001please stand for the flag salute I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all foreign in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings act I wish they announced that the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon notices announcing the date time and place for this meeting were sent to All concerned individuals associations and sent to Union County local Source in accordance with chapter 231 PL 1975. at this time I'll take the Roll Call president Bonner here vice president cologne here
002Mr show yeah Miss Cohn here miss Justice yeah Miss Miller here and miss primac Mr President Phoenix yours all right thank you Emilio let we have a couple presentations this evening one uh on diversity equity and inclusion which we're all very excited for and then another one on state testing data presentation from Director of Education Jen McCann and I neglected to tell you that our director of student personal services will be presenting our diversity equity and inclusion presentation crystal ball foreign good evening my name is Crystal Marr I am director of student Personnel Services here in Summit and we've scheduled some time this evening to share with you a community primer on diversity Equity inclusion and belonging in hopes of developing a Common Language around the district's de I and B efforts and to provide
003a set of definitions around this important work d e i and B is a foundational core of community building that supports our school district's mission our district Mission states that the summit Board of Education operates with a commitment to Excellence in the expectation that each student will strive to excel Beyond New Jersey student learning standards which set forth a minimum level of achievement for all students at all grade levels the summit public schools in partnership with the community will support and sustain an excellent system of learning that engages all students in compelling work educates them to their highest intellectual creative and individual potential and promotes pride and diversity and results in responsible and productive citizens of the highest integrity the first page of this primer provides definitions working definitions for the terms diversity Equity inclusion
004as well as belonging these four terms are often heard together however they are not the same they the bottom half of the graphic provides some essential questions around each of these terms diversity asks who is in the room and who is represented Equity asks who is trying to get into the room but can't what students may need supports or interventions in order to access the curriculum inclusions asks has everyone's ideas been heard and have their voices been valued and belonging asks do people want to stay in the room do our students and our staff feel supported to be their authentic selves when they come to work and to school each and every day all of this work in diversity Equity inclusion and belonging is in the goal of educational equity if you'll draw your attention
005to the bottom half of this page first I've delineated the equality versus Equity although these two terms are often in general conversation used interchangeably they are not the same equality is in education is achieved when students are treated the same or have access to similar resources equity on the other hand is achieved when all students receive the resources that they need at their level at their time so that they can graduate prepared for Success After High School in the top and that blue box you will see a definition of educational Equity that was adapted from the Department of Education it states that educational Equity is the moral and civil rights obligation to ensure that students are provided the tools they need to succeed regardless of background race color ethnicity gender identity sexual orientation disability religion
006nation of origin native language socioeconomic status or any other discriminating Factor the goals of educational Equity are here as well comparatively high achievement Equitable access and inclusion Equitable treatment of all students and staff Equitable opportunity to learn Equitable resource distribution and school accountability the final page of our primer is our focus on educational equity and a primer that was provided by the New Jersey School Board Association and I think that the first sentence really sums up the spirit and the definition of educational Equity it seeks to provide opportunities and Achieve excellent outcomes for all students by providing individual students with the supports they need to succeed again in line with summit's School District's Mission and it is our hope that this primer will help us to engage in thoughtful discussion moving forward around our work
007in diversity Equity inclusion and belonging and thank you and I welcome any questions from the board Miss Miller so you know foreign no not at all um certainly students in education specifically here in Summit students are at the center of absolutely everything that we do and um and I appreciate that feedback and I'll be happy to shift the language and belonging so that that effectively communicates that through the primer please can you put this out there we believe that we have always been about this and now it's in some way more lives and we're going to have unintended consequences for example um is there is it within equity for students or a group or subgroup to say like not have a same rates same steps same religious backgrounds saying sexual ways sure so I appreciate
008that question um and um I think that when we're when we're doing this work and we're engaging in this work that language is incredibly important so I appreciate the chance to clarify that um when when we talk about same we're talking about equality um and so and I think in referencing the um the resources that you're referring to is that right so when we're talking about resources and Equitable resources we're talking about um educational programs and services provided by Summit public schools that are embedded within what we do we're talking about special services English is a second language for English language Learners are comprehensive basic skills program um and learning Workshop are gifted and talented programs as well as our Advanced coursework and our AP classes and with regard to um staff or student placement
009as it relates to any of the discriminate donating factors right that I that we talked about in the primer um that is absolutely those factors are in no way um dictate the placement of students or of Staff in Summit Public Schools any other questions from the board yes sir all right but sometimes when what happens is when we formalize it there's a there's pushback or a common misperception that when we Implement these programs that somehow I mean that we're going to provide something for a specific student specifically what they need that somehow another student who's going to go and there's a common perception right shifted from one student to another or one group of students to another can you clarify that and then as a follow-up can you give an example if you already kind
010of packed but can you give examples of where the district already provides things that students need not necessarily everybody videos sure so um so I I'll move a different direction than I'm responding to Ms Miller's question um with regard to Common misconceptions a lot of time resource allocation is at the Forefront of our conversations when we're talking about Equity resource allocation is a piece of educational Equity it's not educational equity and it's in a whole right so we're looking at um we're looking at student belonging and we're looking at the culture of a building and the culture of an organization when we look at this work as well and in addition to that when we do delve a little bit more deeply into resource allocation there are federal and state buckets of money that when
011we go through our budget cycle that our pers that are specifically prescribed um including our Title One and title III budgets for students who are in need so that that allocation of money is provided specifically for these students and is absolutely is not taking away way from another student I really like your reference to a zero-sum game because that's not what Equity is equity is providing the supports and the interventions when they're needed for both academic interventions for students who may be struggling as well as enrichment opportunities for students who are striving for our statement above and beyond the curriculum does that speak to answer your question and some of the things that we're doing with those title one and title three budgets um that were referenced outside of Ms Miller's question are before and
012after school programs on our campuses that do receive Title One funds for students in need and then additional Services before and after school tutoring and things of that nature for our ESL population any other questions yes sir with different policies everything that we do in Summit is going to be in in line with those federal and state guidelines anything else particularly so this is right um certainly um so one of the things um that is in line with our Equity goal for this school year that we're going to do is we are going to conduct an equity audit and um and we are going to look at um teacher Equity programmatic Equity um student and Community perceptions as well as achievement equity and then we are going to use that to make an action plan
013a strategic action plan to make sure this is not a one and done piece this work is is iterative work right it's it's work that is going to continue to grow and support our students and support our community um and so through that and the development of an equity committee at the district level we hope to take the data that we collect from that audit and create an action plan to continue working in service of providing Equitable education equity for our students sure any other questions from the board all right thank you all very much oh oh hi I didn't see you there sure absolutely I can clarify that um so when we're looking at teacher Equity within an audit we're looking at the qualifications of instructors and classrooms and so we're looking at years
014of experience we're looking at certifications and we're looking at the student groups that are being served to ensure that all of our students our students that are in our AP courses our students at a different campus at different grade levels and whatever student group it happens to be have Equitable access to Quality teachers within the classroom it's a great question absolutely all of them are of High Caliber and um and that's a great point that you speak to and so I would say yes um some of them have master's degrees some of them have doctoral degrees in their subject areas so we're looking at the highest of the high caliber and um and making sure that that and and asking you know who is teaching whom right and um and just ensuring that all of
015them are Equitable and then creating maybe questions around that and then everyone call s so what is the time frame um so the teacher certification will be the first piece but we will be doing data collection throughout the 2122 school year it's not Equitable if the AP Calculus teacher has a different qualification than the third grade math teacher or is it or is it the teacher of qualifications can be different for different levels they they absolutely can be different for at different levels um so what we're looking at is just to get a picture of of who our teachers are in our classroom and the students that they're serving and so they're they're May or there may not be any action associated with it but it's an it's it's an audit kind of like we
016would do a budgetary audit um but it's just to it's to account to develop a big picture of what's happening within the classroom and just that teacher Equity piece but if you find that it's not Equitable that the evenfactants students have a particular teacher a particular qualification versus the ninth grade geometry students don't have one how does that work so those teachers get reassigned do we hire a new teacher for the ninth grade geometry so very good question um that's going to be part of the action plan that we create so I can't speak to a specific like if then situation however I will say that when we collect that data then all of that data is going to be looked at how as a district holistically we're not looking at a specific teacher in
017a teacher classroom we're looking at organizational practices and culture around placement of teachers and things of that nature so we're not looking to reassign teachers or anything like that we're simply looking at the big picture of the district and then how can we ensure all of our practices within our organization are equitable we're not trying to kind of circle the follow-up questions but we're not trying to go to the direction that Mayor de Blasio is in New York Public Schools where they're trying to take away they get to the intelligence program to create equity for all students absolutely not students that need it on the hiring car Spectrum to give to students hello I know you've said we're not alone zerosome game and I'm with you on that sure tends to be leveling the playing
018field from the top down like so it's like driving the top down in order to bring the bottom up rather than a quality which seems to bring the bottom up just bring bottom up so so that's part of why I want to develop this common language and this framework around it that we are not talking about about equality and everyone getting the same thing because just as a student who may be engaged in a basic skills Workshop um needs something different a student that's taking AP Calculus also needs something different and I appreciate the Zero Sum it's not one taking away from the other it's making sure that everyone has what they need and Summit public schools has a wonderful reputation as a high achieving school district and we will make sure that we maintain
019that integrity and that's part of this the work is not to change it's to look thank you sure yes ma'am oh absolutely um so there are um there are several best practices around um educational audits there are several different um silos or lenses to look at these audits through and so the one that we have chosen one of the things that we're working on at the cabinet level is specifically what does that look like for Summit right so um looking at the teacher Equity piece as well as the programmatic equity piece as well as those student Community perceptions um are all um are all best practice uh within the within the audit sphere does that answer your question Miss Justice thank you it's hard to have a discussion program so I really appreciate that question
020so I think that in hearing the questions um what it sounds like would be beneficial and you tell me if this would be beneficial for the community um is to put together um it just as we've done with this primer right foundational to put together a primer of what these specific Equity pieces look like and um and maybe something around the audit as a whole would that be something that that would be helpful to post sure sure we can in the different phases okay I appreciate that is right this presentation is on the website if you go to student Personnel Services then it's under diversity Equity inclusion it's a subset of that yes ma'am because I understand it based upon what the audit uh shows you in the community yes ma'am Miss Adams that's correct
021um has so much to do with access and how that is determined rather than taking anything away from anyone else and I think if we were to look at from its history and education who is in the 18 and enrichment courses courses if the Bell doesn't go off that says there's something wrong with this picture but I think you know we have a lot of work to do in our community and I can tell by the questions we have a lot of Education too to get these Concepts understood and behalf and the fact that all of our children that's the rich mistake deserves that access to the best resources best features I appreciate your feedback yes ma'am I appreciate your feedback Miss Adams all right thank you all very much [Applause] foreign good evening everyone
022uh give me one second I'm having a there we go okay everyone um part of our state requirements is after we administer any type of State assessment we are required to share out with the results to the community now if you re think back to last spring we had sent out Communications to the community that we were not going to be administering the njsla assessment for math language arts or for science which is pretty much the achievement assessment that the state requires us to administer however the state did require us to administer two Assessments in the spring and one of those assessments was the access for else assessment and the other assessment was the dlm the dynamic Maps learning Maps assessment those two assessments are for specific subgroups of our populations within every school district
023in New Jersey access for else is administered to all kindergarten through grade 12 students who have been identified as English language Learners so basically our ESL population within the district it's given annually in order to monitor the students progress in learning academic English it meets our federal guidelines for our Essa Grant or Esa Essa that every student succeeds act that is a federal requirement and it's anchored to something called the Wida English language development standards which assesses four different domains listening speaking reading and writing now our results indicate if you look at our graph that our students strength for this past administration is in within listening with a good percentage of our students performing in what the one category is of bridging and we're teaching level for um our reading category as well those who
024fall into this level demonstrate that they know and can use social and academic language while working with grade level material although most of the students are not bridging or reteaching within speaking or writing domains they were developing or expanding which means that our students know and use social English language and some technical academic language now they then take these four categories and they put them into a composite score so surprisingly or not surprisingly our students demonstrate a very strong strength in comprehension and comprehension is 50 of the students listening skills and 50 of the students reading skills they're also assessed on their oral language which is 50 of listening and 50 speaking literacy which is 50 of their reading skills and 50 of their writing skills and every student is given an overall score oops
025and overall score which is 35 reading 35 writing 15 listening and 15 of speaking now you might be wondering why we don't break this down further into every building or every grade level and the reason being is because we only have 134 students across the district that take this assessment so if we were breaking it down by building and or grade level you might be able to identify some of the students within the building which is not allowed so we just share out to you as the community how we do as a as an overall District however from a district level at the central office and within our buildings with our principals our ESL teachers our supervisor of ESL we do disaggregate the data and work towards identifying students who were in these the entering
026and emerging stages and working on developing their skills so that at the next Administration the following year they can move over um into a different category the other assessment as I mentioned that we are required to administer is the dynamic learning maps and this assessment is given specifically to the most significant learning disability students and there's three areas in which it's administered which is English mathematics and science these students would be the students who would not be taking the regular administration of njsla math Ela or science they are given a separate assessment based off of their disability it is an online assessment just like njsla and there are four performance levels that they can score into one being emerging approaching the target at Target and advanced within the area of ela 71 of our students
027were at Target or advanced in this previous administration foreign math we had 48 of our students who met the Target and or were advanced and in science we had 43 percent of students who met their target again a small population of our students only 31 students across the district took the math and or Ela portion of this assessment and seven students took science based off of their IEPs that drive which assessment they take so again small population hence why it's not broken down by grade level or by school does the board have any questions sure from here um right and we have God 's favor and we will have on color progressing our students how are exiting our students yes is that it's just not represented it's done through committee yeah yes go ahead um
028so at Target right here within the math at zero percent it just means that in last school year we had zero percent of students who met the target so the blue Bars were our scores from 2018-19 which was the last administration of it we skipped a year because of the pandemic um but we were required last year to do it so in 2018-19 zero percent of our students met the Target and fell into the other three categories Mr Bonner English language Learners and leave those programs and become a great level with their leaders right so it all depends so in a in a big picture ballpark big picture it all would depend on the level in which they're coming into our program with so we have students who enter our ESL classes who may come
029from a Port of Entry type of situation where they come in with absolutely no English and sometimes very little education so the time in which that type of population exits the program it typically in um in any given type of situation it sometimes could take up to seven years for them to test out depending on what level they're coming in with if we have students who are coming from um um overseas into some type of European country where their parents are already speaking some type of English they test out much quicker so they may take only two or three years or in some cases we have students who are only in the program for one year so it's really differentiated based off of their foundational skills when they enter our program thank you any other
030questions all right thank you everybody have a wonderful evening [Applause] thank you okay how's everybody doing could see the sun today I can't remember I can't remember last time we had seen the sun before today um so uh I'm just feeling it so um good to see that welcome happy uh Happy fall as those of us who are in the teaching business call it uh Happy dark Tober this is the time when School teaching gets real and the uh shine is off the penny with regards to the start of the school year and uh we face several months ahead of us until uh the next big break so uh thank you to all of our teachers who are working hard in dark tover to keep our kids going and on track um so in keeping
031with my theme of telling you all about good stuff that goes on in the district I got a couple good ones tonight that are probably our best ones yet something you may not know in September of 2020 20 of the 2020-2021 school year the district partnered full-time with the newly renovated Summit Community Center to provide off-campus instructional space for 18 to 21 year old student program some of you may not even have known we had a program like that but we do the community center has a beautiful and brand new full kitchen and laundry room where students can practice functional practice functional daily living skills the community center also provided several employment opportunities for our students even during the pandemic where we know we're worksite Dynamics has been a serious issue with regards to covid-19
032not every District in New Jersey or in the country for that matter has had that has a has had that kind of access and that kind of support from their community moving forward there will be ongoing opportunities for students to interact with different members of our community as students that work that students will work at the Summit pool or the summit Golf Course our students are also able to do community service by partnering with Grace's pantry and the Salvation Army The Summit Community Center has also provided space to build a community garden that will be expanded into a greenhouse soon and as a board we tried a greenhouse like several years ago and that failed so good for the kids for for uh having a plan and then following through with it of note two
033of our students who graduated last year have reached significant milestones one moved on to one moved onto a college campus and the other obtained full employment with pomptonian which happens to be our food service company because of the skills he obtained while in the program good stuff and a great example of the intersection of school and community and a perfect example of educational equity additionally I want to recognize our dedicated group of custodians and technicians led by our future director of facilities Michael Martino and our outgoing director of facilities Angelo Palumbo for their tireless work to make sure our schools were able to open as quickly as possible after tropical storm Ida specifically I want to call out the work of Nick deluc Del duka did I say that right Bill duka and Adam phillitch
034Nick literally stayed overnight to monitor systems at Washington and Adam stayed overnight at Brayton which I'm super proud of because it reminds me of my Army days when I used to stand in the watch and stay overnight for all sorts of random reasons that I wasn't sure why but I'm quite sure these gentlemen knew what they were doing and why they were staying there their work and dedication to the district allowed Summit to only miss one day because of the storm which is way better than many districts around us fair so congratulations and kudos to them while the district has not fully recovered from the damage the dedicated efforts of our facilities team enables students to stay in school and only miss that one day so thank you so much to them they are um
035right next to teachers in the most absolutely underappreciated people in our society and uh we should all be grateful and thankful for their efforts so that is all the good news I have for the night I will turn it over to the superintendent thank you president Bonner well said we all Echo your sentiment with regards to how we rallied together over the flood and really mitigated the damage and loss of instructional time so that was great thank you good evening and I'm happy to report that we continue to have a very very strong opening to the school year what a difference a year makes I will say the staff the students the families everybody's so engaged the full day of instruction with lunch recess is really really really nice to get back to and by
036all reports everything is going very very well we still have a few outdoor activities uh like sometimes eating lunch Outdoors when we can or playing musical instruments outside um just that just makes us much safer in a better environment because we are still dealing with the pandemic and in the environment so I'd like to just like to thank the administrators the board the teachers custodians support staff and of course the parents for remaining possible as we're still following some coping protocols to keep our schools open keep our kids safe one last update on that's covid related we have approximately 93 percent of our staff that are vaccinated and that's a very impressive number that's that's very comforting to hear and in large part that's probably contributing greatly to the to the safety of our school
037communities so we're happy to hear that as per state guidelines if you're a staff member who is not vaccinated must get tested regularly every week so we put some systems in place to support that and those weekly testing programs are already underway and they'll continue until further notice I'm happy to report that we've had several PTO events take place throughout the district and it's great to see that uh it was we have positive feedback from our students engaging with their peers in these settings and socializing we look forward to continuing to make these events possible because we know how much our students benefit from them I thank the ptos and all their work that they have put forth this year to meet with the administration to make any modifications or changes that they may have
038to so that we can continue to reintroduce these events as we move through this school year and at this time I'd like to share with the board some school highlights so far this year starting tomorrow at night the high school will be having its annual High School Cabaret event will take place at Village on the green 7 PM we will have 36 student performances tomorrow evening and tickets can be purchased at the door so they're outside practicing right now as we speak for tomorrow's event at Washington Elementary's Elementary School ESL students and Spanish teachers made a fantastic interactive interactive Hispanic heritage slideshow which kids are enjoying as they learn about the different Hispanic cultures and artists and continuing with Hispanic Heritage Month our Communications office partnered with the advisor and students in the uni in
039the union Hispanic Club at the high school to do weekly Instagram takeovers take over posts to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month the club had to complete the complete creativity and freedom to post visuals and information that raise awareness and celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month some of those posts included books from Hispanic authors movie recommendations Latino owned businesses and Summit and some facts about the club at the high school at the primary centers kindergarten Chromebooks have arrived students have been learning how to take care of their devices they've been practicing logging in and independently working on platforms such as Raz-Kids in Google Classroom some of our young scholars have even created digital self-portraits so we're really lucky to have these devices to supplement and support the incredible instruction they're receiving on a daily basis over at Lincoln Hubbard
040school they celebrated their first student and staff outdoor play date on October 1st and this is the first time they've done that activity in almost two years play dates occur the last Friday of each month all instruction is shut down for the last period of the day so that teachers and students can simply spend time together playing connecting dancing and building school spirit and continuing with Lincoln Hubbard Lincoln Hubbard pillards of Pride kicked off during the week of respect pillars of pride is the school's best character-based education initiative a surprise pillar of character is announced and will become the focus for the coming weeks with building goals student letters and emails for recognition of each other the school mascot Rory revealed all the new pillar the new pillar which is respect with our school counselor
041Miss Dorsey and finally at lcj Middle School sixth graders conducted an iPad drop this week it's a interdisciplinary activity between science math and language arts students build an iPad case with recycled materials and science they then Market their case in their English language arts class and then in their math class they take measurements to conduct calculations to measure the the damage shown on the trials they do not use a real iPad when they drop to test the case that they build they use a bag of pretzels inside and if the pretzels remain intact then they assume the iPad would as well so that's an excellent activity it's an excellent interactive interdisciplinary stem activity that the middle school is engaged in right now and that's all that I have your honor okay all right so I
042need a motion to approve the superintendent's report a through C which includes two reports of harassment intimidation and bullying can I get a motion on the roll Mr Chow yes Miss Cohn yeah Mr cologne yes Miss Justice yeah yeah Miss Miller yes yes Miss Primark yes president Bonner yes motion carries all right maybe reports yeah but I have a Kudo for you can I get do it before you go you want to give me Kudos so I I you know you only get to be president once and you're not on a you're not a committee chair typically and so it I had an observation last week that I want to share with everybody because it the work of Board gets done on I was struck by how like intelligent the report the readouts were last
043week and how much stuff gets done in those you know in your case 18 hours in your case you know just a few in our case you know 18 minutes uh but I'm being I'm joking here but just just so you all know like that's where the magic happens uh on on this board particularly and I'm really proud to be the president with this group of chairs they really take their jobs like super seriously that your reports are super thorough and very informative to the public um I think uh you all are uh great citizens and I appreciate all the work that you're doing this year for the schools it's an honor to be uh your president so I've read through them uh that are coming to you tonight and there's just a lot of
044good things happening in the district and I appreciate you all so let's go to the education committee Miss Miller thank you Mr Bonner uh the education committee met on October 7th at 3 P.M we met it was a short one this time it was uh just a little bit over an hour my glasses are fogging up hold on hold on oh gosh someone told me to tape them but it's like how much humility and I mean how where's my dignity okay um in attendance we're a superintendent Huff Jen McCann the director of curriculum Crystal Mar director of student Personnel Services yancho and Lolita Justice we had three discussion items two which we've already dispensed with uh we did talk about the state assessment data report um and asked um all the questions that we needed
045to there that has been presented to the public so I I will not um discuss it any further unless the board has further questions on it we also spoke at length about the educational Equity documents that was shared this evening asking a lot of questions also that brought that that document um to preparedness for today we did that uh piggybacking off of the communications committee which also gave it a strong review and that is on our website I believe um so I will not go into that unless anybody has any other questions our last subject was the calendar school calendars uh we reviewed the proposed calendars for 2022 and 2023 um so those that's two um school cycles and as always every year that calendars are put together a fresh look is taken so it's
046never like this is always how we've done it so this is how we're going to do it um they look at so many variables I'm not even certain how the calendar can quite frankly get put together both calendars provide 180 days for our students 184 per staff and these two calendars fit in what our district has come to understand is our typical vacation so there's no real changes in um in vacation times or timing although we are open to discussing differences in our vacation placement and timing absolutely in the future as is our superintendent um and in these two calendars uh students will start after Labor Day I believe the last two school years due to the way Labor Day fell we started before Labor Day now we will start after holding of course um
047you know the right to should it should it be needed we'd go back to before Labor day as well next two years that is not going to happen the committee did not find any issues with the with the calendars um and we'll recommend them for adoption uh this evening anything that I miss Beyond Lolita nope I'll call her commentary any questions all right so we have that one recommendation you'll see it in um Ops I think it's B and C and we'll meet next on October no I'm sorry November 4th at 3 P.M okay thanks Miss Miller operations gentlemen to my left thank you president Bonner okay uh the operations committee met on October 5th uh the meeting was just over an hour so uh efficient meeting for us and in attendance board members Melanie
048Cohn Jan Cho and myself uh from the administration Lou Pepe Emilio Torres Angelo Palumbo Michael Martino and superintendent Huff and I would also as before I jump into the the minutes congratulate Mr Martino on his pending role as new the new director of facilities that is a well-earned role role based on his work here in the maintenance group so so that is fully supported by the operations committee uh that transition we discussed uh two two primary items first the 2223 budget process uh the committee reviewed the the goals and the timeline for that process uh which is uh is about to kick off uh the the pending process is consistent with past years in terms of the timing um as well as the goals and the goals themselves are well aligned with uh with the
049overarching district objectives of maintaining and enhancing educational Excellence uh while exhibiting fiscal discipline and Prudence so that is a in a nutshell uh what the goals are saying uh which we fully support facilities was the second major topic of the meeting and we covered a lot of ground with respect to facilities uh one item which was touched upon hurricane Ida uh the the damage from Ida was uh in a few places throughout the district but one educationally impacting um damage occurred in Brighton and so as I think you now know there are a few classrooms that are um that are unavailable for use due to damage from the hurricane uh the the good news uh well let me start with the bad news uh the bad news is that those classrooms we don't expect those
050classrooms to be available for several more weeks so I think the end of the month or early November unless there's a different update on that from when the committee met so so there's still a few weeks away uh the good news is with respect to the funding of the costs of the reparation work uh which will be covered by our insurance policies and or uh FEMA funds uh we were also updated on uh speaking of areas that have uh been out of pocket for students the Lawton C Johnson Middle School auditorial uh that uh is a different timeline and actually may be up and running now is that all testing has been completed and uh safe for return we're utilizing it okay beginning this week and more more so Monday yep all right so by
051Monday that should be fully utilized and and back up and running so that's uh that's good news the the costs of the remediation of the mold that was found there um we are currently in discussions we being the District administration in discussions with the insurer with respect to the funding of those expenses for the remediation work and so TBD there um another uh another item in the facility space uh damage to Brayton um the facade the exterior facade of Brayton which I believe we've reported on previously um is that damage is being repaired um and there's a second item where um well this is a different item in the weight room uh we are in the process of completing the the weight room upgrade in the High School uh and I mentioned those two items
052together uh because they're um the committee is recommending that uh that maintenance Reserve funds be utilized uh to to fix the Brayton facade as well as to complete the weight room work and and I'll give you those amounts momentarily uh the the last item that we talked about was upgrading the Middle School field area uh and so this is a topic that's come up over the years uh and there was an upgrade to that area last year which was the fencing if anyone has noticed the fencing around that um that field uh which was a safety measure that was implemented uh we're now discussing upgrading the fields themselves as well as the track that's around the field uh and so there is a survey that's being put together to determine exactly what can be done
053to optimize the space on that field uh there is a preliminary plan that has been put together but it really can't be finalized until the survey is completed so so that work is in progress and it's worth noting that uh there there are many benefits to upgrading that field uh and I'll mention a few in terms of curricular extra curriculars the phys Ed program uh the field hockey team softball track and field et cetera so um this really is intended to be beneficial to to our students in the middle school so meaningfully beneficial um and and my last note on this uh is just a thank you to the ptos of the district and to the volunteers and the donors of of our ptos because they are contributing to the funding of the weight room
054in the high school as well as the field the upgrade that will take place in the middle schoolers so thank you uh to those ptos uh for for the work that they do which is similar to ours in terms of volunteer work so thank you the the um the amounts that I've mentioned earlier with respect to maintenance reserve for the facade Brayton facade sixty seven thousand four hundred uh and completion of the weight room rate room is is five thousand dollars so the total amount that the committee is recommending to withdraw from maintenance Reserve is seventy two thousand four hundred dollars our next meeting is November 3rd uh actually I think we may be moving it to November 1st so November 1st at 4 30 pm okay a lot of facility stuff I covered there
055anything I missed I'm it's no doubt when you may have said it but vast majority of the expense being covered by insurance with regards to uh hurricane Irma repairs right um it for Hurricane Ida absolutely everything or mold that's still for the mold in the Middle School that is a discussion of the insurer God how many are the kids real displaced there are four classrooms that are relocated but luckily we have this space that we could repurpose it does call for some of the specials to be on car um so I give a lot of credit they've been really keeping a normal school day over there Brayton while they're a little bit displaced but like Mr cologne said hopefully just a few more weeks into next month we'll be back to normal right yeah I
056just want to make sure I didn't am I corrected there's no recommendation money for Middle School no so I I yeah I should make that clear uh so there is no there is no formal proposal that is either with the board or for approval or to the Ops committee yet quite frankly it was conceptual was the discussion and and so the survey needs to be completed and then there's going to be another iteration of finalizing a proposal to the committee and then to the board which would include costs all right any other questions for Mr colonel Fantastic Mr Cho policy all right policy committee uh the policy committee met on Wednesday October 6th uh in attendance along with myself our fellow board members Michael Colon and Melanie Cohn and then from the district superintendent Scott
057Huff Rob Cardella and Kathleen Murphy uh do you have a number of policies to uh the revisions and some new policies I'll try to be highlight and you know just no relevant points I do want to remind everybody that all the policies and regulations that govern the operations of the district are on the district website under the board tab so to extend the policy number or a reference if you want to see the exact rating or have trouble falling asleep help yourself on the website now to start uh policy 2467 there are good parents and Resource Family Parish the minor revision that addresses a change in terminology from a foster parent to a resource foster parent and the policy itself is just a responsibility of the district to make sure that a parent I'm sorry
058a student that's in somewhat of a transitional Guardian parent situation and that the student has adequate representation for their rights with respect to their education policy 511 references LGBT of Resident non-resident students just uh add some language around a criteria for one students because of a transitional home situation may end up being out of the district living in a shelter for example the responsibility of the district to continue providing the education for up to one year and to the extent that continues the state will take the fiscal responsibility of her providing the education again certain situations again primary goes homeless parents moving the shelter out of the district the students are allowed to continue being educated in our district policy number 5114 children's displaced by domestic violence uh that policy has been abolished because the
059situations is covered by the prior policy I reference five one one one another policy in a similar area policy 5116 education of homeless children that is primarily a reporting responsibility of the district to notify the appropriate state agency should a child in our district become homeless and end up in some type of transitional living situation of policy and regulation 7432 eye protection just an update in terms of the situations within educational or extracurricular setting where both the students and staff are required to be provided and use appropriate eye protection for their safety policy 8420 emergency and crisis situation revised just an update on the district requirements for school safety requirements drills fire drills school safety drills conducted in the classrooms and the government guidelines which should be referenced a subset of that regulation 84 20.1
060firearm and fire drills again just an update on the policy of the regulation for conducting fire drills and coordinating with the local fire department now the policy 8540 school and nutrition programs simply is an update for the state requirements of a district in terms of which situations or circumstances they would provide for eligible students breakfast even after the bill not just uh before school starts another policy related to the Food Service side policy 8550 meal charges outstanding Food Service bill essentially a policy revision for students that are readers in their cafeteria Bill and how the school the steps the school should take to addressing that and ensuring that the student is continued to be able to have food during the school day while the school district is contacting the appropriate parties and such to address
061the matter make sure that the child does not feel hungry during the school day the revision and policy 2270 is religion in the schools it's an update to reflect the latest U.S Department of Education guidance on constitutionally protective prayer and religious expression and public elementary and secondary schools that was issued in January 2020. and then related to that policy Ada 10 religious holidays is being abolished because those uh items religious holidays is covered in the prior policy which has been amended and then there's four policies they'll sort of group together or they're related to the federal Awards cares act you know the cover the SSR and the covert related type of funding for schools and the internal controls and such uh for the administration of those funds those policy six one one five point zero
062one point zero two and point zero three and basically it's just the policy requires the school districts to follow certain guidelines around eligibility of who the vendors can be of reporting and such and making sure this appropriate screening that all the vendors and subcontractors are not on some type of a federal like essentially do not use I go to the list and also addressing the school board and District employees respect to any potential conflict of interest and disclosures are such related to awarding a contracts and then also related as policy 6311 which is the actual um where the board and district has to refer to a federal system for reward management that actually is a database for this barred suspended vendor for contracts on any type of goods or services or school systems so that
063is it for all the policy revisions and adoptions the community recommendations are our first reading of the policy revisions or new policies that I just went through and then a final reading and abolishing of a couple policies that are being eliminated and then the second reading of the policies from the prior month agenda all right any questions from the board or my fellow policy committee members all right and our next meeting will be uh month in November potentially Monday November 1st or maybe November third Wednesday to be determined thank you thank you Mr choa gotta be close to a record number of policies addressed in one board meeting or at least top five probably probably yeah this is fascinating too well well done and there's a lot more to come right from what I understand
064so a lot of changes a lot of updates a lot of embossments a lot of verbiage changes all those things for the most part but uh thank you to the policy committee for staying up with all of that and thank you to Rob as well for keeping it all uh in line next we go down to miss primac Communications uh September 30th um for 55 minutes um and uh itself Connor allender um uh it was a wonderful session um oh sorry I was nothing quite I'm gonna borrow Melodies so it's all my tech is sort of not working today which that's okay it happens um so uh we first look at uh we do a post implementation review of projects and then we move on to current project there's a lot of crossover um because
065some of the uh post implementation review are actually now ongoing so they kind of fall into both buckets now which is I think wonderful um some for example the parent newsletter has been launched uh keeping families updated um about what's new in the district for those who follow social media you see them in sort of Snippets but we actually based on survey have many parents who do not follow social media so some of that information is kind of gathered together and uh collated sent out with a video component trying to reach again as many people as many families as we can so um uh the first one went out congratulations and great success and we look forward to the follow-up um also that's something that's been in the works is really what means to be
066a summit a teacher a staff member it's not going to be limited to teachers what it means to work in this District I think it's a wonderful feature the principles have uh sort of stepped into their role to share their thoughts and suggestions of different titles and Personnel who can contribute to this great project I think it's uh it'll be so wonderful just not only for people outside of someone who may think about coming here as as a staff member but for our community to really see all the wonderful people and the wonderful different roles making this a premier place to work which also then of course directly contributes it to it being a premier place to go to school um so that was very exciting um uh the uh post implementation we did talk
067about the Dei visual um which is on the student Personnel Services page of the website uh obviously presented tonight and um ref uh discussed very far more eloquently than I will by Mrs Miller um but again I think an excellent um an excellent uh shared understanding um and let's see um we had talked last time though about uh you um curriculum the new curriculum which is always available on the website just in case anyone wants to know the full curriculum is available on the summit website uh to if you ever have any questions about what's being taught in uh you know your child's classroom it's all there um we there had been a discussion uh in our prior meeting about whether or not to do a video highlight but um that is is tabled a
068little bit um but it'll be interesting to again looking at different ways different uh media different platforms to to share information um we're very pleased the committee was very pleased with the outcomes of the projects and the pace at which some of these initiatives are taking place um so we've already mentioned some of the current projects in addition there was um uh looking uh Mrs babbus and Miss Kaplan uh from guidance uh planned uh some SEL videos to provide support and resources to students and parents um really envisioned a bit as a practical skill snippet on self-management and helping students self-management was a topic we were talking about before pandemic I think it got uh additional focus and highlight understandably but I think it'll be great to again use these various platforms to help support
069our families and our students um mention was made of addition of coveted testing opportunities emails have been going out um it's we have a wonderful section of the website under our resources tab it's the covid dashboard and information it's not limited to the dashboard lots of information all covered related so I do hope you know everyone will be utilizing that and to take advantage of testing opportunities it also includes um what you what information you need to bring and what may or may not be covered um so we moved on to uh communication surrounding the um in the appointment of our impending employment business administrator um and so we uh just took a look at um various uh history and ways to effective ways to share the wonderful news um uh and with all the
070stakeholders it was a very thoughtful comprehensive dialogue and um following the meeting uh we received a wonderful uh formal Communications plan um and I know the communications have gone out and they look terrific and I think really reflect the the um the thoroughness to prevent Health that you and the entire team brought to the process so thank you um we also discussed the emergency a half before we discussed you've already seen you've already gotten the letters by the time I get here but that's a good thing uh emergency closing letter um I think the big takeaway uh in our discussion was really you know um new rules with regard to inclement weather and remote instruction that it's no longer an option right so again um just trying to again and we've just been we mentioned
071I think our our takeaway was just we might need to reinforce you know things change still an ever-changing landscape of what we can and cannot do and I think we you know much like the calendar discussion sometimes when something's happened in the past we sort of think that that will be the future but it's not so um thank you for the letter that makes clear that you know how remote that remote instruction how the school closings will work um to that end our community Buzz section which we wrap up with actually had to do with lots of people were asking for the calendar which again uh you had indicated was um was going to be uh going to the education committee and you know if recommended to the full board which of course here we
072are so much of what I have to share is stuff you're already seeing and doing so it's been great it's really lovely I think it's wonderful I think it's very Innovative using a lot of different ways to reach people and um just trying to keep those lines of of shared information open anything from the committee any questions from the board great thank you so much of course I don't have a question but I forgot to ask a question and when um brought up the calendar my memory was job I got a question and I promised that I would ask it about the calendar and we've had this question before it has to do with the placement of professional development days and um you know why the days are chosen as they are and it could
073just address that uh and if I may offer this one bit of History before you would address it Supernatural have um if I recall and when I when when my oldest starred in The District not that many years ago in the grand scheme of Life they were Wednesday and they were half days on Wednesday and I know that changed in recent years so with that I would that's exactly what I was going to comment about historical context that the professional half days were typically scheduled on Wednesdays which seemed to be a hardship or inconvenience for families so the ask back then was to move it to a Monday which they currently are now so there is a conversation now that people take a look at some Fridays as well so we are listening to that
074and we'll do some more work on that for future calendars to see if that's a viable option as well but right now they were already moved upon historical context from when they were on Wednesdays thank you I didn't want to get home and okay from negotiations uh the only thing I have to report is that we will meet with the principals on the 19th of this month to uh discuss and review their pending contract updates so that's that for negotiations liaison reports that anyone liaise in the past month I did I have a lays on the end um I attended the Union County School Board Association hybrid meeting on October the 13th um at the meeting we they discussed the workshop conference online that's coming up October 26th through the 28th and then a presentation
075was made by Marianne McGann who's the coordinator of school and community relations of Westfield School District on communicating during challenging times and I'm happy to report that Summit school district is doing all of the best practices that were recommended so kudos to the administration and the communications committee it reinforced me how well we've been operating and communicating during the pandemic okay so again I liaised with SCF uh in September um and uh it was a great meeting a wonderful meeting a lot of um they had some presentations that you know uh I won't that we're not directly connected to the grants process but excited for the grand season the um there wasn't focused conversation uh I do know superintendent half uh you you had met with some of the leadership at SEF and discussed um
076some sort of some you know perhaps going off cycle with a couple of superintendent focused sort of bigger picture grants to support larger initiatives so they you know they discussed that because I think it's a it's a it's a great way to stay current with um the needs of the district and um so I will look forward to hearing from you and SEF on on the some of those collaborations anyone liaised to my left no all right moving on okay let's see where are we all right public comment I'm gonna uh we're ahead of schedule which I love I'm gonna Channel my inner Donna Miller and do a little uh board governance education right now so sit back get ready we're gonna educate so in September I got a question from a citizen and uh
077I thought it was a great question and uh I'm gonna address it here tonight before we start the um public comment portion of our meeting and essentially it's this I'm going to mostly read it verbatim but it says I've attended a couple Boe meetings and one of the things that stand out stands out is how parents and others have only a one-way Communication channel to the Boe members they stand up and make personal statements about issues that are deeply important to them and the Boe members simply sit there and look back at them in silence I'm sure there's a reason for this process but I'm struggled to understand why can you please clarify uh why this is the case so I'm here to do that tonight publicly for everyone so essentially I understand that sentiment
078um and we Haul understand that sentiment and it is quite awkward and can be cold and callous to us too those of us who are also humans who sit on the other end of the microphone but public comment uh is just that it is a time for members of the community to publicly comment on issues before the district it's not Congress it is not a hearing uh it's not perhaps something you might see at the city council or perhaps in a state legislator it's different uh boards use the public comment period as an opportunity to listen to Citizen concerns but not to debate the issues or enter into a question and answer session or a cross-examination between the public and individual members please understand it not all issues brought before the board in any given
079evening will be resolved that evening if warranted I as the president of the board will engage in conversations with superintendent Huff on any issues brought before the board at a later date or the issue will be taken up in the appropriate committee and report it out at a board meeting if appropriate a member of the district will address the concern with the individual on a personal level we prefer the latter as we do not nor should we as a board engage ourselves in the Opera operational day-to-day running of the district so before we get to public comment I just want to say there are many many methods and many modes to communicate with the district the probably one of the most efficient and effective and most important is to communicate with your classroom teacher as
080a board and as a District's leadership that's what we would prefer on most issues that can be handled at level and then you go simply of the chain after that the principal superintendent perhaps somebody on the superintendent staff that can address that appropriately and of course the board is always available for questions and of course then there's the public comment session please know that sometimes when we get emails we will typically share those with superintendent Huff or his cabinet so they have visibility of those and any email I get or any email that the board gets we then share with everybody on the board so everybody has visibility we are we are legally Bound by not respond or engage in that conversation because then we're taking action without the Public's knowledge and not in an
081open forward so that also can feel sometimes a little bit cold that like many members of the of the board did not respond to that email we're obligated by law to not have that discussion at that time but please know anything that comes before the district we all know and then most of that either gets resolved in committee with regards to maybe it's a policy issue or it's a Communications or an operational issue or probably 99 times out of 100 it gets turned over to superintendent Huff he takes that feedback considers it and then we'll take it from there many times we will engage with you individually if you email us individually and we will respond but almost invariably we will refer you back to someone on the district specifically if it's an operational issue
082and everybody in the district is available to parents and members of the community regardless of their status in the district so that's just a little bit of primer of how that works we will respond we do listen and we do care about what you have to say but there is a process and it is relatively formal with regards to board governance at the end of the day we have we have a threefold job best to hire and evaluate the superintendent contribute to an approved District policy and then governance so essentially voting for financial operational personal and under other agenda items after that we leave it to the experts so that's where we're at let's get going Mr secretary or you read the ground rules of the public comment portion yes any anyone wishing to speak
083shall first seek recognition by the presiding officer please come to the microphone at the center and state your name and address in a clear audible tone for the record all comments should be directed to the board as a whole and not an individual member of the board unless additional time is granted by the board president please keep your comments at three minutes or less all right now that we're all clear on how this works let's go for public comment for items on the agenda anything we've discussed so far well we'll discuss tonight please feel free to take the mic and comment away this is the part where people typically don't come all right there's a disproportionate amount of people on the next one that in the comments there right last chance on that one alrighty
084let's move on to public comment items not on the agenda please just raise your hand and I'll point to you you can head on up to the mic yes Lisa Grennan 58 Druid Hill Road that's right you can hear it right you can pull it off we can hear you we can hear you it's good all right it's good um well first of all um that's my first board meeting for the Board of Ed so well done um are we for on behalf of my husband and I we just want to thank the superintendent the board for your support for the Athletics and for the drama club in the last year and a half I think without it our kids would have been like stir crazy you know so well done because I know it
085wasn't easy and it was really important for the kids um one of the things that has come to attention that we wanted to ask your consideration for is around the mass squaring policy on stage for the Productions and if anybody and the reason I bring up Sports is because when I think about our sophomore who played ice hockey and soccer in lacrosse last year and I think about our senior Donald if anybody saw him in production I mean the drama club whether it's in a a true play or if it's in a musical is truly an athletic accomplishment and for anyone that's done at a stage and performed it's hot the adrenaline's high and you operate at a really intense level so what we're asking is for consideration around Romeo and Juliet and then going
086forward we can talk about the musical about not having to wear the masks while they're performing and to consider them very similarly that you would an athlete because I look at both of my kids in the same way and what they're able to accomplish and truly if you've never stood on a stage I encourage you to go do it it's hot and when we had real heat waves in the beginning of the year and kids had to take their masks off you know we allowed them to do that because you overheat so Don's been working on the crew you know we've all set I mean we've all been on stage under those lights it's just it's really it is draining and taxing on the actors so that's just something to consider we'd ask that you'd
087think about it there are some precedents we're aware of and other superintendents and school districts so Chatham Watson Hills Bridgewater have all accepted that the stage is a court and that the actors are also athletes so as you think about this we have a handful of weeks before we go on you know Romeo and Juliet would love to show their smiles and their faces um I don't know how many of them you talk about the teachers and vaccinations I know a lot of the students are vaccinated we did it for the musical we made sure they got vaccinated so that they could perform um I don't know if that helps or gives Comfort or there's a way you can survey that but you know I think whatever policies the state sets there's obviously some precedent
088for for navigating around that we'd ask for some consideration do you have anything going on [Applause] thank you hi I'm Lisa DeVries I live at me on Maple Street I just have a more of a question that maybe could be addressed at the next Board of Ed meeting we know the FDA is reviewing the um vaccine for children five and older and I just wanted to get a sense and I'm sure others would be interested to know if that's a board of ed decision if it's a superintendent a governor like how would that be decided when it comes to our children and I just have some concerns about anything being forced onto a five or six year old so if you have any chance I think they were saying they are expecting approval in November
089so that's right around the corner I think it would be a nice uh topic to address at the next meeting [Music] the vaccines is that the question and is it a board decision is it a Department of Health decision is it a governor like I'm not sure where the decision who makes that thank you any others yes ma'am hi I'm Melinda fleisner I'm on Maple Street or no I'm on Oakland Place in Summit been there for a long time um and I know we're all very familiar because we've spoken we've been mad I've sat in our office we've had a lot of discussions about all this um couple things um back to the masks and the mandates and the vaccinations and all the other quarantines I know that masks are mandated by the governor so
090we don't have any way to eliminate mass for our students including including our little ones but the length of the quarantines as you know my son was quarantined the very first day of middle school for being slightly under three feet away from a covert positive student the quarantine was 14 days which is a really long quarantine and the quarantined length itself is not mandated by the governor so I know that we're in the orange zone that includes a lot of places down so we all know this we all know the zone that we're in but our neighbors are very neighbors that we play sports against that we play have played it's with are um not they and so they have seven day quarantines with a five-day test out option so as it's not mandated by
091the state the boards the Mayors we have a lot of leeway to walk up to that line and so I'm urging you guys to consider I'm sure you considered it before but to consider again decreasing the length of the quarantine um additionally while the students are quarantined they're not allowed to take tests which happened again as you know to my you know second day sixth grader um it's going to become more of a problem as we get towards midterms and finals I know you've thought through this and I know it's the partly the cheating issue I know there's a lot of issues that have gone into the decision making but I've urge you to consider it again to see if there's something else that we can do for some of these students 14 days if
092you're supposed to take a test on the day you're quarantine to take it 14 days later is really challenging for these students to put some in an extreme disadvantage and even some of the changes that you've allowed to either exempt them from things then they're losing points in their overall I mean there's some serious considerations that I know my sixth grader maybe not as much but when you get to the high schoolers it becomes a real thing so I'd urge you to please think long and hard if there's a way around the testing policies the duration of the quarantines um and as soon as we have any leeway to get these masks off our children I mean we sat here last meeting with no masks so most of us are on I think on the
093same page with that and then I just had one question thought about the equity presentation that was earlier I mean some of my questions were addressed or will be addressed I think that a forum for the public to get clarity and transparency on on the definitions on how it's going to be implemented on what's going to be happening this year on whether our children will be surveyed on how this is going to fall I think it would go a long way towards eliminating a lot of the questions that kind of parents have sitting here and a long way towards um starting a really engaging conversation with parents who of course want all students in our district to be supported and I think I don't think anyone disagrees with that I think that's always been summits
094mandate what we've been known for um I think we've struggled with [Music] um High achieving students I think we've struggled with how to how best to support them particularly in elementary school so I think it's a great place if we want to talk about equity in in that way is we need to look at it across the board which I think that we do as a district we want to sorry I'll be really quick um but if we could have an open discussion about that I think it starts with transparency which would be really helpful and I'd also like to know how this impacts our students directly in terms of will they be surveyed will they be ask questions that parents don't know about I I appreciate that the curriculum is online and you can
095see it and I study it well but there were students in our high school that were given a toxic masculinity survey in school that's not on the curriculum so I as a parent had no way of knowing that was going to be given to students in our school and I don't know where that information was then then went how that survey went and I I think it's troubling when we put something toxic masculinity we're taking half of our population and putting the more toxic in front of them I think that's we have to give some thought to that these are impressionable students and so I'm hoping that in this discussion about equity and inclusion that we can provide some real transparency to students and to families and that we can really thoughtfully think about whether
096a toxic masculinity survey even if the questions are all great maybe the way that we're defining it to begin with is hurtful to in is not hurtful as though not the right word um but our men our boys aren't toxic so we should never leave anyone with the impression that we as a district as a board as parents as Educators think that half our population is toxic and I think that probably goes a lot of surveys that students get so I'm just hoping that there can be more transparency than more than you think we need and again I truly appreciate all of your time all of your questions allowing me traffic is all of that so thank you very much [Applause] I subliminally granted you extra time but you went back you went back to
097something on the agenda so I think I'm just teasing you're fine you're fine I appreciate what you have to say uh anyone else yes ma'am hi good evening I'm Christine lack and I just wanted to um talk about the district policy for attendance and how it is being um utilized in the high school in the district policy for attendance and says that all um students in grades 11 and 12 are allowed to take up to three days for college visits and I just wanted to let the district let all of you know that I was not aware that as parents that we had to disclose exactly the date and time and send forward an email from the college that we are attending and I'm I've I have discussed this with Mr Murdoch and he continues
098to express that we must disclose that information I find that to be a security risk to disclose when my house will be not will be unoccupied when I will be out of town to be visiting colleges and um I was not aware that this was even a policy I thought that I just had to tell the school ahead of time that my student was going to be visiting college so I just wanted to make the board aware of that and to maybe to stop this policy that parents should not be disclosing and I'm also concerned because I do have another child in the district and if it is something that's going to be after school hours that my other child in the district may be home alone and I really don't I don't post anything
099on any social media when I'm not in this town and I don't want anyone in the district having that specific information I'm not comfortable and I don't think that parents should have to give out that information at any point so I just wanted to disclose what's going on and to hope that this can change thank you [Applause] thank you ma'am I appreciate that just a clarification on that point that that is correct me from around that that policy is a Statewide policy for interference incorrect with regards to the entitlement to the date yeah the practice by which the information is given to the school district we may have some discretion I don't know sitting here right now sure take a look at that but the actual policy of those three days in the state of
100New Jersey policy that all districts participate in so the exemption of days which their you know religious holidays and life is is to not doesn't specifically address your issue but I just wanted to be clear for the public to know that that is actually a statement right anyone else going once going twice thank you so much that was a good round of comments I appreciate everyone's input so we're going to get on with the remainder of the meeting which is mostly transactional here we're going to approve some board limits so we need a motion to approve the board minutes from September 9th regular meeting and the September 27th executive session can I have a motion on the roll Mr Cho yes Miss Cohen Mr cologne yeah yeah Miss Justice yes yes Miss Miller yeah yeah
101Miss primac yeah and president Bonner yes motion carries okay School Board operation a through your double letter in here somewhere W I'm getting a through W thank you sir eight oh wait there's an X all right no a through w got it huw can I get a motion move on the roll Mr Cho yes Miss Cohen Mr cologne yeah yeah Miss Justice yeah yeah Miss Miller yes Miss primac and president Bonner yes to all with an abstention on F motion carries all right personnel got a through HH and board members you'll see in front of you there the addendum that goes DD to HH Mr Martinez on here right just a quick comment on the president Connor if you don't mind just a quick comment about two notable hires on the Personnel section of the
102agenda first of all our new business administrator board secretary Mr Derek Jess with 21 years of experience will be joining us as of January 1st and Mr Michael Martino an internal candidate for director of facilities will be taking the reins as well January 1st they will be succeeding too very themed people in Lou Pepe and Angelo Palumbo so we are very much looking forward to their contributions we will celebrate them more next month in our November meeting with the reception Mr Jess was unable to attend today he's attending the National Conference so we decided to push back onto the circumstance a little next month on that and I'll have more to say mixer both of those are excellent news for the district can I get a motion on Personnel a through HH U second on
103the roll Mr Cho yes Miss Cohen yeah Mr cologne yeah Miss Justice yeah Miss Miller yeah yeah Miss primac I mean there are many many things oh well good luck Rob you're clearly busy but I do want to um acknowledge Mr Maddie who is retiring from being the head custodian at Washington and thank you for setting up those tables in and out of prize room so quickly every year and for everything else you've ever done me so much for the entire for all all of the students and families though a big thank you before you get to your final vote and president Bonner indeed motion carries okay on to policies and regulation we have several policies for first reading and several for a second reading can I get a motion no no on the roll
104Mr Cho yes Miss Cohen yeah Mr cologne yeah Miss Justice yes Miss Miller yeah Miss primac yes and president Bonner yes ocean carries last vote of the evening Finance a through e to the schools can stay in business can I get a motion I don't know on the roll Mr Cho yes Miss Cohen yes Mr cologne yes yeah Miss Justice yeah Miss Miller yes Miss primac and president Bonner yes indeed as Mr Pepe would say now we can pay the bills motion carries all right we do not have a meeting need for closed session Hallelujah let's get a motion to adjourn this meet double motion who gets that one get uh we'll go with I think I heard Miller go first and then we'll go um let's Prime back on the second on the road
105Mr Cho Miss Cohn yeah Mr cologne yeah yeah Miss Justice Miss Miller yeah Miss primac yes yeah and president Bonner by the use of this gavel I vote Yes