08-26-21 Watchung Borough BOE Meeting

001i would like to call to order a regular meeting of the watchmore board of education on august 26 2021 at 7 00 pm may we please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all sorry okay just give me a second there we go okay 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

002which formal action may be taken this meeting is being conducted in person with an option to attend remotely using communication technology instructions for joining the meeting and participating in public comments have been posted on the district website and sent to wachong borough 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 members of the public also have been given the option to submit public comments to the board secretary via email or written letter no later than 24 hours in advance of the meeting individuals submitting comments via email or written letter must state their names and addresses recording or photographing other than for

003private personal use requires the consent of parents guardians whose children may be included in the image can we have a roll call please hold on sorry uh mr barbella yeah yes here mr buccarelli sure mrs harvey here mrs gracia mr kraft here mr mcdonald here mrs murad here mrs posein here mrs scharf here you have eight present okay are there any board member comments yes i i have some tonight president harvey go for it thank you anal sex okay i've got everyone's attention i'd like to make a few comments some people in our community think the board of ed should be guided by politics our community wachong the small little burb just west of manhattan with a whopping total of 6 000 residents our little town which until just recently had old pieces of wood

004hanging from rusting arms announcing you had crossed into our borders a town whose main street consists of two lakes bordering a traffic circle that houses the majority of our town's surfaces watchung is in a booming metropolitan and it never will be i dare say many of us move to this community for the quaintness and the promise that a small town can offer to infuse national politics into our school district is a shame it's destructive to each other but most important it's destructive to those i have taken an oath to serve your children so to those who want to infuse politics or assume it plays a role in our decisions as a board i say this children don't know division until you teach it to them our role as board of ed members is to add

005i think did she just get frozen yes every child oh there we go michelle you were you got frozen a little bit oh okay you we we you stopped at our role as board members okay great our role as board members is to advocate for every child regardless of whether they live in a five hundred thousand dollar home or two million dollar home regardless of their gender or color and yes regardless of the party of their parents not one time has a fellow board member asked me my party affiliation there are many on this board i'm sure are of a different political affiliation than me but i never once felt isolated or sidelined or dismissed because of it this board in the short time i've been on it has always acted with transparency and honesty

006and if anyone else says otherwise i question their motives as board members we are not to approach this role with the hat of a democrat or a republican but as a representative of your children we are elected she froze again sworn to do a job not volunteer you got to you froze again you got to we are elected okay it's the job of the council members and the mayor to manage finances of town oversee services decide whether to plant a tree or two on wachong f it is our job to ensure all children of this town receive the best educational experience possible steeped in safety social and emotional support and opportunity the two should not be confused we are bound to follow state guidelines and mandates and if we don't we run the risk of

007losing state funding impacting you the taxpayer when it comes to issues like sex ed guidelines if the state says we must teach things related to lgbtq issues or define oral and anal sex we must do it just as the state requires us to stress abstinence in our curriculum parents however have the option to opt out of any part of the lesson they are they are morally or religiously conflicted with where we do have power at the local level is to decide on the materials in which the curriculum is delivered so if you are seeing textbooks or videos or other materials being used in other districts the assumption that these things are automatically going to be used in watchum without debate or consideration for our children is incorrect how another district let's say madison is deciding

008to implement this curriculum is not necessarily reflective of the way wachong will will do this we also have the power to make decisions that are not related to state mandates and to this i would like to publicly say that our curriculum committee of which i am a part of and have received permission to speak to this topic is not and will not be considering implementing critical race theory in the wachong school district again to repeat critical race theory is not being considered or given any credence in the wachong school district i also want to be very clear that crt is not being disguised as diversity and inclusion or social and emotional learning there is a major difference between teaching a child to be mindful of differences versus holding differences against each other children should be

009taught how to think not what to think if the state government at some point in the future mandates critical race theory we would then be left with little choice if members of the community take issue with decisions this board cannot avoid the fight needs to be taken to the state those community members both democrat and republican can now move away from the assumption and gossip with regards to this topic and focus their energy elsewhere when i joined the board a year ago many people asked me why why would you want all that work why would you want to be scrutinized like that why would you put yourself in such a public position for those of you who don't know me i have two girls a rising freshman and a rising fifth grader like every parent

010i think my kids are great and by default they deserve great things one of those being a great educational experience my older daughter had been subjected to bullying beginning in elementary school and continuing into middle my younger daughter was diagnosed in first grade with adhd i was never shy about speaking publicly about the challenges my kids were facing the stonewall we received by past administrations when trying to deal with these issues and the frustrations i had when presented with the opportunity to become part of this board i thought about a time when a member of the wachong community posted on facebook that i should be ashamed of the fact that i spoke so publicly about the struggles my children had why should any parent in this community be shamed to sit down and shut up

011when it came to their kids my child with adhd is nothing to be ashamed about and neither is her adhd my bully child deserved to have an advocate if the school administration was failing her and as i talked to others in the community i learned there were so many parents who had the same experiences but remained silent for the fear of being retaliated against or publicly shamed as i was when you have neighbors who claim to be reuniters of this town slamming parents for speaking up on behalf of the most vulnerable of our community you have to ask who should be the ones ashamed of themselves tonight i resign my position on the board of ed not because the work is too hard or it's too time consuming or even because i don't want to

012speak up anymore it's simply a matter of a job relocation my time on the board has truly been remarkable i was welcomed and embraced wholeheartedly by many of my fellow members the heads of each committee were always open to my questions about agenda items or willing to listen to concerns i never once came to a board meeting without an understanding of what i was being asked to debate and vote on i have approached the work of the board each day with your child at the forefront of my mind i may not know your child personally but he or she has been my priority at every turn i have considered how my decisions would impact students and i proudly say that the committees i've been a part of have worked that way too i've heard members

013use the phrase it's about the kids countless times and watched how cooperation and pushback can go hand in hand with each other and our administration i have been extremely proud of the work the operations committee led by rich buccarelli has done this year that committee has been thoughtful and mindful of the presentation of the proposed referendum spending hours upon hours each month to present an offer to our town that is balanced between financial responsibility and providing future opportunities for your children the easy thing would have been the hand in an over-inflated proposal with millions in projects that would have been pork but they did the hard work of asking questions of our consultants soliciting feedback of board event members and going back to the drawing board multiple times i would like to thank superintendent alexis

014and his team for our their dedication to our schools i would like to thank president harvey and vice president scharf for their leadership and consistently ensuring the direction and work this board was taking on was clearly communicated and transparent i would like to thank each parent who has sent in emails or spoke up at a board meeting whether you were telling us we were doing something right or wrong your voice was heard i encourage parents to keep speaking up and ignore the bullies who think publicly advocating for your child is wrong i would like to thank the person who will eventually take this seat with the reminder that this rule is not about elevating yourself or representing a special interest finally i would like to thank our students i know they're not on this call

015tonight but i truly believe that if you were to seek out the one thing that could best define the promise of a great wachong it's our children it's been an honor to serve them thank you thanks michelle thank you michelle thank you for your service michelle yeah we'll miss you it was great working with be missed nothing but happiness and all the best for you and david and the girls yes michelle i remember when you used to come to every meeting as a parent and with the sole goal of making the district better and i admired you then and then you were on the board and you uh you actually got to get your hands to do that so thank you very much for your service to the community and wish you very much uh

016luck and happiness and absolutely thank you and for not holding back thank you michonne thank you yes yes that was uh definitely not a holding back speech right there are there any other board member comments okay we're gonna move on to the um superintendent remar remarks george thank you dory first michelle i want to thank you for your commitment to the district i know firsthand how invested you were in your role as a board member and how much your efforts were dedicated to improving the students experiences i wish you and your family the best on this new adventure thank you george we're all excited for the opening of school and for welcoming back to students and staff next week so let me begin with the district update let me thank the pto in advance for

017kindly sponsoring the welcome back breakfast for our teachers and staff on monday and mr pepe has been kind enough to pull up the presentation so if we can go to that first slide mr pepe that would be great okay we'll begin with uh the vision this is not new it's something we've talked about publicly before it's something that is guiding our work in the district the watchomboro school district is committed to inspiring learners to explore inquire and collaborate on their joyful journey toward discovery independent thinking and creative problem solving our culture of acceptance and inclusion provides the foundation for learning and social and emotional growth the reflection and ethical decision making we continue to learn and grow embrace differences and prepare for an increasingly complex ever-changing world as i said this is the vision statement

018that is guiding our district and the kinds of experiences we're creating for our students as we move forward together the next slide contains the district goals these were developed back in june at the board retreat by the administration in consultation with the board tonight they are on the agenda to be approved along with the action plans and i think it's worth repeating uh what they are in the first one is supporting innovative instruction design thinking and problem solving across the curriculum with a focus on enhanced steam related opportunities and scheduling options second enhance student wellness and social emotional learning with a focus on a growth mindset ensure a culturally vibrant inclusive school community that values diversity equity and empathy and maintain focus on financial needs of the district with an emphasis on the potential referendum

019and strategies for increasing revenues again worth repeating and also ones that will be at the forefront throughout the year with reporting to the board at different times throughout the year the next slide i want to emphasize as we return we were very grateful for all of the cooperation for a successful year during the hybrid learning year which was difficult and challenging and very new for everyone with that behind us we entered the new school year with the confidence that we know how to provide kind of learning experience and balance that with the health and safety protocols that worked very well last year as everyone knows we are com going back to full-time in-person learning uh and i'm going to take you through some of the health and safety protocols uh the next slide has a

020list of the different topics and areas that i'm going to talk about so we'll talk about some things that you've heard about in the news and some things that you haven't and also ways that we've enhanced our protocols to make sure that we can accommodate all of our learners in the building for full-time in-person learning because again pursuant to the direction of the state government we are not allowed to have an online option so we'll go to the next slide and we'll start off the universal mass wearing indoors and on buses this is pursuant to the executive order of the governor number 251 we are going to follow that policy so anyone who is on the indoor premises of the school whether it's a student staff member a volunteer or visitor a mass will be

021required indoors we were successful with our disinfection and cleaning protocols last year we will continue those this year with a particular emphasis on the daily disinfection of high-touch areas and of course we are going to continue to teach students about the importance of hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette but adjustments from last year of course we had physical distancing in place uh last year it was required that we had six feet of distancing this year it's recommended that we have at least three feet between the students in the classrooms and we'll also be doing that in the hallways and the lunchrooms when it's possible of course students will be wearing masks at lunch which is creates a situation where students will have to remove their mass for a portion of the time we put the following

022strategies in place so we are going to maximize opportunities to eat outside as we did at bayberry last year when we lengthened the schedule in the spring and increased ventilation went indoors as we did throughout the year last year we're going to minimize time students are together moving students out of the lunchroom and to the outside portions of the campus or into the gym so that they're not sitting in the lunchroom together for a full half an hour we also are going to require that the mass are worn when the students are not eating or drinking seating charts will be used and marked spaces for distancing purposes also will be in place the pto is to resume one sales and we will be making sure obviously working with the pto to make sure we are

023following all the health and safety protocols and we appreciate their support in this endeavor okay additional adjustments from last year include the daily screening for symptoms at home we need everyone's cooperation at home for the families and from the staff of course but instead of filling out that form each day we're going to do it one one time at the beginning of the year and then at various times the health office will send out reminders just to remind you about the symptoms and remind you to follow along the protocols but as you as for families as you read the opening packet and you go to genesis to start clicking the acknowledgements please review that document and please refresh your recollection of the symptoms and the commitment and what we're asking you to do the contact

024tracing as i said uh also is being adjusted normally at six feet but there is an exception based on the state guidance this year for students in the classroom setting and that means when they are three feet apart and masked properly they um they are free from contact tracing last year it was 60. with or without a mask something that everyone got a little too used to last year was these public notices i had to send out every time there was a positive test results that that will not continue but uh unless there is cause for concern and there's a potential outbreak in school uh what we will do though is continue to maintain the covid dashboard on the district website so any positive test results will be reported there and of course anyone who

025needs to know about a possible exposure to the contact tracing process will be notified okay for quarantine the adjustment from last year is with quarantining unvaccinated individuals only or the ones that need to quarantine based on an exposure and the exposure out of the classroom setting is as uh within six feet for 15 minutes over a 24 hour period that's the cdc guidance and that has remained consistent also traveling domestically and internationally will require a quarantine and that's according to the cdc guidance which our state and local health officials have recommended strongly with quarantining because we do not have an online full-time virtual option uh we are planning right now to start the year with remote asynchronous instruction through google classroom if a student is sick or quarantined assignments will be posted there will be

026check-ins uh questions can be asked of the teacher and there'll be communication but we're not going to have an online synchronous because our goal is to minimize the disruptions to the educational process we also are anticipating fewer quarantines if that changes if we have more quarantines there were only a couple of times last year where we had to quarantine an entire class if that happens for some reason uh we will reassess this if necessary okay and the new requirement most recently is executive order 253 and the mandatory vaccination and basically it says in a nutshell that all staff and regular visitors and volunteers must be fully vaccinated by october 18 or submit to testing at a minimum of once per week so as you can imagine there are a lot of questions about this and

027a lot of details to attend to over the course of the next month and we will be working on that but we do plan to follow the executive order as we are required now all these health and safety protocols are based on cdc state and local health guidance and state mandates in the executive orders they of course are subject to change based on the course of the pandemic if you have questions about some of the guidance or a situation arises we urge you to contact your child's school our health office has been was very helpful to families and to staff members last year interpreting the guidance figuring out situations so i thank you for your patience and understanding this will go on this presentation will be placed on the website in the morning and i'll

028be sending out a message to the community incorporating the presentation okay i want to move to teacher recognition i want to recognize and congratulate first teachers who earn tenure next wednesday on our first day of school so congratulations to melissa bianca first grade teacher at mayberry school to carolyn mills gifted and talented computer literacy at bay berry school and to morgan pistorius our steam gifted and talented teacher at valley view i also want to welcome our new teachers we have terrific new teacher orientation this week and are thrilled with our new team members first we have elizabeth cornell or lizzie who will be a special education teacher at valley view she comes to us from tcnj with a va in psychology and elementary education and an m.a in special education this will be her fourth

029year teaching in public schools victoria esposito is our new music teacher at valley view school she attended kane university and graduated with a ba in music education this past spring this will be her first teaching job in public schools alessandra laming third grade teacher at bayberry school ali attended montclair state university and is currently attending the university of wisconsin as an online student in the master's program she has a ba in english and ma in education is expected later this year this will be her third year teaching in public schools moraled joseph will be our new media specialist in the uh bayberry library and also a halftime special education teacher she attended brooklyn college in wagner college his ba in english literature and an m.a in childhood education she's taught special education in private school

030since 2013 and has been a substitute and a long-term leave replacement for us at bayberry during the 2020-21 school year anna nestor our new art teacher at valley view anna attended lafayette at moravian university for a joint degree that resulted in a ba in art education she comes to us fresh out of school after having taught art to children and adults with special needs in pennsylvania ashley walgren a new special education teacher at valley view ashley has her ba in education and history and an m.a in special education from rowan university this will be her fifth year teaching in public schools and morgan lovenberg our new math teacher at valley view morgan attended quinnipiac university and earned a ba in math and english in 2020. she earned an m.a in teaching this past spring this

031is her first teaching position welcome to them to all of them they were a fabulous group this week they exhibited the kind of teamwork and collaboration that are really going to contribute to our community and to our vision for moving the district forward and last is on the agenda is the professional development plan for financial impact our plan is aligned with our district goals which were developed as i said by the administration in consultation with the board at its retreat in june the goals and the accompanying action plans are now on the agenda for approval new jersey law requires that the professional development plan be presented to the board for a review of financial or fiscal impact that has been done in committees and is memorialized this evening and that will do it for this

032section of the agenda this is harvey thank you everyone for your attention thank you george oh wait do you have the professional development plan that i think you just did the 10-year teachers and new teachers but you have the professional development plan on here or was that changed yeah yes that's what i just referenced oh i'm sorry okay thank you that's okay i thought you were going to go into a little bit more detail i apologize all right uh committee reports uh michelle please give us the committee report for human resources uh sure so um on this agenda you can hear me correct can you can you hear me okay yeah great sorry sorry i just wanna make sure um uh we we met this past week uh tuesday uh since it's been a long

033week uh we met this past tuesday um and we have a few items on the agenda this evening that are going to be personnel appointments um there are uh some mentors that are on the agenda for um following teach uh teacher mentors um there is a student information system liaison position that we're seeking approval upon um we're also discussing this evening some home instructors and there are two items b5 and b6 which are leave replacement teachers um before i get to that i'll just finish up and then there's also some appointments for before and after care as well as extra curricular activities over at valley view so if there are any parents on this uh call this evening please pay attention to that as this will be a a great announcement of what the extracurricular

034activities over at valley view uh are um but i i do have a b5 and b6 question submitted by uh one of our board members and i was hoping rich pepe if you could speak to what um the impact of leave replacements are in terms of budget or um uh healthcare or any anything like that is there a budgetary impact for leave replacements hi can you hear me yes great um so i yeah i can respond to that the as when you have leave replacements it really depends on the nature of the leave there are times when the leave is an unpaid leave and you sometimes actually save money if you're paying less for the person however during the phase where it's a paid leave even if it's unpaid but it's fmla and we're still

035paying for medical benefits it usually costs extra money that's just par for the course as far as running a school district i think the the the question that i was aware of i think was referring to paraprofessionals was it these two or was it two others b5 and b6 okay i misunderstood okay um if the board member with that question is okay or or if not please let me know it's appropriate to talk about it in discussion okay yes yeah um and also the final item is uh leave res resignation uh of our buildings and grounds director okay rich can you please give the operation finance committee report sure we had our meeting wednesday august 18th uh the first item on the agenda was a cyber security update um i just want to tell the

036members of the board and the members of the community that the entire operations committee is really happy with our new technology provider pitbull they've come in they've hardened our environment against cyber attacks and when they spoke to us uh last wednesday they talked to us about best practices and training for our teachers and staff and are rolling out um various how-to guides uh in addition to those recommendations so that was um that was a very good um a very good move to um to hire pitbull i'm going to skip the potential referendum for now and i'm going to talk about it at the end of this and um even though it's not on the dis um the agenda just uh ask for a discussion if i might and if there's any feedback um mr pepe

037talked to us about a utility cost recovery audit and we told them to explore that mr alexis said that pto food sales will continue um we deferred a counseling stipend to the hr committee landscaping uh mr walker who actually has submitted his resignation and dave we want to thank you for your your service to the community and wish you the best in your new position uh mr walker said that he was bringing looking to bring in a vendor or clean up the three-tiered retaining wall area at baybury um at a very reasonable cost the committee was in favor of having this work done um now let me go to the oh a couple other things shared services and phil's field lease um we've i think come to end of job on the phillips field lease

038so hopefully we'll get that signed and our attorney has um drafted and we have uh i think submitted the um the little league lease which is not going to be just a typical use permit but we thought we needed something a little bit more detailed to document the roles and responsibilities of the parties now with respect to the referendum i think you guys are all up to date and the last thing that we really hadn't discussed was what we were going to do with the valley view field so rich if you could flash up that um so thank you richard this is the option that we with with one very big exception that the committee agreed would be the best option and it is basically segregating the automobiles from what i call the safe zone

039of students traversing from the learning commons uh to the field and we were able to relocate the two ada parking spaces to the other side of that safe zone with the other cars so um that was one thing the other is uh we decided to go forward with a middle school-sized basketball court the there was small medium and large middle school is is medium and appropriate for a middle school uh the lacrosse wall see there at the thank you rich the one thing that unfortunately we we didn't see we didn't feel that we were able to uh justify given the expenses was the walking trail which was estimated to for a quarter mile trail that cost between 350 and 400 thousand dollars and so the committee's recommending that we do not do that and that

040we stick with our original um budget of uh of the 350 000 now all of these things that we just spoke about add up to and rich i don't know if you have the exact figure but it's approximately 300 yeah that's correct very close um and we had a discussion about whether to keep the original 350 um thousand dollars in the referendum and the recommendation of both the administration and the committee was to do so because we believe we will need additional equipment maybe soccer goals maybe exercise stations of the of the that sort to sort of finish off what we think would be a very good multi-use um field okay so um with that being said and we can again i would appreciate any feedback at the end of this um we did receive

041our eligibility letters all of them from the state and we were i think we've been very fortunate or you know maybe we picked the right projects but uh out of the total of fourteen million nine hundred seventy eight thousand three hundred seventy one dollars ninety six percent of those expenses are eligible for state aid four percent are not which is about six hundred and nine thousand dollars and those two projects that were not eligible for the state aid uh four percent of the total were the learning commons that you could see there on the picture where it says courtyard as well as the storage shed so those two uh were the only ones that were denied i think that's actually you know a very favorable result um now with respect to where we go next

042i would like any feedback on what we've decided to recommend on valley view field and with that our timeline would be to vote the next meeting to authorize a december 14th special election for a referendum in the amount of 14 million 978 371 dollars um so with that i can go into details but um are there any questions or any feedback on the decisions of the operating committee and by the way i really want to give my personal thanks to everybody on the operating committee adam joe dory and sometimes jen um who uh you know really i think put a lot of work into this and and struck a very very good balance between you know really what we needed and cutting out everything that was sort of unnecessary or would not contribute to the

043enhanced education of the children so i i would welcome any feedback on on this um rich i just wanted to say that i know we we had budgeted for more but i really appreciate that we were able to go even below that for the valley view field and i think the design looks really nice um i know we saw a couple that we kind of all felt you know what is really going on here and i think this came out really well so i just want to thank everybody i'd like to second that i thank you rich for for your leadership on this it was a lot of discussion a lot of redraws a lot of pushback a lot of evaluation a lot of alternatives um i don't think we could have frankly kicked the

044tire anymore um you know so i you know i very happy where we ended and as discussed i think we kept coming back to the mission statement which is you know how does it benefit the children in terms of their learning the atmosphere for their learning without any extraneous and unnecessary costs um so i'm pleased where we landed yeah i couldn't agree more and rich really appreciate your your leadership and and george your your guidance and suggestions along with the wrestling administration was great you know it's things we didn't think about and it was really a nice team effort the whole time yeah and i will say like rich said i sometimes pop in uh but whenever i do it's just i think it's absolutely incredible and it's very evident to me that it's a

045very very very thoughtful process that all of you are just working really really hard to just do the right thing so thank you um thank you for providing the recap rich and for all your efforts so far i do have questions on the timeline and process throughout this process i have been asking and making sure and you've been very helpful in assuring me each step of the way this will be presented to the public and also for our benefit which i feel a step you know has been missed in that i've seen other districts presentations um prior to referendums and they do have you know a breakdown of the projects i know we as a board saw that at the initial stage of referendum potential referendum planning but not a presentation from the architects but

046a presentation from the administration presenting projects um broken down with the cost and a lot of um taxpayer impact analysis so you know i've been waiting for that to be presented to the board and then to the public because a crucial step of the board's analysis and subsequent vote is stakeholder input and i i don't think i'm the only one on the board you know who would prefer to have that before coming to a determination to put something on the ballot and and i thought that was a i thought we were always heading in that direction and you know i had shared i think with maybe your committee maybe not the whole board but definitely the operations committee and you rich and we talked about you know just recently several years ago chatham went through

047this process and i shared the presentation which is still up on their district website that they were um that they did their stakeholder input forums uh with and if you could speak a little to where that comes in in the process before um the board's vote i would appreciate it yeah sure um you know i think that we've been keeping the board has certainly been our goal to keep the board advised as to everything every step of the way and there is a a school district election schedule which is really a referendum checklist schedule which is in the package i'm sure you've seen it we've been advised by our bond council not to talk about tax impacts until we had solidified what we were going to do we could certainly talk about potential or general

048tax impacts at the uh at the next meeting with the advice of council before we have the vote i have no objection to that but if you can see on the timeline we vote on september 23rd a 60-day notice is provided to the county we conduct voter education and tax impact analysis from september through december 2021 and this is like very experienced bond council from valence and goldman that do this all over the state and have done it many many times and then we have a supplemental debt statement we have a road show or actually community education which will re you know which will be the administration and the architects and engineers um doing uh um certainly uh giving the public all the details about the referendum and i think it's all in that timeline

049so with roles and responsibilities for the architect the auditor bond council the board of education election officials and the financial advisor so i think that uh we've done all that so and the list of the projects with their costs is included as well oh sorry i didn't mention that yep it's all there in a lot of detail yeah and i've reviewed that schedule that was very helpful i think that was the um impetus for my question is that i could see from that schedule that all of that happens after the board puts a bond referendum on the ballot for december 14th so we as board members are putting it on the ballot and then we're just saying this is what's on the ballot here's an explanation so that you can cast an educated vote and

050i had perhaps misunderstood that in the same spirit in which we do um parent input forms on schedule changes or any other topic that is of interest we would have done something like that in advance of a vote to put the 15 million bond referendum on the december ballot i guess that yeah i i would say that you know as as a board it's our job to put forth what we believe to be the best and the most helpful list of projects and we've talked a number of times about how we've been fiscally responsible about what we've put forth and then we vote on whether or not we want to put those projects forth on the referendum at that point once we voted if it goes through that's you see on the schedule that's when

051the tax impact analysis is done and voters are educated then it's up to the voters once they see that information whether they vote for it or not but for us we're the ones that have been elected to provide guidance on what's best for the direction of the school district not to educate on on each dollar that it'll affect each person that will come as part of the process so that they know how to vote the public knows how to vote just wanted to say thank you to the operations committee for everything that you've done um mr pepe i sent you an email regarding the esser uh what we have received and what we haven't and thank you for your feedback um the only thing is regarding the uh potential referendum under that under those funds

052we should be able to cover hvac and all of that that is what i learned um from the session that i i was attending last week would we be able to apply within that 2023 window for that or for those funds to potentially reduce some of that referendum uh amber we could let rich um answer but he wrote the answer back i think or we could go over an idea of how much we've received yes but i i was just asking if we can possibly resubmit something for whatever you know hvac because it's saying that it's the carers act um and i think uh i briefly i apologize i didn't have the chance to really look at i didn't see anything on hvac being covered with those grant money or was it a pipeline the

053point was that we have a limited amount of dollars and we're using it all for something else so that if we used it for if we wanted to use it for anything that would be in the referendum we would have to forego other uses that that money was earmarked to that was the gist of the email and rich you can go into that in detail if you want no my my question is did we apply for it when we originally when we submitted a grant for whatever amount we wanted did we apply for uh hvac replacement or any of that so yeah i can clarify the grant process um these are federal grants they're known as entitlement grants which is different than a discretionary grant so these are not grants where you come up with

054ideas of what you need and ask for money these are grants or you're given an allocation so the allocations are given to us along with very detailed list of allowable costs for example round two which was the carissa grant only a portion of it was allowed to be used for covert related matters as far as facilities go there was a earmarked amount of 25 000 that had to be used for learning acceleration and i say had to be it's a great thing but we didn't have a choice on that that's what we had to use that 25 for and 45 000 has to be used for mental health supports and then the remaining balance is there's a little bit more flexibility the total amount of money that we would have access to um would be

055probably if we were to spend every dollar that's not required to be spent on something specific probably between 200 and 250 000 um and that would be um a very small amount compared to the um the referendum uh but it is being used for things that we also are in desperate need of um right now and it's some of it is being used for things like sanitization and air purification and hvac upgrade things smaller thing projects that weren't necessarily included in the referendum because we felt we could address them with some of this grant money okay just i guess i was asking because new jersey received 1.2 and we received absolutely close to nothing um in in reality okay it's allocated based on some formula that they that the state uses it's not um yeah

056we don't get to ask for a certain amount based on our need it's just we're given a dollar amount okay thank you any other questions or comments if not i'm done with the operations report thank you for the discussion okay thank you rich uh jen if it's all right i'd like to give the curriculum committee report yes and i appreciate it we had a unexpected appointment come up here this afternoon so i appreciate it mrs harvey thank you no problem i might be a little more long-winded than than what you normally are but i think there was a lot of good information yeah in the notes so that parents would uh and community members would appreciate hearing um okay so the first thing we talked about on our agenda was the steam lab and the

057curriculum so the administration gave an update on the steps taken to ensure a meaningful developmentally appropriate steam curriculum and create a road map forward the steps this summer included two visits to chatham middle school's stem lab meetings with the principal and supervisor of stem and chatham conversations and meetings with ibm and ibm's review of our curriculum currently a meeting between our teachers and ibm is being scheduled an additional step included the renaming of the courses in our program to convey more accurately the kinds of experiences our students are having also being planned for this fall is a family steam night and possibly a presentation at a board meeting a robotics coding club also will be offered this school year the committee and administration would like to thank the bizignano family for connecting us with ibm

058free of co free of cost to the district the bizignano family continues to contribute to our district and their generosity is overwhelming and greatly appreciated valley view program of studies the administration shared a new program of studies previously there had not been one the committee members liked the online format and concept of the program of studies the administration also shared its idea for moving toward an elective program in place of the second ela period currently in the schedule this will be researched throughout the year with progress reports to the committee and board then we had a follow-up on the valley view schedule so principal kidd gave an update on the middle school schedule which no longer incorporates a traditional monday with 40-minute periods and now closely aligns with the high school schedule periods have been

059expanded to 55 minutes an extra 30 minute math class for each student has been scheduled during period 5 flex time for approximately 90 percent of the students the extra math class meeting is on the day they drop their math class resulting in math five days per week for students who have conflicts on their drop day the extra math class will be on a different day still resulting in additional math time the committee was pleased with the changes the administration will will evaluate the effectiveness of this uh improved rotating drop schedule during the year uh then we talked about we had a obviously a very long meeting um we talked about the bayberry school schedule and the overview of programs and principal fichner gave an update on the schedule the goal was to use time more

060effectively and efficiently one highlight is the development of the team time where teachers will be responsible for meetings and collaboration the committee liked that approach then we talked about bayberry grading improving articulation about standards and communication with families was discussed principal fichner will work with teachers on uh consistent application of the standards at each grade level the discussion regarding communication from both schools to parents regarding grades slash support needed at home took place and principal fichner and principal kidd plan on working with staff to ensure that parents are notified within a timely manner regarding any concerns about grades but definitely prior to report card distribution and the end of the year there was a brief discussion about the possibility of restarting the homework club at bay berry and that discussion will continue at a future

061meeting then we talked about the bayberry handwriting program so principal fickner gave an update on the fundations handwriting program and the movement of cursive writing to uh third grade and she's striving for consistency across grades and classes and plans to assess the fourth graders because of past inconsistencies with the program then we got into the summer curriculum writing updates uh one is accelerated math six and accelerated math seven uh are or two i should say um our curriculum is being updated to incorporate the new state standards by september 2022 as required by the state the principal gave updates on curriculum writing this summer the accelerated math courses have been completed the committee was in favor of the new courses and they um are on the agenda for approval tonight i believe the social studies and

062world language curriculum is part of a two-year cycle so they will be finalized next summer pe health and the arts are scheduled to be completed throughout the school year and a discussion about crt critical race theory arose and it was made clear that it is not incorporated into any state standard or our curriculum and i just wanted to repeat that that cr critical race theory crt is not incorporated into any state standard or our curriculum it is not and i say not again being disguised under diversity and inclusion or equity and i mention this uh because a committee member did say that she was being questioned by the community members as to whether our district was including crt and our curriculum and she did not necessarily know how to answer that question so since january

063crt has not and i say not again been on any agenda item in the curriculum committee and it is not being implemented in any of our curriculum and just for the public to to know i just wanted to get uh again just the pulse of our curriculum committee to make sure that all of our uh board members who are on that committee are in agreement with that statement that there has never been a crt item on our agenda since january and it is not being incorporated into our curriculum uh so amber do you agree with that i do michelle yes jen and as ahead of that committee yes that is entirely true okay so i just wanted to make that clear in case there were any rumors or anything out there that it is not

064being incorporated um there was also a discussion a discussion about sex ed and there seems to be some concern from the community as to how sex ed is taught in our district um so we asked the administration to explain and they did and they explained that the district must teach to the state standards but there are ways to hit those standards without getting specific with students it was also explained that the health teachers send a message to parents about topics in a unit so parents are aware of the topics in advance and parents can request for alternative assignments if necessary then we got into the full year and i believe mostly all remote students from our last school year the principles explained that a meet your teacher program on august 31st that bayberry is going

065to happen and an open house for students at valley view on the same date also tours are being scheduled with the counselors for remote students from last year and new students to help get them acclimated to the school again professional development plan development plan for the 21 22 review for financial impact the committee i don't believe had many questions about that the new teacher orientation and august teacher pd schedules that was presented to us and shared with the committee and then there we also discussed the survey on religious holidays so there was a discussion on whether to collaborate with the high school and send a similar survey out to our community there was also a question about if the responses would be anonymous and if we should not have the survey and let the administration

066and board decide on whether to observe these holidays the majority of the committee wanted to use a survey and coordinate it with the high school survey because we are board that has pushed to make data-driven decisions and want to keep with that precedent the administration will come back to the committee uh with the approach to the survey uh since we we and they have not uh seen that yet so i believe i covered everything uh if i missed anything jen you could just let me know but i think i got it all no you you got every every second of our meeting and i just wanted to add um and superintendent alexis i don't i don't know if it has gone out yet to the parents with i saw maybe an email from mrs kidd

067today but i definitely encourage uh the families to take a look at that program of studies we've never had something like that before and it's just really well put together it's very similar to what the high school has when your children go up there and you can read the blurbs and see what are these classes that they're taking so i really thought it was beautiful it was uh very well done yes mrs scharf uh mrs kidd sent out the letter today and uh and gave a brief uh synopsis about that and also it's on our website so families can take a look it really is well done thanks to mrs kidd okay uh joe can you please give us a policy committee update sure um so we met on monday the 23rd there's a fair

068amount of policy and regulation that we're going through this evening probably first and foremost the most relevant one for first reading is the road forward um for covid and health and safety and of course thanks to mr alexis he covered um the protocols at the beginning of the the board meeting in terms of what has stayed the same what has changed um you know in the state guidelines uh regarding re-entry into the school this year you will see a fair amount of other unrelated policies and regulations most of them demarcated with the m meaning mandatory so these are state required policies or regulations for which there were minor really non-substantive edits that are not very mentionable you'll also see a section for abolished policies uh again most of these were mandatory primarily they're being abolished

069because they're moot for example previously in the prior year when we had remote learning we had the restart and recovery plans things of that nature obviously that's no longer in force it's not relevant for this upcoming school year so to be a fair amount of policy and regulation um that's being removed abolished for that purpose uh and then we have um some um policies and regulations carried over from uh last board meeting for a second reading again mostly um mandatory updates um you know as requests that are required by the state uh for purposes of those regulations okay thank you joe uh board liaison reports rich is there anything as the legislative liaison yes um in addition to everything uh mr alexis articulated on uh return to school there was the government did sign an

070anti-hazing measure which applies to college high school and middle school so any district that has a middle school has to adopt a policy which was inspired by an incident where a student from new jersey died during the pledging process at penn state university due to heavy drinking and forceful hazing so joe it's a mandatory policy that we're gonna have to have the uh the policy uh committee address um that's it okay i'm hoping i'm hoping it's not going to apply to our middle schoolers um or that it will mean we need not apply it to our middle schoolers but be that as it may all right um adam or amber is there anything under community engagement liaisons we're meeting with the idea committee on september well in two weeks from now and that's it right

071adam i i think we just got the email haley one more thing um to all the parents parents everyone needs the pto needs volunteers for food distribution so please if you can sign up that would be great for lunch so the kids can have delicious lunch that would be great thank you and the 9 11 ceremony on that saturday at 5 30. okay kevin is there anything under somerset county educational services commission i don't have any updates for this meeting dory thanks all right great jessica somerset county school boards association no they do not meet over the summer so no update again okay an amber new jersey school board association uh no updates their next meeting is october 1st okay we're gonna go to community engagement uh mrs ruperto ferrara is there i'm i'm sorry

072if i pronounce your name your your first part your name wrong um but is there any update for the pto and please just raise your hand so we can unmute you hi good evening everyone thank you dory um yes so right now we are um very appreciative of having all of our parent volunteers coming along and our teachers and staff keep in mind that with your volunteering you're helping to help interact and have the enjoyment of your kids you become friends with other parents and then you accomplish things that will help impact our children we need your ideas and energy come on tuesday as of 9 00 am at bayberry to meet us at meeting the parents we are currently looking for like amber said for some lunch volunteers for both bay berry and valley

073view uh as mr alexis also said we will be continuing uh with our food sales five days a week this year we're also looking for volunteers for bus chaperones for our kindergartners on the first day of school and also for chaperone drivers so please help us out and we're looking forward to having a healthy and happy uh school year and continue like everyone said with our fuji book fridays at bayberry from four to eight thank you very much dory no problem thank you uh mrs coquiata is there an update from west or anyone here to give an update for wef um okay miss newsome is there any update for cpag or is there anyone here from cpag to give an update okay and miss williams is there any update for the wachong idea or is

074there anyone here from the wachong idea to give an update i don't see any hands okay so we're going to go and move on to comments from the public on 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 by a participant to three minutes duration comments submitted to the board secretary prior to the meeting will be

075read first 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 or hiring in public session names of students should not be used mr pepe can you please read the statement due to the 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 they make to the board shall not be held liable for comments made by members of the public we have two

076people in line um click to ask to unmute wait there we go yeah hi it's bruce ruck 13 lakeview avenue wachong i may have misunderstood something because i joined a few moments late but i joined when you were talking about the potential tax implications of the bond where the current board members themselves did i misunderstand do not know the tax implications to the homeowners of the town if that's the case uh i think that's a fiduciary failure how can a board not know the potential implications to the community at which it is responsible to uh the homeowners we certainly don't know what that implication is yet and maybe if you knew what the implications are unless i'm mistaking maybe there would need to be more changes or maybe more additions to that bond uh but

077either way without that knowledge i don't know how you as a board can vote uh without knowing the tax implications to the community you unless i misunderstood and somebody please correct me if i misunderstood but my understanding is you do not know the tax implications at this point as they bought um rich would you be kind enough to respond yeah sure the process mr rock is for us to understand what the school needs i can go through a short history of the fact that you know our latest our last bond offering was 20 years ago for 25 million dollars okay that debt services paid off two years ago and even though all the equipment a lot of the equipment most of the equipment um was end of life and failing um the then board um

078did not act on replacing the uh the equipment necessary to run the school so it was our duty as a board to understand what needs to be done and to make sure that we do everything we can and everything that should be done we have bond counsel who said once you have agreement on everything and we didn't really even talk to we didn't have a consensus and i think we do tonight as a to a final number um because we didn't have that last piece of the puzzle valley view um what uh what even the final amount would be we now have that as part i i kind of shocked by your uh your comment about us not owning up to our fiduciary duty as an operations committee or a board but we are following

079the advice of council who was very experienced in this and the council said don't talk about the tax impact until you've decided what you're going to do recommend what you need to do we will we will talk to our bond council next operations committee meeting and talk to them about what range of possible impacts to the town would be to the taxes in in the town um you can't give an exact number because you have to sell the bonds right so this will all be part of the education process after we put on the calendar a referendum vote we are then going to educate the public for everything that we're doing and the reason that we're doing it it all needs to be done after that there will be more concrete information as that process

080unfolds about the tax impact to the town but you know our fiduciary duty is to see that the schools are well run and that they have what they need to continue to provide our children with an education i was very confident to say that the tax burden will be less than what it was 20 years ago with a bond that was 10 million dollars higher with higher interest rates okay thank you rich for clarifying that um rich pepe do you want to go to the next person uh yes hello can you hear me yes okay welcome this is uh miriam mcdary on ridge road um thank you for everything that you guys presented tonight it was really informative as a parent i just had one comment question about quarantining so it was said that when

081children are required to quarantine there's not going to be they're going to be required to follow what's going on in class on google classroom alone correct i would just advise in advance that i don't think that's a great idea as someone with a toddler last year my toddler had just colds routinely four or five times during the year and every time she had a cold as a responsible parent we had to get tested and for that time my bayberry student was outside of school now the reason that wasn't a big inconvenience was because she was allowed to follow on in class with her classmates but my hesitancy would be that if people had to take time off of work to help their student go through what was going on just to go through the process

082of getting a test where most likely they know that their kid is in sick or they assume that it isn't covered they would just skip it and show up at school um i don't think that's a great idea but i think that's what's going to happen so if some sort of option for when quarantines are required if you've been traveling i'm thinking you know post christmas or thanksgiving people travel if something could be implemented where people who are want want to be responsible and want to quarantine don't have will be able their children will be able to follow along in the classroom in some way live that would be that would be great i think more people would actually be responsible if that option was provided that's just my comment thank you thank you so

083much rich are there any other anyone else waiting in there or physically there's nobody here physically and i don't see any hands raised right now okay great um okay we're gonna move on to um hold on somebody just raise their hand if you want to sure mr goo's mom will ask him to unmute hi good evening i'm john guzman from 136 stony glen road and um i understand the sex ed curriculum is mandated by the state i wanted a better understanding of how watson will implement this personally i have two children in middle schools with no formal exposure to sex education other than the birds and the bees that we have been discussing with them at home how will watchon scaffold this for older students i didn't want to interrupt you are you are you

084finished oh okay i was i actually have a second part the other part would be you know all of our students are individual to different learning styles some students development ages are not the same as every children's and um how would we uh teach them how would we account for the different the differences in um learning ages like just say you have a child that's 10 and when it's 12 the 10 year old might actually know more than a 12 year old would you how would you handle the 12 year old would you scale it back for them or all 12 year olds be in the same format i'm done okay great thank you um mr alexis i don't know if i'm right with this answer but i'm thinking that um he should contact the

085principal or his student his children's uh teacher uh regarding those questions um because it's not necessarily really a board um it's not for a board to decide because we don't micromanage and manage the schools you guys do so is that would be the right direction to point that parent in that would be a good direction okay great so hopefully that helps um please definitely contact the principal of the school and the teachers they they would be the ones who could definitely answer that for you are there any other questions or comments from the public on agenda items yes we have one okay we got one hi this is richard williams eleven tablet drive watch on um thank you so much for all the information and upfront descriptions about covid and going back into the classroom

086is i didn't hear anything about testing or anything um about teachers me and staff being uh vaccinated so i just was looking to see if there was any information about those two things go ahead george yes um hi mrs williams yes i i did talk about executive order 253 um about the mandate for staff and visitors and volunteers to be vaccinated when on campus and and that's unfolding now we have a deadline of october 18th uh that has been issued by the state uh as far as testing goes we're going to continue with at this point the same protocols that we had in place last year for testing when someone is quarantined or has traveled will be responsible for getting a test that of course any of these protocols could change based on need or

087based on a change in the data that we receive okay so we're not going to be doing any testing the the district is not going to be responsible um directly doing any testing it's all still self-report and honor code system with the town that's correct there's no on-site asymptomatic screening that was not recommended to us by our school physician okay thank you thank you any other comments from the public oh we have a hand raise hello hi hello good evening good evening i just wanted to get better clarification with regards to holidays so what is the protocol for petitioning for a day off um so is this now uh something that the wachong school board would have to review and approve or basically it is a wachong hills regional high school school board decision i

088i was waiting to see if you were going to come off of mute for that george because you're more yeah i can answer that mrs harvey um no it's the decision of the local board of education not it's not watching hill's board of education um that would make the decision for us but as um mrs harvey pointed out during the committee report that the majority of our curriculum committee reviewed and would read that we should collaborate with the district um and as i indicated to you in my response to your email earlier this week out of respect for our families that have kids at both the high school and in the district here we want to get their feedback and input and we do our best to remain aligned with the high school calendar okay

089any other comments from the public okay rich i think there are two more one is the person who just spoke the other is maria dala maria we just um asked you to unmute if you can unmute hi hi welcome hello sorry um i'm i'm sorry if i missed this in the beginning um but i was just just wondering during lunch time what is the pro protocol for the kids with masks during lunch and gym and will they have an opportunity to be outside during the warmer days yes as i discussed in my presentation um we are going to maximize opportunities to be outside just like we did at bayberry in the spring when we had lunch with the length and schedule we also are going to minimize the amount of time that the kids work

090together in the lunchroom and also have assigned seats and marked spaces for seating so that we can keep them separate we're also going to require the kids to put their mass on when they're not actually eating or drinking just in an effort to keep everyone safe okay and but will they also have an opportunity to not like have a break from the mask because it will be a long day so will they have a chance to be outside and get some fresh air yes we're trying to maximize time outdoors for the students thank you so much sure okay so we're going to move on to action items adam can you please move administrative items yes i can i move uh item a1 approvement it's a previous meeting a2 accept action plans for the district goals

091and a3 approval of contract with the nj commission for the blind and visually impaired is there a second second any discussion i have a comment and i would love to hear anyone else's feedback um or comments as well on the action plans for the district polls um as i think we all know we've approved these goals and are now just approving specific action plans suggested by the administration to meet them so my comment um is not at all related to i guess the specific action plans but simply that um i like the action plans and i like all the goals um but since you know our cycle or calendar of board business in a typical year does have these um being formulated and adopted at the end of account an academic year which we did

092at the end of you know in may sometime at the end of the academic year in retrospect for me personally um as a board member i do feel uh somewhat regretful that we did not include maybe in addition to or um in lieu of just in terms of priorities uh some academic metrics and and goals i think one of the biggest concerns that everyone has even if you don't have kids that are still in school um just as a general member of society is what has such a decrease in instructional time what impact has it had on our learners and everyone's children um you know and i've read everything from you know the children are very resilient and you know nothing gets them down to um this may be generational you know setback so i'm

093not trying to solve all those big topics but i guess i just wanted to express um you know a little concern and and this is nothing to say that i don't think george is aware of all of this and i know that his principles are as well and even down to the teachers i'm sure everyone knows there are going to be challenges there's going to be re-entry issues but to mitigate as much learning loss as the district can by using things like the i ready a benchmark testing um maybe setting goals or trying to find unique ways to do small group instruction i think you're going to see a real spectrum of students who achieved maybe even more than they would have in a typical classroom for the last 18 months and just at home

094were able to set their own pace and really advance and then you'll see you know the polar opposite which is what i think everyone fears so it's just some you know thoughts that i had while looking at these goals and preparing to um approve them which i will it's it's just a slight concern that you know it seems glaringly obvious now as we plan to return to school full-time um that there aren't really any specific academic goals for the district and i think that would be um very beneficial if not to make a goal like an addendum to at least hear from the administration periodically of how benchmarking and new strategies can be put in place to mitigate any loss okay any other discussion oh all right can we have a roll call please mr

095barbella yes mr buccarelli yes mrs ingrassia yes mr kraft yes mr mcdonald yes this is murad yes mrs possein yes mrs scharf yes mrs harvey yes okay emotions pass uh michelle can you please move personnel items sure i move the following personnel items b1 appoint mentors b2 appoint district substitute coordinators e3 appoint student information system liaison b4 appoint certificated staff as home instructors p5 appoint special education leads replacement teacher at bay berry school b6 appoint preschool leave replacement teacher bayberry school b7 appoint paraprofessional preschool disabilities program bayberry school b8 appoint paraprofessional autism program bayberry school b9 appoint before and after care staff b10 a point valley view co-curricular e11 appoint a guidance intern b12 appoint speech therapist intern b13 appoint district substitutes b14 approve unpaid leaves of absence be 15 accept resignation is there a

096second second any discussion well i'm the board member that had the question um and being aware as all of us are that we don't discuss um personnel or hiring in public sessions there's really my hands are tied and i think i'm just going to abstain but you know i will say um [Music] listen our process is what it is um we're having committee meetings uh two days before board meetings and we're getting minutes and explanation of agenda items in my case an hour before so i you know i had a question about um the ess uh aids that we the district has traditionally used dss to staff certain positions many paraprofessionals i guess two are being made um district employees um i asked if there was breakage or the opposite if it was costing us

097more and if so how much um i don't know that the answer can be given in public session but you know i do feel that you know we're getting ready for the beginning of school i know how hectic it is this is my third year on the board and it's always a busy um time for personnel understand the you know last minute notice and i'm not objecting to it but you know we need to fulfill our responsibilities to vote in good conscience on things that we have been made aware of and in this case i don't feel that i have and michelle it wasn't b5 and b6 it was b7 b6 and b7 and it that's just from the committee minutes that um those seem to be the two uh preschool positions that are being

098made full-time for you know district employees rather than ess aids correct me if i'm wrong i think you had it right when you said you weren't sure if it was b5 and b6 so i'll be abstaining from b6 and b7 unless yeah i apologize for the misreference on the numbers jessica but i i agree we also have a responsibility to to the kids so i'm glad that these items made the agenda um thank you for sending your question before the board meeting i i'm a little unclear if the question is solely about finance i don't think we're prohibited from discussing that with any but i i think there's like a you know objective answer about costs which are all public this is not anything having to do with anybody's performance so then i would presume

099rich pepe yeah georgia rich could you answer that sure i can i can people agree with me that this is an okay subject to discuss i do i just i just want to be clear on what the question is is it just can we afford it is it more or less than what we've spent what is there a specific concern i think jessica jessica i think you were asking about the impact correct me if i'm wrong the impact is with regards to benefits or the cost payout for benefits that was a secondary question the first question was simply in committee um minutes it was not even clear so my very first question in in my email to you or the entire committee and administration was what are the positions that you're talking about what and

100i assume because they both say preschool those were the two b6 and b7 um yeah that's that's that's right if i could guess that they are positions that we are bringing in house uh for the preschool disabilities program and the autism program and the aides will be working in positions that they were similarly working in before as outsourced employees but with this program these two programs where we're serving some of our most vulnerable students uh we wanted to have in-district employees and it's something that we had talked about in the past in committee we had also brought in an in-house aid over the late early spring and um we continue to work towards that to make sure we have you know the most capable people for for our kids but one is a leave replacement

101and so that's replacing a full so in there the the difference is it's not i'm sorry jessica i i'm talking about the uh the paraprofessionals not the leave replacement positions but we did have as you pointed out getting ready for school we've had difficulty as i reported to the board in the last week you know filling some of these vacant spots and so it was they were last-minute things and that's why we postponed the committee meeting until the tuesday before the board meeting so that i could report on some of the candidates and we had that meeting at the same time that the packet was going out to be posted so that's why i told everyone that there likely would be updates but they're fair questions and um rich pepe can answer the financial aspects

102of it i and rich bucharelli is correct and we're not talking about personnel in terms of we're talking about structure and uh programs we're not talking and operate you know operating funds so we are not talking about uh individual employees and i wouldn't be able to comment on that and if i may jessica i think it would it's helpful i think for everyone to look at that hr1a document that we got in our packet it really lays it out for everyone as to who's new who's in maternity leave so that you can see that i mean do you see that i'm not going to really dig it up in the moment jen i'm sorry i had you know it's not clear to me i mean now i'm even more confused because i thought b6 and

103b7 were just confirmed by the administration that those are the essays that are transitioning to permanent full-time um and i i'm assuming even though the question has not been answered that it is incremental cost to the district and these you know i don't know if they're tenured positions i mean they do have an impact they have a financial impact and they have um an impact on you know staffing for the future maybe rich maybe rich can answer that uh pepe rich pepe right so first of all i just want to clarify it i think we're actually talking about b7 and v8 and i think that's part of what was confusing is that we're not sure but the key is we're talking about two paraprofessionals both of whom worked in the district in the past as

104outsourced from ess as mr alexis mentioned we're looking to bring them in i just want to give a little background on this too if you go back to our budget process not from this past year but from the year before when we were building the fy 21 budget one of the things that i set out to do was to bring all of our aides in-house and we very quickly learned that that was completely out of the question from a financial aspect uh it was going to be close to an increase of it was something like half a million dollars it was just it's just not it was more than that so and that was you know those are all estimates so one of the things that happens is there is salaries and if we just

105look at salaries um when we bring them in-house we actually spend less on salary because we don't pay the up charge to ess however where we end up spending more is on benefits and the hard part about benefits is until the person is hired accepts the position comes in and fills out their paperwork we don't know what level of benefits they're taking and so there's a very huge range of costs for each individual on medical benefits they can range from a waiver of 4 000 a year all the way up to someone with family benefits whose salary is such that they pay the lowest percent towards their um benefits that could be paying as it could cost the district as much as forty five thousand dollars now a new hire right now has to go

106into the ehp plan so they would not be up up to the 45 000 but it still could cross the district close to 25 30 or or beyond so we don't know the actual impact of each individual one so what we're trying to do is say well let's pinpoint where it makes the most sense to at least bring a few in-house to try and uh best meet the needs of the students and the reason why it's helpful to have them in-house is when it's at our employee we evaluate them we train them we determine what they need as far as training and so by putting them in these very um very important positions of the preschool and the autism class it gives us a little more control over the quality uh that they receive of

107support from us uh in preparing to support the children and i think that's the thinking behind these two being ones that we bring in house thank you very much you touched on a lot of my what i assumed were the issues um because i distinctly remember over the years um factoring the cost of bringing ess aids in-house and it was i recall richard being nine hundred thousand dollars at one point maybe now we've incrementally brought some in and you know to be perfectly honest um this is you know part of my my instinct to question this was that are we doing that incrementally so we'll build up to that nine hundred 000 however much it was it would have been a shock to the budget and the system to do it all at once but

108are we doing it little by little and if so you know how does that really affect um and this isn't even a k through eight position this is preschool you know there's only so much money and um you know we're a k-8 district so those were my questions those are my concerns and thank you very much for the information any other discussion i'm just wondering if we need any more color on why you know george why would you write why you recommended this i think that would help us all yeah as i said we've been working with um working towards bringing some aids in-house and as rich also uh added there but we felt this was the best move for our students in these programs uh where there are very special needs and we have

109um employees that we can bring in-house and it was recommended to me and i'm recommending it to the board okay if there's no more discussion can we have a roll call please well is there a desire to bifurcate the boat the vote or vote on each one separately i mean i'll just say yeah you can jessica can pick out the item she wants to obscene if i could finish i was in the middle of a sentence um i'm sorry if george has recommended this i don't have you know a huge reason to uh disagree with him and i do believe in following the recommendation of the administration they're running the schools um i i would just want this board to be cognizant of the fact that you know we've just talked about asking the members

110of our community you know to vote on a referendum for 15 million dollars that we don't even you know we're not that interested in calculating the cost impact i guess and you know we're gonna we're gonna spend you know money here and there it's just you know we've got to watch our pennies um so that's i'm voting yes for this i'm not gonna split the vote um this is for i just want to make it clear though this is this is for now i'm speaking jessica hang on just a second this this is for supporting children with disabilities so to me this is not just throwing money around this is supporting children with special needs i i mean i appreciate i appreciate your your your question on the budgetary impact but as far as i'm

111concerned if i have a child standing in front of me with special needs i don't know how i vote no to not support giving giving a child what they need to get a quality education in this town i if i may it's the same person is it not it's the the actual role for the position is being filled by the same person we are just giving them a permanent job with the district rather than contracting them through a service in terms of meeting the needs base this is your insinuation is that we're just throwing money around i i don't that's that's not what we're doing here and and there and it's right that george you know as far as i'm concerned cern george said this is needed in the school district and as you well

112know our job as board members is not to manage the school district it's to advise but not to manage and george made the and the director of special services said this is needed and we agree and we went through a budgeting process and the administration's done an amazing job finding ways to [Music] be more efficient with money i mean they've cut where they can they've combined roles where they can and it's all with the children in mind and giving them the best experience and this is what we're this is all part of that plan that's been in progress for months and it's been taken into account with the budget and i love that we're able to do this full-time employees are always it's always a better experience than having an outside service i mean rich

113pepe did a great job explaining that they're our employee we control them we evaluate them we train them i mean also they feel part of the community versus someone from an outside company that's like well i don't know if i'm going to be here next year right we had that issue this past year we had a temporary aid and we didn't they didn't get a full-time job with us and they left and they left our a student high and dry and it was a terrible experience and i think this does a job a good job of not obviously eliminating that risk but absolutely you know giving us a better chance at not having that happen again and this is much cheaper than a lawsuit against the district for not being able to support a child

114with special needs in their education are these tenured positions the paraprofessional positions are not tenured positions thank you i just have one listen i can't let this go by i don't i i will not actually let this go by without commenting these little asides that are thrown out that cast aspersions on the work of the operations committee that apparently we're not that interested in the tax ramifications of a 15 million dollar referendum is entirely untrue and true i have told you that we are following the advice of experienced counsel that we have hired and that is professional and who has told us what the exact process is i don't want to be told that we did not consider we've asked this question very many times we've asked the the advice of bond council and for

115you to say that we don't care about the tax implications to our constituents is just absolute flat out wrong and you just throw it out there like oh that's you know that's a fact it's not a fact jessica i couldn't agree more rich thank you i i have to say that too i i don't know why this is becoming a talking point it's not we've start we've cut millions of dollars from the original projects clearly we care and very clearly in our list in the schedule that you've seen jessica it shows where the tax implication analysis is done and disseminate it to the public there will be months of it no look at it look at the data on the schedule it's not to you it's not it's to the voters to the voters they

116get to choose we are putting forth with the help of the administration exactly what we think is best for the educational environment by the way a lot of this is just things that need to get done to continue to oh keep the schools open about 2 million or some rich correct me if i'm wrong is actually educational and enhancements 10 over 10 million of this is just to keep the lights on and we've cut as much as we think is necessary we've taken your advice and we've cut where you've suggested and we've taken all this to heart and there so now on the board to the board it is do we believe that this is what the school district needs yes or no we vote if we vote yes then we go to the public

117and say this is what your impact is this is why we believe in it you go to the the polls in december and vote yes or no that's it um i just wanted to say for the everybody can have their opinion on the merits of the referendum what i really take offense at is the assertion as a cast aside that we apparently don't care about the tax ramifications to the public which is what you just said i'm not sure i used the word care i'm sorry but you know rewind the video did not say we don't care and see what you said okay maybe there'll be an apology i i just wanted to say that um when i was in the hr committee meeting that um this was absolutely something that the administration brought to

118us and we obviously asked questions about these positions and obviously one of our questions was can can we afford this do we have this in the budget because we want to make sure that we're financially responsible in our community and our budget and the administration said absolutely so um i i just wanted to make that clear this wasn't any board members bringing this or putting this on an agenda this was from the administration and like everyone has said here you know our job as board members is to consider the recommendations from our administration and to question um maybe advise but you know we need to support our administration and i just wanted to make that that extremely clear that those questions were asked and this was brought to us from the administration and jessica has

119the right to abstain uh on the vote just like she did on the june 10th meeting when we voted to vote voted to appoint a one-on-one assistant for a blind uh uh or severely impaired child so she can she can abstain on this as she wants i've already said that i'm voting yes well i think i heard him saying before but i'm just saying you can you can abstain just like you did when we appointed an assistant for another disabled student you can obscene that you're right michelle so i guess rich can object to my choice of words when comparing spending you know point of order point of order i would like to end this discussion and let's go for a roll call please thank you rich pepe barbella yes mr buccarelli yes mrs gracia

120yes mr kraft yes mr mcdonald yes mrs murad yes mrs posein yes mrs scharf yes mrs harvey yes motion's pass okay can we move to god i'm getting there operations rich can you please move operations items yes i'd like to move the following items item c1 approved payment of bills item c2 approved transfer of funds item c3 accept financial reports item c4 proof preschool tuition rates item c 5 approved before and after care program item c6 approved joint transportation agreement with morse union joint sure commission item c7 approved shared services agreement with watchon hills regional high school item c8 approved transportation jointer with watching hills regional high school which is the same but different matters item c9 award contract for professional services with drg for crawl space ventilation project item c10 approved service providers and

121item c11 approved professional travel and related expenses is there a second second second jen any discussion roll call please mr barbella yes mr buccarelli yes mrs ingrassia yes mr kraft yes mr mcdonald yes mrs murad yes mrs poceyne yes this is scharf yes and mrs harvey yes motion's fast okay jen can you please move curriculum items all right d1 approve revised curriculum is there a second second any discussion roll call please mr barbella yes mr buccarelli yes mrs ingrassia yes mr kraft yes mr mcdonald yes mrs murad yes mrs hussein yes mrs scharf yes and mrs harvey yes motion passes uh joe can you please move policy items uh sure first if i may i'd like to bifurcate um the vote um the reason to separate e1 and then we can do e2 and e3

122it's just for procedural reasons um in e1 uh policy o31 bylaws policies and regulations a second read which would allow us uh on first vote to do all of the abolishments in e3 so we should do e1 first which will then make o31 effective to allow us to do one vote for abolishment of policies if that makes sense sounds good uh so is there a second for e1 any discussion roll call please mr barbella yes mr buccarelli yes mrs ingrassia yes mr kraft yes mr mcdonald yes mrs murad yes uh mrs possein yes mrs scharf yes mrs harvey yes motion uh motion passes okay joe can you move the rest sure uh so now e2 approved policies for first reading and e3 abolish policies something is there any discussion roll call please mr barbella yes

123mr buccarelli yes mrs ingrassia yes mr kraft yes mr mcdonald yes uh mrs murad yes mrs posein yes mrs scharf yes and mrs harvey yes motions pass okay and under uh board business uh we have the action plan um oh let me see i don't know jessica can you please move the action plan item i move a1 accept action plans for the board goals is there a second second any discussion can we have a roll call please mr barbella yeah mr buccarelli yes mrs ingrassia yes mr craft yes mrs murad oh i'm sorry i missed mr mcdonald sorry yes this is mrs murad yes mrs poissin yes this is mrs scharf yes and mrs harvey yes okay motion passes is there any other board business to discuss i just want to make a quick comment

124i meant to do this earlier uh it's been great working with dave walker on the operations committee he comes every meeting he's been prepared extremely knowledgeable extremely helpful had a lot of input in the projects for the the referendum and we'll miss him and wish him lots of luck in his next job absolutely i agree with that second though okay we're gonna move on to comments from the public please just remember uh this could be about any item uh please just remember to state your name and address before speaking and please uh raise your virtual hands if you're online so we know to unmute you i don't see any hands raised um so we will adjourn can i have a motion to adjourn motion a second any discussion all in favor say aye aye any

125opposed okay thank you for joining us this evening this meeting is adjourned