001special meeting of the wachong borough board of education on june 29 2020 at 6 00 pm may we please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states american america and to the republic for which it stands a nation one nation [Music] welcome to a meeting of the board of education of the borough of wachong please be advised that this and all meetings of the board are open to the public and media consistent with the open public meetings act and that the advance notice required therein has been provided this is a regular meeting of the board of education of the borough of wachong at which formal action may be taken this meeting is being conducted remotely using communication technology instructions for joining the meeting and participating in public
002comments have been posted on the district website and sent to the wachongboro and the wachong public library as well as to the school community through an email blast the public will have an opportunity to be heard as shown on the agenda at points in the meeting provided for the public to address the board recording or photographing other than for private personal use requires the consent of parent guardians whose children may be included in the image can we have a roll call please mr barbella here mr buckarelli beer mrs harvey here mrs ingrassia here mr kraft here mr maddie ossie mrs morales yeah mrs o'donnell yeah it's here mrs scharf here you're a beat present can i have a motion to go into executive session second all in favor say aye aye any opposed uh mr
003pepe can you please read what will be discussed in the closed session whereas the open public meetings act njsa 10 calling 4-11 permits the board of education to meet in closed session to discuss certain matters now therefore it be now therefore be it resolved the board of education adjourns to close session to discuss pending or anticipated litigation or contract negotiation and or matters of attorney-client privilege and specific specific perspective or current employees unless all who could be adversely affected request an open session further resolved the minutes of this closed session will be made public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists this closed session may be followed by an open session where action may be taken i'll see you guys in exact we're rich we have a separate um link for that in a
004separate email we should have received the calendar invitation i can just put it can you just put those in emails from now on the calendar is a funky thing on this uh device well the email should have come as an email okay great citation my foreign i don't know so see foreign hmm how are we doing rich i'm waiting for adam craft jennifer scharf um i think jen sharps on she's just muted no i'm waiting for them to get unmuted so we can vote all right we're getting right now just adam um adam if you can hear us you need to accept the unmuting this can i can i have a motion to come out of executive session don't move yale a second second jen um all in favor say aye aye any no okay
005so this is um the board member equity training by gwen thornton our new jersey school board association representative when thank you for coming um this evening yeah i'll leave it there's an american flag up did you all need to yeah manny you can put up gwen's presentation thank you there we go although i'm always it's almost the fourth of july so that's not a bad thing so i'm here this evening to talk about equity and we entitle it equity and achievement because providing equity really does speak to student achievement and um that's why we have entitled that so if you go to the next slide oftentimes board members and and folks out in the public say well what's the difference what it what is equity and what does that mean in terms of the school
006system you can go to the next slide so the council of chiefs state state school state officers which are all of the um commissioners of education across the country have determined that it means that every student has access um to the resources and the rigor they need at a given point time across race gender ethnicity language disability sexual orientation family background and or family income next slide national school boards definition differs slightly but is very similar and it's the intentional allocation of resources instructions and opportunity according to need requiring that discriminatory practices prejudices and beliefs be identified and eradicated and i have this one up because this really does speak to the role of the board in this process and that is that it's really part of your responsibility to see that you are intentional
007um in your allocations of resources instruction and opportunity that you do your decision decision-making through a lens of equity meaning that you're going to eliminate any of those practices or prejudices that might in fact impede on student growth and achievement next slide please so how do we differentiate between equity and equality when i was a board member we had 12 elementary schools and i recall a discussion around our budget at one point where we were very excited that we were providing every single student at every one of those elementary schools with the exact same allocation of funding for supplies and materials and we never really thought much beyond that to be perfectly honest with you one of those schools was a title one school and had significantly greater needs in terms of the student population
008there there were greater numbers of ell students in that particular building and there were a greater number of kids on free and reduced lunch in that particular building but it was never a thought that that there should be anything but an equal allocation which was very short-sighted quite frankly on our hand on our part but at the time it was not something that was even discussed so you know the difference between equity and equality is really providing the same which is what we were doing and this goes back some 20 years so i feel a little better about telling you that versus providing what's needed next so here's a a pictorial representation of equality next and here is a slide that provides equity so kids have varying needs and what you need to do is
009to respond to those varying needs and really you know equality still leaves some people behind because you know they all have the same size stool but they all can't see over the fence because all students come to us from different perspectives different viewpoints different homes um different experiences so it's really up to us to provide them what they need so that they can all watch the baseball game or all participate in the educational program fully and have for example full access to the total curriculum that your district can provide next um here's another one again you know much much the same thought um but again just picking apples um equality doesn't equal equity um without that you're not really meeting the needs of all students next this actually is a pictorial representation that was done
010by the robert wood johnson foundation and again it really does speak to providing um what every child needs to be able to fully participate so we're not just talking about um the classroom instruction but all of your co-curricular programming as well you know every aspect of the educational system to be looked at in terms again equity are we providing opportunities for all students to be able to fully participate in the curriculum which is why i've included this slide because this is clearly not in a classroom but it's important to students to be able to have access to all aspects of the educational life next so you know what why equity why is that important well you know a lack of equity will actually ultimately end in disparate outcomes um and over a lifetime um it
011can make a huge difference so we are really creating opportunity gaps those gut gaps show up for students in graduation rates in student grades and their gpas in access to ap classes international baccalaureate classes and high level courses at the high school level it shows up sometimes as over classification in special education in school discipline practices and policies many districts have gone to restorative justice policies as a way of addressing those disparities it shows up in disparate outcomes around college readiness and success college persistence and success not just as a student get admitted but does he or she have the ability to persist overcome whatever challenges there may be um and then participation in co-curricular activities and sports and and many other areas of education life so really it's that lack of equity that can
012create disparate outcomes that might not be apparent today um in your k-8 district but ultimately down the road may show up at the high school level so the more equitable opportunities you can provide now the more likely that these kind of disparate outcomes won't persist next please thank you so um one of the problems is that in many areas there is systemic um inequalities that have sort of been built into the system over time that we may not think about when we're making our decisions boards so just you know in terms of um staff training and making sure that you're providing tv to your staff especially now for example as we've entered this coveted age and are likely to have some form of hybrid learning for next year making sure that your staff have equal
013access to the kinds of professional development that they need based on their skill levels um what kind of gifted and talented program and program tracking exists how do kids access those opportunities do all students have access to those opportunities your human resources you know your hiring practices in terms of recruiting and retaining high quality staff that reflect the diversity of your student body that students tend to achieve at greater heights when they have are taught by by folks that look like them at some point looking at student-teacher ratios to make sure that those are equitable across the grade levels um looking at school funding disparities and how you're allocating your resources now you only have the two schools so that's probably a little bit less of a problem um and of course access to extracurricular
014and non-core subject areas whether you're talking about access to choir access to a band um all of those pieces that are co-curricular but go to engaging students so the idea is that again as you're going through and making your budget decisions as you're making policy decisions as you're looking at your instructional program as you're looking at your co-curricular opportunities you have to have that lens of are we providing opportunities for all students to have access and additionally because students come to it in different ways we may have to provide some level of support for some students to be able to access those pieces of the curricular program over time so that they have that ability to have access next please [Music] um it's it's very easy sometimes to look at it from a deficit focused
015lens and say well you know let's take a quick solution let's just do one thing and not another it's much different to have a system focus because it really does require changes in values approaches um relationships with people to do the work of solving these kinds of problems so next slide when i say deficit focus if someone's not doing well sometimes it's really easy can you go to the next slide please um to say your blood pressure is too high so we put somebody on blood pressure medication um they're broken we fix them so if somebody comes to you with a deficit rather than looking at why that deficit exists to begin with we just make the easy fix um rather than looking at it from a systemic point of view next slide which is
016really a system focus we need to change the system um if we drank more water if we let a healthier life if we reduce stress for example um and exercised regularly perhaps you wouldn't need the medication so there's two ways to look at it you know you can look at it as a deficit or you can look at it systemically and see that you have to look at your system and figure out what needs changed within the system itself to ensure that those deficits and disparate outcomes don't continue next slide so we showed you i showed you those slides before and and you'll recall that on the first one the kids couldn't see the baseball game because there they had equal height stools in the second one they provided equity in that they gave them
017the right kind of stool so they could see but the third image is really all about equity because the impediment the barrier that sometimes is the system was completely removed and then no one needed a stool because those systemic barriers had been removed so it's really that third image around removing the impediments for students that really is the true lens of equity it's not just about the quick fix of giving someone you know stool to stand on so they can see that's great that's better but it's not a total answer the answer has to do with removing those impediments that are systemic barriers um to equity that exists within our educational systems and within many institutions within our society as we've been watching over the last several weeks you know play out live on the
018t television and those kind of inequities are systemic next side so you might say well you know from a board standpoint what is the legal basis for um having equity um and it's actually in the administrative code um that implements laws against discrimination um titles six and seven of the civil rights act the equal employment act title ix which primarily has to do with co-curricular programming the equal pay act and then section 504 of the rehabilitation act and the idea are all some of the um legal basis for making changes to their grams to ensure equity so it is well grounded in in law that boards of education are responsible for ensuring equitable education for all students next so what does that mean for the board it means that you have to have a set
019of cohesive policies programs and practices equal access to opportunities for all learners including students and teachers this is right in the in the administrative code that you have to promote educational opportunities um to ensure a learning environment free from all forms of prejudice discrimination harassment based on race creed color national origin ancestry age marital status affectional or sexual orientation gender religion disability or socio-economic status you are responsible and every district must create an affirmative action team and have an affirmative action officer that's required in the statute next slide you're required to annually appoint a certificated staff member as you that affirmative action officer he or she is responsible for coordinating equity professional development convenes an affirmative action team in the district for equity plan development and handles and district grievance procedures once every three years
020you're responsible as a board to develop a comprehensive equity plan that corrects any kind of discriminatory or inequitable education and hiring policies patterns programs and practices affecting your facilities um the last one was done on june 14th of 2019 so june of last year so it runs for another two years so it ran 2019-20 it'll run through the 2021 school year and then in 2122 that board will be responsible in district for creating a new equity plan to address wherever you are and to continue to move the board forward toward the elimination of those perhaps institutional practices that may be impeding an equitable education for all students next so the plan has to include that you have in place already pd professional development on equality in school and classroom practices it has to have goals
021objectives timelines and benchmarks it was submitted to your executive county superintendent for approval and it has to be implemented within 60 days of that approval um failure to do so can lead to sanctions from the doe and then off years which next year will be won in 2021 and 21 22 will be the off years you will have to set submit approve a statement of assurance including an annual appointment of your affirmative action officer to the doe because they they monitor this to make sure um that every district has a plan and an affirmative action officer and your statement of assurance is the board's um guarantee that that in fact is indeed in place in your district so the board does have a role to play in this um and the most important role is
022really around your decision making and making those decisions through the lens of that how do we reduce whatever institutional barriers may exist to provide greater opportunities for kids next so your annual you will there are required resolutions and i've talked about most of them you did this reorganization appointed your affirmative action officer by september 1st of this year and september 1st of 2021 you will approve your annual statement of insurance that you have an equity plan in place you have to have a resolution approving the creation of an affirmative action team and authorization to conduct a needs assessment develop a comprehensive equity plan that resolution will happen again in 2022 and only happens every three years but i just wanted to give you an idea of what the sequence looks like for all of you
023and then you will pass a resolution authorizing the submission of the proposed comprehensive equity plan in 2022 so you have a plan in place um already that you're that is for equity in your district but you will be before september approving your statement of assurance that you are following um that equity plan next so you know how can the board support and champion champion equity for all students you know making a clear commitment to school culture that embraces access opportunity and inclusion and support is critically important increasing focus around students strengths and assets versus their deficits you know what are the supports that we can provide as a district to to raise every child um to to provide them with the ability to access every aspect of the curriculum a rising tide raises all ships
024so the better that we do in terms of providing those supports and opportunities helps the entire district you know so expanding your knowledge and understanding of what the disparate outcomes are and what are the opportunity gaps that create them um you can work to fill those and again using a lens of equity in all of the decision making that you do so that you know every item on your agenda really that you take action on is viewed in you know an equity lens does this provide more next slide please so making sure that everything you do supports that adopting supporting and implementing an equity equity-based vision mission goals and policies to provide a framework for the district dismantling policies looking at your policies and seeing which ones support disparities that are in your current policy
025manual that you may not have looked at through that equity lens that may still exist so you know for your policy committee to look at your policies and see do we have policies that provide impediments so the full range of opportunities for all students is something that the board should look at next um in maintaining effective communications and relationships with your superintendent and holding the superintendent accountable for student achievement and making sure that those supports are there for all students to be able to reach their potential next allocating all resources equitably looking at that from a facility standpoint a staffing standpoint from equipment to typical technology field trips you know one of the pieces to the covid19 you may have seen it the number publicized but there were some 89 000 students statewide that had
026no access to technology from march until the end of the school year so that you know created a huge set of disparate outcomes for those kids that did not have access to technology that many students had and so you know that creates an opportunity gap because those kids then are that much further behind so looking at all of those things and making sure that we are providing the necessary equipment and materials that we're providing the technology that we are you know underwriting in in part if necessary um the opportunity for all students to participate in whatever kinds of field trips and co-curricular opportunities that are out there next utilizing data while looking at the academic performance but not just an academic performance looking at that data in terms of attendance graduation rates co-curricular participation access
027to guidance in special services so that you know students are encouraged and supported as they go to challenge themselves to take more rigorous courses so that they might you know stretch to take algebra one um in eighth grade or geometry in eighth grade to make sure that all students have access to that opportunity ensuring that every teacher is taught every classroom um every teacher is well prepared and high quality and that every school is led by a high quality principal we know that the greatest impact on student achievement is the quality of instruction and so making sure that all students have access to high quality staff who can really work with them to move them forward is critically important and that's something that the board can again look at moving forward next with your community
028you know educating and engaging them into a system of urgency to do whatever it takes to see that every child succeeds not just my child but all children and really strategically engaging families residents businesses elected officials to increase the effectiveness of collaborative efforts to support the academic and social success of all students that's critically important to make sure that you have that support for all students and not just one group of students over another next demonstrating leadership courage and the will to govern on behalf of the entire community modeling high standards sometimes you know the kind of changes that need to be made in an institution are difficult and challenging they may not always be popular but making sure that your work plans really align with system improvement priorities and investing in your professional development
029which you have done and are continuing to do this tonight and annually engage in self-assessment how are we doing this abort and supporting this effort because it is sometimes challenging um to be able to make the changes that you really may need to make within your school district to change next expect some opposition um again you know people support this until sometimes when it moves their cheese change is difficult and it's not always embraced by everyone um understand that you know this is not a this is a process it's not a program it's not an initiative you know it is a mindset it is lens by which you make decisions it is an understanding that again you know a rising tide raises all ships that providing all children with the same opportunities to participate fully
030um is something that's critically important so it will take time to make some of these changes um and as some of you know change in education is more evolution than revolution and sometimes that's very frustrating for board members but i think routinely asking two questions as you make your decisions who will benefit from this decision and will this decision open or close doors of opportunities for kids and i think when you look at your decision-making from that perspective you know who will benefit this will this benefit all children will this open or close doors of opportunity really will help you in making the very best decisions that you can for all students because i know that's why you're there that's why you're board members because you care about all children in your community so really
031looking at your system and seeing what's working well what's available and then perhaps where are those places where you know the system may be operating in a way that creates disparate incomes outcomes that you can change um by changing your policies by changing the way you make budget or allocate funding for example and again you know you have to be courageous change is not easy it's not always embraced by everyone but that's not a reason not to move forward when it benefits children when it opens doors of opportunity for kids so um next slide you know you can't mandate a transformation but you can begin acting in ways to transform the thinking of the educational community and providing learning environments that will transform kids lives and so you won't see those same kind of outcomes
032that you may be seeing now so this was really intended as a brief in overview of what equity looks like what your role as a board is in terms of the state's expectations for um having a plan in place but more importantly just to help you get thinking about how do we foster equity across the district how do we look at what we're doing what are some of the ways that we as a board can begin to make those kinds of changes that will improve opportunities for all students questions that i can answer for you all right well thank you as always it is a pleasure to see all of you again um i wish all of you are very happy healthy safe and i mean healthy in a big way um summer please stay
033safe if there's anything i can do to assist you please do not hesitate to reach out and i look forward to seeing you all soon in person rather than on zoom and hopefully that'll be sooner rather than later when is this um presentation available on the nj sba website or are you able to send us a version of this or it is not there yet but we should be posting it shortly okay okay okay so we can we can look for it there if any uh board members need to go back and reference anything yes and i guess obviously this uh the video recording of our meeting anyway but yes absolutely okay very nice presentation gwen thank you thank you you're welcome jen thank you thank you everyone have a good evening thank you so
034much all right bye [Music] okay now we move on to board member comments are there any board members with comments uh i have a comment dory so uh is it okay to proceed sure go for it yeah um just reflecting on this training we just had which um equity and achievement would not have been um i i guess i wouldn't have associated that exactly with diversity and inclusion i noticed that the uh the town web uh the town resolution is diversity equity and inclusion so there's many you know ways to describe this but we talked about board goals last meeting and i had suggested a diversity and inclusion goal and a specific one which was sort of mirror what the department of education is piloting right now which is an effort to hire diverse candidates
035as educators and administrators in our district and um we had a debate about it and it wasn't like anybody was specifically against it it was just more like well we didn't want to be that specific about what we're going to do and we all decided that you know much like this slide presentation we would look at everything we do through a lens of uh diversity and inclusion or equity and achievement um whatever phrase you use but you know in my experience when you have sort of general you know general kind of ideals you often don't make a lot of progress because people just say yo you know we do everything that way so you know nobody really has a specific um target and so one of the ones i wanted you know was that but
036um it occurred to me that what happened afterwards really moved me we had a very a really sort of uh intelligent articulate poised and courageous in my opinion middle school graduating student come and talk to us during the board comments section and she said a couple of things which you know really resonated with me one was you know i'd like to see the curriculum reflect more about either black history or a diverse history rather than just during black history month learn about one person or have one class but also about you know classes about racial bias etc and then the next thing she said really you know really hit me and she said um i'd like to see teachers educators administrators that look like me that look like me and i just kind of felt
037it in my gut that you know maybe i gave up too early or something like that and i was just thinking about it and i said okay well listen you know the board made the decision with the goals or the goals but the one thing i would ask you know i went to i went to the internet and i looked up watchong district and i couldn't find anything recent i have something from the 2017-2018 school year on publicschoolsreview.com and i don't know if this is right or not and so i'd look to the administration for this uh watson district percentage of asian students 21 percent percentage of hispanic students percentage of black students 6 percentage of white students 59 and percentage of two or more races students four percent and so there was no there
038was nothing i could find about the percentage of um you know the demographics on educators or administrators so all i would ask you know i mean you know i'm asking for this people may disagree with me but i just think it's you know kind of easy to do is for the administration to maybe next meeting and then maybe every three months every quarter after that just just show us the facts what's what's the makeup of the student body and what's the makeup of the administrators and educators and that's it that's my simple request just facts and people can make of them what they want thank you any other comments rich you know thank you for saying that i i feel similarly um and just being part of the committees that i'm on i just i'm
039gonna keep an open dialogue with the administration while we're meeting um you know i talk a lot about wanting to see how we're going to measure the goals and yes so we put diversity equity and inclusion across all of the goals and i think it's up to us and the administration to actually do it enough to us to hold them accountable and be able to measure it i'm open to any other suggestions on how to do so i love you know simple easy right and build on from there start somewhere so any other suggestions people on the board people in the administration people in the public have i'm all for it um i just wanted to say too that after i heard cali speak you know i kind of felt the same way rich um
040i probably i don't i obviously don't have as much experience in in what you do and you know i i kind of took it as a challenge um to make sure that we have action items within every goal that also represented diversity and inclusion um but i also um have started a dialogue with most of the committee chairs i didn't unfortunately get to gail yet um which i will gail i'm gonna get to you um but i did have a conversation with them and also the superintendent about um you know how we can you know either pull certain let's say policies to review them um how we can have this discussion in our committee meetings um in hopes of being definitely more transparent with the community about things that we're doing well on and then
041obviously areas where we we have found that there definitely needs to be some improvement and then how we're improving that and how we're going about it um but i think that you know even within our committees creating those goals and you know actionable items and timelines and whatnot is extremely important for for us to be able to understand if we're actually making a difference and we're actually addressing issues or um because i i agree with you i feel it's easy for us just to kind of say this and then we never visit it again so um and i agree with adam as well i mean we're the ones who are accountable for all of this um so i guess long story short i absolutely agree with you and um you know myself as just one
042board member i've just contacted some committee chairs to try and start getting us moving you know in that direction um so that you know we we continue to be vigilant on finding those areas that we have to improve upon because there are going to be areas where we're not doing or we're not being successful and we can do better so and then just making sure we report back to our community about it i think is is important and it's good to be honest about those things so yeah let me just be clear i don't know the facts all i know is what i read on the internet so that's all i'm asking for um from actually from the horse's mouth right from the administration on the demographics of the student body administrators and the teachers
043any other comments from board members okay um superintendent remarks thank you mrs harvey i'll begin with cusack uh after i gave the cusack update at the june 15 meeting i received documents from the state confirming our scores as reported by the county and officially deeming the district high performing these documents are on the district website under cusack information and again the scores were as follows operations 100 fiscal 96 percent governance 95 percent personnel 95 percent construction and program 91 thank you again to the cusack committee but really everyone in the district should be proud of their contributions that led to these fine scores we will not have to go through the cusack process for another three years i'm required to report this um you know by the state and that's why i did it i
044didn't know when we were going to get this update but i'm glad i gave the update june 15th and i was very pleased to get the confirmation soon thereafter with respect to the modified eighth grade ceremony which we talked about at the last board meeting principal kids sent out a survey in response we received 50 responses from 37 parents and 13 students uh represented basically a 37 percent um percentage of the surveyed population there were only six of the 50 respondents that said they would not participate so as indicated in the survey we plan to hold the modified promotion ceremony on july 14th at 6 00 pm we'll follow the health and safety product protocols outlined on the survey but we also have concerns about anyone you will have recently traveled to states that are
045seeing surges in cases pay close attention to that more information will come from principal kidd about the details everyone knows we finally got the state guidance on friday afternoon for [Music] prospective reopening plans uh the document is 104 pages long and we've been going through it carefully and outlining the important elements we're planning for in-person instruction to the extent allowable we'll be following the guidance course and establishing the appropriate committees to facilitate a comprehensive planning process but it's too early to determine the exact nature of the protocols we are taking the health and safety guidance very seriously we don't have to put in place significant protocols for health screenings procedures for temporarily isolating anyone to become symptomatic while in school and contact tracing we'll be working closely with our nurses and public health officials and
046we also will be collaborating with the county superintendents county office of the department of education in-house we have built up a reserve of cleaning supplies and ppe and are developing a plan for additional purchases we also are considering strict protocols regarding bathroom usage and we'll continue to educate our students on the importance of good hygiene and hand washing we'll be improving signage around the buildings and making hand sanitizer available in key locations we have even looked into a consultant to possibly uh ensure that we're doing everything possible to make sure our students and staff are safe social distancing requirements in the guidance um creates some real challenges in the classrooms and on the buses to comply with the restrictions we have to consider hybrid scheduling models that may include a b days the idea is
047to reduce the number of students in school on any given day but we have to find the right balance with that and with supplementing distance learning on the days when students are not in school there's plenty to consider here and more research certainly is needed we also have to be prepared for return to full virtual instruction state guidance acknowledges that based on current health data some form of in-person instruction is feasible but if the data changes over the next few months we have to be prepared for a return to remote instruction so we're looking at ways to improve the distance learning experience for students faculty and families examining what we learned from the last three months in determining a path forward based on data collected we're examining the best way to coordinate any necessary training
048for staff and devising ways to roll out improved instructional support for families we also are considering the challenges associated with the flexible curriculum and adding a more in-depth focus on social and emotional learning as ever from the agenda tonight we're taking steps to ensure that special services are being provided over the summer for the esy program and in preparation for the fall we're developing surveys for families and staff which will gather feedback on the health and safety protocols in-person instruction hybrid scheduling and distance learning we'll be working closely with the board and with the school community to make sure we're doing everything possible to create a safe learning environment and to get back to school regardless of what school looks like in september it's important to remember that this is an opportunity to reshape and
049transform learning bring it fully into the 21st century and i look forward to that challenge there are plenty of additional considerations and we'll keep the public informed thank you for your attention um george i would also like to just open it up for board members if they have any questions or or what not um for us to discuss the school opening preparations i know some board members have raised some questions and i think this is a great time for them to have have a discussion with you so if anyone has any questions for george or all right uh georgetown it's more it's more just like a thought bubble out of my head um after reading that uh document as a as a parent as an educator um and as a board member too but i
050found the busing section to be particularly um you know we all knew before that document came out that busing uh would be an issue but i mean if i recall correctly you know typically a bus seats 54 children uh with that document they're talking about like 11 children per bus am i correct they said 11 if you see the students you know one in a row and skip a row they also suggested that you could if you put other precautions in place that you could double that to roughly 22 students right right right but then they're you know and then they're talking about taking the time with the roots to sanitize the buses right between valley view and bay berry yeah i mean just really um really really overwhelming and i guess where my head
051is at and my head was certainly here before this happened um you know with regards to the buildings i think that we may and the document refers to this we may have more students more families who opt to allow their children to either walk to school you know the older children at valley view to walk to school uh you know unattended most likely because they're older um bay berry attended um but i think that that's definitely um you know something that i think we need to look back again with with the town that we need proper signage whether it's coming from the county or the town that's not really my area of expertise but crossing guards like up in new providence if anyone's familiar a lot of their uh strange corners and crossings they have
052the orange flags uh you know kind of hanging in the the crosswalk signs just you know i i don't know i mean i just think the busing thing is um it's monumental transportation is a huge issue it absolutely is there's probably a hundred huge issues um mike why be just curious about you know what are we doing to get the governance structure that has been um you know uh actually required by the state in process would be because there's going to be a hundred of these issues to talk about um but i think what what the next step is is these committees and the governance structure um george what's what are we doing with that when you when you say the committees which commit you meet our existing committees or committees that the state has
053suggested that each school district create the latter okay the reentry committee the pandemic response yes the reopening restart committee they call it uh district level and the pandemic response teams um because they're well aware too of you know what may happen um as soon as someone becomes infected and what kind of response that needs to be put together but you know it encompasses as you mentioned so many different issues that it has to be tied to not just the conditions for learning but also uh and making sure everything is safe and and properly dip before properly distanced and there's prop proper disinfectant uh being used uh routinely but also the conditions for learning in terms of construction um so there are a whole range of challenges so we will be putting together a committee um
054you know as as prescribed as i mentioned earlier in my comments and then we'll need to look into putting together the pandemic response team committees also george it also um and i don't recall what page this was on um the document also referred to the option of having uh like a subcommittee of that it's a restart committee that strictly focuses on uh the special needs population to uh kind of just hone in and look at how you know how iep satisfiable force things like that are being managed during this time yes there's that section and that's in section three um and i forget the page also but uh yes no we're well aware of that and that's why i mentioned some of the steps we've taken recently to make sure that we can uh not
055only run the esy program but also conduct all the evaluations and iep meetings that we don't typically have to do over the summer but now we have plenty to do and the board is making the investment and allocating the resources so that we can do that but we also have a whole range of other issues to talk about and to consider on the restart committee and in you know the process going forward that's a good point um george i would say for the restore committee um that i just the for any board members who are interested in being a part of it just please let me know and then i'll notify the board as to which board members have been put on whichever committee obviously if there's a subcommittee for special education which i think
056might be a good idea since we have a director of special services um that could be you know an additional place for board members to participate in um my understanding of the pandemic response teams that is is that necessarily for board members to be a part of or i was reading that one and i was reading the guidance on that right i thought it was right that's what i figured too so um for the board members you know they can definitely let me know who's interested and you know then i'll reach back out to everybody um as to who's on which committee but i'm i'm more interested too as to because we already i guess have a process for that i'm more interested in you know the local um residents the community members parents students
057um how are are or what what do you feel would be the best way to reach out to individuals to kind of survey them to find out who we're going to incorporate onto those committees well we can include that on the survey where we can take recommendations from the administration or from parent volunteers who want to reach out certainly board members can reach out directly to me to let me know your interest in being part of that committee um but you know that that's one thing we have to determine and i'm hopeful we can get that survey out soon to parents to give us some you know basic background data because jen brings up a good point i mean we have to determine whether or not uh you know families will be comfortable putting students
058on the buses and you know knowing the challenges that we have there are also suggestions in the guidance about the board reconsidering courtesy bussing and some other things but but jen talked a little bit about that without mentioning courtesy busting but that that's the net effect was that was being suggested by the uh by the state so it's a good topic a discussion for the board and for the committee and i would think too i mean this is to this is august 2nd is that right well the way it's it's written said it says that people that family should be notified four weeks in advance of the start of school okay so i guess that means we have to move rather swiftly on this and um also too i just wanted to stress in certain
059parts of it it said that we need to make sure that there's gender and racial diversity on the committees it's from the community so that's something that we have to pay attention to does anybody else have anything they want to discuss uh just one thing uh so george if we have um the community divided on sending their children to school or to do distance learning what what would we be providing or what would we be able to do if we had students staying home and we had to do distance learning and then those that yes my child can go to school what can we do that's a great question gail and i mentioned earlier about you know the possibility of a hybrid schedule to reduce the number of students in school a number of people
060in school so you can practice social distancing the um the next question is well what do folks do on the off day because there's a challenge there it's not just like giving homework to students because the teachers will be in school teaching with the other half of the students and then we don't have direct um [Music] direct technological communication or distance learning going on with the other students so these are all questions that they're good questions and these are all things that have to be figured out and i think everyone is raising the same questions across the state and uh but they're important discussions to be had um george the the other thing um that i think might be important is to if we're able to create the survey definitely in um another language for
061the i guess the most other common language that's spoken in our area might be good just just so we can reach out to those families as well sure sure no way and i thought about that when i was um i was talking with uh reviewing gwen's powerpoint earlier today that's a good point anyone else have any other questions or suggestions i mean in a perfect world you know the document talks about that too um dependent upon the skill level right of your um support staff to the head teachers um in a perfect world if they had the the skill set you could leverage them to run uh the distance learning model for those students that are you know home you know on their off days the days that they're not um receiving live instruction okay
062so again any board members interested please just send me that information and then um i'll send it out to you george um if there's no other comments or discussion i'll move on to the comments from the public not hearing anything this is the comments from the public for agenda items we welcome input from the public there are two times during the meeting when the public is invited to speak the first opportunity to comment on agenda items only is now the second opportunity for public comment is towards the end of the meeting total time allotted for public comment is 30 minutes before you make your comment please state your name and address in the event it appears the public comment portion of the meeting may exceed 30 minutes the presiding officer may limit each statement made
063by participants of three minutes duration our public forums are not structured as a question and answer session but rather are offered as opportunities to share input with the board in instances where the board feels a response is needed the presiding officer or superintendent will address the comment new jersey statutes do not permit the board to discuss personnel are hiring in public session should not be used mr pepe will you read the statement due to recording of this meeting members of the public should consider their comments in light of legal rights of those affected and identified in their comments and be aware that they are personally legally responsible with potential liability for comments that make the board or shall not be held liable for comments made by members of the public okay it's open to any
064comments please make sure that you have your hand raised so that mr pepe can see you just as a reminder we've put up the document that shows how to raise your hand if you've not done this before you'll open up the participants box and at the bottom right you'll see a button that says raise hand when we see your little your little blue hand raised then i will instruct our technology specialist to unmute your microphone anyone rich or no i'm not seeing any hands being raised at this time okay so i'm going to move on to action items jen can you please move with administrative items uh yes i move a1 approval of date for 8th grade promotion ceremony is there a second second gail of discussion roll call please mr barbella yes mr buccarelli
065yes mrs degrassia yes the craft yes mrs morales yeah this is zodon yes mr scharf yes mrs harvey yes i'm just making sure this magazine still is not present okay motion passes um gail can you please move personnel items yes personnel uh b1 appointment of bayberry grade leave replacement b2 appointment valley view science leave replacement b3 approval of step increase for tenured bayberry teacher before approval of certified staff participation in iep meetings b5 revised child study team members meeting for summer 2020 case management and um 86 approval of additional speech and language specialist for esy 2020 related services can we get a second second this is jen discussion roll call please mr barbella yeah mr buckarelli yes mrs gracia yes mr kraft yes mrs morales yes mrs o'donnell yes it's the sheriff yes this is
066harvey yes emotions pass okay operations rich can you please move operations items sure uh c1 approvement of payment of bills c2 approval of transfer funds for 2018 2020 c3 acceptance of change order c4 approval of professional services contract can we have a second second gail any discussion roll call please mr barbella yes mr corelli yes this is in gracia yes mr kraft yes this is morales yes this is o'donnell yes it's a sheriff yes mrs harvey yes motion pass uh okay we're gonna go to board business does anyone have any other business to discuss since there is no business i will go to comments from the public on any item please just remember to state your name and address before um you make your comments and just raise your hand so mr pepe can see
067that you would like to say something okay man you can um welcome michelle hello michelle posain 151 johnston drive extension on behalf of the cpac i would like to address the topic of the restraint policy brought forth on the last agenda after voicing our concerns about passage of this policy our executive board was able to meet with special services director dakota after much consideration the cpag still has the following concerns one there is no legal reason to change our current policy the guidance set forth in july 2018 by the office of special education policy and procedure clearly states that a district may choose not to use restraint or seclusion of students with disabilities and that a school district which prohibits these actions only you consider what alternatives can be applied to address dangerous behavior two
068specific to the alternatives that can be employed to address dangerous behavior currently no staff members have been trained in de-escalation techniques according to mrs datoda we are a district that has never been trained in de-escalation techniques to go from our no restraint policy to a policy of blanket restraint without exploring the alternatives is like throwing away your fifteen hundred dollar iphone before you call apple support you are missing crucial pieces of the puzzle that could help support students and teachers and prevent prevent this district from being sued teachers being personally held liable and most important students from being subjected and witnessed to an adult putting hands on a child third by her own admission mrs datoda said that the amount of times physical restraint has been needed was minimal when we asked if de-escalation training
069had it been provided to teachers could have reduced the number of these situations when they arose her response was in one instance had the environment been set up different she believed the outcome would have been different four the reasoning of every other district has one of these policies doesn't mean that this type of policy fits ours particularly when it comes to the historical context of how special needs have been addressed further when examining the policies of ascending districts we found that longhill's policy is not specific to students with special needs rather a policy that covers the entire student body this policy is extremely detailed in procedures safety requirements and training it does go on to address the need of a doctor's authorization for a special needs student to be subject to seclusion techniques five when
070we asked with students with the policy cover i.e just students with ieps or students with ieps and 504s we were not provided an answer we believe that many parents in this district would be shocked to know that their child who receives speech therapy may now be physically restrained if this positive policy was implemented six there is no plan to address the emotional and mental impact to special needs or general education students should a child be restrained by an adult it is because of these concerns that we cannot support this policy as proposed and if it is revisited on any further agendas it is our thought that while every avenue must be explored to make our district inclusive conclusive of all students there will be times that the district will not be able to service the
071needs of some students and alternate accommodations for that student should be taken we would not expect our students and teachers to be subject to continual patterns of physical behavior by one or two children and feel that with a combination of the escalation training better support for the teachers and more individualized attention to the student specifics behavior this policy does not need to be the blanket statement it is in regards to the state's call for restart committees and pandemic response teams we are concerned that the planning for special needs students will require extensive work on iep's 504 and therapy plans as well as resources and tools not on hand all in a very short period of time the cpag is looking forward to being a partner with administration and teachers in the development of planning for
072the return to school thank you thanks bishop are there any other comments i am not seeing any it's a last call if anyone else would like to speak please raise your hand at this time sorry i'm not seeing any more hands raised okay thanks can i have a motion to adjourn still moved gail and a second second any opposed thank you for joining us this evening this meeting is adjourned have a good night