001calling the meeting to order i just want to say good uh evening it's so wonderful to see everybody um to see all of your faces uh so pursuant to the open public's meeting open public meetings act public notice of this meeting has been given by the board secretary in the following manner posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the voorhees township public schools administrative building on july 26 2021 august 24th 2021 and december 3rd 2021. sending written notice to the courier post on july 26 2021 august 24 2021 and december 3rd 2021 filing written notice with the clerk of the voorhees township on july 26 2021 august 24 2021 and december 3rd 2021. posting on the vorhees township website on july 26 2021 august 24 2021 and december 3rd 2021. please rise for
002the pledges of the united to the states for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice [Music] so first yeah so first we're going to do the oath of office her dr yep dr falk please rise raise your right hand and repeat after me i state your full name aye scott paul do solemnly swear do you solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states of the united states and the constitution of the state of new jersey and the constitution and state of new jersey and that i will bear true faith and that i will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and allegiance to the same and to the governments and to the governments established in the united states and this state and this state under
003the authority of the people under the authority of the people so help me god so help me god i state your full name hi scott faulk do you solemnly swear do you solemnly swear that i possess the qualifications that i possess the qualifications prescribed by law prescribed by law for the office of member of the board of education for the office of member of the board of education am not disqualified as a voter i'm not disqualified as a voter pursuant to rs 19 colon 4-1 pursuant to rs 19 colon 4-1 and not disqualified i'm not disqualified due to a conviction of a crime or offense due to conviction of a crime or offense listed in njsa18a colon 12-1 listed in njsa18a colon 12-1 and that i will faithfully and that i will faithfully impartially impartially
004and justly perform and justly perform all the duties of that office all the duties of that office according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me god so help me god congratulations um we need to do an acknowledgment of the receipt of the code of ethics have you received that excellent miss haley will you do the roll call please yes mr bryce here mrs casenza here dr falk here miss galliano here dr levy here mr schmooze here mrs stupler here mrs watson here and now take nominations for board vice president i'd like to nominate mr schmooze a second oh i i mean i can nominate myself oh i nominate myself then we would vote to close the nominations we would have to get a motion per second
005and i get a motion to close the nominations so move one second a second thank you okay online voting it's open to close the nominations for vice president all are in favor of closing the nominations so we're going to take uh we're going to uh first vote on the first nomination correct right we'll run through the first nomination so the vote will be in the order of the nominations that were made so it'll be mr schmooze first so we'll open the motion and depending on whether it's majority or not then we would move to the second nomination okay okay can i have i'm sorry so the first vote will be for um mr schmooze for vice president and we would need it first and second motion takes motion no we already have these okay so
006use that as it okay hold on one second let me just put that in there then okay sorry okay so i'm going to use dr levy and mrs stupler then for the first and second because i didn't get a second on the first one i seconded it okay sorry okay all right so now the vote can be taken all the votes are in i'll read them off uh there's yeses by mr bryce mrs cosenza dr faulk ms galliano dr levy mr schmooze and mrs watson and a no by mrs stupler so that's uh six or i guess we have eight people now don't we so seven to one and the motion carries for vice president mr schmooze congratulations mr smith um we are going to move on to the board vacancy we are going to
007follow the same process but i want to be clear um what that process there are two minor modifications um we have five is it going to be six we have six total is it is there's one going to be online okay so we have five individuals in person we have one individual online um each individual will come up um we'll do their presentation we will have four individuals and i just realized that that email did not go out we will have four individuals that will ask questions um of the candidate and then the candidate when they're finished they will remain in the room um after they have done their presentation then the next candidate will come up the candidates who are not um who are not presenting will be sequestered until they come present once
008they present they will stay in the room after everyone has presented including the individual online then we will hold open board comments we will deliberate in open public forum i welcome all of the board members to share their thoughts on their respective candidates then we will take nominations and we will vote in order of the nominations everybody clear okay we will start the interview process um trisha will take who's the first person uh we're going to do the first person that's the online person okay so if all the other candidates could follow mrs malady back to our demo room that would be great and the online person will interview first and then we'll bring each of you out one by one and you can stay to hear the rest of the interviews i'm going to
009need one second to join us in the moment i know i am going to send an email in one second okay guys you should be able to unmute and adjust the board now hi can you hear me yes you may also turn on your camera if you wish okay hi you're good to go go ahead okay hi um thank you for having me do this remotely we seem to have a little bit of a bug going around the house um my name is rocky desai i am running for the um open board vacancy at the time i have an extensive background in education um leading all the way back to elementary currently at the university level i have two children at signal hill that are coming up in the school system so you know i
010do have um a pulse on the day-to-day which i think would be helpful as a member of the board i also do believe i represent a very large and growing community in voorhees which i think would be beneficial for the board as well as a community to have perfect is that the end of your presentation okay great um give me one second i apologize um we have not give maybe one second i i i apologize can you ask the same ddi question you so okay board members i just sent an email out with the questions i apologize okay randy you are dude can you can you get your yeah okay it's your question the first one thank you okay thank you um hi thank you again for joining us uh what do you think is
011the most important responsibility of a board member i think as a board member um because we are part of making such important decisions we need to um take account into all sides of whatever issue is on the table i don't believe the board is always going to win per se there's always going to be people that are disappointed but i do think if we take into account the thoughts and ideas of other people and at least try to um bridge that gap a little bit um you know it would be very beneficial so i do think while it's a tough position we need to be hearing the issue thank you for coming tonight or being with us this evening uh can you please explain what unique characteristic you would bring to the board um i
012think what would be unique with having me on the board is definitely um my background because it is very varied um anywhere from education to you know um all my various positions as you've seen on my resume i think i i bring a lot of differences together um i know how to talk to and deal with different types of personalities and i feel like that would be extremely helpful to be on the board thank you thanks so much the third question for you is can you please describe your position on diversity equity and inclusion including race and gender identity yes absolutely um i believe they're all extremely important i think we live in a very diverse community um i think from an early age we need to educate our students um on all of these
013matters and to be honest you know especially when it comes to gender identity families that have may not have dealt with it before they may not know how to talk to their children about it or or understand it fully themselves i think it's important also to educate adults and put out the information so that they can learn and understand it better therefore have better conversations with their children on all of these topics um because they're also very important thanks so much um can you describe your philosophy on leadership and institutional culture sure um my philosophy on leadership which inherently goes into institutional culture is open communication i think as a leader it's very important that you are able to communicate listen to people understand make sure that they feel heard and acknowledged think what they
014have to say and in turn be able to respond in a way that is doing what you need to do but also making sure people understand that they've been heard thank you very much um thank you for bearing with me we had a little snafu um that was my my mistake um but uh we appreciate your time um and and uh we hope that you feel better thank you very much i appreciate that [Music] hi dr alabado hi good evening everyone good evening so we're going to give you an opportunity to make a um a presentation and then after the presentation we have a couple of questions for you okay good um my name is roya i am an academic practitioner i used to live in mulcahill and um we moved here six years ago
015in voorhees and i love it and so um i kind of wrote something um i am a uh adjunct professor for uh rowan college of south jersey located in vineland new jersey and i'm also uh i do consulting with a prominent hospital here in south jersey i'm a single dad and my son bronson um well he went to osage for uh three three grades and i know uh mr kramner who did who does a he's just an excellent leader um because i thought osage was a great school he attends e.t hamilton now with mr moskowitz and i think that's an excellent school as well um i i received an under undergrad degree in um at westchester university and then i have a healthcare and health uh health administration and health education at st joe's um
016i have years of behavioral health experience i work for a managed care organization called community behavioral health and we managed um really philadelphia's uh behavioral health system and um and so i was a children's specialist there i am um first in you know drug and alcohol and children's services school-based services adult services psychiatric services i also have a doctorate educational degree and i thought this was was an opportunity for me because there was a vacancy that i can help um voorhees um i i think that your school district is marvelous it's top-notch leadership's excellent you have a diverse community i think the education's great um but you know there's still you know room for improvement and i i think i can help help with that um raising a child can be challenging and i know
017as a single dad and i know that it's it's hard um love is the basic element of life and that um i think that um being a stakeholder here in the community um i have stake to enhance equity and grace and education in the community and so uh i'm here to uh for a candidacy thank you so much sure you have a couple of questions sure we'll start with randy thank you for joining us okay my question is what do you think is the most important responsibility of a board member so with the board i think is vision and guidance for the next coming years not only it's through fiscal right responsibility but also to like um you know where's it going in the next 5-10 years sometimes i feel like i've been in education
018for a while and education has been status quo right but i always feel that someone can revitalize something that i don't know teachers might need that we don't know congruency of each schools i hear that you know we have so many elementary schools but each one has its own culture and it's also um you know managed differently or even with policy so um i'm here to kind of help enhance the school district um you know priorities are fiscal responsibility um implementing you know correct curriculum right and then also to um you know being safe that's because of covid and so uh those are probably three top elements that we can kind of uh improvise yeah can you explain what unique characteristics you would bring to the board yes so if you know i teach college
019and one thing that i've had from previous bosses and previous students they would say i'm very authentic i am probably different um i teach classes differently i actually play music before class you know mood per research creates mood so if you have good music then you can have you know a good meeting right so i'm very authentic um you know i climbed malcolm three years ago to heal to to to have a spiritual enhancement so with me you know i i do a lot of different things you know with my life i travel around the world with my son i um uh we do karate at mackenzie's um taekwondo so we're local and i love this town so i'm gonna invest my my my responsibility as a civic leader to help you know the school
020district in any way whatever you guys need bless you thank you so much can you please describe your position on diversity equity and inclusion including race and gender identity so i am a libra and i am core to equity right being treated fairly i know that people growing up in some way have not been treated fairly whether it be gender whether it be sexual orientation so i have a um you know at st joe's in educational leadership they taught you about um you know about equity and about discrimination and um and and you know different theories about that but i um i want to treat people equally it's just plain and simple and so um but you know there's there's elements of politics and um people and bullying that are not being treated fairly so
021i think each every person here growing up has not been not been treated fairly in some way there's a visceral feeling when we have that and so that's that's to my core so yes um i mean we can talk children in in the philadelphia school district so community behavioral health dealt with a lot of um issues with um with children that need services and so there's so many volumis cases where um kids didn't actually need the behavioral services they needed help with the academic work they needed you know an iep to address elements of you know issues within that specific child so i mean there's just so many stories behind behind equity and so i was a children's specialist and you know um there's there's a story um so in the months of april april
022and may there were a lot of kids coming into the crc it's the crisis response center there were kids that get we're getting evaluated for just there were kids throughout the whole year but we did evidence-based practice and we saw that there were so many kids coming in the er getting evaluated those time those specific months and then there would be a backlash of kids waiting for beds so they would have to stay at the crc and so we work with the school district of philadelphia and we said what's really going on here and we found out through data and partnership that was really those months were like testing and we kind of helped fix that and so that's just one example of how you know our team um at cbh help partnership with the
023philadelphia school district to decrease the amount of kids in the crc yes so um so there's a couple things i want to be a servant leader and a transformational leader a servant i always say adults and kids they learn the best by mimicking it's the easiest thing right and so i like to be a servant leader to do things so that people can copy and mimic the things that are good that i'm supposed to do with the school district transformational leadership is one that um that changes thoughts and this is important because i know you know with the board and with the community there's always a conflict right there's some sort of conflict and i always say conflict is actually good as long as you can um fix the understand the perception conflict in its
024basic element is two different belief systems one believes this and one believes that and we have to find common ground right and so um [Music] dealing with that constantly just throughout your you know just not you know professionally but also too personally you know conflict is one element that i that i that i like that i have to try to resolve in some way so servant leadership transformational leadership you very much sure um we ask that you join the audience okay sure see the other candidates thank you so much for your time um before i begin do i need to sign in tonight no not for that okay so we're just going to ask you to have your presentation and then there will be a couple of questions from the board got it same as
025last time good yes good evening everyone i'd like to thank the board and voorhees residents and parents for the opportunity to address all of you regarding my consideration for the appointment to the voorhees board of ed as a replacement for vp rachel van aiken for those of you who may not be aware i was the november candidate who came within 16 votes of being elected to the seat previously held by miss aiken who received 3 493 votes at 18.63 to my 3 477 votes at 18.54 and miss kedover's 560 votes in light of the recent election seems to be the most fair and democratic way to fill this position would be with the very person who the community voted to best represent the voice and the will of the warheads community further by doing so
026the board will demonstrate they will not allow personal politics to interfere with supporting the candidate the voorhees voters felt best advocated for the parents children and teachers of our school district my husband and i have been residents of voorhees for approximately 21 years my 12 year old as many of you know is a 7th grader at bms and my 10 year old is a 5th grader crescent like many other families my husband and i moved to this township as we value valued the high quality public education as well as the diversity and inclusiveness of this community coming from a multi-racial cultural background it was important to us that our children be exposed to a diverse and rich community which would help them to be well-rounded adults as i previously noted i am a licensed social
027worker i obtained my master's from drexel university in philadelphia and uh my master's at camden uh excuse my master's in camden at uni rescuers in camden and my bachelor's in psychology from drexel i belong to national association of social workers and having over 17 years clinical experience providing psychotherapeutic case management and discharge planning services in mental health and substance groups i work with children adolescents and adults of diverse backgrounds and all levels of care as well as special needs inmates at a medium men's correction facility i have dealt with everything from suicide attempts self-harm behavior eating disorders identity disorders domestic violence sexual abuse neglect substance abuse behavioral problems medication refusal additionally i worked as a case manager for a behavioral health insurer completing research mental health and substance abuse treatment utilizing mental medical necessity criteria
028and best practice guidelines demonstrating my knowledge and commitment to evidence-based treatment as you know i also participated in july 2020 and wrote back to school plan committee with our previous superintendent dr gentile in order to get our children back to in-person learning in the least restrictive and safest environment possible as a mental health clinician i have the training and experience of being able to set aside my personal and political beliefs in order to make decisions in the best interests of all in the community i am pursuing a position on the board via those a voice for parents children teacher of this community i believe the primary role of education is to ensure our children are provided with an honest vision what it means to be engaged citizen of this diverse country in order to achieve
029that our educators must promote the values and teach the skills of thinking leadership and teamwork so they can become independent thinkers capable of problem solving on their own and promote liberty of thought speech and religion the focus of education should not be on promoting any one particular worldview or what is culturally or politically relevant at the time but on the basic skills of math science english and history the good and the bad in order for them to be successful independent adults showing for a better future than our own when parents send their children to school they do so with the belief their rights as parents do not end when their children walk through the door that their morals values and beliefs that they instilled in their children are being valued and respected it's been a
030difficult time for parents children and teachers um throughout the coveted pandemic having to navigate uncharted territory despite teachers best efforts i witnessed the negative impact school closures have had on our children especially those identified as special needs as i previously mentioned some children have fallen behind academically as many parents when they're unable to work from home or take time off to assist their children and advocating challenges of virtual learning they were isolated from friends at a time when social interaction is important in their social and cognitive development resulting in mental health issues we have witnessed government mandates put into effect that were not based on science rather on politics these mandates encroached upon parental and student rights implementing questionable policies over the very valid objections of many parents policies were not acted on based on
031science rather based on fear as such it's my intention to be an advocate for parental rights and choice academic excellence physical responsibility transparency and accountability especially as it pertains personnel issues and curriculum changes in order to maintain learning consistency prevent bureaucratic overreach prevent any future school closures or interruptions personnel recruitment and retention flexibility for local school districts early childhood learning and education after school programs and expanded learning especially for special needs and at-risk children thank you andy i think it's the most important responsibility of a board member working as a team with the rest of the board and developing curriculum changes that benefit the rest of the community uh regardless of world view can you explain what unique characteristics you would bring to the board as i mentioned i am a qualified licensed mental health
032professional i am from a diverse cultural and racial background i have family and friends who have worked with me in the community to help our children get back to school and to also to help them navigate the challenges i worked with all the number of children in my neighborhood when they were struggling the most during remote learning and i think i can bring that experience to the board especially in light of the pandemic which has been a one-time incident that hopefully will not occur again thank you thank you so much can you please describe your position on diversity equity and inclusion including race and gender identity yes as i mentioned before i believe in diversity equality and inclusion equality meaning that we help each other to overcome challenges to we elevate one another not to
033keep everyone at the same level in terms of diversity inclusion of course i am supporter of the lgbt community and i am a member of the lgbt community so it's important to me to make sure that everyone be included in the education experience and that no one is left can you describe behind philosophy on leadership and institutional i'm sorry repeat that question um institutional culture it's a good question i mean you know it's important again as i mentioned before teamwork being able to work together um to bring about change for everyone that everyone is happy with this but it's important to me to encourage participation amongst everyone especially in the community which is very important to me as i mentioned before so again being able to engage everyone in community important to me so that
034everyone on the board will be transparent and being taking all the community's views into consideration thank you very much um for your time and uh you can join the audience you jesus look at this here no you just um please provide your presentation and then at the end of your presentation there will be a few board questions okay great i'm julie ketover i've lived in voorhees for over 17 years i have two daughters an eastern junior and a vms sixth grader i'm a leadership coach with my own business and i've spent nearly two decades in the legal industry as a litigator and business professional before that i'm a product of a k-12 public education daughter of a new york city public school teacher who taught for 24 years and then subbed for 18 years after
035that my relevant skills for this role include advocacy communication collaboration influencing and building relationships i'm applying to fill this vacancy because i believe public education is facing a critical moment and i want to serve i want to be part of the effort to improve the system and to have it be what it was meant to be an inclusive learning environment in which all kids can develop not only fundamental skills but also critical and independent thinking capabilities to position them for successful and fulfilling lives i believe my experience would support the board to strengthen its reputation and continue to do excellent work in what is a very challenging environment i have three key themes to highlight through some storytelling that will give you some insight into my values what i stand for and how i'd contribute
036to the board the first is assuming positive intent i assume all stakeholders in this system want what is best for the kids and this helps me to choose what to do and how to do it last year for example in fifth grade my daughter's class watched a movie about the holocaust in school and there was no discussion or exploration of the topic after that movie my daughter came home upset and because she was upset so was i um i think processing of that kind of kind of an experience is important so i reached out to the teacher to understand how calm and she assured me that it was a matter of timing and that discussion had been planned so my concerns were a laid i never once assumed or alleged deliberate mishandling related to positive
037intent i believe that simple acts of kindness build relationship trust and goodwill so i like to ask my kids teachers what supplies they need for their classrooms and send them in with something in the beginning of the year i think we should use our collective power and resources to be helpful the second theme have the hard conversations but do them in partnership one of the most irritating things i've heard about myself is that because i believe parents are not the only stakeholders in public education somehow this means i'm not an advocate for kids that's really absurd i'm a fierce advocate both of my kids have 504 plans and on many occasions i've had to advocate for their interests and their needs my younger one has anaphylactic allergies and school treatment of nut allergies at the
038time when she started school was patently dangerous i along with other parents went to boe meetings we sat down with administrators we were blunt and we were strong we brought research and statistics we asked for reasonable changes like having the epipens not only in a locked nurse's office during lunch but in the main office and to have not free tables we got these changes and they were major improvements and the conversations were hard but we worked together we knew that the schools wanted our kids to be safe too i know there's a lot of discourse right now about what our kids are learning in school my invitation is this if you're worried about learning content instead of weaponizing oprah or defaming or attacking public servants and volunteers talk to your child's teacher express your concerns
039ask questions as my favorite coach ted lasso advises be curious not judgmental and finally accept and embrace evolution my parents learned by recitation and memorization my learning was experiential so i had to defend the passage of the 19th amendment in american history and then my teacher said great now take the other side and tell me why it's a terrible idea and of course there are emerging areas of study stem robotics data analysis ai coding and these areas need to be built into the curriculum in addition to core subjects so that our children have opportunities to compete in a global economy similarly as we reckon with our past the way we teach about historical events and whether we teach about them changes i learned about trail of tears and japanese internment but i did not learn
040about tulsa and i hope my kids will as our social consciousness grows so too should our language about the human experience and inclusion of all experiences in the education system and this includes gender and sexual orientation just because topics are hard does not mean they shouldn't be taught the legacy of the holocaust for example is crucial to my family's jewish identity and anyone who studies the holocaust understands that education is our greatest tool to combat prejudice bigotry and hate this applies in the context of race relations too there's also a greater need for social and emotional learning to help our kids build resilience and develop emotional intelligence skills in an increasingly complex world so that they can cope with life's twists and turns evolution in terms of what is taught and how we teach is
041a key component of a thriving public education system i hope these three thematic principles have given you more insight into my candidacy beyond my qualifications thank you i made it in under five minutes what do you think is the most important responsibility of a board member so i think the board of education needs to have the best interest of the kids in mind at all times and primarily the board of education sets policy and goals for the district um i do think one of the biggest responsibilities for the board of education is choosing a superintendent um and i think because there are so many different stakeholders in a complex public education system in many ways the board of education acts as sort of the central focal point to translate the needs and interests of each
042of the stakeholders to each other can you explain what unique characteristics you would bring to the board unique characteristics well i think i've addressed some of them already but i do have i i do think i have strong leadership skills i am i believe in collaboration i'm a really powerful active listener i am a clear communicator and um i build relationships and i think in this system it's really important to build relationships because while we don't have competing interests there are a lot of people who have stakes and so i think i bring to the table the ability to build consensus thank you would you describe your position on diversity equity and inclusion including race and gender identity so increasingly i think this is fundamental in public education um i think the dei lens needs
043to be applied in all ways and that relates to race gender sexual orientation special needs religion all of it um we're learning more and more that the human experience is is not uh limited we have lots of different people with different backgrounds who need to be heard and seen and have the ability to be recognized so i think it's fundamental in public education sure my philosophy is that we need to work together that we may not always agree there may be heated discussions but we all need to come to the table with an open mind with the ability to communicate civilly to be a team to collaborate and again to remember that we're all here for the same reason which is the interests of the kids and making sure they're all learning and advancing in
044their lives and getting what they need to succeed thank you very much um we're going to ask you to rejoin the group uh we appreciate your time thank you thanks thank you well hello everybody again how's everybody good good all right good any questions yes we're just going to give you an opportunity to do your presentation and then there's just a couple of board questions all right awesome all right well good evening my name is eric simkin i would like to thank all parents residents board members administrative administrations staff and guests for the opportunity to address you regarding being considered for appointment to the board of education i am a proud resident and member of the voorhees community for three years i have no intention on moving in a foreseeable future i first attended a
045voorhees board meeting in august of 2021 i like many parents was watching my high school age children suffer during the pandemic and had concerns as to whether their district would be returning to in-person learning for 2021 or 22 school year i was considering moving my children to voorhees i wanted to check out what was happening in the k-8 district as sort of a climate check for what i may expect at eastern regional high school after seeing how the board was functioning i simply couldn't turn away and i realized that there was a lack of transparency between the public school system and the public community it serves here in voorhees the superintendent search was underway and the search firm hya was hired to fulfill the role as an outsourced recruiting firm uh mr redfern had already
046answered the call and took over the helm as an interim superintendent and i applaud mr redfern for his stepping up and filling such a critical role i've heard nothing but compliments and gratitude from the community and staff i do want to paraphrase from the vordhea sun article published on october 14 2021 after the candidate meet and greet ms watson and ms van aiken reviewed their accomplishments implementing full day kindergarten beginning construction for a new kindergarten facility at crescent the board's handling of the pandemic and addressing the dismissal of the previous superintendent in may ms watson alluding to the transparency being given with the superintendent search stated we are going to have a ton of community involvement there will be some task force some community groups that will be focused to help educate our decision uh
047in response to the article in my opinion the crescent project is a flop and potentially a waste of four million dollars the facts were hidden from the public and furthermore the superintendent's search and hiring process has lacked transparency after the beginning stage and now that we're appointing the superintendent after a closed session closed to the public decision process it seems there's been a quasi-executive branch formed on this board based on my observations and research and i have witnessed a total lack of transparency and response to multiple inquiries and proposals myself and other members of the community have made to this board i propose establishing public advisory committees for curriculum development policy review and enforcement and vendor vetting i have received no response from the board i stand against this form of governing body for our
048public school district as a monopoly seated in the spirit of autocracy the public has and is being shut out of many critical decisions leaving these decisions to be made by few behind closed doors that will affect many i'm seeking appointment to offer a fact-based viewpoint opinion and voice to all members of our community i bring 30 years of business experience across a diverse range of industries i consider the public school system a business i believe the community is the primary stakeholder the district must provide the absolute best education possible free of cost and free of forced fed socially constructed ideals that in many cases conflict with the family values that have been passed down by countless generations of families in our community i come from a family with deep roots in public education and spiritual
049leadership my mother was a fifth grade teacher elementary school principal and director of special services of the local school district while my father was a high school principal i know how a school district should operate i've raised two incredible children i've helped raise two incredible children i care about my community and every member within it i can remain impartial i know the laws rules policies and bylaws that are to be adhered to i am committed to providing the absolute best education to each and every child who attends board houston public schools in accordance with the code of ethics for school board members i would confine my board action to policy making planning and appraisal and i'll help to frame policies and plans only after the board has consulted those who will be affected by them
050the public community and whether or not as board members you choose to appoint me on this board this evening or not i will run for the board in november and if we did use any of the most recent public vote as a gauge when considering this appointment clearly ms adele and ms wellings would be appointed and for certain miss catover would not be appointed nor myself since this vote is not being made by the public thank you for your consideration what do you think is the most important responsibility of a board member the most important responsibility is the hiring of the superintendent what unique uh characteristic would you bring to the board i would be bringing an alternate source of information data news sources in order to help make decisions on policies curriculum um that
051makes sense uh even when those that don't make sense are being made or whether they are i feel that i can bridge that gap and communicate and bring people together uh to realize that there are opposing views and those opposing views can be bridged to work together for the better of everybody thank you can you describe your position on diversity equity and inclusion including race and gender identity sure uh i feel like diversity is sort of a self-descriptive word um i realize the diversity of our and most communities and uh i feel that everyone of course has equal opportunities to enjoy the same things as every member of a community or group inclusion i believe in however i don't like when groups are formed that exclude other individuals or groups so i do like to
052see uh inclusivity assuming that everyone is able to participate in those types of groups and equity i feel that uh everyone has an equal opportunity uh and equality is about opportunity i do feel that equity has been portrayed as about outcome um i understand equity as far as gender and race i just don't like to see people that have capabilities be passed over for any reason that they can't control thank you can you describe your philosophy on leadership and institutional culture okay uh institutional culture um really should be framed around driving the success of whatever that institution is doing uh leadership should be um you know a person or group of people that can help frame policies make decisions that will positively impact the most amount of people if not all the people within the
053organization and always be striving to do your best thank you very much um we appreciate your time and you can now rejoin the audience thank you uh oh the original um hello hello hello so we're going to ask that you um provide us with your presentation and then there will be a couple of word members that have questions for you sure it's nice to be able to talk up here with adam asks thank you my name is deborah wellings and first i would like to thank the board for allowing me to speak regarding my qualifications for a seat on the board and considering me as you know i ran for a seat on the board in the latest election in november and was garnered 3 364 votes which was 129 votes away from a seat
054my goal was to try to be a voice at the table and part of the eyes and ears for what's best for the children of voice i've been a resident of voorhees for 15 years and i have a special needs son that attends vms and is about to graduate and enter eastern and while i'm grateful for that i do feel that he along with most other kids are attempting to catch up with the learning loss they endured the last two years my son has had fabulous teachers who need to be honored as well as all the other teachers for handling all the remote learning and obstacles during a very challenging two years children have suffered learning loss mental issues anxiety and a multitude of other issues and there was an increase in the need for
055extra therapy services from the remote learning as well as from the masks that they had to wear since my son is and has been in a self-contained classroom during his school years i am able to assist other parents with ieps and 504 plans to navigate their children's goals and help them with programs that are geared towards special needs children there is a need to ensure academic programs aren't being cast aside to satisfy political ideologies and also to advocate for parental choice and parents rights parents should be able to opt out of any curriculum they don't want their kids exposed to which would only confuse them there are educational programs that have been implemented into the curriculum either in social and emotional learning or into other subjects that will cause confusion and harm kids there is
056a huge need for the materials to be evaluated and examined to ensure they are materials that won't cause harm and are age appropriate since some schools may not even be aware that some material has been placed into the curriculum i think that's a big issue my goal would always be to put the children first by ensuring every student has access to a safe appropriate and comfortable public education without situations that impede learning and socialization if elected to the board i will hold the board academically accountable and will vote with integrity we want equal fairness for all kids as well as kindness especially in this diverse township which i am glad to be a part of diversity and inclusion is important and there should be opportunities for the other members of the board to have other
057diverse opinions and views i believe all kids are unique and all are created equal regardless of where they came from or what they look like and should always be treated equally let's get back to the academics and get our kids prepared to prosper so they are equipped with the knowledge and abilities they need to obtain high sat scores for college acceptance in a positive environment so they are able to effectively prosper and become critical thinkers and obtain other important skills to assist them to succeed in a competitive job market in their future i've been 31 years of legal experience with excellent analytical skills and ability to think pragmatically and consider different views on situations i'm able to offer a different and view a different and new perspective to the other members of the board with
058the best interests of the kids at heart with an empathetic emphasis towards special needs kids the children are our future let's equip them with the education and skills they need to thrive and allow them to be the best they can thank you for listening and i hope i am provided with the opportunities to be of service for the children in the township thank you what do you think is the most important responsibility of a board member uh i think basically an ability to think uh critically and weigh all aspects of any kind of information that you're presented with um i think you have to have the ability to consider all viewpoints and not vote based on bias and um you know you know basically vote accordingly with integrity can you please explain what unique characteristics
059you would bring to the board uh i basically i i'm a parent of a special needs child and i think that uh with that comes with uh different challenges as far as developing uh individual goals and learning plans and i think that with my experience with ieps and 504s that would i would be able to bring a different perspective as far as how to navigate that because it can be very overwhelming for parents so that's that's where i would bring that expertise thank you can you describe your position on diversity equity and inclusion including race and gender identity sure um i believe that all kids are created equal and all kids should be created uh or treated equally they're all unique and i think that inserting any other kind of privileges or any kind of
060um weighing them in any way based on anything other that or based on race or any kind of uh where they come from is is wrong um i think we're a diverse population a diverse school and i think that the board needs more diverse views on the board as far as equity there's different connotations surrounding that equality i am all about every everybody should be basically treated as equal and included all kids should be included um i think that kids are born the way they are if if they want to be a different way or however what other issues that present itself i think they should be always be able to be made to feel uh equally um what's the word i'm looking for able to be who they are exactly and shouldn't be uh
061regarded as different or penalized or anything they should be who they want to be basically thank you can you describe your philosophy of leadership and institutional culture leadership brings with it certain qualities that where you're able to weigh things professionally without any kind of bias as far as institutional culture i would think that that would basically mean being able to embrace all different cultures and um making decisions forming around all of them as a whole basically thank you so much and thank you for your time thank you to the audience thank you so thank you again to all of the candidates it's wonderful to see so much interest in um public service um and in serving our community i now want to open it up for board comment and discussion the floor is open uh
062i could start yep go somewhere else no you go go ahead i just wanted to thank all the nominees for coming out there are no bad choices and some of us know each other and our neighbors or friends so um anything that we decide tonight it's not personal and you know we do appreciate you coming out i it's whatever comments anybody wants to make about their you know why they want to vote for a specific person um their thoughts about the the candidates whatever you feel um i would like to vote for rightly decide we did get an overwhelming amount of emails supporting her from the community um a lot of good things were said about her a lot of good strong recommendations um we do have a large indian population in our community and
063they would like to be represented they would like to have a face um on this board that represents them we are a very diverse community um so i and i do like what robbie had to say i do appreciate that she was um describing her herself more so um and what she would bring versus maybe any other type of agendas you know that have to do with other issues so um that's all i really have to say i also would like to nominate her sorry um i also think that she's a very good choice for this board um and place our opinions um on the community like some of the other people that all have came out to be a board member um i think that she would be a very good addition because education
064background from you know k3 as well as being a professor like the university level so i would like to thank everybody who came out tonight i think it's everybody brings really unique skills and qualities to the table um i thought one of the the you know i think one of the things that we could use and one of the things that is really the equality is what dr acevedo was talking about his experience with community behavioral health specifically with working with children partnering with school districts to enhance learning i just want to ask all the board members to just speak up a little bit because i think audience members and the people online are having trouble hearing i found a really interesting opportunity for us to have two vacancies this year we had two back-to-back
065meetings where several candidates were able to explain their desire to be on the board and i felt like i learned a lot about those candidates especially between the first and second interviews so thank you to those of you who interviewed tonight and especially to those of you who have now interviewed twice for this position i found miss ketover to provide strong answers in all of the questions that we asked to have thoughtful answers i also found uh i thought i was going to remember his name dr alabato uh to have uh some strong initial answers to some of the earlier questions and i appreciated both of their answers their presentation and their answers to the questions okay um i thought everybody did a fabulous job just expressing their points of view and perspectives um i
066thought that what i what i was able to kind of discern is that everybody has a passion and purpose to want to be on the board and that's the baseline so that i'm very appreciative of but i will say that i um even though i loved everybody's answers um i loved the consistency of those who had um previously uh interviewed uh last time but i i will say that miss cutover's answers they just um to me um seemed like a a a welcome fit um just one of the things that i took from her is that she's an active listener um and works in collaboration and that is something that um it's kind of like my strong suit so i can i can acknowledge that and can you know vote for that um i think
067it's great that we have so many people in our community that want to step up and fill an empty seat as i'm new to the board but i have to throw my support for rocky desai i feel like our position should be listening to the public and she's the only candidate that we got multiple emails from the community asking you know for her to be voted on so as i was personally voted by our community i think it's really important that we listen to what our community and as a as an elected official we should be listening to the public and making our decisions on that so that's and i also think it's so important to have that indian representation on our board as over 20 of our community is indian and i think you
068know we're so lucky to be part of this diverse community and i think it's important to bring that perspective just like i can bring a perspective on a special needs you know child something similar which i think is important thank you i want to thank all of you for coming out it's not easy to have to do tonight and last at the last meeting stand in front of the public and educate us about your passion to be a board member i do appreciate it it's a tough decision i don't think we can make a bad decision tonight um personally i feel that uh miss ketover for me is the best job of expressing um what it means to be a board member and contribute from that perspective i too agree um that everybody had excellent
069um had had excellent perspectives um diverse perspectives i think that um [Music] i think that mrsai brings some welcome diversity additional diversity to the board uh i think that miss cutover provided exemplary responses um i think that you know i think that mr simkin and messi dell and ms swellings also bring welcome different perspectives as well um that are much appreciated and we'll continue to push this board to be better and do better um and i i'm very i'm just very appreciative of everyone's time and energy with that does anybody else have any other comments on the board i just wanted to say i did agree with scott about uh oh sorry i'm sorry um i thought he gave a great presentation answered the questions well and had a lot of experience to offer as
070well yes agreed i'm sorry i did not mean to leave dr alabado yeah wonderful presentation as well okay any other comments otherwise i will open up the nominations i'll nominate miss kedova i'll nominate doctor i know let me just get the names so dr levy said the first one and who did the second one um okay all right so we have to do it in the order of the nomination first we need to take a motion and a second motion to close the nominations uh a motion to close the nominations i think we need to first of all okay okay okay so at this point it's closed do i take a vote to close it or vote on that don't take a vote okay so we're gonna open the voting to close the nominations [Music]
071everyone has voted yes to close the nominations and now we'll move on to the vote so oh sorry wait a second um okay so now we'll vote on the first motion on the first nomination so let me get do i take new motions for that no you don't need an emotion jordan okay this is where it gets confusing all right so sorry all right so this motion will be from mrs cat over correct motion for mrs cut over to fill the board vacancy spot wait can i just ask a question right i ask a question before um monica don't you have a personal relationship with julie like a business relationship so with that void you're voting for her or i do not for the record i do not have so of course i know julie
072i know everybody in this room half of them are teachers of my children half of them are community members that i know julie i met in 2018 not that it's any of your business but i met julie in 2018 and julie is a professional coach and so she was my coach in 2019 for six months that is the extent of the personal relationship or professional relationship that i've had that i paid her for her services [Music] i i don't care if you beg to differ that's the relationship that i have that does not present to nominate your friends she coached me in 2019. that is it the point was nominating foreign i'm opening the voting just to be clear that was a vote that was a vote for mrs cadover yes let's head over we're
073voting on mrs cutover for a seat on the board if you continue to talk we're gonna have to ask you to leave you can do so please please remain quiet please remain quiet it's not appropriate so there has to be a five vote and currently we have four yeses three no's one abstention so i'll read off the names okay uh mr bryce is a yes ms casenza is a no dr faulk is an abstain mrs galliano is a no dr levy is a yes mr schmooze is a yes mrs stupler is a no mrs watson is a yes so there's four yeses three no's one abstention motion does not carry so we would move on to the next candidate okay now the only problem i have i'm going to have to do this manually because
074i only have one thing online here so what let me get my thing so what i will do is i'll call out the role and you can tell me yes or no for miss desai okay mr bryce this is casenza yeah scaliano yes dr levy no mr schmooze no this is stupler yes this is van ocken sorry i've old list old list uh dr falk this is watson no motion does not carry i have three yeses and five no's uh well the first one did not pass so we moved to the second one yes so i have three let's see three s's and five no's all right so now we'll move to the third person dr alabato correct correct okay try again okay i'm going to call the rule for dr alabado mr bryce no
075miss casenza the other two did not pay us so the other so that they're starting over so yes okay so yeah i'll start over completely started sorry that's okay yeah so each one either passes or fails and we move to the next one all right so this is brand new dr alabato i'm starting over okay mr bryce no biscuit sanza yes galiano yes dr levy no mr schmooze no mrs stupler yes dr falk yes this is watson no motion does not carry i have four yes and four no [Music] yes i mean the board the board can choose to do nominations over again um there they do have 60 days to fill the vacancy if it's not filled at the end of 60 days then the executive county superintendent appoints somebody [Music] so what would
076you like to do maybe we need to have a third party interview moments that's just my opinion i'm not changing my vote so um board uh fellow board members is there any uh utility in renominating any of the individuals um we had an abstention in the first vote and i don't know if maybe there was one in the other vote so i don't know what that means but i is that worth pursuing i don't know that's my question yeah is is okay uh let's renominate i nominate rocky desai i said the board can re-nominate now they can try again they could try again at the next meeting um they have 60 days to fill the vacancy if the vacancies not filled at the end of that period then the county superintendent uh is required to
077appoint somebody i i am sure that robert's rules say that the audience cannot talk during this part of the meeting i understand that um we have a nomination for mr sai i believe was first correct she was first she was first yeah okay so voting is going to go is open for this or we have to have any more we're just or the two nominations okay i'll call i'm sorry i'll call the roll on this desai mr bryce no miss cassanza yeah yes dr levy no mr schmooze no mrs stupler yes dr folk this is watson now i have three yeses five no's it does not pass so now he goes to cut over all right this vote will be for mrs ketover mr bryce yes this is casenza yeah miss galliano dr levy yes
078mr schmooze yes mrs stupler no dr falk mrs watson yes i have four yeses four now oh did i okay all right let's say one two three yes i have four this vote will be for dr alabata mr bryce no mrs casenza yeah scaliano yes dr levy no mr schmooze no this is stupler yes dr falk yes mrs watson no four yes or no all right so it carries the next meeting um before i get into the minutes i wanted to first say that i attended the once upon an island with my family on sunday and i was truly blown away the students were extraordinary the set and costumes really transported us to the antilles to the parents who supported the children in this demanding endeavor thank you these performances made our district shine bright
079and i want to say congratulations to all of you it was exceptional [Applause] second i'm going to get my notes in order um i want to address some of the superintendents comments um the first thing i want to say is we should all know by now living through a pandemic living through um two very interesting elections not to believe everything you read on the internet um there are a lot of rumors swirling around a lot of false information spread by whomever has their own agendas and it's it's very unfortunate because what happens is someone spreads a rumor then everybody starts running around and believing the rumor and then everybody starts spreading the rumor and nobody is paying attention to how that actually impacts people and impacts the board impacts our incoming superintendent impacts impacts the
080community as a whole just to level set and obviously i'm going to try and give as much information as i possibly can and that's not a ton of information when we first started looking at superintendent we were given by the third party two options you can hold a public search you can have a confidential search we were told at the onset if we hold a public search meaning it would be open at all stages um or an iteration of that where it would be closed for portion of it but then opened at the last three finalists we were told in no uncertain terms that we would not get the best candidates why it's pretty basic because those individuals would have to tell their current districts that they are looking for another job you can imagine
081anybody who has looked for a job while they're currently employed that's a that's an odd situation puts you in uncomfortable place in your current district puts you an uncomfortable position of leadership it creates lots of of discomfort for all the parties involved we were told that we would not get the best candidates quite frankly we were told we would get unemployed individuals or we would get people who were no longer under contract or had not been renewed that is not the candidacy pool that we wanted for this district that's not what this community deserves and that's not what we wanted so we decided to have a confidential search with a confidential search comes a lack of transparency why because we can't tell you who is in the search um because it's confidential i wish we
082could i wish we could tell you why we picked x y and z why we didn't do certain other things what i wish we could tell you all of that information it would make our lives much easier there would be much less rumor there would be much less assumptions but we can't unfortunately so what did we do contrary to popular belief we did involve the community there were forums there were lots of input there were opportunities for the staff to talk to our consultant company there were opportunities for us to gather input and all of that input was gathered and they created what is called a desired characteristic sheet we made that desired characteristic sheet our bible the board took that into every interview it took we took it to the finalists we went through
083it every single time we made a decision why because those were the characteristics that the staff administration and the community told our consultants were the most important things so let me share with you what those things were so that everybody is very clear and i'd love if anybody disagrees please raise it in the comment section because this is what we were told was gathered that we needed to seek an engaged leader who is experienced innovative transparent and who possesses the following characteristics a track record of authentic and compassionate leadership highly focused on student and staff well-being has the ability to use data to drive thoughtful decisions district goals and initiatives is confident decisive and resilient a talented facilitator who can motivate and engage all stakeholders display fiscal responsibility through appropriate allocation of resources exhibits integrity
084and a high level of emotional intelligence we wanted a relationship builder who develops and maintains professional collaborative respectful relationships with stakeholders based on a strong set of core values places the students at the center of every decision seeks input prior to making decisions communicates the rationale behind each decision and stands firm once a decision is made develops and empowers a leadership team fosters an open and safe environment that prioritizes inclusion and diversity an exceptional communicator who communicates regularly clearly concisely in a way that engages and values all stakeholders creates a sense of community around a shared vision of excellence demonstrates excuse me demonstrates courage in the face of challenges and the ability to navigate complex situations with confidence and empathy invest in the community by being visible present approachable and actively engaged in the district
085and community events has an exemplary executive level k-8 or k-12 educational leadership experience and is immediately eligible for a new jersey school administrator certificate i will tell you that our two final candidates had all of these qualifications they checked off all of these boxes more importantly we had a deadline we the county superintendent tells us how quickly we have to move they tell us when we have to get things done and they were very adamant about we could not have an acting superintendent remain in the role in fact we were told what was the first deadline frank uh three months ago january six months yeah six months ago we had to ask for three extensions and we were told we would get no more extensions that piece of information i i apologize we did not
086share with the community quite frankly i didn't think it was that relevant but having seen some of the comments i'm letting you know that is highly relevant because we we don't have an unlimited amount of time we don't get to sit and have this exceptional human being who is sitting next to me for forever we had to actually go through the process and choose the superintendent that doesn't mean we rushed we did not rush by any stretch of the imagination we spent a ton of time going through and making sure that we made the best decision for this district um we wanted an exceptional candidate we wanted someone who would bring this district forward and remind everybody why this district was extended was outstanding is outstanding um we spent hours making sure that we were
087doing right by this community hours days our weekends the process was thorough robust and it was was transparent we kept you informed throughout the process where we were unfortunately i think everybody wanted to know oh you know joe joe blow was the finalist maxi waters is the next one we couldn't tell you that or the community wanted to ask the people the the candidates questions neither one of those options was gonna happen i'm sorry that that's not how it works but that's what happens when you have a confidential uh search and and i explained why that was necessary the the the part that is incredibly hurtful is we fell short the last time we failed all of us collectively i take responsibility for that i do not want to fail you again best believe that
088is not an option if we fail the entire district fails my kids fail because the classrooms fail we don't have good teachers if we don't have a good superintendent we don't have motivated teachers we don't have good classrooms and my my kids your kids all of the kids in the district all fail so we all have a common interest we want this to succeed we do not want to fail the part that i am the most hurt by quite honestly is i have made it very clear the staff and administration are very important to me my sister i say this all the time is a teacher in cherry hill i teachers have very special place in my heart i have tried to make sure that they were at the center of all of our decisions
089especially over the last four years i've made sure that your safety and comfort were paramount or a power mount and that we could create the most effective learning learning environments for our children so that you all felt supported heard and understood and at our most crucial time when the board needs your support and grace i feel like you've lost faith in us and that's hurtful um i'm sincerely apologetic to our incoming superintendent because we are broken as a district and as a community i know that i will continue to put the children first and support our new leader in whatever way i can and i hope that all of you can put your politics and personal agendas and personal preferences and differences aside and join me in moving onward and upward together i'm sorry for
090being so long-witted but i i wanted to try and give you as much information as possible um we'll move to approve the minutes can i get a motion to approve the minutes of the february 23rd okay all righty online voting is open for the minutes [Music] motion carries all yeses with an abstained doctor fault in the voting information items uh fire drills and safety drills are on the attachment suspensions and the hip reports also on the attachments there are no items under communication board secretary report thank you the first item in my section is the 2020 2021 audit uh that was just concluded on march 3rd and i'm happy to say that we have a clean audit report which means there's no audit findings or recommendations um i would like to thank my staff in
091the business office as well as buildings and grounds department they do a lot of purchasing also the food service department and everybody else that in the school districts that are involved in so forth the auditors come they do compliance checking to make sure we are following procurement laws they also do other testing they do substantive testing and everything does check out okay they look at our general fund our special revenue fund our debt service fund also they look at cer they look at student activities and it was a food service so it's always an accomplishment when we uh get a clean audit we're always very proud of that so again i'd like to thank my staff for that and that's one of what part of the process is it has to be board approved and
092then we send that up to the state so it was a good audit here and uh i commend everyone for their help in that area um it's and those are finance items finance item 23.9 the next item on the agenda is the presentation of the 2223 tentative budget okay so i'm just going to get my binder a second each board member received a budget binder last friday but we met with our finance committee on the ninth and went through the various aspects of the budget you'll see on the agenda finance items 23.2 through 23.8 are the budget items uh the total operating budget is 62 million 261 369. the special revenue budget is one million fifty thousand eight fifty that service nine hundred sixty one thousand one hundred fifty for a total budget of 64
093million 273 369. we back out a transfer from capital reserve that helps to pay for that service so the net budget is 63 641 329. the tax re the tax levy piece is fifty thousand four nine four thirty seven the debt service piece is ten thousand dollars for a total tax levy of fifty thousand fifty million forth and nineteen thousand four thirty seven uh what all that means is each year our budget is funded by state aid and by the tax levy and some other miscellaneous revenue we had expected our state aid to decrease back in 2018 there was s2 was passed or the chapter law of 67 were districts that had decreasing enrollment where the formula was run for them and they would get a reduction in state aid over a seven year period
094and we were one of those districts so we would have two more years of reduced state aid after this year so we built our budget considering a 300 000 decrease in state aid but state aid was delayed and being delivered this year and usually comes out the last week the last thursday of february this year came out just last thursday so kind of late but that we were happy with the results because when we got our state aid it actually went up by one point three four four one point three four four million and we went through the calculations to find out why it went up and the reason why the most biggest reason why it went up is full day kindergarten so state aid is tied to enrollment and it's a weighted enrollment so
095because we had kindergarten half day that calculation was only 50 of the students that were here so then now that we have full-day kindergarten they use 100 of the students that are here plus we had an increase in kindergarten enrollment of like 84 students and again it's like a weighted average and it's an average over a five-year period we also had an increase in special ed students so all those things combined increased our state aid that we received this year so our total state aid last year was about 4.9 million this year at 6.39 the bud the 22-23 budget maintains all existing programs student services and stays within the 2 cap on taxes the tax levy was increased by 2 which is nine hundred eighty eight thousand four hundred twenty dollars and that's all from
096the general funds there's no increase in the debt service fund this is our last year of paying off debt service so in the next year we will not have it um our total budget is less this year by 1.77 million and it's mostly made up of the year before we had the construction at crescent was included in the budget and that's offset by capital outlay this year three new positions which is one esl teacher one custodian for crescent one maintenance mechanic and other increases in contractual salaries and renewal rates for transportation typically our transportation routes we ask all our contractors if they'll renew the routes and they're allowed to renew routes up to the cpi rate which is 1.91 most of our routes were renewed but we have over 30 routes that were not renewed
097and mostly that's because of fuel prices and increase pay to bus drivers because there is a shortage and everything is going up so we'll have to go out to bid for those 30 plus routes and so we wanted to anticipate some increase in those expenses if we don't have that yet um the net valuation tax law the ratables increased this past year so when we did the budget for 2122 there was a decrease in ratables now let's turn the other direction there's now increase in ratables by 19.4 million or point six one percent and that actually helps to spread out the tax increase so the increase that i'm talking about just two percent in our on our budget is really an effective rate of one point three seven percent on the tax rate so and
098then the increase on the average value of the house at 260 828 is 54.99 per year or 5.58 per year on the average house and again due to the increase in ratables that effective rate is um is really 1.37 versus the 2 percent that we have in our in our budget um i just wanted to go over a few more things included in our budget we take money out of capital reserve and what that is we have a long-range facilities plan of construction projects and you can fund capital reserve up to 60 percent of your long-range facilities plan and then each year when you budget for construction projects you take that money out of capital reserve so majority of our capital projects this upcoming year are being funded by capital reserve and i'll just read
099off a list of them we have refurbished student and staff restrooms uh we're looking into converting this building to municipal water and sewer we have toilet room conversion of two classrooms we're replacing windows throughout the district replacing exterior doors throughout the district replacing interior doors throughout the district renovating five classrooms renovating a media center upgrading led lighting putting in a new playground putting in a ramp to athletic fields that will be ada compliant repaving a parking lot and putting a parking lot walkway at one of the schools as i said before most of that is funded by capital reserve uh 511 000 of that is funded by the eso grant so that's the overall view of our budget um tonight the board will vote on submitting it to the county the county will review it
100now we have our own internal documents that we share with the board but there's also the njdoe software so all all schools have to enter all this information into the new jersey department of ed budget software it's consistent throughout the state we enter it has checks and balances you have to describe why everything if anything went up more than four percent you need to tell them why so there's a lot of checks and balances within the budget and then it does get submitted and reviewed by the county um we'll do that hopefully by the end of this week uh it's not due to the 28th it was extended it was due on the 21st they'll review it they'll get back to us with any questions we'll advertise the budget and then we'll have a public
101hearing on may 5th of the budget and that'll be the final moving on all right so that's all i have in that area i know i have something else on agenda um i would like to congratulate danielle tupano she's our assistant business administrator she's in the audience right now and she was the one that was walking back and forth with the candidates earlier um she received um she received the professional recognition of registered school business official and that's issued by the new jersey uh association of school business officials and they have different uh classifications of who gets that and her specialty is accounting she does a really great job she keeps us all in line and she's one of the reasons why we have a clean audit so i would like to thank her for
102her danielle um and then last of all we we announced this from time to time that we have these wellness challenges and they're funded by our uh grant that's issued by our school's health insurance fund so it doesn't come from budgeted money and there's walking challenges and different things this is the wellness challenge and it was it was a walking challenge called tommy's step challenge and i'll just read off the winners what happens is people start polls and then they receive award something i guess it's our shift that pulls the money out of the hat and that's like pulls the names out of the hat and they get gift cards so we have uh miss scott we have miss lorella it's patrick miss fulton miss lancaster miss dougherty or dr d troy miss mitchell and
103miss stratton so congratulations to all the winners and it's really great to work towards wellness thank you everybody i know that was kind of long so i would just like to uh again congratulate helen and danielle in the whole business office dr young i know helen went again amazing amazing incredible job i'd also like to recognize clark i'd also like to recognize clark because we had some tough weather there so he treated all the parking lots um for you know the build-up of ice and he stayed on standby and he had his men on standby in case we had some flash freezing that night so everything worked out so i'd like to thank that also and finally i'd like to shout out to mrs eliana with the middle school last friday she put together a
104whole social and emotional uh stay for the students in middle school um she is certified and she takes this to heart the passion of hers so the students got to pick certain activities that they could do from just the decision-making to self-awareness to recognizing their own feelings and interests conflict resolution so i'd just like to recognize her and bring that whole day together at the middle school i know the teacher worked with her today she sent out a survey to all the teachers to get some feedback on that day so that she can tweak it and make it even better uh at this time uh we have two quick reports uh i'd like to assume donnelly she's going to give us a brief update on our hip and our student safety data report i'll be
105quick i promise good evening i'm sharon with data from sharing with you the data from the state reports on harassment intimidation and bullying for the reporting period of july 1st of 2021 through december 31st of 2021 the district had eight hib investigations during this first reporting period of those eight investigations three were founded to meet the criteria defined by the anti-bully bill of rights act that were cases of harassment intimidation and bullying this also means that five of those eight cases were unfounded in addition all schools have fulfilled all necessary hip training for the year the second part of the report is the ssds system which is the new jersey requires this to be reported on twice a year so it's our student safety data system the ssds collects incidents of violence vandalism weapons substance
106abuse and harassment intimidation and bullying this report has 33 incidents across the five schools but the eight hib investigations were also part of those 33 incidents so this leaves 25 additional incidents reported these are discipline incidents which include things such as simple threat physical fight several inappropriate use of cell phone in school and damage to school property so the reporting period runs from january 1 through june and that will be shared again in august thank you and finally dr young is going to give us an update on our new years good evening everyone the board has my presentation in front of them the teacher in me put little tabs on there for you because i wanted to include some more um specific data that um you can ponder later on and if you have any
107questions about it reach out to me um and i'll kind of as i go through the presentation let you know what is also included in your packet that i'm not presenting tonight just as a matter of time and interest not everybody's probably interested in all the little piggy details i know i get excited about it but not everybody here will be so um first i just wanted to um say that um we have a lot to really celebrate when we look at our mid-year performance data the students did extremely well that's not to say there's not areas that we need to work on we definitely do have areas to work on but overall the results are really really positive so i wanted to recognize the teachers for all their hard work because obviously um [Applause]
108already crapping and i didn't even tell you what it was yet but here we go so the first slide just kind of tells you um how many students participated in the fall and how many participated in the winter um if you flip to the next um the first one is talking about math this one is reading so as i go through the presentation first you're going to see information about math and then we'll address reading under the same category so if we look at our fall to winter data and i apologize for the audience i know it's really small but you can definitely see that there's more green in the winter compared to the fall and that's really what we're looking at so the green is telling us that those students are at mid on
109grade or above grade level or they're early on grade level the yellow is one grade level below um the lighter red is two grade levels below and then the darker red is three grade levels below um so already um 26 percent of our students are mid-grade level or above and 26 percent are early on and then um 36 percent are um one grade level behind and then seven percent and six percent are below so um we still have a whole half of a year to go and so you can see that our students are making good progress especially when we compare to where they started in the fall and that's for math if we flip for reading you can see that our literacy scores are really really really good so 41 percent of our kids
110are mid on grade or above 24 early on grade level um 24 one grade level below and six percent two grade levels below three grade levels below is another six percent and all of that is a huge improvement from the fall so really good progress and then if we go to the next slide this is just showing you the distribution for math um data from fall to winter by grade level and you can see clearly here that every grade level made growth from fall to winter so really good again data reading same thing but even greater growth from fall to winter in the area of literacy it definitely was an area of strength for our students as we look at these results so really good um percentages there by grade level so then the next
111data um we don't have this data for um you can go to the next level um oh i'm sorry it was the right one sorry about that um so we don't have this data for math because we haven't been using i-ready data for math um for a long period of time we actually started the program just focusing on literacy and so you can see the pre-pandemic 1920 school year how that compares to where we are right now and really the data data is very comparable so that's really good news um because you know we want to look back and see where we were before this pandemic and how much learning loss has there really been and you can see that it's really not significant in the area of literacy so that's that's excellent news and
112then if we flip the data you can look at the growth so um the board you have just an explanation of what the irony looks at as far as growth but for your purposes up here in the audience you can see that um the orange is the median percent of typical growth and then the blue is um the stretch growth so they look at two um different categories and 62 percent is the median where the target should be and so you can see in almost every area were at above or pretty close to that 62 percent with the exception of fourth grade those numbers were a little slower and when we look at our math data um where we're seeing the weaknesses in the area of geometry um which makes a lot of sense because
113um that's tends to be the um chapters that we teach at the end of the year so when you look at the impact of the pandemic and you see that when we went out the kids went out in march and so a lot of the information that would have been taught from march until june included geometry they kind of missed out on that and then um the next year coming in um we're going a little bit slower so then you missed it again at the end of the year so um we have met with um principals and the principal's met with their staff and that we're going to put an emphasis moving forward on geometry try to catch the kids up because it's it's really clear it shows in the data when we look at
114it that that is the area that's really impacting those those percentages so we're pretty confident that with some increased math instruction we're going to add 20 minutes per day to the students math block we're going to focus on geometry and then we're having them work on their ibrady instruction and a lot of the schools and teachers have embraced some competitions and challenges to make this um a really fun activity and not stressful for the kids so um i think you're going to see that when i report back on this data in the um in this probably in the summer that um we're going to see a lot of growth in that area as well so then when we hit the reading mark though like look at those percentages i mean they're they're really really good
1158th grade off the charts 153 percent um was the median percent of typical growth achieved that's like amazing so really really good at every grade level and then we slip again i love this chart because it really gives you a true picture of where we stand by grade level um so we're hyper we're in that high performing high growth quadrant which is where we want to be with the exception of eighth and fourth grade in math um but eighth grade's right there um touching it and fourth grade again and we really think that geometry had an impact on those fourth graders so we're going to be working on that but overall amazing really really good um when you flip again you'll see the quadrant for reading eighth grade off the charts as seventh grade is
116right there and then the rest of the grade levels are high performing high growth so a lot to be excited about there really really good okay so then um the next part is for everybody that wants to like really like drill down and look at like what are the national norms what are the new jersey norms so i left that in there for you but i'm not reporting on that tonight if anybody in the audience wants to see that data i'm happy to provide it but as we go along we really want to to me i thought you'd be more interested in like how does the district compare to the historical national norms so you can see that when we look at historical national norms from 1819 the last normal school year our kids this
117year are better than what the pre-pandemic national norms are in the area of math so even though we're seeing some weakness and things we need to work on we're still performing better than most and then if we flip it you can kind of see that as well by grade level and you can see again we're performing better than than most and then flip it again and you look at the reading scores and we outperform by a mile i mean really really good so if you look at the historical national norms the kids at the 20 27 of the kids were at the top were 41 excellent excellent okay and then um this is really helpful for um our middle school staff um and administrators because we really haven't used i ready in the middle school
118until this school year so this really gives them perspective to kind of see all right where do they fall compared to the norms and you can see that middle school's out performing the norms as well really good and as you flip it you can see again same thing by grade level for reading um we're outperforming the norms and then you can look at middle school and um they're they're performing really really well so and it's pretty consistent across the grade levels which is nice to see too okay so then we look at our demograph demographic data and you can see the breakdown in math by race and so the district overall is 27 percent at the top and then you can see the distribution across the different races and definitely there's a discrepancy so something
119that you know is important for us to recognize and just important for us as administrators and teachers just to make sure that all of our kids have access to supports um so that we can remediate those students that are in need and then we can see again for math this is for our hispanic population and you can see there's a discrepancy there as well something that we need to address if you flip it over for reading um again there's a discrepancy not quite as much as in math but it does just exist and the same thing when you flip it to the last screen which i apologize for that last chart came out weird on the printout but definitely again um we we can see a discrepancy there and so um as i said i'm
120like really we're really excited about our literacy results we're happy with our math results we just know that we need to do some work in the area of geometry and so i know that our teachers are working really hard in that area and i'm going to see a lot of results and we keep monitoring our i-ready instruction to make sure that the kids are on there and working hard at it but i'm already seeing a huge increase since we had our meetings and since the competition started so i think it's going to really pay off in the in the long run are there any questions i know you have i know this is like your interest i know i know that's why i put that extra in there so thank you it was a great
121presentation it's great to see how you know well the students are learning and how well they're growing yeah i think the the thing that um like always concerns me when i'm looking at data is it's like when we look at benchmarks that's like averages across large groups and is that what we should be aiming for as a district and i'm just sort of asking that as like a big philosophical classroom you know to everybody in the room because there are so many wonderful educators and teachers here so so i think that you know if our aim is to like be like at average or above average like that's where we're gonna get so so i think that my challenge i think for the district is why can't we aim for excellence move forward so forget
122about where the mean and the norm is and really so far yeah and i think that you see that we do in most situations but there are situations where we we have some work to do um and definitely like i said that geometry piece um is is a big indicator there that um we're not hitting that in in our curriculum so um but yeah you're right and i think that's always been how before he sees things we want to be way above the norm yes the other thing is that you mentioned this and again i think it's just important for us out like because you know the data shows that we're failing some of our students revealing them along some demographic lines and i think that that's that's something that we really have to you
123know just [Music] yeah absolutely 100 agree with you yeah dr young i want to thank you for your presentation um for the purposes of the community the academic excellence subcommittee met before the meeting this uh this evening on the committee is mr bryce myself and miss watson and we asked dr young a bunch of questions um having a child who's now a freshman in high school i can attest to the fact that some of our curriculum currently doesn't easily translate into that at eastern um and i was pleasantly surprised when i was able to take a look through what it will look like that it seems like we'll have a better idea of what's happening in each classroom than also across the board in each grade level i'll echo what dr fox said in terms
124of we see a lot of increase in reading scores which is excellent don't want to see those go down but we know historically that we are our students struggle in in the area of math and um having a student who went through uh signal hill two students who went through signal hill um one who is just never needs any help independent learner and another one who needs all of the help and and is not an independent learner um geometry was just something that neither of them had any idea about um when it came to standardized testing or learning that in a subsequent grade so i think the areas that dr young pointed out are important for us to consider as we move forward i thank the teachers for looking at their curriculum and really thinking
125about how these changes are important i know from my prior work as a faculty member it's never fun to change your lesson plans sometimes you have those that you really like to teach and when they no longer align with the curriculum that you're that you're teaching you don't get to teach those anymore and you have to put those aside and you have to not only do that and you have to make all new lessons and you have to have new lesson prep new tests new assessments and everything so i understand that and i understand that that's no small undertaking so i really thank all the teachers for working with dr young on this this can't be an initiative that comes only from the top down in order for this to work for all of our
126students it has to come from the teachers because you're the ones who teach it and you're the ones who know how to make sure our students can learn it in a way that's going to be important for them as they move on so i want to recognize the effort that's gone on at your level um because i know that effort and it's much more than just um you know your standard prep you have more to do in order to align what you're doing now with this curriculum so thank you all for your work on this and thank you dr young thank you we'll be looking forward to these every year now yay [Music] anybody else okay we have no committee reports audience participation anyone wishing to address the board please approach the podium and write
127your name and address on the login sheet if you are attending via zoom please use the razer cam feature to be acknowledged while the board is limited in its ability to respond to the public on matters involving personnel litigation negotiations an and attorney-client privilege the board will now hear comments from the public relating to items on the agenda for this board meeting comments are limited to three minutes the board will not take action this evening you will be notified at some later time by letter electronic mail telephone or in the context of a later board meeting of any action the board does take hello eric simkin i'm a resident of voorhees township uh ms watson i do want to discuss the transparency thing real quick on january 29th at the closed session meeting uh i
128did actually make a public comment requesting the questions that were being asked to the candidates nothing to do with the candidates shouldn't really be confidential it's just words on a piece of paper he asked me to email it to you i did i didn't hear a response on february 9th i sent a second request to you i never heard back and dr levy i believe you were out of order by uh you know speaking to me directly uh the president of the board has the ability to speak to the public thank you very much um patricia klein from seoul new jersey have a couple questions um someone made a statement listening to the public tara adele received she was 16 votes short of a seat on the board i think the public has spoken i
129don't understand why she was not nominated number two a board discussion um last time you filled a position there was no board discussion i need to understand why wasn't there a board discussion you missed it you went right into the vote you never had a board discussion so i'd like for someone to answer that question because you didn't file a policy number three um the numbers oops the numbers that you recorded you showed us on this board um you said fall and winter is it remote and in person see that's deception to me that's deceiving the audience the public because fall you were remote winter you were in person i'm asking the question and the numbers look better in person also some you gave a report of damage to um there was some damage to
130the buildings i have a question and a question who pays for those repairs that's a good question because it's our money right the taxpayers monies that have to pay for these repairs let me see if i had another question for you diversity you said diversity as far as ethnicity i'm a little concerned about that because are we choosing people based on their ethnicity are we choosing people based on qualifications um that reminds me that our president biden chose a vice president and said because she was black not because she was qualified i want to understand this are we choosing making choices based on qualification are we making choices based on someone's race good question um i think that i um i made a statement and i still stand behind my statement um we have to
131be careful as to who we put on the board uh we need to look and do a little digger we've got more digging um deeper i should say i talk to my students and i tell them their facebook page matters and what they do uh the bad behavior matters more and i've been bullied by one of your candidates on facebook and that candidate should never be considered to be a part in working with children thank you again i'm deborah wellings um i just i just had a quick comment regarding the superintendent search um ms watson um i as far as your comments that it was a confidential needed to be a confidential process um the hiring of a superintendent is a community based decision or should be a community based decision i understand that hya
132had a form a forum where i attended where we were able to call in and say what we were looking for in a candidate and that was all the community input that was provided i you know miss van aiken was quoted in the vorhees sign in february i believe it was that this will be a community-based decision and it just was not channel six news had three finalists for a superintendent pick i think it was philadelphia obviously it was probably philadelphia i'm not positive they listed the last three finalists of their superintendent search on the tv news so it's not a confidential process it shouldn't be in any way shape or form you work for us we need a voice if we we are the ones that are supposed to be making or at least
133have some input into this decision you're not giving it to us and you're just you're cloudy you're stating it's confidential it is not a confidential situation when this person will be guiding us our whole district in this school so i don't understand that we're we're upset about that and you know i can sit here and and preach about it or talk to you about it but we never get any feedback just like you haven't responded to eric's even nothing's account there's no accountability this is why i run for a seat on the board and other people have run for seats on the board there's no transparency the public wants that and i mean this any comments or no just okay well hopefully you respond to us that's where we're supposed to get you work for
134us andrea boyd johnson you may have muted your mic and address the lord good evening can you hear me yes we can oh can i um no i guess i can't put my camera on anyway my name is talandria boyd johnson and i live at 145 william feather drive in voorhees new jersey and i am appalled might be too strongly of a word here but just to see this level of discourse and just the attack on the board and attack on what we're trying to do to really educate our children and make sure we have the best people available so first i want to address this false dichotomy that um that it's race or qualifications that is not the case no one ever says that when we're talking about white candidates and i'm going to
135be 100 transparent about that it only comes to combine when we're talking about people of color and frankly i'm just sick of hearing that so i believe everyone presented at the board they may have been my cup of tea but they all had qualifications that were unique and may have made them a great board member so that's the first thing and i don't know who we're going to have end up being the superintendent um i did have to miss part of the meeting but i do have confidence in this board that they are doing the best that they can thinking from the perspective of what um mrs watson said that if we had had the transparency that someone alluded to with the school district of philadelphia frankly we are very different school districts um and
136it's a very different process uh i believe that because people would have needed to or candidates would have needed to um give notice and say that they're looking that yes we probably wouldn't have get wouldn't have received the best candidates possible for this for this position lastly i just want to say that i hope that moving forward i can see that this is going to be continue to be a contentious time of period of time with our education and with um making sure that all voices are included that all perspectives have included and i hope that we can continue to make sure to value diversity equality and equity i don't think equity is a four letter word and i think it's something that we have not really concentrated on as a whole in this country
137and i am happy to hear that it's something that we are addressing here um particularly in voorhees public schools because we are a very diverse community and it's one of the things that has attracted me to be in this community and has caused me to move back to this community and i i support what we're trying to do and continue to do to educate our children so that they can grow up to be um informed compassionate and critical um critically thinking citizens of this world thank you silverman you may unmute to address the board hi good evening my name is dina goldstein silverman i live at 107 bunning drive in voorhees my children attend crescent elementary school i am concerned about the superintendent candidate uh for a number of reasons um the person that we
138were informed may become our next superintendent is a person who has had three different jobs in five years and the person's current school district seems to be extremely displeased with their performance uh inclusive of faculty teachers and staff and that worries me i do think that mr redfern has done a tremendous job in this time of crisis i don't believe that the board has been entirely transparent i'm a member of a number of community organizations i'm a fairly involved and hands-on parent and a working professional and there's a lot of information that i was not privy to that was not easy to find so i'm very concerned it seems that the board basically decided who the person is um they have decided to share with us tidbits of information as opposed to the entirety of
139information the voice that we have been given um has not been a thorough voice and as a stakeholder in this community someone who pays taxes in this town lives in this town has children attending school in this town i find it extremely disconcerting and and i understand that this is a great period of contention um i certainly hope that all the stakeholders can work through this contention but i am not pleased with the direction on which this is going and i do think that the children of the school district deserve better and the taxpayers of the school district deserve better than what we're getting i'm certainly going to continue to vote as i have voted in every election and i'm not pleased with what i'm seeing as a taxpayer in this community i hope that
140we can do better as a community thank you joseph petted them on 219 homer avenue um i had two questions on agenda items uh the location for the land that's being sold by signal hill i just wasn't sure how close it is to school and what what it would be zoned as so whatever would move into there and the second one i happened to notice was the retirement of richard baylor from middle school both my daughters had a an opportunity to have him one currently has him now and the first thing he said when he met my daughter this year was how's emily and it's been seven years um he's stepped it up this year like during tests he's had um virtual meetings to help them prepare for it so as a parent from somebody
141who's nervous for my daughter going to middle school she's enjoying herself she gets a lot of support from administration from all her teachers which was my biggest worry because she was my uh most vulnerable child so as a parent i'm very appreciative and i wanted to wish him happy retirement where she could stay longer and not sure when it's effective um and i was going to step back and say something um from a parent teacher point of view so i've been coming to the board meetings for about 26 years now sometimes i was the only one here um and the meetings we get done in about seven minutes and if that um i think it's great that a lot of people come i've learned a lot over the years as far as what you can
142and can't do um what when i ask a question how it gets back to me it doesn't always happen there so i've learned to become more educated to it i've also learned to appreciate the effort all board members have put into it um i see some of our old board members our names are on the walls in our buildings because they were here back when they were built so i always step back as a teacher in the district but also as a parent to realize i'm giving up my time at home right now that i have to run home to i appreciate each of you do it we've accomplished full-day kindergarten that was a really important thing realizing how few districts in the state of new jersey didn't have it mr redfern and i know
143each other well he used to come into our building so i've always given him my support but as a teacher we will work with whoever is the superintendent we work well with dr gentel so our goal is always as teachers at least from my point of view is whoever is our leader we will work collaboratively with them um i've never looked at as an adversarial position and i feel bad because i've learned not to take things so emotionally and sensitive over the years it's hard but it is hard when you do feel personally it's attacking your person and it's a little hard so it's i hope as things go on it gets a little better and we can modify that but i appreciate it and uh look forward to just finding out about the location
144thank you hi uh tara edel as we discussed tonight the superintendent is one of the most important decisions that we can make for our community for parents i'm sure the board has just done their best but i want to make sure that their due diligence has been done i don't know whether or not h what hya has done in terms of looking into all the superintendents that are presented as a candidate but the one that i am aware of that's coming into our township i want to make sure that they are the best fit for us due to i did my due diligence which i'm sure other parents may have as well this individual i don't won't say the name because i'll leave that to the board that's their decision but this person will be
145leaving their post in willing borough one year short of their contract unfortunately there are concerns as to whether this person will be the best fit for our district there have been numerous grievances filed against this individual individual by both staff and parents as well as harassment claims a discrimination lawsuit filed into while this person served the superintendent in irvington several staff members recently resigned including the principal and staff recently called for a vote of no confidence as a result of this person's leadership style teachers also raised concerns regarding a one-size-fits-all learning plan she instituted for every willing borrower student as teachers and parents know children certainly do not all learn the same way resulting only which can result in learning issues and reduce test scores in addition the school remained in remote learning only well
146beyond other school districts and children continue to be masked without a mask optional choice for parents these issues raise questionable leadership skills that may not be in the best interest of working staff children and parents again since the hiring of school superintendent is one of the most important decisions the board has to make i was going to mention although it's been answered earlier but it would be prudent to hold off on this appointment although you did address that monika earlier that you could not do so but i just want to make sure that parents are aware of this and hopefully we can work collaboratively collaboratively with this new superintendent and provide her the sports needed to make sure that she is a best fit for our community maybe some of these issues can be addressed
147tonight by this candidate in light of these concerns my name is marlene kaplan i have a wonderful granddaughter at the crescent school um i would just request that you use microphones for the board meeting there are several of you and i moved up i can't hear a word that you're saying and if you want public support and public participation please use microphones so that we can hear what you have to say thank you for comments i just want to thank helen and her team again for doing an unbelievable job of the budget as you do every year and i've i've told you this many times i didn't think it could get better but it has this one's gonna um thank you for all your hard work i want to um helen was on my list
148check that off appropriately appreciated but um i know it's a team effort so thank you um i also want to um just spend a second to thank everyone who's worked on making the full-day kindergarten happen and separate from that early childhood center which we didn't have i've been on the board for seven years and one of the first questions i asked when i got onto the board was why don't we have a full day kindergarten uh and several board members who are no longer on the board looked at me sideways and said no and i'm really happy that we'll be uh we'll be watching kindergarten students walk in uh in the fall for a full day of kindergarten that's how it should be and they shouldn't have to piece together what a half day looks
149like or be able to afford going to cer for a second half day to get a full day um so i'm really pleased to see that happen and i thank everyone who's worked on that project for many years um i also just want to say thank you to all of you in the community who are recognizing um that change is hard and uh we all have to stick together and support each other as we work through change in my personal professional life i have had four supervisors in four years uh it has been difficult it has been a challenge and it is something that has made me a stronger leader and has made me a better uh employee and has made me value the other parts of my job that are consistent things i can
150rely on my colleagues the students and i think it's really important for us to remember that change is hard just like you see in your students just like you see in your kids during covid that change was hard for them and it's going to be hard for us we need to come together to support each other as we move forward so thank you all of you who are recognizing um that i think you're recognizing that we're doing our best to make the best decision that we can for this district and uh hope that you can join us in um working together to move our district forward that's really important to all of us we took this decision very seriously as ms watson noted before thank you um i am going to do one thing out
151of order um because i failed to this miss haley amongst all of her other wonderful attributes um keeps me in line and i first for it just slipped my mind that we did have lots of committee meetings i was in all of them and i can't believe i forgot all of them so i'm gonna ask for the committee reports just quickly um randy if you could provide a brief synopsis although you know miss haley did do the finance yeah can you do a finance committee helen did a great job and um so i don't think i can add any more to her very thorough explanation of the budget and um i did spend a lot of time with her and danielle on tuesday morning going over everything and getting a better understanding of everything works
152and they do do an amazing job and everything is you know as perfect as it could be so i give them a lot of credit for all their hard work and i love their love of governors and miss casenza could you give a brief uh update on the personnel committee yeah on march we had a personality meeting at that meeting we discussed uh attending the superintendent contract we also discussed the submission authorization of the business administrator and assistant to reporting contracts to the county we also discussed buyback of vacation days for the business administrator and assistance for attendant during a state of emergency and also the possibility of some positions on the budget and lastly we discussed some creative solutions for the 2002 i'm sorry 22 thank you okay any additional regular award comments yeah
153um one of the reasons well i should say when i ran for election one of my main foundations was communication and transparency and today i did propose with monika just coming up with the overall you know communication to not only our community but to our taxpayers so it's something that we are going to be working on um just you know some silly things as what's going on at the middle school the new building i didn't know what was going on there um how our money's being spent job openings you know how our community can be of use to us um and then the other item i wanted to talk about was the hiring of the new superintendent um it was i guess my first exposure to something like this as being so new to the
154board i took it extremely seriously i took it as a huge responsibility i can tell you all i've lost many night's sleep over the decision and the decision that was made because i do take that responsibility so seriously but i do think that maybe we should take time and take a step back and i know we were behind with the county but if we're so late why can't what would it matter if we take an additional week or two just to further investigate and just you know dot our eyes cross our teeth to make sure you know moving forward that we have you know 100 buy-in no disrespect to the canada every candidate was overly qualified every person that was brought to us was beyond impressive i had no idea what i was going to
155encounter so um no disrespect to anybody but i that was my personal feeling and i think maybe it would maybe have the community you know be on the same page as everybody and we can all you know go into this as a team and have a positive experience if we take some time to further investigate and legitimize some of these concerns from the community any other board comments i'd like to thank uh mr freddie demaj for his uh comments i thought his comments were very powerful i think i've seen him in passing i haven't really had much conversation with him but i will say that a friend of mine who went to oc's many years ago continually speaks highly of him and that was over 20 years ago so i could just see the impact
156that he's making in the lives of children and those around him and what he said i thought was very um just kind of created a baseline where he didn't look at the position as uh adversarial he looked at it as a way to to be supportive of the continuing education that that we have become known to to be a part of so i just thank him for those um those are those comments and then i also thank this young lady right here for just um challenging us to make sure that we're being inclusive to everybody as far as the microphone so thank you for that and to all the candidates that who took the time out of their schedules and and followed their heart to be a part of the interview process it is a
157tough process and you know um i just really take my hats off to you guys for doing that any other board comments um moving to transportation can i get a motion to approve all of the items under transportation has been open moment all transportation items have passed closing the coding i get a motion to approve all of the items under policy still moved second is open all policy items passed closing the voting i get a motion to approve all items under personnel i'll move that second i'm opening the online voting sorry i have five yeses two no's one abstention i'll read them off the s's are mr bryce chris casenza dr levy mr schmooze mrs watson the nose are miss scaliano mrs stupler and the extension is dr faulk that's five yeses two no's one
158abstention motion carries uh no deferred action okay um so sorry wait this is all new um i'd like to formally introduce the entire community to dr neely hackett um dr hackett if you wouldn't mind saying a couple of words good evening everyone to the voorhees board of education members i want to thank you for your confidence for providing me with the opportunity to serve the voorhees family i truly truly appreciate your support and your confidence to the acting superintendent mr redfern i look forward to working with you as we engage in a collaborative effort to serve the voorhees family to the vouche staff members i eagerly anticipate our partnership with each and every one of you as we pursue the ultimate goal of meeting the needs of each and every student in the vorhees township
159public schools to the parents guardians and community stakeholders i'm excited for the opportunity to work with each of you as i believe that a quality education is a community commitment in regards to our pre in regard to our precious students i anticipate the time that i will be able to meet each of them to lay the foundation that i am committed to their success i'm honored to have been given the opportunity to serve as superintendent and i commit to each of you a superintendent who is a good listener a superintendent who is visible a superintendent who is transparent a superintendent who is collaborative a superintendent who is passionate about teaching and learning a superintendent who uses data to drive decision making but most importantly i commit to you a superintendent who absolutely loves children and
160i have loved students from the first day i walked into a classroom 28 years ago and the journey continues i look forward to meeting with all of the stakeholders and answering any questions that you have about my past experiences in education i can say to the young lady who asked the questions other than the two years that i've spent in williamsburg the remainder of your data is inaccurate and i would love to sit down with you one day and go over my past you're very welcome man i look forward to engaging with all stakeholders both in the district and in the community and i look forward to our journey together i promise you that i will roll up my sleeves from day one and work towards the students of the vorhees township public schools that's
161what i've done for 28 years and i will continue to do so and i am so very happy to be part of this wonderful family thank you very much congratulations i for one am so excited to work with you and i cannot wait to see all the wonderful things that you are going to do for the district and move us forward together new business can i get a motion to approve all the items under new business [Music] online voting is open i'll move by all new business items pass i'm closing the voting next meeting is may 4th 2022 um at the administration building at 7 pm audience participation anyone wishing to address the board please approach the podium and write your name and address on the log in sheet if you are attending via zoom
162please use the raise your hand feature to be acknowledged while the board has limited its ability to respond to the public on matters involving personnel litigation negotiations and attorney client privilege the board will now hear comments from the public comments are limited to three minutes the board will not take action this evening you will be notified by some later time by letter electronic mail telephone or in the context of a later board meeting of any action aboard that state not in person yes thanks thank you i would like to take this opportunity to thank the board for allowing me to serve the students the staff in the community over this past year you placed your trust in me you haven't given me support as we navigated some complex challenges since taking over as acting superintendent
163my only hope is to leave the vortice township district in a better place than when i found it i'm looking forward to continuing as acting superintendent working to ensure a smooth transition the 22-23 school year as a voorhees township school district employee for over 30 years i have never had to defend my reputation my character or my intentions my father always told me that your name is the one thing that can never be taken from you defend it when it is needed but always ensure that when it is mentioned it is mentioned with respect trust and dignity it is the name that he gave to me and it's the name that i've given to my daughters shortly after assuming responsibilities as acting superintendent my personal employment information was cowardly leaked out to the community to
164be posted all over social media i was attacked and portrayed as a union thug living a rich and famous lifestyle i was accused of not advocating for our students not caring about our community community and my only interest is serving my own self-interest my actions to enforce an executive order was compared to the atrocities of nazi germany during world war ii on a sunday morning in august my only wish was to go to the gym with my daughter before she left for college and we were berated and attacked in a parking lot because i was suffocating the children i make no apologies our association has always had an open respectful and cooperative relationship with our board we always attempted to find common ground and we respectfully agreed to disagree when needed my family undoubtedly will
165contest that we live a lifestyle of luxury i will not address the comparisons of nazi germany my primary goal this year was to open our schools to five full days of instruction except for four days pause after the holidays we've accomplished that goal as the director of cer my programs routinely began at seven o'clock a.m and include at 10 o'clock p.m seven days a week occupying all five schools in june when schools and families start taking their summer pause cer will be gearing up with over 1500 students in a variety of activities across the district once again from 7 a.m to 10 p.m cer is and continues to be one hundred percent financially self-sustaining we receive zero tax dollars from any state or local agencies the notion that this district is paying two superintendents is
166false i was receiving a small daily per diem in addition to my compensation as director of cer i have continued to oversee the cer programs programs that were brought to their needs with covet as per diem when calculated it probably falls fall short of the minimum wage from the 1970s early in my career and there are crescent teachers here to verify this i spent countless hours helping to collect and deliver food to needy families during thanksgiving i gave my own time to utilize my own vehicle to help deliver toys to needy families during the holidays i am the founder of the vta volleyball tournament that for over 20 years provided scholarships for over 100 graduating high school seniors during the 2008 financial crisis i had many families reach out to me they had to decide
167between putting a roof over their head and paying for child care during the pandemic families had their work hours reduced had to accept lesser paying positions and reached out to me for help over the years i have had i've helped numerous families who have fallen ill or felt on hard economic times and they needed assistance and i helped every single one of those families when the resource officer at crescent school fell ill to als and eventually lost his battle i sponsored the entire crescent school staff so they could participate in an als walk in his honor i have worked with warheads basketball softball soccer association providing our students with practice and game facilities i have worked with the vms drama club and voorhees theater company to provide rehearsal and performance space for our students i
168have worked regularly with the voorhees police department and fire department providing meeting and training facilities so they can better serve our community i help provide meeting places for newly elected members of town council to hold town hall meetings over the years i have helped numerous district projects to include technology playground equipment music equipment physical education and art supplies over the years i have worked properly with all pta groups providing meeting places and free camp vouchers for their fundraising efforts i have stood and i have mourned over fallen students and staff so to the community with all due respect if you're looking for someone to advocate for your students work with the community and support our staff you don't need to look far thank you madam president i'm gonna go danielle riggs teacher at osage and
169you always manage to get the last word always and like he like can one-up you he's like best jokester but i'm here tonight to thank you um it would be easy to say thank you for taking that job as superintendent but it's more than that you stepped into this job during the middle pandemic emotions were all over the place as teachers we were tired we were forced to reinvent how we delivered instruction and create inclusive classrooms we couldn't touch our kids we couldn't do hands-on it was totally different for those of us sorry dr young who've been around for a while there used to be this big billboard on route 73 voorhees the success address and eve we even had name uh license plates and at the time we were very young and we used
170to think oh my gosh like really but in hindsight it was true like we were this model district and i'm so proud and honored to be a part of it when mr redfern came in he immediately restored our faith not only in this amazing district but in ourselves for those of you don't know teachers are we're our own worst enemies we critique ourselves it's constant he had the difficult job of navigating the pandemic listening to concerns of parents teachers administration and deciding what was best for the students mr redfern has always put the kids first in every capacity i've worked for him in cer his wife is one of my long time dearest friends he is it's endless when i was in graduate school i had to write it which by the way mr redfern
171wrote me a letter recommendation had to write a paper on what makes an effective leader but we weren't allowed to do all the things that checked the boxes you had to think outside of that and i used mr redfern as my example i never shared it with them because you know but here's a small snippet mr redford exemplifies what a leader should be he is present he builds rapport with staff students and parents he doesn't seek the limelight or a photo opportunity he's not afraid to jump in and help in any situation and for those of you who don't know mr ridford kicked it old school with the sub shortage and jumped into some gym classes because we needed the bodies he creates an environment that is inclusive and embraces differing opinions he looks at
172problems from different angles not just a narrow lens his voice does not have to be the loudest he holds people accountable he doesn't ask anyone to do anything he wouldn't do thank you for believing in us thank you for being someone we can trust thank you for the time you must have taken away from your family because god knows every time i drove by that administration building your car was in there i would be at the diner with my son after a late night hockey game and your car was there um thank you for taking the time to visit our classrooms and not just to get to know us as teachers but getting to know our kids i missed your visit yesterday and one of the very first things my third grader said was you
173missed mr redfern you missed him we solved the riddle um i've had the privilege of working in this district for longer than some of my colleagues have been alive mr redfern mike you're everything that's good about voorhees thank you for building on the amazing foundation and taking us on this extraordinary path because of you we are stronger together hello everyone my name is chris calabria and i am the principal of the voyage middle school but i'm here to represent the administrators as the president of the administrators association uh and we would like to just publicly recognize and thank uh mr redford redfern for his unwavering support during his tenure as acting superintendent like many people have already said it it was a very difficult transition and it was a very scary time to be an
174administrator during covet and we all came together and and it was mostly because of mike and just knowing we could trust him i'm sorry i'm going to lose it um and he just stepped into a challenge by leading this district in time of such chaos and turmoil and he did it with character he did it with integrity and he did it with grace he has guided and supported us he has held open lines of communication and he has been very collaborative in the decision-making process which has proven to be invaluable in the recent months so to mr redfearn thank you for more than 30 years of dedicated service to the voree schools and not hesitating to step into the role as acting superintendent we appreciate you more than we can even begin to say and
175it has been our honor and privilege to learn from you and work alongside of you so thank you very much for everything that you have done for us we really look forward to working with you hello i'm tracy rossi i'm from crescent school third grade teacher so this all started with my class went outside to visit our meadow that we have across the school that's named after mr bursal we needed some trash and the kids quickly got upset and we're like we have to clean it up and i was like hold it i don't know so we we went inside we talked to mr clock quickly mr bedford got involved mr mattis got involved and it just went up being an incredible experience for my children and i wanted to read this and i want
176to thank mr radford for all you do to make this district better he took the time to be present for all of us and our students i have taught in voorhees from 32 years i have never had a class know who the superintendent was my class not only knows who he is but when they see him in the hallway they quickly come back to me and they're like mr redfern's here you got to go find them did you see them i didn't see them i have to see them too they get very excited uh mr redfern uh we are so happy all the time to see you thank you for having an impact not only on all of the staff but also the children it truly is incredible and so great to see when they
177get so excited to see you and you touch all of us with not just words but with actions thank you hi my name is jen bransofort i'm a teacher at crescent for 30 years and i'm also a member of the community um so many things but everyone's kind of set it before me but i just want to say first of all i was really upset to miss the real housewives of um tv tonight but this kind of took the cake um at any rate to make a statement that we are a broken district is the furthest thing from the truth um to say your words mrs watson the exceptional leader next to you has made us where he's strong and all of the reasons that my colleagues esteemed colleagues spoke about the amazing mr redfern
178could not be anything but the truest words out there mr redfern he has motivated us as a community as a staff the children love you again everything that you said you get there you were wiping tables alongside teachers you were bringing buster buster's um breakfast and the drivers you acknowledge everyone from the maintenance staff to a cafeteria worker to the principals to the teachers to the kids to the parents um and i just say thank you so much for everything you did my friend you're going to be a tough act to follow because you are a consummate leader thank you mr redfern i just want to say as a member of this community as a parent i'm going to miss you you and i may have agreed disagreed on the masking issue but i respected
179the fact that i knew you were trying to do what you thought was best for this community and for our children but my daughter went through cancer you were there listened to my concerns you helped me through this time and assured me that her needs would be addressed i appreciated i worry what's gonna happen next without your leadership here because i respected you for listening to my concerns your door was always open i knew i could count on you to come in at any time and you would sit down with me on a one-to-one basis and listen to my concerns and do so without judgment and i respected that and i felt like so you listened my daughter is going to miss that because she appreciated all that they've done for her you reached out
180you ensured that she got the things that she needed especially with the 504 plan making sure she didn't fall behind i struggled during that time working with my daughter to make sure her educational needs were met as well as doing my bread to come in as a board of education member i went throughout the community going house to house all while worrying about my daughter making sure that she was getting what she needed but i knew that i wanted to make sure that our all our kids were represented just like my daughter was represented and i appreciate everything you do and i just want to make sure that you know that going out tonight so thank you thank you for everything that you did for my child thank you hi excuse me um i'm carrie
181mann i'm a teacher um at signal hill fifth grade um i grew up in vorhee schools i was a osage kid and i loved vorhees so i'm so happy that i was able to come back but i just want to say a couple words to you today mr redfern great leaders don't seek power they're called by necessity mr redfern you were called to necessity at a time when our district needed a strong leader um i want to say thank you you stepped in when we needed someone the most someone we could trust to make decisions from neutral ground on how to best address the ever-growing needs of our students you are the guiding light when morale was down and a feeling of hopelessness spread across us you spent countless hours listening researching contemplating and listening
182to more in order to lead our district forward in a positive way you serve the parents the staff and the students well it's been an honor to not only work beside you but under you you're a man of character of strong morals i hope you can continue to visit signal hill because our kids love when they see you thank you so much good evening everyone this is tammy wilhelm i live at three briarwood drive in voorhees i've been a resident for 36 years and all four of my children have gone through our school system thank you to the board for volunteering to serve our community and trying and continuing to try to find a balance in all that you do it is certainly not an easy task now i want to personally thank mike redfern
183for his leadership and service as our acting superintendent when our entire community needed him the most as difficult as this year has been he helped all of us deal with the ups and downs of this pandemic his leadership ensured the safety of our students and staff his encouragement empathy support and confidence gave us hope for the future his attention to detail and communication skills gave us the assurance that together we could make this school year success but safely the actions taken to support the students the parents and the staff were critical to get us all through this crisis and back on the road to something normal for the school community mike has been an integral part of this community for over 30 years he has dedicated his career and served vorhees township schools with integrity
184honesty respect compassion and a basic sense of fairness that has benefited our entire community thank you mike for everything you make us stronger together uh charlene ackerman 23 shenandoah drive um i've had two children go through the voorhees schools and i currently have two children enrolled in voorhees schools and i just want to echo what the staff has said and what some of the parents have said mr redfern um you exemplify what i as a stakeholder would like in a superintendent um i've never seen all five schools as one as they are since you know you've been uh the leader um i've been impressed how you acted throughout the pandemic i did i like remote learning no did anyone i don't think so but that was the safe and that was the right thing to
185do and i appreciate that you use statistics and data to get to where you needed to be i hope that you know that everything that you're hearing tonight is not only coming from the staff but also coming from the residents i appreciate everything you've done thank you word comments shining star when you give that speech um it's like i just wanted to stand behind you with your like and be like when there were you get your character you stay cool and you show them what you're looking at you show them that you truly are a shiny star and i just think the world of you i think you're gentlemen um you're definitely an example that i of a man that i want my kids [Laughter] the way that see what this is great it certainly
186made me a better person and a better leader so i wanted to thank you for that um i wanted to switch gears for just one second and then and on march 6th there was a a memorial called black balloon day i'm not sure if anybody in this room but it's a memorial for the people who have died from just this past year there have been over a hundred thousand people who have died including many young people um you know it's one of the most heartbreaking things that i think our country is going through right now there is something we can do about it so so i'd like to advocate for our schools to start keeping rescue joseph the nurse's office is this is a it's an intranasal medication i'm not sure if we do it
187or not but i want to make sure that we do because it's something that's so important to protect our students and our staff yes we do have in the matter all of our nurses just have retraining on it so yes okay i like to um personally thank uh mr redfern um there was a time not too long ago that um my family and i were really struggling so when he speaks of having to make the decision between a family paying the rent or paying for cer whatever the case may be he speaks the truth on that because i benefited from knowing him and for him caring about my family so first and foremost i thank you for that secondly i thank you for um leading us um out of the different uh things that we
188were going through when i first came on the board um that you could hear from the the sentiments the teachers expressed um to you and um those words i mean there you can't put a price tag on that and never been enough words to thank you for what you did i'd like to also thank um our fellow board members as well because it took the courage for us to recognize that something was maybe a miss and we needed to uh call the right person and to help shore the shore the boat so to speak so i thank all my board members for us and that was a tough decision that was met with a lot of pushback but to to see how it's celebrated i think is just um the fact that things always can
189evolve if we trust the process so with that being said i personally thank you not only for what you did for me and my family but also for what you've done for our district to just enhance and continue to help us evolve and and hit that mark and leave that mark for people to follow and to uh try to obtain to so thank you so much um can i speak i wanted to also thank mr redburn um it's amazing to hear how supportive his own staff is um and i know him and his wife have dedicated their whole careers to voorhees to our children and they've made quite an impact on everyone and so many people in our community so we are so fortunate and he does put in many many hours because anytime i
190send him an email at a random time i do get an immediate response so dedication is just so overwhelming and i was fascinated to learn um about cer and how much it does contribute back to our community so that's a you know a huge accomplishment as well so thank you mike not much i can add to any of this but i want to thank you on a personal level for taking my phone calls for years finding me space when i needed space um repairing the things that were broken while i use that space you know i let helen hear it mike i'll say thank you to you and i'll echo uh what many of the teachers said um dr hackett you have big shoes to fill so i hope you're up for the challenge thank
191you so i will just there's not much to add um and i i don't i don't think i'll be able to get through it without crying um i remember the phone call to you and you saying i'm sorry what do you want me to do and i said we um we really need you to step up and be the acting superintendent and we were like wait what tomorrow you're like wait yeah right and i was like yeah tomorrow um and there was no hesitation you you immediately just wanted to know what you needed to do how to do it um you're extraordinary and i loved working with you i'm going to continue working with you you have great things in store for you and i will leave you with that and it's two meetings in
192a row um okay motion to approve all of the items under finance please open there is no executive session can i get a motion to adjourn the meeting all those in favor aye adjourned [Applause]