Board of Education Meeting - Public Session - June 27, 2022

001thank you and good evening everybody it is 7 51 p.m monday june 27 2022 this meeting of the south orange maplewood board of education is being live streamed as well as recorded for storage storage and viewing on our district website the public the public can participate there in hearings and individuals and delegates by signing up for a sheet at the entrance as well as using audio public speaks via form available on our website adequate written notice of this meeting of the south lawrence paperwood board of education has been provided to both townships and village clerks the star ledger the news record sampletosoma.net and the village please rise with pledge allegiance mr president please note for the record that board member mouse being informed this should be unable to attend this evening and with that can

002you please call the role board member susan burgin here board president thyroid joshua here student representative noah morose here board member aaron siders here board member callie tellisford here board member arun vadlabhani board member caitlin what letter here board member courtney winfield here board member johanna wright president thank you at this time i'd like to make a motion to hold this meeting in a hybrid manner i may have a second second thank you board member siders all in favor that appears to be unanimous mr brightside at this time i think we're now going to move on to our board recognitions with student representative nolan morose great thank you so we're going to start off with the student recognitions so the first one is for the chs class of 2022. well wishings and well wishes and

003congratulations to the entire class of 2022 columbia high school graduating class we wish you all the best in the next chapter of your academic and professional journeys the next one is for maplewood middle school in the 2021-2022 school year all somc middle schoolers were invited to compete in three math contests the american mathematics contest eight math counts and math olympiad all three contests are designed to be extremely challenging even for the best students under the guidance of maplewood middle school mms math teacher mark kessler mr mark kessler 82 mms students participated in at least one of the competitions with 19 competing in all three of the 48 mms students who participated in amc eight abrev hoffman 7th grade placed in first place and also received the honorable certificate for scoring in the top five percent

004owen schubart in the eighth grade henry spielberg in the sixth grade and hunter edgar in the eighth grade tie for second place henry spielberg also received a certificate of achievement awarded to 6th graders who score 15 or higher out of a maximum of 25. overall the top three scores summed to 53 out of 75 earning mms the school certificate of merit for demonstrating outstanding proficiency by scoring above a 50. the top four finishers abram hoffman 7th grade taylor barnes 8th grade nathaniel greenberg 8th grade and hunter eggert 8th grade comprised the mms team for the north central jersey chapter competition for the math counts school competition the next eight finishers advanced the chapter levels individuals caitlin chan 8th grade alice cohen 8th grade anna cooper 8th grade kevin roth dives 8th grade hayden heinle 8th

005grade charlie knutson 8th grade angelo lynch 8th grade and henry spielberg 6th grade the math olympiad contest was comprised of 5 rounds spanning several months with 46 mms students participating at least one of the rounds scores from cumulative with hunter egger 8th grade receiving the highest individual score trophy for first place at mms the next one is for south orange middle school during the 2021-2022 school year all sms middle schoolers were invited to compete in three math contests the american mathematics contest math counts and math olympiad all three contests are designed to be extremely challenging even for the best students under the guidance of south lawrence middle school math teacher mr elizabeth lapuma 101 some students participated in at least one competition with 34 competing in all three of the 57 psalm students who participated

006in the american mathematics contest noah trokenheim the sixth grade placed first chokenheim also received the honor roll certificate for scoring the top five percent and the certificate of achievement awarded sixth graders who score 15 or higher out of a maximum of 25. karine arnold berkovitz eighth grade placed second and noah inokay in eighth grade and isabel archer in seventh grade tied for third the top three scores summed to 53 out of 75 earnings psalms certificate of merit for demonstrating outstanding proficiency by scoring above a 50. the ma the math counts school competition through 61 competitors from psalms the top four finishers theo archer from seventh grade noah tokanap in sixth grade is about archer from seventh grade and corinne arnold berkovitz from eighth grade comprised the psalms team for the north central new jersey chapter

007competition the next eight finishers advance to the chapter levels individuals noah and ankino gay eighth grade parker house 7th grade jazzy lyons 7th grade zane merriweather 7th grade zanvi regatti 8th grade caleb rubenstein 6th grade caroline shaw 8th grade and gabriel taro in 8th grade the math olympiad contest consisted of five rounds spending several months with 75 some students participating at least one of the rounds scores were cumulative with isabel archer and theodore archer receiving the highest individual score trophies by tying for first place at psalms israel archer theodore archer and noah trokenheim won math olympiad logo pins for scoring in the top 10 among 15 481 contestants the next one is for our achieve foundation volunteers every year the achieve foundation achieves all the exceptional volunteer student tutors who served district students throughout the

008academic year for the 2022 school year the students below were recipients of the following achieve awards 2021 2022 achieve volunteer award recipients um go to santos garner at psalms gracie klein mms and harper anderson in fifth grade now the dubrow awards for outstanding tutors go to salus epstein gianna forrester isabel lahar eli hakeem lauren kazdin sierra manian maliki meyer susan pendleton holden reeves and maya romanowski the super senior awards which goes to seniors who tutor for more than three years goes to emma booker dodd lila brissette mariana charon zoghi ferguson ben fuhrman dylan gill eco mcgrant jackson kondak emily lopez sydney manion violet uh mcgowan priya pai nina panzer jayden park lucy perry seth pierce lila promiso cassandra uh rakovich calliope reeves elite reeves ashkeron rochette kate rohan sarah schneider tyler steffen ryan thomas katie

009trasco oren van allen addie weiner and alex yang and the distinguished super seniors who who tutor for three plus years were also nominated for the deborah award go to ava byrd ella rose servey aiden cunningham brianna lucas courtney plaza and kaya fio the next one goes out to the chs model u.n club on saturday may 21st the award-winning columbia high school model u.n club hosted its first ever south orange maplewood mall nations conference for students from maplewood middle school and south orange middle school the topic to the conference's committee was the ukrainian humanitarian crisis which attendees debated and discussed from perspective of various countries maplewood mayor dean daphis spoke at the opening ceremonies to the attendees about various topics including electoral college the supreme court his role as mayor and psalm student blake gordon won

010the best position paper award and psalm student tegan feynman won the best delegate award our last student recognition goes to south mountain elementary school fourth grader snow fox congratulations to south mountain elementary school fourth grader snow fox who was chosen as the winner in the essex county clerk's my essex county poster contest a ceremony to honor the winners in the lobby of the dr martin luther king jr justice building in newark new jersey was held on may 25th 2022 essex county clerk christopher j durkin presented an award to each student now on to our staff recognitions um the first one goes to our 2022 somc staff retirees on monday june 9th the district celebrated the retirement of 16 employees who have a combined year of service that totals 330.4 years we sincerely thank every teacher

011and staff for the commitment of and years of service to our district most of all we wish them all the best in the next phase of their life journey once again thank you for your use of service and congratulations to sheila bellini susan betcher kathleen baum mccarah brown neddy davis deborah de lorenzo susan donoleti carlo dos santos jonathan fisher donna graham laurie hirsch renee joyce george um marutsen renee pierre lewis veronica simmons and ingrid williams our next one goes to our district staff congratulations to smst teachers uh maureen davenport seth boyd and kindergarten teacher susan froich clinton school fourth grade teacher philip mccormick chs um cst social worker and lip and bang chs chinese teacher who all recently completed the m.a eds program in education leadership management and policy at seton hall university our next

012one goes out to the achieve foundation the achieve foundation of south orange established the michelle t ricky teaching fellowship in 2004 memory of the board of education president sheili sheely ricky and since then the fellowship has provided nearly ninety three thousand dollars to fund professional development for opera for opportunity to inspire excellence innovation and creativity in the classroom and beyond ricky fellows share their learning with their colleagues and maximize the benefit to the district this spring achieve proudly awarded 5 for michelle t ricky teaching fellowships enabling five faculty members to participate in summer professional development programs congratulations to the fallen 2022 ricky fellows who deserve special recognition for honing their craft this summer break caitlin dinecy south orange middle school special education teacher will attend a week-long conference on mindfulness and education at the omega

013institute in rhymeback new york chs guidance counselor krista handler will complete college advising program coursework through teachers college at columbia university tuscan librarian immediate specialist amy popp will attend the american library association annual conference in washington dc from june 23rd to 28th matthew rice chs science teacher receives funding to participate in train in the trainer course through the transgender institute and lastly alana riss math recovery specialist at seth boyden school will take the ad plus vantage mr course 2 offered by the u.s math recovery council and that is it for our student and staff recognitions thank you representative meros i will now like to make emotion to approve the minutes from the may 9th reorganizational meeting and the may 16th executive session at regular meeting may have a second second thank you board member siders

014all in favor that appears to be unanimous mr president and now let's turn over to dr taylor for superintendent's update thank you to our board president and um noah every time that you read those recognitions it makes me extra proud because when i arrived the board was trying to decide who should read those and we discussed it and it was an awesome time for student voice so you make me proud every time you do that thank you for continuing that tradition i'll be very brief with my comments i know that we have important business to get to i just want to acknowledge all the work that was done this school year by our teachers our administrators central office folks our support staff members our students and our parents as i was having our hosting our

015district admin team we have a full district admin team meeting multiple times per year falls on the quarters and we were just reflecting on this time last year and the journey back to full day in person instruction and thinking about how we were giving updates of how we were going to do outdoor lunch just the simplest of operational uh mandates for us and so many people in our district work together to make that come to fruition uh for our kids and for our community um and all of the different quarantines and and different pieces that we had to pull together our data dashboard that shares information around um the impact of covert in our school district just so many um challenges and obstacles that we were able to meet together as one just publicly acknowledge

016all the folks in our district who just did so much to help us meet that challenge and lastly i want to acknowledge the students of columbia high school psalms and mms for their fantastic moving up ceremonies and graduations that occurred on friday i was able to attend all three and it's just so heartwarming to see students as they hit those transitional milestones and their families come together to celebrate them and their teachers and their administrators who all pulled with them towards such a grand accomplishment in culminating activity and lastly i want to acknowledge the chs administrators who rethought the prom this year previous years have had challenges around the prom and it was a very innovative approach with the red carpet ceremony um and on in the front of chs along with the transportation to

017the site that really alleviated any of those previous concerns so thank you to mr sanchez and his team for that those are all my comments thank you dr taylor before i go to my report let me i neglected to read the board president statements let me do that now the school board meeting is a business meeting in public and not a meeting with the public oftentimes it may appear to members of our audience that the board takes action with very little comment and in many cases a unanimous vote before matter is placed in the agenda at a public meeting administration has thoroughly reviewed the matter with the superintendent the superintendent is satisfied that the matter is ready to be presented to the board is referred to the appropriate board committee members of the board's committees

018work with administration and superintendent to ensure members fully understand the matter and after the committee discusses the matter is then shared with other board members for consideration only then is a place in the agenda for board discussion and action at a public meeting okay and now i'll transition to the president's report all right so this evening the board of education will be voting to ratify the memorandum of agreement between the board and asca at this time i would i don't see anyone from asca on so at this time i'd like to make a motion to move up resolution four three one six may have a second second thank you board member siders all in favor appears to be unanimous mr brightside uh any comments on the resolution four three one six seeing on our close

019discussion mr bright side you please call the role on resolution four three one six and before you do i'd like to just read it into the record be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the memorandum of agreement for successor contract between the south orange maplewood board of education and the association of supervisors coordinators and administrators be approved as per the agreement can you please call the roll board member bergen yes board president joshua yes board member siders yes board member tells ford yes board member vadlamani yes board member wingfield yes board member wit letter yes board member right yes oh my god this thing is stuck yes motion passes thank you thank you and congratulations to the boys negotiations team and member of vasco's leadership team for working together to achieve a

020deal in good faith this year the board was invited members of the board attended the chs hall of fame ceremony chs senior recognition night lavender graduation and of course chs commencement it was wonderful to celebrate the various successes of all of our students and we wish you the best as newly minted columbia high school alumni and as i mentioned in my very brief jobs remarks on friday please don't be a stranger come back and visit the board of education will be holding two summer retreats july 20 thursday july 21st we will be discussing board goals for the 22-23 year as well as reviewing the results of the upcoming board self-evaluation and on monday august 1st the board will be discussing district goal setting with the superintendent and our nj sba field service representative will be

021assisting us in both retreats and lastly i wanted to bring another update on the jefferson renaming at our last meeting we revealed the five names at our at our june 20th special meeting we revealed the five recommendations from the jefferson school community on a new name for the school and at this time i wanted to open up for to discussion amongst my board colleagues and how we want to move forward with these recommendations boy remember wakefield uh since our last meeting when we discussed uh the jefferson renaming we've received a lot of correspondence in particular from members of the jefferson community including the the pta um urging us to make a decisive decision and via uh using our authority to vote and i think that we really need to honor what the current jefferson community

022is is saying to us um and to be able to exercise the right i really appreciate my colleagues um the spirit behind my colleague's desire to want to open this up to the community and to make this a more inclusive process i think that there are a number of potential unintended consequences um in going down that road i think on a technical end um there are a number of unintended consequences around delaying the renaming with respect to state reporting um as well as just sort of physical markers inside of the school community i think more importantly um in a more adaptive way delaying the renaming or sort of opening it up i think potentially exposes the community to really needless attention that could pose a potential security risk so i feel strongly based on the

023feedback in particular from the community itself that we need to move forward before the close of the month and make a decision thank you any other comments remember what letter thank you i personally believe that we should open the vote to the community at the very least we should open the vote to our students district-wide as many of them are a product of jefferson and a contributing member towards its legacy ultimately the board will have a final say in the decision but in my opinion the board should follow the process as adopted in the resolution which states that a new name for jefferson elementary school to be selected with the involvement of jefferson elementary school students and the district's student community at large the board of education directs the superintendent or a designee to work

024with the students of jefferson elementary school to seek input from the district student community to propose a new name for that school to the board of education by june 30th of this year so that the board may vote on the adoption of such name to take effect commencing in the upcoming school year by the time this decision reached the board which we know happened last week the district students should have already been given an opportunity to weigh in on the decision if the board chooses not to open this to the community at large i propose we include all district students in the voting process and consider expanding to our chs alumni there's no rush to do this and it's important that it's done fair and not fast thank you board member right wow that was

025a mouthful and and you basically said everything that i wanted to say other than um the bottom line is that we're all a part of this jefferson community and i think that everyone should absolutely uh be involved if we are going to to rename uh the jefferson school um i am not uh for a handful of people making such a monumental uh decision uh in our district and for all transparency and the things that we need to do uh we certainly uh deserve as taxpayers uh to be a part of this entire process thank you board member siders and then board member bergen hi um the jefferson student population put a lot of work into this and i i feel that we as a board owe it to them to make this decision and make

026this decision relatively quickly um i i find it to be disingenuous that we ask these students to to do this work a wonderful civic opportunity and and now we're saying we're going to pass the buck i am in support of us making a decision to move forward thank you board member bergen thank you um for the reasons that i stated last week and the reasons that board member ciders and winkfield already stated i support the board making a decision as soon as possible based on the fabulous recommendations and process that we had at the jefferson school community and i also just want to say that you know there's very few things that are solely within the purview of a board of education we set the district policy we hire and supervise the um evaluate the

027superintendent and we actually can name schools and i think that this is something that it truly is our job to do and we need to do it and take take the leadership role that we have in making that decision quickly as we've been asked to do by several members of the jefferson pta and the president's council thank you board member bergen um i'll come to one second uh boy remember what letter i just wanted to ask a question for dr taylor um can you just give us and i guess mr vargas i may be able to shine as well from i guess technology operational and facility standpoint how much leeway do you need to get um you know i know you said there were some statewide things that you needed to do obviously there would

028be district website updates and signage et cetera this will kind of how much time we're getting as you would say backward mapping when would you need to know to have it ready about first day of school so i guess um in looking at day one students entering the building having every you know really significant task completed and understanding that this is the time of year when some of our hardest working folks can take off this is the only time that they can take off and they may not be available um you know at certain parts of our summer um i would think for us to make that happen successfully it would be mid-july at the latest uh mid-july because that would give us enough leeway time with all the you know backup and supply chains

029that we deal with for some of the physical pieces but also understanding that some of our tasks are literally only done by one employee and so we're working around not just that person's schedule but prioritizing all the other things that are a big part of our summer transition to a new school year uh mr burnside anything else to share you nailed it when you said supply chain issues yes so as soon as possible thank you boy remember what letter i just wanted to clarify that no one's saying that we don't move forward with this um that's not what i heard in the sentiment but you know we're writing resolutions whether it's this resolution the moratorium on suspension the sexual assault task force we're writing these resolutions that we aren't following the process we're identifying so

030we set up a process for this district students were supposed to be engaged not just at jefferson but district-wide to make this decision that was supposed to have been brought to the board we set up this process we communicated the process the board last year voted on this process so i'm asking that we uphold and follow that process remember right wow that's absolutely correct again uh what uh you know the people say hurry but don't rush and we seem to like to rush and push things through without uh thought and without inclusion and without transparency um we need to understand that we represent a lot of people not just a few and we're acting as if we're only representing a few uh and and that's the bottom line we have an entire community who obviously

031has a stake in the naming of any school or any project and it shouldn't be left to a few and as miss wink letters just stated that that wasn't the original agreement uh but you know you basically do what you want to do anyway thank you uh student representative noam rose just the way that i see it and from what i've been hearing right the members of our community at large whether that be walking by driving by hearing news about jefferson and our students that walk into the building every single day will be the most impacted by the decision so it may take from what i'm hearing at least more logistical time to do it but you're taking that time that would be used instead of going ahead with it to sample the community they'll

032be impacted for a long time hopefully by this decision so in my opinion it's it's worth it rather than having that logistical time to shove it through so that's just my opinion uh thank you for that um guest drill and then i'll come back to um boy member wink field i was going to just chime in on what board vp wingfield notably i think that there might be a difference in the interpretation of the less oh i called you i said w's ah except that's the first time i've ever done that i prom i apologize guys well um so just stealing my thunder here when i read that last paragraph input from the district's student community i don't interpret that as being the 7 000 students i i interpret that as being an interpretation of

033the students of jefferson who are a part of the district student community just want to just point that out as it's semantics but it does make a difference in your interpretation i just want to share that and i apologize again board member thank you for that dr taylor board member winkfield uh i just want to go back and challenge the characterization that board member wright shared around the way that this process is sort of being carried out without thought and rushed the jefferson community engaged in an incredibly thoughtful um deliberate and intentional process to not only ensure that students really had an opportunity to dive into a culturally historical exploration of in particular several candidates who were unknown sort of contributors from our own community as as alum um but also ensuring that there was

034a really intentional strategic process to make sure that all students had a touch point in this process and so i think it's really important as a board that we honor the work that the jefferson community did that we honor the process that they chose to carry out as one that was really really thoughtful and intentional and i think it's important that we take that work and we act on it um with haste thank you for that at this time i'd like to make a motion to table discussion on the renaming of jefferson pending a broader discussion and uh input from the community may have a second second thank you board member right mr burnside please call the roll on the motion to table discussion on jefferson renaming pending further input from a broader swath of

035the south orange maplewood community board member right yes board member win letter yes board member winkfield no board member vadlamani no board member talisford yes board member siders no board president joshua no board member bergen no motion did not pass all right thank you for that boy um for a secretary broadside all right so this time um i'd like to [Music] open it up again or i can use the randomizer if necessary and ask for board members first and second choices based off the list that was presented to us into the community at last monday's meeting all right i'll break out the randomizer just give me a second board member siders hello um there were five choices presented to us plus the the name legacy um all all choices were i thought they were all

036excellent choices but what was more meaningful for me was for it to be a graduate of our school district so i removed ruth bader ginsburg from the list and who i have as my first choice was is justice amalia li lyle kearse um only african-american woman in our law school at university of michigan chs class of 1955 and who i had as my second choice is ernest schneider hoover chs class of 1944 and a woman who had one of the first software patents back in 1971 i thought both of these women had amazing accomplishments and that it would be an honor for their name to be on the school building thank you uh board member whit letter our jefferson students made two final selections for consideration by the board in the renaming of jefferson both

037candidates embodied their vision of legacy or new legacy the first being a candidate who was not a chs graduate and this was ruth bader ginsburg and the second candidate being a chs alumni erna schneider hoover as a sign of appreciation for all the hard work that these students teachers and administrators put into the renaming project i will use one of my votes to reflect their wishes and for that selection i have chosen ruth bader ginsburg who was their first candidate choice that was made by the jefferson students for the second candidate who was part of the jefferson students honorable mention list i select amalia kearse pierce both of these women were trailblazers in their own right and set the stage for so many others to follow in their footsteps thank you board member wakefield uh

038for reasons that i shared in a prior board meeting my first choice would be winnie delia bolden class of 1912 and the first african-american woman to graduate from colombia and for reasons that my fellow board members have already shared tonight my second choice would be amalia lyle cursey class of 1955. thank you one member for the money i do agree with the premise that we should pick somebody who is a graduate of our school and um the reason why i would actually pick somebody ahead of uh miss curse is because we shouldn't always look only at achievements and pick the best person there sometimes people who have not maybe achieved but have represented are as important and that's why i believe we should pick uh miss bolden the first african-american woman to graduate in 1912

039and and as somebody pointed out the last meeting and this was like 50 years after the civil war this had 60 years out of the civil war and 50 years before uh brown vs board of education so it is very momentous in terms of historical mark so my first choice is uh miss bolden and my second choice would be miss curse thank you board member tollsford i agree with the sentiments of other board members and that we should pick someone that graduated from our district and that's why like my first choice is winnie delia bolden and my second choice is emmanuel alkiers thank you boy remember right well to be honest with you i didn't give it uh too much thought because i thought there may be some other things coming in so if you

040can get back to me i'll i really have to think about this uh i may i also add uh uh maybe i didn't hear it correctly but was it that the jefferson students chose two people where that the other names come from they presented us with five they i guess they sort of better than me turn this to dr taylor to make sure that i don't screw it up mess it up sure um so we engaged the students um via the principal and her leadership team um and so we want to make sure that all voices were heard so um as we shared uh with the policy committee the students had their first two candidates and they also had other notable chs alums and so um [Music] that's what was shared and also the name

041legacy or new legacy elementary school within with a breakdown of what the acronym legacy stood for was also shared um the so far we've heard three of the one two three of the names of the five finalists the names that you have not heard yet um are joada clark diggs yes okay yep who was the who i think is the fifth person right yep yep and she's and you know who she is i believe miss wright four-time olympian etc board member bergen thank you um for the reasons that i stated last week my first choice is winnie delia bolden and my second choice is judge pierce student representative noah morose want to chime in i was absent at the last um meeting i believe vanessa was here so maybe finesse would be more suited for

042that um alternate rep vanessa prevalent yes hello can you hear me yes we can go ahead my first choice would be um miscarriage and then my second choice would be miss bolding um out of all five options thank you for that um i did i did state my first choice last week was was judge curse and my second choice would be for lots of reasons you've heard from some other colleagues would be wendy dalia bolton boy remember right wow i'm still thinking about the the children get given um if we're talking about uh the children and um them um choosing who should be voted on i'm still not clear where the other three names came from they came from the student community it was presented to we they were presented we were presented with five

043names so we have five names to choose from did they have a top they evidently had a top two or it was a top five dr taylor so the the five we have shared are their top five the the candidate that was ranked number one by the students was the late judge ruth bader ginsburg the number two candidate was ernest schneider hoover chs alumni class of 1944. the other three were also mentioned as worthy candidates as well and again we the students are clear that this is a this is a board decision right and that their voices have been heard and the board has to do their work so they gave us their top five and the next step is whatever the board determines that it is i'll come back to you in one second

044but remember what i just want to get um what member right to um weigh in i'm i'm i'm i'm thinking about it i'm sorry um i i didn't expect this to to occur you remember right go ahead after that i'm going to share if it's helpful to you i believe in your friday packet two fridays ago we shared this entire presentation if you'd like to review it while the board is still deliberating it's not it's not a question of reviewing it it's a question of making a really really good and real thought out decision there have been a lot of things that have been going on since we received this the last thing i expected was to come in to a board meeting tonight and to have to make a rushed decision on on the

045renaming of jefferson like the students we you know i you know you need that time they've had that time uh i think i need that too everyone else knew that this was happening gonna happen tonight i did not boy remember before i go i'm going to come back to him one second i just want to read um the email that i sent to the entire board saturday january june 25th at 9 14 a.m in part it reads please come to and party agrees that the president's report will include a discussion on the jefferson renaming please come prepare to read please come prepare to address number one whether we should open up the vote to the broader community number two your first two choices for renaming amongst the fire presented to us by the jefferson school

046community never in a million years that i think we would be rushing through this yeah remember what letter i guess one of the questions i have um and it's something that it did bother me that when we had so i got to sit in the policy meeting and hear directly from the principal and teachers about all the work i mean it was a really wonderful presentation it included videos and showed you saw pictures of students that you know were getting information from our chs hall of fame to really dive deep and do this work to make an informed decision an informed choice so when we got this presentation from jefferson um it showed that there were two candidates who were selected candidate one who they chose because they weren't in chs and then they chose

047a second candidate because they were a chs grad the presentation that we received at the board table was different it was a misrepresentation in my mind of the work that those students did because now we saw five slides where it opened it up to five candidate choices and i think we have to ask ourselves is this decision something that students are making or is this something that it feels like the board really wants to make and so i wish that we just had a transparent process where we showed the work that our students did and showed that they had made those final two decisions that there were honorable mentions right and really wonderful people who have contributed so much here and in society and to our history um but that as a board we just

048said look you the the students made these two decisions and we want to expand and include these other five um what we saw from the slides were doctored slides that weren't actual work of the students which was the point of the presentation so that's something that i've been having difficulty reconciling because if we're going to sit here and talk about this is the student's wish and that we ask the students to do this really hard work then let's portray their work as they did it give them this the benefit of that and then as a board say thank you for those recommendations we would like to expand and include all five in the decision process but that didn't happen and so when we talk about being disingenuous that process felt very disingenuous to me board

049member bergen thank you for that remember what letter board member berg hi i was at the policy committee meeting where the presentation was given by the jefferson team and i just want to say all five of those names were in that presentation the board got the full presentation um a subset of that was presented publicly for um in order you know they were they were in that presentation there were names and images of students and staff that we couldn't present publicly and that is why the public presentation was a subset of those slides um but the the policy committee got five names and the full board got the full presentation that the policy committee got board member of alemany so i mean i think this is a very simple issue that we are complicating for

050reasons i do not understand pointing to the public talking about children's wishes all that is nice but at the end of it we are the board we've been elect i've said this before i'm saying this again we have been elected to make tough choices sometimes those choices are not what we wish they were but they are choices we have to make regardless so at some point we need to sit down and say let's make the choice and vote on it and to be practical to be efficient in making the business happen in our district we also need to do it speedily we can't have a five-year plan for every issue that is nor can we have a referendum on every issue thank you for that um i just like the opportunity to respond um what

051was made clear to me from the chair of the policy committee is that all five candidates were presented and we were being presented all five and so if we're going to be presented all five to avoid any confusion and particularly as we're going into public as for us in general i gave them all numbers so people can remember which number they were talking about in the case of a situation where you forgot the name um as happened as may have happened whether it's in the community or here at the board so i don't believe that it was disingenuous as you say to um edit the presentation presentation needed to be edited for reasons that we've heard already but talk regarding some of the slides some of the information we've also discussed some things in executive

052session uh regarding some aspects of the presentation and the work that went into it and things that we cannot discuss here which were further reasons why um a lot of the information that was presented to the board will stay with the board and not be presented to the full community so i just wanted to acknowledge that we were my understanding that we were presented with five candidates and so i numbered five candidates if we were only being presented two candidates i would have numbered two candidates but we were presented with five board member right and then i'll come back to board member what letter uh yes i'm going to abstain thank you for that boy remember what letter so in the presentation and i in the presentation all candidates were listed but there were two

053candidates that were the students choices and the other ones there was a title side that said other notable candidates or you know you have it up i can pull it up to you and it listed those other individuals so all i ask is that when we present the students work that we reflect the work that they did and when we show a side that says candidate one candidate two can of three kind of four kind of five in fact i was confused i looked to aaron and i said are we choosing all of these because it was different than the communication we received in policy which showed the two candidates um and then the others who were for notable mention and last but not least and it goes back to process we had a resolution

054we said district students would be involved we'd be seeking the district student input when we don't reflect that input accurately it's not it doesn't make it doesn't behoove any of us to then sit here and make a decision if we're not following the process that we set in place through this resolution that was decided by other members of the sport so i'm just asking going forward that we reflect the work of our students in a factual way and i'll just reiterate i numbered the five candidates because we were presented with five candidates what remember wakefield yeah i mean not to split here because i wasn't in the policy meeting but i have the the presentation that was shared with us um the full board and public and it very clearly states final decisions candidate one

055candidate two and then other notable chs alumni so that distinction is clearly made so i don't think that there was any inconsistencies in the representation of that and i think as a board um you know we're within our full right to consider all of those candidates not just the two that the jefferson students recommended as their top two uh yeah i just want to reiterate i think uh the con the what board member what letter is pointing out is that that candidates 3.5 were numbered in the public presentation and not in the presentation that the board received and again i've just reiterated that because it was in the public to make it easier for discussion which candidates people want to talk about i gave them all numbers and again because we were presented with five

056names if we had not been presented with we'd only presented with the top two we've only numbered two but we were presented five so i think it would be more disingenuous to not include the other three even though they had been presented to us board member balamani i don't think we're limited to these five we are we can decide on any name including leaving the name as is i mean we at the end of it we are the ones who are deciding so this is a recommendation from the students we respect their recommendation so we're picking two of the five i think that's a very legitimate way of looking at this now there's nothing stopping this right or i'm i'm sorry i'm a any board member i'm no need to take names from coming up

057with two names of their choice that's perfectly okay that is yes i mean is the work done by we acknowledge the hard work done by the middle school kids but that's not binding us from deciding on anything i just want to clarify that boy remember right and then boy remember what letter i this thing is so stuck i'm so glad to hear you say that mr vaimana because i've heard from uh citizens about names uh that they would like to have considered or put in the box um for the rename of a jefferson including a couple of male names um but um you know i just think that things should be open i'm abstaining because i i just you know i'm just not prepared uh to make a decision as big as this uh after

058a week or so and so you're right we don't have to change the name of the school we can leave the school's name the way it is and i applaud the students from jefferson school coming up with their two choices they did an excellent job but others should be afforded that same opportunity as was stated uh earlier but we're here now thank you boy my letter i saw your hand to you so is it okay all right based on boy remember bergen i was just starting to tally things up and it looks like we have four four voting board members who said winnie delia bolden was their first choice six board voting board members who said um judge kearse was their second choice and one who said judge curious was their first choice so it

059seems like if we were to narrow it down to two um that would those would be the two thank you for that um as i'm looking at i took notes as well um what i have is i have four uh four people picked uh miss bolden as their first choice three picked miss curse as their first choice and everyone who offered an opinion had justice curse as one of their top two so that's what i have based on the notes looks like our board secretary is vigorously nodding for those who are virtual um in agreement with what i have down here so um dr taylor the way that i tallied i just gave a point for each time a person was nominated and in the order that i have them kiers received eight bold and

060received six and they were by far the top two all right um thank you and i just to as i just want to reiterate i've heard i did hear justice curses name from everyone who spoke this evening so um miss butler am i allowed to what can i say can i say we i know we don't have a resolution tonight but is there a way to say we could we'll have her i can say we'll have a resolution wednesday excuse me yes you can say you know this is the result tonight and the board will have a resolution for adoption on wednesday night okay up with the vote i foreign so who's number one who's number two is that a tie are we everyone so everyone the way i i did this that everyone who

061spoke had uh miss curse as their top two i was the only one who appeared if you will on every ballot um so uh that's you know his voting system you know we wanted to weighted however we want to do it i don't know but every what i did here is that every person who spoke said miss curse uh justice curse so um would there be any objection yes okay because i mean i didn't realize we were doing the rank choice no we're let me ask you let me ask you a question how do you want to define a winner because like i said most number of people who got number one so four people have miss bolden is number one three have miss curse is number one one head justice ginsburg is number one

062um five people have missed curses number two uh two have miss bouldin's number two and there was one vote for ms hoover as number two so if you're going by just if you're not doing ranked choice then miss borden wins all right let's the thoughts tell sure so regarding process moving forward my recommendation would be for the board to do this as you've done your officers um so you have a clear top two but you could also have a blank for a write-in candidate right and so when we when and if this is considered on wednesday if there's a resolution that's prepared with the blank and you can just take a clear vote on those top two and if someone wants to have the anyone can make a recommendation away from that as well perhaps

063just one thought on the process i want to um thank you for that i just want to ask ms butler a question a process question if we were to have a resolution whenever right let's just say it's wednesday or if it's not in effect just saying the board will rename jefferson elementary school blank with a blank on the actual resolution is that something we could have and then the blank would then theoretically be filled in as at by our vote yes that's how you do your um election of officers you don't know before you're walking in who it's going to be so it's not just an approve or or reject you have blanks okay i appreciate that thank you um board member bergen i just want to clarify because my notes have only um board

064president joshua as listing judge pierce as the first choice so i'm not sure how you got three people three voting people i'm sorry i accounted for or even three or even three okay or even that then i only got so that's so that means i did board member siders did say um justice curse was her first choice so is uh ciders and joshua who said justice curse is number one oh i had her down as um hoover as her first choice no hoover was her second choice okay so that's a fair point dr taylor i i realized and during the the notes that we both took down the student reps vote but now i'm gonna come to miss butler again we cannot include the student reps vote in this correct okay yeah if if you

065removed the student reps vote those two are still the top two by far right but then i think it's um it's going to what board member valemandi said right four people have bouldin as number one versus two would curse says number two even though curse appeared on all seven four curse appeared on all seven four of the seven who have voiced an opinion avoided for boldin so that would that probably would be the majority right so if you're putting both both folks forward right and then right then you vote next next right well is everybody comfortable with you know coming i guess wednesday with the two names and we'll and a quick clarification yeah it's not like i have anything against any of the other names it's just that you know i'm getting a little

066competitive and i'm pushing my candidate forward feels like we're voting for mvp or something um understood so again just to reiterate and just clarify that uh seven board members voiced an opinion uh of those seven board members four selected uh winning daily embolden as their first choice two had a molly allow curse as their first choice one had justice ginberg justice ginsburg as their first choice and then in terms of second um one two three four five five members had justice curse as their second choice one had miss bolden as the second choice and one had miss hoover as their second choice okay thank you everybody for participating in discussion that concludes the president's report i'll now turn it over to student representative um vanessa prevalon who will be giving us the the student representative

067report and while we bring her up i do want to just congratulate our student reps for the 22-23 school year norma rose and vanessa proven student represent are you up we see we see your screen can you hear us can you hear me yes we can go ahead um good evening everyone um last friday was graduation um for the class of and this month noah and i met dr taylor and we discussed that the pool at columbia high school will officially become a student center and there are additional supports um programs during the summer for students and this month facilities our district will undergo construction columbia high school students can still access mental health resources by visiting the chs counseling website this summer there is a summer a meal program starting from july 11th through

068august 19th through monday through friday for children under 18 and adults 19 and over in private slash public non-private um non-profit school program for mentally or physical disabled in light of recent events of roe v wade being overturned we must stick together and continue to advocate for things that matter thank you that's all for this last student report thank you thank you we'll now go to believe where where are we communities or public speaks yep all right we're now at our we're now at our first public speaks this is the time uh for an opportunity for you to share concerns about item on the agenda but now time for dialogue with the board while we wait for mr burnside to bring down the sheet i'll let you know that the board requests that you state

069your name and talent of your residence for the record we will set the time limit to three minutes for each speaker and we ask that you respect that time limit we must cut you off so it does not appear as if we're giving anyone an advantage to share their views over another individual speakers have the full protection of free speech during public speaks however this form does not protect you from the subject of your free speech pursuing liable or slander charges and finally the board recommends that all members of our community pursue the chain of command sorry about that all right um i'm gonna need help with this first name here [Music] is it brian bill i'm sorry bill bill powell sure you can do that our next public speaks is from wendy blaney let's

070pull up a chair for miss blaney please oh and there's a button there that looks like a voice you hit that and mic will be on so i'm wendy blainey and i live in south orange so my name is wendy blaney i have one child currently in the district at columbia high school and i have two that have graduated in 2013 and 2015. our district always seemed to start and end a bit later than our neighbors but the 22-23 school calendar seems exceptional the late start and back loading of days in june is just not constructive we're giving up important instructional days in the beginning of the year for unattended days in june as my three-day crusade to collect over 250 signatures occurred i received endless private messages from parents who have children missing their

071own graduations having to choose between going to camp on time or going to graduations parties midnight madness and other celebrations missing college orientations in person and having a go online online after everything we've been through and missing out on employment opportunities because they start mid-june there must be a better way and we need to do right by our students the administration must understand what a difference even one day makes to these students we know there's construction occurring in the buildings and this ask results in a change of planning but equally there are some superfluous days that we can certainly get back in order to shorten the year the letter we circulated outlined several different options and i'm not going to reiterate them i am appealing to everyone to rethink the way the calendar has been

072laid out i received responses from board members who told me they don't write the calendar they approve it from the union who says they have no say in graduation dates so dr taylor this leads me to you and to the administration i read your responses and it really doesn't make sense to me while i agree we all want to minimize changes we are asking for you to do something today that will make a change that will literally happen 12 months from today when the administration presents the calendar the board must ask the tough questions of how this calendar serves or hurts our children and i have outlined the many ways it hurts our children now is the time for the board and the administration to do something about it it's my understanding that according to

073prior negotiations we absolutely can bring staff back prior to labor day and a four day holiday for labor day is not a requirement additionally i bet if you compare attendance numbers at the high school specifically from june 13th on against previous november election week numbers we have far greater attendance in november today camp buses came down my street internship started weekend clap-ins for camps were posted all over facebook what a shame south orange maplewood school district will still be in session today in 2023 we need to come up with a solution that does not hold our graduates hostage until may march on monday the 26th thank you for your consideration thank you our next public speaks is from james nathanson where does this turn on is that turned on yeah it is uh good evening

074james nathanson 33 duran road in maplewood i come before you one last time this evening regarding the renaming of jefferson school i've expressed my dissenting views in writing and in person several times previously both publicly and privately so i need not repeat them here i will simply say that you've been derelict in your duty to honestly and forthrightly address the substantive questions issues and alternatives that i initially raised in my memo to you dated september 17 2021 your duty was not to me but to the public at large and most importantly to the students of this district your duty as public servants was to approach the issue in depth with balance historical accuracy and transparency you have failed in that duty your resolution of august 16 2021 to rename the school was passed unanimously buried

075in a bulk vote with a batch of other actions without a single minute of debate your meeting a month later a month earlier in july 2021 focused on board process on this issue without a single minute of substantive discussion on the merits of the case further furthermore four members of this current board 45 percent did not vote on the renaming resolution miss wood letter mr talisford and mr vlad bottomani as they were not elected at the time and miss malispina who was not present to each of you i say do not equivocate the public deserves to hear your individual voice on the fundamental first question of whether you agree that jefferson school should be renamed i appear to be a lone voice in this discussion as my objections have garnered little public support that is

076unfortunate and i had hoped it would be otherwise so you may assume that your action reflects the will of your constituents on the other hand they may be unaware of it or unwilling to speak up i have no specific brief with the five women put forth as candidates for a replacement name if you were charged with naming a new school you might find one or more of them credible that said as you consider your criterion acronym legacy not one of them comes close to measuring up to thomas jefferson in terms of lasting impact on the course of american and human history you can try with this misguided action to dishonor him but you cannot erase his legacy notwithstanding his personal failures his legacy his declaration of independence we hold these truths to be self-evident that

077all men are created equal will continue to shine brightly in our nation and in our world if not in mapwood and south orange should you choose to proceed with this shameful episode it undoubtedly will serve as a message and a warning to neighboring communities and far beyond it's not too late to reverse course and i urge you to do so thank you our next public speaks is from david humor but david humber 26 nelson place maplewood and to each and every one of you uh serving on the board thank you for your service to our community speaking about two particular issues regarding the renaming of jefferson school whether there should be a public referendum on the new name of some sort and how to communicate the history of the school's jefferson school and the legacy

078of thomas jefferson and i beg your indulgence are going to offer some specific suggestions based on tonight's comment on the public vote the express desire of some of you to have a preferential public referendum on the new name for the school is a credit to your small d impulses in a worthy natural instinct nevertheless don't do it please decide this on your own and don't have a public vote i have three reasons one you have a good process it's an efficient process that's good on a fraud emotional issue you have a lot on your plate why would you voluntarily burden yourself with managing the community preferences and the expectations that resolve you have more important work second this is your decision you have the authority to do this you've lost authority over the last 50

079years it's a tragedy but you have the authority to do this and it's an important manifestation of your policy so own it this is why voters put you in office third and i make this comment in light of public actions and public comments that some of you have made that have expressed your dissatisfaction with your interactions as board members this is a perfect issue to improve the process i've heard a respectful disagreement tonight i've heard numerous good points made on people who disagree own this none of you are going to get what you want necessarily and many of you will be disappointed that's liberating have a good dialogue on renaming or rather on how to commemorate jefferson school and thomas jefferson one of the things that is lost in the renaming is your ability on

080an ongoing basis to teach our children a fundamental fact of human nature which is that human beings are complex and often contradictory and this is not my authority i don't get this this is a networking reading for those of you who are aware she is the professor of history who discovered after years of effort the dna evidence that linked thomas jefferson to sally hemings she thinks institutions that are named after jefferson's school have an obligation to teach children this complexity so you can't do it on an ongoing basis if you rename it but you can do it on a permanent basis here are three specific suggestions put a big bronze plaque on a big rock if you need a model go to memorial park to the north end and look at that you'll have three

081or four hundred words on that plaque where you can talk about the history of jefferson school and what i would recommend to further engage the students which is worthy is have an essay contest have recognition and prizes by age opened it to anyone in maplewood under the age of 21 and the winning entry goes on the plaque greatly appreciate this is a good process please keep it going do the job you were elected to do and thank you for your service thank you our next public speaks is from bill powell yep okay thank you good evening ladies and gentlemen uh dr taylor um board president uh joshua ladies and gentlemen of the south orange maplewood board of education i believe everyone received a copy of my letter is that correct yes we just can't discuss

082it because there's some student information in there we're not allowed to share in public all right may i have a response to my uh my letter please doctor taylor so i'm gonna lean on our solicitor um this is a time for folks in our community to share their feelings with us about any number of circumstances it's not a as the board president reads in his statement it's not a time for dialogue with the board the board is here to listen to whatever you'd like to share um and to miss butler do i leave anything out no that is accurate so when do i get a response to my letter all right so we want to go there mr powell thank you i think um i do believe dr saleh has responded and um again we

083have to be very careful with some of the information that was in there i'm not going to give out any information other than the information in my letter uh concerning a student that will remain nameless uh in reference to the principal uh calling me calling the police on on him in reference to a words uh that he had said to another student and i have in front of me your uh a uniform state memorandum on agreement between education and law enforcement officials uh and in this uh memorandum in my uh opinion this uh principle made a a wrong mistake i am excuse me sir i'm gonna remind you that as for president joshua mentioned during his introduction you may make statements but you need to understand that the individuals about whom you make statements can

084have a right of action a cause of action against you with regard to um slander or defamation i am letting you know that now flynn and now i guess i need a lawyer to uh to make a presentation that's the uh at uh this uh setting is that correct i'm not telling me i am taking i said i think the principal made a mistake and her decision to send the police to someone's house based on a statement that he made to another student that's all i'm saying and i said that and i'm taking opinion i make an opinion that that was a mistake and it went against your own policy uh and procedures in reference to this was a nature uh uh and a serious uh nature and a serious offense this was not a

085serious defense of offense in my opinion in my opinion two students made a comment to each other and the police was called i've my profession allows me to make mental health evaluations that as i've said before and the police very seldom has been called in reference to a student making a comment about hurting himself or hurting another student so golf so we'll pause the time for a minute i just want to make sure you get the mic back on so we can hear you there you're on now yesterday sir please i think the policy is uniformly um um improper that in other words every principle does not handle this matter and the way that the principle of maple wood and maple middle mr this fella we're now talking about individual staff members like i said

086brahmin mr powell not to um or i guess reiterate what miss butler said respectfully regarding um naming of individuals even in their positions that uh their public sector i'm not able to say that i think a member that i pay taxes i pay her salary i can't make it a statement about what what she's what i think she did was wrong you you can say that and as for president joshua and i have both said that the fact that you have the right to make a public statement does not protect you from any claims by that individual for defamation or slander that's all we are reminding you of you have the right to speak all right and not speak to you about personnel matters about student matters the re the preference however in all of

087this is that you utilize the chain of command and apparently i didn't utilize the train to come in i i wrote a letter to the superintendent i wrote a letter to the each one of the board members indicating that i thought this was a mistake i thought it was and again i thought it was racially motivated also i indicated that you don't call a police on a student who who made a comment about you know what he was going to do at a particular time when the it was just a conversation it was just a conversation and the police was called they could have had a mental health evaluation they didn't have to send the police to the house and etcetera and i know what this says but we have a situation here where there

088was no credible uh thank you mr powell your time is up there was no credible uh threat um thank you mr powell your time is up i haven't been here in over 20 years thank you mr powell your time is up because i've said it at the beginning i cannot i cannot cut people off i don't i cannot give people preference one way or another i don't i can't do that i don't think so here's because i'm pretty angry mr powell i understand that um i really do but you know we do have public speaks and we're limited to three minutes at this time um saying your three minutes are up we do have five times if i refuse to leave what's gonna happen if i refuse to leave and and what's gonna happen what

089are you gonna do mr powell we do have a second public speaks later on this evening and we can speak at that time as well you'll have another three minutes at this time your three minutes are up thank you we will now transition to our online public speaks our first public seats is from heather saslovsky i would ask that you turn that microphone off please and resume your seat good evening um i came here initially to thank you for your action for providing we're ensuring that the community has provided harm reduction information um concerning gun violence and gun deaths as i believe you're all aware more youth commit suicide using guns that are killed by a homicide sorry this is personal and i think what you're doing is so important and by amending the resolution

090to ensure it gets into everyone's hands makes a difference when i was 14 a classmate at my religious school found his father's gun he killed himself and his 17-year-old sister found him and i have no idea why all these years later i am now crying at your board meeting i did not expect that i was not close to him and the fact that it has this lasting impact on mere religious school classmates his family was so devastated and they were good decent people who would never have risked their child's life had they known what the risks were by sharing information with people so they can make better decisions more informed decisions about just being safe with what's in their homes whether that be locking up medication or unloading and locking up properly firearms you make

091a difference when you provide people the tools and information that they need to make good decisions for their families and i very very very much appreciate the fact that you were doing this separately just because of your lengthy conversation earlier i want to note i'm also very proud of the jefferson school community the names that they came up with when i read their bios they're incredible like these students and faculty and everyone who came up with these really they did their homework i really appreciate it my son went to jefferson for pre-k years ago he was not part of this process but i very much you know feel like we all own it because this is our community and these names are clearly so thoughtfully chosen i don't think you can go wrong with any

092of them and you know i appreciate the debate that you had earlier and i absolutely look forward to whomever you choose thank you very much thank you our next online public speaks is from rachel fisher hi am i being heard yes you are you have three minutes i'm sorry about the delay i didn't know how to unmute myself um i'm just here to echo what heather uh just said heather and i have worked together on gun safety volunteering and advocacy and i was very pleased that candace davenport spearheaded this idea of having a fact sheet with gun safety information from a public health point of view that would be distributed to all families in the school district and i do think that by approving this and making sure that every family in the district sees

093it you have the opportunity to to save lives like heather i have lost a friend to gun violence and i'm sure that's something we share that that made both of us get involved in this issue i wanted to share that i just read today that an eight-year-old boy in florida yesterday accidentally shot and killed a one-year-old girl and injured a two-year-old girl and this is something we don't even hear about because it happens every single day in america and i think it's great that our community is trying to at least um do what we can to protect ourselves and protect our our children so i want to thank you thank you our next public speaks is from renault pierre-louis can you say hi good evening sir you have three minutes yes sir good evening my

094name is i came here before you today as a retiree with 167 days left in two personal day along with 26 years of service to the south florida post called this week this morning tonight i had this question that made me very pleased to be part of the south florida school district the discussion to like even the student of jefferson to have a voice on certain opinions the way the but interactive discuss but the only question that it is bad to me ha the question that i have is that why such a courtesy is extended to every reporting community of the member of the community beside the transportation department is it because we are the minorities because on may the 21st i had call out without feeling good i know many of you can empathize

095with me because most of you work someday you wake up you know feeling good i had called and said i'm not feeling well for this morning i will be at work in the to afternoon great surprise on my last payday i'll pay day what we have for my paycheck it is unclear to me what was the last time that what had a discussion about changing the policy from three days to one day with the promise of reimbursing you if you go to the doctor we're going to reimburse you to copy i never know such a politics i never know when was a discussion because everything is conditional such of two walls of the bargaining agreement no one that i can understand now what we are in the budget before because i would like to know

096when was the policy changed search from others because a budget scripture admin we have to save money i wonder why are we paying for transportation continent along with that assistant when we don't have the transportation department anymore the board made its decision to fire all of us at transportation knowing well what's going on and i know running transportation for tonight is gonna cost three times the amount it cost us to run it this year the abuse and the overreach is an abuse of power with what is going on and what's happening to us every year for my 26 years we all do the graduation we do the athletic and we do the special this this year each and every one of us were never given that opportunity everything was given to belia when you pay

097twice the amount of money it would have cost you having us doing it why are we giving everything to jimmy why is jimmy giving all the special treatment i don't know what it is no wonder that we're going to budget for sale while we are transportation have been verbally and financially abused what else can we do we found those from the temperature we followed the changes from it we completed the superintendent we complained it to the business admittance there we follow the training committee no one care do you actually remember your time is up to a minute you guys took enough to do your due diligence thank you mr p louis your time is up sir two minutes that was three minutes sir please i would like to know why thank you mr clearly your

098time a discussion on changing the policy on sick days thank you mr pearl over your time is up that concludes our first public speaks dr taylor here to respond [Music] thank you to our board of president and thank you to all who took some time out of your evening to join us to share um and participate in our public speaks for those who don't normally attend these meetings um both the board members myself and our leadership team we take copious notes around the topics of your public of your public speaks that you share um as our board president um shares in his introduction um i'm not advised to respond to public speaks but i like to do so and share as much as i can so that everyone can leave with the same information um

099but i cannot comment specifically on students and or staff members because of confidentiality laws that i'm bound by but i'll go through my notes and respond where i can thank you for the advocacy and the comments around your beliefs on the school district calendar um we know that that's one of the um most impactful documents that we put forward as a parent i i've been bound by school calendars and this is i've always worked in public schools so i understand how impactful school calendars are to all of our stakeholders um as i shared in my email correspondence um a few times we don't take these decisions lightly and there are lots of um lots of i would say impactful uh pieces from our stakeholder groups that we take into consideration we also take into consideration

100the historical um the historical information around our district and our community um and for this and the next probably three calendars we take into consideration the impact of construction and i know that we say that in continuous responses but it is significantly uh impactful when it comes to managing the beginning of the school year um and we understand that our graduation date will be a day or two later than it normally is but building in that cushion allows for us to successfully manage um what is a generational project it's going to impact not just the 7 000 students who will be here next year but generations and generations of them so we want to make sure that we do it the right way um and again i would just refer back to my previous responses

101on that topic um thank you for the feedback um both members of our community who shared feedback around the jefferson school renaming um it is a as you can see the board is taking this matter very seriously the students and the staff and leadership of jefferson gave such an effort and just very thoughtful feedback that the board is considering and i'm proud to be a part of shepherding it in and your opinions on that process are acknowledged [Music] as i stated i cannot respond or engage in conversation through email or verbally when it comes to specific students or a staff member it's just simply illegal for me to do so and it makes the board liable if i do so so when i acknowledge the receipt of a concerned citizen around a specific staff member

102or a specific student and you're not related to that student there's no way for me to have a conversation about that but know that that was acknowledged and it was reviewed um thank you for the feedback around the board's action this evening um of approving of the gun violence document that will be in a part of our parental digital backpack in the fall we had worked with uh miss davenport and had adapted that document to be a part of our digital backpack a few months ago however with the latest tragedy um that occurred in texas we wanted the board to have an opportunity to publicly affirm on the record their support for that work um and the last person who left public speaks again regarding personnel and employment i could not comment on that but

103your public speaks is acknowledged those are all my responses thank thank you dr taylor we'll now move to the committee reports we will start with um boyd remember bergen who's on the screen and then i will go right to left around the horseshoe with board member cider is van de money and then wakefield thank you um the policy committee met on june 14th for an hour and 45 minutes excuse me board member whit litter filled in for board member malaspina tonight we're voting on three policies two to adopt and one to abolish um 1648.15 record keeping for health care settings in school buildings covid19 this policy addresses record keeping related to employees who test positive for covid it's to comply with osha and has limited applicability in schools it applies only to employees working in

104the school nurse's office and any adjoining clinical areas in the school building 9 400 news media relations is being updated based on strauss esme it addresses you can speak to them with the media on behalf of the district and the confidentiality obligations of staff speaking publicly as individuals and 9410 broadcast media relations this policy was adopted was last passed in 2001 is being abolished it is not a stress as my policy and is largely covered by 9 400 or could be incorporated into the regulations of 9 400. we have six policies for first read and one with being proposed to abolish as a first read the first is 24 1504 district-wide parent and family engagement we approved this policy in april 2022 but strauss esme made some additional updates it is now about family engagement

105not only parent engagement and one of the additions to the policy is that it requires the district to involve parents and guardians of title ones of students in title one schools and decisions about how funding reserved for parent engagement is spent um [Music] 2416.01 postnatal accommodations for students this is a new stress essay policy about accommodations for students returning to school after giving birth addressing breastfeeding and pumping we currently have a policy on this topic which is 57 52.1 student post maternal accommodation but we will replace it with the um more robust strauss esme version and so that that other 5752.1 is being having a first read for being abolished 5512 harassment intimidation and bullying has had a big revision it has new language about setting standards for behavior cooperatively and creating an atmosphere that

106encourages students to grow in self-discipline pages 6 to 13 of the red line have a new section on consequences and appropriate remedial actions that list a range of consequences and factors to to use in determining appropriate consequences for a hib and there is also new language that the use of negative consequences should occur in conjunction with remediation and not be relied upon as the soul intervention approach next two are 8210 school year and 8220 school day these are technical policies about what counts as a school day and the require and the requirements of a school year they both have been updated by stars esme since the board last adopted them and fft added language um to the school year policy that the superintendent shall in consultation with the associations of the district annually prepare and

107submit to the or calendar for the next school year by a certain date 9720 solicitations by vendors is a stress dismay policy that addresses vendors soliciting students parents and guardians the vendors must be approved by the board and the board can withdraw approval at any time the policy committee also discussed several policies that are in the pipeline but are not ready for first read 24 15.50 title 1 school parent and family engagement is a new policy it has but it has some information that needs to be filled in so it will be brought back for first read soon 24 17 student intervention and referral services the board revised this last fall but stress as we updated it and so we'll bring it for a first read and make sure that the revisions we made last

108fall are incorporated into the revised policy 2422 comprehensive health and physical education i worked on revising this policy with board members telesport and whit litter and it's going to go back to cni before it comes to the full board for our first read 55 13 care of school property the policy committee discussed revisions to 5513 to align it with the recent resolution on fines and it will go to cni before it comes to the board for a first read 5514 student use of vehicles in school property is going to go to fft it deals with when students can ride bikes to school and parking and that kind of thing and 85 50 unpaid meal charges outstanding food service charges will also go to fft and will be consistent with the resolution on fines that we

109passed and uh and that's everything thank you any questions for board member bergen all right on to barbara mcsanders for cni thank you hello uh the curriculum and instruction committee met on tuesday june 7. we met from approximately 6 30 to maybe 8 20. board members present were winkfield hellsworth board president joshua sitting in for board member malifina we had two presentations the first was from the district management group dmg this is an organization that supports districts in creating schedules that focus on best practices and are guided by district school priorities this organization sends a team of people to learn how to do this work through their institute and it's over the course of four months and four sessions they provide support via work sessions and coaching calls so this organization or the proposal is

110that this organization will be working with our district to help with scheduling from our k to 12 uh schools and this work will be pd work where they will help guide the district on how to set scheduling the next presentation we have was from mr chris preston who is the supervisor of social studies and the proposal is for us to use newsela an existing online vendor as a main resource for our fourth and fifth grade social studies curriculum and that by using newsela the instructional content will be tailored to our needs for special services cpac had a meeting on thursday june 9th that was looking ahead to the summer and next year where parents were invited to discuss with other parents in the cpac board about wrapping up the school year looking ahead to the

111summer and navigating i eps and 504s for the upcoming school year the psalms or somsd preschool department held an afternoon kindergarten transition workshop for incoming kindergarten parents that was on june 8th the discussion focused on topics such as the next phase of school and child development uh the middle school in action nights took place and that was a big success and these events give parents and rising sixth grade students an opportunity to experience the middle school and navigate the building in preparation for the upcoming school year the high school peer luncheon took place is for rising ninth graders with ieps they have an opportunity to learn about being a high school student who receives special services and what to expect in the upcoming year i believe these uh this luncheon is facilitated by existing students

112with ieps ms robin quinn ms kathleen brown and dr jane bean folks are currently working on developing the curriculum for writer's workshop i'm sorry readers workshop the readers workshop classes for students with ieps who have been recommended by their middle school or chs teachers and the child study team due to struggles and areas of reading comprehension fluency and decoding skills our access and equity update this month is that the board is being asked to renew a contract with institutional compliance solutions this is the organization as that has been providing professional learning and support for title ix if approved the district will be adding two components to the work that is currently being done one is an on-demand video training for students that provides an age-appropriate explanation of title ix the pathways for reporting and resolving

113matters of sexual harassment and the supportive measures available upon request students will learn how to report misconduct as well as what supports and procedures follow their requests the second piece is what is called diversity equity and inclusion university dei which is a self-paced online learning platform designed to meet the needs of human resources professionals and others responsible for responding to reports of protected class discrimination outside of title ix i will skip over our policies because uh policy chair bergen was able to review that the last item are we have a bunch of approvals for the board tonight i will just note that one of the approvals is for farrier group which is our atlas curriculum vendor um mr burnside worked with atlas to lock in a rate for three years that is i believe going

114to save the district money so thank you mr burnside uh we are also engaging in a dual enrollment agreement with harrisburg university most of these courses will be stem related or electives and we're also looking to expand our contract with equal opportunity schools for the 2022-2023 school year thank you any questions for board member ciders all right thank you over to board member of alimony for fft we had the fft meeting on june 23rd and it was attended by all the board members mr wright was uh not present so the the first thing we spoke about was about the software softball fields we had a presentation by the architect and the engineer and the idea is to have ritzer field to be to have two softball fields for the varsity as well as the junior

115varsity teams so that the program as a whole can function really well so we went into details about what the sizes would be there would be no changes to the surrounding walkway the dugouts and beaches would would be present there'd be about 35 feet high netting that is included there's going to be lighting and it's going to be some of the details so all in all it's a very good presentation it seemed like it will be received well by the community next we spoke about transportation uh the mo the most important part there was a selling of the buses that we currently have since we are outsourcing all our bus routes we have new buses that other people would want to buy and we'd been offered twenty four hundred dollars about lit sorry you want

116to add the latest information or you are waiting on that okay that's right so anyway the idea is to sell them out and there were multiple choices talked about how and what we can do we spoke about the lease purchase bids and the card system updates and we have money for chromebooks we also have card systems coming in for students which will be installed only for chs installed over the summer we we have resolutions today for contract renewals for plumbing and custodians we also have change orders that can come in because of contracts are because of changes at the elementary schools a bunch of board member questions were answered we had we spoke about the new hire for assistant transportation director and you know how they would be only you know the that person is

117required to help out this talmud would be the only person in the department after the end of the school district a school year sorry we talked about preschool costs and how many pupils were spread across multiple preschools and we also talked about data privacy and power in power school and st math we did not use the learning management system for power school so there is no issue with uh you know data being spread out for sd math does not track learning data it only tracks marketing data so it's not that you know student data is going to be resumed for policies and regulations we did a quick run through policy eight to two zero and eight two one zero they're both ready for first reads and for future meets we're going to be moving to

118a wednesday before the board meeting because the board meeting is moving to the the last thursday of the month that's pretty much what i have and thank you uh for a question just want to make one clarification uh the board board meetings are moving one thing i just want to know is that the october november and december meetings due to various conferences and holidays will be the third thursday not the fourth thursday or last thursday i should say and also one one last addition it was not part of the actual fft meeting but we we got the opportunity to walk into the chs uh uh the columbia high school and take a look at the pool and the gyms and various of the facilities in there and that was very instructive and very helpful and

119you know as we're talking about different uh options that we have for that whole space thank you and i know quite a few of you will be taking your tours tomorrow so um thank you to mr parasite dr taylor team for working to facilitate those any questions from us for a board member for alemany all right thank you on to board member wakefield for personnel all right the personnel committee met on june 16th for approximately two hours in attendance for myself uh board members ciders letter wright as well as slt members including dr taylor dr gilbert and miss robinson we discussed a number of items including this month's personnel resolutions there was a review of the appointments and separations we had five retirements five resignations and ten leaves of absence there were a few uh

120excuse me a review of appointments salary adjustments stipends mentor payments and summer employment those are all up for a vote this evening in new business we discussed and reviewed the job description for a new position who will report to dr gilbert this position is called the director of access and equity dr gilbert provided a review of the responsibilities for this position dr taylor added that the goal is to forward the final candidate for recommendation by august 15th at the latest we discussed the hiring process for the assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction currently ms robinson is reviewing applications for this position and in the coming weeks ms robinson dr taylor will develop and share and update the board on the timeline for filling this crucial position we discussed in general the title ix investigation process dr

121gilbert shared a title ix flow chart that consisted of five levels of support and processing concluding with a resolution within a 20-day time frame uh miss wright shared that this summer we'll be celebrating the 50-year anniversary of title ix and suggested that we do something as a district to recognize this important milestone ms robinson committed to looking into some different ways that we can celebrate this and that we will follow up on it at a future meeting thank you thank you board member wingfield any uh questions on the personnel yes dr phil please go ahead thank you just to add uh since that meeting um we did research and find we found the actual date was approaching so we posted on our social media recognition of the 50-year anniversary of title ix thank you board

122member money just a supporting comment for the 50th anniversary of title 9 i think it would be very appropriate to celebrate that in certain some way for or form thank you yes we're working on that um feeling it would be most appropriate to do so when we launch school in the fall okay so you know the questions thank you uh board member wakefield we'll now move on to the action portion of the meeting and i'd like to make a motion to move the following resolutions four three one eight two four three one five with the following exceptions for four three one three we will be removing case number two three one zero four five for the recommendation of our council and also um as far as motion we're moving for 308 to four three one

123five with the exception of four three zero eight e as in ezra four three zero eight i as an igloo and oh and that's it i have any others four three one four three zero eight j and four three zero eight j so let me just make that one more time okay let me all right i apologize hold on let's get it right h i yup you're correct i'm sorry so let's let us clarify that four three zero eight to four three one five with the exceptions of four three zero eight e and four three zero eight j now the second second thank you board member ciders all in favor all right that appears to be unanimous mr varsity we're now in discussion for the um the previously mentioned resolutions i'm seeing no hands close

124the discussion mr burns oh sorry board member wet letter right everything yeah we're at the everything else portion okay seeing none mr burnside can you please call the roll on four three zero eight through four three one five with the exceptions of four three zero eight e as ezra and four three zero eight j is in joshua and the four three one three do i need to do that as well okay and four three one three case number two three one zero four five is removed thank you board member bergen yes board president joshua yes board member siders yes board member tells ford yes board member vadlamani yes board member wingfield yes with the exception of 4311al of which i'm abstaining due to an outside professional relationship with equal opportunity schools board member wit letter

125yes board member right yes motion passed thank you now i'd like to move resolutions four through zero eight e and four three zero eight j for discussion may have a second second thank you board member siders all in favor better piece of unanimous mr president we're now in discussion for resolutions 4308 e and 4308 j all right see no discussion oh foreign letter oh okay yes yes go ahead boy remember what letter um so 4308 e um i'm one of two members on the committee that had asked that we table one of the line items in there for reasons um being to have a proper discussion and review of a job description for a position that was approved in april 2021 the scope of that role has changed and the job description was not revised

126accordingly to reflect that new scope of work and in this particular case we just want to make sure that we're being really intentional prescriptive about um who are hiring for this role and what their work will be and so um i've asked us i asked the table it but now i've asked to sever it for that very reason and i don't think we followed the process and personnel to review this position as it has changed from the needs a year ago thank you any other comments of discussion on resolutions eight 430e and four three zero eight j all right seeing none close discussion mr president we'll do this one at a time um please call the role of resolution 4308 e board member right no board member with letter no board member wingfield yes board

127member vadlamani yes board member telus ferd no i'm sorry what was that that was a no thank you board member siders yes board president joshua yes board member bergen yes motion passes thank you now please call the roll four three j board member bergen yes board president joshua yes board member siders yes board member tells ford yes board member vadlamani yes board member wingfield yes board member with letter no board member right no motion passed thank you um i do believe we have a hand carry resolution i believe we have two hand carry resolutions while the board members receive it i'll begin reading this is resolution four three one seven and misspelled i do need to read the subject correct which is okay for free one so um i like to read a record four

128three one seven oh i guess make a motion for to the discussion right that's the way to do it okay i'd like to make a motion to discussion for resolution four three one seven hib appeal case number 229873 underscore ces underscore 03162022 whereas on june 13th 2022 an hib hair appeal hearing was held by a committee of the board in closed session involving a harassment intimidation bullying matter hiv report number 229 underscore ces underscore whereas at the hearing the board heard from the anti-building specialist the principal and the parent who filed the appeal on behalf of their child and whereas the committee carefully considered the relevant information and whereas the committee has made a recommendation to the full board during the executive portion of its june 27 2022 board meeting and the board has carefully

129considered the matter and the recommendation of the committee now therefore be it resolved that the board hereby affirms the determination that the institute did constitute hiv within the meaning of new jersey statute and the board's policy on harassment intimidation bullying that's the student number seven five nine one nine seven three four one six and be it further resolved that the administration take appropriate supportive restorative remedial or punitive action and be further resolved that the board secretary is further directed to notify all the individuals affected by this decision of the board's determination math second wait miss butler yes excuse me board president joshua the third i'm sorry the second whereas clause yes the sixth word should say committee rather than board okay uh second whereas the board okay it says committee we should say whereas the

130board got it correct is it it should say committee oh it does mine says committee in the second i apologize i see it now all right so do i need to read this all again no if you just correct what the second whereas plus okay so i'll just redo the second whereas whereas at the heating at the hearing the committee heard from the anti-bullying specialist the principal and the parent who filed the appeal on behalf of their child thank you may i have a second second thank you board member siders all in favor that appears to be unanimous uh mr bernside any discussion on resolution four three one seven saying none close discussion mr president please call the role for resolution 4317 board member right yes board member wood letter yes board member wingfield yes

131board member vaudelimani yes board member talisford yes yes board member siders yes board president joshua yes board member bergen yes motion passes thank you i believe we have another haircut resolution for this evening thank you [Music] [Applause] resolution student placement appeal hearing whereas on june 27 2022 a student placement appeal hearing was held by the full board and closed session and whereas at the hearing the board heard from the parent guardian of students student seven six eight nine one three one five three five three seven student nine five six eight five four six three four two and student uh pound sign six and percent and percent percentage signed dollar sign who filed an appeal on behalf of their child and whereas the ball carefully the board carefully considered the relevant information and whereas the board

132has carefully considered the matter and the recommendation of the superintendent now therefore be it resolved that the board hereby affirms the determination of the superintendent be a further resolve that the board secretary is further directed to notify all individuals affected by this decision of the board's determination second thank you board member siders all in favor appears to be unanimous mr burnside any discussion on resolution four three one eight all right seeing none close discussion mr burnside please call the roll on resolution 4318. board member bergen yes board president joshua yes board member ciders yes board member talisford yes board member vaad lamani yes board member wingfield yes board member wit letter no board member right no motion passes thank you mr bernstein so we are now at the time for our second public speaks again

133this is um an opportunity for you to see your concerns about the item uh but now it's time for dialogue with the board the board requests that you state your name and town of residence for your record we will set the time to three minutes for each speaker and we ask that you respect that time limit we must cut you off so it does not appear as if we're giving anyone an advantage to share their views over another individual speakers have the full protection of free speech during public speaks however this form does not protect you from the subject of your free speech pursuing liable or slander charges finally the board recommends that all members of our community pursue the chain of command and our first public speaks is from bill powell i just want

134to say one other thing i would just like for the board to investigate how many times the police department has been called for students who have threatened others or threatened to harm themselves could you just tell me the number of times the police department has been called i know you can't give that to me tonight but i would like you to investigate that and find out that thank you and that concludes our second public speaks let's celebrate response thank you for uh for waiting and for your passion on this topic um i i can't be a researcher for the public but what i can do is direct you to the public records to answer that question between the police department and the school district and um mr powell please be respectful of your language this

135is a public meeting lieutenant carol see that's a statement that should need to be made this is not a time for dialogue superintendent has what are you going to do ridiculous come on super can't tell that's a bf like the other one this is the kind of nonsense this requirement that within his history yes and manipulating points mr brown please be respectful of your language this is a public meeting thank you sir sir thank you for yours secondly this kind of stuff from the board for what is 26 years thank you mr powell mr powell thank you very much we do appreciate your time this evening thank you mr powell we're now moving on to new business there any board members have any new business this evening i have some new business all right um

136board member salesforce is all right if i share my screen i don't know you have to talk to our tech guru mr bonds who's giving us a thumbs up all right all right and can we see my screen now yes we can all right so i guess i'll just start off like i kind of struggled with i guess where to present this because when we talk about the commons and the pool and the plan um i was told to save all my questions for the architects coming in july and the big problem i had was none of my questions were really relevant to the architects they're really only relevant to us as a board i kind of want to preface this as much of what i'm talking about here is about the decisions we make

137as a board and it's not about what the district is presenting as the idea for the commons because a lot of that is about what we as a board have i guess i guess the responsibilities we placed on them that they're quite difficult and so i want to just keep that in mind um one of the words that has been bouncing around a lot has been the idea of the word legacy and we heard that with apply to jefferson and everything and that's something that i think is really important in this community because it's that idea of our predecessors handling us something and moving forward with a vision and um when i think of that i think of also as a chs alumni the fact that we have a hall of fame and that's why

138i was really happy to see that this year we nominated people that had done something at columbia and we brought them back because of something they did that is around the world now um ultimate frisbee is going to be in um this they will be considered for as an olympic sport in 2028 and so it made me think of my first hall of fame assembly um in my freshman year the person that we honored was not an actor or a famous person like a celebrity it was a guidance counselor pete cross and one of the things i really remembered about that that whole assembly was that every single morning mr cross would go to the chs pool do some laps and go to work and that really struck me because the chs pool was actually

139the pool where i learned to swim and i didn't learn at the community pool i didn't have friends that were rich that had pools i couldn't swim in their pools i learned in the chs pool that's why it was very painful for me to hear when people say that i'm too old to learn to swim because if we didn't have a pool there then right now i wouldn't be able to swim and so but i don't think that's probably the most painful thing i've heard i think the most painful thing is when i discuss this topic with board members and i'm very happy that we're actually being being given tours now it's very obvious that many of us board members have not actually been inside the high school let alone been students there and i

140think when we're trying to when we're going to make these decisions like whether to fill in the pool and turn it into a lounge or comments whatever you want to call it we have to remember that these are very important decisions that's why i wanted to echo my fellow members ospina and wright that when we have these very very momentous decisions that are about the history of this of this town we're happy we're talking about a pool that's almost 100 years old we can't just be so capricious and just say leave it to the board i myself may say yes opened up to the community but i know that would be crazy so it really is important that we as a board really look at the decisions we're making and really consider what we're doing

141and so i guess i'll go back to in 2013 the board had a proposal and their big proposal was about building a new natatorium basically a new pool so they basically put down the current pool we had because they want to say the current pool we have is no good so we need a new pool whatever happens the natatorium was too expensive it was an eight million dollar project along with a 5.9 million dollar project to fill the pool in create new classroom space and expand the school and whatever happened that whole thing failed but they decided to close the pool and then they said that they were going to come with a long-term solution for the swim team and for swimming and in the community and whatever happened that didn't happen so i think

142we really need to think about the plan that we have before us um when we look at the commons the way i look at it it's a big giant lounge for the most part the section within the pool is a large staircase with very comfortable chairs and the locker room space on the side is going to become our so-called guidance suite for classrooms so tell us where i just want to interrupt one second because you are on a roll and i appreciate it i just want to let you know according to robert's rules you do have 10 minutes before someone else has to speak so i just wanted to and that this is something you know i'm learning from previous experience so i just wanted to make sure you're aware that now instead of me

143coming in at 9 minutes and 30 seconds telling you to hurry up um sure okay um i guess i will quickly i guess focus on i guess my presentation here so we have these two choices here between the commons and the pool and the way it was presented to us is based not just on the design it was based on financials now i'm going to be sharing the actual financial that was shared from chairman vadomani that was shared with the whole entire board so this really should be public being the public here and so what we saw was we saw 3.6 million essentially versus eight million and when we look at these two numbers it's really easy to say why would you choose the pool it's twice the amount and so what i decided to

144do is i said let's look at these numbers more closely the in the actual presentation they break it down into the the square footage of the space as well as a cost per square foot as well as the cost uh the total cost and so this is what we have for the commons area and then we look at the pool we have the cost for the pool now the first thing that kind of jumped out to me about the pool is that when we look at the commons area we're only looking at about say 3000 square feet in terms of the alumni gallery and the guidance suite and this is the area along the side i'll go back to the slide over here along the slide the side of the pool this is going to

145be the area that is filled with our guidance suite and alumni hall and it's in the same footprint as what we call as our pool lockers um but when we look at the pool when we look at the actual locker rooms they're saying that 6 500 square feet so i kind of want to try to investigate why is that what is the difference there so the first thing i did was i looked at the commons and i added up all the square footage here um and what i found was it's actually closer to about 1900 square feet within the commons area and about 1100 square feet in the alumni hall but if you notice at the bottom here it won't exactly be the full footprint of the locker room because we still have some residual

146locker room that's left over after we do some partial demolition of the girls locker room so then i said let me look at the actual pool and so i went back to the actual regular session that we had back in june in 2013 and i actually added up all the square footage of the area the pool itself is only about 3 500 square feet and in terms of actual locker room space um when we add up all the boys locker room on the on the boys locker room on the left side here and the girls locker room here that's only about 2 000 square feet this is the part that would be slated for demolition and then i just added in all the bathrooms and showers i even added in this area for drying and

147also these two toilets just to kind of round it out to an even a thousand square feet so in all the actual space that we're really using is closer to 3 000 square feet as opposed to 6 500 square feet and i point this out because i said if we're actually going to be looking at renovating we would want to be renovating based on relevant space not just looking at an entire footprint but of course you can see how do we actually get to 6 500 square feet if we only have 3000 square feet in all and i kind of did some calculations and i realized what they did was they just took this entire footprint of this l shape that surrounds the pool and then just said this is 6 500 square feet and

148that's accurate however if we were actually to renovate this space or try to renovate some new locker rooms for the pool so to speak it wouldn't be 6 500 square feet it would be closer to 3 000. so if i actually altered the numbers just based on that and used these two thousand square feet thousand square feet three thousand square feet in all then my numbers dropped from eight million to five point seven million and you may say okay that's still too high but it is far less than the eight million thing that some board members will say that's a non-starter and i would agree 8 million is a nonstarter but i don't think that 8 million is very accurate in the first place but the next thing that kind of jumped out to me

149is the fact that the square footage cost per square foot for the locker rooms is very high now one thing that i was told in discussion about this was that the hvac numbers are rolled into these locker room numbers and if they're rolled into the locker room number then why do we have a line item for the hvac system with the cost per square footage if it's already rolled into these numbers to me this is what makes this whole decision very difficult our whole process is very odd because how can we make a decision where we compare these two things if we really don't have i think accurate numbers like this one all right so what i did was i looked at the original plan for the master plan in option one it was 1.26

150million dollars and that's the same footprint and what i found was when we look at that square footage that's really two hundred dollars per square foot and when we factor in inflation that's 250 dollars per square foot the next thing i looked up i said let's let me look online and look at commercial cost and the range is 317-381 whereas hvac costs for a pool swimming pools is 22-27 so if we look back at our table of the pool these numbers are far higher than anything that we see there's with any any commercially available things when we look at the commons these square footages are pretty similar so the next thing i looked at was i said let me look at the hvac costs and when i look at the hvac cost for anything that's

151being done in the high school in the long range facilities plan we also see that these numbers that we saw listed in our online are pretty similar all right um right that's its hat okay all right um i'll go around for questions i just want to say you know um i think just to wrap up sort of bringing the whole meeting full circle you know one of the things that board member brought up at the beginning of the meeting is that there's very few things that we can do um and you know i guess you know as the board designing you know building spaces way outside of our scope and our role is purely operational so i appreciate obviously lots of time went into this but it's pretty far outside of our lane to while

152i recognize that we have to make a decision based on the information that we've been presented and with we are right to question it and ask for due diligence which is why we're having our architects present us in july um i just wanted to point that out so any comments or questions on board myself with board members household board member wingfield and valamani uh board member uh dr telus ford i really appreciate the information that you shared because i think the thing that's been frustrating for me is feeling really unclear about how we arrived at some of the numbers that have been shared with us and i think the thing that i'm still very stuck on in arriving at the 8 million dollars is the delineation between the actual pool cost of repairing the pool

153and the locker room costs which have sort of been lumped into one piece but i also i guess wonder that even if we got rid of the pool at some point we're going to need to update and renovate these locker rooms which i believe are 50 plus years outdated and it's got me thinking about the improvements that we're seeking to make in turfing um riser and i imagine that that's going to lead to a big increase in sports teams utilizing those fields and so it leaves me wondering if that's an investment that we're going to have to make anyway um you know these numbers come down even more dramatically i think my concern has always been in what we're actually getting from the proposed uh the proposal right now in terms of this lounge space

154um when you put those side by side it's hard to feel good about destroying a pool when what we're getting um doesn't add in my opinion much to the instructional value of columbia high school and so i don't know uh board president joshua i don't know what our options are at this point obviously i know that these are decisions that were made prior to my arrival on the board but i would like to in addition to better understanding the nature of the pool and some of these different numbers i also would like to better understand what is within our scope as a board thank you uh board member molly that will letter so for a board member uh tell us where can you stop sharing so i can whole so this kind of goes back

155to the discussion we were having about renaming of jefferson is that at some point everything cannot be a referendum and a five-year plan we need to decide and move forward so i do understand the need to get more information my point is what is the process now i mean is that are we going to wait another year to get all the information and then decide are we going to get in the next two months i'm going to the next two weeks so that is my concern i mean again i'm trying to be i guess efficient out here for lack of a better world anyone i'm happy to take answers from anyone i mean what is a process uh before i go to board member i guess i just well let me just go to board

156remember what letter first first i just wanted to thank dr telus ford for taking the time to put this presentation together obviously you collected a lot of information and it was a lot of information that we hadn't had previously so i just want to thank you for doing that work um and i think it just touches on a bigger issue that we've all had and board member wingfield you brought it up as well as just not having the data that we need to proceed forward i know i have requested in addition to what the cost is of of having a pool right what are the ongoing annual costs of maintaining a pool um because one of the things that we talked about and i know i brought it up in a prior meeting was this

157notion which at the time seemed pretty promising of getting rental income from other schools because they would be able to come and use our pool for competitive purposes to find out after renovation due to the um shortening of the width and the depth you know it would only be for recreational use only so we would still have to pay to rent another pool um all of these things are considerations because it's not just okay we invest up front but what would be the ongoing maintenance a lot of times that maintenance occurs during the summer time so the idea of using a pool sort of becomes obsolete in the summer as well so these are all things that if we're actually going to have this conversation i think we need to be operating on full and

158complete information and then the second question um which is the same as the roon is what is the process you know in terms of if we were to make a change do we go to the board of estimates like i've never i know this question came up um months ago but we haven't really identified what that process would be and how significantly it would push back the time timeline of renovating chs because in those renovations we know that there's really important safety and security updates and so i don't think we should pause a renovation that is necessary to improve that piece of quality of life for our students something that is fundamental for all of our students thank you i'm just trying to take um take notes board member siders uh thank you dr tellsworth

159for this report um yeah agree with everyone a lot of hard work went into it um i'd like a a better understanding of the vision for that space i think what makes it a little hard for for board members is when the community comes to you and they're pushing for one way or the other and at least for me i can't intelligently say what's going on in that space so i i would like to at least have that conversation and and hear what's coming um i think that would help a lot and then of course the the obvious is the process you know what what can we do what will we do all right thanks i think um so what i've heard are a couple of different things number one just to reiterate we're having

160a presentation in in our july we get the date right 18th board meeting uh the architects are coming i believe members from the mid-chs administration will be there as well uh to help answer both the facility piece as well as division piece of this um and at that point you know we should obviously have you know told many of us all of us that that we've known for a while that this festival is happening to get questions answered we do know that we've been told that there are updates to the report that we received i think it was back in april and so we'll be getting updated numbers updated information uh from that i know they've done some additional work since telling mr burns i could talk a little bit more about that more intelligently

161than i can i know that the work has been done i know that there are updates to be presented to us and i think you know at a bare minimum let's see what the updates are uh there are some questions for them that we've have sent over and if there are more please send them to me let's get them correlated and send it to them um by friday because i guess a lot of us are going to be not checking email this weekend uh june's been very busy for all of us i want to say so um just that opportunity and still give them two full weeks to do any sort of research and investigation that they need to do before they come to us on the 18th um where i'm sure we will have

162a very um i guess informative and probably rigorous discussion about uh the proposed plan for that space so i think that's the answer to the first question what can we do now i think that's what we can do now and what we would do after that i don't think it's prudent to have that discussion until we know what we actually will be talking about after the 18th boy remember bergen thank you um if there is an updated information from the architects is that something that we can get as soon as possible before the meeting so that our questions can be based on the updated information and we have time to digest it before the before that meeting yes i guess this is two rounds we have questions we get it to them as always i

163ask for the presentations to be given in advance so i anticipate us having it no later than that thursday which is the 14th so i think we'll at the bare minimum we'll have it but no later than the 14th and that gives us time to review exactly with everything else that we have and then ask more questions in advance if we if we have them but if we know there already is updated information um can't we ask our questions based on the updated information yeah i just don't know if they're right if they've finalized all knows that they've done research so at this point i'd have to ask right side and dr taylor um how complete that that is and if they are ready with that if it is and yeah we should probably get

164access to it but i don't know if they're ready yeah i just know that they have been doing additional work since the prior presentation let me see uh that television before yeah i would say that let's do it both ways right send the questions that you have and the update that we send may also address it let's be proactive and so board members could forward us any and all questions and when we give our next update they'll be sure to be addressed and probably much more i think seeing the space in person as a couple of folks did last week also gives an interesting perspective as well right um boy remember right i thought i saw your hand up is that i i i was i wanted to hear from dr taylor i figured he

165should be leading this work i was wondering what his recommendations were uh but uh he just spoke thank you no problem um board member tells four i guess i just wanted to preface that i wasn't suggesting that i lead the construction which is how should be consumed unless the the presentations that we've had are not very clear and then mine the next want to make was according to this do we plan on actually fixing our lockers because it seemed as though we had this plan of pool plus lockers and i feel as though that's a separate discussion and probably should be considered separate and when we talk about this plan of commons versus the pool we should really just focus on those two items thanks um remember what letter um just from our process perspective

166i guess what has been i feel like we've been in a holding pattern for this issue for several months and look at you know we just are making a decision about renaming a school in less than a two week period and i'm just curious as to why this is dragging on because we've known the board member concerns we've known the requests for data we've known we've wanted a tour and it's been since march when we had the initial community presentation and i'm just wondering why it's taking so long that we can't just make a decision and move forward when we know we're capable of making really quick decisions i guess i would say that my understand is that these are the same architects who are doing the construction on all our buildings um so this

167isn't their only role with us they're working on the buildings that are under construction helping to design the plans for the ones that are assumed to be under construction so they've they do have a lot on their plates and that's my understanding and so it's not let's say we're delaying it i think we're just trying to um work within our calendar you know we've been told that there is no plan to bid this space out before the fall and so we've had you know things that were for instance we've had you know south mountain was i think in the it was the spring it was very cold that day but i believe it was early in the spring so like that took precedent over this because that this project is actually ongoing and underway and

168we've heard lots of we get our these construction reports from the district every week outlining uh where we are in different areas um if there's been concerns that have been raised you know there was one with the transformers that came up and i know that it was definitely taking a lot of time um with our folks to figure out where you know placement would be and working with pscng on that and i believe that's been solved so there are things that are actually ongoing and i think that's why the things that haven't been are taken they are sort of lower in the queue but we recognize that as we the calendar moves on secondary schools projects start coming up um the opportunity is now in in the next couple months to start doing those deep

169dives and reviews to figure out what yeah what absolutely what up what ultimately will the board be voting to improve on so that's that's that's what i would say boy member of alemany i just want to point out that there are serious costs associated with not deciding on time there may not be explicit dollar costs but there are costs in the society there's costs in strife there's cause and costs associated with disagreements so at some point we need to bring all the information in and decide quickly i mean again not hastily but with deliberation and quickly it doesn't matter if you have to work a little extra hard and spend more hours and getting it done because there are costs i mean we may think it's free and we can do this for the next

170two years that's not true thank you board member siders and and i think the the other reason why we are it seems to be that we're now talking about this is that when when the community did come to us they came to us in march which is our busiest time you know the beginning of that busy cycle of march april may june it you know we're now to the point where we're discussing it along with renaming jefferson at the end of june um and just that we we have so much going on at this time of year so i'm fortunate but how do you prioritize we got to get the budget done we have to get our reorg done or our you know looking at our employees for the next year we you know these

171are things that we have to get done whereas this discussion about the pool yes is a little bit timely but we have to do those other things first we have bigger commitments is the way i saw it and the fact that we've met what five times this month you know it's yeah dr taylor yeah i would also just share the perspective that we are reviewing a past decision right and considering the board is considering whatever the board is considering regarding those past decisions so this is not an initial launch the decisions and and the perspective and the planning was already decided upon and moved forward so we're not behind in that what we're doing now the board is reconsidering and we're maneuvering to offer as much as we can for that reconsideration just wanted to

172make sure just just for the perspective sake that the preparation for this space has been finalized and moved forward and previous boards and all things that have been talked about and now we're reconsidering so that's just in that just to kind of lay a clear a clear line um of where we are and now preparing for the board as we always do to do whatever the board's will is board member tollsford i just want to get some clarity on what we mean by reconsideration or does that mean that we're only considering how we're filling in the pool or if we are possibly changing the plan at all so i just wanted to understand when we talk about consideration or questions about what our choices are what are our actual choices here what can we do

173so to me that's the conversation that we would want to have in in july and perhaps even inviting our bond council to give just real specifics on the the kind of the nuts and and the boats on that because you are the board right you're this you your your vote of fight your five votes leads us when it comes to spending money but things were put in place you talked about the border school estimate and the planning and their approvals there's probably uh you know a lot of who what and where when it comes to the real specifics of if the board decided to do x or if the board decided to continue the path that they're doing now without any action you know what's the difference in that cycle what's the difference in the

174spending what's the difference in as board vp would letter said the difference in the timing right and you know not wanting to delay such a needed project um for this conversation or that this conversation is so important that we want to delay so there's a lot to consider but we we want you to be informed around all the consequences unintended in other words otherwise i'm sorry when it comes to this boy remember right thank you i wanted to ask a chairman um vladimani he you went on the tour of the pool what what did you think about it and i have a question for you president joshua i i shared my views with the board members who are there and i'm happy to share with you when we meet in the exact session i don't

175think i'm ready to share that with public because we as a board need to come to a consensus before we talk to everyone else when i saw the pool i was actually very impressed with the high school i loved it it was great to see when my kid goes to school you know i saw the east gym and the west gym and the the wood the wood making place i mean that was like fantastic where they make things so i mean my opinion really does not matter here what matters is we as a board need to decide whether you want to do it or not and and this opportunity is going to be available for the entire board in the next two weeks so i'll leave it at that okay i'm sorry i didn't mean

176to put you in a in a position i thought that since we were discussing and you had seen it maybe you could share your thoughts but uh president joshua i'm i'm really confused because you said that you couldn't be any clearer that we were not moving forward uh with the pool and and now we're back and i i think everybody knows how hard i've worked to try and save the pool um however uh decisions you know were made and i think you made it very clear for me and and now i'm just sort of confused about where we're going and choir i really appreciate uh what you put together uh that was a lot of work and a lot of time especially with your new baby i i appreciate it i'll just say it actually

177wasn't that much work to dig up some of the numbers it's just you look at the numbers and they kind of jumped out at me saying this kind of doesn't make much sense so i just did a little digging five minutes search i said okay that looks i can compare these numbers now see you guys in this technology i tell you a five minute search going back to 2013. but i i tell you i'm um i'm i'm befuddled right now i you know i'm headed completely uh opposite direction i mean as i said you know we just heard from the district that there's plans for the space to be at commons right and we're being presented that plan at our july meeting so i can't be any clearer that's what we're being presented now what

178people are saying i guess your question is really is there is the board going to even contemplate going back and reconsidering that decision i don't know my understanding from everything i've heard is that you know the district has worked hard on this plan with the parameters given and this was the option that they came up with one of the main questions that i think a lot of us have is what happened to the original plan the original plan is for those who remember call for that space to be turned into three classrooms and a lot of us are wondering why was that decision changed so i think that's the biggest question we have um and well once that question is answered we can in addition to some of the other questions that i'm sure everyone

179else has that's probably the main one you know this was supposed to be three classrooms and now it's going to be you know student commons community space community space that's in the commons area so where the three classrooms go away um you know i definitely would want that question answered by um our july 18th meeting so that's all i can say like do i recognize that you know the plan changed and the change of the plan is what probably garnered a lot of these additional questions and we hope to get them answered on the 18th thank you so much all right i'm gonna wrap that one up i know board member what letter had some new business um as well go ahead well first i just want to give credit where credit's due um thank

180you so much to our local public health official candice davenport um community members rachel fisher and heather savloski and dr taylor for um creating the gun safety form and making it available in the digital backpack um obviously it's something that's really important and i'm just grateful you all prioritized that so thank you um my new business today i wanted to focus on our bylaw 0174 which defines our legal services and procedures um so there are times when board members need to have access to our board attorney to discuss critical matters in my opinion this is a crucial part of establishing appropriate checks and balances and just keeping our democratic process intact so i wanted to strategize with all of you ways that we could structure attorney access for all while keeping our legal fees down

181um and i'll just start there i have other sort of comments to add but i just wanted to see if we could open the floor to have a conversation about that so i mean i have spent some time thinking about this in the sense that it would be nice to have access but i do also understand that it can be very expensive so maybe a practical solution is to have a quarter of i don't know an hour every six months or two hours a year per board member of un obstructed access so what that would mean is in in total we only have about 18 hours of extra time for the for the attorney but at that point each board member is feeling absolutely free to ask whatever questions and get whatever responses they want

182that is one solution i mean i understand the the costs but i also understand the need to talk directly with the attorney as opposed to you know going through other places thank you um generally speaking you know i'm looking at policy it says board member legal questions and efforts to be prudent in official republic money board member legal questions shall be directed to the board president momos every occasion you know a board member question comes to me i sent it to the attorney the other times i happened to win one i'm pretty sure i know the answer to try to save public funds or i don't think it's the appropriate that the board attorney isn't the appropriate person to ask is probably if it's someone else within a district um or for instance one thing

183i have um is when a question is not perceived to be like the is it the board's question or is it a question right so that's one of these things where um i have to use a little bit of um judgment but generally speaking almost all questions they just go um like i said if i know the answer i don't send it because i know the answer or if i know the administration knows the answer i go there the one just to comment on board member of alemandi's point i think it sounds good but i think you're looking at the front side of it which is it takes you two hours we're not looking at the back side which is how long does it take to research the answer so if you're one question it

184takes you five minutes but if it takes the attorney two hours those are your two hours so i just want everyone to think about this idea of having you know like this like a bank if you will bank of hours and how um and just to be thoughtful because i think sometimes there are questions that was was we do things as a check but i like to do things as a check when our attorney is here because we're already paying right i don't want to go and get a question answered you know on a friday when i know we're going to see our monday when we can ask a question when i believe it's simple enough to be automatically answered and if it needs to be researched now for something that affects what we're voting

185on we obviously get that because we need that answer before we show up here or there on screen to make that decision um and we do that every month whether it's hiv or other um other things that we know might require a legal opinion in advance so uh i i just you know as we move on through the rest of the year um we have a discussion i think if there's anything obviously with a policy we'd have to go to the policy committee uh to revise it accordingly so we're at a minimum two months before any change happens but discussion can happen there that's probably the best place for it to start and for others to chime in speaking of policy chair burger thank you um i was gonna say i um i pulled up

186the strauss as my policy on this and i can send everyone a pdf so that they can compare but one thing that i noticed it says is school districts with legal costs that exceed 130 percent of the statewide average per student amount should establish certain procedures below and if not established provide evidence of such evidence such procedures would not result in a reduction in costs so i'm not sure if there's um a legal obligation to figure out where we li you know where we fall in our legal costs and if we are at the high end it looks like the the boilerplate policy has certain checks that have to be put into place i'm not sure if that's a legal requirement or not but i think that's something that would need to be researched before

187we took any um action on the policy yeah doctortel's going to respond yeah i was thinking that too i was wondering if the accountability regulations reflect any uh guidance on that because um it does on so many other things like i can't even buy you know lunch for staff members because of the accountability ranks so i wonder if there's some information in there that links to that policy that you just stated in the 130 so we can do that research for the board as well thank you one thing i just want to point out is that we did get legal costs at least finance did i don't remember what it was if it was late last year earlier this year i know our costs have gone down 40 in the past couple years and i

188do know when i joined the board i think we were either right at or close to that 130 um and we're definitely way below that threshold now so i do want to commend the district and our attorneys for working more efficiently to keep us within that threshold or way under it so i just wanted to add that because i know that i don't know if everyone was aware of that but i do know that those numbers haven't shared um all right i saw a whole bunch of hands i'm going to go to board member siders and then board member right and then boy remember what letter um i'm in support of board members legal questions going directly to the board president that's how it was presented to me when i first joined the board and

189not not only is it being proven and efficient with public money it's also helping to decide where legal counsel is going to be working we don't want to get into a situation where you have multiple people asking legal counsel advice on a variety of things that's how do you figure out what legal counsel is supposed to be focusing on if that occurs and i think though that was part of the reason why questions go through the board president to kind of collate those questions and be able to you know help help legal counsel prioritize thank you board member right yes you know i believe uh that the administration should make a set of recommendations for the board's consideration uh with regards to um um access to legal and we always have the new jersey school

190boards association uh legal team uh to answer questions for us but as a board member i feel that i ought to have access to legal whenever i need it you know we're all setting members with the same amount of power if you will uh and we all have different issues and sometimes you know i you know i don't need to hear anything secondhand i'd like to hear it firsthand and our legal expenses are are down because a lot of our lawsuits are down uh i can remember a time when we didn't have an attorney for the district and so it is important that everybody has access to legal that's why they're the board attorney it's not the board executive board's attorney it is the board's attorney thank you board member what letter um so just

191a couple things so in the bylaw which i know was approved in december of um it does give the board president um sort of the direction that any legal questions are funneled through the board president um but the bylaw does not solicit or state that the board president has the authorization to approve or deny those requests and i think it's really important that we put a mechanism mechanism in place that again affords board members the opportunity to speak to our board attorney um you know just as a proper system of checks and balances and i really liked arun's idea i know he threw out the two-hour example but it was just you know an example and so if we actually did some digging and try to figure out what that number actually looks like um

192you know i think that could solve a lot of um challenges that our board is currently facing and um i know that in some boards i spoke to you they actually have a process whereby the board president and the vice president are both involved in embedding some of these requests or having the requests go to them so i understand we want to keep costs down that's a huge priority for the district but we also need to make sure that as board members that we have someone to speak to to ensure that we're implementing appropriate and effective governance as well board member follow money thank you for that by the way boy remember what letter boy member follow money so i mean i just want to clarify that this is not in any way a reflection

193of the current board president okay i mean i'm okay with the process we have right now this is not a you know a complaint session saying oh i'm not getting through my access but in theory i mean it would be night like for example it would be nice to have an independent access however limited it is again i'm not advocating for unfettered open-ended access right but it would be nice to have maybe even a question today i mean again you're right that you know we don't know what the back end process is it could be a five-minute question and a 10-day work period behind it but i mean i'm sure that can be negotiated in the sense that that can be a dialogue between the board member and the board uh attorney saying oh that's

194gonna take me five days and i'm like okay sorry i didn't you know i didn't mean no it was going to take five days so it's it's just a it's a way of making sure that everyone actually feels independent and not having access control thank you board member wakefield i guess some of my concern as i'm listening to different reactions is an unintended consequence that if we all had independent access to the board attorney time we wanted to ask a question that we would be operating without necessarily a shared set of knowledge to make decisions i think one of the things that is intentional and effective about having questions funneled through the board president is that it increases the likelihood for my perspective of coherence in terms of the type of information that we're operating

195from um and i would certainly be concerning if um board member valdomani had sort of uh his own conversation i had my own conversation and then we show up to vote or we show up to executive session and we've all had these independent siloed conversations with a board attorney that don't necessarily provide a coherent set of knowledge for us to be able to act on i know for me having access to be able to ask direct questions of our board attorney and exec session has definitely helped me to be able to provide clarity where i may need some additional information or may need to better understand a decision that i'm being asked to make but i think all of us having independent um access could produce um uh a disjointedness that i don't think would

196help us to be able to effectively operate as a as a unit of nine dollars wait this sport well remember right is that all the new head before i go to doctor taylor okay i it's an old hand i'm sorry okay appreciate it thank you dr taylor while you were going to say the board member i did ask um for um the district to make recommendations for the board as to how we could access legal so i know you had stuff that i just wanted to bring that to you sure um and i i i've been listening um attentively um you all are getting me in trouble it's my wedding anniversary today so i had to just go and make this get him home by midnight no no it's fine i made a quick call

197we're fine um i um so previously the best practices that i've observed is what the board is currently doing now i think that context is so important when you're dealing with legal advice and making sure that when you give the advice when you give the question that the question is clearly understood by the person receiving it and i think that with having that full vetting and you may notice sometimes when you ask me a question i'll send my answer to the full board right with the question that you asked just so that everyone's operating from the same information everyone um understands how the question was formed because sometimes just a couple of words here and there can make a huge difference when um understanding what the intent of the response would be and so for

198me board member wright my recommendation would be to continue as the board is has been with the board president working to give information questions to the legal counsel i think it controls costs it also controls um that it ensures that everyone receives the same information and it avoids i think unnecessary silos um and misinterpretations that's my opinion thank you any other business this evening or remember what letter so one thing just to add on to that before i just bring up another another topic which shouldn't take long and happy anniversary is you know you know we talk about unintended consequences and as board members it is really difficult when you know just because something's been done a certain way doesn't necessarily mean it's the proper way you know there's and i'm not this is an

199attack on anyone i'm just saying in terms of governance like there there could be ways that people have done things and you know we go to our njsba training and we learn about new ways and oftentimes when we bring those new ideas to the table it feels like there's a lot of pushback and as part of our role as board members it's our fiduciary responsibility to really be informed and you know are we doing things appropriately are we not if we're learning that something's there's a certain way to do things and we're doing things differently is that the way we should be doing things and so i feel like having this opportunity to you know in my case and i know people aren't approving of this but i i do call the njsba board attorney

200because you know it's there's a lot of gray area in serving in government as we all know so we need to make sure as board members we understand what our role is what we can do and what we can't do and when we don't have access to our board attorney it makes our jobs increasingly more difficult and i do think that it's created a divide i mean we just approved you know resolution tonight to pay for board member attorney fees because of the infighting that's been going on and and the litigation that's been occurring so you know could some of those issues been have could they have been managed in-house if people had the opportunity to actually speak with board attorney and get legal advice and and work together um rather than feeling like you

201know we can't get the information from our board colleagues or from our board attorney so it constantly feels like this push and pull and as you know someone new to governance it's you know who am i learning from and am i learning the right ways of doing things i think that um there's that's a thoughtful thoughtful question right and so i didn't hear anyone say that they're not able to get the advice or the response from the board's attorney working through the board president at least in my experience right now speaking from just my experience but i do think also my concern would be that if board members were having a disagreement and both board members are sharing with the board's attorney their perspective of the disagreement and i've been through this you know with

202others with managing other folks right is they share their concern with the twist that makes their argument work for them sometimes sometimes and so you both could be right based on how you ask your question and so i think going through the third party helps it to be just a very clear response in my experience i'm not saying it's the only way to do it but if as for you know the best practices that i've recognized and and seen in other places it would be what we're doing now but again there's always you know other things to consider thank you board member wakefield at that point member valomani i definitely hear what you're saying um and i agree with a lot of what you're bringing up in terms of just thinking about ways to innovate

203i do want to take issue with one thing that you said and i want just to ask us to be careful not to conflate concerns with our litigation costs and over generalize them with sort of a broader board action as opposed to the action of a couple of our board colleagues who have chosen to pursue litigation as opposed to direct communication and conflict solving thank you board member falamani so i do agree that sending a huge chunk you know maybe even 99.5 95 of all queries through the president makes sense it's efficient i i buy that but there is always going to be one question a year that requires me to feel that i have access to an attorney who can give me some advice it need not be about anything it could be something

204about i don't know i tripped and fell while walking into public speaks what happens now i mean it need not have to do with anything else so i think what at least a portion of what board member whitled us pointing to and what i kind of agree with is that we can limit it to a smaller amount but there needs to be at least one point at some point i should be able to go freely and talk with the attorney yes i agree we could put limitations front end back end you know five hours two hours whatever it is but to be prudent i mean maybe one question of six months i don't care but then there has to be a way where i should be able to send them like like like you know

205it's happened to me right now i send an email and it gets sent to the board president which is again i said 99.99 not a problem at all but maybe i'm looking at the point zero zero one percent a one in a thousand case where i truly have a problem and i have nowhere to go to then would you rather me go to the board attorney or go to the njsb attorney who i don't even know i mean i would rather just go here i mean i know i know the person and i trust the person thank you poor member bergen oh i maybe board member vlad lamani just answered my question but i i don't understand why um the njsba attorney option isn't filling this need and um [Music] yeah how legal fees can

206get really expensive really quickly and i think i would just really caution making any change i would also like to hear what um our council thinks about it what ms butler thinks about this issue and um and our new council in terms of you know getting asked a million different questions and getting pulled in different directions when um they may not be uh the focus of what the board as a whole has decided you know the priority should be i can say i've been doing this over 30 years and the most consistent practice that i have experienced is that it is the board president who contacts council because it can primarily it's a cost issue and years ago school districts you know made it very easy for everybody you know to reach out to council

207and then they realized how expensive that was becoming so they started paring back down and um but even during that time where i may get calls from indiv from staff members i um i wasn't getting calls from individual board members the questions um historically have been filtered through either the board president or the superintendent and it is a cost issue um and in those instances where a board member may feel they need to speak with me about a particular issue and it may be an issue where um the board member may not want to go through the board president what i have said you know based on the board's policy would be okay i need you to notify the board president that you are going to be reaching out to me because i'm not supposed

208to be having communications with every possible board member it is supposed to come through the board president so the board president need not be part of the communication but at least needs to be aware that there is this communication and says okay reach out to the board attorney that's been my experience can't say what um new council is going to say about it boy remember what letter i was just gonna say that's very helpful to know because that's new information to me i mean i did ask to speak to legal counsel once and that request was denied and that's fine but i didn't realize that i could actually reach out to you directly and and then just let the board president know it would be it would not be you know reach out to me

209i'm going to chat with you and give you advice it i would say to you right away you need to reach out to the board president so the board president knows that you are contacting me and see what the board and the board president would say yes but i can't it it's not a choice that i can make based on the the parameters of my representation and based on a board policy i cannot go beyond that right well and it's when you call njsbi the the message for the board attorney is this is not this isn't supposed to be a second opinion you're supposed to go to your board attorney like they have this whole template message and so you know i hear that and like we don't have access to our board attorney so

210what but you do have access to your board attorney through the board president and if it were something that you felt you could not speak to the board president about you'd have to say it's something i need to speak to the attorney about and i don't feel comfortable speaking yes with you about it um but as the board attorney who is subject to [Music] what the bylaw says i can't have communication with you it's got to be filtered through and that that's how it is you know with all of my districts i don't speak to board members i speak to board presidents i speak to superintendents i don't speak to individual board members ms butler let me ask a follow-up question to that if there's a situation where as you just said stated there is

211a a board member wants to ask a question and for whatever reason they don't feel comfortable going to the board president should they could we then they'll augment our policy to say in this this rare case they go to board vice president wait i i'm sorry to the board vice president so this is the case where i have to ask a board member attorney a question but i'm not comfortable going to the board president um is there enough because then i can just imagine that being well i'm not comfortable going to the board president and then people just go right along so is there a way to put it like a check and about a checking place where it's in those cases i then go to the board uh in our case we have two

212so uh first vice president um in order to provide that same check to the president if that if that's within the bylaw you can do that my role as a board attorney is governed by my agreement with the board of education the terms of my agreement and then the bylaw and i believe specifically in the terms of my agreement it says that it's board president um it doesn't say that it would be communications with the individual board members thank you boy board member right and then board member of alimony and that boy remember bergen i want to put my hand down first um we could go on about this forever the bottom line is that i i believe that every member sitting on this board should have access to the board's attorney and there may

213be some things that maybe you don't want to share with other board members that you need uh personal answers for and since we do have a board attorney everyone should have access and and that that comes along with just a little bit of trust trust that whatever you know the board attorney is going to say to you is something that you need a response or an answer to new jersey school board's attorneys always don't understand the nuances of what's happening in different school boards across the state including ours but we all should have access to the attorney if we feel that need i don't think everybody's running to attorneys i can ask ms butler how many times have board members come to you uh for for a question over the years as you say things

214are adding up i don't i don't remember coming if i did i would want that i would want that to have that access that that that available to me uh to ask a legal question and we should that's how you do your due diligence your duty of care and your fiduciary responsibility to the community i just keep hearing thank you for that board member right i just keep hearing people say they don't have access when the fact is what i'm really hearing is they don't have direct access and that's because that's what's outlined in the policy um what i do hear from board member winkfield is that everyone does have access through an executive session which we have at least once a month for at least an hour um and while that's not necessarily a

215blind doll it is an opportunity to ask our board attorney about questions on agenda items that are either coming up for an immediate vote or a future vote so and if there are questions that come up in committee we sometimes the answer is we should get a legal opinion on that whether it's the chair or administration they usually work with our board attorney um again through the superintendent or his designees to get those answers so i just wanted to reiterate that and sort of clarify this idea that um when people are talking about access i think they're really talking about direct access thank you thank you thank you and and miss butler did say that she doesn't talk to board members uh it's not within the scope of my service with and i will explain

216to a board member if i get an inquiry whether it's by email or by phone that um i'm not supposed to be communicating with you directly um it needs to go through the board president i don't remember who i said was next so whoever i said what's next please go thanks boy valenbonnie okay that boy remember bergen so um again i mean i yes we have access in in aggregate we do not have personal access and that's i think what we are finding i think i i think you broke it down correctly is that we have access during exec sessions we have access through the board president but never do we have direct access and i believe you know to be truly independent and to truly get real answers sometimes you need that and i'm

217okay with limiting it i mean i i don't see any strife in me going personally and asking to clarify something it could be just for me and then i don't think money is necessarily the problem we spend millions of dollars on the whole school system spending 20 hours more is not going to kill anyone in fact i only think it will make the board work better because at that point people have more trust because i will hear from the board attorney what maybe somebody else would have told me so again i think it may make sense to kind of float a a pilot program where everyone gets one hour of back end not front end i understand that of one hour of attorney time you know over the whole year and let's see how that

218works maybe that will solve the problem and 20 hours is nothing i mean whatever nine hours i'm sorry nine nine board members nine hours is nothing that's just not money at all so that's a problem i think i think you kind of broke it down correctly is that yes we have access in the exact sessions we ask questions yes we ask questions otherwise but i can foresee a time when i have a question that only i want to hear the answer to nobody else and i have no way to turn for that thank you boy member bergen and then board member wright thank you um i guess i just wanted to say that you know the board council is counsel to the board as a whole not counsel to individual board members and it makes

219sense to me that individual board members would not have direct access whenever they want to the board attorney i also just wanted to say that if we were to ever consider putting something in the policy about being able to go around the board president if someone is uncomfortable going through the board president that um i i would not support doing that with that word uncomfortable and if we ever were to do that it would have to be in certain enumerated circumstances um spelled out not just left up to the um comfort of someone on the board in dealing with another board member like a documented legal conflict or something like that boy remember right sure that's all the new okay um according to the new jersey school boards association uh the board attorney is exactly

220that the attorney to the board of education essentially the attorney's client is not you the board member nor is it the administration the client is actually the board of education so that means all of us and and we should all be represented by our board counsel our solicitor as we say sometimes that's no different than when we go through the media there's a yes when the board president speaks on behalf of the board of education that's one of those things that are enumerated in the responsibility of the board president by no means do i think that the board attorney is my attorney the board attorney is the board's attorney the board president is a representative for the board in numerous different areas not just with respect to legal counsel so when the board attorned when

221the board president is asking a question on behalf of the board of education as the client to the board's attorney as our solicitor board member valemati so so maybe i'm not clear about this and how this works is that is it possible for a board member to do something illegal while being on the board and if that is true and if i don't have a representation should i be getting my own lawyer um unfortunately the answer is yes right now it depends on what you're talking about if you do this and i try to let miss butler expand but my understanding is if you if you are accused of doing something in the confines of being a board member then we do not forget the policy number but there is indemnification that applies and then

222the board and therefore the taxpayers are responsible for legal services up until a certain point if it is something you do on your own as a private citizen um that it is you on your own who's responsible for upsetting a legal counsel did i explain that accurately ms butler i'm too short i have to keep getting up to turn it on um there's a statute that addresses that issue and it but it is set forth in um the bylaws as well correct so so so the corollary is that if i feel that something i do is potentially illegal or unethical or whatever it is i should have access to the board attorney to clarify that that's all that is this is not we're not talking about you know i don't know break i don't know

223how what where people are coming from i'm asking for a very simple question if i think something is wrong who should i clarify that with i'm clearly not the board president because he's not a lawyer he's not a lawyer i mean yes he can answer all my questions based on experience but not from a authoritative legal perspective so that's all i'm trying to find out is that there may be some i mean maybe i'm overthinking this and maybe it's a theoretical discussion right but i can easily foresee a scenario where i have a question and i need an answer and i need a private you know it's a it's a legal answer and the answer can only come from a lawyer and if the board lawyer would solve the word letter is not my lawyer

224then who's my lawyer should i hire my own lawyer that's probably at jsba i would think because if you're asking the question specifically about am i doing something that might be considered unethical then you don't want to filter that through the channels established in this policy njsba could while it's not again your official thing they are well aware about the code of ethics and things that um could be uh construed as possible violations so i wouldn't again and again that's that comes with our dues so i'm not going to say it's free but we it's included in our membership with njsba i mean then does it not make sense to go to the board attorney who knows you as opposed to going to some random person who's sitting i don't even know where it's easy

225it's this is like a simple nine into whatever dollars per hour business right i mean right so i guess i would then say in this scenario right it's like if this right if i did x would that would that be considered such a violation right and i don't think you know and it's a if right so if someone doesn't invite it might be worth you know we do these trainings where we get these ethics trainings at least once a year so it could be one of those scenarios where we get in the whole you know you ask question if this goes to the attorney attorney answers is shared with the whole board as a hypothetical someone who might potentially do this runs the risk or maybe not depending on the answer of um committing ethics

226violations right we've had you know we've had the attorney has shared various memos with us during my time on the board with respect to communications actions etc and what folks should be mindful of which again goes into the training that we receive annually about things to be mindful of when um conducting ourselves as board members not just here but when we leave what remember what letter i was just gonna go back to the point of the bylaws 0174 you know in an effort to be prudent efficient public money all of our legal questions get directed to the board president and i just want to go on record i'm not opposed to that process but it does not this bylaw does not give the board president authority to deny or approve those requests and i think

227we need to figure out how as a board when we need an opinion and you know not using the word uncomfortable comfortable but you know maybe in this case it's that system of checks and balances and members of this board could be involved in that and so we want to be able to have a confidential conversation with our board attorney we should be able to do that and that's what i wanted to discuss here i really like arun's idea and i would like for us to continue to have this conversation because i know dr taylor wants to get home for his oh happy anniversary but oh my gosh all right we've got triple anniversaries um but i do think this is really important and i do think despite what others might feel about it i

228do think it would be helpful to our board dynamic and feeling as a board member that you have if needed and it's we would have to have it structured that's it it'd have to be structured so that there isn't overrun and we see these costs go up we can do this and be creative about it and you know that's just what i was hoping to discuss tonight board member of alimony so i mean clearly i mean this is not where we are going to be deciding this i mean we've talked enough about this we've gotten and nothing's going to happen without the entire board agreeing so so i'm going to probably spend the next few months trying to convince you that this is a good idea television conversation but mine is a bad idea and

229we'll move forward but but there is there are real concerns that at least i have and obviously board member which later has and we should talk it out and then see if it works or not please do draw so you have a retreat coming up two of them right and you're going to have njsba here so it may be a good chance to get their feedback on that um and what what are the positives and negatives that they've seen from their perspective perhaps any other new business this evening all right seeing none i'd like to make the following motions board of education will meet in special public session wednesday june 29th at 6 30 p.m in the district oops using a um online video conference platform which will include the hearings of individuals and delegates

230immediately following publication the board of education will move into executive session using online video conference platforms to discuss chi school administrators administer evaluation may be taken the board of education will meet in closed session monday july 18th at 6 30 pm in superintendent's office 525 academy street in maplewood as well as using online video conference platform to discuss personnel legal issues negotiations and other matters to be announced at a later date immediately following the closed session the board of education will be in public session in the district meeting room 525 academy street maplewood as well as there's an online video conference platform which will include series of individuals and delegates action will be taken may have a second second thank you board member ciders all in favor unambis mr burnside um i'd like to make

231a mosul to adjourn this meeting on monday june 27th at 11 26 p.m may have a second second thank you board member winkfield all in favor happy anniversary to those who are celebrating we'll see you all wednesday have a wonderful evening and stay safe you