at home although there's no live stream you're not missing anything else going
092forward um so at this point this board needs to go into executive session whereas pursuant to njsa 10 412 b the board of education may exclude the public from that portion of a public meeting in which the board discusses matters prescribed in njsa 10 412 b 1 through 9. now therefore be it resolved that in accordance with the provisions of the open public meeting act the board of education shall conduct a closed session pursuant to the personnel and legal uh exceptions prescribed by njsa 10 412 for the purpose of discussing personnel non-affiliated contracts and pending or anticipated contract negotiations regarding the architect rfp it is anticipated that the length of time of this executive session will be approximately two hours and that no further action will be taken at the end of the two hours
093maybe good evening thank you no it's just that there's an appropriateness right and i've said to people time and time again you know and i'm not lying when i say me i'm an anti-master just saying sitting in this seat i can't be that person you know no it's fine i enjoy the open dialogue no problem and that's why you know i i'm sure people will not vote me