Cedar Grove Board of Education Meeting 02-16-22

001call this meeting to order please rise for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation 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 advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies at which may be any 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 and place thereof posted on bulletin boards in the district published and or transmitted to the verona cedar grove times and star ledger newspapers tap into online news filed with the

002township clerk and posted on the district's website roll call please mrs dye here mr marzullo here mr schoener president mrs miga here mrs dora here we'll open the meeting to the public for comments on items on the agenda we actually have two people who have signed up tonight first is um keith kawiki you could please come to the microphone mr davida can we move the microphone over here please [Applause] please state your name and your address before you start please thank you he's coming to help he's coming interesting anyway reminds me of the 60s and the 60s brought us the 70s and the 70s brought us disco god help us uh b8 um the motion to approve the uh shared services agreement uh with cedar road board of ed and the township council town council

003township cedar grove excuse me uh what does this involve [Applause] i mean what does it mean how does it benefit our kids you want to answer this sure the shared service agreement it is um i'll kind of walk you through a little bit of the history of that so when the hilltop was being um it was it was an idea one of the things that developers will do is um in helvenian who who was part of that development complex uh they do provide fields the closest thing i think we could look at is verona where when verona had their i guess their hilltop um you know construction they presented the freedom fields i forget the name of it it's a whole complex up there so what they presented to the township was an opportunity to

004build a field for recreation use here in cedar grove when they did that the township was looking for property to put it on and i believe there is there's two locations one was the community park area and one was on the board of ed's property which is on lrp at 520 pompton so it was settled that it was going to be on 520 pompton in the back of lrp with an adjoining the complex because the idea was to create a more of a complex you know multi-level fields so there is a second field in the back area um it's raised i believe michelle maybe you can hang out with us a little bit more it's it's he's talking about the other thing i'm talking about the fields in general like what it's regulation it's regulation

005is more of a you're really more of the field person it's a i don't know if it's regulation high school it's more regulation wreck right the the new field that you're asking about is a an all-purpose a multi-purpose field and it's regulation varsity softball and then you can also play for the younger kids i don't know the exact age but the youth players for lacrosse soccer flag football i guess what i'm getting at and i don't want to you know make this any longer than it has to be what what's the when we talk about a shared agreement what does that actually mean between the township of cedar grove and the board of education does it mean that someone has precedence over the other does it mean what does that mean what is the agreement

006am i answering this no i mean we can always answer it um so the agreement as i understand it is that the field will be the board of education's field um i believe it's from 7am it's from the operating hours operating hours of it and then the any permits that will be pulled to use the field in the off hours of operating school hours would be run through the uh the town wreck as panther park is so it's kind of more of an administrative thing more than anything else yes and the town is going to um take care of all the fun the all the upkeep the electric the insurance they're paying for everything okay that's fine that's that's really what i said so it's really a nice win-win situation great we are looking forward

007to opening it soon thank you uh i'm going to take b10 and and b11 together and these are two law firms and i'm really looking to i'm looking to understand and the relationship between the two law firms what do they what a do they do for us what will they do for us um and and is this and again this is for my education is this a new real are these new relationships um and um if they are uh this this one firm weiner law depending on what they do i have a somewhat of a concern about this mr edelstein but you tell me what what who's working who's doing what to whom so tonight there will be a resolution um for weiner law who will be representing the board um as their board attorney

008moving forward and they're new they will be new to cedar grove tonight well if obviously if the resolution goes through um b11 which you see um i'm not sure i'm speaking correctly is scarilo the our previous board or the board that we the attorneys that we had as of tonight they are being kept on for certain litigation that is still in process because it would not be fiscally responsible to to take them off of that and have the new law firm have to redo all the work that has already been done so jeff molino's gone right he's not he's not part of that law firm will be taking care of just the the uh right jeff was like an education law yes kind of guy a new law firm and there's this guy dennis mckeever

009is he now the the lead because i went on a website because i didn't know what these people did so our lead um if the resolution gets passed tonight our lead attorney will be stephen edelstein and margaret miller and i'm i'm sure you're aware of edelstein's background with the 50 000 fine for illegal campaign contributions well we are we have had discussions about that yes and you're all okay with that we've had discussions about that yes well okay i i i find it i mean from my perspective i can't bel well there's got to be a lot of law firms in new jersey and to focus on a law firm where you have a lead attorney without his baggage to me seems it's been discussed and we have come to a resolution that we're um

010we'll find out if we're all comfortable about it okay shortly and the last thing i have is i think it's s32 now is that um paul pallack senior or the son i i'll tell you i i find that to be refreshing um now if it was the father and i you know i know paul he's a very good he's a very good coach i would have no problem with that but i think it's great that we're able to take a young man who's a one of our own and bring him back into the system and let him compete with robbie robbie gogerty for the best coach in town thank you very much thank you thank you gene um jeannie patel let's see i'm gonna use my glasses hi janine patel 87 stevens avenue i have

011a question about s18 which is the 35 an hour to pay a babysitter for the high school students for saturday detention so it doesn't say how many hours on saturday that's my first question is how many hours on a saturday second question is this every saturday till the end of the year is this something new did we do this in the past saturday detention what type of offenses uh warrant a saturday detention i just heard from my son he told me a student videotaped a teacher saying the word and they got saturday detention so that's why i'm curious to know what types of things are going on in the high school that weren't saturday detention and this and the tax papers have to pay 35 dollars an hour for a babysitter for a saturday uh

012first off the um saturday detention is not nothing new saturday detention has been part of uh cedar grove's code of conduct for many years and in fact it's not unusual for a district to have a saturday detention whether it be for a middle school or even high school but it's primarily used for a high school it is another level on the code of conduct if a child um or if a student violates a particular code uh in in that conduct enforcement a saturday detention could be a um so is this did this just start up now for this year so we haven't had it yet this year no no and i want to share with you also because you asked another question too about is this every saturday no it's not every saturday uh it

013would warrant if there is a student that would um be classified in that area for that you know violation of the code of conduct then it would be utilized there so when you look at s18 it is for the remainder of the school year based on the need so up until that point there hasn't really been a need for that i wasn't sure if it was every saturday did we have that many students no if it was no there's something you know we have to pay somebody to be here every saturday for the rest of the year no okay no it's it's on an as-needed basis how long is saturday detention is it an hour it's a couple of couple of hours yeah okay just kidding yeah okay i just want to make sure no

014it's a great question you know and i i want to also make sure that students aren't having saturday attention for not wearing a mask or something like that no no no just uh just want to make sure no it's a violation of the code of conduct and like i said it's something that has been uh in the code of conduct repertoire for cedar grove for many many years um in fact it's probably been if there's any student if there's any adults in this room it's probably been in the code of comics since they were a student here in in the high school as well so it's nothing new okay sure thanks thank you thank you [Applause] okay close that portion and move on is it on the agenda [Music] the whole world there's no need

015for that so i would like to think that the board also agrees that that should have happened in the first place or even just to think of edward but i thought in 2022 already okay we're going to move on to committee reports i am going to start off with um i attended a town council meeting on february 7th just wanted to thank the town council for recognizing the accomplishments of the girls tennis team we welcome the addition of their banner that will be added to our gym walls so that's exciting um also as per mr canelo's request at the january meeting myself and mrs miga met with the union leadership uh to ensure that communication remains open and just to introduce ourselves and start to move forward mrs mika do you have any committee reports

016yes um good evening everybody unfortunately i had a conflict with the february 8th apt meeting but i was announced i was asked to announce that dollars for scholars and from dollars for scholars information will be out very shortly and that they are also looking for new officers for the next school year if you are interested in becoming an officer or helping with the apt please email cedargrove it's cedargrovehsapt gmail.com i also attended the social emotional learning meeting on february 10th we had good discussions about what's going on in each school such as such as the zen dan peer leadership seven mindsets yoga and mindful mindfulness boxes there is also a verona cedar grove wellness fair that is slated for may 14th i know it's a little a bit out in the future but you'll start

017to see information come out about that soon and we are also looking to bring in suitable speakers for each building depending on the age they also attended the black and gold club meeting on february 14th they also are looking for committee volunteers for next school year as well as new officers if you are interested in reaching out please email them at black and gold club hotmail.com and they also said shortly they'll have dates out if you're interested in ordering varsity jackets that's it thank you mrs megan you're welcome mr marzullo thank you good evening [Applause] i attended two meetings this month involving the recreation department the first was in regards to the shared service agreement for panther park that will be voted on a little later on the second was a monthly rec board meeting

018which pertains to normal housekeeping more importantly i would like to take this moment to recognize the outpouring of community support from one of our parents and a dear friend of mine dominic [Music] all over thank you good evening i attended two meetings this month involving the recreation department this was in regards to the shared service agreement for panther park that will be voted on a little a little later on the second was a monthly rec board meeting which pertained to normal housekeeping more importantly i would like to take this moment to recognize the outpouring of community support for one of our parents and a dear friend of mine dominic to fury who was recently diagnosed with lymphoma and he's begun aggressive treatments he is the father former standout wrestler dominic jr a graduating member of

019the class of 2020 christina a current senior member a senior and member of the cheer team and matthew was a promising eighth grader dominic has been an instrumental figure to many students and families within cedar grove he served as head coach of the cedar grove junior wrestling team for several years dom not only coached them to be better wrestlers he also taught them the life skills thank you one of them being to help others when needed he demonstrated this recently when visiting a verona high school student with the hope to encourage and inspire her as she fights her own battle with cancer recently fundraisers were held by the cheerleading and wrestling teams to help ease the financial burdens inherited when something like this happens in addition countless numbers residents contributed to fury strong go fund

020fundraising it's kindness support and encouraging acts like this just as we saw with nikki strong that makes our town a special place you will never fight alone when you live in cedar grove i spent some time with dominic this weekend where he wanted me to share this message with you family and i can't thank the residents of cedar grove enough for the overwhelming support during these trying times this community has been so supportive which is what has kept me motivated through the all the treatments i have endured it has lifted both mind and my family spirits with all the love we have received for those of you who have prayed or just thought about us in these difficult times you are the reason i am getting through this nightmare i will continue to fight because

021it is all i know i wish i could hug each and every one of you because you have put me at ease and made me feel special being a part of this incredible cedar grove community i love you all and hope to see you around town soon [Music] so if you see dominic his wife marion or their children around town give them a simple hello smile or a hug let them know that we are here for them thank you [Applause] thank you mr marzullo mr schoener i just wanted to um talk about realize uh is going to have a puzzle for autism tournament at cedar grove high school on april 2nd from 9 to 2. this is a fast-growing uh gaming thing that's going on puzzling and they are going like once again it's saturday

022april 2nd from 9-2 they have different divisions depending on the divisions there's third the fourth grade division there's five to eighth grade division and there's an adult division and then they have a mixed division so it takes place at cedar grove high school from 9 00 a.m to 2 p.m you'll see more and more press about this coming out and if you can come out and support autism awareness and autism i would really appreciate it thank you mrs dye i actually had a couple of questions is this working yeah i just need to get closer um at the town council meeting last uh i guess it was on the 7th there was a question about pilot money and they said that they were wrapping up the negotiations for the pilot money um can you please

023elaborate on any of the discussions or the negotiations that have been going on with the town council we don't have any of that information at this point so have they been negotiating with the board or just amongst themselves amongst themselves i'm assuming it has not been with us got it okay i mean i only asked because at this point um we were told that they would um pay for all the costs of the students that are attending the hilltop and to date that's three million nine hundred thirty eight thousand seven hundred thirty three dollars so i'm kind of curious we could really use that money yeah we're hoping that that communication will be happening in the very near future okay my next question is um that edek hasn't met in a while and i was

024wondering when the next meeting was going to be i don't think we have anything scheduled at this point are there plans to schedule another meeting uh that's something that we are in discussion yes about a future date to have it or for it to exist how we're going to move forward so can you elaborate on that what what has been no discussion on it yet so it's it's very difficult to elaborate on something that hasn't happened but all the other committees have been meeting um some of them yes okay and my last question is that i was advised that you would be speaking with members of the gsa at the high school i understand that they were excited to meet you since you're a member of the lgbtq community and i was wondering if there

025was a scheduled date for that to happen i wasn't aware of that so really that was um if that plan was put in motion nobody told me about that so all right well that's interesting too thank you you're very welcome okay there's one more thing i wanted to add uh regarding the south nfsa i just wanted to mention they have a big fundraiser on april 1st at 7 pm all proceeds from their fundraiser will support the expansion of the south end playground which will be in memory of nicholas storm the fundraiser is at ravelos in east hanover it's dinner dancing tricky tray 50 50. tickets are 75 dollars and if you go on facebook under the south end fsa there is a direct link to purchase any tickets but i encourage you to do it

026quickly because they are selling out fast and that's all i have for committee reports um we have a couple board presentations we actually have would have one tonight because mr gogerty he's been awarded the new jersey football coaches association group one coach of the year uh we wanted to honor uh coach gugerty tonight but unfortunately um he was not able to make it so we will postpone that um for our next meeting but we would like to bring up mr coster in the robotics team [Applause] [Music] [Applause] uh good evening everyone my name is aaron sprigel i am the team captain of the cedar grove high school robotics team here at cedar of high school i'm up here with the rest of the robotics team we're all very excited to give a little presentation about

027basically what we've been up to over this past year what we expect in the future and just what we've been doing all this time all right so to begin here is just a picture of all of us there's some people who weren't able to make it tonight but of course we have our wonderful teacher mr coster who's been helping us through all this he's been such an amazing help we've been having such a good time with the robotics team it's been so much fun so exciting and next up here's just a bit of a timeline of the robotics team now at cedar grove high school we've had the club for a while now where we've just been messing around with electronics and circuits and other things like that but only starting in 2020 did we

028actually have a robotics team we were able to compete in various competitions so unfortunately in 2020 this is the height of covet 19 as most of you know so we were limited to doing everything virtual so we had a program called coderzy where we did online competitions we had to code a robot online this was still a lot of fun we were able to have a lot of different team bonnie experiences and even though it was online it was still a very good experience for all of us next 2021 this is when things started to calm down now we were admitted into the rec foundation and we're now able to compete in various vex robotics competitions this is actually building robots coding robots and it's a lot more intuitive and it requires a lot more

029engineering a lot more thought processing finally this year 2022 we're able to actually go to competitions and our first competition was actually earlier this year hi so i'm josh and i'm going to talk to you about what we did over the pandemic so obviously we couldn't meet in person and build these amazing robots which were a lot of fun to build but we did get to practice the coding part of robotics we used a platform called coderzia as aaron mentioned and actually in this competition we got into the elite eight they called it which i thought was pretty impressive basically what we had to do was we all worked as a team through google meets and we had to program these robots in the middle picture to in this competition it was to throw a

030ball over and score as many points as we can the hard part was we had to create we had to program sensors to detect where the balls were how far to throw them how to get them in the middle and the hardest part being that the platforms tipped so it was a lot of coding it was just a lot of fun getting to work with everyone even though it was all virtual good to get to talk to people during the pandemic and we all did our own individual code but every week we met up and we compared all our codes to the best aspects of each and then we made the best code that got us pretty far in the competition now i'm going to talk about what we're doing this year like aaron mentioned

031we're in the bex robotics program now we're building these robots to every year they have a different challenge different competition which we will talk about soon what is this year but this is our robot for this year it has to we're going to talk about what it has to do in the next one but i don't want to give too much away but a new game is released each may so this year it's called tipping point and last year was turning point and for the past five years i believe they've been releasing them and season starts september goes all the way around to may and it's just been a lot of fun doing them now here are some pictures of the last this is not the ones from this year but the last two years

032that's turning point and that's tower takeover we did not compete in those because this is our first year doing it but we still had those arena set up just so we can see what it's all about so uh my name is philip i'm just going to give you a quick quick rundown of what we've been doing throughout the year in the robotics club so almost every day during lunch our robotics team members whenever they're available have been meeting in mr koster's room to just work on the robot and improve it for our competitions and just share ideas on how to improve and develop it so for the competitions we have to keep an engineering notebook this one right here which it contains changes we've made to the robot and modifications and ideas as well as

033images of what we did to the robot which is scored as well as performance in the competitions okay so there's two main portions of the game one which is autonomous so this lasts for 15 seconds and it's run on pre-loaded code which we've coded before the game and if you score the autonomous period you get extra points the second part is driver controlled so whoever's driving the robot controls this part for a minute and 45 seconds they're driven using a remote control um and then they have two other members with them that help direct them around the field so after this part that is the end of the match and that's when the final score is tallied so here's a diagram of the field so the main goal of the game is to get the

034um hoops into the goals and then get the goals onto the tilting platforms which tilt but if you can get it top balance you get more points all right hello everyone my name is arden and i will be collecting our first competition in milburn and so when first arrived in there it was there was like many robots and they were like larger than ours and personally i was kind of scared at first so we started working on the robot a bit more and to make sure like it properly works before the matches began and when the matches began we began um on qualification rounds which were five rounds and they will um yeah they will make up the team placements over here you have um what's it called drivers match something like that the drivers

035meeting and they will like explain the rules of the game to make sure everyone understands them and there is the skills challenge over there in the right which was basically a mini game kind of thing when you're like you're working on matches you could go there and test your robot over here this is us working on the robot and yeah so over here is uh this is i believe this is after we won the semifinals we actually made it all the way to the finals we came second place which was to the world champions and it's our first year so i think that's pretty impressive but it was a lot of fun it was a lot of fun we were actually originally seated 13th out of 18 teams 18 robots and we kind of that

036was better than we expected being 13th but then we got picked by the fifth place alliance which was i know a shock to all of us we got picked by the fifth best robot and um this is our robot here and our alliance is over there and we had a verse two robots but we won that one as you can see they all fell over over there and lost a lot of points and that's ours balanced on top of the platform doing great that's the thing i love most about our robot really all these robots they're they're built so generically so so just big and bulky ours it's really driver operated you can really control everything and i think that's what got us to the to the finals and we're participating again on saturday and

037another one so hopefully we'll take it farther that time but yeah those are some pictures of quarterfinals and semifinals okay so these are some takeaways from the last competition uh so as josh mentioned a lot of the robots were huge and had all these parts but we made the conclusion that even though they might look bigger and more intimidating they're not as efficient as they could be and that a driver can make or break a match so they could just be really bad at driving the drive team is really important because it's a stressful moment and having another person telling you what to do might help and that teamwork's important so if you only had one person being the driver and no guidance it's more useful to have multiple people alright so we actually have

038another competition coming up this weekend we're going to sparta bright and early to compete in another competition that's very similar to the one that we did last time but this time there's going to be 60 teams there's going to be a lot more it's going to be way more competitive but we've been having some upgrades to our robot we've been mentally preparing it as well as physically preparing it it's going to be a lot of fun it's going to be hard it's going to be stressful but i know that we could do it now mr koster will be giving us updates at this twitter account so feel free to follow if you want and before we wrap this up we just like to give a little quick demonstration of what our robot is able to

039do so here we go it's just moving around it has a claw it can grab this goal now not all teams have this and that's why i think ours is the best now real quick these are the purple rings that we have to score with we can either put them inside the goal or on top of the pole like this and of course we'll get more and more points depending on how many we get in there now watch this [Applause] that may look very simple but that took a lot of time to make thank you thank you so i guess i'm really excited to see what the robotics team has in the future even though i've been captain only two years i wasn't able to do it my first two years of high school and

040i really wish i could have earlier it's been so much fun i hope we get more members in the future even though we only have eight that's not that many so hopefully next year we'll get more and more after that i'm really excited to see where we go i guess now we're open to any questions if anyone has any yes mr schoener how long did it take to build a robot we've been working on this since october so however many months that is about four to six however [Music] we've had a lot of different changes to this any other questions yes mr valero so right now we're using blockly which is basically just block programming but there's a lot of different things that go into that it's not just drag and drop we have to

041really think about what code we want to use it takes a lot of trial and error especially during the uh autonomous part from before that we were talking about we've been working on this a lot but yeah we use blockly yes in the back company-wise yes actually um not the not the robotics team here but vex robotics actually is funded by nasa and tesla and one other company but yes we do have some sort of sponsor yes over there what microprocessor are you using now that's a great question to which i don't quite know the answer off the top of my head but i can get back to you with the specifications that are in the instruction manual yes right here this is fabulous you know thank you thing guys the only thing i wonder

042about is if you guys meet mr costa i'm sorry did you make mr costner i can neither confirm nor deny these facts maybe yes right here so as you do have a lot of fun with this you do develop some technology that may be useful if you do get to the point where hey we found something new how is that escalated and utilized by the industry that's involved with the science of robots is that coordinated will you find something that is uh will say earth-shattering how is that brought to attention of companies and those involved in technology i guess that's a good question and although i don't know entirely how to answer that i guess mr koster definitely helps us with that a lot but he's able to bring any innovations that we make to

043the attention of others and from there we can possibly get these ideas funded and released elsewhere and of course we might get recognition but the ultimate goal is you know helping other people so through our connections that we have as well we can share our ideas and hopefully get them out there but thank you for that question yes all the way in the back yes actually that's been on my mind a lot recently i'd love to do it sometime soon i don't know i guess i could ask mr koster if that's possible we are supposed to be meeting with the middle school kids soon apparently so that's very exciting all right i guess there's no other questions so with that i'd like to thank you all very much for listening to us and for your

044continued support have a good night everyone [Applause] the robot's name is stubborn by the way [Music] thank you great job thank you thank you very much okay very impressive well that was really awesome and exciting looking forward to see what uh else comes from that club that was great okay superintendent update i want to agree with you on that that was phenomenal it's a prime example of how students are taking a cross-curricular approach to their every day and i think not only was i impressed with the whole entire um robotics presentation i'm impressed with the public speaking presidency that was fantastic yes it really was so i give you know i give those students a tremendous amount of credit and you have to give a tremendous amount of credit as mr koster absolutely he's a

045phenomenal asset to this district 100 all right so for the update for this meeting on the forefront of covid overall positive district numbers continue to drop heavily over this past month positive case numbers have decreased by 93 percent from the last report on january 18th board of education meeting the additional thursday covet testing at lrp has been reduced only tuesdays due to the reduction in possible case numbers on february 7th governor murphy shared that the mass mandate will be lifted as of march 7th cedar grove public schools will be making mask wearing optional we will follow up accordingly with the njdoh guidelines as they are updated and just to share with you when i talk about 93 drop we're at two we're at two think about that we were at uh over 120 at when

046we came back after winter break and now we're at two that that's that's very good curriculum instruction department the department continues their work in several areas throughout the school district the elementary schools are currently vetting several programs in the area of phonics reading programs this addition to the curricula will provide a language-based multi-sensory structured sequential cumulative cognitive and flexible approach that teaches the basics of word formation before associating their whole meanings the goal in selecting a comprehensive program is to provide instruction to the visual auditory and kinesthetic learner the elementary level also can continues to work in the area of writing teachers are being provided professional development with an interdep interdisciplinary writing technique which can be which can build students fluency in writing through continuous repeated exposure to the process of writing during the writing

047process children have time to work independently with their peers they engage in the writing process by selecting topics drafting revising editing and publishing their original work they receive explicit instruction in the craft of writing from exploring genre to organizing their practice their pieces to word choice style and mechanics all elementary grades have participated in their first publishing party where students proudly shared their final published piece with everyone linkit data continues to be a vital part of understanding student success and how to address the academic needs of our students a mid-year assessment form b was recently administered for students k-12 and data is available for district building and individual teacher use at this point information yielded from form b will help to evaluate our intervention and support needs population of students this will allow for differentiation

048and instruction and identify identify areas to support the students update on alphabet i reported out to the elementary and middle school population on february 11th that alpha best our new morning after care provider has made great strides in the process progress of opening programming for students these are the following areas of that progress and next steps have been made so licensing has been complete that's what the state of new jersey initial school visits are complete uh locations and care have been identified and reported to the state supplies that is complete supplies were delivered to each of the schools this week last week actually south and supplies have been organized and secured on site north end and memorial middle school will be completed this week staffing background and checks and training that's in progress alphabet they

049have been interviewing and job offers have been made background checks and clearances for those who have accepted have been completed alphabet's new hire orientation is set february 23rd for those staff who have been identified at this point and registration is in the prop is in progress registration will open next week a parent zoom orientation meeting will take place on tuesday february 22nd details and information will follow with an email update this week so there'll be more information to come out to the families and finally what i'd like to share is um i'd like to give a big thank you to all of the teachers from the elementary level to the high school level it is no mystery that there has been a shortage of substitute teachers not only in the state of new jersey but

050throughout this country i want to share that the staff here in cedar grove has stepped up tremendously to cover periods classes i couldn't i couldn't ask for anything more from the staff and i just want to give them a big thank you because without them i have to tell you a lot a lot of districts have been jammed up based on not being able to have substitutes so i really want to thank the um cedar grove staff for for their dedication and their ability to put children first tony are they having any trouble getting staffing for the aftercare program or they are they progressing well well they're pretty no i actually was just on a conference call with alphabet today and they have employees um their real understanding of their their needs will be um

051based on the enrollment so they were given the the enrollment for each of the schools previously so when we look at morning care there's around 20 to 25 students at the elementary level there was one student at the middle school there won't be any more students from morning care there's no interest in that right now it could change the after care program at the elementary schools were at 70 students apiece at north and south end uh the um middle school was around 25 to i said maybe less than that it's actually say 15 to 20 students um so they've based their uh staffing procedures right now off of those numbers could they go up are they absolutely could could they decrease they could as well so it's just based on those needs so they're assuming

052that based on those numbers yeah they'll be able to staff fully staff they're preparing for the numbers that we were previously using um prior to the release of right at schools yeah okay okay thank you sure thank you mr russell okay under minutes can i have a motion on b1 through b5 so move second discussion no roll call please mrs dye yes mr marzullo yes mr schoener aye mrs miga yes this is dora yes under bills can i have a motion on b6 so moved second discussion no roll call mrs dye yes mr marzullo yes mr schoener hi mrs miga yes mrs dora yes but i am staying on check number zero six four four five eight [Applause] under business can i have a motion on b7 through b12 so move thank you discussion i

053have some questions actually um first of all on b8 um how long is the shared agreement um for i didn't see a date i'm going correct it's yeah i'm sorry ongoing so it never ends unless there is a potential sale of the property as outlined i saw that actually and so i saw that the town council has the first right um if they want to purchase the land so what would happen then if they do want to purchase that field and the board wants to um sell leonard parks how how would the board sell the the building without a field if the town council had wants the field my understanding is they would purchase the field a portion of the field and so the the board could only sell leonard parks then without a without

054a field associated with it a school without it would probably have to be subdivided and then the building would be one sale and the purchase of the land will be another okay that might make it a little bit difficult to sell that's fine okay and i'm just i'm curious also why the original agreement in which the board was supposed to retain rights to the field why that changed i was never privy to any original agreement there was no original agreement in writing okay so let's just i just want to explain the scheduling so that everyone understands what that scheduling is just one more time oh you want me to show you just so everyone understands the scheduling yes so i will explain to it as best as we can at this point because obviously there's

055there most likely will be kinks as we move forward and we will have to tweak it as um as we go along but the understanding is is that the board of ed and um our board of ed our students have first rights of the field and then after school hours then it would open up to um the community if there was an event that the board of ed needed the field for we would have first rights for it yes so dave permitting would be done through the recreation department like so if aside from us right so if the softball league wanted to pull a permit they would go to the board office i mean i'm sorry to the recreation office to pull that permit if they wanted to permit um you know the other panther

056or the other soulful field or the other multi-purpose field they would do that the same way so it's keeping with the flow of that if they wanted to permit the clay field the one that's closest to the building yes they would come to the board offices to permit that field so the fields are going to be split okay and the board of ed always maintains more or less that first writer refusal or the same way they're always first in line on the clay field the same way it was always it would be similar to panther park how if we need it it comes to the schools or the teams first okay and then afterwards whoever else would be in need of it okay so and based on the relationship with mr gogeri and miss landauffi

057uh they've been collaborating with that and doesn't seem to seem to be working out in the past so we're pretty comfortable moving forward with that [Applause] okay real cool actually i had more questions regarding on b10 the approval of the new attorney um it seems odd that the entire board had didn't have the opportunity to interview and help decide who the next council would be given the entire board works with the attorney can you please advise why the entire board wasn't given the opportunity to participate in the process the last time we had approved a law firm as a board was in may 2012 and the entire board participated absolutely i could answer that unfortunately we were on significant time constraints and so we made the decision that we would move forward with a committee

058and interview that way we had the new law firm come in tonight and speak to the board as a whole in earlier and that's the how we decided to move forward because of the constraints of the time in the future if we need to reconsider this a new attorney we will certainly make sure we plan to have ample time to do it the way you spoke all right my next question was how many law firms were interviewed two only two only two and how were the firms narrowed down by the committee individually what was the process though i mean how did you decide which which law firm would better serve the district individuals reviewed all the proposals and we came to a meeting and we decided on the two that we would thought would best

059meet our needs and we interviewed them okay the um the firm that that is being proposed for this evening one of the um the the lead person who would be our attorney is uh is former counsel for the cedar board of education and then they were they were terminated approximately 10 years ago was this discussed during the interview process no it was not is there any concern as to the fact that the city of board of education terminated them that why we would want them again not at this time there is no concern okay um members of the firm one in particular was in the news recently for illegal campaign contributions i think a parent brought that up before is there any concern that they're not going to act ethically on our behalf well i

060would think that we would want the attorney to be ethical but that may not matter to some people we asked the appropriate questions that we thought we needed to ask and we were satisfied with the responses just to be clear we haven't worked with them before i'm sorry we haven't worked with them outside of the board of ed me yeah anyone absolutely not there was also another article recently that said that um that uh stephen edelstein was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a money laundering and extortion case that sent essex county executive thomas d'alessio to to jail was there any discussion of that during the interview process nope okay uh have any of the members of the firm made a campaign contribution um to you ms dora no do you know if any of

061the members of the firm have made a campaign contribution to anyone on the cedar grove town council i have no idea all right and you stated that you've never worked with them before and you're not affiliated with them not that i am aware of okay i think that maybe he was involved with what was on the committee no that's what i'm asking you are on the committee so since you met with them have you do you have any affiliation with them or have worked with them before no so i guess i'm just kind of curious if how is this in the best interest of the community where we are potentially hiring a firm that we fired years ago that has been in the news for billing irregularities um and that there's other things going on

062with this firm and and i feel like something's been some kind of deal is being made that we're not aware of why would we choose a firm like this as i said earlier all questions were asked and we were satisfied with the responses they gave it was discussed i can't speak on what was discussed because it was discussed uh in executive session today we are satisfied with the responses i don't know what else you would like me to do mr devita i'd like to put on the record that i'm not satisfied and i'm worried that we are putting the district at risk and that there's going to be problems thank you anything else mrs guy no i'm good now thank you hey roll call please mrs dye i i say yes to everything except for

063obviously not b10 and then obviously um not uh b8 as well no to those mr marzullo yes tool mr schoener i'm abstaining from b8 and node b10 mrs miga yes this is aura yes kind of personnel can i have a motion for s1 to s32 please go move second discussion i have a question on s32 i'd like to understand how the the process was done for um for hiring candidates are selected from a pool that is interviewed by um the athletic director the athletic director then makes uh his recommendation to my office um and then that the final interview is with me and then it goes on to the agenda for approval do you know if more than one individual um was interviewed for the assistant varsity uh baseball coach there were um there wasn't

064a lot but there were there was a few there's a few candidates yes okay thank you roll call mrs dye um yes to everything except s32 i vote no on that one mr marzullo yes cole mr schoener hi mrs miga yes mr dora yes [Music] mr um i just need to go back because i think i probably should abstain from my son and the uh eagle scout project is that correct yes okay so then i'd like to go on the record i'd like to go on the record for b9 my son matthew is uh doing his eagle scout project and he's renovating the uh room in the basement of the building to um so that we create a career center they're gonna bring all the files down there they built shelving painted it did everything

065so i'm the record i'm abstaining okay thank you mr sean okay this time we'll open the meeting to the public for comments on items on and off the agenda i am going to add we have a very long list tonight so we are going to institute the timer um in the essentials of time okay so um first i'd like to call up you're going to help me because i'm having a lot of problems seeing here today sandra hines [Music] please come on up so your name your address my name is sandra hayne and i live at 88 westland road i am a proud graduate of cedar grove public schools and a lifelong resident of this amazing town i am here tonight to speak to the board of veteran parents about the hate the health and

066safety of our children i had previously emailed mr grosso requesting a representative from vanguard medical be present at tonight's meeting but since they are not here i am directing my questions to mr grosso and the board i wanted to first address a comment made by mr canella when he spoke at a prior meeting stating that his members were scared as it relates to covid we know neither how many members he was speaking for nor what their fears stemmed from but these fears could be addressed by relying on proper medical guidance from vanguard i encourage you to give these teachers in the district direct access to physicians at vanguard to address their individual concerns in june governor murphy relaxed the mask mandate in schools because of extreme heat mr grosso allowed parents to keep their children

067home if they were uncomfortable sending them to school wearing masks but any child in school during the heat advisory was to wear a mask i would like to know who decided that policy at the june board of ed meeting mr grosso explained his interpretation of the executive order parents don't care what your personal interpretations of executive orders are when instituting covet policies that have a direct impact on the health of their children we want you to make sure those policies are safe and won't have an adverse effect on our kids did you rely on the people we pay both vanguard and for legal services to guide in these decisions and make that process transparent to members of the public at that time the number of coveted cases were very low and most parents were back

068to work without the luxury of keeping their kids home did you speak with anyone with some type of medical background who helped guide you with this policy did you inform them that some of our schools are not equipped with air conditioning do you have any medical background or do any of the administrators at any of the schools have a background in some type of health care recently it was brought to my attention that the children in k through 2nd were eating snacks outside when the temperatures were below freezing was that guidance from somewhere who was involved with the policy and who came up with the idea to split the class in half and have one half eat at a time governor murphy recently gave districts until march 7th to change policies and procedures before dropping

069the mask mandate in schools based on the science and the number of coveted cases in schools we could drop the mandate now you sent an email to parents stating that kids who choose to continue wearing masks may do so just if you could just please wrap it up you can go just just if those children are bullied there will be disciplinary action do bullies in our schools not face disciplinary action now regardless of what it's over does there need to be a specific policy in place that for kids that get bullied with masks on and will teachers in the district also face disciplinary action for bullying children to wear masks are these the policies we're waiting for march 7th for that's it [Applause] it seems i'll be happy to answer those questions for you first

070off as far as mr canelo's comment i can't speak for him but uh you know he i would assume that his membership had shared with him uh concerns over cove but i i will share that there were uh staff there are staff in the district that have shared with me their concerns over coveted so that is not necessarily a false statement um as far as the the masking zone is right as far as the masking goes when you talked about in june during that heat wave if we recall i don't want to rehash this but if we recall during that time uh the governor had made a decision over a tweet on what to do at the 11th hour so what our interpretation of that was based on the executive order at that time it

071was like 175 or something along the lines of that was to provide the multiple masking breaks that the students could have during that particular time now at that particular time even going back to september of last year there's been more information about how we've handled ourselves through this pandemic the executive order of june and this is this is a clear statement we as a school district cannot dismiss an executive order there are other districts that have attempted to do that and i know this is this is a very difficult um it's a very difficult situation and understanding for those who disagree with the executive order but our job as educators is not to base an opinion on the executive order it is to follow the executive order so therefore what so therefore in june that

072executive order was still intact if you recall i believe it was the beginning of july was when uh governor murphy had stated at the particular point that he had felt that since the cases were dropping that he was going to go and uh he felt that september was going to be a period of time that we would be able to drop those masks now we as a school district looked at those facts and we looked at that information that was provided to us and we were on board with that and at that particular moment in time i shared a communication with the community stating that we would follow suit if it was allowed to drop masks unfortunately that was not the case right so what happened was so delta and and omnicron and so um

073all those all those different uh strands that come up now when we talk about who do we consult with so we consult with uh number one our local health department we consult with the county we can we consult with vanguard uh in fact last year we we actually honored dr mccarrick and vanguard medical because they were very instrumental in helping us make decisions in fact they they in fact uh dr mccarrick they're not available so dr mc so dr mccarrick was able to go and create a vaccine program no i'm explaining this vanguard medical i'll wait okay vanguard medical what they shared was was that they were going to create a vaccination program for the staff that is exactly what they did we were able to vaccinate i would say a good 60 to 70

074percent of our staff through the through that program the vaccination program they continued that for uh staff members even past the i believe it was the march deadline so when we look at who are the medical employees in the school district that helped to make those decisions that would be our nurses and we have a head nurse is robin callie which we had not had that position until this year where miss cali she is able to coordinate with the local health department she's able to help disseminate information to the nurses and bring a cohort so they can understand what those new regulations are or recommendations are rather through the new jersey department of health now when we look at the snack break when we [Music] that was me i make those decisions and i'm going

075to share this i make those decisions based on the available information from several sources number one the new jersey state government when they d when they share what they are wanting us to do as a school district the new jersey department of health with the k to 12 guidance our local health department and what is appropriate for us in this district i want to share this we have been in this situation since march of 2020. if we look at a timeline from 2020 until 2022 now february a lot has more and changed we have gone through ups and downs this is not about opinion or agreeance it was about compliance with what the state was requiring of us in the area of medical field so so there so therefore so therefore that was not done

076by anybody that's your opinion well judy persicelli from this from the new jersey department of health who runs that she was giving that guy i don't want to argue i'm sure you don't want to argue but i'm still i'm trying to stick to the facts here these are the facts judy persicelli who is the governor's head of the department of health she goes on those coveted um updates with with the governor she is advising him therefore that that goes to the that therefore that goes to the uh the local departments of health which go down to the department of education which goes down to us so when you share the idea of can we drop the masked mandate now the the answer that is no we can't do that on march 7th which is the

077deadline which governor murphy has shared that is when we will make masking optional all school districts in the state of new jersey are still waiting to hear about what those guidelines will be from the new jersey department of health because it is going to involve a lot of parameters which which they have put in place will they continue we we as educators have a lot of questions will they will that continue well contact tracing in the form that it is right now will that continue in that form we don't know because we were not given that information as of today perhaps it'll come out tomorrow or perhaps it will come out march 6th we don't know because very often a lot of that information will come to us very very late uh in in the

078game so therefore though those i will share with you decisions that are made are not made in isolation decisions are made ultimately that falls on me but those are made with other administrators nurses and other medical personnel in the field that help to guide us with what we need to do as well as what the county shares with us and what our requirements are so i know there are very there are many many families and individuals that may disagree with that but that is strictly the facts about how this process has taken place from march of 2020 until february of 2022. and i just want to add that when those guidelines come out as soon as we get them we will turn key the the plan and how we're going to move forward as soon

079as those guidelines um are actually physically in our hand which potentially could be next week or they could be the sixth yes okay so um we will you know work as quickly as we can once we we get them but unfortunately we are our hands are tied until they're actually in our hands okay thank you moving on to the next kathleen goslink kathleen gosselin 10 chestnut court i'm here tonight to speak in support of our superintendent as a taxpayer as a concerned citizen i spent my career in education in a neighboring community as a school psychologist and i saw firsthand the importance of a competent superintendent i think we're really privileged to have mr grosso i think he's dedicated and capable and i would hope that the community continues to support him as our leader

080thank you very much and thank you for your service to the child study team next we have keith kawicki well still keith kawecki still 18 wesleyan road uh well these past few years have been extremely challenging for everybody and most especially our kids it seems like it's an engine over the past two years it just couldn't turn over and it seems like we're coming out of that to help focus us on all our kids i intend to play more of an ongoing role in this work and the items i'm currently interested in will continue to follow up on our pilot money which involve those the attorney situation and i was the individual that missed i referenced when she said somebody asked again about the pilot money increasing class size this problem is not going away

081and i haven't heard much about it forward-looking curriculum such as this montclair state program teacher training you know that's that's that's where the magic happens folks in the classroom on the athletic fields on the stage and we need to put as much resources support and help to our teachers as we possibly can in order to get them the best stuff to get to our kids and are we getting our children ready for life after the 12th grade i mean that's that's that's got to be a concern it's got to be a question for all of us i would like to say a few words about social justice and i intend to continue to speak about this over the next weeks and months ahead and i think it's extremely important to meet people where they are

082not where we think they should be we need to pay attention to each other's stories celebrate our similarities as well as differences and we need to recognize that this work has been and will continue to be a marathon relay each generation passing the baton to the next and this is critical for our kids because the world will be vastly different 20 30 years from now finally i'd like to express my gratitude to the prior board for taking all the incoming during these past few years believe me your dedication hasn't gone unnoticed and i'd like to thank the current board for moving so quickly on the before school and after school program situation that is well you know how important that was i have to tell you and finally i'd like to sincerely thank mr grosso

083his staff teachers and school workers for getting us through hopefully the worst of this he's demonstrated incredible poise resilience and professionalism through his leadership and his difficult time and i really look forward to working with you as the days go on and i certainly hope like-minded people in town will come and make it known and now is the time thank you for letting me speak and thank you for continuing to serve on this board thank you mr coy i appreciate your comments [Applause] next we have marlene connor sorry it was a long walk from the back marlena connor 18 woodstone drive i'd like to express my support and gratitude for the work of superintendent grosso has spearheaded since coming to cedar grove schools i'm grateful for the programs that have been developed to cultivate and

084preserve a safe place for all students staff and caregivers regardless of race gender identity ethnicity religion physical ability and so forth i'm grateful for superintendent grosso's efforts to support students academically socially and emotionally by providing resources and strategies designed to cultivate empathy perseverance and resilience especially during this pandemic time it could not be more valuable to our kids i'm also grateful for mr grosso's diplomacy and leadership during a time of upheaval with the pandemic and social unrest in our lives both in our town and across our country at a boe meeting in december mr grosso you said if we focus on the good the good gets better there is a lot of good around us and the good can turn into great mr grosso thank you for looking for the good [Applause] thank you mrs

085connor next we have glenn lenahan glenn lenahan nine emory court first of all i would just want to say thank you i am i can't wait until march 7th when the mass can come off for those that don't want it my daughter is six years old in kindergarten i don't think she's ever seen her teacher's face um i'm very very glad that the science is the the politics behind this rather finally catching up with the science my question is there are numerous districts around the state who are already doing away with contact tracing and quarantining including marlborough howell pennsville middletown and the new jersey association of school administrators isn't taking a position on it so my question is these are just guidelines that are going to be issued they're not statutes they're not rules they're

086not regulations they're not ordinances i fail to see why we can't end that now and i'd like to know if we're not ending it now will it be ended when the mass mandates end as well in addition to that my daughter's been eating snack outside in 14 degrees for reasons that i can't possibly fathom and i'm very hopeful that once the masks become optional the kids can go back to just eating snack in a normal way not outside when it's freezing not outside when it's nice just how they normally would do it not half the class at a time so i'm hopeful that will also occur as well as getting rid of the remainder of the restrictions that would just be guidelines a cdc study from may of 2021 showed that social distancing did absolutely

087nothing three schools that had three feet of distance or more between the kids had three covet cases per 500 kids that had no social distancing had three covet cases poor 500 it was the exact same so my hope my genuine hope and i never thought i would come to a board of education meeting ever i truly didn't but our kids need to get back to normal they deserve to have the lives growing up that we did it's the only right thing to do they are bearing the brunt of this in a way that adults don't i can take my kids and their friends to any restaurant in town they can climb all over each other they can eat what they want next to each other there's no reason they can't do the same thing in

088the school building and my final thing i'd like to say council person die i was appalled by your comments earlier in the meeting tonight as i think most everyone here was and for someone for someone to intentionally maliciously use language meant to demean disparage and embarrass is beyond the pale and morally repugnant and as a litigator i cannot believe you chose to do it at a government forum as someone with already a pending ethics committee that's been upheld by a court it is absolutely disgusting and i if you choose to run again for re-election i can't wait to vote against you and i know there are thousands of others that feel the same way thank you all very much for your time i didn't realize that mentioning that there was a member of the lgbtq

089community was a demeaning comment at all i would think it would be more demeaning to say it's not meant to embarrass at all it's i think it's actually pretty progressive that our town actually does have a member of the lgbt community on the board of education i think it's actually great okay okay thank you for your comments okay let's move on okay next we have yvonne cardenas and i apologize if i mispronounced your name yvonne cardenas and i live at 176 ridge road i have two kids in the school district and just wanted to say just to repeat what some of the earlier uh speakers said that i support superintendent grosso and i'm very glad that you're here in our in our district thank you for your work thank you i appreciate your comment [Applause]

090next we have david vissery [Applause] uh good evening everyone david vissering 27 rose terrace uh so first just want to speak on behalf of another member of the community eric martinez of 52 overlook road uh it's happened in previous meetings so oh i'm just going to keep yelling then because it's my turn i got my three minutes so thanks he's dead he's public he can speak on someone else's i'm glad you can speak okay thank you uh so he can be here tonight uh but he stands with mr grosso uh so and just want to say that i appreciate everything you've done as well i know it's been a tough time for a lot of people in leadership positions over the last two years so thank you for what you've done for the community i

091appreciate the discussion about the pilot money i too have been at some town council meetings recently so i'm happy to hear i'm not happy that there isn't any progress but appreciate the update so the one question i had was last month governor murphy signed into law a bill s 3488 which authorizes funds to study school district consolidation is the district planning on participating or utilizing the availability of those funds to look into that i will share as a district this is not something that we are in favor of um i think when we when the governor looks at that study um you're looking at districts that are primarily very small in size of how they could consolidate i know that many many years ago historically there was conversation of verona and cedar grove you know

092combining together um i think i don't know i don't know where this is going to go this will be very interesting to watch um what the parameters will be i mean this is not a study that we are going to be necessarily participating in um but i think the model looks very similar to what it looks like down in the southern counties down in southern states like maryland um when you get down to even like virginia when you look at the conglomeration of districts i know the intent is to save money but there's a there's a cost there as well and there's a cost of local control et cetera so um i'm interested in myself to see where this is going to go this is not something that we are entertaining at this point okay

093thank you for your answer and then just uh finally to address the issue that happened earlier in my opinion opinion just saying the n word is completely fine will do and that applies to the teacher that allegedly said it uh in class and the previous speaker thank you thank you mr restaurant next we have patricia montana good evening patricia montana five emory court it should not be surprising that i do not support mr grosso nor am i grateful for his service given that mr grosso has violated district policy two state laws and seemingly federal law as well parents are now asking that the board remove him as superintendent under his contract he is obligated to quote faithfully perform his duties in accordance with the laws of new jersey and rules and regulations of the state

094board of education he has so obviously failed to do so by breaching the laws he has also breached the community's trust in him mr cannella announced at a prior meeting that his members were quote afraid well i'm here to assert that we the parents are afraid we are afraid of the future harm that mr grosso will bring to this district should he continue to serve as superintendent mr grosso's actions throughout his tenure demonstrates that he lacks sound judgment has no ability or willingness to listen especially to views different from his acts with obscene arrogance and without any transparency and utterly lacks the experience knowledge aptitude and ethics required to effectively and successfully lead the superintendent's role is a partnership with parents his failure to recognize that is a fatal flaw we believe there is just

095cause to remove him and we are asking that the board take steps to do so immediately thank you [Applause] next we have vincent valero that doesn't work okay i'll just do that vincent valero 92 the fairway mr grosso you have an obligation you are duty-bound to protect the safety and the health of the children of this school district with that said removing the masked mandate today is imperative okay march 7th is a political date this is a political date designed to coincide with stuff going on at all different levels of government the president the state of the union all kinds of political stuff it's a political date the prudent thing to do regardless of what any other school district is doing we're asking you as our superintendent to do the right thing lift the mask

096mandate today every day that goes by with these students being messed is another day of education lost for them okay it's poor quality education that's going on right now while they wear these masks two weeks in the life of a six or seven year old is a significant amount of time every day every moment in class for these young students is formative at this young age okay it's not like older people like us where two weeks is just two weeks that's a significant chunk of time for them this masked mandate should be removed today and it's pretty apparent that you're not willing to do that this is a lack of leadership that's going speaking to all of the other evidence that we have of your lack of leadership and for that reason i am asking

097this board to seek your removal as superintendent of the school district thank you [Applause] next we have and i apologize michelle oh is that more yellow i'm sorry michelle michelle moriello 51 bennett ave cedar grove um i have a few questions and i believe mr davida can um comfortably answer them um what's the total cost of legal fees that the district has incurred since tony rosso's arrival i don't know i'm sorry i don't have that in front of me okay um what was my phone sorry i'm sure um and then more specifically what's the total cost of legal fees that the district spent trying to defend the illegal survey i don't have that in front of me okay if you don't if you can't provide it now can you have it provided maybe next month

098at the next board so it's public knowledge i'll see you as long as the board's okay with that okay we'll discuss it okay and then what's the total cost of legal fees that the district has incurred to defend the ethics complaint against export of ed president christine dye and board member nicole dicara it is understood that the school ethics commission has ruled that their the first ethics complaint was not frivolous same answer do you have that okay and again like anything that you do have can it be provided at the next meeting okay we will discuss it alrighty thank you oh wait i forgot sorry my three minutes are enough and um i pretty much just want to say that due to the failed leadership i'm asking the board to remove superintendent grosso thank you

099[Applause] okay next we have ashley sin to come we have to make these lines a little bit longer i i know it's that italian last name um good evening i'm ashley sanjakomo 42 marley ave i'm here to speak tonight about my concerns with transparency and safety from our school district my children are assigned to bus r28 on january 5th the bus was involved in an incident with ice at around 7 40 a.m on sky top and it took three hours for the school to communicate what had happened then on january 26 the same bus was involved in an accident on sky top with the same driver fortunately my children were not on the bus at that time but i had questions this time the communication came within an hour of the bus accident indicating that

100the bus had a mechanical malfunction quote i reached out for more information from the district about the bus and the vendor alden transportation i inquired with our board of ed um about who made the determination within an hour that there was a mechanical malfunction with the bus i was told that the cedar grove police department made that determination in follow-up with the cedar grove police department that was not in fact their determination a few weeks later i followed up with mr grosso mr davida and some of the secretaries and was asking about the specifics and if you had determined what specifically the mechanical malfunction was on the bus and i was informed that i can request an oprah hence my concerns with transparency it is by luck that my children were not on that bus

101and i don't care that there were six kids or 58 kids we all know the trauma that happened in paramus on route 80 years ago because of bus failure to maintain it as well as inappropriate credentialed drivers our children's safety is paramount and every time i put them on that bus now i have to wonder is it voodoo hill was there something wrong with the bus you have the police report correct from oh yeah i'll control it yes hence my concerns are transparency i'd like to note the district has the police report if so why can't the narrative be shared around the findings has the district followed up with aldin about the status of bus 115 it remains out of commission has the district checked into if any federal violations were cited after the full

102motor coach inspection at the motor vehicle commission it took two days to complete that entire report the entire investigation i'm sorry if the district has the information why not share it and then i have questions about how we select vendors i know it's the lowest bidder i think based on what i'm seeing from the asbestos removal for lrp and such but i am very concerned that we are selling our children out to the lowest bidder at the highest liability there's got to be a way that you can say yes this is the but they don't check safety standards alton has a 43 cash rate on their initial inspections i have other questions too that's it okay so i would be more than happy to answer that i know that you've been very interested in this

103because we've communicated through mr devito's office has communicated uh with you about this so um first of all uh to walk you through what had taken place with that incident with the police report i do have the police report and i will share certain pieces from this the problem is that the police report is not ours to give out that is the police department's uh obligation to give out and that's why you were uh directed to oprah the police department's report especially since your child was not not on that bus so when you look at this at the scene uh it clearly states that the um opera operator had shared that the bus had lost power and it began to roll backwards it also states in here that the when when applied the brakes the

104vehicle continued to roll backwards the operator shared that the emergency brake when applied did not stop the bus from rolling back and therefore then turn the wheels of the bus to to curb the bus so that information did come from the police department because that was what was shared with me when one of our employees was on site when i asked the question what had taken place was this an ice issue as the previous issue uh that you stated um the first one for that for that r28 it was an ice issue at that particular point this was not and it clearly states in the um in the report that it was observed that there was no um the roadway was white in color from uh road salt so therefore that was not a uh

105the the ice was not an issue therefore when it was reported to me it was a mechanical malfunction now i will share with you when when an accident takes place you don't do an inspection of the vehicle on site uh especially for a bus without what the bus would have happened is it would be towed to the the precinct right therefore then it was shared that um it went to motor vehicles and motor vehicles had shared there was not an issue with this but it was recommended that alden take their bus to the dealer for a full inspection so on 2 8 the bus was delivered to the dealership on 216 which is today the bus is still at the dealership and no report was issued yet aldon will send the report when received so

106that is the that is the transparency of the situation and where we are now i will let mr davida actually share because i know you had concerns about lois better mr devito can you please share how that process works for the state of new jersey yep yeah it's just like you had said um we have resolution on tonight um for the asbestos removal and it is the lowest responsible bidder that we're required to um accept every every time um so we are required to to do that um unless we have any um you know uh big issues um it's kind of hard to do a fire a um a company um and as far as the like the the pass rate um i know that the buses are inspected i believe it's it's it's either

107two or three times here i think every since there's so two times a year um and and in order for the buses to be operational they have to pass um so if it fails the first time then they're not allowed to use that bus until it does pass um so any buses that are on the road uh do do pass the the inspection um i do believe that the state does do some uh surprise inspections uh so sometimes they'll go to a um one of our private schools and they'll they'll wait there and then they'll do like a surprise inspection there also uh but that's on the estate does that on their own so can i just ask the board for you guys to be a little more thoughtful in questioning some of this stuff

108if there are federal violations i do know that the the goal is to have cedar grove have its own fleet of diesel vehicles diesel vehicles require maintenance especially in the winter especially in the cold you have to either put kerosene into the diesel so it keeps it fluid so it doesn't clog up the mechanics of it which would cause sputtering loss of power and if you have a driver who makes a mistake and puts it in neutral instead of park that's why it's going to roll back but you need to make sure that like are we going to have a diesel mechanic on on staff with cedar grove to maintain these these buses like i know it probably sounds ridiculous for coming out of a pandemic but i got to talk to you about safety

109for my kids on a bus because i find out tonight that safety for we're having kids outside in 16 degree weather like safety is not paramount in this district as far as i'm concerned these folks here who sing your praises you and i haven't had a dialogue i've been emailing i had to follow up twice for for more information on this and it was it would have been a simple answer so i'm sorry i had to come to a meeting you don't have to apologize for coming to me you have you have valid questions and your follow-up was based on the the level of questioning that you were looking for and we were trying to get you the information that was correct you don't want to give you information that is just rash knee jerk

110reaction so we want to get you solid information that is factual as far as safety being paramount in this district i have to share with you i disagree with that statement because this district has taken major strides even prior to my coming on board here of what we do to to secure our students whether it be um people coming in through i mean we did a whole presentation last year about our hall pass system so uh the drills that we run so that is not necessary i i would you know i don't wanna be disrespectful i would disagree with that because we do take uh you know safety as a priority here in this district i think it's certain kinds of safety and it's certain it's certain kinds that fit your narrative and it's okay

111because we're not going it's not my narrative it's what's required by state law and what we what is our philosophy in this district of what we take as important i will share with you as far as you know cedar grove developing its own fleet uh our goal is to do that because right now we spend i forget i mean over over how many million 1.3 million 1.3 million dollars on transportation that we outsource when we look and we we look as a group of how can we reduce the cost factor rather than outsourcing um children's transportation and some of those routes are 900 a pop for a single child so when you look at transportation transportation doesn't have to be a diesel vehicle transportation can be a 16 passenger vehicle it could be a um

112a minivan and when we look at what we're what we're utilizing we have four we have four buses that are 54 passenger buses that run routes within town we um we also have athletics and we and we also have to look at that as well because that is a large source of income and we'll be getting into that as we get into the budget season right now and talking about the cost factor of that um but when we look at our single transportation for our out-of-district students uh that are going to um various locations and some of those locations what that one is up was it washington township warren i mean that's a very far distance it's a very uh expensive route for one child um when we look at that uh we say how

113can we be more fiscally responsible for our community as well as how do you keep those those safety parameters in place and so therefore transportation isn't always all diesel transportation can be um a a like i said like a minivan or or or a car right so that that's that's what we're looking at so there is there you know we are bound by law when you you have a fleet to follow those um those guidelines and there would be no reason why we wouldn't the that doesn't that doesn't serve the the students well at all or the population so um that the narrative of taking safety and security into consideration is what we do do and there is not a personal narrative here is what we are expected to do thank you thank you next

114we have daniela barracco daniela baracco 133 cedar street in 2020 i spoke at aboard a vet meeting because our district was discontinuing our aftercare with the ymca every year parents were given an in-person presentation explaining the program and they were we were very comfortable with it because we knew the staff members they were familiar faces year after year when i spoke to the board about the decision i asked the questions who will be handling aftercare costs hours activities and background check procedures i was told by the former superintendent and mrs dye that the district wanted to make money with these programs and that they had been paying the teachers to provide before care and claim the ynca was not bringing in enough money for aftercare they mentioned teachers were taking it over and my thought

115was well how is this making money and will teachers want to engage in activities and provide snacks take the children outside and stay till 6 pm for working parents i was told yes and the plans would be shared with the community with comparable costs they said the program would be even better with increased staff and enrichment naturally due to the shutdown presentation never occurred and it was clear the district didn't have a plan covert delays were expected but there was no mention of aftercare until this year prior to school opening later by email the district announced the hire of right at school so to be clear we were initially told it would be run by the teachers and suddenly now we're being told it's being hired by someone else later in another email parents were

116invited to engage in a zoom chat with right at school before the first day of school the link was broken and much of the presentation was missed but parents were told there would be additional opportunities to engage with this company it never happened just a form posted on the district website to register with cost i contacted right at school myself to get information and was informed by them there was limited space and staff shortage in my opinion the decision was take it or leave it a new company and program was accepted without the parents having any input or a proper presentation mr grosso when this company was chosen why weren't there open discussions with the parents to weigh in what made back ex back at uh right at school the choice with over a year

117to plan how much time was devoted on a reasonable responsible solution in my opinion this was not priority it seems there were other priorities and interests if it was money this backfired costs from damages are worse when it comes to the well-being of our children money is never the option many parents complained about right at school because promises made by the former superintendent and mrs die regarding activities and the promises of enrichment the kids were sent outside in the cold after three o'clock when the sun went down for snack and board without decent activities for a very high price now we learned from the media that right at school program was responsible for children having an incident which is unacceptable mr girl is well aware you were not in our district when this careless choice

118was made to discontinue with the ymca without a responsible replacement but you weighed in on the decision for this provider that we have now dismissed we would like to know why this company was chosen was this decision over money or a bid because the end result is a nightmare choices were made excluding parents who paid for aftercare i asked who was overseeing how they were handling the children as a new company in our schools did anyone spot check or come in unannounced and check on the children the first two weeks of school mr grosso i feel minimal focus when you put on this and it's an important topic aftercare and the safety of our children working parents desperately rely on us as parents we are enraged because it seems that this was not important enough

119or priority where was the focus all this time and just to be clear money is not a priority before safety [Applause] answer that for you when you look at a morning and aftercare program i am aware that the y was here previously and i also aware that the why was not as well received as uh from from families as uh they thought they were uh so therefore covet came and so i am i am also aware that there was an opportunity uh where uh there was an idea that staff would be able to take over uh the morning in the aftercare program uh the issue with having a district run morning and after care program is it is it is very difficult to staff that uh and we're finding that right now when we when

120we release right at school and we have this period of time where we are waiting for the installation of alphabets to come in um you know one of the things we did we opened it up to the staff so i shared at a previous meeting that i really do thank the staff for stepping up especially for the morning care the morning care we were able to cover it was the after care that was a very difficult uh coverage period for our staff to do that so when a district runs that whether it be a large district or a smaller district like ourselves that's a very large responsibility where you would have to have a commitment um of what is expected like you said for for families that would want uh a six o'clock pick up

121time so when this was when we were talking and planning for this coming school year this was not a decision that was taken lightly we wanted to look at several different things here was looking at the extension of hours looking at the extension of care and what kind of care would be provided meaning activities involvement with the um with the students we vetted several different um organizations and one of them was alpha best uh previously but the one that came out on top was right at school based on their national uh their national uh placement in schools from across the country uh where they were currently here in the state of new jersey and their willingness to take on a much larger population of students than we that we've had in the past and as

122i shared earlier tonight we talked about morning care at the elementary level having been around 20 to 25 students in the morning care and around 70 in the aftercare program that's a lot that's one of the largest um enrollments uh that we've had here in cedar grove so this was this was a company that we felt uh would work for our population especially for our working parents and not just having it be a babysitting service that was something that we were very very uh adamant about that we did not want just someone just watching kids where they would just you know not be involved in activities so when you talk about who was observing uh these um each program in each of the building i will share with you the um the principles were very

123very involved in looking at uh the program knowing the kids knowing the staff um walking into the gym uh walking into the classroom or whether it be outside now they obviously are not there the entire time because they're not required to because it's it's a service that we have contracted out so uh therefore when there was the the dismissal of right at school it was a priority for us to get a another company in to take over that service as quickly as possible now i will share with you we ended that relationship with right at school i believe it was um january uh was i was on before right so it was a friday before that monday uh we were able to get alphabets in there i would say within the well we we actually

124um approved them on the 26th of january that's right yeah that's a pretty quick turnover time and from that moment in time alphabets has working has worked very diligently to get their programming in now normally what is what takes place when you bring in a program of a morning or after care program uh it takes them several months to usually work on it over the summer but we will be up and running within the next several weeks for the parents but in the meantime we were our staff was providing that morning care process so this isn't this isn't something that's taken lightly uh it was um it was something that we were very dedicated towards the board was very dedicated dedicated towards that and uh we feel very confident that alpha best will pick up

125uh where we left off and we'll be able to provide an even better experience than what we have had previously with even more programming uh we feel like as you can see i don't know if you had a chance to look at the um the presentation when alphabets presented it but uh they as well are nationally um recognized as well as their partnerships with various programs so again it's not it's not we don't look at it for money we look at it for uh programming and we look at it for capacity in which they can support uh the masses and we also knew one of the other things i want to share too we also knew that parents when they were coming off the heels of last year in that in covid uh there are

126a lot of families that were were going to have to that may not have used aftercare morning care prior they they were probably going to have to use that now based on working situations so we took that into consideration as well when we're making those decisions okay thank you all right next we have christine perry i just want to make a friendly reminder about please try to keep your comments to the three minutes um we're still on page one just to give everybody a heads up so christine perry 52 cedar grove parkway i have two completely different topics so if i could ask my first question i must respond but just what daniella said you just mentioned that the new aftercare is nationally recognized the one before that had this incident was nationally recognized so

127just keep that in mind my first concern is regarding the removal of the media center and library we learned from a past meeting that our children have experienced learning loss we probably didn't need to take our students out of instruction to figure that out but given the fact that you did show in your powerpoint there was loss have you reevaluated and thought of when we can open back up the media center in all the schools our students are being denied access to meaningful learning opportunities and resources we want to raise self-sufficient resourceful critical thinkers the media center offers the opportunity for students to learn how to do research find new reading materials and a way to interact educationally outside of the classroom while still learning important and critical skills necessary for life after school my

128fifth grade son was given an assignment to read a biography the options to get a book were to bring one from home which he's read already how to rely on either books you know juggling going to the public library hours or purchasing one from a bookstore maybe some parents can't afford that can you please explain why the decision to close the media centers was and employ more counselors was made and when there is a plan to open the media center's backup yeah absolutely uh there and i shared that last year the reason for the media center and the media specialist to move forward with the counselors was to have a counselor in every building uh previously at the elementary level we didn't have that now in the middle school there hasn't been a media specialist

129in in that building for was it over eight years or so yeah well yeah yeah so um the the middle school hasn't had a media specialist for quite some time the decision wasn't taken lightly it was something that was uh we had to weigh the needs at that particular moment in time and having one counselor moving between two buildings with a population of students that was over five six hundred students in in the needs that we anticipated and we were correct with as we came off the heels of what was going on last year we felt that was a priority so therefore now you have a counselor in every single building that is tending to the needs of children so there's various levels of of mental health needs and social emotional needs for our students

130which are being recognized for that now when you look at the future what will that bring that doesn't mean that the media center's gonna be going to be collapsed forever uh we look at how can we go and move into the 21st century so you talk about buying books one i actually sit on the cedar grove library board one of the conversations we have all the time is yes you want circulation of books but there's also other ways of getting those books as well and there's digital ways of getting those books and that's one of the things that we've looked into as a district of how can we bring books to the hands of students through these as well because you're right some students cannot go out and buy those books but if we can

131provide a service that can get oops that can get that to them that is definitely a bridging a gap for for families when we look at how research is done one of the one of the interesting things that have come up through the course of these past two years is that you know our students are utilizing these devices much more than they ever have before and especially since they have we are truly a one-to-one district now which is definitely a goal of the district for many years prior to my arrival now that we have this uh it's how do we use this in a feasible prudent way for our students to prepare themselves there was a i believe there was a community member that talked about being ready for the 21st century skills part of

132that is how do you research um online how do you collaborate with each other online how can a teacher go and collaborate and facility not only teach but facilitate at that same time so um those are all the ways that we look to move forward but that doesn't mean that the you know we have that that perception of what the media center was uh even from when we were children it can move forward in a very different way uh and it's also we're dealing with a space issue as well so we look at reutilization of space in each of our buildings so we can kind of move forward so it's not a dead it's not a dead issue it's not something that we're saying no we're never we never want to have that come back

133again is how can we uh improve upon what we had and how can we make it more current and more accessible for our kids so are those discussions happening now because like my son probably knows how to google and research things right better than me or anyone here you know but we have to also be concerned about safety with that as well too let's keep that in mind yeah you know and i want to share you're absolutely right with that um one of the things is um when you talk about uh when you talk about safety that is the reason why we invested this year um when any student is using one of our platforms that it is monitored for any unsafe uh violations any um how so because i've caught my son looking at

134things that he shouldn't be looking well if he if what right right if he if he's using our uh computer or if he's using our platform platform like google any other google products it is um it is monitored and that is actually one of the reasons um to be quite honest with you it's actually saved several lives in this district based on suicidal ideation and research on that it has helped to bridge the gap for some of our hiv cases uh has also helped us um for some of our students that have been uh navigating to some they shouldn't be some uncharted territory but if they are doing it on your home device and they're not logged into our platform or that would we would never catch that no he's doing it on the school

135and i've so i'm like one i mean it's not complete my son is a great kid not that he's doing it but things that he even just youtube you shouldn't you shouldn't be it comes up all hours of the night actually and we and every administrator of that building gets that alert immediately and is able to access that so it's something that it's called securely and it's one of the things that we put out earlier in the year to look at that and bark bark is is that you so there's two there's two um security platforms that we utilize that is uh take this taking care of that for our our students okay i appreciate that so my next thing i just wanted to talk about i was happy to see that email we're all

136talking about masks that students you know it's going to be optional on march 7th but i was very confused about the directive that you stated in your email schools will not be permitted to bar the use of facial coverings by individuals and will be expected to take disciplinary action in instances of bullying should they arise due to an individual's choice to continue to wearing a mask choice that is what we've been fighting for the choice for our kids your statement about potential bullying of students choosing to wear a mask is terribly one-sided what about bullying kids who choose not to wear the mask smile at their friends your written statement hammers home that you have not at all gotten to know this community that you are anticipating and labeling certain children as bullies your undertone

137is accusing our community of not being decent people or raising decent children it is clear that the community of cedar grove is passionate about fighting for their rights for their children and let me be clear passionate on both sides folks that want masks and folks that don't want masks we all have the right to that opinion for our family your statement is so incredibly one-sided it does not seem that you would be protecting or tolerating potential bullying the other way students who choose to wear massive bullying kids should not wear masks if you recall and we will go back to the old board of ed videos where there were parents in this audience who were aggressively yelling at other parents in the audience you're not wearing a mask and you just sat there not only

138do i have an issue with your one-sided stance it's your views quite funny of the community's use of the word bullying no i will share with you and i will definitely be able to explain that to you those words are not my words those words come from governor murphy it was taken directly it absolutely was if you go back and you look at that if you if you go back and you look at his covet announcement the day for for i believe it was very excuse me just let him finish please thank you i will share this with you those were his words and the reason why those words are included in there is because you talk about a one-sided perspective of mass use there are plenty of families that have contacted me via phone

139in person email to share with me their concern over the disruption of taking down a mask their questions to me personally were will my child be ridiculed or bullied based on them wearing a mask when the mask mandate is up excuse me i will share this you make a very good point of view when you talked about what has taken place here in these board meetings about people's personal opinions you're right it's not one opinion there are multiple opinions on the subject here's the reality of it all and i heard someone say this in the audience i'm the person that's supposed to run this district you're correct and the reality of it all is is that my opinion does not count when it comes to math it does not my my factual and that is

140that statement is very factual and the reason why that statement is put there is number one it was shared publicly by the governor of the state and number two there were several multiple community members that had a very very different opinion than what you share with a concern that is tied to the fact that what happens on march 7th when my child comes to school and decides to wear a mask because i am making my child do that because that is their personal opinion what happens then let me share with you with the hiv laws hiv laws apply now they apply after this and they applied before this so if a person comes to school and they're not wearing a mask and they're bullied for that and there's there is a multi-level check of that

141that investigation starts and you identify where the characteristics met whether it was intentional or not intentional that that also excuse me that also applies to any student who is wearing a mask so it doesn't matter but there is a but i will share with you once that conversation happened when governor murphy shared about mass mass coming down the same way that there are members of the community that were concerned when governor murphy talked about the um the masks not not wearing masks in september back in july it was the same thing people are concerned one set of opinions are not always the entire community's opinion on on issues and i will share with you that it is my job as a superintendent of schools to listen to all to all opinions and to make and

142the option of the the mastering the heat you made the decision it was optional you made it mandatory this is what we're talking about no no no no you're you're misconstruing the words and you're misconstruing man what the governor's what the i'm not gonna i i'm not gonna argue i'm sorry i'm sorry see i'm gonna share something here i'm not gonna argue about the validity of masks that's not my job as superintendent of schools and every other superintendent in the state of new jersey across this country that is not our job to validate the use of masks our job is to enforce the mask wearing when we are told to do that and when and when and when it is optional as the governor has shared on march 7th and you clearly should understand that

143i put down in an email that we will make that optional so therefore on march 7th if you want to have your child come to school with or without a mask that will be your prerogative there will be nobody going around saying you got to put your mask up you can't wear it below your nose you can't wear below your chin no one will be doing that but for the child that does wear a mask or the adult that wants to wear a mask there can be no conversation you should be doing this or you shouldn't be doing that because it is optional at that point that clearly states that there is no in between of that so therefore opinions don't matter in this case it's all facts that's it so can i just ask

144the question if if i came to my son comes to school and he doesn't wear a mask and he has a very good friend that loves to wear a mask and my son says oh joe blow why aren't you wearing a mask is that good like these are yummy no you have to so when we talk about bullying right bullying is and that's a whole other conversation about what bull what the bullying laws in the state of new jersey are because a lot of times we as adults look at bullying in a very particular way which could be conflict right but no if it if if mr devita is wearing a mask and i am not and i say mr devito why are you wearing a mask he has the right to say i'm not

145answering you or because i want to but he could feel bullied by you asking them no no no not necessarily unless unless you meet the criteria for if if it constitutes a harassment intimidation or bullying account it's very specific you could feel that way by you asking he could feel that way and he could share with his teacher and say listen uh tony has said that you know he he's i feel mocked by him and that could be a conflict and it could be a conversation it doesn't always have to be bullying exactly and that's correct that's just i'm just saying let's just be open that kids are curious my son is in fifth grade which means he's in middle school for the first time and he's gonna finally potentially see kids that are new

146to him with a smile like he's gonna finally see kids from south end with a new face i just feel like and that's a good thing it's a wonderful thing it's a great thing but i feel like there's going to be i feel like things are so everyone is so sensitive and the term bully is so destigmatized because we use it so much for such little things i have to share with you there you know i will share this with you if you would like you can please you can make it you can make appointment with me we could sit down together i can walk you through bullying laws that have been in place i don't need the lawyers i will tell your opinion there is also another opinion out there with parents that are

147concerned about what's going to happen on march 7th when they send their child to school with a mask on i've heard it firsthand so i'm not i'm not and i'm of the of the parent of the concern of my child that's going to school without a mask yes and that's fair but you have now it's it's clear that you've repeated the mask wearing choice repeatedly and not the non-mask and that my point is that because it seems very one-sided but but i want to share i want to share this with you is that the majority of the people sitting here today have lobby to have these masks taken away for a very long time so therefore that day has come on march 7. so therefore now we're going to look at a different issue of

148what's going to hap it's a it's a it's an up and down roller coaster so do you think because the parents have been standing up for their children not to wear a mask at their bullies not at all no kids are bullies no because their parents are have the right to share their opinion absolutely they can do that yes we do yes no one's taking that away but there's also another faction of families that believe the direct opposite and our job as educators is to listen to both sides now that doesn't necessarily mean that doesn't necessarily mean that the two meet in the middle right but you can listen to both sides i think we should just think about how excited our kids will be to potentially see each other's kids faces and i think

149they will ask questions and they will also ask questions why maybe a friend still has it on or not and i think that we just need to have the kids like figure it out i really don't think their kids are such ill and have such ill intention i'll use my time i know there's a lot of people to speak thank you thank you [Music] okay [Music] i believe it's sam ventola please i ask again to please be mindful of the three thank you you got it sam ventola 6 lafayette drive cedar grove before i started i know he's not here and he was not knowledge but i want to probably publicly uh congratulate coach gogerty on that great honor for my money he's the best around and cedar grove is lucky to have him it

150kind of segues into what i wanted to say anyway my son graduated from the school four years ago he was not a cedar grove south north middle school kid he came from saint thomas of the apostle bloomfield when we're deciding on a high school we listen to a lot of people in cedar grove and they say listen send your son here uh it'll be good for him and i have to tell you it was probably one of the best decisions we made academically athletically socially and it was because of people like mr gogerty mr gallagher mr cardinale mr gaduto those people not only prepared him for college but they prepared him for life fast forward four years and last week my wife my daughter and i were here for 8th grade orientation a 9th grade

151orientation for upcoming 8th graders now we took my daughter out of st catharines because of how well my son did to get her acclimated and get her ready for cedar grove high school i was kind of taken aback when i was here because the only administrator or teacher that i knew was mr gogerty four years ago i pretty much knew everybody in the building so it caught me by surprise and i asked people and i was informed that many of the teachers have now left and went elsewhere so i have kind of a two question to the board of mr grosso do we know the turnover rate in the last four years for teachers and administrators and probably more importantly what are we doing that we're having good people leave our district and go teach

152elsewhere are we looking at ourselves and saying why are people leaving cedar grove and going to work in other communities i can answer that too um i can answer part of it means that i am relatively new to the board um but yes to answer your question we are looking at that we are um you know talking about uh ways to address um you know the shortage of teachers and staff and turnover so yes it is on the forefront i can't speak to prior to me being on this board but since i have been on yes there has been conversations about that mr any i mean is there you've been here now for a little bit are there is there a reason or why teachers are leaving in droves it seems like well i i

153will share this you know one of the things that we do when a teacher exits here we we do an exit interview and i and we want a real honest conversation as to you know what where are you going why are you leaving what can we do better what did we do well um a lot of what we have we've had a lot of retirements and that's i think it's a product of of the times right now based on covet i think a lot of teachers that were on the cusp of retiring i looked at this and said look it's time for me to go based on uh the certain circumstances i think uh one of the other things that we've heard a lot of was that um teachers it's and it's not unique to

154cedar grove it's something unique to new jersey it's actually a nationwide issue where it's no surprise that there's teacher shortages everywhere uh people are leaving the profession just leaving the profession um certain teachers are leaving because they can shop uh they can go to districts that are number one closer to their home and they can go to districts that are paying more some of those districts are larger and they have a much higher scale so there are multiple reasons why teachers leave and and that's something we have discussed that and and there are multiple reasons why it's an individual reason but um from the time that i've been here and i've had those conversations with uh the staff that have left um a lot of it's been retirement a lot of it's been um it's

155been money i i could think of one instance where there was one individual that left the high school that was able to secure a uh a very uh lucrative position um in the school district which is something that we were just not able to um based on our scale and based on uh where we are so you know it's it's unfortunate you know um but it's not unusual i will share that that's not unusual but right now uh what's happening is there's a there's a lot of uh teacher shopping going on it's it's it's a national it's a national issue that we're we're all feeling that okay there's one more question and please don't well i just for the last year we've had this survey debacle um seeing the football team travel plans get messed

156up all kind of issues the issues with north end is a travesty i want you to put yourself in my position you're in charge you're the man in charge how comfortable should i be with you at the helm i will share this with you you should feel very comfortable and i'll give you the reason why okay this is not about opinion this is about facts i spent over 20 years in education i have been a teacher at multiple levels i have been in elementary principal i have been a middle school principal and i have been a principal of a high school that have had that has had over 2200 students over a staff of 300. i've worked on multiple committees throughout districts as well as worked with the state on kindergarten standards and preschool standards

157i've been involved in a lot of different uh situations that are uh that deal with various issues whether they're academic social emotional um when you're a leader whether it's a district or whether you're a leader of a fortune 500 company people are not going to always agree with your decisions people have personal opinions and i accept that i accept it if you're respectful about it if you're not respectful about it then it's very difficult to have a clear understanding and have a conversation that you can come together with so you should feel very confident in the fact that i have been a principal where i have been able to raise test scores by 70 percent i have been a principal of buildings where our our growth rate was at 17 and i'm you asked me

158a question i'm going to i know i'm going to give you the answer okay where you went from 17 to 70 within a year and a half okay i was able to uh con i was able to look at structures and organizational discipline there's a lot of pieces here i've heard here tonight a lot of people just don't agree with the fact that they don't agree with a lot of things and that's okay that's your prerogative but when it comes to masking when it comes to personal opinions about what the governor decides or politics i'm not a politician that's not my job right that is not my job to be a politician my job when i was hired here to was to look at several things and the majority was academic i have not heard

159one question here tonight about academics i could sit here for five hours talking about academics and where we are and where we need to go there but but what we've talked about what we've talked about was masks so i will share this with you you i would be more than happy to sit down with you if you would if you would be willing to come to my office we need to go for coffee i'll buy that sounds great i'll take you up on that you know and we could talk a lot about plans for the future having a vision having a mission having clear expectations we can do all of that because that is exactly what i have i have a multi-year plan on how to boost not only where we are at the high

160school with having average ap scores at two but getting that up to a four and a five okay and even even college and career readiness for this high school as well as where we will go for at the elementary levels into the middle school so please i will tell you i will take you up on an offer i would be more than happy to do that and we could talk a little bit more about that i know i stayed and overstayed my welcome but your resume as a principal is not in question you're here as a superintendent mike if you hit 350 for the yankees and you get traded to the twins and you at 150. the people in minnesota don't care what you did with for yankees but you they do care about the

161experience and i will share and i will share this performance is what we care about so let me ask you this question performance i could share with you i could give you a list of of the different initiatives and where we have gone within this past year and a half and where we where we are now compared to where we were a year and a half ago and it's about growth it's about projection it's about vision it's about moving forward we can't move forward if we continue to look at this one particular issue we've had this conversation as a board we've talked about this so i will share this with you again i'm going to definitely take you up on that offer you know i'll you know i'll have i'll get your number and we

162can sit that together you might not enjoy the conversation well i don't know about that okay i don't know about that because you know you if you go you don't want to go into a conversation with negativity right you want to go with positivity i look for ideas i look for partnerships i look for collaboration i look for constructive crit constructive criticism as well you say that but i've been watching the board meetings i've been coming to the boarding meetings for the eight months and i have not seen it in your actions that's what we'll talk about we'll talk anymore i will be more than happy to talk about that [Applause] next we have david newman david newman 77 elmwood road first off mr marzul please let dom know that he is not just a

163financial support of the community with the full emotional and whatever he needs we're behind him my kids have been in cedar grove school since kindergarten up until 2020 i trusted that the superintendent would act in the best interest of the students and the parents of cedar grove but because of covet i thought i should stay in touch with the decisions that were being made around specifically around in-person learning so i tuned in i didn't expect to see the focus on the curriculum updates around sel but given the political climate i wasn't surprised and nor do i have a negative reaction to it at all and again i was trusting that the superintendent and the former board would manage us appropriately it wasn't oh it was only after i learned of the illegal survey and the

164following actions that i realized how wrong it was to trust the superintendent and former members of the board having legal representation lie to the community about the expected ruling of judge cookson board members families using inappropriate talent channels to create a false narrative about the parents expressing their concerns staging a walkout that was in breach of their duties an obvious ploy to undermine a specific speaker shout out to patricia montana by the way and blatant disregard and disrespect for the parents who were exercising their rights at borders meetings to voice their opinion including the former board president scoffing and snorting into the microphone as the speakers would speak mr grosso instead of all the divisive behavior and trying to justify your illegal actions last year you should have been focused on the learning gap unmasking

165our kids and making sure the students at north end school were protected i asked the board for these reasons to remove mr grosso from his position as superintendent and by the way when mr grosso said focus on the good i believe that you were deflecting from answering for your legal activities and taking responsibility for your failure for this district and my last thing i'll say is there's not a soul in this room and in this town that is qualified to talk to my kids about the topics on that survey except for my wife and myself thank you [Applause] next we have edith fusco [Music] edith fusco 75 bordick road i'll be quick so i just want to echo a few things i have had a lot of concerns lately first i don't understand why young

166children elementary children are sitting outside in freezing degree weather eating snack just the fact you can develop hypothermia in under 10 minutes so you know that's a safety issue the other thing is mr grosso the email that went out about masks you addressed um that there would be you know issues if there was bullying towards those who wanted masking but yet nothing was done when there was a gentleman sitting on that side of the room at a board of ed meeting i believe either august or october screaming at parents on this side to put their mask on and that was intimidation and bullying and nothing was done so how can i be certain that children who do decide to unmask will be protected i feel like like christine said it's one-sided um the other thing

167there was a very unfortunate incident at north end with young children that should have never happened have you reached out to other schools that use right at school to notify them because that perpetrator got arrested and was out the next day so i don't know if you have i hope you did your due diligence because we have to protect our children the other thing that was not brought up but i do know you sent an email so thank you there is a site on social media cgsd education reform they do target and stereotype people there seems to be a lot of hate i ask that you address them and you do your research to change their name because it is an affiliate they make it seem like they're affiliated with the cedar grove schools let

168me tell you i i i would like for you to go on instagram and follow them because they do stereotype and spew hate on certain people and with the crazy going on this world what if there's a stranger doesn't have to be a cedar grove member but what if there's a stranger from another town and says you know what i'm gonna go at these people because they're bad people and decides to walk into a school and shoot i mean shootings happen every day so it is i would like for you to address that not just by email i would like for you to address them and last but not least today was the deadline to submit yearbook pictures from fifth grade to eighth grade i could only find about seven and two were a reach

169that just goes to show you how much children have lost they haven't seen their friends they've lost two years of their lives so i ask you that on march 7th you don't change your mind about masking you stay true to your word and you honor what you said today thank you [Applause] next we have janet diciano hello janito sieno 78 stevens avenue i just have a quick question regarding agenda item s15 it says that you are rescinding the tuition reimbursement for employee bobby belandi approved on january 18th um for 4204. that's bobby belandi the mental health coordinator correct correct so my question is what changed why are you no longer reimbursing her tuition or no why are you no longer paying for tuition did she not complete the coursework for fall 2021 or is there

170another reason uh it has nothing to do with with her um completion of courses everything to do with the con the uh the cgea contract so when you can be reimbursed that's what that's what it comes down to when you can't be enrolled yeah it's a contractual issue yes okay thank you thank you next we have sue kolakowski hello my name is sue kolikowski my address is 88 carlson parkway um i have three children in the cedar grove district two in the middle school one at north elementary i'm a working parent who relies on page four and sends my youngest child to the aftercare program at north end school this evening i am speaking in reference to the incident that happened a few weeks ago and the lack of communication given to the parents who

171had children attending that program i found out about the incident at the same time as the entire district did i was attending my my middle sons wrestling match when a couple of friends approached me and asked if i had to check if i had checked my email this was the very first time i had heard of the incident imagine my horror reading that email in that busy auditorium and my panic about needing to get to my youngest child as soon as possible to speak with him to make sure this was not anything that me he i'm sorry that he may have witnessed or god forbid experienced why is it that a parent of a child attending the aftercare program where this incident occurred is hearing about it at the same time as the entire district

172in my opinion very poor judgment was used with your handling of communication to parents regarding this incident while i do understand the need to notify the entire district and the need for the confidentiality of it i strongly believe that parents of the children in the program should have been notified separately and notified before that email blast went out to the district parents who sent their kids to that program like i did should have been notified first so we could speak with our kids and have time to wrap our brains around what kind of news about this kind of news before receiving that blast my heart goes out to the family affected by this incident i am asking that going forward parents of children in the aftercare program be notified of any issues big or small

173prior to any district-wide email blast notification thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you mrs kolakowski next we have uh lisa casilli hi lisa casilli 12 dogwood court um i just wanted to ask in follow-up to what janet said uh dca now what is the contractual agreement with tuition reimbursement because i think it's odd to rescind reimbursement for something and i know in my district when i used to take classes to get more salary increases we were allowed a certain amount each semester we weren't just allowed to take a ton of classes so now that she asks the question i'm just curious well it's it's based on uh individual your contract looks nothing like the contract of cedar grove it looks nothing like you know this i mean it looks nothing like other so it's based

174on what was agreed contractually during the bargaining right and i'm asking what is the tuition reimbursement allowed uh what contractually uh anybody taking a class can put in for reimbursement at the end of the year and how many classes are you allowed a semester what was it like is that two two or two to uh two classes it's it's it's something that was bargained with so it's not something no i understand that i'm just wondering what 4 200 worth of classes equals like how many classes is that it's at the montclair state rate no i know i'm just wondering do you have an idea of how many how many classes that worse two classes okay so you rescinded that and i guess it'll be paid at the end of the year it will be put

175in for uh reimbursement at the end of the year okay due to contractual uh thank you for that um my next question is you know i was home with one of my kids who was sick and i spent a lot of time reviewing board of education minutes especially in my quest for information mr david has been great waiting on many many oprah requests it's been two months now i'm assured i'm gonna get those by the end of this month so thank you for that um but one of the things that struck me in one of the minutes was that in june of 2021 there was a sidebar agreement uh that was on the agenda and i'm just not clear what that means i asked my district what a sidebar agreement is and they said it's

176it's actually a written up agreement it's not like a coffee agreement it's in writing so i'm wondering if you can share what that sidebar agreement was from june of 2021 because that's the one thing i really couldn't make sense of sidebars are they are a contractual agreement between the union and the uh the board of education so you are a public employee so you would know that when you vote on a contract there are instances that may come up that there may be a need from either the uh bargaining group or the district so you come to terms making an a sidebar agreement that is then voted on by the board of education and the uh association if they are in agreement with that and so part of that is uh i'll give you an

177example we needed a head nurse that's not contractual there was nothing in the contract about that so that was something that was needed so um something like that that could that could take place it ha it happens all the time it's not an odd uh can you speak to what that june 2021 sidebar agreement was that i saw in the in the records i think was the head nurse yeah it was the head nurse well how do you know what that is because i researched it and sat for four days and looked at every board of ed meeting for the past two years so okay well then once you if you ask if you know it already why are you asking us i'm asking if you know it i know it i'm asking you i

178i will share with you that i don't have every sidebar agreement you know cataloged in my mind i can go back and look at that i can get back to you about what that is i would have to go back through the minutes i don't know what the june sidebar is off the top of my head june 2021 there's a sidebar agreement for a mental health coordinator and an anti-bullying coordinator that was the title of the sidebar agreement okay i'm wondering what that sidebar agreement entails and it terrors that sidebar agreement entails work hours for the summer it also includes the head nurse the work hours for the summer were a separate item listed for ten thousand dollars that's correct it was an agreed-upon it was agreed upon with the board and as well as

179the cgea can i ask you a question sure why is that why is that of interest to you and what what where what are you looking at for that because i could be if you have what i'm looking at is better i can better you know what i'm looking at is what sidebar agreement was developed for what purpose what was paid in that sidebar agreement who was paid in that sidebar agreement if it were a sidebar agreement listing a drug and alcohol specialist i'd ask the same question because i do that as well you know this is my area of interest so that's why i'm asking you right i don't have a sidebar agreement for 10 grand to work in the summer so i'm wondering what the 10 grand was for it's based on the

180time that the person would work in the summer based on the amount of days they could possibly put in i get that that's the 10 grand so you're saying the sidebar agreement that i'm referencing is the 10 grand because they were listed separately because you have to understand when there's something not in the contract i do understand and there's a need for that that's when you put that together i get what a sidebar agreement is i'm asking what this specific one was right and i'm sharing with you that's what that is it's for work done in the summer when teachers are not contractually obligated to work in the summertime okay that's my question i wanted to know if the sidebar agreement was for summer work or for something else that's all it's for it's for

181summer work because there is no days in the summer that a a um aside from an administrator that you would have to work i know that's a teacher yeah okay all right so if i open that mr devita you will pro you will get that to me as well right thank you thank you okay next we have leo stringer okay leo stringer for high view terrorists okay uh mr grosso you mentioned security a few times today and i'm glad to hear you saying that that cedar grove is interested in security and we've done a lot over the years with regarding that 2017 i remember this school district spending at least six months going over security enhancements presenting them to the community multiple times with details those details were surveillance cameras um security window film security

182door locks the vestibules that you mentioned so we're really we saw that it's really important the town as a whole voted to approve a three million dollar bond regarding that security the security enhancements they went a little bit delayed they were finally done about two years ago so what gets to me is that when kovit comes in we decide to throw those out out the window so we have teachers that were opening windows fully in 20 degree weather every window in the classroom and while we question that we're saying oh for cobit it's but what about the security what about the incidents around the country which is the reason we put these in that we have tamper resist security resistant window film for things like attacks keep people out of the schools so now we

183have windows fully open so my concern is why does that go out the window because of a suspected airflow which never never made sense anywhere i also question these surveillance cameras we have surveillance cameras in the schools that were put in to surveil we had an incident in north end school this couple months ago where five kindergarten first graders were molested and understanding that is on video that is not available to us who is responsible what is the procedure for monitoring those video cameras why was that why was no one watching those why did this happen and believe it was not one day so the fact that we have surveillance and that's not caught and we have windows that are wide open because we don't care about security anymore so if you can let us

184you know i'd like to know the process for who's watching those cameras thank you we cannot speak to the uh any incident in in regarding the north end okay i respect that so we don't need to speak to the north end forget about north end let's go to the cedar grove high school who's watching the cameras in cedar grove high school are we never watching no one's watching them police station has access to them that was the reason for putting them in we know the police station has access when an incident occurs it was in the contract that we're giving that please have access and everything's reviewed retained for 30 days so on a day-to-day basis who is watching the campus you have several employees that they don't sit there and it's not uh constant

185uh surveillance where you have a security firm watching cameras all the time but you do have several employees at a district level and at this building-based level that do look at that and i will share that in every principal's office aside from uh the height the high school's got the main one out in the main office uh principals have especially elementary have that access inside their office uh so it's constantly cycling through they're able to look at it and then uh what is able to happen is that if there is a concern in a particular area in the building they can always go back and look at that but there is no one person that is hired in the district to consistently watch all oh how many how many cameras is going to be over

186150 150 cameras so um each it's building base and district based so they're not monitored okay so in the case of north end which you knocked and i understand you can't comment on it so we can understand that we can't be feel safe that our kids will be monitored all the time someone's looking at them it's like having a dvr not watching it i also have a question the windows being open in in the schools why is that okay to have windows wide open during the school day windows are always open door i mean they're all in a non-covered year windows are allowed to be open classrooms but why do we replace the windows for safety and locks and tamper and intrusion resistant film we we agreed on that as a town we we paid

187three million dollars for that mr string your windows are allowed you need to allow windows to be open in a classroom uh it is there for a purpose of airflow the the film on the windows as well as locks on the windows locks are there at night or during the day if you want to lock the window as you would would want in your house the film is there for protection against any type of weapons um but it's not i mean teachers are allowed and it was prior to covid to open windows and they will be allowed after covid to open windows as well that one is 20 degrees and the teachers tell the kids to put their coats on right so that has been addressed at the school level it finally has been for

188the most part but it was never uniformly addressed okay thank you next we have romani beckett hello romani beckett rockledge plays cedar grove i have a couple questions from mr grosso and i would appreciate a clear short and concise answer to speak up speed up the process and let some other people speak why would the was the winter concert at north end and south and school canceled because there was a high rate of covet during that time it was a decision made by administration not to uh bring children that close together although i know that you did hold the concert in here yes i am and i saw there was around 50 or so students who didn't work about 30. exactly yes so that was the reason why uh and i know that miss demario

189and i know miss dyer also did uh share that out with the community no it was left open to speculation again lack of communication between the administration and the community and some of the parents blame the music teacher for not being ready which is not fair correct yes and that's why i'm here to clear up and ask for better communication thank you next time because it's not fair to a whole teacher next time with that right i i you know what you got my vote on that um secondly on the snag policy i reach out to you via email and thank you for responding i just need to know to understand couple things what who decided on the implementation of such policy um about about changing that yes like the kids will go outside during

190freezing cold right so that was a conversation that we had at a school-based level it wasn't always it was based on the uh need of the teacher at that time so certain teachers did go out uh at times and certain teachers did not go out at times uh after having conversations and looking at where we were uh the decision was made at an administrative level to go and uh provide an alternative i know people don't necessarily like this but a cohort would take their mask off and eat in class etc the reason why you couldn't eat all in class is because based on if you took your mask off it would be very difficult to contact trace and we did not want to have to quarantine an entire class compared to what you would be

191able to do at a lunch room and the way that we worked no that's that's great that's that's exactly my point why why we always have to go one side size fits all approach it's all over nothing why we don't be creative right and have uh problem solving skills you could even have made the kids sit obvious opposite of each other giving each other back while they're eating obviously i i don't believe covet will fly and go around and go back and get them you know so so you know come come common sense sometime prevails right um you know just my comment here um why it would not cover into under the return you know to school plan if that was the intention and why it was never communicated to the parents and i'll tell

192you why because i'll i'll make it easier for you so you don't have to respond to that if i have a six seven years old child that refuse to take to eat breakfast and i'm giving put in the snack and i'm feeling comforted comfortable that he or she will eat when they get to school at least i send them with something and then i'm never told that my child is not gonna be allowed because when we reach out to the principal the principal response was first one was lacking and it came back short on answers saying if the wizard is nice they will go out and eat if the wizard is not nice we'll stay in but never mention if they stay in they have to skip snacks so this is unacceptable there is lack

193of transparency and you always always notice let's cancel the winter concert for the elementary school but the middle school and the high school continues under man is where they're going to dream i have children in elementary and high school so when the movement rate is in a game logic right if the corporate race is high for elementary you would assume that couple families have overlapping children that's a different level that might be middle and high school as well so again there is no logic whatsoever um the one comment you know i would like to make them up i noticed that you'll follow the load to the litter when it comes to the executive order for the match and you give us like an hour and a half school does during june of 2021 it is

194infamous whatever and you still abide you know you're still saying it's factual it's factual it's factual but when you're you know you just you know administered that legal survey you never looked at the law you ignored it it sounds like you become choose cherry beckham what what fits your name so it's all it's it's you're contradicting yourself all the time so you know what if you were consistent and you made a mistake trust me i'm the first one to defend you but no i'm gonna this fits my narrative check mark green i'm gonna go with it this doesn't fit process and that's not right and any reasonable person even if you lack knowledge of laws we have known that prior consent is required for mine to ask for sensitive questions like juan dan said that's

195been that's up else is allowed to speak to my child ask about gender sexual orientation relation or race none so i would like to hear your response to that since you even it's it's ironic that the same person that issues an executive order give you a relax relax it the same person the government came back and saying during the heat wave take it off you still said no you still should know it's amazing whatever face your agenda boom great whatever it doesn't no even the bully okay so the governor said that i gave him mr beckett i'm going to ask you to please finish up please thank you so the government one comment the governor said that exactly you know on march 7th if you bully someone with mass but you couldn't you're the superintendent

196for the whole district right left and between i don't care liberal republican i don't give a damn but you are the superintendent you talk always about the safety of our children but when it comes we always take to the one side you never take the two sides thank you mr beckham [Applause] next we have lenny splendoria hi i'm lance fondori 19 rose terrace here at cedar grove and uh i'm here tonight as a resident to show my support for mr grosso what mr gross said the door over the past year was a travesty as a former member of this board one of the things i'm most proud of is being part of the board that hired mr grosso he gives 110 every day for the children's district and as a and as of late all

197he gets is grief and insults it's a disgrace the way he's been treated he was hired in the middle of a pandemic when our last super decided to leave two months before school was supposed to start yet mr grosso still managed to put together and execute a very successful hybrid plan that got our children back in the classroom before any any town in this area and he did this with very vague and really contradictory guidance from our state department of education mr grosso also saw the need to have cancers available to our children in every school especially come out of the pandemic and all the issues we'd be facing associated with hybrid learning and a return to full time so what did he do he and his administration created and implemented a plan to provide

198those services to our children there's now a counselor in every school another thing that was long overdue overdue was an overhaul of the high school guidance system anybody that had a child that went through the high school and onto college prior to this year can vouch for the fact that our previous system wasn't working nearly as well as it needed to be again him and his administration they revamped the high school guidance department so that it works the way it should to benefit all the kids i'd also like to express my port my support for mrs dye this is tirelessly given 10 years of her time to the to this district and its children serving on the board of ed as thanks for this she's been vilified and maligned week after week because all she

199wants to do is be part of guiding a school district that works for every child i can speak from experience as a colleague of mrs dye on the board trust me there's no one else you want fighting for your kids in this district as a footnote mrs dye said this at the last meeting i was a part of mrs dain and i really didn't like each other uh somebody resigned in the middle of the summer she knew i wanted to be on and she took a shot so she the board appointed me mrs dye is now i'm proud to say one of my closest and most trusted friends and finally i need to support my good friend and former colleague mr schoener what dave has done for this district between the cedar groves waves display

200that he created which has gotten our district national attention and also bringing tens of thousands of dollars in film fees to district district that funded so many programs and and initiated saving every one of us taxpayers money you won't find someone with more integrity and honesty than dave and personally i just feel that it's flat out wrong mr schoener have been marginalized in this new configuration of the board you guys are like out there inside me or you have to say but anyway that's all i wanted to say thank you for the time to speak thank you mr splendoria next we have michael palamari am i close hello my name is michael palomara i'm from 285 ridge road mr grasso i would like to thank you for your leadership and your guidance and your efforts

201during the pandemic you kept our children and our families safe i believe you have saved lives all right and i'd like to thank you for reminding us why we're here we're here for academics that's our mission we do not need to be bothered by any other issues let's get back to academics thank you very much we have agnes norman good evening agnes norman 28 bergen drive just like the other parents i too mr grosso was very offended by your email assuming that my child would be bullying another child that decides to wear a mask i'm offended as you know the new jersey commissioner of education found that you violated two state laws when you administered the survey to our children the commissioner instructed this district to discard all the surveys and results derived therefore they're

202from from student records and any other entity or persons to whom they were shared when parents asked to see anonymous students responses they were told that they were not entitled to do so because they were maintained as part of student records my question did you discard those survey responses as required by law and how did you do so who handled the removal of all surveys and results did you contact all individuals in receipt of the survey responses and instruct them to discard them can you verify for us in writing that you complied with the commissioner's order that's question one question two what procedures have you put in place since the commissioner's ruling that the surveys were illegal to ensure that our children's privacy rights are not infringed on again i love a response the response

203is i have shared with the community multiple times based on judge cookson's order we also don't recognize that judge bon giovanni had another identical petition and it was thrown out i i will share i will share this as well i will share the does whether you withdrew it or not i will share i will share i will share this excuse me i will share this excuse me excuse me please i will share this please just ask questions can we please stay to the forum i just asked two questions results or please i don't first of all results were never part of any student record it was it was completely anonymous there is no way to find if that was attached to student a to student b despite they were no i never said that i

204never said that they are not they are not attached they're they are not attached to a student record and there and therefore therefore when they when judge cooks and shared okay tony please just if you therefore when judge cookson shared that they should be discarded it it is destroyed they were digital they're destroyed they're not they're not available they're not attainable there's no way to see who wrote what they're not used and therefore there will be no you will get i will guarantee you this i will not be sharing a survey with anybody in this community based on that i'm not i spoke twice i spoke twice based on the decision of the judge and based on the decision of the commissioner and that is not good enough it's not good enough it's not i

205listen i will tell i will tell you this it is not used it's never been used it's not going to be used it's not sitting in someone's uh inbox it's nowhere it is gone it has been destroyed it is over and i don't need to put it in writing because i'm on going on records stating that in public it is destroyed and it has not been used for anything the only group of people that got a chance to look at any of those results was the board it was a board report in fact that information that was collected from there was to be used for board purposes not for not for teachers purposes it wasn't supposed to be used for student purposes and it wasn't supposed to be used for parents uh purposes so therefore

206it is gone it is not being used and i will not say it again it has been destroyed the results you said that they were a part of student records they're not part of student or they're not they're not part of student records stu a student let me share let me share this so there's clarity to this because there this has to come out here this has to because we keep asking these questions a student record a personal record of a student whether it be on genesis or whether we have personal folder within a building there's nothing in a student's file that within that it is not there if student a took that survey there is no way to identify who that student ever was there's no way you cannot identify who that student was

207you never could and you never will be able to especially now since it's destroyed you could that was a narrative that was created that narrative about attaching it to a student was not created from this board or the school district it was created outside of that so it was never it was never attached not at all there's no way you could possibly do that and number two it could since it's never attached to a student you can't supplant that into a file there's never a way to do that so that narrative that has been created around this survey i will share with you it is 100 incorrect it was i'm sorry i'm speaking to miss norman it was 100 incorrect so therefore you cannot say that it was part of a student record because it

208because it it never it never was in fact when it was oprah the before it was the decision was made by judge cookson that survey was utilized by the people that opened it and made that narrative it was never it never came from me i never shared there was a student record i shared that students took it i shared that parents took it i shared that t i shared that teachers took it excuse me i shared that teachers took it as well but you there you couldn't identify who the teacher was you couldn't identify who the parent was you couldn't identify who the student was stated that those responses by students were maintained as part of the student records and that is why the district withheld them as a public record that is the district's

209narrative not the community's narrative have conversation thank you for mr montana thank you for sharing the bible i will share this with you there is no let's say one last time here there is no way to make that a student record because it is not attached to a specific student you cannot that was that was never the intent it could never have been done that way i didn't violate oprah because i was very clear with what i said i didn't i i've never said that we're not going to continue like this no okay mrs norman do you have any other questions um today this is thank you for reminding me why i've been trying to get you off this board and god help me i will do everything in my power to get you off

210this board and lastly the board um i'm asking you to terminate mr girl so as he has failed our children in this community [Applause] next we have eric silverman eric silverman i'm a sophomore here at uh cedarbrough high school in north carolina uh i'm eric silverman i'm a sophomore here at cedar grove high school uh i don't really feel comfortable sharing my eyes okay you're doing great thank you take a deep breath you'll be fine so for the past eight months we've seen countless attacks against the superintendent but i'm here tonight to take a moment to thank him and ask an important question of our board president over the past one and a half years mr grosso has dramatically transformed this district and has brought about much needed changes one example of this is the

211fact that it is now much easier for students to move up into more challenging courses these courses that will make their transcripts stand out to prestigious colleges and universities when he assumed this position he noticed that students were falling behind and took measures to ensure that every student in this district was where they need to be and on track towards success under his leadership he has also brought new opportunities to help students including myself prepare for what lies ahead there's no doubt that there is still work that that is needed to be done in this district and this administration is far from perfect however is my belief that the suit that uh that the superintendent is best fit for for our district because of the changes that he has been able to enact and how

212he along with those working beside him have been able to implement them into our district for that i thank you sincerely now i i want to take this moment to shift towards my question for the board specifically uh you miss dar there is there's no doubt that some of the policies enacted by this administration have gained controversy controversy within the community and a small minority of residents have called for the superintendent's resignation or even that his con contract should be terminated prematurely based on that my question is do you believe that it is best the best use of our resources and and the best decision overall for something such as previously previously stated to happen and if so why can you just repeat that last question again just to make sure i understand it um

213do you believe that it is the best use of our resources right now to terminate mr grosso's uh contract prematurely because some members have called for that okay so thank you for staying up this late and uh enduring this evening to speak i think it's important that our students have student voice i'm a big advocate for that and that is something that mr rosso and i have had lots of conversations about because our students are a wealth of information and student voice is key it's key to what i've done in my career and it's key to what i think we want to move forward with our resources need to be um best utilized for making the best decisions for the district as a whole and to answer your question i'm new to the board and

214i'm still getting my feet wet and still getting my my sea legs on what is happening within all the buildings but i am committed to doing what is the best for this district whatever that may be moving forward okay thank you you're very welcome and you did a great job [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] next we have uh donnie etling elk thing sorry donny donald delting 43 greendale road i'll be quick i first wanted to mention there was a couple people who spoke about pilot money um that is not a negotiation that is a decision the town council will make a decision as to what money the board of ed gets in verona they got nothing so i just want to be you know really clear about that that's a negotiation and i appreciate that um

215miss dora met with them and there's a dialogue now um but i would expect that um we we have a much better opportunity to see that money than we did you know three months ago can i just want to clarify we have not met yet you haven't met with them yet okay so you're going to be you're the liaison who's the liaison with the council and myself okay um i also wanted to ask about if you're aware of the uh pupil protection rights act anything specific about it no just um a group of parents filed a complaint in regard to the survey our students have federal protection as well as protection from the state and i didn't know if you're aware of that complaint no i'm not okay um let me just say one more

216thing okay that's it i just as far as the complaint goes is that we were notified that that complaint is being reviewed now um so you haven't heard it you haven't had any advice as to what's going on with that is the first time you're hearing of it yes okay unless i'm misunderstanding something okay all right thank you okay [Applause] next we have heather rosado leva hello heather rosetto de leva 242 ridge road so there's like a bunch of parts to my questions um the first one is when i spoke about children with disabilities and my family's story back in june of 2021 the outpouring from the community both supporting my family and my son was incredible but the amount of stories from parents high school students and people trying to get into the district

217to get evaluated was i was blown away i got text messages emails phone calls um like i'm just one mom fighting for her son i was wondering if there was any way to maybe make a committee because a lot of parents don't want to come forward some people are in getting lawyers or in litigation and they said they wouldn't speak or meet so there was that there was commonality amongst issues and i was wondering if there was anything i realized that we have real eyes so that's for the parents but is there any collaboration amongst it was mainly in elementary level and middle school level is parents that i talk to or parents trying to get into the district so that's my first question if you want to pause so your question just to make

218sure i clear that um i understand like is is there some place yeah like is there some place where we could like collaborate informally collaborate with the registration collaborate with the board like i'm not really sure that's something that you know that you serve because i i know it's further conversation because i think some good things could come out of that yeah okay absolutely so that was my first question because i know we have real eyes but that's just amongst the parents so the second was was there any plan to use any esser grant money for children with disabilities and if so what with disabilities like specifically in what way because a lot of a lot of our esr funds have gone towards like um we've looked at you know building improvements we've looked at

219um some of it was for mental health some of it was because because the way that the the government broke it up was for mental health was for uh enrichment programs um so uh it encompassed it encompassed every child it wasn't necessarily specifically for special education but was to take you know all children okay and my question about the mental health support staffing grant is that only for children in the rise program no no no no it's not necessarily um are you talking more specifically about um the montclair state program no that that is for uh any student okay it could be general ed or special ed okay yep okay my next question was is about the masks my son has never worn a mask in school he has a health condition and for i

220don't know if she's still here but chrissy perry um my son got asked a lot why he wasn't wearing a mask and i just told him tell them the truth you can't wear a mask so is there going to be like if he asks somebody why they're still wearing a mask like that shouldn't be considered bullying correct no okay because they're all gonna ask each other sure they are he's only fifth grade so and when the masks are removed on march 7th are all activities going to go back to normal for example my son is in uh like he has social social emotional not academic so he goes to social skills class and he hasn't been able to do that because of the mask so will as of march 7th will social skills class be

221reinstated that is our hope we're waiting for guidance on the doh as to what the recommendations are but that's our hope okay and and just lastly excuse me if a child is sent to school with a mask on and i'm saying for like younger students and they decide to take their mask off will the teachers be telling them to put their mask back on okay so it's basically like the kids choice once they're at school yeah absolutely okay thank you thank you [Applause] next we have laura marinelli i didn't even see hi laura marinelli 112 sherman avenue um first i want to say this is my first board meeting with you all down here on the floor instead of being up on the stage so i'd like to thank the new board president for the

222new reconfiguration here you're one with the people again thank you um second [Music] uh second um a previous speaker spoke about um asked a question about um why are teachers leaving uh good teachers leaving the district in droves what i can say mr ventola i don't think you're here right now but retention either in corporations or education comes with good leadership and that starts with trust and mutual respect so although there might be teacher loss in this high school there has not been any in mind so no it's not a a a problem everywhere mr grosso um one thing mr mentioned earlier and she was asking a lot of questions which i thought were great um about hiring practices um i'm curious to know i was on the board through one of the superintendent hiring

223during the hiring i was just wondering what was the firm that was used in this last superintendent search i can't answer that because i don't know i can answer that we didn't use a firm and as if you recall miss marinelli since you were involved in the last superintendent search we had decided that we had used new jersey school boards and that it wasn't worth the money and so when mr devita had said that he could collect their resumes we thought that that was a good idea since new jersey school boards really it didn't financially make sense the last time as a board we all agreed so there was it was it was the board by themselves no it was not the board by themselves absolutely not we had some parents and we had some

224teachers and administrators uh all the way in and all interviewed the candidates so how many um one of the one of the first things i know with school boards or any uh superintendent search committee um is putting establishing a criteria right so correct was that a district-wide email how did you collect the information for that superintendent criteria the board decided on the criteria the board has the full right to make the full decision on the hiring of a superintendent as it's the most important and only higher and that's what the board did so there was no community collaboration on the criteria for the superintendent search no there wasn't okay so then i would assume um that there wasn't any focus group meetings afterward with the community no as i said we had members of the

225community participate in the interview process no no right but that was my question the focus groups for the so none of that yeah so how many committee rounds were there mr devito can you help me out was there four five we'd have to go back and check i don't remember offhand how did you select the committee members for those committees i i think we just let's say we just i'm trying to remember how we did i have to look back on my notes but we we took a random we had administrators we had teachers we had the rounds no the board the board actually narrowed it down because as i said earlier we felt like the most important hire and the only hire that the board makes is the superintendent so we narrowed it down

226the board the board narrowed it down to to uh a few individuals and we had the committee then meet with those two individuals after we narrowed it down yes the board no it doesn't usually have to do that at all it actually varies no it doesn't it's not at most times we actually conducted with new jersey school boards and we asked our attorney also if that would be great if you could explain the process because that is a little bit different i respectfully disagree i don't think it was going rogue at all we actually had council advise us on how we could do it and this it was actually well within what other boards do as well we'll have to get back to you on that we'll be glad too [Applause] next we have nicole

227data nicole ticara 21 ring place um [Music] i'm going to leave what eric said as a student i think he said it so eloquently as a student in the district who's actually seeing what's happening in the schools i think it's fantastic that he came up here and was able to articulate all of the wonderful changes that he has seen in the past 18 months speaks for itself see ya um so i think that he summed it up perfectly um obviously superintendent grosso you have my full support thank you for everything you've done for us [Applause] thank you next we have kelly white um that's way too high for me hi kelly white 66 little falls road um good evening for those of you that don't know me i'm a product of the cedar grove school

228system myself i'm also raising my three children here in town two of whom have graduated from the high school in recent years and i still have one left to go i've also worked for the district and our two grammar schools which i can honestly say was one of the most rewarding positions i have ever held so i stand before you as a former student a current parent and a former employee and to add to that i am also the daughter of a previous board of education member my mother was on the board of ed at a very tumultuous and difficult time in our town without going into too much of the history it was at a time when enrollment in our schools was low and our district needed to make some tough decisions about closing

229school buildings and consolidating to say that emotions ran high and people had very strong opinions would be an understatement as a child at the time i didn't quite understand all the inner workings of the process but i did understand that it was a very stressful and very important undertaking for all of those involved so as someone who has been witness to various difficulties in our district over my many years as a resident and as someone who is very proud of our teachers support staff and administration whether it be from getting to know them from my time working with them or through our interactions pertaining to my children which have been many and also as a parent who has had varied issues concerns and questions over the years as every parent has that have been brought

230to the attention of previous boards the previous superintendent and numerous teachers guidance counselors and administrators sometimes with results i've agreed with and sometimes not i would just like to say thank you to our past and present board of ed members i understand that your commitment to all of our children is what has propelled you to fill these seats and i also understand that it can sometimes be a tough and thankless position your dedication has not and does not go unnoticed and i would like to address mr grosso you have come to our district during a very difficult time the main concern being a worldwide pandemic thankfully there seems to finally be a light at the end of that tunnel but there are still many other challenges ahead most notably that the pendulum has swung and

231there is now increasing student enrollment that is going to lead to big decisions having to be made you and i have met and spoken before in passing and i believe that you have the best interests of the children parents staff and taxpayers in mind and i have also been impressed by hearing from others how accessible and welcoming you are to hearing their thoughts and concerns i believe you are the right fit for our school district and you have had and will continue to have my support moving forward thank you all for your time thank you mr dwight and last but not least mr martinelli what did he leave he left okay all right that concludes that portion of the meeting i gotta get back to my agenda here announcements of future meetings just celebrated next

232meeting is march 15th executive session will be at 6 30 uh regular meeting will be at 7 30 and then the following meeting april 26th same times executive session at 6 30 and regular meeting at 7 30. have a very nice hold on mrs uh i'd like to just make a comment earlier this evening um somebody made reference to the n-word and i want to apologize for not saying anything earlier um i should have and i'm sorry apparently it's not okay to use the word or the phrase lgbtq but it's okay to use the n-word and that's not the correct message i want to be associated with and i apologize and i'm sorry i should have said it earlier thank you meeting is a journey have a good evening everyone