001call this meeting to order please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have the advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the cedar grove board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be advertised by having the date time place thereof posted on bulletin boards in the district published and or transmitted to the verona cedar grove times and star legend newspapers tap into online news
002filed with the township clerk and posted on the district's website roll call please mrs dye mr marzullo here mr schoener mrs miga here mrs dora here good evening everyone good evening uh at this time the meeting is open to the public for any comments on the agenda only we do not have anyone who signed up so i close that portion and we move to committee reports i have a bunch of committee reports or a bunch of um things to talk about today it was a busy month so on march 25th i attended the district's arts showcase at memorial middle school it was just so exciting to see the community come together to celebrate all the fantastic artwork completed by our students as well as enjoy the choral and instrumental performances so that was really uh
003an um an amazing experience on april 2nd i attended the autism puzzle tournament the realized puzzle for autism tournament was held at the high school what an exciting event for all ages and a fantastic way to spread awareness and acceptance of differences along with raising funds for the autism for autism organizations on april 1st i attended the south end tricky tray event at ravelos where 100 percent of the proceeds of this event is going to the addition of playground equipment at south end school in honor of nikki storms thank you cedar grove for all your generosity on april 9th i attended the production of high school musical junior where our middle school students performed what a great job by all our students who participated in that production and what a great evening that was on
004march 29th i attended mr grosso's edac meeting at that at that meeting mr grosso announced that moving forward the committee will be led by one of our community members dr reverend sarah welch pomerance she's from cedar grove community church there was discussion about renaming the committee and incorporating ways to broaden the scope of topics covered specifically some of the fallout around our community and our neighboring communities relating to the opioid epidemic um facilities the facilities committee continues to meet on a pretty regular basis moving forward hopefully moving forward to presenting to the community some opportunities to receive input regarding the the most financially responsible way to address the overcrowding in our elementary schools and the last thing i'd like to talk about is i would like to publicly thank the town council for their generous
005contributions to the education of our children with the pilot money they will be providing the school district with 1.2 million dollars for the next 25 years the formal agreement will be approved at the next board of education meeting that was a busy month for me so mrs miga hello to everyone here and watching at home i hope everyone enjoyed their spring break and hopefully some nice spring weather lies ahead march 25th i also was at the district-wide art show which was more than just art it also showed great musical talent and a sense of community for all ages the students and staff did it did a wonderful job the talent we have in cedar grove and the dedicated staff members is really great to see april 2nd i also attended the special services autism awareness
006puzzle event it was a very nice event again with very dedicated staff and volunteers to make this event a success april 11th 14th and 22nd we had finance meetings to work on budgeting for the upcoming school year i also attended town council meetings on april 4th and april 8th according to my notes i would like to extend a big thank you as well to the mayor and council for the pilot money the district will be receiving starting this year and for 25 years there to come april 5th and april 7th i briefly attended both the north end and south and spring concerts it was a great way to see the students as they were smiling in a gym full of happy family members friends and staff what a great job and both were very well
007attended and i think the kids did a great job from what i saw looking ahead just a reminder that cedar grove has partnered with verona for a wellness fair event this event will be on may 14th from 12 to 3 at the civic center in verona information has started to come out via email but i'm sure now that you're back from spring break they'll be more forthcoming also just a reminder on april 30th from 12 to 3 there was an autism taught me event that's on the grass on route 23 i don't know the exact address i think it's in between like food town and [Music] kyoto that glass building i think that's what it is um and also the municipal alliance committee will have a program on may 1st it's called in your house
008it's about drug addiction in america and that's at 3 p.m at community church that's all i am thank you mrs amiga you're welcome thank you good evening certainly sound busy so excellent job i attended the rec board meeting uh this past month uh just a couple announcements i'd like to make from that meeting that uh the fourth of july fireworks uh presented by the town council and the rec department are going to be on june 30th with a rain date of july first miss landofi also announced that evening that uh july 15th uh jackals will host the cedar grove night at yogi bear stadium so that'd be a great event to attend with uh your family and i'm not sure if they were doing fireworks after that that evening also at the jackals game but
009friday night they normally do so i'm going to assume i'm going to say yes and then i'd like to also mentioned that you know the panther park has begun being began being utilized by the high school and the rec programs it's a great location for when our fields are underwater and stuff for the high school to move to and the younger kids have been enjoying the uh the time on panther park too i also had the opportunity to attend the curriculum meeting uh led by mr grosso miss barbosa mr pearson and myself and miss dora were in attendance at the curriculum meeting miss barbosa presented on the k-6 curriculum i spoke about some phonics programs foundation k-3 on the they're going to hold a professional development for grade levels uh in may and june and
010the hegerty phonics awareness supplement program will be uh one of the electives i'm sorry and they also will be continuing the writer's workshop mr bear presented on on behalf of the high school uh and uh discuss the course requirements and electives that they have mentioned in the continuing that they will be continuing the dual enrollment program with montclair state university i also like to mention the start of the uti program and the robotics programs that we have started to implement here at cedar grove he also shared the selection of the honors courses classes and how differentiated instruction can offer an opportunity for all level learners in the future so that's something that we should have an opportunity to look forward to for all the children in cedar grove and the opportunity to take some honors
011level courses um that was uh and i also like to on behalf of myself and and the rest of the board of education like to thank the mayor and town council again obviously for that generous pilot money that they have offered for the school for the next uh many years thank you mr marzulla okay we're going to start this evening off with some uh presentations our first presentation miss jessen is here and she will be presenting on music matters hershey park overnight trips do you have anything up here no it's just one future thank you [Music] okay so it's been a while since uh the music department has taken a trip uh we all know why um and so we thought that we would try to put together a one night adventure for them and
012starting here and having a festival that's adjudicated by high note festivals music educators would come to our building and we'd be able to set up um right here on our stage in the band and orchestra and choir get adjudicated um in the mor in the morning at um eight o'clock and then um get on a motor coach to go to hershey park and spend the day at the park and then at closing at 7pm board the bus and we'd be staying at the days inn right there near hershey park one mile away and music matters providing a pizza dinner for them and there's a pool and then saturday having breakfast at the hotel returning to hershey park but to go to chocolate world i haven't been there myself but i'm excited and then noon get
013on the bus to return home to cedar grove and the pricing there for 200 per person the music festival participation the round trip bus transportation we were lucky to find through camilla tours and has seat belts a bagel breakfast for them on friday morning after their adjudication the hershey park admission the pizza dinner the hotel the breakfast and a t-shirt that they would all wear at the park and many of the students have fundraising money left from when we didn't attend our florida trip march 2020 so um that's about it any questions i i actually have a couple simple ones yes how many students do you estimate about we have currently 30 students interested you know and committed with a deposit whether using it through their fundraising credits or they've already put down a deposit
014and how many adults i'd be myself mr savino the orchestra teacher mr catallo and we do have a special needs student whose mother would be attending so for thank you can i ask the dreaded what are the kovid um parameters here um well recently on our grease trip um we wore masks everywhere um when we were sometimes outside at the the large um you know ancient ruins the masks would come down for a picture um i mean more like uh if someone gets coveted do they get their money back do is there any coven restrictions in place to that would cancel this trip or do they need to be vaccinated do they need to be boo you know what i'm saying like right right well mask site yes the vaccinations um so they have to
015be vaccinated to go yes yes do they have to be boosted uh i could i could find that out just curious because i sat here for a little while yeah no i understand i understand i could i'll definitely pursue more of that questioning and i know at hershey park um they have um their own policies yeah they have their own policies so um and of course i'll do whatever you know is needed for the school policies as well right right good question thank you but certainly music matters would reimburse them if they were not on if they were unable to attend i'm not saying you have to test maybe you're not requiring whoever the bus or whoever might not be calling you to test because it's a domestic trip not an international trip right right
016but if somebody does happen to get it right before they go what's what's in place is what i'm saying right you know i do have one the just the bus transportation is that going to be outsourced or yes yes we did because um we're doing that through music matters yes it's um it's been hard to find buses at that time of year and like lots of other festivals that's why we want to host the festival here because hershey park is not allowing the festivals to be you know to sing outside the park or inside the park so other people coming here for the festival no i did i did reach out and invited like passaic valley i have a colleague high school band there who was actually interested in doing something similar to what we
017do with um the ice hockey and you know trying to get a marching band kind of joint program going so i did ask him if he'd be interested in attending just to play and get adjudicated um but that's still up in the air okay okay great thank you okay thank you excuse me this at this time you can't ask any questions about that mr stringer and i just um just to be clear i still have to pursue that question thank you okay our next presentation we have the 22 23 budget hearing mr davida are we going over there yeah because i can't turn my head [Music] all right anybody hear me okay hold this everybody hear me okay all righty uh welcome to the presentation of our budget for next school year uh 2022-23 a
018year this screen here sorry all right this screen here just uh shows a basic a a timeline for how our budget starts um from around november december so was when the process starts when all the information is sent to the principals and directors and they gather all their information together and they uh submit it both to myself and the superintendent and then we gather everything together then we meet with the finance committee from the february to march period and then march 8th of this year uh stated figures were released normally it's always the last um the governor that's his um budget address the last tuesday of february this year was delayed a couple weeks so our stated figures were delayed also but the good news is that uh we did see an increase in state
019aid uh we got an increase of 322 thousand dollars for the 22-23 year um but our debt service um uh city uh was decreased by 788 um and then on march 21st we approved our preliminary budget um and then on march 31st the uh county superintendent approved our our preliminary budget and here we are tonight presenting the final budget uh now these numbers here um they're just a little bit different than the preliminary budget uh uh i'll explain why in some future slides um but this slide here just shows the um the uh a summary of all of our uh expenditures and the the total budget um i'll go into a bit more detail into each category but you can see a comparison from our current year to what we're proposing for for next school
020year we have our instructional programs which basically includes all salaries supplies textbooks any purchase services for any um a regular instruction programs is is included here in a special education this number is a staying study this number includes all salary supplies any purchase services for the child study team we do have some programs lld a resource room we have a preschool disabilities program and also a multiple disabilities program that's included here and also all of our out out-of-district tuition for our special education students um is included here um so that it is a big number uh next is our employee benefits this number is increasing by about 375 thousand dollars this includes all expenses for social security uh pension workers comp uh tuition reimbursement and the big one is uh health benefits um health benefits
021includes our medical dental and prescription plans that's the the majority of the amount here next is our support services this includes all expenses for attendance health services guidance services school administration and the general administration central services such as my office i.t transportation and co-curricular and athletics and lastly here in operating fund is operations and maintenance budget this includes all maintenance custodial grounds any security expenses and also capital expenses are included in this budget so this brings our proposed for next school year our total operating budget at 34 little over 34 and a half million dollars which is an increase of little over a million dollars from the current school year our special revenue fund there is a big increase here on this is mainly because we do we do get um we got our sr3
022um funds are included in here um we haven't um we spent a little bit of it but but not the majority of it will still be spent in the next school year and also includes any uh state grants also such as ida and esea also our debt service fund this includes any uh principal and interest expenses for the bonds that have already been that have been issued by the district and approved uh so this brings our total annual budget if you had everything up here to just under 39 million dollars for the uh the school year um and it's about a little over a million and a half um change uh this here is our um shows our operating budget um and as you can see um um the local tax levy makes up the
023majority of our budget um we are increasing uh it's a proposed two percent increase um if you remember at our uh when our preliminary budget was approved um we weren't going to the two percent uh because uh we had to reduce it because of uh chapter 44. we did do an appeal and that was heard by the um by the the county office and the uh the state and they they accepted our appeal so we were now able to increase the two percent uh which is a good for us so this shows the increase here and our state local tax levy makes up about 86.65 of our operating revenue uh next it which is new for um this year as you heard uh some of our board members thank the township um for our pilot
024money um that we didn't have this in our current year and next year it's um uh 1.2 million dollars is a factored in uh this number wasn't factored into our preliminary budget so now it's um factored into our um a final budget and we were able to put back um items into the budget that were cut or or we had to reduce and we were able to also reduce some of our our reserves that we were going to be putting money into now it's not so this is gonna financially help us out for years to come the next line shows our budget fund balance uh this is basically unused surplus um that is carried over um that we're required to put in our budget as per our audit uh the next two we have our
025decreases um we uh um used to rent out um the first floor of our lrp building to the essex junior academy um that lease says um is including at the end of this school year um so the rental income and also the custodial services um is not um that income is not factored into the budget for next year uh we do have uh tuition now that that's being factored in we do receive some money from our pre-k program and also our we do receive our progressions program we'll be receiving a few students from verona for next year and we also receive a a student from a glen ridge for a program in the middle school uh so that shows that total uh our aftercare program um we are a contract with alphabet and the 60
026000 is what the minimum is as for the contract so that's factored in there our interest income is any um interest that we receive um from the banks for for all of our funds uh miscellaneous income uh there's basically any rate uh funds that we receive from the the uh the government and any prior year refunds or any miscellaneous income that that's i'm not expected is included in here uh transportation uh we do receive funds from parents um that um that ride our buses that are not eligible to to receive to be able to ride the bus here if we do have room on the bus we do offer them a a a a contract to ride the bus and the bottom two are for special education our extraordinary aid these are funds that we
027receive from the state for uh sending out um special education students and then new to this this year um semi is um federal funds that we receive for special education students uh through medicaid the last slide for our revenue here prior year encumbrances this is more just to show an amount for the current school year um it's it's a funds that were encumbered at the end of last school year uh june 30 2021 and then that gets carried over into the the new budget uh the next three are uh our state aid as i mentioned earlier it has increased 320 thousand dollars so that is a factor in here and um we're not withdrawing any money from maintenance reserve as i mentioned with the pilot money that we received we're able to reduce that so
028we were able to save that for future years so this shows that our operating revenue is increasing a little over a million dollars or it's a little over three percent 3.13 percent to be exact um so this shows our total operating expenses total the same amount as our revenues here and this just goes into a little bit more detail of what the is included in the instructional programs as i mentioned earlier all the salaries but it shows all the regular education programs we have our basic skills in esl media services and any uh instructional staff training is is included in here so this shows this increase as just under five hundred thousand dollars was being proposed for next school year special education the top line here shows all of our um the instruction part of
029it here so it's all the salaries and supplies and all that for all of our programs uh district tuition we do have uh 26 special education students that go to um uh private or uh uh a public schools that that are sent out um so that that's included here and we are able to offset uh some of this uh expense through our ida grant related and extraordinary services is just um um some in-house um speech personnel uh any um therapy and interventionists or anything that we offer our specialized education students is included in here so this number is remaining constant because we were able to um [Music] reduce our some of our tuition expenses uh next we have our uh employee benefits here um this broke broken out into our um social security uh which
030is any payments the state for non-certified staff such as secretaries or custodians uh retirement contributions this these are pension payments for for for the same non-certified staff workers comp uh includes the premium for any um the insurance coverage for everybody uh tuition reimbursement as per our contract um other contractual obligations this number is is um decreasing in next school year because we don't have as many um employees retiring so we don't have to pay out as much sick payout to them and as i mentioned the health benefits is the the majority of this number here it is um uh um going up to almost a 5.8 million dollars for next school year uh support services here this includes our attendance and health services and guidance basically any any services that that are related to the
031students here our administrative expenses include any um you know salaries for central office staff attorneys fees audit fees many professional fees are included in here this is a continuation of transportation this number is increasing for next school year um i have some slides at the end here that you'll see uh but we are um proposing to uh purchase some new buses for next school year uh three 16 passenger buses and 154 passenger bus um so including this salary is the salary expense that we have to uh to do that um when by purchasing the buses that this is going to help us decrease our services in in future years and also athletics and co-curricular are included in this part of the budget our operations and maintenance here um including any maintenance and custodial and ground
032services and anything that that we use to to maintain the buildings any repairs or anything is included in this budget here and a capital outlay includes the this is where the the four buses are included in the budget here uh this slide here i just like to try to combine everything in the budget and just to do an analysis i i try to break the budget into a three categories um [Music] a personnel student and other uh course such as professional course these are more the the fixed costs that we we have to spend and then we have the discretionary costs uh such as supplies and everything that that you know we're not required to spend that we don't have to uh so it shows you like a personnel costs which includes all salaries benefits
033pension um and all that there that amounts to just under 78 of the budget is included there um student expenses are more for special education any other district expenses transportation all that that's about just under 13 of the budget and other costs such as energy our psng costs and all that is included in here any legal and professional fees are included in here so basically our the fixed costs in our budget amount to just under 94 um meaning that um just over six percent is included in our discretionary funds where we can you know supplies any um facility repairs and equipment or textbooks and athletics and all that so i always just like to to show this to to see what our fixed costs are every year uh our new items that are in the
034budget uh for next year uh we do have a three new paraprofessional positions for a special education we do have one new teaching position for class size we have one a new occupational therapist which will help us reduce uh some uh out of district expenses and then the the the bus drivers are included here um we are estimating to um have future savings of approximately 130 000 every year by purchasing the buses by purchasing them ourselves and hiring our own drivers and we won't have to to rely on the um the transportation companies as ms jessen mentioned before it's very hard to find you know companies to uh to transport the students and when you do um you know the expenses have been been increasing uh our msu clinicians uh we did start using this
035uh this school year through one of our grants so in next school year it's um it's going to be included in our general budget this is for any uh regular education students that are in need of counseling services and we will continue to implement our one-to-one initiative so all students in grades one five and nine will be receiving their chromebooks so the tax impact for our operating budget it's estimated at the average increase for the average assessed house which is a 473 thousand dollars for next school year uh the average increase annually is 111 the average per month is 9.27 per week is dollars and 14 cents and per day is 30 cents and the estimated school tax rate increase is 1.67 and that concludes the presentation thank you yeah [Applause] [Music] i just have
036one more item i just want to bring up here was um at our last board meeting um it was asked about uh some attorney fees um for how much what was spent on the um the survey and i also believe the uh um the ethics uh complaints uh so i did a look into our um expenses and from july 2021 to february the survey expenses for our attorney fees were sixteen thousand seven hundred fourteen dollars and fifty cents and the ethics complaints came to nineteen thousand three hundred eighty seven dollars and fifty cents all right thank you mr davida did a great job appreciate that all right next up on our agenda is our superintendent uh update mr grosso okay good evening everybody um i'd like to start off i'm gonna echo a lot of
037what you all said um we were there together sorry we beat you to it he did yes he did um so i just wanted to share uh with you know with the with the district the arts staff did a wonderful job in organizing the disregard showcase i mean there was from pre-k to 12th grade there was 2d art there was music there was um there's actual um you know instrumental but there was also performance and it was just it was outstanding and it was on a friday afternoon on a half day and the place was packed it was packed so it was very impressive um and i look forward to the tradition that was created this year for many years to come i really showcased a lot of our art students um and i also
038want to thank um joe's in town and also um sip and swirl because that added a nice little feature to uh the event um i also wanted to share that i as well went to the um autism awareness puzzle tournament which is uh april which is autism awareness month uh that was fantastic i went there early in the morning i know they got a lot more crowded as the day continued um with the adult puzzles but it was a really nice time we all had a chance in putting together the town puzzle which was which was good um but uh we had a great time it was april april 2nd it was that was sponsored by realize and um also the cedar grove special education department um i also want to say that it was
039very nice to see when i went to the south and tricky tray the amount of people that came out and supported uh it was huge and it was great really really nice event so that was really nice to see i as well went to the elementary spring concerts i want to give a big thank you to bob zavino and maggie stroh they did a wonderful job in getting the um the students uh prepared and performing and it was packed and especially at south end where sometimes you you couldn't even get into the into the gym it was it was it was it was great what a what a wonderful um display of of the arts um i also had the opportunity to go to the uh it was really the first annual the first i'm
040saying the first annual was the first advanced placement breakfast which was the ap breakfast so there was that was on april 14th uh the high school actually um had uh donuts bagels uh and just a big celebratory um kind of pep rally for our ap students there was around there was 109 students that were eligible to take that test that's a huge amount when you're looking at a little under 500 students that's a good portion of students that were going to be taking the ap test so um had a nice opportunity to speak to the students had a nice opportunity to talk to some of the students individually and uh just that was a really nice nice event so that was great i also wanted to just share that the verona and cedar grove mental
041wellness festival is going to be on may 14th 12 to 3. it's going to be on the civic center on the lawn in verona so i know there'll be a table there um so please you know come out and visit everybody and it's a nice um it's a nice collaborative event between the two towns uh also this is everybody's favorite time of year the new jersey student learning assessments that is students in grades three through nine will engage in assessments next month in the areas of math and language arts also the nj sla science will be administered to grades five eight and eleven so um that is the first time in two years that uh all students across the state of new jersey will be back to taking a standardized test aside from the start
042strong test that we had the beginning of the school year also i'd like to share that there's been a lot of conversation around the new jersey comprehensive health and physical education standards so i just want to speak a little bit about that you know we here in cedar grove we're currently revising the curriculum through this summer for those disciplines required to be implemented in september of 22. uh so the njsls dated back on 2020 that's the comprehensive health standards there are no lesson plans developed yet for any of these standards the key to our implementation of the standards is an emphasis on age appropriateness and i wanted to share that again with the board that we are looking at creating lessons that are age appropriate to the standards the standards have changed slightly from which
043changed six years later but we are committed to making sure that the lessons that are created and the curriculum that is created uh will be age appropriate um because essentially what the state has placed and put out is not curriculum uh what it merely is is just guidance on what they were looking for as a standard so we will be creating that um we also will be holding a parent and caregiver information sessions during the month of may this will allow families and caregivers to come out and ask questions about the standards ask questions about what our intentions are with the curriculum uh it also um allow people to share their concerns too and their feedback about that um but more information will follow um as we settle those dates and we will push those
044out to the public uh asap and i also want to like you know the rest of the board of chair tonight i want to thank uh the township of cedar grove um especially the mayor council and uh township manager tom tucci uh for their partnership in providing pilot um pilot money to help us move forward for the next 25 years at 1.2 million dollars that's a investment in our children's future here in cedar grove and that will certainly as you can tell from mr davida's presentation which is excellent excellent job um uh it will help supplement the offset costs as we move forward and help us to build new programming yeah so um that's it that's all i have for tonight all right thank you thank you all right let me move along here under
045minutes can i have a motion to approve b1 through b5 it's a move second any discussion rogul mr marzullo yes mrs miga yes mr dora yes under bills can i have a motion to approve b6 somo second discussion no roll call mrs mr martial marzullo yes miss amiga yes mr dora yes under uh business can i have a motion to approve b7 through b15 please you shall move ah second discussion roll call mr marzullo yes miss amiga yes mrs dora yes hold on a second under personnel sorry can i have a motion to approve s1 through s19 please somo second discussion roll call mr marzullo yes mrs miga yes mrs dora yes and under contract can i go back yes you may should we make this snow oh yes yes s19 s19 i just want
046to clarify s19 or just make it highlight it s19 is a motion to approve an adjustment to the 2122 district calendar to reflect the use of two available emergency closing days on thursday may 26 and tuesday may 31st so we will be extending memorial day weekend so mark your calendars thank you miss megan you're welcome and under contracts can i have a motion to approve s20 so move second discussion roll call mr marzullo yes mrs miga yes this is dora yes okay at this point the meeting is open to the public for comments on or off the agenda the board of ed recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest public participation shall be governed by
047the following rules please preface comments by stating your name your address your municipality of residence and any group affiliation if applicable please be mindful of your statement length and keep each statement to the three minute limit participants may not speak more than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on that topic have been heard please direct all statements questions or inquiries to the presiding officer and any questions or inquiries directed by a participant to another board member shall be redirected to the presiding officer who shall determine if such statement question or inquiry shall be addressed by the presiding officer on behalf of the board or by the individual board member the presiding officer may interrupt warn and or terminate a participant's statement question or inquiry if it is too lengthy
048or too abusive obscene or maybe deflammatory these rules may be waived if necessary to protect privacy or to maintain an orderly operation of the board meeting tonight we have four people who have signed up first we have mr kawiki let me get the one up there hmm thank you uh keith kawecki 18 westland road uh mr david a great presentation thank you for the information too it's been very helpful um my my assumption is that the um the budget year is july 1 through june 30. yes which coincides with pilot yes great um mr i hate to put you on a spot but i really would like an answer to an email i sent you about a month ago relative to when does public comment become harassment well which one yeah sure actually i have
049no idea if this microphone is on or not can you use mine i'll use this one there you go so um there's a a great deal of leeway in public comment in a school board meeting because there is a first amendment and the first amendment allows people to say things even if other people might be offended by them or disagree with them the school there's a lot of law which says that school board meetings are not pure first amendment forums but they're what are called limited first amendment forums and that distinction is what gives school boards the right to put time limits on how long people may speak to impose reasonable rules and regulations such as the kind that the president read before before you spoke and before anyone else speaks but uh harassment is
050somewhat in the eye of the beholder and you know it's sort of i don't know that i can say more than that people know it when they see it if it's mean-spirited or intended to injure rather than to have dialogue i think that's the kind of thing that a board president doesn't have to but has the right to stop but there is a lot of leeway under the first amendment given to what members of the public say unfortunately for the dialogue that same leeway doesn't apply to the board members they are limited in what they can say for example you may feel free to stand up and i'll just say this hypothetically you may feel free to stand up and criticize a staff member but the board can't discuss a personnel issue in public so
051it will sit silent while you say whatever you're going to say i think that the board president's statement probably included if it didn't it's the law anyway a line which says that even though members of the public have a first amendment right to stand up and say would it pretty much whatever it is they wish to say that does not insulate them from the laws against defamation or insulate them from somebody who thinks they've been defamed turn around and suing them i i fully appreciate that i'm talking in generalities and not specifics but that's because the question can only be answered in generalities so i hope that helps is there any thing that i can read that will inform me more about the differences between public comment and harassment in a public setting if the
052board president would like me to i will provide her with some already published materials on that and she could share them with you that'd be great sure be happy to do that thanks very much thanks for your time thanks for your service thank you mr quickie next we have uh marlena o'connor i believe hello i'm marlena connor i live at 18 woodstone drive in cedar grove regarding the news about the changes to edac i'm 100 behind bringing in external resources that can help us do things properly for this really important committee and function um companies and organizations all over the the country are starting to do that we just hired a chief diversity officer at my company um a lot of of places are doing the same thing and doing trainings it's something that has
053been recognized as very important um i also heard that verona public schools are even thinking about bringing in a professional consultant to help them with their de and i so um understanding that this is so important i would like to understand what sarah pomerance reverend sarah's qualifications and background in d e and i are and why we brought her in instead of someone else well um mr grosso maybe you can speak to that a little bit too because edac is actually your committee it's not a board committee but i certainly will join in with you uh well um had a conversation with the reverend um it was brought to my attention that she had done work in this area uh especially at her um within her congregation and um sat down had a meeting and
054she shared her interest in some of this very similar some of the similar things that um you know we are trying to do within the district as well as you know across the state with recognizing diversity equity and inclusion um and we did have that first meeting um and then the reverend and i had a meeting afterwards and i had shared with the reverend that there was some um there was some dissension from from the group and some questions about uh what was going on so we at that at the last meeting so we talked a lot and uh she had shared her reservations on certain um um certain topics that we were talking about and um you know i shared mine as well and one of the things that we both came to the
055conclusion of was that there had to be a more centralized focus on students a lot of what we were talking about a lot of what came up in conversation was more so about adults and that's not necessarily the purpose of that we serve children here in the district and um a lot of what we talk about was getting lost in translation you know and i did appreciate the fact of what she had brought to the table and some of some of her uh struggles that she has been facing within the community and within her congregation um but some of those things aren't necessarily what we're facing within our district at the this particular moment so we did come to the conclusion that we had to look at the overall goal of how we approach diversity
056equity and inclusion within our district and that is more of a centralized focus on students and on children and how does it impact them on their daily life whether it be in their academics or whether it be in their social interactions with each other so that's currently where we are right now and one of the things that we did talk about was that it's not necessarily off the table with looking at what other districts have done and trying to find something that is that has worked very well um these are very um heated they can be heated conversations uh and they're not easy conversations and there's no right conversations to to this um but we did come to the conclusion that um our focus has to be more so on the children rather than the
057adults um and maybe looking towards some other districts and how they actually have handled this could be a guiding light for us in this district thank you i look forward to seeing what happens thank you thank you mr grosso sure next we have michelle moriello good evening michelle moriello 51 bennett ave cedarborough um i know there's been a lot of controversy in the last few weeks regarding the new health curriculum and the standards that were recommended for various grades mr grosso you did touch upon that so i know that you said that it was going to be age appropriate but i already have a list of questions so i'll just ask them and if it was answered fine um with that being said how does cedar rule plan to handle this excuse me mrs morrell
058just pull the microphone down sorry i'm sorry um with that being said um how does cedar grove plan to handle the teaching of these standards and um will the parents be able to opt out of st of the teachings um go ahead if you want to oh should i i'm ready all right i would also like to know what resources the district will be using when teaching these standards and i know that there was one um that was published out in the media and it was amaze.org and it's a sexual health resource and has some really highly inappropriate videos so will the teachers be using this um will parents have the option to look at specific lesson plans and will this be um cross-curricular or will only be taught in health if it is cross-curricular
059how will the teachers be trained to handle uncomfortable topics um tough lessons and will they be able to answer things objectively opposed to subjectively um and like i know mr grosso east hanover is handling this and that is a district that is kind of close to us by teaching these standards on the last day of school within the last half hour and is this something that cedar grove would entertain i don't know why that's so funny but okay um well i think some of the questions you answered in your statement but if you would like to address what whatever you did not um so i'll try to if i missed something just let me know um so i head down here teaching of the standards so overall what i shared earlier was um this is
060the it's the department of education's guidance on what they have adopted as standards so they could share with each district in new jersey uh what they feel the health standards are it is up to the individual local education agency agency to look at those standards and then adopt a curriculum that fits our needs for our community and again i stressed heavily over and over again because i am aware of of the controversy that is surrounding this and i believe the governor is aware of this as well since the governor had to go back and ask for a retooling of the pre-k through two standards um but what we our goal here is is to take into consideration the age level of our students in the appropriateness of what we will be teaching our students yes
061the the state of new jersey does share with us their guidance and their standards and we certainly take that into consideration but when we develop our curriculum we will develop a curriculum that again is appropriate for the students that are receiving this information now when it comes to opting out the health and phys the health and sex ed and health curriculum is the one curriculum in new jersey that parents do have the opportunity to opt out of and it's a state statute so really all that has to happen is is that a parent simply has to write a um a letter to their school principal sharing that they decided to opt out of that curriculum right sex editor et cetera that doesn't have to be detailed doesn't have to have any specific reasons to they
062just can opt out of that so if a parent wants to do that as a principal i've had that happen many times um the alternative to that is is that there will be um the child doesn't get off from that class or but there will be supplemental um an alternative to that which doesn't deal with those subject matters um i wrote something down research resources your resources i can read my own writing resources uh there's multiple resources out there uh you spoke you spoke about amazing i mean i know that's the one in the news that's right you know so that's that's the media creating that and sharing that with with with the public that doesn't mean that we are following that right but what is is that will they bring will there be a
063protocol that you have in place that teachers aren't going to use that or you know like you know as a a super say like a curricular supervisor will say okay this is how we're rolling it out you know yeah as a teacher i could pull different materials you know online and use them in my classroom is there going to be a set of materials that teachers are going to be able to pull to use to teach this curriculum opposed to oh amaze has a great video on you know this this topic you know is that something that cedar grove is not going to be able to access or you know which so mr gogerty is in charge of overall health k through 12 as and mr pearson has been working heavily with with um mr
064gogerty as well and so what they are looking at are appropriate um resources for our students that will engage them on those lessons um it doesn't mean like i said you know there's lots of different things out there right there's actually a lot of different resources out there for teaching math and teaching language arts we don't necessarily use them because we don't really necessarily find them to be appropriate right um i will share that no i'll even some of our regular curricular you know um resources are again are not exactly what i would call as high quality so yes there's lots of things out there but we will be very diligent in looking at what those resources are and how they can be implemented appropriately again for those students um less i have down here
065lesson in cross-curricular um when we look at creating this we're specifically talking about the health and physical education standards uh not necessarily looking at um when you look at the 2020 health and phys ed standards it doesn't necessarily say that they are cross-curricular now i'll give an example of something that the state of new jersey doesn't want us to do that is cross-curricular is climate change climate change they want us to implement that into world language and sciences and language arts and etc so i'm aware because in middle school they had to talk about it in spanish and sometimes that's very difficult to fit in of course you know especially when we look at world language how do we do that maybe it's a cultural piece but um well what we're specifically talking about is
066the health and phys ed standards and those health and phys ed standards are specifically set for just that content area not looking to bring it into language arts not looking to bring into physics not looking to bring it into any type of math class um i know that when mr pearson did present at the meeting when the curriculum i think it was 2020 when it was approved he did refer to the outsiders book um when discussing gender roles and that's different though that's different because that is that is more so for the um the diversity equity and inclusive practices that the state uh is looking to infuse within all subject areas right what i'm talking specifically about is when you're looking at um sexual education um that's not necessarily something you would make as cross-curricular
067all right and i just want to add mrs mariello cedar grove also uses the atlas our curriculum is uploaded in atlas which is accessible on our website which provides the scope and sequence on all of our um curriculum areas so likewise yes as the curriculum work is done it will be uploaded into the atlas so great the community will have that and before we even present this to our students it would be something that would be uh part of the it would be presented to the curriculum committee and then it's voted on and approved by the board of education great okay all right thank you thank you and last we have but not least mr martinelli john marnelli dirty hillside avenue um if you guys could bear with me i really want to get this
068all across but i have to tell a story because it applies to the terminology and it applies to an event or meeting that happened so my personal personal experience with an individual i just want to bring that to light and then how we apply it because i'm 62 i'm a little behind at times and i need to get up to speed with some of the new terminology today and what it means because sometimes the word that i look as being a certain way is no longer that way so i got to keep you know up to speak so i'm going to begin with this here's a picture i want to show you okay this is me this is my friend claude okay i want to show you that right and i wrote something on there
069i wrote something on i shared something on social media i felt was uplifting and inspiring in light of what the current atmosphere is around town and other places i'm sorry thank you and uh clyde my buddy clyde and i felt what the world need now in love and compassion instead of division right so we want to explain our experience before you judge somebody based on how they look okay the only difference between these two individuals is the tone of their skin now things in common we both share the same values on life and how to respect others one is not a victim and one is not an oppressor we grew up in new york during racially charged times in the 1960s and 70s he grew up in the bronx i grew up in brooklyn we
070went to school when dr martin luther king was murdered we both endured much racism which may come to a shock to some because i'm white he was my best man at my wedding when i went to a divorce he was going through a divorce at the same time i had nowhere to go he took me in i lived with him over a year and a half so he became my best man my wedding and we are still best friends today so all we're saying is and this is him talking with me because he'll come here okay he lives in south jersey before you judge either one of us please walk in our shoes as big salmoneri say wisdom comes with age so now for what i just said i want i i appreciate if you
071can answer some of these questions because i showed clyde some of the stuff that's in the cedar grove curriculum okay and the first thing is oppression a term used to describe systems relations and behaviors which disadvantage groups or individuals through formal institutional or informal attitudes and behaviors oppression fuses institutional and systematic discrimination personal bias bigotry and social prejudice in a complex web of relationships and structures so this is either to mr grosso or whoever else wants to answer it since my children are biracial are they an oppressor or oppressed which one just write these down please prejudice okay a prejudgment of unjustifiable usually negative attitude of one type of individual or groups toward another group and its members such negative attitudes are typically based on unsupported generalizations or stereotypes that deny the right of individual
072members and certain groups to be recognized and treated as individuals with individual characteristics okay wouldn't then white privilege and my friend says and the n word apply to this privilege okay an advantage granted to available only for a particular person group of people a systematic benefit dominantly identified group white privilege straight privilege christian privilege uh cisgender privilege such as the greater power government and land okay so my question then is wouldn't some minority groups in this country have privilege through the use of quotas in the workplace and application to higher education why do 40 percent of white students uh put minority style minority status applying to college why is there mr martinelli yes i can't have you read the whole curriculum no no i'm not i'm just reading one more and i'm going these are
073questions that we can we're not going to be answering okay then i this is it this is in reference to webinar can i finish this i'm sorry i didn't i didn't hear you this is a webinar that some of our educators attended i just had a couple of uh questions on definitions what they i'm just asking what they mean if somebody comes i can answer them but okay go ahead please thank you be brief i want to educate myself on some of the terms used today white noise allied theater white fragility aspiring white allies the white savior complex an educator at a meeting said that uh stated children of all races prefer a teacher of color is that true you were introduced later at a meeting that was hired at cedar grove and this is
074pertains uh to to the meeting you attended mr grosso it says you're going to do some heavy lifting uh could you explain what that means um mr martinelli do you recall that you and i had a two and a half hour meeting in my office yesterday i did explain those things to you uh no not these i did because mr martinelli you read off that piece of paper i want to refresh your memory you read off that piece of paper i answered your questions you shared with me your position on that and i shared with you the details i answered all of your questions so mr marinelli why are you asking those questions again no these questions these terms were not answered these terms were not as answered the terms i'm saying here white noise
075i like theater right fragility those aren't those are not my words mr martinelli no i know i'm just asking do you know what they mean i don't know what the terms mean so it's not the police this is just all right mr martinelli i've been advised that this is not the place to have these conversations because some of the the concepts that you're referring to are way beyond cedar grove high school or city grove school district i'm sorry they're national well i understand that but some educators were at this meeting so i wanted to educate myself that's all he doesn't have to answer he does not have to answer that that's fine okay that's fine thank you thank you thank you okay that concludes that portion of the meeting as far as announcements of future
076meetings please note that the next meeting is may 24th there is a change in that date right it was originally the 17th i believe but it was is being changed to the 24th and then the following meeting will be june 15th um closed session will be at 6 30 regular meeting will be at 7 30. thank you uh everyone motion to adjourn motion meeting adjourned