WW-P Board Meeting 1-25-22

001well good evening everyone uh so the board met in closed executive session where we called our meeting to order uh so we can begin our meeting tonight we're going to begin with a special public hearing and presentation on harassment intimidation and bullying and that will be presented by dr lee mcdonald dr mcdonald just check the microphone there okay good good evening thank you miss juliana i'd like to present to you the semi-annual report on harassment intimidation and bullying this report is required by the department of education to be presented to the board of education a public hearing twice a year as we begin the report we always like to re-clarify the definition of harassment intimidation and bullying which you'll see up here is a really a four-prong approach in terms of the department of education's

002definition there has to obviously be some sort of gesture written verbal physical act could be electronic something has to happen it has to be reasonably perceived as being motivated by an actual or perceived characteristic it has to take place on school property uh school-sponsored function a bus off school grounds provided there's some sort of nexus with the school and it has to substantially disrupt or interfere with the orderly operation of a school or the individual or group rights of students next i'd like to look at our data this data is specific to the fall reporting period as defined by the department of education that covers from july of 2021 through december if you look at the data here by category overall we had 87 investigations 44 of which were founded 43 were unfounded those anytime

003we do an investigation they're either founded in meeting that definition of hiv or not this percentage is roughly 50 50. in terms of the grade level investigations founded july to december you'll see here our peak is at the middle school 50 case 50 investigations 23 were k5 14 at the high school this this mirrors our data that we've seen in the past since we've been required to report this information going back to and that middle school you typically see that bell curve type statistical result i'll talk a little bit later about why that is in terms of hib investigations by location you're going to see here that many of these act investigations or occurrences happen during unstructured activities that could be at the bus the playground it could be an internet incident social media hallway

004lunch you name it while some do happen in the classroom many of them happen uh when there's probably the least amount of supervision and again this is consistent with what we've seen in the past in terms of hib investigations by the distinguishing characteristic again going back to that definition of hiv when you look at your kind of traditional categories race sex disability sexual orientation religion those are small in comparison to other distinguishing characteristics which really could be just about anything included in that category is 20 other appearances we you know separated that out to just uh acknowledge the reality of something to do with a particular individual's appearance when it comes to that data again this is very similar to what we've seen at the school level ultimately administration will work with the anti-bullying specialist

005to kind of disaggregate that data a little bit more to look and see if there's any patterns or concerns in terms of the ethnicity of the victims overall you can see the categories asian and 40 hispanic seven black 15 white 28 multiracial four this does well not exactly a match with our district population in terms of student population it does mirror in terms of the distribution of what our student population entails so overall patterns and trends from this data from the fall clearly investigations are up if you looked at our data over the last 15 18 months it was significantly down obviously with the full return coming off the pandemic coming off a virtual spring in 2020 going to a mostly virtual model albeit hybrid in the a 2021 school year it's fair to say

006that investigations are up and that we expected that especially in light of the fact that you could say the social emotional development of children during the pandemic being remote not necessarily have the same structures expectations for behavior routines that our children get while they're in school has led to some dysregulation has led to behavioral challenges but we're working back and supporting our students to address those accordingly and to make sure that we're setting those expectations for behavior founded unfounded it's about 50 50 when you saw on that first data slide this is a little bit lower in terms of the percentages being more equal than we've seen in the past i attribute a lot of this to we have a fair amount of new administrators we've retrained we've re-calibrated if you will when in doubt

007if something comes forward we're going to investigate it we're going to make sure that we're doing our due diligence to investigate something and to make sure that it's addressed appropriately the middle school cluster that you saw before again when you think about adolescent development the search for self the search for who am i what i want to be a lot of those things happen at that middle school level in terms of overall development and again that's a very consistent pattern with what we've seen in the past other distinguishing characteristics again very similar to the data that we've seen that is not necessarily race religion sex gender sexual orientation and whatnot so something to do traditionally with somebody's appearance is at the basis of those investigations and unstructured activities as i mentioned before playground bus stop

008online where there's the minimal supervision if you will that's continues to be a pattern and trend that we've seen with our data so just shifting gears and highlighting what are we doing about this right how do we address bullying in our schools the number one way to do that is to make sure you have a positive school culture and climate in every building and that you are setting expectations for behavior you have conversations with students with staff about relationships social emotional learning building connections positive school culture and climate starts in the classroom so those are things that we've set up to do from day one and we continue to do that work even during the pandemic we found ways to move forward with our school culture and climate teams this is a sample of the

009database inquiry cycle that we follow traditionally we would have some sort of focus group or school climate survey to look at particular school climate categories in every school our teams would actually work to look through that data they would have conversations with students of course with faculty with parents to segregate that data to come up with some sort of action plan and some sort of way to address any sort of challenges with school climate culture so there's a lot of different things that we do along those lines i'll give you an example this past week we had a equity week at high school south that was well received and just emphasizing some of the work that we're doing as a district around equity and inclusivity which very much relates to school climate culture here are

010some other examples of our school climate and culture supportive actions i'm not going to go through every single one of them as i said before we have climate and culture teams in every building we're going to continue to have our climate and culture summits this spring looking at that data that i spoke of a minute ago our sacs our student assistance counselors our rutgers university behavioral clinicians do great work with our students especially the middle school and high school we have behavioral analysts that work with students in many different ways we have school-wide assemblies that address climate and culture we have conversations with students to honor their voice and choice in the classroom you name it we're doing everything we can to make sure that our students have a positive school culture and climate i

011mentioned the summit will be another thing that we will continue to do we're slated to have our teams come back together in the spring though that may be virtual we've been able to do that during the pandemic to have conversations about the climate culture in each and every building to share strategies to talk through action plans and to assess kind of where we are with our school culture and climate to that end i'll leave you with our mission statement that we established back in 2011 with regards to anti-bullying bill of rights number one adhering to the law right making sure that we have clean investigation process making sure that we're training our board of education our staff members making sure that we're setting those expectations with students and parents and that we're sticking to what

012this is ultimately all about which is creating that positive school culture and climate and addressing challenges head on thank you very much thank you dr mcdonald are there any questions from members of the board for dr mcdonald okay thank you so at this time we'll have a special opportunity for public comment and this is just on the harassment intimidation and bullying report so the board invites thoughts and reactions on the harassment intimidation and bullying report from members of our community who are present each participant is asked to give his or her name an address prior to making a statement which will be limited to three minutes in accordance with board policy zero one six seven all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer this public comment period shall be limited to 15 minutes so

013are there any comments to specific to the harassment intimidation and bullying report so hearing none i will close this public comment portion i'll now uh need a motion to approve the july 1 2021 to december 31 2021 district semi-annual report of harassment intimidation and bullying robin and graylin any questions or comments okay chris okay we'll start with ms bonzo here ms chanera yes ms ho yes ms krug yes ms maliga yes ms david yes ms mcewan yes and ms juliana yes okay so that will adjourn uh the special public hearing on harassment intimidation and bullying and we can now return to our regular public meeting so uh before i do i'll turn it over to mr toscano who's going to amend our closed session discussion thank you madam president uh just one quick item uh

014the agenda for the meeting was printed uh uh on friday prior to the weekend uh there was uh two items uh that just needed to be corrected one was a matter that was not discussed in the executive session one as a matter that was the board did not discuss hiv matters which is listed under exception number nine uh and the board uh did discuss uh under items uh number seven uh the current uh board vacancy thank you mr sano okay so we'll now go back to our regular meeting and i just i first just wanted to start by welcoming everyone uh out here welcome to our meeting tonight um this week as most of you know mark's our first week of full day in person instruction uh for 2022 and that's after three weeks of

015our half-day in-person instruction you know we've seen a decrease in the coveted positive cases that that has made this possible so we're really fortunate that that's the case i did want to just start by first saying uh you know i wanted to thank our administration our superintendent our principals teachers nurses and support staff for everything they've done this has really been such an incredible amount of work and thought of work and a lot of thought and analysis goes into these decisions they've spent countless hours not just developing the plans but also implementing them they work tirelessly to give our students really the best possible education during really challenging circumstances right now as you all can imagine with with the pandemic they've found a way to stay open in some way really in the last two

016years and always did this while looking out for the safety and overall well-being including the mental health uh of our of our students and staff so i did want to thank um all the administration teachers principals nurses everyone who made that possible so thank you i did want to also say thank you to our parents to our parents um our wwp community uh for your patience and your support and for adjusting to a lot of these schedule changes you know we know it hasn't it hasn't been easy you know we board members you know we're parents too and so we get it right we understand how hard this has been we have the same concerns that many families in our communities have and i know we can't always agree on the best learning model but

017i know that most of us can agree that our guiding principle should always be what's best for our students and what's best for our staff so know that all the decisions that are made by this administration and by this board always has that in mind so again thank you to to all our parents and the community for for the support and the patience that you've shown in these last three weeks but really the last two years lastly i just wanted to say i know we've had a lot of parents and community members who've asked how you can show or help or show your support um you know really i think you know we we can find ways to support each other right i think i would encourage and there's a lot of opinions that are

018shared and questions that are asked and i you know we appreciate that i would just encourage i would encourage that those are done in a constructive way um you know even if we can't always agree i know that we as a community can stand together and work together as a community so again you know i i welcome those opinions and i just ask that we be done in a constructive way if another more direct way actually i know that others have asked how you can help is to consider applying to be a substitute teacher i know we've we've actually said this a number of times i think some of our board members have said this if you're a college graduate you're eligible school districts across the state you've probably heard this on the news including

019ours are really hurting for substitute teachers right now i think our substitute pool i think is down by almost 90 uh so if you have the time and you'd like to help out and like to be you know help out our community and our kids i'd ask that you consider applying so thank thank you for listening and i'll turn over to the doctor at home thanks mr julia thank you and uh thank you for the kind words to the staff and the administration uh good evening everyone so tonight we have an exciting opportunity to welcome and go through an interview process for a board vacancy and and i'll spend a little bit of time talking through the process we're going to undergo tonight but before we do i just want to one again say thank

020you to west windsor health department jill swanson and her team have been just tremendous partners and i'm proud to announce that tomorrow we're going to um announce some additional vaccine clinics that will be held actually right here in this facility on wednesday evenings and late afternoons evenings in the month of february we're going to start with two clinics and we'll expand if needed on both the second of february and the 9th we'll be sending out a letter tomorrow to the members of the community specific for our 12 to 18 year olds for boosters and specific to five to 11 year olds for a first shot series and or if they had a first shot and never received a second and he didn't needed a place to come so our health department has been gracious enough

021to host the clinic here also a thanks to penn medicine who just this past friday and saturday administered over 600 shots booster shots to high school and middle school students over at high school north again friday and saturday of this past weekend so again a lot of health care partners have done tremendous work to support the school community and thank you to to them um in addition to the comments the state department actually just recently changed the substitute criteria to 30 credits and i think it was a two-year waiver if i remember correctly so believe it or not you can actually apply to be a substitute teacher with 30 college credits fingerprint clearance which we help you facilitate and um kovid i see mark moving the mic so i'll pass the abort attorney there was

022also the new legislation that was just passed that does allow for retired teachers also to apply to be substitutes uh and still be able to uh not jeopardize their pensions to draw their pension uh salaries so there was a recognition in the new jersey legislature that exception used to only apply for superintendents business administrators and other administrative positions but in light of this staffing shortage they have taken action within the last week to open that uh option up to retired teachers right and it's not just a substitute but actually fill vacancies and as a teacher um in a tenure track position um as well as for retired nurses to to come back out and open up opportunities for nurses so i know there's districts that are tremendously hurting we are as well when it comes

023to vacancies as you can imagine trying to find a mid-year maternity leave position in a high needs certification area like culinary arts physics calculus i see our math supervisor here right there there are areas that and and those used to be the hard ones now elementary teacher is right so now every certification area is a high needs um difficult shortage area that we need to really be mindful of so we we do have those particular areas to think about with respect to this evening's process we we do have 13 individuals that have applied to be considered for the vacant board position in west windsor i we have been notified specifically of one candidate who will not be able to attend this evening and we were just i was just notified at six o'clock of one

024candidate that has withdrawn as of 6 pm this evening so tonight we will have 11 individuals that will be interviewed the one individual that's not attending but has submitted because they haven't officially withdrawn they can still be considered for the vacancy based upon the information that's been submitted uh to date and the board will not have the opportunity to hear from them because this is the only opportunity for the interview as we go past some other board business we do have some additional components of the evening's agenda uh including uh presentation of committee reports and then the consent agenda items uh we will then um move towards the interview process and with respect to the interview process um with the 11 candidates that are here we will literally pull the order out of out of

025a out of a box with names on a piece of paper you will see the slating of of the six-person panel then the five-person panel so that it's it's random i'll put the box in the table and let mr juliana pick the order and then we will go through a series of questions every candidate will have the opportunity to make a three-minute public statement you will see the names of all the candidates listed on the on the screen uh behind us it will literally say candidate one and then the name the way we listed the names was completely alphabetical with the exception of the one individual that told us they were not coming tonight they were withdrawn and considered candidate 13 just in case they showed up tonight and just had a schedule change so

026you will you will get a candidate number essentially we will put the the name plates in front the board of education will move from the from the front and move into the audience we're going to do that because the way the mics are set up and they're daisy chained we want to give you social distance from each other we want to give you access to the microphones and we'll have the six members right across the front we'll have one panel we'll take a five minute recess or so and then we'll start the second panel when those two panel interviews are completed i will have an opportunity to the board will essentially recess into executive closed session where the board will consider the candidates and and the information that's been heard the resumes the the cover

027letters and and the interviews and then the board may choose to come out and will definitely come out but the board will come out and then inform the community of either that there's going to be additional closed session and another meeting or that they're going to make a recommendation or there'll be a recommendation or a motion made by a member of the board that process will play itself out if you think of it in terms of the first slate could probably take about an hour after the closed meeting excuse me after the meeting is com moves to new business which is the interviews a figure panel one will be about an hour five minute recess panel two will be about an hour and then the board will move to everyone's welcome to stay the the

028live stream will continue um and then the board when the board comes back out uh the board may choose at that point to make a resolution uh a recommendation uh has to be moved and seconded and then voted on as long as there is a majority of the whole um which is five of the eight voting members then the first individual that receives five of eight is the new elected board member it's not uh and mark correct me if i'm wrong but it's not multiple nominations correct no the process will be uh will be voted on in nominations so the first name that is nominated and seconded there will be a roll call vote if that name receives the requisite five the process is ended that's the person that fills the vacancy the only caveat

029is the person cannot be sworn in tonight because under the department of education's uh requirements uh we are not allowed to swear a new board member in that is give them the oath uh until the criminal history background check results are in so uh you know we would endeavor to have that completed um for the meeting after you know the board takes its vote and it's i believe it's supposed to be conducted in 30 days has to be done within the first 30 days yes and and again we will work with that candidate to help um and ms cheney will specifically work with the canada to help get the appointments and and take care of the paperwork process so so with that being said uh i do want to just address that um in a

030recent township council meeting it was intimated that the board of education does not have the right to move into closed session to have deliberation regarding the board candidates specifically a member of the council suggested that that the district was in violation of an opmah or open public meetings act violation and alleged that we were conducting something illegally normally i wouldn't take something on like this on publicly but it was stated at a public meeting and the record needs to be corrected and to correct a record i'm going to turn to the board attorney and ask mr toscano to please address that sure so the board of education as a public body is is governed by uh among other laws the open public meetings act uh that law has been in place since 1975 has had

031some minor revisions here and there but the basic gist of the law has remained consistent one of the key components of that law is there is a listing in the law of nine topics that a board of education is permitted to discuss an executive session that is to discuss outside the purview of the public one of those uh number eight uh is matters involving and i'm just going to paraphrase the appointment of any specific prospective public officer an appointed member to a board of education is considered to be a per specific prospective board officer that exception a modified version of that statutory provision has appeared on the board's agenda ever since our firm came to start working with the board in 2015 so it is identified within the law itself i would also point out

032just to lay any concerns that the issue of whether or not a board of education or a public body has the ability to discuss uh the candidacy of a prospective member in closed session has been addressed by the courts on no less than five different occasions 1976 1984 1989 2019 2020 and in each one of those court instances the courts steadfastly maintained that a board of education or a municipal governing body so long as the interviews of the candidates are conducted in public and the process is conducted in accordance with the bylaws of of that entity the board is permitted to deliberate in executive session a lot of time and effort and thoughtfulness went into the process that the board utilized tonight uh there was a focus on not only what is legally required what

033is also required by our applicable bylaw which is available on our website but also with a mindfulness of consistency in terms of how the board has handled vacancies in the past to utilize the same process in order to maintain a level of fairness and consistency so just to allay any concerns the process that is being utilized tonight is compliant with the applicable laws and is compliant with the board's bylaw and mark if i can take that one step further it's also a best practice identified by new jersey school boards yes and in the 13 years that i've been a member of the administration at central office we've had three such board vacancies uh two of those members sit here at the table this evening and louisa ho and rachel juliana and in all three instances

034this is the identical process that we followed proceeding with public interviews and proceeding to closed session for deliberation followed by the public vote so we have followed a consistent process there are three members of council that were board members one of them was the board president at the time that miss ho was the appointed candidate that's a process we followed at that time when that individual was the board president so it's been a very consistent process and quite frankly the fact that it was stated that we were following not following the law is an insult to this board of education mr toscano i appreciate you rectifying and correcting the record this evening and with that i'll close my comments thank you dr aderhold and mr cascano okay so we're now going to turn to the

035first opportunity for public comments the board invites thoughts and reactions on agenda items and items of concern from members of our community who are present each participant is asked to give his or her name and address prior to making a statement which will be limited to three minutes in accordance with board policy zero one six seven all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer this public comment period shall be limited to 60 minutes are there any public comments uh good evening linda g versus 20 hawthorne drive princeton junction i'm speaking publicly tonight to the board only as a resident and not as a west winds or council member so my comments on my are my own sometimes attorneys have differences of opinion we've had public processes at the council level for vacancies where a

036similar process where we interviewed candidates we could ask questions but then it was decided on advice of attorney and our attorney may not agree with the school board's attorney that it should be done under the open public meetings act the deliberations should be public it's not a personnel decision you're deciding on someone who's going to represent the west windsor residents and also the plainsboro residents so i don't know if you're forced by law to go into executive session or whether you have the choice but if you feel there's a choice then i would just urge that you to openness in government and allow for a fully open process so that the public can see how decisions are made thank you are there any other public comments so hearing none i'll close the public comment session

037we'll now turn to our board of education committee reports and i'll start with the administration and facilities committee dana hello is this working okay hi um well i get to go first second um okay so the a f the administration and facilities committee met on january 18th first dr mcdonald provided an overview of administration and facility to the to the administration sorry excuse me in an overview of administration and facilities committee while highlighting frequent agenda items including their view of board of ed do you mind bringing the microphone a little bit closer 18th first dr mcdonald provided an overview of the administration and facilities committee while highlighting frequent agenda items including the review of board of education policies and regulations agreements and contracts updates regarding the referendum school safety and security human resources and athletics

038and the district's strategic plan for equity next we reviewed the 2023 2024 academic calendar which will get a final board of education approval in february additional stakeholder feedback was discussed with the committee as for an update on athletics in order to proactively reduce event capacity due to the due to the pandemic the district spectator policy has been updated to limit tickets to four family members per student athlete the district's application for a cooperative high school softball program has been approved by the njsia effective for the spring of 2022 season wwp will also be hosting this weekend the mercer county swimming and diving championships at high school north we will be practicing with appropriate health and safety protocols and live streaming for spectators through wbcb um which is a radio station if you want to listen

039spring sports registration opened via the genesis parent portal from january 18 through february 22nd the committee also congratulates the high school north winter boys track distance medley relay team who have been crowned the group four state champions next we discussed updates to the referendum projects final punch list items for the hvac update upgrades at high school north and community middle school continue to be completed masonry plumbing and fireproofing for the dance studio at high school north continues at high school south mechanical piping ductwork and installation is underway in the in the new main office plumbing fixtures at science in the science rooms have been installed and inspections are scheduled at community middle school the new weight room fitness center and team rooms have received final inspections and have been turned over to the district renovation

040of the new band room which is the old media center is underway pre-installation and planning meetings for the wake-off edition and renovation continue next we had an update on dei which is diversity equity and inclusion members of the diversity equity and inclusivity team and school administrators are facilitating professional development experiences on the intersection of social emotional learning which is on our strategic goal three and equity which is the district's goal four during the january faculty meetings preparation and planning for district-wide celebration of black history month is in february is underway finally we reviewed a schedule of tentative a f committee dates for meeting dates for the for 2022 and 2023 our next meeting will be on tuesday february 1st thank you are there any questions from board members our next report is from the curriculum

041committee thanks rachel the curriculum committee met on january 18th dr nathan shared the district option two data with the committee and discussed ways in which district is working to open alternative pathways for students discrete math for example is the course that will be running this summer for students who are interested in exploring courses that the district does not offer during the school year start strong was also discussed dr nathan shared a draft version of the start strong data presentation the presentation will be delivered to the board during the february 8th board meeting on the agenda for tonight for voting are several resolutions first the new jersey department of education requires the completion of the english language learner three-year plan the district submission consists of a series of answers to questions provided by the department of

042education the questions ranged from student achievement on assessments such as the nj sla and access to staff certifications and professional development to support ell students and their families the curriculum committee recommends the approval of the ell three-year plan the committee also recommends the approval of the community education spring summer 2022 youth programs there is a an extensive list of those programs in the agenda tonight for you to look over there are also two courses like two 2022 summer courses i'd like to to recommend for approval the first is the online district financial literacy course at a cost of 350 per student upon successful completion students will receive two and a half credits the second course is the district's discrete math course at a cost of five hundred dollars per student and upon success successful completion

043uh students will receive two and a half credits so the curriculum committee does recommend the approval of the summer financial literacy course and the summer discrete math course to recommend the approval of the disposal of the following obsolete items in accordance with r7 300.1 and these items will all be from the media centers in the district so 134 books from high school north media center 1835 books from high school south 256 books from cms community middle school 503 books from millstone river 571 books from maurice hawk and 1876 books from the wyckoff elementary medal media center all items meet one of the or more of the following criteria first they are so outdated as to no longer serve as worthy instructional tools or second they are so worn or and or damaged as to preclude

044effective use and economical repair or restoration so the curriculum committee does recommend the approval for the disposal of the instructional materials last but not least some wonderful news we'd like to acknowledge and congratulate ms courtney dignan as the winner of the human armstrong elementary school award this is made possible through the collaboration between the american association of people with disabilities the cuello center for disability law policy and innovation and the equal opportunities for students as part of this award this district accepts four ipads to be used by mrs dignan's class at village the district will also facilitate a pass-through award of three books on ableism to every student in mrs dignan's class the curriculum committee recommends the approval of the donation and again we congratulate miss courtney dignan on this wonderful award congratulations and the

045committee will next meet on tuesday february 15th thank you thank you are there any questions from board members all right we'll turn to the finance committee report okay the finance committee met on january 18th the committee reviewed the proposed agenda items for the upcoming board meeting including the financial reports for the month on the agenda are motions to approve some state contract and cooperative vendors approved purchases using shared services and approve a change order for grover middle school construction for unused allowances decreasing the project cost by twenty seven thousand dollars there are also motions to approve the disposal of obsolete equipment approve some transportation items authorize some professional development and accept two hundred and thirty three thousand eight hundred and twenty dollars from the new jersey schools development authority for emergent and capital projects to

046facilitate students return to in-person education staff provided updates on construction projects starting with projects funded by the referendum staff reported that fire alarm installation continues at community in south a revised fire alarm proposal is being reviewed for the work at wyckoff high school north and millstone river hvac replacement is nearly done they are working on the punch list there was an issue with the heating system at millstone a bypass valve was open that allowed water to bypass the boilers thus not heating the water the problem has been resolved the high school north dance studio is progressing nicely despite supply chain issues work is flying along its south with the installation of mechanical piping duct work and insulation along with the above ceiling electrical work other areas of the south edition installation of drywall insulation and

047plumbing fixtures continues at community after final inspections the weight room fitness center and team rooms have been turned over to the district in the old media center which will be the new music room structural steel and metal decking are complete and interior masonry walls are being constructed in other areas of cms construction casework and furniture are being installed and floors are being polished in preparation for turning these areas over to the district at wyckoff the footings for the expansion are dug filled with rebar and awaiting inspections prior to pouring of concrete there is one area where there is a conflict with existing plumbing so concrete will be poured in all areas except that area until the conflict is remedied exterior material colors are being chosen and loose furniture orders are being planned staff also provided

048updates on the energy savings improvement projects project work is complete with final commissioning and training of district employees occurring building by building at community sub meters which are required for the energy rebates are being coordinated change order work has begun with the energy return ventilation unit replacement at village work on the other change orders should begin in march when equipment is on site next staff briefed the committee on buildings and grounds issues staff notified the committee that the format of cleaning inspections has changed since each building has an operations lead person advocate the district's inspection company has trained staff on what to look for to complete the inspections training staff on the inspection process has been a challenge because the program is new and the district has experienced schedule changes due to covet inspections will

049occur three times during the year the district will be going out to bid for trash and recycling services soon the district sold 135 solar renewable energy credits on january 12 for 31 185 staff provided an update on cafeteria operations in december an average of 5 600 lunches and 350 breakfasts were served daily due to the half day schedule for the past three weeks the district is expecting a decrease in meals served in january to date we are averaging 2 400 lunches and 140 breakfasts daily the food service program is purchasing new food warmers for dutch neck and hawk the district is awaiting delivery of a new walk-in freezer for dutch neck and receiving quotes for new walk and refrigerator freezers at millstone town center and village the district submitted a grant for 71 276 dollars

050to the nj department of agriculture for various kitchen equipment send hunger packing distributed 100 gift cards of 25 each to needy west winds or plainsbury elementary students the federal reimbursement rate under the current program will increase from four dollars and forty two point five five cents to four dollars at sixty six point five cents per lunch and breakfast will increase for it's really weird to say this for two dollars and forty six and a half cents to two dollars and sixty cents per meal the committee received an updated calendar for the development of the 2223 budget and there will be a board retreat on february 17th to review the budget the committee reviewed potential committee meeting dates for 2022 committee dates will be posted on the district website as they are confirmed dr aderhold provided

051an update on school health and safety he shared that the district's coveted cases are trending down this week as compared to the last several weeks for both staff and students daily staff absences are decreasing the district plans to return to full day in-person instruction on monday january 24th over the long weekend the district had some issues with burst pipes at dutchneck north and wyckoff due to the cold temperatures there was also a fire alarm issue at village in anticipation of the cold temperatures the district's facilities department was on a 24-hour watch enabling them to catch the leaks quickly so they did not affect school operations the committee is next meeting on tuesday february 15th thank you louisa are there any questions from board members okay thank you all right so now we're going to turn

052to the voting portion of our agenda uh we'll begin with administration uh administration items one through five plus the purple addendum uh can i get a motion on those uh dina and liz any questions or comments okay chris okay we'll start start we'll start with miss chinera yes ms ho yes ms krug yes miss maliga yes mizovich yes ms bonsal yes miss mcewan yes ms juliana yes motions okay all right turn to the curriculum items items one through seven can i get a motion on those uh loy and puja are there any questions or comments okay chris okay we'll start with ms ho yes ms crew yes miss maliga yes yes miss chennair yes ms mcewan yes ms juliana yes okay ocean pass right so i'll need a motion on finance items one through thirteen

053louisa and greenland any questions or comments okay we'll start with ms krug yes except for um i'm gonna abstain on 13a 13a okay okay miss maliga yes yes but i'm standing from um it's c1a please yes thank you next is miss bonsal yes ms genera yes ms ho yes mr mcewan yes ms juliana yes can i get a motion on the personal items one plus the green pink and blue addenda uh [Music] dana and puja any questions or comments okay we'll start with we'll start with with miss maliga yes miss zoevich yes mrs yes miss cheniere yes i have to abstain on um the minutes for the 14th summer 14th and 16th oh we're not there yet that's the next one okay yes okay so then uh okay so next we have ms krug yes

054that's mcewen yes ms juliana yes okay all right so we're going to go to the approval of the the board of education minutes just go back i think you skipped me so i was a yes okay so motion passes okay all right thank you all right so we go next to the approval of the minutes uh can i get a motion on those uh loy and louisa so uh all those in favor say aye aye any opposition or abstentions i have to i'm abstaining from um e and f january 4th okay any others a through d okay and one more i think and i'm abstaining from a through d as well thank you any board liaison reports yes i have a liaison report can you hear me with my creaky mic okay um good evening

055everyone um this thursday night the mercer county school boards association is hosting its winter meeting online our featured speaker is vince de luca who is the educator and residence at the new jersey school board association he will discuss inherent bias if any of my fellow board members or even the administrators here have heard then speak before and maybe at the njsba annual conference he is a phenomenal presenter and as a wealth of school board school administrator and even in new jersey he was even a new jersey mayor for many years as the mercer county president i'm reminding you to please register for the meeting if you can attend seven o'clock on um online on thursday thank you thank you dana all right we'll now go to the second opportunity for public comments the board invites

056comments from members of our community who are present each participant is asked to give his or her name an address prior to making a statement which will be limited to three minutes in accordance with board policy zero one six seven all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer this public comment period shall be limited to 15 minutes there any other are there any comments okay hearing none we're going to close the second opportunity for public comments so i think now we're at the board member candidate interview section so i'll turn it over to dr idaho great um so we're at the point of the meeting where i think the majority of the room is here for um and this is one of like your last opportunity to leave and reconsider uh before we go

057through the process so again thank you to all the um candidates there again the 13 individuals that submitted the 12 individuals that have continued through the process the 11 individuals that we believe are here this evening clearly there is only one seat for the board of education but it's highly encouraging that so many members of our public are interested in supporting the community supporting the schools and no matter what happens this evening we want to thank all the members that have submitted and we would encourage you to please stay involved whether it's at your local pta or ptsa or or at the district level whether it's on committees or volunteerism within the schools but again thank you to all of you for being willing to go through the process and be willing to to consider

058volunteering to the school community with that we have um uh 11 names that are in here the candidate number four and i'm going to switch this on the screen so duplicate functions so there's always a reason to bring a backup computer let's just load it it's just loading no no we're gonna have to fix them it's on the hard drive i'm not sitting next to you oh my goodness so perfect here we go in the wall it's maximized all right thank you everyone for your patience all right okay forgive that all right so these are the candidates my apologies for the the delay there uh that have submitted uh cannon number four as i said withdrew at six o'clock this evening so just as withdraw or withdrew because that actually already has the numbers assigned

059in the box i have removed that from the box we are going to pick the first six names they will be slated right across the front here we do have name placards that will be placed in front so the board of education and administration will move to the seats mr toscano is going to move to the podium he will then facilitate the uh opportunity so we want to be respectful of everyone's name so we're going to just say the candidate number across the front we want to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself properly you know so we don't so we want to respect the pronunciation of your names and want to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself to the school community i would say that if you'd like a bottle of water there's

060water in the back please by all means grab a bottle if you want to come up here again it's a little hot under the lights and it's going to be about an hour for the first panel if you think about an opportunity for a question in three minutes dr nathan is in the back she's our assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction she has a timer clock that's going to run for the first three minutes for every candidate we're going to ask the question to introduce yourself to the board out to the community candidate the first candidate selected will start the process with the introduction and then we'll go right down the row question number two will be asked to the second candidate that's slated and right down the row finishing back with the person that goes

061first and then we'll keep proceeding in that manner and then when we're done with the process we'll go right back to um start all over with a five-minute recess and start with the final five best wishes to all of you thank you again for your willingness to to serve our school community and with that i'm going to ask miss juliana to pull names so we're going to pull 6. just candidate number 11. candidate one candidate six candidate 10. not two more candidate five and candidate 8. all right so that was candidate 11 candidate 1 candidate 6 counted candidate 10 candidate 5 and then candidate 8. so that will be our first panel sitting right to left and then we're just going to pull the next set of names and numbers in or so we have

062the order for that group do you want to pull the next set just that way we have the order second group will be candidate nine candidate seven candidate three candidate 12 and candidate 2. all right and just reading that back and it's going to go source stage left to right candidate 9 candidate 7 candidate 3 candidate 12 and then candidate 2. so i'm going to set the name placards across the front i'm going to ask the members of the board of education to please take a seat in the audience and invite the board candidates the police come up to the front goodbye how you doing okay here we go [Music] first i'll just make sure make a note okay can everybody hear me all right so uh in accordance uh with the procedure that the

063the board has set forward uh each candidate uh will be given uh three minutes to make their uh opening statement uh we will begin with candidate number eleven so good evening everyone i want to thank the board dr aderhold as well as the west windsor plainsboro community for giving me this opportunity to share a little bit about myself as well as why i think that i would be a strong candidate to sit on the board a little bit of background i grew up in new jersey the daughter of immigrant parents that went to public school in new jersey and from a young age the value of education and how it can really impact futures was instilled in me when my husband and i decided to start our own family we decided to move to west

064windsor and one of the reasons was the the strong school system in west windsor and plainsboro so both of my sons have been in the system since kindergarten now my youngest is an 8th grader at community middle school and i have a 10th grader currently at high school north so throughout their years here they have experienced different academic programs and social experiences they are also heavily into sports so our family has been very involved in west windsor community sports as well as in the school system and raising student athletes really has enforced my strong belief in how important it is to be able to balance academics uh extracurricular activities as well as social experiences to really develop the whole child through education my passion for education also continued i have a master's in psychology as

065well as an educational specialist degree in school and community psychology and i'm proud to say that i myself have been a public educator for over 20 years in another school district i'm well versed in special education code hib policies and practices as well as student codes of conduct for general education as well as special education students on a daily basis i work with students parents educators administrators whether that's sitting in an iep team meetings i run the crisis team response at the high school i give presentations on suicide awareness as well as help develop the risk assessment procedures for my district and i really see how equity is very important in our school system i've always been a strong advocate to support all students whether it's based on race gender or special education status so

066overall public schools has been an important part of my life at every stage of my life so i not only want to give back but i also want to pay it forward to future generations thank you thank you very much candidate number one thank you good evening everyone uh to the superintendent uh this administration and the member of the board of education thank you for hosting here us here tonight a special thank you to all the candidates who are shown up here and you have shown a keen interest in volunteering your time to work for our learners in the school district my name is raj aflay and i look forward to contributing to the success of the wwp school district and our learning community by bringing my diverse perspective to the school board i have

067twin boys and they're handful so they're currently at village school and um we came we moved to west windsor when they were in their first grade at dutch neck so while we were at dutch nick um i volunteered there as a pta volunteer with my wife and it was amazing i think it was amazing to see how moms and grandmoms and women in our community were providing our children with so much positive experience at school and these are the same folks mind you who are full-time moms caregivers at home or full-time at work so one reason for me wanting to serve is to step up and support our women volunteers and also inspire more dads and i'm glad to see some some guys here to join me in this effort this led me to join

068the village pta board and i'm currently the village pta board's president and being a pta president allows me various opportunities to interact with the school administration pta board and our diverse parent community secondly i believe being a board of education member is one way that i can continue to contribute to the school district in a broad manner and be part of the whole child concept where we want all our students to be as well-rounded as possible my educational background consists of masters in computer science and mba from monmouth university here at shore west long branch new jersey my professional experience is over 12 years in large financial banks in new york i have also extensive experience in handling multi-million dollar budgets and resources from what i understand the current open board position is most likely

069part of the finance committee so my training education and professional background will enable me to analyze financial documents and collaborate with board members to inform the district's decision making and implementation of policies taking into account the current pandemic situation the two areas of priority for me would be the district strategic goal number three which is the health safety and well-being of the whole child and secondly to support and improve communication between local leadership teachers and parents in conclusion i want to thank take this special opportunity to sincerely thank all our wwp teachers administrations for their tireless work and effort towards success of our students thank you very much candidate number six good evening school board members of the district administrative team and members of the community my name is doug larkin and i wish to

070serve on the school board for the vacant position because i feel i have a great deal to offer not only as a west windsor resident and parent of district students but as an educator and educational researcher as well i started my teaching career as a student teacher at community and south in 1991 and subsequently taught as a high school physics and chemistry teacher for 12 years in hamilton township kenya papua new guinea and trenton i earned my master's in doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the university of wisconsin-madison and i'm currently a tenured full professor in the department of teaching and learning at montclair state university where i have worked for the past 12 years i am a teacher educator and educational researcher with expertise in science education teacher education and issues of equity diversity

071and justice in schools and i published two books and over a dozen peer-reviewed articles on these topics i'm currently leading a research team with funding from the national science foundation on a multi-state study investigating factors in teacher retention my interest in educational equity has led me to work in school finance labor contracts and data systems any of which i'd be more than happy to discuss further if appointed my first priorities would be to support the district's health and safety efforts during the ongoing covenant pandemic and sustain the attention on educational equity and fiscal responsibility that the current superintendent administration and board has promoted in terms of new priorities i would like to be a part of both the thoughtful response to the challenges posed by the ongoing pandemic as well as building the new normal

072of what our schools are going to look like in the years ahead in particular i'll share these two ideas first i would like to investigate the possibilities offered by the growth of online learning approaches in the district we have a new tool in our educational toolbox to tackle some familiar and persistent issues including addressing the mental health and socio-emotional needs of students transportation chronic absenteeism specialized curricular offerings supporting students with special needs and responding to research about adolescent sleep requirements all have posed barriers to student learning and well-being even before the pandemic second in the spirit of the first and fourth goals of the district's strategic plan i would like us as a district to find better ways to leverage the cultural resources of our diverse community into our schools for example i believe we

073need a much stronger approach to developing our classrooms and schools as multi-lingual spaces and i include american sign language here in a similar vein our current district performance report notes that 80 percent of the district's teaching force identifies as white while 80 of the student population does not this demographic difference between teachers and students has an undeniable impact on the daily experiences of students in wwp schools because many people who become teachers want to live or work in their hometown i would like to see an effort in our district similar to the grow your own programs that have been successful in diversifying teacher populations and producing effective teachers elsewhere thank you for your time and i look forward to our forthcoming panel discussion thank you very much for dr nathan wait one second can you

074restart that that's on me candidate number 10. thank you good evening and thank you for considering my application to become a board member my interest in this position stems from a desire to support this school district in maintaining its mantle of excellence by continuing to grow change and innovate into the future i believe that my experiment experience and my temperament will enable me to successfully contribute to our school district achieving its strategic goals to give every child the tools they need to succeed in life much of my professional background as well as my community involvement has leveraged and sharpened my analytic compromise and collaboration skills in my professional capacity as a lawyer and contracts manager i negotiate contracts and work with corporate clients and internal partners to balance business risk with client demands and legal

075and regulatory requirements as a member of the west windsor human relations council for the past six years the last two as chairperson i collaborated with our members and other local groups to organize community building events including mlk day international peace day and cultural awareness day i'm also a proud member of a local chapter of the sisterhood of salaam shalom an organization that brings together muslim and jewish women across the u.s to build bridges and fight hate and prejudice like everyone here i would come with some of my own interests and opinions about many of the issues the school district has to address virtual learning police in the schools homework teacher salaries to name a few certain topics can be very emotional and when we are dealing with issues that we're passionate about it's easy to

076dig in and jump to conclusions let me assure you that i understand and would value and accept the role of a board member not to push my agenda but to be an advocate for the school district by making the best decisions i can based on the information provided to us as i noted in my letter of interest it is my strong desire to contribute to the mission of the district and help create a safe healthy rich and inclusive and learning environment for all students and if i'm selected for this position i would look forward to learning from and collaborating with the rest of the board and the administration to do so thank you thank you okay candidate number five good evening my name is dennis krasnakowski i'm an educator musician scholar and a father i

077have taught at new jersey's middles and high schools i have been professor at colleges and universities and currently hold an administrative position in a non-profit organization in new york city entitled new york institute for the humanities and social studies education has is and will be central to my life and professional activities hence the reason i would like to offer my knowledge my experience my expertise especially in the fields of arts and humanities to the community i live in have you the k through 12 education as being perhaps the most important to the development and growth of future generations who will write the history of the humanity the quality of the education determines the course of humanity in addition the cumulative plethora of knowledge that comes with the high school diploma should be a solid foundation

078and a pillar to the educational efforts to follow the rapid changes in global economy had prompted global shift towards innovation and technological development the national focus had shifted towards the stem subjects that is science technology engineering and mathematics this shift to stem focused education has challenged the role of the humanities in american education pushing the arts humanities and human sciences to the side of american classrooms and while our technological achievements had skyrocketed over the past 200 years the ethical and moral aspects of our collective growth had seen very little change for the past 2000 years the humanities strengthen our global view broaden our intellectual foundation teach us to communicate clearly help us to develop creative and critical thinking skills teach us to be problem solvers create engaged citizens and thinkers reinforce cultural and ethical responsibilities

079and values help us to understand the impact that science technology and medicine have had on society the arts represent complex ideas often conveyed with simplicity and aesthetic friction and generate interpretations and analysis that may stretch far beyond the original intentions of the creators and i do hope that my expertise in the area would be an asset to this board thank you thank you okay candidate number eight good evening my name is grace power before i talk a little bit about my interest in serving on the board i just wanted to take a minute to sincerely thank the superintendent the members of this board and especially the teachers i know the past two years have been very difficult as a parent and i can only imagine um how much stress this has put on our board

080to make you know good decisions that balance the needs of the students the parents and of course also the teachers who've actually had to implement those those constant changes throughout i've just been utterly impressed with the professionalism the dedication and the care that i've seen from our teachers nothing is perfect but i think as a district you know we have a lot to be proud of um like probably every parent in west winds or i moved here because we have exceptional schools and with with few exceptions like i really have not been let down and i've i've been so thankful to have two children that are going through the school system since kindergarten one is a community in sixth grade and the other is in village at in fourth grade um public schools have really

081shaped me throughout my life they hold a very special place to me um in my heart i'm a three-time graduate of rutgers university and attaining a master's degree and a law degree i believe that education can really open a lot of doors professionally i do serve as an attorney as vp of regulatory affairs i'm a member of our senior senior management team previously i served in state government as chief of staff at the new jersey board of public utilities for our five-member board where i led the day-to-day management of the state agency that regulates investor and utilities and formulates the state's clean energy policy in that role i was really humbled to work on some serious and important issues that would really shape the future and since joining the private sector i've been looking for

082new opportunities to give back uh in the past i've served as a girl scout leader this fall i had a lot of fun serving as an assistant cheer coach but i still sort of feel myself looking for more to give back more as an attorney i believe that i bring an analytical skill and a critical eye to issues and very open-minded i don't pretend to know everything about educational policy but if i am selected i pledge to learn everything that i can learn from my board members respect you respect our educators and just continue to help shape our district and you know continue to really be a proud parent of students that attend here [Music] again i just want to thank you all for this opportunity i've submitted my my resume and letter that provides

083some more information but i think you have a lot of good candidates to choose from tonight and i am very honored to be one of those members thank you thank you okay now we're going to move into the questions that the board of education has determined will be asked of each candidate will we changing the order we will go with candidate number one and the first question is two parts part one what is one district initiative that you believe has been done well and part two is what is one district initiative that you have reservations or concern about or an initiative that you would like additional information on please provide a specific example so i think um the initiative that is really working well is this whole uh managing the virtual setup in school i

084think the way the teachers were already trained and they were given tools to help students achieve learning where virtual learning was was amazing as i said i have twin boys and initially they were having issues connecting to an understanding that medium of learning but once the teachers got more involved i i felt like they had a connect and they were able to [Music] learn almost as good as if they were in class the the second uh initiative around uh what needs improvement is is uh is a perception of communication i feel i think the district communicates really well i personally love those long emails from dr aderhold and and i the reason i say emails because i feel um i can always go back search the content that was in those emails and forward it

085to to folks and if they ask me questions um so i personally like that but i've seen on various chats and various groups the perception of some communication feels that it's not enough or it's not timely and i want to help bridge those gaps where i'm i'm able to create a perception where all the information is available we just need to look for it and we need to maybe use social media to send out small snippet of that information i've already seen in last few months uh last few weeks there are uh how much how much yes so uh the questions are 60 seconds oh so that was we were getting the clock clock set yeah i was like wow no you you i didn't want to i didn't want to go off so um

086thank you thank you thank you very much okay they'll help me so i can see wrap up okay perfect uh okay and my sincere apologies candidate number six the same two-part question part one what is one district initiative you believe has been done well part two what is one district initiative that you have reservations or concerns about or an initiative that you would like additional information on please provide a specific example well um in terms of the district initiative that was done well i i think we were all very impressed by the the quick pivot to um online learning but i think the thing that made that possible was a lot of groundwork that was laid prior to that and in particular the fostering of learning management systems particularly google classroom at least in in

087the in our child's our children's classrooms i think that particular shift was much harder than people gave it credit for and and i think it it wasn't something that happened overnight it was something that um many teachers had to be persistent about uh and administers had to be persistent about in terms of one district initiative that i would that i have you know i'm hesitant about um i think that as strong as you know i'm just going to say the one that oh my gosh the the thing i i still don't understand the football lights to be honest with you right like so so it seemed to me that there was a push to to say we don't want those but then they came anyway and so that the push and pull of how that

088happened is still a bit of a mystery to me so that's something that i would want more information about thank you very much okay candidate number 10 same two-part questions part one what is one district initiative do you believe has been done well part two what is one district initiative that you have reservations or concerns about or an initiative that you would like additional information on please provide a specific example thank you i believe one that was done well that was very happy about uh was from the strategic initiatives to focus on the emotional well-being of the student and not just on you know on the whole student not just on the grades and the testing and the push to uh to get it to the best colleges while that's still very important you know

089focusing on the whole child as far as initiatives that could use additional work i believe and this is a personal issue so thinking about the transition from third to fourth grade looking at homework um grading in terms of it seems like it's a very uphill battle right you know very very different and it would be nice to have a little more gradual and a little more preparation thank you thank you candidate number five same two questions part one what is one district initiative that you believe has been done well part two what is one district initiative that you have reservations or concerns about or an initiative that you would like additional information on please provide a specific example one initiative that i could really complement the district on is the excellence in the music program

090throughout the district through all the schools i've known some of the teachers personally some have retired since um that did an outstanding truly outstanding job and outstanding work with students and i had the privilege of observing them conduct lessons and conduct orchestral sessions organization that means that administrators really did a fantastic job hiring that particular staff members who knew what we're doing i really would like to have more information on the arts within the school district thank you thank you and candidate number eleven same two part question part one what is one district initiative you believe has been done well and part two what is one district initiative that you have reservations or concerns about or an initiative that you would like additional information on please provide a specific example so i believe that um

091the district's initiative towards equity is something that i think is working very well in addition to having an equity officer i know the district is taking strides in making sure that curriculum and resources that are utilized are really inclusive and the materials that students are reading and participating in are really well thought through to make sure that it affects all students an area that i think that continues to need improvement is the communication with parents specifically in the area of special education i know recently during a special education review one of the issues that did come up was making sure that parents understood the processes and the guidelines and the law so i think that is one area that you know we can continue to develop and maybe even train the educators on how well

092to deal with parents thank you very much thank you dr russo okay question number two oh i apologize that's okay same two-part question part one all right um thank you so first i want to um thank this district for um the past three weeks the the half day option i think is a really balanced smart approach that other districts have not necessarily taken that balances the need to have kids in school and and i you know the but also the safety issues right of taking off the masks i thought that was a very innovative approach and it struck a really good balance um one of the things that i would like to get more information about is how we decide when our schools start i think that this is a very forward thinking district and

093i've read a lot about other forward-thinking districts that are looking at starting school schools times looking at starting school later as kids are older in this district we do the opposite there's a lot of scientific and psychological benefits for children as they get older they do need more sleep they do better on tests they're better at driving so i would love to uh see if that's something that the district would look into thank you okay moving on to question number two again 60 seconds uh please describe oh sorry candidate number six please describe a situation in which you had to make a difficult decision as a member of a team what was the process you used to make the decision how did you handle any disagreements some of them so i've been a department chair

094at a university and in in that role i've had to you know make decisions um and even recently you know as members you know making tenure decisions for example um is something that that i've had to do um and i think the most important part of making any difficult decision is genuinely listening and and asking myself the question if i'm wrong how would i know right like i have this i have this very strong belief of of if i'm wrong what what evidence would convince me otherwise um and you know i've been sitting i've sat around a table with five other individuals and we disagreed quite a bit about the you know how to proceed with a particular personnel action um and and i think in order to make that decision we had there's compromise

095is necessary but listening to understand others perspectives is key to that thank you candidate number 10 please describe the situation which you had to make a difficult decision as a member of a team what was the process you used to make the decision how did you handle any disagreements at work i am a manager for three other individuals and there are times when we certainly don't all agree and for example when i've had to make a decision to select one person over others when everyone knows you know i'm making a decision and choosing one of the individuals you know to do a project for example um and so the process would be or was to um you know have everyone go through how they would handle the project and then discuss what i thought was

096the best way to handle it and thank everyone for their you know contributions but in this case that we had to choose one person thank you candidate number five please describe a situation in which you had to make a difficult decision as a member of a team what was the process you used to make the decision how did you handle any disagreements the decision that i had to make that was quite challenging was dating back a few years in regards to the accreditation i was on an accreditation committee there was a certain point of discussion that was crucial uh for the department and for the university um and essentially we we decided to just do the democratic vote and the decision was collectively made in accordance to the majority awarded okay thank you candidate number

097eight okay please oh did i skip one no we're good okay okay number eight uh please describe a situation in which you had to make a difficult decision as a member of a team what was the process you used to make the decision how did you handle any disagreements sure i think without getting into spec without getting into specifics i think that in the past i have dealt with a number of situations where we needed to decide whether to discipline or terminate or part ways with an employee and that is just never a fun conversation to have but there are so many legal considerations especially if you're dealing with a union there are you know obviously just implications for morale and implications on fairness in those situations i would um you know make a recommendation

098come to it with with all of the facts you know ask myself is this the right decision challenge myself and address the concerns that others had but ultimately i think that usually those decisions were always in the best interest of everyone involved no matter how difficult thank you candidate number 11. please describe a situation in which you had to make a difficult decision as a member of a team what was the process that you used to make the decision how did you handle any disagreements so as a school psychologist i often work in teams especially with administrators and teachers when it comes to discipline issues and oftentimes my role is to advocate for the student while administrators and other educators may have a different perspective so the way i deal with it is really to

099be an active listener to hear all sides and points but to also stick to the law and the facts that i have and to effectively communicate those with all that around i think it's important when working with a group that everyone keeps a growth mindset to really be able to take in information analyze it and then in the situations that i've been the ultimate goal is to always do what's best for the student so that is a constant reminder that i bring up and i think being respectful even if you disagree and coming to consensus is what's really important and has been thank you and finally candidate number one please describe a situation in which you had to make a difficult decision as a member of a team what was the process you used to

100make the decision how did you handle any disagreements sure so um as a manager in a financial firm i have to uh i have to approve a lot of initiatives technology initiatives um that need funding um for for making sure that our business uh grows and we have enough resources assigned to those projects so uh so a lot of time what happens is i have teams that will approach me uh with their requests with their funding requests and i cannot uh approve all those requests and the way i do uh the process of vetting as i look at the facts i look at uh what are the benefits uh the initiative will provide what are the benefit it provides all the stakeholders that are available and um when i'm not able to approve all the

101requests what i do is i give them a good feedback i give i encourage them to try again and to maybe think out of the box and come back with a better solution next time so that's how i make my decisions thank you thank you okay the third question again one minute time frame candidate number ten please describe your experience with budgets labor negotiations multi-faceted operations or system integration technology can you ask the question again sure not a problem please describe your experience with budgets labor negotiations multi-facet operations or system integration technology multi up the water bottle is covering it thank you so multi-facility operations so pick i believe the board would like you to pick one i see could you start the timer over again yeah we will do that for you by the

102way a credit to everyone in the first panel you're hearing the questions for the first time and kind of getting hit with everything cold so okay we ready okay yes thank you i could probably choose a couple but i guess with respect to budgets well i don't have a formal finance background in my past life in california i was a member of the um i was appointed on the community development blunt block grant committee for our town there and so we did have to review budgets talk with the the candidates who are looking to be funded and um you know we did have a few other experts involved since i wasn't didn't have that strong background but um you know i i followed and listened and asked questions um and um that was very helpful

103thank you thank you candidate number five please describe your experience with budgets labor negotiations multi-facility operations or system integration technology well i have experience with actually all of them uh which one would i have to would you be interested in hearing specifically is it either or or either or whatever you'd like to share well then i will share the system integration and technology experience where i once had to pretty much personally install an equipment in two different locations on university campus that would have to be synchronized for specific streaming and that was quite a quite a challenging thing to do for for non somebody who doesn't deal with technology but with the thorough research with asking a few questions the program was actually a successful result thank you candidate number eight please describe your experience

104with budgets labor negotiations multi-facility operations or system integration technology okay in my previous role at the new jersey board of public utilities as the chief of staff i worked on budgets in a couple of important ways first in our actual formulation of the state's clean energy budget obviously that's an important expression of the state's policy on all kinds of issues and that was i believe north of 600 million dollars each year putting those documents together getting it out to the public for comment making adjustments getting it through a board and then the other important part of our of our budgeting was of course as a state-funded agency our budget was subject to scrutiny by the legislature and so i would spearhead our budget preparation with with the state treasurer treasurer's office the governor's office work

105with the the legislature to make sure that we answered all of the legislatures questions in in great detail and of course prepare the cabinet member for an occasional grilling by the state legislature during the budget committee meetings thank you candidate number 11. please describe your experience with budgets labor negotiations multi-facility operations or system integration so my experience with budgets it really comes from the viewpoint of an educator as i have worked in a school system where we've had to negotiate contracts i have been in rooms with administrators and negotiation committees where i have been fighting for or advocating for different sets of contracts whether it's summer work or child study teams separate contracts and again the goal is always to make sure that the resources are provided to give the best possible education for all

106students so at times we've had to go back and forth to make sure that that can be done in a way where all sides feel that it is equal and appropriate thank you candidate number one please describe your experience with budgets labor negotiations multi-facility operations or system integration technology so as a technologist in a financial firm i think i haven't i haven't had an opportunity to try almost all of them so i manage budgets on a daily basis i prepare them i monitor them i revise them a lot of budget planning happens every year so i participate in those discussions as well vendor negotiation is also a part of a a small part of budget process as well so i work with a lot of different vendors to onboard resources to off-board resources uh to

107make sure they are giving us the best rate every year and to continue building relationships with those vendors so that we can continue to get those discounts um and system integration is basically we have a lot of uh local systems and trading systems that we integrate uh with online systems and we we have as part of my uh projects we have done a lot of these integrations and uh so i think i'm i've been able i have an opportunity to do all of them yeah thank you thank you okay and finally candidate number six please describe your experience with budgets labor negotiations multi-facility operations or system integration technology so i think i will speak to the first two uh those are the two that i have the um the most experience with in terms of

108budgets on the fiscal agent on that national science foundation grant as well as other previous grants uh 2.25 million dollars worth which is only you know one percent of west windsor's budget but still the the idea is the same that you have categories you have approved vendors you have to go through a process in order to get expenditures approved and you also have you're accountable for that um in terms of labor contract i'm a proud member of the american federation of teachers uh shop 104 1904 excuse me i am a member of our local negotiating team where we negotiate with the local university i've also served in statewide negotiations with the council for the larger state contract i have learned a lot about labor contracts in the last 15 years things that i didn't understand

109as sort of a lay person who's trying to just under make sense of a budget but but understanding the back and forth give and take and compromise the notion of consensus that was mentioned earlier is really important thank you thank you okay as we move to the last question everyone can take a breath this also has a one minute time limit and this last question is simply an opportunity for you to share anything about your background or relevant experiences that have you not you've not already shared with us or anything else that you would like the board that you would like to offer for the board's consideration tonight we'll start with candidate number five i think in my initial statement i pretty much summarized my experience my knowledge my expertise my educational background and specific

110area that i i have strengths what else can i say about myself i have a i have a very big dog that weighs 130 pounds and who is waiting for me right now probably so [Laughter] that's that's pretty much it thank you very much candidate number eight uh this last question is an opportunity for you to share anything about your background or relevant experiences that you have not previously shared or that you would like to offer for the board's consideration of your candidacy sure thank you um i wanted to just talk a little bit more about my role in my as chair of the 2019 new jersey energy master plan committee really proud of of that effort it was an 18-month interagency effort coordinating cabinet members agencies across the administration to chart the roadmap to

111achieve the state's goal of achieving 100 clean energy by 2050. it was a very challenging process many many public hearings many considerations many opposing viewpoints but it was a really gratifying experience and it taught me a lot about again just hearing opposing points of view really thinking about you know the practical implications of of policy um hearing from people who actually have to implement them and and how it impacts their daily life so i think that my goal um excusing my my experience with implementing and formulating policy would really be a benefit if i was to be chosen to serve on the board thank you thank you candidate number 11. this last question is an opportunity for you to share anything about your background or relevant experiences that you not already shared or anything else

112you would like to offer the board you would like to offer the board for its consideration of your candidacy so i think that you know we all realize that these are unprecedented times in education and as someone that is on the front lines every day during the past three years during the pandemic i think that i have a unique view and perspective from actually working with teachers and being with students to really see how much these times have been a struggle for all involved in the school community not only am i seeing the struggles firsthand but i think that i've really seen how educators in the whole school community have come together to come up with so many innovative ways and creative ways to help all of our students and building relationships because the more

113that we are focusing on building relationships in schools among all of us i think it really impacts not only the social emotional growth of students but also their academic success so i think being on the front lines and really day-to-day being in a school system is an advantage that i respect thank you very much candidate number one this last question is an opportunity for you to share anything about your background or relevant experiences that you have not previously shared that you would like to offer for the board's consideration of your candidacy thank you um so i think i mentioned in my previous statement that i've been inspired by women around me and um especially my mom who um who was a stay-at-home mom but she used to volunteer as a teacher and she used to

114teach under underprivileged girls who who had no sight so she used to invite them home and teach them so i feel that volunteering that appreciation of education drive came to me somewhere through through that channel and i've tried to continue doing that i've volunteered at a big brother big sister organizations i've volunteered for asha for education which also serves under underprivileged girls and so i feel uh that really motivates me and i think that's why i volunteer and i'm currently uh like the pta president um also helps me be part of this school district and education system thank you thank you candidate number six this last question is an opportunity for you to share anything about your background or relevant experiences that you have not previously shared that you would like to offer for the

115board's consideration of your candidacy so i'm glad there's a time limit on this one because i would go on um i think the one thing that i want to share is uh you know where my wife is in the audience and and you know we're the parents of two kids and the our youngest is uh graduating senior this year and i think the thing that i'd like to say is you know um that there's more than one way to be successful in schools i think there's a dominant sort of message that can be sent and it usually involves some expensive colleges as the measure of success but you know our daughter's in community college and she's starting a business with her partner our son is going into automotive tech school and i could not be

116prouder of the two of them and and i think the that if we expand what our notion of what an outcome is for education and it's not just acceptance into into particular um schools if we see it as the creation of a whole person who can be fully human to to me that's that's a worthwhile educational outcome and that's what i'd like to shoot for thank you thank you finally candidate number 10. this last question is an opportunity for you to share anything about your background or relevant experiences that you've not previously shared that you would like to offer for the board's consideration of your candidacy thank you i think the last thing i would like to share is more focused on myself as a communicator um and someone who can i believe i could

117bring people together in particular working on teams i'm thinking of an example in a past life and i do the same at my current job but in one of my previous jobs where i working on teams to try to implement new products and services and sort of translating in air quotes between the engineers and the business teams and the legal teams and helping this be that person who's the bridge say to make sure everyone understanding each other and we're hitting all the right points and so we can get the work done thank you very much thank you to the entire panel as i said before you guys had this tough tough job first one's up uh but i everybody did very well thank you very much [Applause] thank you we'll take a brief five minute

118recess let everyone stretch uh everyone needs a bio break we'll change out the name plates and be ready with the second panel um uh you know what you said is please um like yes thank you all right [Music] did you write down what time we stopped i didn't look it was about five excuse me okay oh okay [Music] oh what are you doing oh all right we could uh just start to come back all our members everyone could please just take their seats oh foreign is candidate 12 here okay all right just uh just for everyone's uh notice uh candidate 12 uh did uh had every intention of being here tonight but did send an email that they may have to uh be called out of town uh for uh pressing matters for work uh

119so it appears that that that has happened uh so we will have the the the four panelists and but the candidate 12 its candidacy is still uh is still open so uh good evening panel number two uh welcome uh we'll start with an opening statement of three minutes uh and we will start with candidate number nine yes can you hear me yes the last set of candidates are absolutely amazing because i loved hearing their story i was glued to their personal story even if i don't get selected i will be happy to go home learning that i competed with these other candidates my name is rahul curtis i have been a resident of west windsor since 2005. i have three girls in fifth seventh and eleventh grade this is my twelfth year with the school

120district i feel lucky to have the opportunity to raise my children in a great community like west windsor i grew up in northern virginia's fairfax and alexandria school districts even though those are great school districts my experience in west windsor has been far better why because of the sense of community a community where i can where i know the mayor the community where i know the superintendent the community where i know the school board members they all played an integral role in my girls lives especially girl scout and i'm thankful of that for all of you who are who are here earlier my personal passion is in entrepreneurship i've been an entrepreneur at heart since i started my first job building robots to do surgery and that was back in the late 1990s since i

121graduated from wharton i started two software companies recently i've come to familiarize myself with some of the innovation in education sector also known as edtech i outlined three areas where i can be helpful reviewing projects from a financial perspective the wharton education gave me that perspective identifying how entrepreneurship can better prepare our on better prepare our students and how to improve collaboration amongst students now you can ask me how do i know my community how well do i know my community as well i've come to know them through activities of my girls in girl scout girl choirs and number of sports like soccer but i also helped organize a group of 120 dads participating in soccer where we come together every sunday every week of the year for the last 10 years and this is

122where we learn about and share problems and share challenges and learn about each other and this is how i know the community so well and this includes members from both west windsor and plainsboro based on my experience based on what i see coming in artificial intelligence and education i believe technology and entrepreneurship will play a tremendous role in our children's future both in their careers and in how we deliver education to the children humble experience i want to help our students better prepare for this new future thank you thank you candidate number seven good evening thank you to the board and to dr aderhold the community public the teachers for this opportunity to speak in front of you today and present myself as a candidate my name is samantha figueroa latif and i would like

123to serve west windsor and the board of education as outlined in my letter of intent i have substantial ties with this community and the school district in fact i moved here with my family when i was 13 and i went to high school at high school north when it was a pretty new school after completing my education here in west windsor i went on to earn my undergrad degree at rutgers and i moved back to plainsboro with my fiance and daughter my oldest daughter who is now a senior in high school north herself went to school here in west windsor plainsboro school district from kindergarten and we lived in plainsboro and the ravens crest community for many years she participated in many activities sports girl scouts soccer so i've had my hand in in those

124things as a student myself here also as a parent a little over a year ago we purchased a home in west windsor my husband and i are enjoying home ownership uh for the most part um aside from the hvac repairs that we faced this summer we live in the old mills farms community right across from grover mills pond that is a really lovely lovely community it's very tight-knit there's a what that group that we we joined and it's the kind of place where neighbors give each other old books and toys and there's really a beautiful communal feeling there and where i am now in my life in my career as an attorney having completed law school and um gotten to the point where i'm beginning to open my own practice i thought about ways that

125i can give back to the community that i trusted with my my with my daughter when i was a young mom um and uh i want to be a part of that for my younger two children i have a four-year-old and a nine-month-old so i'm i'm pretty crazy um but we could not be happier with this community and we plan to on staying here forever so i want to contribute in a on the next level here um now that i'm in a position to do so um i think i'm in a unique position do you want to finish your thought yeah i think i'm in a unique position to contribute having attended school here having had a daughter that attended school here and now i'm having two young children that will be attending school here

126for the next two decades okay thank you very much candidate number three hi i'm um humbled to be here and i can't believe the candidates tonight you guys have amazing people to choose from so that is wonderful good evening my name is laura cohen and i am interested in filming mr whitfield's position on the board i have lived in west windsor for 14 years i have three children who have attended the public schools one of whom is currently a student at grover over the years i have attended board of ed meetings and expressed my thoughts i've also emailed mister dr aderhold and the board uh to raise my concerns about this needs of the students i have knowledge of the history of the board over the past 10 years and i have been engaged and

127informed about the major decisions that have been made during that time i believe the primary role of a board member is to represent the concerns of the community and in particular the parents and the students to the school administrators as well as to explain the needs of the students and the teachers to the people of west windsor and plainsboro in that way the board members act as an important bridge to the community at large and the school system i'm here tonight because i believe it it is important that the members of the school board be active in the community i am a familiar face in town and at our local schools uh whether it is working on projects with the pta volunteering as a class parent being on the sidelines of soccer lacrosse baseball volunteering

128for girl scouts or just being the neighbor who organizes the block parties i'm regularly talking with parents and neighbors about our children and the educations our schools provide and i also have a background in law which will aid me in serving the board with my analytical thought process and my communication skills i am interested and opened to different perspectives on education and i have already learned so much from the diverse viewpoints of our district over the years i have also developed close relationships with many of our teachers i have great respect for them and the administrators of our schools we have an incredible staff and i would love to support them in their efforts to provide the best education to our kids setting them on a path for a lifetime of success i strongly feel

129that the foundation for the success is built when students parents teachers and administrators have an open dialogue clear and strategic goals and a transparent understanding of the process i hope to serve as a channel of communication to help maintain trust and the support from the community a critical issue which i would like to focus on as a board member would be class size and student-teacher ratios from my own experience as a parent as well as discussion with the teachers in our schools i believe the number one obstacle preventing our teachers from executing their jobs at the highest level is managing the sheer number of children that attend our schools and i'd like to thank everyone for their time and thank you very much finally candidate number two good evening everybody uh thank you again to

130the board for allowing us to be here this evening i could go on and basically just reiterate everything everybody said but i won't do that basically for me it boils down to i'm just simply a dad who loves his daughter more than anything in life and i'm here because i want to contribute to the school system that she is in uh she's currently a freshman at high school north on the fencing team uh and we went to our match today and they won it was great um and i love just being a part of everything that she does so i'm my goal in life is to really volunteer in as many avenues of life that i can um currently i'm also an attorney i think we have a bunch of them here tonight i thought

131i was going to be the only one but on top of that i'm also an adjunct for a college online and also a small business owner that i run with my daughter as well my educational background i have a bachelor's and a master's in criminal justice as well as obviously a jd um i have a master's in law and also in mba which is pending uh commencement so education for me is very important uh it's actually very addicting uh as you get older because you just get this thirst for knowledge and you just want to really learn as much as you can so it's really my goal to kind of pass on that thirst to other students because growing up as a child i didn't have that understanding i didn't i didn't do well in

132high school because i didn't really know how to pay attention how to really soak up the information around me so as i got older i understood the changes you have to make and the different ways you need to look at information to really understand the world around you so ultimately i just want to see that same success in students even though this is a great school system we have great results we have great scores i just want to see the students from this school system go out into the world and just say they went to high school north or high school south and people already know oh hey this is a high caliber student this person you know needs to get this job just simply because of where they went to school and where they

133went to high school so that's why i'm here and i'll give back the rest of my time to the board thank you thank you okay we're going to shift into the four questions each one is a one minute time frame let's wait till we get set okay starting with candidate number seven this is the two part question part one what is one district initiative that you believe has been done well and part two what is one district initiative that you have reservations or concerns about or an initiative that you would like additional information on please provide a specific example and the timer is not an initiative um go ahead i've admitted here go ahead that's a hard job so it is hard yeah um one of the initiatives that i think that westminster plainsborough um

134has has taken on that i'm really impressed with is the curriculum um that is has been implemented in the high schools my daughter has a wide array of classes that she's taking including forensic science and i really think that it is very similar to what a college education has to offer and it gives her a lot of preparation for that so i've been really impressed with that and it's very different and from what i experienced when i went to high school in west windsor um the one initiative that i i think needs some improvement or i would like to get more information about is the nutritional initiative as far as what's offered in school lunches um that is something that i think that we could do better as a community and and as a school

135district thank you candidate number three it's a two-part question what is one district initiative that you believe has been done well what is one district initiative that you have reservations or concerns about or an initiative that you would like additional information on please provide a specific example so what i think they've done great is adding to the schools i'm so happy to see more classrooms more labs the kids need them so badly i've spent a lot of time in the schools and i know how crowded those classrooms are and those hallways are it is unbelievable and so i'm so glad to see these massive additions to the schools that is wonderful um and uh what i actually have an issue with that nobody else seems to is the curriculum um my daughter in the third

136grade was on the computer the whole year and didn't put pen to pencil pen to paper at all and it was kind of a eye-opening experience for me and i actually spoke to the woman doing the timers in the back about the curriculum um i believe and it was it was a learning experience for me to and and for her to figure out how to do online learning properly with an eight-year-old and uh i think they lost a lot and i know improvements have been made in that area but i think the curriculum third fourth grade needs to focus on just basic reading and writing thank you very much candidate number two first part what is one district initiative that you believe has been done well and what is one district initiative that you have

137reservations or concerns about or an initiative that you would like additional information on please provide a specific example absolutely thank you and as i stated in my interest letter one of the things that really caused me to grow interest into the board is uh when we first moved here my daughter had a incident of bullying and uh it was investigated immediately you know action was taken the seriousness of the incident was greatly shown and that was something i was highly impressed with coming from different school systems where it wasn't given as much importance so i think that's that's something that's really doing well one thing that i have reservations with is also the the lunch situation uh just seeing i know there's been changes due to covet and different type of options of hot food

138and cold food that needs to be offered currently to to stay safe but from seeing the photos my daughter sent me it doesn't look too appetizing or too too healthy at any point so that's something i would like to dig into okay thank you candidate number nine two-part question what is one district initiative that you believe has been done well and the second part what is one district initiative that you have reservations or concerns about or an initiative that you would like additional information on please provide a specific example the one that you guys hit out of the ballpark was the transition in 2020 march 15th to online i mean that was incredible the way you transitioned from it from a ongoing in-person class to complete online that was fabulous i think you guys did

139such a great job and it did so well that i even though online learning is not best for a lot of students my daughters actually love the idea of going to school half day that that so you guys did a really good job in terms of transitioning adapting to online learning the part where i have uh where i think you guys could do a better job or i think uh um what more needs to be done is in concussion uh and and in sports the reason i say it is my daughter went through three concussions and i don't believe the personnels are well trained enough to pick up concussions at the sports level so i think it could be improved in terms of how coaches and other personnel identify concussions okay thank you all right

140moving on to question number two starting with candidate number three please describe a situation in which you had to make a difficult decision as a member of a team what was the process you used to make the decision how did you handle any disagreements so i would go back to my experience uh as a lawyer i did a lot of hiring and training of employees and i would have disagreements about hiring decisions and i think the most important thing is to be open-minded to listen to other people's viewpoints i think that's something that i've learned living in west windsor uh there are so many different people from all different places in the world and different backgrounds and different viewpoints and i think it's really important to be open-minded and to continue to listen to our

141neighbors and friends as especially with the well-being of all of our students in mind thank you candidate number two please describe a situation in which you had to make a difficult decision as a member of a team what was the process you used to make the decision how did you handle any disagreements sure so i will also uh go back to i previously clerked for a judge in warren county and as part of that job i had to handle all mediations prior to them going before a judge so the sheer nature of the situation was handling a disagreement between both parties um and in that situation you learn how to just listen to both sides and really just offer a middle point that nobody's really kind of seeing and in every situation there's usually an

142opportunity for both parties to meet but both sides are really kind of sticking to their guns they want this they want that an optimal situation is when everybody leaves a little bit disgruntled because everybody's getting a little bit of what they need so it just allowed me to build skills and listening and and really just analyzing situations and how to fix people's lives without them really seeing the end result thank you candidate number nine please describe a situation which you had to make a difficult decision as a member of a team what was the process you used to make the decision how did you handle any disagreements i while building my company i faced a number of times where i had to make difficult decisions with respect to personnel with respect to cutting down in

143the number of employees to meet the budget but these are these are where you actually learn to pre utilize the skill set but you learn this skill set from a very basic things in terms of how to deal with your kids if i have three daughters and they're often times they're in a disagreement but you the key thing you have to do is to listen to them listen to them then after you understand all perspective and figure out how to communicate position it properly such that they understand what the principle that should guide the thing and that that's basic and you learn that from a family school but it's actually employable in a in a business environment where i had to start a company and actually and and deal with cutting employees thank you candidate

144number seven please describe a situation in which you had to make a difficult decision as a member of a team what was the process you used to make the decision how did you handle any disagreements i encounter this kind of circumstance a lot in in my work as a family law attorney mediation is a big part of my practice what i do so the way that i deal with those situations is by trying to identify points of agreement amongst people and using that to be at the forefront of any discussion and i think coming up with creative solutions to address the real per the real differences that people have with always going back to the points of agreement um throughout that mediation process that has been very successful for me as a mediator and also

145as an advocate participating in a mediation which is something that i do very frequently on a daily basis pretty much thank you okay moving on to the third question candidate number two please describe your experience with budgets labor negotiations multi-facility operations or system integration technology absolutely thank you uh i i guess i'll touch on the budgets aspect during law school i served as president of my school's black law students association um and with this responsibility came in uh the oneness of overseeing the budget along with the treasurer um and i had the unique idea of for all our expenses finding a way for someone else to pay for it instead of us um so that allowed for us to have more money to do what we wanted to do at the end of the year

146uh so through sponsorships and and allowing people to come and speak and you know pitch their ideas or whatever at the end of the year we had a huge surplus which we were able to just pour back into the organization increase our study library and increase all the resources that we need to kind of study for the bar and not have to put that burden on the seniors graduating or the three house graduating so ideally the best way to handle a budget is to just find someone else to pay for it thank you candidate number nine please describe your experience with budgets labor negotiations multi-facility operations or system integration technology starting a business requires prudent use of budget you have to understand how to best utilize the money you have on hand because you will

147have multiple projects at hand but you have to choose figure out how to choose the right project which will best best give you return on your investment so with respect to that we had to keep an eye on our goal keep an ensure that we were able to break choose a project that will give us the best return on investment but also implement that project in a way such that we reduce or minimize the risk meaning that figure out how to break down the project with respect to risk and implement it with implemented with respect to reducing the risk as much as possible with the focus strategy thank you candidate number seven please describe your experience with budgets labor negotiations timers i'm teasing multi-facility operations or system integration technology okay so once again um i

148am a family law attorney a big part of my practice is addressing budgetary limitations on a on a very small scale within a family when they are go when people are going through that transition i have to help them figure out how they're going to make a two-income household um break up to support two two separate households um that's a that's something that requires a lot of thought and the guiding principle behind that in me helping my clients and people that i'm mediating case for is the best interest of the children and keeping that in mind when trying to figure out how we can make two incomes uh spread up spread to support two separate households that's something that i deal with on again a daily basis thank you candidate number three thank you you

149don't have to repeat that question um no it's good um i'll just wait for it so um i'll speak to budgets as well um way back in my professional experience i worked in advertising and i got to spend budgets and so that was spend i had a budget to spend um of nissan and infinity dollars all over uh tv and radio because uh internet wasn't really happening then um but so i would have to be responsible for it and um and uh be uh accountable for it and i think that's something that the board has to be accountable to the citizens of this of these two towns and uh it's extremely important and another important thing about being accountable is um in my legal experience when i graduated from law school sort of the post

150enron era so there was it was just accounting fraud upon accounting fraud i worked on on cases where i had to learn all about reading the financial documents and the accounting documents and looking for fraud looking for problems and so i am familiar with financial documents and hopefully not finding any problems here thank you okay we've come to the last question candidate number two the last question is an opportunity for you to share anything about your background or relevant experience that you've not previously shared that you would like to offer for the board's consideration of your candidacy sure uh so i also serve as a volunteer uh as a member on the intensive supervision program for the state of new jersey and this involves uh you know we interview currently incarcerated individuals looking to come

151back into society and i represent the community um a high proportion of the individuals are young people um you know 18 to 22 range you've just made stupid decisions just based on not having the proper guidance the proper instruction proper school system proper anything and these are fully capable individuals who just have made bad decisions so my heart kind of bleeds out for them and it also wants to ensure that our students have that same have the guidance and instruction that they need to make those proper decisions going forward it just takes one you know wrong decision to really ruin a student's life and i want to do everything i can to ensure that that situation doesn't happen thank you candidate number nine the last question is an opportunity for you to share anything about

152your background or relevant experiences that you not already shared that you would like to offer for the board's consideration of your candidacy i'm an entrepreneur that means i like to look at challenges from a different perspective and find an innovative solution towards it and in same manner i i am a i love mentorship but i don't go to the typical route to do mentoring but i find a way to help other people for example i've helped his mother west windsor mother change her career or take her through a career transition i was with her for three years and i was successfully able to help her transition from one industry to because to becoming an executive at amazon i also through my soccer experience i also find a way to mix with people from different socio-economic

153background even though west windsor is pretty wealthy there i have an opportunity to help fathers talk to their daughters about the college process and how to how to make sure how to be motivated about sending their daughters to college and so these are innovative way i find and solve challenges thank you candidate number seven this last question is an opportunity for you to share anything about your background or relevant experiences you have not already shared that you would like to offer for the board's consideration of your candidacy one thing that i didn't mention but i did uh include in my letter of of intent is that my uh family my husband owns two small businesses uh he owns restaurants one of them here in plainsboro the concession on the golf course and um us being

154very a young couple young parents i was intimately involved in that in addition to working as a lawyer i'm starting my own practices as i mentioned earlier so um we are we are very intimately involved and invested in this community and i have have had some experience with adjusting to the change in the restaurant industry as one of the things that we help to work with changing our budget changing our our vendors and adjusting and adapting to the times and i think that that is another skill that i could bring to the board thank you lastly candidate number three last question is an opportunity for you to share anything about your background or relevant experiences that you have not previously shared that you would like to offer for the board's consideration of your candidacy i

155just would like to add that you know my children have been involved in many different things with the school system and um interface with many different kinds of teachers and i think that i we have such a unique school district with so many different interests and i really hope all of those continue i know there's a big emphasis on getting back into sports and normalcy for the kids but all of the clubs and the plays and the the things that the kids need the most after-school activities and sports i really hope those continue and i hope um because there's so many kids that aren't involved in sports and really need to have that in-person interaction with their uh their their their co-students and um so i hope those continue and um it's just something that

156i'm passionate about because i my son isn't into sports but i that's all i did thank you very much as with the first panel all of you did a great job thank you for coming out [Applause] so um in order to facilitate the next next transition the board has to be receded to make a motion to go into executive closed session so thank you again to all of our candidates and we'll explain next steps when we get up to the to the desk oh thank you [Music] is thank you i thank you uh thank you everyone i i think um i'm sure i can speak for all the board members to say that was amazing to really listen to all of you candice thank you so much for coming out here and for of course

157applying for this this position uh i know we're gonna have a really difficult decision ahead of us and i i really really enjoyed hearing as you all said about each other hearing your stories hearing your responses um i hope yeah there was there's so many of you and you know we can only choose one but i really hope that this isn't the last time that we see many of you um really appreciate the time that you took i know it's a long night but i know personally i'm sure i speak for our board members that we enjoy the process we enjoyed listening to your answers and uh yeah we will it will not be an easy decision so um so we are going to recess and to close executive session uh to debrief on these

158interviews uh and i believe we expect that to take around an hour or so and uh i believe in about 30 minutes someone will come out and just update uh you know the all of you for anyone who is still here to just update you on that process this is live streaming so any of you are free to stay until that that hour is up or you're free also to to watch this back home um so that's completely your choice is there anything else you want to add doctor sure thank you miss juliana um just again um again thank you to everyone that that was here and interviewed this evening and and appreciate your candidacies uh with respect to the debrief um a member of the administration will come out in approximately 30 minutes from

159the time we recess to give an update it's possible that we come back earlier the board may make a motion for an opportunity to name a new member again should someone be named to the board of education tonight there's a process that that individual will have to go through in the next 30 days with respect to background check and fingerprint clearance before they're allowed to be sworn in to the board of education that's a that's a state rule so just want to make sure the public understands that the board member will be um could be appointed this evening but they won't be seated as a member of the board as a voting member of the board until they go through that next process this should take about 30 days with the state process so the

160earlier we can coordinate the faster it happens um that uh being said um mr toscano is there anything further for the community that we would need to inform them no i need to read the statement okay you need to read this we need to obviously read the resolution and then motion second and go from there okay all right so i'll go ahead and read this resolution so whereas the open public meetings authorizes boards of education to meet an executive session under certain circumstances whereas the open public meetings act requires the board to adopt a resolution at a public meeting to go into private session now therefore be it resolved by the west windsor plainsboro regional school district board of education that it is necessary to meet an executive session to discuss certain items involving the

161board of education vacancy be it further resolved that any discussion held by the board which need not remain confidential will be made public as soon as feasible the minutes of the executive session will not be disclosed until the need for confidentiality no longer exists be it further resolved that the board may return to open session to conduct public up to conduct business at the conclusion of the executive session if necessary can i have a motion to go into closed session okay all those in favor say aye aye aye thank you we'll recess the closed session thank you very much everyone oh can you go that way yeah i'll double check i'll chat okay wow yes [Music] okay um i three thank you thank you back [Music] all in favor say aye aye all right so

162again i just want to really i know i said this already but i want to reiterate again um thank you all so much uh for coming out and definitely for applying uh it was a humbling experience actually to see so many apply but also to to hear how impressive everyone was and is um we really hope that we continue to see everyone and again just from all of us thank you for participating in this thank you for um vault you know coming out to do these interviews and spending the time with us and we really really appreciate it and we're humbled by this experience i think it's the first for all of us and we were just so impressed with everybody so so thank you again all so much for being here okay um so

163okay i need a motion to appoint uh shweta shetty to fill the vacant board seat until december 31st 2022. i'll make a motion and do we have a second a second the motion thank you uh roll call please okay we'll start with miss bonsall yes miss miss miss cheniere yes miss ho yes ms crook yes miss maliga yes mizovich yes miss mcewen yes ms juliana yes thank you everyone thank you very much for being here tonight and do we have a motion to adjourn yes all right all in favor say aye hi hi jen thank you very much everyone thank you