001and we're live welcome to the march 23rd 2021 public verona board of education meeting we're calling the meeting to order at and if everybody will please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and the reading of the meeting notice this meeting is being conducted in compliance with the open meeting session that the verona board of education passed a resolution at its annual reorganization meeting held on january 5th 2021 the meeting set forth the schedule of its regular meetings which resolution was within seven days of passage the schedule was sent to the verona cedar grove times the star ledger the township of verona and
002the vea postings of this meeting setting forth the time location and agenda were posted at the verona board of education office and on the verona public schools district website the verona board of education operates under a consent agenda format any board member has the right to have an item pulled to be voted upon or discussed separately copies of tonight's agenda and resolutions have been made available to the public and the press mr turner would you like to do the roll call mr olworth here mrs drappy here mr day here mrs prisco here and mrs freshy i am here we have a quorum thank you um before we go into dr deonicio's report i just want to to make a general statement for the public so later on in the meeting before we open the floor
003to public comment on any items the public should be aware that the board will be conducting quite a lengthy closed session discussion tonight about topics that include personnel and negotiations it's anticipated that these discussions will last not less than two hours accordingly pursuant to board bylaw 0167 the public comment on any item will be received by the board until 9 pm tonight at which point we will close public comment and move into closed session so i do want to thank everybody in advance for understanding we do have a lot of things to discuss tonight so with that we are going to move into dr dean eco in the superintendent's report thank you mrs freske good evening everyone several updates to provide to the board this evening the first i'd like to start off with is
004uh just a recognition and a thank you to our community stakeholders who most recently participated in our diversity and equity committee we had our first kickoff meeting on tuesday march 16th we are working with over 70 engaged members of the verona community this is a very large group and it was the meeting was designed to begin our discussions on bias we spent about an hour and a half a little bit more in beginning those discussions and obviously we have a lot more work ahead of us over the next several months in several years and ongoing to make sure that we're making verona the most uh inclusive place for all of our students for our staff and for our community members moving forward in april may and june we have scheduled smaller subcommittee meetings that will
005further examine the areas of diversity equity and inclusion as it relates to specific themes within our district specifically those subcommittees will be broken up as follows we will have one subcommittee that will look at curriculum and instruction as well as professional development a second subcommittee will be exploring recruiting and hiring as well as community outreach and the last subcommittee will be looking at both district and school climate and culture as well as educational equity in june we will also have another subcommittee meeting so we will have them in april may and june those those meetings will be structured in a way where we have approximately 25 20 to 25 people on each subcommittee to allow for increased dialogue with committee members and then we were going to reconvene in june as a full uh committee
006again uh prior to summer and then over the summer we have some staff development that is planned uh and we're scheduled for that as we then gear ourselves up and work and look forward to what september and the following year looks like as we look to implement tangible goals uh on an ongoing basis and continue with this important work shifting gears we have tomorrow evening i will be participating in a verona community health town hall that was sent out on behalf of the town [Music] the essex county executive jody vincenzo will be there mr cavallo chief kiernan myself uh sue porteris from the montclair health department and dr mccarrick of verona medical group that was advertised it was sent out last week and the week before i believe we have the information is up on
007the township website it begins at 7 pm it will be streamed live and there will be questions answered in the forum um and then there will be an opportunity for people who are unable to see it live it will be recorded so it will be located um on multiple websites including the township we will also post it up on the verona website verona public schools website and we will have that information accessible for our community members on the topic of employee vaccinations we're very proud of the progress that we've made over the past several weeks and several months so verona for those members of our community who are unaware we have approximately 350 total staff members at this time approximately 280 verona public staff public school staff members in relation to the vaccine have either
008scheduled an appointment have received at least one dose or have been fully vaccinated so that currently represents approximately 80 percent of our total staff it also represents approximately 97 of our staff who have requested access to the vaccine and and we've been able to coordinate and arrange that uh because of a number of different reasons so the success is due largely in part obviously to the uh availability of the actual covid vaccine um from the different pharmaceutical providers it's also a result of the partnerships with our local health providers who've made those vaccines accessible for appointments as we've prioritized our staff members mountainside hospital has been helpful with us where we have had some staff members become vaccinated and i especially want to thank dr mccarrick at vanguard medical group for their partnership where we've
009been able to have staff members received the vaccine there as well i would be remiss if i didn't thank our school nurses who have been amazing they've been tremendous throughout this whole year during the pandemic not only on the day-to-day in their coordination and their work with the teachers and the principals and administration but with the parents and with the kids most importantly and just being able to help us as well with contact tracing and for their medical guidance and their coordination and their support and on top of it all being able to also help our faculty our staff members who are willing to participate in having our nurses actually secure appointments for vaccination so that's been an immense help for the school district and i also want to thank mr merkler in all the
010work he's been doing with our school nurses and and helping guide this process and last but not least the testament to so many staff members being vaccinated even prior to governor murphy prioritizing our educators and school employees several weeks ago just the tenacity of our staff in seeking out those individual opportunities to become vaccinated wherever they could possibly get an appointment uh has been incredible so all of those things kind of molded merged together in order to get us to the point where we're at today we still have some more more work to do but uh i'm really proud of the the progress and the fact that we're getting more and more people vaccinated so that's something to really celebrate and be very happy and grateful for and then last but not least on the
011vaccination piece uh on friday march 19th i participated with uh all of the superintendents from essex county uh as well as public health officials from the county and and public employees at the county office it was a meeting that our essex county executive joe divincenzo coordinated and the purpose of the meeting was to explain uh and answer questions regarding the vaccination program across the county but also his work in prioritizing vaccine availability for educators across the entire county so friday at 5 p.m the essex county covid vaccination web link on the county site became live at 5 p.m to allow teachers to register for an appointment for vaccines so that kicked off um a couple of days ago and has been hugely successful and um they're going to continue with that as as the county
012tries to scale up and get as many teachers and school employees vaccinated as quickly as possible so kudos to mr d vincenzo for all of his help with that shifting gears um but still along the lines of the of kovid um very uh exciting news came came out last week that we were all uh waiting in anticipation uh the cdc updated guidance we were very happy and excited to hear what sounds like very promising information i mean from the cdc standpoint to be able to provide um an update based on recent research and studies that uh have been in existence over the past several months and examining the difference between transmission rate for three versus six feet we were very happy to hear that the science supported the cdc making an update to their recommendations
013and that update has been one where elementary middle and high school based on the conditions for transmission in communities being able to have students three feet apart um at a minimum with universal mask wearing in the classroom setting there are a number of other updates on that guidance we did share that information out with our community with links to the cdc updated guidance we are still awaiting updated guidance from the new jersey department of health so that's the state organization that the montclair health department reports to but in the meantime we are still operating at six feet but we have been planning for a number of weeks as to being able to pivot to shift to the three feet at the elementary at the middle school and at the high school as we await that
014updated guidance from the new jersey department of health i also sent the letter out last week to governor murphy requesting that the updates from the new jersey department of health as they're reviewing the guidance that it comes quickly and as quickly as possible and that they communicated as swiftly as possible so school districts may move as fast as possible in order to be able to safely increase in-person learning we're not waiting for that announcement in order to prepare ourselves we are waiting for that announcement in order to be able to actually act upon it so as i mentioned earlier as of today so far the new jersey department of health has not yet provided any updated guidance i did check today with the montclair health department um we're still awaiting that so we're still operating
015at six feet in addition to that um when we're taking a look at what this means for each of our grade levels at the elementary grade level we will be able to when the department of health gives an updated guidance that three feet is permissible we will be able to as a school district within a few short days be able to shift towards three feet in our classrooms and that's what we're preparing for so that would be one cohort where all students will be able to come in from 8 30 to 12 30 every day and the remote option is still available for any family that chooses to keep their children home and learning remotely as i mentioned universal mask wearing is still going to be required the three feet of distancing is only from
016student to student six feet of distancing is still required from staff member or adult to adult and also from adult to student so the three feet guidance only applies to students the district is planning for all uh this possibility and all possibilities as we await this guidance the uh one update that i do want to provide and this was in my uh the weekly update that we provided on march 20th is the stipulation around middle school and high school students so we're hopeful that the cdc guidance will allow for three feet but at this time at least the way it appears from the guidance the six feet is still going to be required in communities where transmission is high um if cohorting is not possible now we are exploring the cohorting piece at least at
017the middle school to see if that's a possibility at this time we don't have enough guidance but it is something that we are exploring at this time we do not believe that that is going to be possible but we are looking into it and the transmission being high is still based on the covet activity reports that we receive from the new jersey department of health that we've provided links to as far as what the community transmission is based on the regional risk matrix by the uh the grouping of the counties that are within each region so we will still be preparing our administrative staff um and our staff has been informed that you know we're going to continue to follow the new jersey department of health guidance we're hoping that that comes soon in the
018meantime our elementary principals did today send out an updated survey and letter to our elementary parents in anticipation of the updated guidance from the new jersey department of health and that survey is asking parents to let us know by march 25th what their intention would be if the guidance changes when the changes from six to three feet if they intend on sending their children into school for the remainder of the school year that's important information for us to know just so we could plan accordingly in the classrooms uh but regardless of what the return rate on that is even if it's a hundred percent um we will be able to get all elementary students into our classrooms at three feet at hpw uh mr galbachek and mrs mcneil have continued to work with this their
019staff i've been meeting with dr miller our elementary principals our administrators and our teachers on multiple committees uh getting feedback talking about all kinds of different possibilities aside from the updated cdc guidance we've been working on that for a number of weeks coming off of the committee feedback from parents and survey feedback and just looking to see what are the areas that we can continue to evolve to increase the amount of in-person time for our students the one thing that's most promising at hbw right now a recent survey went out to parents mr galbercek and mrs mcneil are examining that survey feedback i do know that they had a meeting last night um with the parent committee and the teacher committee to provide an update and get some feedback as to the progress that we're
020making and the feedback that they've received from this group one of the areas that hbw is striving towards is moving from uh potentially from a three uh cohort model three separate days to a two cohort model so our students in hbw the hope is um that we would get students in every other day rather than every three days mr galbacher and mrs mcneil are working on those details they're examining that and they will provide an update to the hbw community in the short in in the near future and as far as verona high school um mr cogdill and mr lancaster are working uh with our staff with our advisors and with our student groups and parents in order to plan for the end of the year activities of course following all of the guidelines from
021the state of new jersey the doh doe on getting clarification on those points we are also looking at ways as to which we can continue to evolve the schedule there for more in-person time so i've had a lot of conversations as as well as mr coghill mr lancaster with our staff around how that may be possible much of that work stemming from committee work um and right now verona high school is at uh a two day two cohort system um a new survey will be going out shortly to collect more feedback from parents as to what the intentions will be for the remainder of the school year to be able to to build um the number of cohorts um so we're hoping that we can at least stay at that two cohort model but that
022will be predicated based on um the number of responses and requests for in-person learning in addition to that we are also looking at and exploring what potentially based on the cohorts that do report to school what the possibility is of having an open campus potentially for lunch outdoor lunch and then also to be able to provide an opportunity for in-person learning by cohort in the afternoon so these are all conversations that have been occurring and taking a look at the logistics and the operational issues and and getting closer to where that communication will be formally coming it's been discussed with students and get collecting feedback and surveys and discussed with staff as we're looking at all of these issues so that kind of concludes where we are currently at uh and just to wrap up
023with with this piece of the cdc update and just to reiterate we are still waiting for the six feet versus the three feet guidance from the new jersey department of health um and we're calling every day and we're trying to make sure that we're getting a response as quickly as possible and we're preparing for that possibility of moving to three feet uh in our schools when it's safe and when it's recommended and then last but not least i provided an update to the community a few days ago in regards to the survey that went out to the community for the potential restructuring of the elementary schools if it were necessary for next year we don't believe that it will be necessary based on the direction that the district and that we're moving in and with
024the hope of more people becoming vaccinated um and and looking at what september would present itself as uh and what the new jersey department of health guidance may be um this may not be as necessary of an exploration as it perhaps was a month ago as things evolve and they change however we we did want to share that the the feedback was uh received um only the survey feedback from parents who will have children in school in kindergarten through fourth grade next year was considered it was an approximate return rate on the surveys of two-thirds approximately 66 67 percent of the family's unique families responded only one vote per household was considered and 75 percent of the families who responded supported the district at least exploring the consideration and the development of a plan a
025proposal for the future if it was an area that seemed like it would be possible to increase the amount of number the number of students in our classrooms if we had to maintain the six feet of physical distancing of course with this new cdc guidance at three feet um that seems like an issue that we may not have to grapple with um but at least it's good to get this feedback from the community and if it's something that we have to revisit in the future then we can certainly do that but at this time it does not seem to be the case and that's all i have for the superintendent report this evening and i'll turn it over to mrs fresky at this point thank you very much dr tinicio does anyone have any questions
026or comments for dr diamisio on his superintendent's report yeah i just had i had a quick call and thank you dr neisha for the uh detailed report um and regarding the the cdc i mean that is good news about the three feet um i was just curious again i hadn't tracked all the cdc adjustments and changes to what they've done but in the past the cdc has made recommendations and that eventually trickles down to new jersey department of health do we recall what the time frame was when cdc made adjustments to was it a couple days a week did we recall of any when a change was made previously how long it took for dhs doh and the montclair department of health to have it trickle down so to speak i don't have the answer
027to that i'd have to i could go and take a look at that and see and speak to uh it probably wouldn't be that hard to figure out because all of the updates are uh dated on the website and we could certainly look at that if you look at history and say it's been it takes three days for them to make that decision or a weak potential we might have something from them sooner than later i mean end of the day i know i know they thought they based everything off region and about that all the regions but i i looked at verona we control verona and that's sort of where i want to see if the cdc does what they say you know they go to three feet and then the department of health
028in new jersey and i appreciate you sending a note to governor murphy and emailing the department of health and i just everything seems a little slow and uh you know not on our end but on the fact that the way the government's working right now to be able to make those pivots and make those changes so but i know i appreciate the fact you have a plan in place that we're ready to make the move when we get guidance so um but again i just wanted to see in past history how long it took to trickle down to the department of health and i know a little bit of political football out there with some of the things going on and i think everybody out in the public survivor that you know we on the
029board and you know we we don't really control that the administration does but end of the day as you know the administration's doing everything everything they can as you you know i have two high schoolers and you know the fact they went down to two cohorts was great you know the fact that they're working on the elementary schools trying to get them reduce the number of cohorts um you know do whatever in the middle school and then we'll work with the elementary schools together everybody and every day so so again i just wanted to make that statement so yeah so and just to piggyback off that mr day uh i i could certainly look into it and i will um i think the frustration by this group here by us by our parents uh and
030by most school districts is that we would like answers a lot faster than we're getting them and there's a sense of urgency to get more kids back into school every single day we're trying to expedite that as best we can on our end to be prepared so when that announcement is made it decreases the amount of time for us to be able to to have that pivot um and and we're going to continue to call every single day and hopefully the department of health will give us guidance and and i would hope that you know perhaps the department of health is looking and examining all of this and looking at how it relates to new jersey schools uh but i would hope that if they had the information available perhaps with the elementary schools that
031they could at least release the elementary piece first because the cdc guidance has been pretty clear that uh three feet is permissible regardless of what the transmission rate is within a community uh it's a it's definitely different for middle school in high school so if the transmission rate in the region or in the area uh how it's defined and that's if it's in high then the six feet rule has to still be in play so that guidance on the six foot uh distancing would still be in play but that's not the case based on what the cdc just reported for the elementary school so i'm hopeful that they're going to move at least quickly enough on that and then if they have to provide updated guidance on the middle school and high school then that
032can come later on so i hope that we hear that from the department of health and from the state department of health and from governor murphy sooner than later okay and the other component is you know as everybody's aware of course we wanna it's great news that the uh the staff is being vaccinated but i think that's critical too to make that move you wanna you know say we have elementary goal every day you wanna make sure that every teacher and staff member in those elementary schools either has you know has the opportunity to have the vaccine if they don't want the vaccine that's fine but at least has that opportunity to get it before uh you open up the schools so again we worry about the students and the staff so yeah and i
033think it's going to be interesting you know if and when like you said the timeline that it trickles down to the state but also if they are going to make any differentiation on individual communities as opposed to regions because that's going to have an impact as well so everybody's hoping for the best at the end of the day we only control our we only control our district and we can't control everybody else's if they do whatever they want to do that's fine we control our districts and just to kind of echo what jim and lisa you know are saying is that i guess personally one concern that i have is that making sure that when we do make that move to three feet i know teachers still have to stay six feet um you know
034that can be more challenging when you have more students in your room so you know personally from with my teacher hat on i would just want to make sure that you know we have as many teachers as possible with their second vaccine in their arms you know before we like 100 committed to that but that may also be from what i can see maybe why the department of health may be taking their time i'm just pontificating here i don't know that for sure um you know what i mean just making sure that we have enough of those teachers who are fully vaccinated by that um but also to echo what lisa was saying you know i don't know if if you can shed any light to this and this is actually a question that i
035submitted for tomorrow night's um forum i'm sorry uh informational session um was why do like why are we in that like region why are they using that matrix and not like the county matrix that shows us a low transmission rate even though we had nine positives yesterday in the whole community which i still think is a lot but that's my personal thing but you know do they have they given a reason why the department of health and new jersey department of health monkey republic new jersey department uses that regional matrix from the state rather than the county one why they use a regional matrix as far as low moderate high and very high and a lot of that is because some of the larger areas that surround us that may not be directly adjacent to
036our community um have still very high positivity rates um and that's that's kind of negatively impacting our ability to move forward i feel like whereas if you look at the county matrix we're actually considered a low transmission rate and a lot of the adjacent communities around us i think with the exception of montclair and maybe west orange are also considered low so have they given you like any no the only thing i was provided that superintendents were provided is um the level of information is regarding it's just coordinated regionally right the three counties nearby um there's any which way that they could piece that puzzle together um and they decided to group us with the two counties and and that's where we stand and that's what they are sticking with as far as this covet
037activity reporting um that they push out and and that's i don't know if that's i would imagine that at least for now we know that that's the model that they're using it would be interesting to see if they continue with that with updated guidance or they reserve the right to be able to shift and make a different decision if they'd so choose the governor can make that decision with uh persicelli at the department of health and all of the other um people at that level that would partake in that conversation and what the rationale would be aside from the fact that they're regionally adjacent to one another and the way they group them that's the only information that's been provided to us does anyone else have any questions or comments just a simple comment i
038just really hope if they end up not following the cdc that they have a really good explanation for it because we're all you know i think everyone the whole community us everybody yeah you know exactly i mean if they don't if they don't go with it they better have a really good explanation because i think the whole community and the whole state's ready to to get to get rolling so hopefully and so just for a commercial for the informational session tomorrow night let's uh let's attend that because i think hopefully we'll get some answers and get some uh some questions answered so thanks all right thank you everybody thank you dr deonicio we're gonna we don't have any presentations this evening so we're gonna move on to committee reports there was no finance report so
039we submitted the preliminary budget on time and there's nothing new to report on that and community resources we did meet today um mr day was unable to join us so mrs prisco um joins on the community resources and there was really one uh topic that we need to report out to the board and to the public there was a meeting request by dr tamboro and he was joined by mr dupree um the meeting was requested uh for dr deonisio with the attendance of mr allworth to discuss elementary school schedule and this meeting took place on friday march 12th um early evening 5 15 and in attendance was dr deonisio myself dr miller as director of curriculum dr lanzo and mr monticelli as uh the vaa co-presidents and elementary school principles building principles and the focus
040of the meeting primarily was dr tamboro made a proposal based on informal conversations with the staff that they were expressing comfort in relaxing the six foot recommendation people are feeling more comfortable with the roll out of vaccines and we listened with open ears but coming off our last meeting we dr dinicio reiterated that our position at the time is still waiting for the updated guidance from the new jersey state department of health which eventually trickles down to the montclair department of health so at that point the guidance still hasn't changed and as we heard the cdc moved the needle a little bit and we are still awaiting guidance so hopefully at this point um as guidance comes through as we just discussed um we will be able to see some changes did you have anything
041to add mrs prisco or mr olworth on that that yeah i i just thought it was really you know nothing unfortunately we weren't able to to go with anything until we get the green light um you know from the department of health but it was good to hear you know everyone's continuing to work together everyone realizes how important it is especially for the elementary to get in um you know the teachers feeling more comfortable obviously makes us feel you know a little more comfortable going forward and um again hopefully we get this green light in the next day or two i'm certainly optimistic that it's coming soon i don't know about everybody else but i'm cautiously cautiously optimistic cautiously optimistic but um but yeah is there any uh questions or comments on that from anybody
042if new we are going to have right now we're going to open it up to public comments on agenda action items to be approved this evening and the um to remind the public if you have a question or comment on an agenda item to please state your name and your address and i'm going to ask mr roberts to open the line for that and i am going to mute i show no hands for a public comment on action zone we did not see any hands up for public comment on agenda items so we are going to continue on are there any discussion items on new or old business that anyone on the board would like to bring up i'm just going to toss out there um in the spirit of the board and we had
043our goals on and one of them was you know to keep ourselves up to the minute on professional development and personal development pam and i mrs prisco and i attended the essex county uh new jersey school board's associate association meeting last week and it was really well attended and it's always nice to get out of your echo chamber and your own community and hear what's going on across the state and the format was really nice because they did breakout sessions this time so they had really small groups and you get to talk to people from all over the state and it's um attended by superintendents principals board members representatives from the um new jersey school board association facilitating it so i think we both found it to be a really really good worthwhile meeting so
044i would encourage board members as these meetings pop up if you have a free night they're very timely they start on time they um finish on time and i think they're worthwhile so i just wanted to add that um this is freshly i'd just like to add on that too um speaking with the other districts as well you see other districts that are exactly experiencing everything we are sitting here so it was nice to kind of you know hear from other people and see what they're doing and see how their wheels are spinning and same kind of uh ideas um and also i was very impressed with um a board member from milburn he is a senior well he was a senior last year in milburn high school and when he was on his second
045year as a board member and he spoke unbelievably he was just yeah kudos to him and um you know he was really uh very impressive very impressive but it was very informative and it was nice to interact with the other districts to see what everyone's doing and just trying to get ideas and go from there so it was interesting thank you i just wanted to say uh congratulations to mr sona for his uh retirement as the head night custodian for vhs um congratulations and best wishes thank you very much for that call out and the other thing i just want to comment on is the one district one book and just say thank you for delivering my book to me and i am thoroughly enjoying my trip through the pine barrels this year yeah it's
046great it's great so it's it's you know it's those little things that kind of give us encouragement to keep moving right this is a big thing this is a really it's a huge undertaking um from mrs walker and miss freda every year and thank you to the verna foundation for educational excellence for sponsoring this every year um and we really look forward to it and it was such a wonderful shining light that came through to us like while it was still pretty dark out at night you know early on so um we look forward to it every night with our kids it really is so wonderful thank you how many years is the one district one book going now oh it's longer it it it's at least seven i've been here seven years so it's
047at least seven wow it's great i love it it could be longer i love it can i just add one quick thing also for um today was his last day mr corrado at the middle school so i would just uh i think we might have mentioned when he put in his couple months ago when yeah but today was his officially his last day at the middle school i think he was a phys ed teacher there for 14 plus years plus he went to all the hbw so he will be greatly missed but i wish him all the best in his family so thank you thank you for bringing that up and i just want to do a shout out for on one of the addenda models mrs da silva is leaving the district uh she
048will be missed she was uh well currently is the guidance counselor for both of my my children and uh done a wonderful job um very impressed um when i put on my parental hat i learn a lot when i go sit down in the room and talk to her when we talk about you know my children so i want to thank your wish well and again you will be missed thank you for that and is there anything else okay so we are going to move on to roll call to vote on resolutions so i need a motion to move resolutions number one through nine move by mrs drapey second second by mrs crisco is there any discussion on any of those agenda uh items no i don't think so either okay then i'm going to
049ask mr turner to please do a roll call mr allworth yes mrs strappy yes mr day yes mrs briscoe yes and mrs fresh yes the motions pass excellent thank you very much and we have addendum resolutions this evening as well so we are going to first look at um agenda resolutions number one through ten i need a motion to for the approval of one through ten move by mrs droppy second by mr day and are there any discussions on those uh yeah i just saw that a lot of some of the grant money is being used for some of the projects so i thought that was uh moving forward in the right direction and able to take advantage of that money that's being used uh in the proper capacity so just wanted to flag that
050out thank you mr day are there any other questions or comments mr turner will you please do the roll call mr allworth yes mrs trappy yes mr day yes mrs briscoe yes and mrs french aye the motions pass thank you very much and then we have a separate addenda item resolution number one and mr turner is going to fill us in with some details in regard to that okay all right this is in regards to the referendum resolve that the board approve a change order for a scary construction in the following manner original contract amount 362 thousand five hundred forty three dollars previous change order amount seventeen thousand five hundred twelve dollars fifty two cents current change order a negative or reduction of ninety thousand dollars for a final contract amount of two hundred ninety
051thousand fifty five dollars and fifty two cents resolve that the board reduced payment application number four from one hundred seventy thousand eight hundred sixty three dollars to net eighty thousand eight hundred sixty three 000 and approve saying resolve that the business office and attorney shall take all actions necessary to effectuate the purposes of this uh resolution thank you mr turner um i need a motion to approve adenza resolution number one moved by mrs prisco second second by mr jay are there any questions in regards to that i mean do we want to explain to the public i mean basically this is allowing us to get 90 000 cost reduction due to the contractor delays correct that's the reason why yeah and that was in regard to uh the masonry the steps at all the schools
052all right so that was great thank you very much and mr turner will you please do the roll call to vote mr walworth yes mr strappy yes mr day sure yes this is prisco yes and this is freshy hi the motion passes thank you very much and that brings us to wait one second let me get back to my main page we're going to open up for public comments and i'm just going to read the statement again for any members of the public that jumped on a little late so before opening the florida public comment on items that you might want to discuss the public should be aware that the board will be conducting a lengthy closed session discussion on topics including personnel and negotiations we anticipate that these discussions will last not less than
053two hours accordingly pursuant to the board by law zero one six seven the public comment on open items will be received by the board until 9 pm at which whoop excuse me at which point we will close the public comment and move on into closed session so i want to just thank everybody in advance for understanding we do have a lot of things to discuss tonight and when you come yes yes i apologize i made an error before in my statement about the one district one book it was the vea who sponsored it not uh the verna foundation for educational accents i just wanted to make that correction i apologize for the mistake thank you mrs jaffee i just want to repo remind the public um when you speak to please state your name and
054your address and i am gonna ask mr roberts and we do have a five minute per person limit and we are going to adhere to that so mr roberts will give a 30 second um warning before the five minutes is up as we move forward and i am going to mute thank you mr roberts all right first up is lynette matheson hi this is lynette matthewson at 11 wilton terrace i uh i'm glad to see my hand is working tonight i had it raised the whole last meeting i updated my zoom tonight so um i just want to talk a little bit about the high school population from the last port of ed meeting i think it's clear that we're sensing there's a little bit of an urgency from parents to we need help inspiring
055our kids to get back to school i do have a daughter that's a junior and she has been going in for in-person learning and it has been less than desirable um i did speak to mr cogdell this past week and i won't spend too much time talking about that but the one thing i wanted to ask and i know we recently sent out a survey which i am thrilled that you finally decided to reach out directly to these teens because i will say that going to them to ask what they're feeling what they maybe want could make all the difference in the world even if what you see in that survey which i will be so excited to see what is what what really came back even if it's not exactly what we want to
056see um i think just them having a chance to to hear their you know have their voice heard is going to make a big difference um but if it doesn't and those numbers still look very low as to which students plan to return i just want to ask if you have um some ideas as to how you're going to help re-engage these students because it is becoming a problem um and also one other thing so that's the one thing um also can you speak openly about what you really are um requiring of teachers as far as those room configurations i couldn't really get a straight answer this past week i know we're trying to inspire the teachers to have the room set up in a way that would mean the students are not sitting on
057those screens all day long but i really i really need to hear from someone that that's going to change you know to even finish this year and if we go into next year and you know the governor just says hey we're still offering remote learning i cannot imagine students sitting there in a hybrid setting for another whole school year so those are my two questions thank you very much thank you i will and i'll speak to it and i'll also have mr dr miller speak to the second question uh as well regarding the room configurations um i can definitely speak to that because of my conversations with mr cogdill and mr lancaster and also teachers on the committees that we've had a lot of conversation with so obviously being in the hybrid we would definitely
058recognize the challenge that that is for our students we definitely recognize the challenge that that is for our teachers as well in trying to live in this world of the students who are in the classroom and the students who are home and in most instances not all but in most instances at the high school we have a lot of kids who are home a lot of our students who are home so teaching in the classroom to a few students and then having a majority of the students at home makes it quite challenging it does vary teacher by teacher uh and and that varies because of the teachers uh teaching style and also by it's predicated by the number of students who are in the classrooms there are some classrooms that only have a few students
059and there are other classrooms that have 10 or 12 or 13 students in them so when you have more students in the classroom obviously that creates a different atmosphere and whether or not the teacher has the students there based on the lesson that they're delivering with the students having their the chromebooks or their computers open it is something that the administration is aware of uh it is something that our teachers are aware of and it's something that we've had conversations around and our hope is is that as as we're able to recalibrate um and the number of students coming into our schools uh into school on a regular basis through the cohorts that we're going to be able to get more students in and be able to change that classroom environment where the the teacher
060is teaching a larger number of students which definitely plays into significantly in what that classroom experience feels like which from listening to our students and getting feedback from them that's something that they're definitely missing they're missing the normalcy of school they're missing their friends in not only in life but also in a in the classroom setting there is a social component to that just being in school and being in class and the six feet of distancing has definitely hampered that um and that's why we're looking at ways that we can re-engage our students as well that if the six feet of distancing is still in play and a guideline for the high school and it very well may be what are the things that we can do can we adjust the cohorts so that way
061the students who commit to coming in person actually do show up so we can really make sure that our cohorts are tight and that the kids who are coming into school are coming in consistently excuse me and that we're also looking at the opportunity to create this avenue for the afternoon to expand that in-person time um and and also for the socialization in the middle of the day outside as the weather gets warmer uh for our students to re-engage so there are logistical issues there are operational issues scheduling issues we still have to send an update that'll be coming out shortly to our parents but um thank you mrs matthewson it's definitely something that has resonated is something that we're listening to it's what we're hearing that message and we're working on that to try
062to make it better for our kids [Music] dr janiceo can i just um quickly piggyback off of what she's saying here i think because i think her questions are definitely related right how do we re-engage the students and i think a big part of that is showing that that they're in school it is a more engaging experience right they go hand in hand what are the teachers saying that is their biggest obstacle in in the high school classrooms you know i mean like i know from my elementary perspective but i i'm having a hard time understanding like what are their biggest obstacles in order to teach to both to get the kids at home and to the kids in the classroom what are they saying i think it varies by teacher some teachers are uh
063they have their cameras up and this they're they're instances where the students are not on the computers when they're in the classroom and that's dictated by the type of lesson the subject area um and you know the delivery of that and how many students are in the classroom when you're having discussions in the classroom perhaps group discussions it's difficult to have group discussions when you only have two or three students in the classroom that looks very different when it's 10 or 12 students in the classroom and the students at home are participating um so i think from what the teachers have shared that's a really big piece the other piece is um you know trying to teach into this these two media are very different difficult um and that hybrid piece no matter what grade
064level you're teaching is is posing the challenge um so i think some teachers are doing an outstanding job of it um and other teachers i think all of our teachers are based on the circumstances that they're currently grappling with um it depends on what you're teaching it it really does if you're teaching a course that's heavily dependent upon technology then it lends itself very nicely right but if you're if you're dealing with discussion based or different activities that typically take place in the classroom there's a lot of variety that goes into how you plan accordingly around that are they saying that they need something because there's something that they need like technology equipment that like you know the challenge so the the biggest piece of the biggest part of the conversation that we've had is
065if we can get all the kids in right that's the best case scenario right pedagogically instructionally right the second best option is all the kids remote right because now you're teaching to one medium right but that's not ideal either so we're kind of uh not only because we want kids in person but we also have uh the requirement of keeping remote for good reason because we're in the middle of a pandemic and that's going to be here at a minimum through the rest of this year we don't know what next year will bring but it may possibly be here next year so we have to kind of look at all of those things and it's that hybrid piece that's a real a real push and pull okay dr miller is there anything that perhaps you
066could add to that that uh we haven't covered no i think you've said it all uh when you have two students in class and you have 20 at home you teach to the students at home and unfortunately students in class they have their computer that's how they can interact with the students who are home so i talked to mr cogdell as well like the more students that come in the easier it will be for our teachers to transition they've been used to doing this for a majority of the year so they also have a flow of doing this and the kids are used to using the technology so i think when we get more kids back i think we'll have more opportunities for collaboration uh hopefully we can get students closer than six feet uh
067and i think i think we'll see teachers change but until then i don't think you're going to see that much of a difference thank you dr miller and i'll also add to that that the communication that will be coming out from the high school in the next few days as we start to start finishing up tightening up you know at least the tentative plans of trying to look ahead uh and we're still working some things out is going to try to provide a level of detail so that way parents can make informed decisions as to what what modality works best for their child and we hope that with that communication and making those adjustments that if you want to be fully remote you're fully remote if you want to be fully in you're fully in
068but at least this way we can try to create a better experience based on true cohort numbers and increase as many students as we can safely in the school and and hopefully that will contribute to a different experience for our students in the classroom setting okay uh next is paula devito mrs devito you're on mute can you hear me now yeah yeah yes okay uh paula devito 90 woodland avenue um i literally i just have one question but i do want to after hearing that the few callers that just called in i just want to point out the one word that i keep hearing is the the re-engage so when we're talking about re-engaging the students i i have to say the seniors have really had a rough year they have not really had any
069um in-person time at all um and the other thing i wanted to point out was they literally have about i don't know six seven weeks left before they start their um their capstone so at that time of the year you're going to end up with you know a bunch of extra um spaces right in the school that that may actually work out for the underclassmen um but again the students you know the seniors who have only you know been in school you know the deal right like i don't know a year and a half they haven't even been in school um but i just wanted to point that out about the fact that they're gonna be gone like you know in about a month or so so i'm not sure you know what the plan
070is for some you know additional activities like um college day things like that um but the question i was going to ask and you you kind of stated it early on is about the confirmation about the end of year activities so if anything were to happen do you guys have a plan b in place for you know prom and banquet and and stuff like that so that we can you know get something for these kids thank you mrs devito um uh i echo your sentiments uh i know that our teachers and class advisors the club advisors in the high school administration feel the same way um we all do and um it is very it is unfortunate that this is the senior year that our seniors have had um it certainly is something that does
071not fall on deaf ears we have board members who have seniors um you know i have a senior who graduated last year and his experience was cut short but it was nothing like the experience of our current seniors we're committed to trying to re-engage and get our students into school in person as much as possible and that's why we are looking at this afternoon section of in-person learning with an open campus during the middle of the day for some socialization for that critical piece that we know is so important and to give them something to look forward to uh in the coming months as well as uh the high school's been working with parent groups uh with our student groups uh with our advisors around planning for proms senior banquets doing this all by the
072guidelines and making sure it's safe but trying to give our students our seniors especially but giving all of our students that experience and also some outdoor as the weather improves um outdoor events that will be social and safe uh and fun for them uh and trying to take advantage of all of those opportunities and coming up with what plan a is and what plan b is um and and making sure that we're we're doing it safely but to try to return some normalcy for them um in in their final months here at verona high school they definitely deserve it so we are working on that and um it's around the clock in making sure that our our staff is is prepared for that i know the administration at the high school has been committed to
073that and working with our students and our staff and our parents on that thank you okay next is dan vecchio mr vecchio you're on mute mr vecchio going once going twice okay moving on uh next is anya singleton hi uh anya singleton 33 brookdale ave um i just wanted to ask a quick question i'm an elementary school parent and um especially in light of what looks like they may be moving to one cohort i know a lot of people have been frustrated that the kids can't use the playground during the school day um and that's been really hard for the kids especially because for some of our schools we have like a private preschool that uses the facilities and they see them doing so outside of their classroom windows so i was curious if that's
074going to change with the reduced guidance if the kids would since they would still be masked and they could use hand sanitizer before and afterwards be actually permitted to use the playgrounds during school as opposed to just having to use it the minute school ends thank you mrs uh singleton so that is something that we are in discussions over um the use of the playgrounds uh and they're beautiful and they're wonderful we want our students to be able to start using them on a regular basis during school hours but the the limiting factor there has been the six feet of distancing mostly the touch point surfaces was something early on but the transmission within six feet was something that was more of a concern but that is something now that we are looking at uh
075because we want to be able to provide that opportunity for our students so that is something that's on our agenda to see if we can restore and having some guidelines around how many students would be on those playgrounds at a certain time but this way our students can use those during some recess time during throughout the day hey uh christy ruggierio mr geria you're on mute going once going twice hi can you hear me all right sorry about that the first time uh dan vecchio 36 west lincoln street um lisa and pam you both indicated you went to some kind of conference um with other districts and you had breakouts with them i'm wondering if any of those school districts uh decided not to be bound by that six foot uh recommendation by the cdc
076and uh before the cdc changed it and the doh and if or if they are planning or were planning on it in the future um and what their plan was and why they decided to go with that and they you know don't have the um that fear of liability if they did choose to go go in that direction thank you mr pacquiao so the breakout rooms that i were in that i was in nobody went against the six foot recommendation all the districts um that were speaking and represented were adhering to it there are districts that have much smaller populations and school communities there were some districts that were only k through 6 or k through 8 and they have different spaces newer school buildings with larger classrooms so there were instances where people did
077have students in five days a week but they had different circumstances anybody who had number issues and physical space issues everybody was adhering to the six foot i don't know if mrs prisco and her breakout rooms had a different experience everyone that i spoke to in our breakout room was similar very similar to situations here in verona and abiding you know waiting on the guidance as well from their department of health so it was you know just trying to get different ideas from different people but we were all in the same pretty much on the same boat wait i'm sorry i've done this before um so did you i just wanted to make sure i understood this clearly that the folks who did not adhere to the six feet were smaller towns or that no
078they weren't they were adhering to the city they were adhering to this they were able to get they were able to get the smelling population correct correct okay lynn halsey hi lynn halsey 53 linden avenue um i just wanted to ask with the cdc recommendations uh prior to that happening we had been talking about um possibly piloting a program in elementary school that would bring students in for lunch or sending them home for lunch and i just wanted to know if with the change in the guidelines which obviously you know six feet down to three is is the ideal um but just what what would happen to that program is it something that we're still talking about uh looking at for fall and um the second question that i had was excuse me in regards
079to um the fifth graders in a lot of towns children that are in fifth grade are still in elementary school um so when you're looking at the cdc guys guidance by elementary and by middle school are you doing it specifically by building or is there any possibility for you know looking at the fifth graders is kind of like a separate um a separate demographic within the middle school thank you thank you thank you mrs halsey so uh very good questions thank you for that so i'll start with your first question first so we we were through our committees um continuing to explore that that piece about whether we were going to send have the option at the elementary level to send students home for lunch and then to come back based on that designated cohort
080day that did pose a significant number of challenges for a number of parents from the feedback we received favorable for some parents not so favorable for others it does throw a little bit of a monkey wrench in the in the afternoon sessions that are currently designed we are still exploring other options um that have we've been in discussions with over the past several weeks in looking at how we can involve the schedule to try to increase the in-person time prior to us hearing that the cdc was considering updating their guidelines around reducing it from six feet to three feet those discussions are still taking place and those plans are still taking place um in the event that and we have a high level of confidence i'm hopeful cautiously optimistic like we're all saying here that
081at the elementary level that the department of health is going to uh hopefully shift to that three feet which solves a lot of the issues at the elementary level and that's the most ideal and least disruptive to our families and to our teachers and to our kids um so that's the ideal but we are looking ahead and still planning um something for the end of april should that not be the case i personally don't believe that that's going to happen um i'm hopeful that within the next few days that we're going to be able to get some new information here um and be able to be prepared to to move forward with the three feet at the elementary school but we are still working on those other plans that have been in motion um just
082ironing out details the second question you had around fifth grade and considering them to be elementary school is a great question it is something that we've had conversations around uh we've actually not just limited our conversations to just fifth grade but we've also um looked at you know is cohorting available and possible at the middle school um a lot of the cohorting piece you know the fifth graders are in their own wing the fact that they're in their own wing can we do something that keeps them as a cohort that we do have a house model that's structured around teams does that allow us to incorporate a cohort model we would need more guidance on that from the department of health and the reason for that is if we think about our elementary schools the
083same i'll make up a classroom enrollment population the same 20 or 22 students are together self-contained in that room for most of the day that's a cohort there's very little mingling that you can control at this point you can control the the commingling of students in that capacity um during the current circumstances that we're in even though we have teams the way the middle school is designed and the complexities around above level at level special education cross house specials and languages and the fact that you know the the the fifth grade olmstead uh the group of students in social studies then uh mixes and it's not the same group that goes to the next core class that by definition may not meet the cohort definition in the sense of a pandemic it does meet it
084in the sense of developing small nurturing uh close-knit learning communities within our schools but it may not meet that cohort definition but that's not to say that we've ruled that out we are exploring that um mr galbrachik and i have had conversations over the weekend about that and that is something that we are going to continue to look at to see um if there's some promise there uh and that if if there is can we do it safely um and does it meet the cohorting definition so as of right now we don't have an answer to that but we're going to continue to look at it okay next is joanna hello um i had a chance to ask the governor on monday when the state would update its guidance to be consistent with the cdc
085he said that an update was expected to come on wednesday tomorrow although that does not mean that that update will be any change in the guidance if nothing comes from the doe i know that some districts are planning including west orange to resubmit reopening plans and kind of de facto see if the state will approve them it's i guess a de facto updating of the guidance is that something that verona has considered or would consider so thank you mrs gaggis that's an excellent question um and that is something that we are um also considering as well um we're following as we've always said the department of health guidance um but the department of education is the entity that we submit our proposals to the reopening plan to and in communication with our county officials our
086county executive office for education um so that is something that is on the table for verona in order to get further clarification so we're going to make sure that we exhaust all of our options with that i've shown no further public comment i want to thank the public for your questions and dr d'anecio uh for your responses to the public questions i want to remind before we break for private session i just want to remind the public that the next meeting is on tuesday april 13th uh beginning with confidential session at 5 30 and a 7 p.m public session and now before we break into confidential i do need a motion to for the board to resolve into some move by mrs drappy second by mrs priscow is there any discussion and then can we
087do it all in favor say aye aye aye okay so at this point the board is going to sign off and go to meet in private session we anticipate at least a two hour private session and then we will um adjourn the meeting officially after that point with no action with no action to be taken thank you mr roberts and with that good night everybody thank you very much