001the executive session of the wayne board of education regular meeting of june 16th 2022 was convened in the conference room of the wayne board of education 50 nullis drive wayne new jersey zero seven four seven zero the statement of compliance setting forth time date and location was read in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings act and the roll call was taken the meeting was recessed and is now being reconvened roll call mr moffatt mr bubba here mr duffy president mr fatale here mr kazan here mrs kumar here mr pavlak here mr prasakos present mrs put up here and mrs wenting here um we're going to rise for the flag salute followed by a moment of silence please stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all you our first
002order of business this evening will be a resolution regarding an eagle scout so if you would please come up all right good evening whereas the boy scouts of america was founded in 1910 to teach boys to be good citizens and leaders and whereas more than 5 million young boys are members of this organization and whereas the purpose of boy scouting is to inspire boys with the highest ideals of character conduct patriotism and service that they may become happy and resourceful citizens and whereas joseph squarely iii is a student and is a resident of wayne township and has completed the boy scout requirements for the rank of eagle scout troop 108. now therefore be it resolved that the wayne board of education recognizes joseph scarole iii on this special occasion and congratulates him for his outstanding
003achievements and special efforts in fulfilling the stringent character service and leadership requirements of eagle scout honoring you this day from the board of board of education june 16 2022. congratulations [Applause] there you go [Applause] and i'm sure everyone would be interested in what you did for your project because it did it benefited students in our schools thank you so much you're welcome [Applause] good evening members of the board of education and administration thank you very much for your support my project and for recognizing me and providing me to this meeting i've been a mentor for the wayne hills stars program which stands for student teaching and reaching students for for all four years and when i came time to do my go scout service project i want to do something to help the wayne hill
004stars program students the microscope my eagle scout service project called century bin suite for wayne hills high school include included 50 century bins mobile shelving rug and accessories and sensory bins are filled with various materials and tools and are helpful for students with autism and cognitive emotional and art and other disabilities and the century bins reduce stress have a calming effect focus attention and expand learning opportunities for wayne hills high school students i appreciate the help i received from the wayne hills community and many others i hope my project helped help raise awareness of the wayne hills star students and in some way help the challenges they face daily thank you [Applause] you forgot your plaque thank you ferris okay ladies and gentlemen um at this time i would ask the public's indulgence there's two
005matters of business that we did not get finished in our executive session this evening they're very important and germane to the public portion that we have to conduct later this evening so i'm going to ask for a motion from a member of the board to go reconvene into executive session motion second thank you and we will come back after we finish those two items of business thank you very much school physicians then you're all set right we got it waiting for the light to be all right thank you very much for your patience this evening's meeting is back in session um mrs oh did you want to say something mr yes madam president um i understand the importance of this meeting i understand why most of you are all here and i look forward to
006this discussion you will hear more about this without me divulging any information that you will hear later on however i just got a phone call i do have a family emergency as most of you do know i am pretty much down the middle and and willing to listen to everybody's concerns however i do have to go and you will be satisfied at the end of the meeting with uh what's going on i have uh perfect uh confidence in my colleagues here um and that being said i apologize but i do have a family emergency i was just alerted to so i'm sorry thank you mr duffy okay at this time mrs kazan will read a statement regarding our business partners here in wayne and some of the other towns that do a lot to help
007our students thank you madam president make sure my friend can hear me uh this is something that's always been near and dear to me because most of these partners in our community are very active in working with our special needs school population by allowing them to come to their businesses and learn how to do jobs that they would otherwise not have had a chance to learn so they do this for free and we're very grateful for them so tonight we recognize them whereas the wayne board of education recognizes that the overall well-being of virtually every community is defined and judged by the strength of its public schools whereas the wayne board of education recognizes the most important stakeholders in every school system are students and their parents whereas the wayne board of education also recognizes
008that local employers and other businesses also have a vested interest in successive schools whereas through its policies and practices the district has sought to create appropriate arrangements enabling employers and businesses to support learning opportunities in and out of the classroom through direct donations contributions toward instructional programs and activities volunteer projects providing mentoring opportunities work study placements and occupational training placements whereas many arrangements between school businesses and employers that have grown out of this environment have brought out a profound change to the way schools and businesses work together as opposed to maintaining traditional philanthropic relationships whereas the board of education in the wayne business community recognizes the benefits of true partnerships that support the long-term interests of students and schools while providing for sustained business involvement now therefore be it resolved that the wayne board of
009education recognizes the following businesses and employers for their efforts to enhance educational opportunities for the students of wayne township the list is on the agenda it's quite lengthy i recommend everyone please take a look at it and patronize those businesses to thank them for their service to the school community thank you and thank you to them thank you mrs kazan dr toback okay so on to the administrative summary report a great way to start my report is with our students in particular congratulations to the class of 2022 and all of our other students in the transitional grades who are moving ahead with their academic careers in the wayne township public schools we look forward to celebrating with you during the many events we have planned for our students and families in the coming week we
010wish all of our high school graduates great success as they move on to the next chapter in their lives reminder to all members of the community that our annual end of year newsletter will be distributed next week the end of year newsletter is a celebration of the class of 2022 along with other interesting news and stories from across the school district the end of year newsletter is definitely worthwhile reading for the public the agenda for this meeting is in many ways tied to the summer and our upcoming academic year and includes a variety of appointments under section five emerging school resource finance number two there's a resolution regarding the passaic county improvement authority the pci lease pcia leasing program this leasing program if approved will bring new voice over ip phone systems for wayne valley
011george washington jfk and the transportation office in addition the funding will be used to continue our one-to-one computing for our students and also to replace the number of vehicles from our transportation and facilities fleet now that we're emerging from the pandemic we're also venturing out in the same way as we did prior to the pandemic with student trips so you'll see a number of overnight field trips for band camp and one in state and one out of state football game you'll also see a resolution under section q school resource this is a shared services agreement between the township and the school district to construct the long-awaited sidewalk that will run along the reservoir to point view shopping center the construction will be completed by the township and the project is expected to be finished in
012august in time for the start of the next school year the hiv report i'm reporting the following data related to harassment intimidation and bullying incidents in the wayne township public school district there were 11 incidents investigated since my last report by my last report and eight of those cases were deemed to meet the criteria of an actual hiv incident thank you dr tobat we will a report on our end-of-year goals so [Music] do you want to have this thing okay we're ready okay can we hear me pretty well okay um so what we'd like to do is um for the for this presentation we'd like to go over our district goals for this past year and to provide the board and the community with an update of where we are with those goals and um
013what we were able to do with those goals the wayne township public schools interestingly do not do not have a strategic plan there's no five year plan there's no ten year plan but what we've operated off of is a series of goals in some cases one-year goals two-year goals in some cases three-year goals and those goals make up the foundation for all the different ways that the district moves ahead so since i've been here there's probably like somewhere between 40 and 50 goals that have been established collaboratively with the board of ed and with the community and with the teachers association and the staff um so some of the goals just if you go back over time i thought it was kind of interesting to go back we have high school block scheduling right that
014change that change at the high school is a result of a district goal our new science labs that we have that was a district goal our new elementary math and language arts program district gold our dual credit classes at the high school district goal k-rap it was a district goal full-day kindergarten district goal early childhood center district goal the wayne township learning center which is the hub of all of our professional development in-house professional development we have in the district was also a district hall along with our health and wellness initiatives one-to-one computing and the expansion of our esl program all those are our district goals as well so the goal system is very important for the district and like i said it drives innovation it drives progress it's a direction for the district to
015follow so this year in some ways related to the pandemic we we had just we had just three goals but our first goal was really our main priority it was a pandemic recovery so would you like to go to the okay so basically we knew going into the school year that we had our fair share of challenges academic challenges because we knew that obviously learning remotely for extended periods of time in the prior year was definitely going to affect progress that our students are going to make academically but we also know that where students were falling behind academically because of other issues that affect their learning like depression and anxiety so ms richmond if you'd like to go ahead sure um so so the focus this year as dr um toback just said was to
016address student and staff needs resulting from the pandemic academic intervention programs were developed additional mental health clinicians were contracted with to support students who were struggling with anxiety depression school avoidance we didn't want to task our counselors who already have very comprehensive jobs it was it was overwhelming to meet all these needs and it was a priority of ours to make sure that all of our students were needs were met in school and that they were coming to school each day we continued with permanent subs in each building to just maintain consistency have a familiar face and someone who knows the instructional staff and is familiar with curriculum with our email system and a regular in the building this slide just reinforces a lot of what was on the first slide and and again just
017to elaborate on the before and after school programs the intervention programs we had different qualifiers for students secondary secondary schools offered support during lunch and after school we had programs before and after school for elementary school students last summer screener was administered to all student students it was sent electronically to parents and this helped us just to plan and inform the counseling programs and we had our nursing supervisor who was there to support all of our schools also and anything that required immediate attention we had three additional part-time counselors in the elementary schools and tri-state coalition was used to support trauma and those students who had the most significant needs let me open up this goal um goal two was this was year two of the goal for diversity equity and inclusion um again this
018was our commitment to making sure that we look at our pros programs through a lens of diversity equity and inclusion and um the the focus this year was establishing a process in place for addressing book challenges and and these were met at the building level we developed a checklist for teachers to use when determining the appropriateness of resources in terms of alignment with standards and inclusion in classroom libraries just to make sure that we have access to appropriate resources for students we also did an audit of the digital resources in place many of our digital resources push out news articles and weekly monthly new articles and different curriculum materials that can be used as a supplement to reinforce what's being taught in class it doesn't always have time to screen for every teacher and for
019every director to look at and read through because they're being pushed out weekly um sometimes things also are being pushed out by the level we administer different tests and then things are pushed out at their lexile level so we did make the determination that some of these resources were not appropriate to continue with at this time we didn't want parents to be blindsided or in a situation where something was used that was inappropriate we didn't want teachers to be in a situation where they didn't have time to appropriately vet something out we also have a leadership team at each building and parents were involved in in these committees and these were the committees that reviewed materials and book challenges anything that may have been considered controversial and you know this is a practice that will
020continue to have in place it was very proactive and just informing and understanding what the concerns are clarifying policies and procedures and addressing anything that may needed to be looked at differently or changed another part of this goal was really refining our hr practices we became involved with a couple of new job fairs we are very consistent now any candidate that comes in has asked the same questions and we make sure that we have a procedure that's followed for all interviews at all levels with all candidates this next goal is planning for the future so um so as far as this goal goes this is something that really started with the board of ed in december the presentation by the district's demographer and also um combined with a presentation from our district architect so it
021was a retreat that was held where basically um all of our board members were brought up to speed on all these different projects that were in various stages of planning okay and you can see exactly those projects and as you know we have we have a um we have a number of new housing units that are going to be coming to wayne so what impact will that have on the school that's really the basis for the goal right um and so what that led to is a discussion of okay well if we're going to see additional students and we're going to see additional students in very specific parts of town what is that going to look like over the next 10 years so the board of ed actually looked out over 10 years looked at
022the different projects that are out there approximate completion time the impact on the school in terms of number of students and what attendance zones each of those students would be in and so how would that affect these different the different schools so at that point the board thought about well we may need to move ahead with a referendum and so at this point the board heard a presentation from a public relations expert about how to start to incorporate the community in a discussion about a possible referendum the board then heard more specific information from the architect about different projects the board then heard from their financial advisor about the financial impact of these projects and what different options might look like in terms of financial impact to the board and obviously the impact that would
023have on taxpayers and so now the board is at a point where if the board would like to move ahead with a referendum we have a retreat plan for next week where the board will basically take all this information that they've been given over the past few months and put it all together to come up with a final plan for the future in terms of our facilities so in a lot of cases it involves potential work right there's there's priority work there's work that absolutely has to be done no matter what um but there's also some other projects that are important for the future of the district academically that okay maybe they don't it's not something that has to be done but it's something that would really enhance our academic program so there's just there's
024a lot to consider and that's something that's going to go on at our our retreat so that's basically it understanding the enrollment change so i'd say the board has definitely we've met that goal and that's it thank you any questions from the board no sir thank you this is yours no this is yours i'll take everything hmm mr moffat revisions to agenda items please yes we have a few tonight one is under t emergent human resources we'll be adding attachments that weren't weren't inadvertently not attached so there's three of those support attachments under t3 approve of additional compensation number eight is cst summer case management evaluations and various meetings again we'll be adding three uh attachments and say anybody would like to see them i'll have them at my place tonight if you'd like to
025come over i could share that with you or tomorrow you can check the website we'll make sure they're attached under the next two items are under school resource legal we'll be adding x1 tonight which is approval of examination for cause administrative leave and it reads as follows whereas the employee id number 8019 is employed by the wayne township board of education and whereas based upon information provided by the administration and the judgment of the board the employee has exhibited evidence of a deviation from normal physical and mental health which is adversely affecting the employee's ability to perform essential job functions and whereas as a result of foregoing the board desires to direct the employee to submit to a physical and psychiatric and or psychological examination pursuant to njsa 18a colon 16-2 njac 86a colons 32-8
026i should say 6.2 again that's 6a 32-6.3 and board of education policy 3161 now therefore be resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools employee id number 8019 is hereby required and directed to submit to a physical examination by the school district designated physician and a written medical report detailing the results of such examination is to be provided confidentially to the board and be it further resolved employee id number 8019 is further required and directed to submit to a psychiatric examination and or psychological examination as the board may hereafter designate and the written report detailing the result of such examinations deep to be provided confidentially to the board within 30 days of this date june 16 2022 and be it further resolved that the superintendent of schools okay um further resolve that the superintendent
027of schools is hereby authorized and directed to prepare and provide the employee with appropriate statutory notice of the board's action and the reason therefore second action that we'll be adding to tonight's agenda is x2 which reads amend amendment to the shared service agreement for school resource officers and class iii special law enforcement officers that reads resolve that the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent and school business administrator approved the amendment to the shared service agreement for school resource officers and class iii special law enforcement officers between the wayne township board of education and the township of wayne as discussed in executive session and attached as for reference that concludes tonight's additions and changes thank you mr moffatt this portion of the meeting is open to citizens for comment on agenda items only
028if you see it on our agenda you can speak to it at this time there will be a public portion later on in the program thank you so this portion of the meeting is open to citizens for comment on agenda items only residents are to state their names addresses and subject matter comments may be limited to three minutes per person members of the public are discouraged from speaking negatively about an employee or a the board bears no responsibility for comments made by the public comments regarding employees or students cannot be legally responded to by the board other comments may be responded to tonight or at subsequent meetings under old business thank you uh i'm sorry motion this is kazan mr fatale thank you jim frieswick1212 summerhill road i'm here to express my objections to item
029u6 which is a proposed revision to policy number public participation in board meetings as i argued at the last board meeting this proposal should not be adopted because it imposes too much of a restriction on the public's freedom of speech prior to august 19th of last year the public had a right to speak for five minutes twice during each public session 10 minutes at each public session for a total of 20 minutes on august 19th this board amended district policy number 0167 to reduce by 40 percent the time allowed the public the time allowed for the public to speak it reduced the time from five minutes to three minutes again the public could speak twice for three minutes at each session so for a total of 12 minutes at the board meetings so the time
030was reduced from 20 minutes down to 12. tonight you're voting on a policy which which would further restrict the public's freedom of speech from 12 minutes down to eight minutes you would allow the public to speak for only three minutes at the first session public session and five minutes at the second public session for a total of eight minutes they would not be allowed to speak for a second time at either session and you're proposing to reduce the first public session to 30 minutes and the second public session to 90 minutes which would restrict the public participation at the first session to only 10 members of the public if they all spoke for the maximum of three minutes each and it would also reduce the maximum number of people who can speak to 18 members
031during the second session if they all spoke for a maximum of five minutes i think a better policy would be to allow five minutes for each person to speak at each public session and then allow each member an additional two minutes after everyone else has spoken at each session so that would be seven minutes total at each session for a total of 14 minutes per meeting and i also would not limit either public session to any particular amount of time is that it oh thank you hi lovely madara 20 people on zev i'm actually a graduating senior from wayne valley class of 2022. um i want to discuss one of the goals that was presented regarding the appropriateness of books and school curriculum and resources um so a great deal of this affects students just
032like me which is why we showed up today to make sure that we're heard and represented so my question is um how do you plan on addressing misinformation when it comes to your school curriculum there's a lot of things that goes on like that goes goes on social media about what's in the curriculum or not and so as many of you know we're outside this morning just like outside right before this meeting and we were giving out pride flags and we had this one woman come up to us and non-consensually show our student group um pornographic imagery from facebook and she claimed i was in the school curriculum and when i asked for sources and information she could not give the author or the title of the book and where she found it on uh
033in the school curriculum so this type of misinformation is incredibly harmful to our community as it divides us on an issue that's pretty much non-existent so how do you plan on addressing the social media misinformation and other examples of it that directly contradict and challenge the school's curriculum without any solid backing thank you [Applause] cindy simon 1444 rats a road first i'd actually like to start by complimenting um the idea of the uh book clubs in middle school that's associated with the summer reading list i think that was really creative i'll give you guys a thumbs up for that um the second thing that i wanted to speak to goes to not the limiting of the amount of time people can speak um in the public sections but limiting the amount the number of people
034that can speak i think as elected officials it is your um duty to give the public an opportunity to be heard and and to share what their views are whatever those views are and you know if that happens to take more than 90 minutes you know at some board meeting that is the job of elected officials to listen and believe me i am sympathetic with all of you i used to be on the board when we used to go to one o'clock in the morning so i know i hear i hear both sides of this but we really have to give the public a chance to be heard that's how we be a town that's how we work together thank you thank you um we have some retirements to celebrate this evening [Music] um mr
035fatale congratulations to lee agnes on her retirement from the wayne township public schools lea has been teaching special education in wayne for 15 years for most of her career she taught self-contained classes at the onset she worked at pack and act tunis and lafayette elementary schools with most of her teaching years spent at jfk this year she is splitting her days at randall carter and fallon as a resource room teacher for many years lee has dedicated herself to impacting the lives of countless children in wayne and helping them soar her hard work patience and kindness will never be forgotten lee plans to spend her retirement time doing some traveling and enjoying time with family we wish her nothing but the best mr bubba barbara arbuchi we are here today to show our respect and love
036for ms barbara arbuchi barbara has spent 10 years supporting students and programs as a paraprofessional during her tenure she has served in the capacity of a one-to-one shared and classroom paraprofessional barbara has touched so many lives along the way including fellow colleagues teachers families and most importantly students she always puts students first and treats all with kindness and respect barbara was a joy to work with and has always provided consistency and diligence to all assignments barbara you will be missed green township public schools wishes you good luck in the future endeavors enjoy retirement with your family thank you mrs kumar herbert feeks herbert feaks will be retiring from the transport transportation department on july 1st urb began his career in wayne on august 26 2002 over the course of 20 years of service to the
037wayne township public schools he has been dedicated to his work responsibility of transporting students with great care and concern every day of his employment perv has truly been an asset to the transportation department and his daily work ethic and dedication will be missed for many years he took a midday route to transport our youngest students our kindergartners and preschoolers his years of service and commitment to transporting the students of the district will be hard to replace er will now have more time to watch his beloved yankees play ball and work at the jackals games at montclair state university he will be missed but never forgotten from all your friends and co-workers best wishes for a long happy and healthy retirement [Applause] thank you mrs kumar hey action on agenda madam president i'd like to make
038a motion to pull the physical contract and send it back to committee for further evaluation uh motion do i have a second so we have one item pulled action on the rest of the agenda madam president oh yes i'm i'm very sorry we have a motion on on the table uh all those in favor of pulling that item from the agenda i'll take mr moffatt will take roll mrs kazan yes mrs kumar yes mr pavlak yes mr prasakos mrs wintick yes mr bubba yes mr fatale yes and mrs puttup yes motion carries thank you madam president i've moved to make a motion to move the entire agenda as concerned second okay mr pavlak mr bubba okay motion to move the entire agenda discussion on any item please see no discussion roll call mr moffatt mrs
039kazan yes mrs kumar yes on all items abstain except for abstention on x1 mr pavlak yes to everything you know abstain on emergent t number eight yes to everything else mr prosaccos no on l2 of staying on u6 i'm sorry the abstain was for no on l2 abstain on u6 u6 and yes to everything else thank you sir mrs wendig um no on l2 and abstain on u6 yes to everything else mr bubba yes mr fatale yes mrs put up yes emotions carrie thank you okay we have committee reports this evening mr pavlak the facilities and transportation committee met this evening myself mrs kazan mr fatale mr tibbetts mr romaine mr skibitsky and mr moffatt of course we reviewed tonight's items on the agenda we reviewed the minutes from the previous meeting the shinman property
040is out for appraisal we reviewed some policies we saw regarding facility use maintenance and repair and emergency and crisis situations as far as drills go we did review two positions one that's being filled from the budget next year and the second which may be needed down the road at some point we have a security project going on wayne hills skyward colfax in wayne valley our esports center is up and running at wayne hills and soon to be coming to wayne valley our generator project at pines lake in the bus depot are nearing completion we're also the hvac the hvac system at wayne valley is being the controls are being updated so that we don't have a school that's 100 degrees in the middle of the night in better energy efficient seed also to increase proper
041air flow with covid our fields are going to be going under major renovations at all the high schools in-house with our facilities grounds crews we're going to be upgrading and cleaning up a lot of the fields over the summer we have a hefty list of projects that our facilities department is undertaking this summer from painting in schools to new facades the gym floors at wayne valley and wayne hills are being stripped down to bear and they're going going to be repainted with logos and striping necessary for our athletics our transportation department basically we're same old same old we don't have enough bus drivers um our outside the outside contracts have if not doubled in some cases um so we're looking at all different alternatives we did have the uh we do have two bus drivers
042in training now and three more in the process of hiring so hopefully uh that will help alleviate some of our uh shortage in manpower we also are in cooperation with the transportation safety authority we're going to be doing some security training and also some review of our security policies for school buses and the best part is tsa does it for free so we will always take free thank you thank you mr pot um mr baba thank you personnel committee tonight met with myself mrs puttup and mr prasakis our administrators in attendance were mrs clark mr moffitt and ms tibbetts tonight we discussed the we reviewed the april 21st personnel committee minutes we reviewed tonight's agenda items with the additional attachments that were added tonight we discussed an employee leave we discussed two changes from a
043stress estimate for policies numbers 3161 and 4161 we heard two new facility job descriptions and we had a request for re tuition reimbursement from an employee and that was the end of our meeting thank you mr bubba those are our committee reports okay the next portion of this meeting is open to citizens for comment on any topic residents are to state their names addresses and subject matter comments may be limited to three minutes per person members of the public are discouraged from speaking negatively about any employee or student the board bears no responsibility for those comments made by the public comments regarding employees or students cannot be legally responded to by the board other comments may be responded to this evening or at subsequent meetings under old business do i have a mover mrs kumar
044mr prosaccos thank you come on up hi alan a sartre 61 brandon did you know that the seahorse is the only species in which the male gives birth it's true no other species not even humans after seeing the state sex ed curriculum online i was flabbergasted that impressionable children will be taught inappropriate subject matter if examples of the subject matter are inappropriate for board meetings then they're inappropriate for our classrooms and libraries the existence of man and woman boys and girls males and females who can have different sexual preferences and feelings and learning about human biology and body parts and their biological reproductive functions can maybe be a part of an 11th or 12th grade curriculum without infusing any political ideology proselytizing false narrative confusion interrogation or unauthorized surveying anything else is for the parents
045at home with their own individual values parents were supposed to be involved in the writing of this curriculum now we learn it'll be written by the wizard hiding behind the curtain over the summer sure we can provide feedback on let's talk but the curriculum will already be written this should have started earlier with parents a part of the process before the end of the school year but you'll write it as you see fit thoughts that disagree with you be damned but at least we can opt out of it which makes me wonder if this is also appropriate why the opt out option why not an opt-in option instead i have to move on to something else because that's a very important to me at a board meeting last fall we were told that since the
046implementation of common core math in 2010 30 of wayne students are failing math according to u.s news and world report using 2021 enrollment data in our district only 63 percent of elementary students tested at or above the proficiency level for math about 1700 out of 2700 63 percent for junior high and 50 54 for high school thirteen hundred out of about twenty four fifty is it the kids or the curriculum because as a twenty out of twenty twenty i also found that seventeen percent of wayne students are ieps further research shows that kids brains are not developed enough to process and grasp the difficult and not age-appropriate common core math concepts which leads to frustration and loss of self-confidence which i've seen with my own daughter now with some extra help she'll get i was
047told quote she'll learn math the way it was supposed to be taught shouldn't that be happening anyway the worst kept secret is that nobody likes the common core math program you have a responsibility to change it so kids can learn math with age-appropriate concepts to achieve with confidence function in real life and not be asked the unanswerable question why does two plus two equal four as the last election showed it's time to remove all personal and political and political agendas trends and ideologies from the entire school curriculum start doing what's right by our kids and the taxpayers not for trenton or for money or for you thank you [Applause] hi my name is sandy and i live in wayne a quick question when you did the committee reports i didn't hear anything from the education
048committee so i was just wondering if we're going to get a report from the education committee tonight at our board of education meeting thank you that's it artist cardenas sunset terrace what i'm about to read regarding the new health and pe standards are available at new jersey.gov forward slash education and if you haven't already i encourage everyone to look for yourself i just randomly picked some of the information and expectations for personal growth and development expectation 2.1.5 pgd point four states explain common human sexual development and role of hormones in eg romantic and sexual feelings masturbation mood swings etc expectation two point one point five ssh point differentiate between sexual orientation and gender identity expectation demonstrate ways to promote dignity and respect for all eg or sexual orientation gender identity race socioeconomic status immigration status
049and family configuration here are some expectations by the end of grade 8. expectation 2.1.8 chs dot 3 identify the state and federal laws related to minors access to sexual health care services not for nothing the minor's sexual health care should be directed to the parent expectation 2.1.8 ss 8.9 define vaginal oral and anal sex that was pretty uncomfortable right but what are kids going to do you know kids are curious and computer savvy and so what's the first thing they're going to do and the teacher tells them about anal sex they're going to go home and they're going to google it and i was going to read what i found but it was totally not a plural appropriate for this setting but i encourage you to go home google it and tell me it's not
050obscene um i'd also like to point out there are school districts that find the new curriculum inappropriate east hanover school district is not is is going to accommodate students and parents requests the garwood board of ed passed a resolution that states they shall not adopt their curriculum and here's another board of ed that's doing it right the montague new jersey board of ed just voted seven to zero not to adopt the curriculum and here's some of the things they had to say whereas the montague bjord of ed refuses to approve curriculum that would result in subject matters including but not limited to oral sex anal sex masturbation and gender identity being discussed with children at all grade levels whereas it is undisputed that generally speaking the state department of education does not mandate curriculum whereas
051it is also undisputed that the authority to approve instructional materials is vested in the local board of education [Applause] state state standards are not curriculum and they are not mandated what they are is four measly cusack points and i can assure you that parents and prospective home buyers taxpayers are more concerned with the quality of their kids curriculum in education than forced cusack points other boards are not adopting the curriculum and we respectfully implore that you do not adopt this curriculum this controversial and inappropriate curriculum as well good evening diane death at 36 lake trail east and i'd like to speak about the updated health and phys ed standards which to my understanding please correct me if i'm wrong involve one lesson for grade two one lesson for grade five and one lesson for grade
052eight and these lessons have not yet been created by the wayne schools i wish what i'm about to tell you wasn't true but it is do you know that according to the national center for victims of crime one in five girls one in five girls and one in 20 boys are the victims of sexual abuse and those are just the ones we know about because those children were brave enough to come forward and i'd like to tell you as a teacher and as a former girl scout leader or retired teacher i'd like to tell you it doesn't exist but it does did you also know that these comprehensive standards that are being proposed by the new jersey department of education can actually help prevent child abuse that is one of the goals of these standards
053to protect children from being abused in the excuse me i always had a rule in my classroom we all respect speaker power the rest of us are listening thank you much if my children could do that certainly we adults can do better in the past few years excuse me mrs statham this just a moment please she's totally correct what are we teaching our children if we can't respect each other when we speak what are we teaching them thank you we'll proceed thank you in the past few years catholic clerics evangelical clerics even boy scout leaders have been involved in abusing children again i'd like to tell you it's not true but i know it is i'm going to leave some documents with you about this because i feel like as an adult as a retired
054teacher as somebody who's a girl scout leader it's the job of us adults to protect the children that's our job to protect the children as the parent of two successful wayne school grads as a retired teacher as a former girl scout leader i happily dedicated decades of my life to the children of the town i called them my young musicians in my classroom and as i said i'd like to tell you that this doesn't happen but it does and it's our responsibility to do everything in our power to give the students the tools that can help ensure that they do not become victims and that if they are victimized that they have the courage to step forward and let the trusted adults that they know help them get the assistance they need when this happens
055so on behalf of my former students and all the children of wayne i ask you to please consider this i ask you to please push beyond your anger and your fear and think about this for the sake of our children thank you [Applause] ryan battershield 63 cannot drive um i just want to point out that about eight months ago uh dr tobeck made a promise to us at that time that we would be fully in sorry too low better so about eight months ago dr toback made a promise to us that we would be fully involved in the uh curriculum that would be developed over that period of time i came back five times to get confirmation of that at the board meetings and he confirmed each time that we would be fully involved in
056the development of the curriculum and the approval of the curriculum and ensuring considering how sensitive this is to everybody on all sides that this would be something that we would be involved with he spoke specifically about ensuring that parents and teachers would sit down at the individual schools and discuss the curriculum to ensure that everybody was on board with where it is we would talk about opt-in and opt-out abilities to be able to choose how those things were working in today's day and age we could even talk about virtual instruction for these things so that the parents would be able to be there and answer questions none of that has occurred now the latest things that have come out is that we will get a online survey and sometime in august to be able to
057respond to and as the gentleman beforehand said no chance to be able to update the curriculum that we agree with but there's an opt-out form that's attached to it which will go out which none of the parents who are away on vacation over the summer and don't won't get an opportunity to be able to go through and see these things can't be communicated through the schools now because all of the schools are going to be closed and away for the summer so we have left ourselves with no opportunity to be able to go back and engage the community properly on this topic this very sensitive and deeply felt topic to all parents i therefore ask that you make sure that this gets delayed until that has occurred throughout the school system and that we have
058a proper set of information available that has been properly discussed with the community and is available to be able to be put back to a proper set of information in the way that we can actually teach our kids the way that we see fit as parents cindy simon wayne um first um it's my understanding that uh in coming the fall that students in high school taking enriched classes will get some kind of weight on their average of um on their gpa if that's true that's great reward people for their extra efforts [Applause] i'm going to read the part of the standards that weren't read which is the second grade standards core idea every individual has unique skills and qualities which can include the activities they enjoy such as how they may dress their mannerisms and
059things they like to do performance expectations 2.1.2 ssh 0.1 discuss how individuals make their own choices about how they express themselves 2.1.2 ss 8.2 discuss the range of ways people express their gender and how general stereotypes may limit behavior in other words what harry um and miss whitney have been objecting to our children learning is that they can be themselves that they don't have to light dolls in dancing because they're girls and not like them because they're boys they don't have to like trucks and martial arts because they're boys and they don't have to like them and they shouldn't like them because they're girls we're not this standard doesn't require anything other than teaching that people can be who they are they don't have to conform to the rigid gender or sex we call them
060sex stereotypes when i was growing up and we recalled the requirement that people conform to them sexism that's all this this this standard is saying by the end of second grade the second core idea families shape the way we think about our bodies our health and our behavior performance expectations 2.1.2 ssh 0.3 describe different kinds of families locally nationally and globally and note similarities in the ways in which they keep their children safe 2.1.2 ssh.4 determine the factors that contribute to a healthy relationship within a family again what's being objected to here is sue may live with mommy and daddy sarah may live with only one parent adam may live with his extended family and tommy has two mommies all these parents love the kids and want the best for their children let me be
061clear i absolutely respect the right of any parent to opt their children out of any of the single lessons that this school district said would be taught either in second fifth or eighth grade on the topics that are covered what i have an issue with and where i stand firm is the right of all children in our schools to be free to express who they are to be welcome into our schools whether they come from traditional families or any of the other forms family units take these days and to be free from being bullied for being who they are and who their families are the right to be an individual who are welcome and safe from bullying only happens if we acknowledge the differences and teach respect our schools have signs that say no place
062for hate massage yes thank you nicholas stallion ss576 valley road what i'm going to say is short simple and sweet what i've grown up to know and what common sense really says school is meant for math reading writing and social studies and science not for sex and sexual orientation that is simple [Applause] god gave me my parents so they can teach me that on their basis he did not make you guys or my teachers my parents because it's left for my mother and my father to teach me what i need to know at the kitchen table that's how it's supposed to be not in a classroom not for second graders fifth graders or 8th graders it's meant for my parents to teach me i do not need to know about sex or sexual orientation in
0638th grade and in elementary school when i grew up i didn't know what gay or straight was that's not a topic you talk about who's got what toy or what you're that's what elementary school's about not that and i i don't see why some person or a group of people in trenton need to tell me what i'm learning i don't get that and i i honestly don't have a problem with the board but i am asking the board don't allow this to happen stand up because i'm taught in school for everything to happen even in our country for us to gain our freedom there needs to be a rebel there needs to be someone to say no and that's what we're asking you to do it's not homophobic it's not against expressing yourselves people express
064themselves freely at my school they do it every day and there's no problem with that it's about teaching it it's like the gentleman said earlier there shouldn't be an opt out there should be an opt-in that's what it's all about thank you and have a wonderful night [Applause] mark faber overlook avenue so i i i come up here every time and i'm just so flustered so let's address some of the things that we said if the curriculum was actually about teaching kids about gender stereotypes and that they don't have to you know commit to those that would be wonderful the problem is the agenda is not to teach kids that if they if a boy plays with a doll that that's okay it's that if a boy plays with a doll he may be a
065girl that's the problem is that it's not about just telling people to be people it's like well if you're doing this and this doesn't you know fit well maybe you're something else that's where the problem is if everybody should just be who they are nobody should be bullied that's great but this is not what's being taught so let's talk about where we're headed with this gender ideology and everything like that so now i follow this i study this and i've seen now that there are people online that actually identify as animals they're trans species there are people now that are identifying as trans-racial so how far do we take this where do we stop and where we say okay there's some things that we're going to have to teach in school there are some things
066that people are going to have to learn on their own they're going to have to be taught in their families are we prepared to start telling people that it's okay if your kid comes to school as a wolf because if you look up wolf woman and horse girl and all these other people that are out there that's where we are they're pushing the boundaries people are now using nouns to be their pronouns a woman identifies as be self fairy self um one guy is demon self another one is princess self and we're taught that if you don't use somebody's expected pronouns you are transphobic or you are racist or you're whatever you are and that is not acceptable either because they are not confining themselves to a limit you have to guess what every anybody's
067pronouns could be so this is the slippery slope that we've headed down and these are the floodgates that we're opening by going down this road so when we start talking about trans-racial i know that people don't accept that people just some people think that they're they're black or they're korean i've watched these people and they genuinely believe this are we ready for that we better prepare addressing the other thing the woman who said that she's speaking for her kids because she was a teacher they are not her kids my kids are my kids i don't need somebody who believes what they believe to stand up here and say i am speaking on behalf of every child for wayne that's why all of these people are here they're here to speak on behalf of their children
068they do not have the right to say and i think that's where people have lost their way what i think is right for my kid may not be what you think is right now i know that i get these emails from dr toback all the time that come out every week why can't we send out an email and ask the questions proactively to parents how they feel about the curriculum and then based upon that make the decision whether it's going to be an opt-in or opt-out if the majority of people are okay you say you choose to opt out if the majority of people are against it then it's up to the people the minority of people to opt in whichever way it goes by the parents that's the way it should be handled it
069shouldn't just be if there's going to be five people in a class that it should be an opt out we could base it on that is that the end of my time yes sir thank you [Applause] good evening jennifer layton 48 terrace road um first before i um want to speak to the new learning standards i did want to mention that in hearing that there is going to be a retreat for the board with the proposed you know enlargement of our student population from the building in town i would love to say as not only a teacher but a resident of wayne that keeping in mind having smaller class sizes would definitely be beneficial for our students um i don't think that putting a classroom aid in a class ever helps and i've teach i've
070taught classes of 27 to 32 another body in the room isn't necessarily a way for me to give more attention to my students so although i know everybody is afraid to put up these referendums because it's more money for the taxpayers i feel like it makes our schools better when we can give more individualized attention to our students so if class numbers stay down that's a great thing um so that's that and then with regard to the student learning standards i actually write curriculum myself so i was thinking about you know when i do this over the summer and we create units and lessons that go within them it's not just those specific lessons so we're talking about these like opt-in opt-out things and it's neither here nor there what my opinion is about the
071standards but my question really has to go to the opt-in or opt-out that we're talking about so we might be able to opt-in or out of these specific lessons that we're talking to but if we adopt the standards within our curriculum that means that any teacher can pull from these standards in interdisciplinary connections so my question to you is is that if we're saying okay parents can opt in or out of this then does that mean that we're also having a discussion with the staff and saying because of this only health and pe can access these standards because if that's not the case then it's not truly an opt-in or opt-out if interdisciplinary connections can be made so if the board can just speak to that i think it would help everybody really understand you
072know what this what this is about are we opting into these lessons or is this going to be something that teachers can access and it can be part of any curriculum um within any subject area thank you so much [Applause] carry on yes i know thank you thank you hi uh good evening i am norman robertson i'm a wayne resident uh i congratulate you for sitting through all these meetings that's for sure i'm here to talk about one of the specifics that i've seen gender dysphoria is a real thing gender dysphoria when someone feels trapped in a body that they can't identify with it is a very difficult path to navigate it is important for us to understand when we're doing curricula that what precedes gender dysphoria very frequently is gender confusion and yet we
073are encouraged by the state department of education one of the resources that sent out had a unit on gender for first graders for first graders and the in the teaching manual for that uh here's what basically what it said uh they that teachers should be doing put up a sign that says that uses the word gender on it then explain when we refer to a boy baby or a girl baby we're talking about what gender the baby is okay and then ask how do you know what gender you are the teacher should ask the student if the student says something like i just know it or i feel that way in the inside then put up a sign that says gender identity and by the way these are what six-year-olds and then say gender identity
074is that feeling of knowing your gender you might feel like you were a boy you might feel like you were a girl you might feel like you're a boy even if you have body parts that some people might tell you are girl parts you might feel like that you're a girl even though you have some body parts that some people might tell you or boy parts and you might not feel like you're a boy or a girl but you're a little bit of both no matter how you feel it's perfectly normal you can't sit there and tell me that a child who's six years old won't be confused by a unit that looks like that they're going to be confused we don't want that to morph into something more serious we don't want that to
075for the more serious gender dysphoria to morph into something that's even more serious we have to understand where this came from judith butler who was wrote the seminal work on this in 1990 she indicated that gender is performative and that's what this is talking about and she also said that both it is both a sexual theory and it's an application in its application it's political so we are seeing something that is politically ideological here and there's one good way of dealing with that and that is to keep politics out of our classroom [Applause] torrey esposito woodlot road uh teachers abuse children too i just wanted to get that out there and with the priests and everybody else so mr fertel mr pavlak i can respect that you can abstain from the vote until you see
076specifics i just ask you to not let the community know what those specifics are on august 15th three weeks from school start we were told at the last board meeting it's one period three total lessons out of the entire school year so i ask you what's the value of having it if it's only one period in three lessons are we just checking a box how are we teaching biology have those standards change or does an egg still have to wait for a sperm to fertilize it that's the sex that i remember we're also told let's leave it to the professionals of education the same professionals who think genderqueer is an appropriate book for teenagers and when kayla was kyle is appropriate for an elementary library you cannot pick your gender you cannot pick your race
077only women can have babies and only men have a chance of developing testicular cancer if any of the above rings is hateful to you you're going to have an incredibly tough life when reality catches up to you why do i need to opt out why can't parents opt in see what list is bigger no one especially elected officials should be telling a parent what an appropriate time is to introduce these materials it's our right as parents to protect our children from what we deem as harmful regardless of what society finds acceptable each family has different experiences values and religion no one is telling anyone how to live their life keep it out of the schools if standing up for our children burns bridges with people well i got the matches see you in two weeks
078[Applause] my name is stella fiorinelli jessica way wayne new jersey i am not here to talk about the topics right now but i do have to say something i'm sitting back there and i'm listening to everyone and you guys are asking us to be respectful but i could see it from some of the board members i'm not going to call anybody out because everyone knows what i'm talking about that we don't get the same respect when we're up here talking very condescending thank you [Applause] i'm sure you broke it you buy it i'd have to tiptoes pamasic i have a couple of questions based on the previous sport of ed meeting ms kazan had asked a question can the board reject it this was after mr prasakos tried presenting the motion can the board reject
079it outright without violating the law so my question is please tell us what law would be broken there's a difference between a law and a mandate number two mr toback said the repercussions would be an issue please tell us what that issue would be next it's my understanding that mr gepper is counsel for not only wayne but garwood as well how can there be such different outcomes from the two board of ed's so i'm genuinely wondering is garwood rejecting mr geppert's legal counsel on this matter and you know there just seems to be a lot of confusion i want to understand he's attorney for both board of eds miss kazan also said let professionals do their job i'd like to know who they are and miss kazan also said it's not pornography obviously we all
080have a different concept of what pornography is some people you know we have different belief systems that dictate what's appropriate sexual preferences or choices some people are into fetishes some people do different things i would like your definition of what pornography is so should any we so when we vote when you vote and determinations are made i want to know your point of reference what you think is acceptable since you opened it up stating you don't think the curriculum is pornography thank you hello everybody good evening this is my first time here and i find it very exciting i'm island [Applause] i'm island daniel and valero dwayne i have no children but i live in this community so your children are my children right um i don't mean to be to sound like i'm a
081preacher but the identity of these children our children are rooted in christ and they have god-given destiny please don't break our children and let them grow into fractured adults right and there are ways where we can help young children to see the signs the patterns and the behaviors of people who are sexual abusers they can defend themselves without having to learn this graphic content thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] rhonda long wayne new jersey during the last board of education meeting as i watched on tv from home i noticed that none of the boe administration or trustees mentioned the specifics of the new njsls dash chpe there are new learning requirements mandated for the second fifth and eighth grades and i believe that a lot of the confusion is stemming from the fact that our board
082has never mentioned out loud what the actual learning standards are so that the families at home don't actually know what's going on and i'm not talking about the second grade learning standards that teach us to be kind to one another regardless of what kind of a family we're from if it's mother and mother or father and father or mother and single mother and grandmother or a heterosexual couple we're not talking about teaching children to be kind and inclusive what i would like to state publicly and how embarrassed i am that i have to do this in front of my friend nick is the learning standard for the eighth grade which requires teaching 14 year old children oral and anal sex teaching 14 year old children about oral and anal sex is not educational and as
083ms kazan told us at the last meeting these learning standards were written by experts they were not i have been researching it since 2020. these new standards were written by activists that all have ulterior motives [Applause] let me say that part again by activists that all have ulterior motives ask any expert any true expert without an agenda and the teaching of those two topics is inappropriate and certainly not educational as i stand here tonight and repeat the words oral and anal sex i am concerned about having to say these words in front of the youngster here in the front row and for any children listening at home if you as board trustees didn't utter those terms at any of the past boe meetings and i as a mother have to be concerned about what children
084in earshot can hear me saying oral and anal sex how are you expecting our beautiful wayne teachers to teach it and to have 14 year old children to be mandated to learn it it was not mandated by experts as the trustee stated at the last meeting it was written by and lobbied for by activists and our governor signed it into law we all know that you took an oath to uphold the law we know that you took an oath to uphold the new jersey law but this is in no way educational and at what point do you as good people say in june of 2022 when we've been mandated by our governor to teach anal sex to eighth graders when do we stand up and become protectors and say we're not doing it [Applause] and
085saying as the daughters and sons of wayne new jersey ma'am that we're not teaching it that's right please vote it down please not the second grade standards the 8th grade anal sex standards [Applause] hi janine i'm from wayne i have one question um you see how these parents keep coming here every two weeks and telling you how they don't want these standards taught to their kids are you listening because even last week or two weeks ago it was well we still got to see what's going to come of it and let's see this and let's see that we don't want it nobody wants it and nobody's homophobic as everybody says because we don't want to be taught certain things in the school second grade gender identity they're too young for that they don't need to
086know that what what's the point and then fifth grade masturbation they don't need to know that please listen to this community they don't want it there may be a few people that do want it but the majority don't and you see we come here every two weeks and then we pack the room as soon as something's coming up we tell everybody show up because obviously miss kaizen always says nobody shows up so everybody is okay with it clearly they're not people have families they can't be here all the time that's why they don't show up yeah show up to vote but i mean honestly can we do something and and stop the madness because nobody wants it do an opt-in send out some other kind of a form take a survey like they said take
087a survey and like the other lady said respect us too when we're talking because the eye rolls and the playing around not cool [Applause] selling ss576 valley road um i'd like to uh just quote and uh reorder something i said in last year july of 2021 at a meeting and i i just feel this tonight and all the meetings since us students are talked like talk like we are pawns they have this are we going to give them this curriculum how about you hear from us because you could if you teachers claim they know who we are they know uh they don't they don't know who we are behind a classroom behind what we say in class they don't know who we are if you i could probably pick out i could count on on
088one hand the number of kids who would agree with any of the things that are said to be done tonight the kids simply do not agree with it and then i say why don't you come to the meetings and speak like i do their simple answer is well i'm afraid that i will be chastised by teachers by my own parents because we are being taught to be afraid of our first amendment not to embrace it i am all for for gay rights i am all for it i'm all for gay marriage but how do you think the rights came to be freedom of speech but now the same people that want to teach it which they also want to teach against the freedom of speech that gave people gay of rights which is a good
089thing but you want to teach against freedom of speech which we're taught to be afraid afraid of speaking out i'm not clearly but because i i'm saying what i believe and i'm speaking not behalf of me not behalf of a handful of kids but a lot of kids out there because when we have these lessons of uh of i don't even know what they're called they have us say well what you don't joke about what you do joke about no one jokes about people but these kids they hear these things and they're like no one ever says these things where do they get this why don't they solve real problems that happen in our school like kids with autism getting bullied every single day i see it and it's never addressed but then someone makes
090says oh that's that's gay that which that's stupid it's a stupid joke but then those kids get in so much trouble because they made a dumb joke but which could be offensive but it's still dumb but we're not going to get kids in trouble that are bullying kids with autism calling them nicknames and all sorts of things that's wrong we need to teach people like we have no place for hate club the no place for hate club strictly focuses on their logo literally has the black lives matter symbol the gay pride flag why shouldn't it be no place for hate for anything like it was when i was in fifth grade what when i was in fifth grade the words no place for hate meant no bullying in general never was their mention of black
091lives matter never was their mention of this because by grouping this and saying this community the african-american community the white community this the lgbtq community this generation is being taught to be divided into groups and sectors it's my time i'm sorry nick that's your time thank you [Applause] quick question first is it three minutes is it five minutes didn't you take a vote on that it's three minutes next the next public meeting it will be oh so three minutes during agenda items and then five minutes during public so it didn't count for this meeting no it's three minutes oh well but you get a third uh a second bite at the apple sir so no no and is there going to be a big reveal after uh after we speak a big reveal well i
092don't know sean said something about we're going to be very happy we have something that we're going to announce but i got to go you know so oh no when we're done the meeting's done well we will have comments from administration oh yeah yeah yeah no i know and all you guys okay all right let's proceed all right thank you norman robertson back again i want to share something with you from my own experience when i was done in the senate the governor asked me to serve on the state parole board and i wasn't sure at first but i ultimately did and i served there for 14 and a half years none of the and nobody in this room including law enforcement probably had the conversations that i had for those 14 and a half
093years with people who were incarcerated and one of the things that i saw tonight for the folks who for pride month or whatever are going to have is that they're collecting books for the incarcerated i have two boxes of books that i've already set aside just for that purpose so let me tell you some of the things that i saw the bit when i learned many things but one of the things i learned is that when children are exposed to matters sexual before they can actually process them the results can be devastating they can be devastating that's one of the reasons i talked about the possibility of gender confusion i had i had an inmate once i've seen hundreds of cases of child abuse when i was by the time i was done my colleagues
094asked them to figure out how many of those conversations i had and the number was twenty thousand five hundred and ninety nine i had one fella who had to deal with hormone issues he had a precocious puberty he was shaving every day by the age of 12. he didn't get the help that he needed he didn't get the help he needed he wound up raping a girl at 14. and then i saw him for something different and i said didn't you because he was sent to a juvenile facility i said didn't you learn anything from your experience and he thought about it and he said well yeah i did i said what's that he said not to leave a witness okay let's talk about pronouns one of the toughest not toughest but one of the
095most emotional hearings i ever had was from a guy he was a tough guy too he was a tough guy in and out of prison he was about 47 by the time i saw him he reminded me of joe frazier because he had a tough looking face joe frazier used to put his face in brine so it wouldn't cut so easily and i asked him a normal question which is if you get a parole why would it be any different than your life has been so far and he was all enthusiastic he had a grandfather who raised him who said you're not you're not any good at all you're never going to go nowhere and you know what it was that said what changed his life and we wound up paroling him because he was
096so enthusiastic he said because i learned to read but by all means let's not talk about reading by all mean let's talk about pronouns and by all means unfortunate three minutes if you'd like or i can ask everybody else if you'd like to hear another story mr robertson i'm sorry that's your but you don't so i'll sit down thank you [Applause] joan pamellino 741 alps wrote i graduated from wayne senior high school back in 1961 and [Music] what i want to say is i grew up naive i knew nothing i didn't know about excuse me i'm sorry for interrupting you um would the people in the audience stop speaking she's difficult to hear i'm going to ask you to lower the microphone yes please thank you thank you and please proceed is that better okay
097yes as i said i graduated from wayne senior high school that's what it was when i was there in 1961 and in that time i grew up in the 50s and so forth we were naive we didn't know anything we weren't taught anything and our parents were brought up in a time not too far from the victorian era where you didn't talk about those things i didn't learn that there were homosexual people until i was in my 20s as a child i wouldn't even have known that maybe you know there were predators that there were people out there who might hurt me and in fact in fact i was actually molested by a neighbor and when i was about nine years old okay what i'm saying is we need some type of education i will
098admit i haven't read all those things i i didn't have a chance but my point is there has to be an awareness of what is out there for the kids i was a teacher for 31 years in patterson okay i know how you can scale down something to a point where you you make it understandable to a child you don't have to use words you can get the idea across or at least the awareness across in some way so all i'm saying is i don't want kids today to grow up as naive as i was and that's really all i have to say thank you excuse me mr freeswick yes i'm sorry there's a young lady in the back who hasn't had an opportunity to speak could she come forward i haven't had an opportunity
099to speak either in this session oh i'm sorry mr freeswick my mistake my mistake i apologize apology accepted jim freeswick1212 summerhill road on may 24th there was another mass school shooting this one took place in uvalde texas at rob elementary school a madman with a ar-15 semi-automatic rifle 18 years old slaughtered 19 4th graders and two fourth grade teachers we need federal gun control from the united states congress and until we get it local boards of vet are going to have to take certain actions to try to protect our school children from mass shooters my question is given all of the mass school shootings the most recent being in uvalde texas what is the wayne public school system doing if anything to improve school safety is it going to station a police officer in every
100school during the entire school day or not and if not what what what steps are going to be taken if any thank you thank you sorry i lost my place it's okay hi maureen tusos uh el mary place wayne new jersey um i know a couple people have asked you know why haven't why hasn't the board released the changes um just for the record the changes and the curriculum guidelines are on the website for new jersey.gov and it's 66 pages long and it's there for you to read the performance expectation expectation for eighth grade clearly says define vaginal oral and anal sex it does not say teach it says define and the reason why i say that is because the definition of something literally means a statement of the exact meaning of a word especially
101in a dictionary or the degree of distinctness in an outline another object the teach the the definition for teach is show or explain as an adult i realize that in the eighth grade the health teacher is not going to show or explain to my child next year how to have anal sex because i have given this some thought i am grateful however that they are going to teach her that anal sex is indeed sex because we all remember bill clinton i did not have sex with that woman they are going to tell her which i already have that there are three types of sex and that she has the right as her person with her body to consent to that and final note if i hear one more time about opt-in or opt-out it's the
102same thing because you know what my kid is going if i have to opt in and she will still share with everybody who asks her what happened that day all right i'm sorry mr mr faber we will proceed when all right guys come on let me finish i just got something quick to add let me finish this up so thank you i again this is it actually goes in line we're talking about respect right and inclusivity and you know all of those wonderful things now the thing i wanted to talk about was as i was walking in and the girls that spoke about the pride celebration on sunday now i read an article written by a senior you know i think he wrote it was about a senior from one of the high schools said
103that they particularly chose father's day for this celebration and there's also another article that i read where they're trying to change father's day to become special persons day now fathers have a day here where you get a special day where your children and your family you know just it's a nice thing just like mother's day now that's where i think again we're losing respect for the people that are not part of a certain group now if you are not a father that day is not for you but there's a whole month to celebrate everybody else so why is it that we can't respect the things that are for certain people without tearing them down why do i have to feel like now they're trying to specifically target father's day a day where it's to celebrate
104me and that's a wonderful day for me but now they're gonna you know it's your teeth and that's is that the type of inclusivity that we're teaching to our kids in in high school because this was a high school girl that runs the wayne for change that said this was a it was a specific choice to choose that day so it doesn't seem like we're teaching kids to be inclusive of all it's being inclusive of all that believe the way you do and that is not inclusivity you want my respect you want me to respect what you are what you believe how you feel how you live please do the same for me don't try to take away my day because you have an entire month for yours and that's that's all i wanted to
105say [Applause] i guess i'm starting and finishing wait hold on there we go i truthfully i don't even know why i came by came up here just was hearing a lot of comments and i just felt felt compelled um let me the name please oh sorry alan a sartwain um i i don't think and again i respect everything everybody said but i don't i don't think this has to do with with being naive i mean when i grew up i grew up here went to college and i did everything and i had gay friends i had black friends asian friends all kinds of friends and nobody gave it a second thought but it's like we want to start teaching these kids in school to give it a second thought and and be dividing me like
106like the young man says think about it just has his friends in school and the wrong kids are getting bullied you're right you're right and like i said before about the math program we're not concentrating on kids learning math they don't know it i see it and reading well apparently my daughter didn't meet the benchmark whatever that means [Music] so i have no qualms with awareness and teaching kids in school that it exists and that's fine but vaginal anal and oral sex no masturbation no the age of consent for my daughter is 18. until she's 18 her consent comes from me and her mother so she should not be taught this in school that it's okay at 13 and 14 to engage in that kind of uh behavior and activity it's dangerous i think a
107gentleman said we're going down a slippery slope here don't do it we're all here saying please don't do it thank you i hope i didn't break it hi good evening my name is holly i live on evelyn terrace and wayne i was a career teacher for 34 years teaching first or third grade and i had children both gay and straight in my classes yes as both gay and straight as you can be as a first second or third grader so all of my children though needed support and love and yes i do say my because teachers not only take your children and not only take your children up here to teach but yes we also end up being nurses and all sorts of i don't know how many children called me mom through the years
108but all of our children need support and love wherever they are they need to see healthy examples of people like them in books and other media in the classrooms i want to personally thank you for your dedication to our kids and especially to those of you tonight who have pride flags in front of you i see that there are four of you our students all of them need to see that these young people that were up here i didn't know any of them but they were talking about they noticed who had pride flags you all should have had them up there frankly our students excuse me i didn't talk when you were our students don't need your approval could you just hold up for a moment i'll wait she's addressing the audience when she's talking
109she's addressing these people exactly so i don't understand why you're always telling this side to stop it okay it's civility she has the floor excuse me madam president excuse me madam president we have the right i'm sorry as a board to control the meeting if we are unable to then the possibility of taking a recess is available to the board i'd just like to remind the public again we we sit here for a period of time to hear whoever wants to come to us and we're continuing to do that tonight it's very hard for us to hear when there's a lot of noise that's made and when it becomes disruptive so we're just asking people to show the same courtesy to the other speakers that they receive when they come up to speak thank you
110uh our students don't need your approval but they would appreciate your support and i also assure you that they're not sir they're not going to be taking father's day away thank you all [Applause] hi ryan madishal again um first of all i want to say i think the lady who came up and spoke about what she's teaching her kids and what's right for her kids i think that's fantastic that's exactly what everybody is asking for without somebody then telling them that their daughter should tell everybody else what they have experienced during that time i think we all deserve the right to be able to go out and tell our kids what sorts of sex how many sorts of sex where they can put it where they can't put it that's right of a parent and
111i think that's great but i do also want to say at the same time you know unfortunately my wife is not able to come she really wanted to today um and she you know she said a year ago that this is where it would lead to right she said that we would get to this point and it would be the kinds of things that we are having to discuss in public which is uncomfortable for everybody to discuss in public um it's going to continue further than this if we don't stop it now we have to find a way to put some kind of restrictions around these things before it goes further every time you open the news there's something a little bit further down the line there's drag queens now that are coming in for
112story time not because they're dragged not because they're a person that is a drag queen but because they are drag queens to come in and tell a story right those kind of things now are trying to be normalized to push forward and to make it something that we all now just go through and accept not because we're being equal as people not because there is a need for any of this stuff but just because they are a special person and so we want one in every single school if this continues there is going to be no boundary on this stuff at all it will be sex for pleasure throughout school there was actually a study done before sex education came in when we all thought that sex was rape and so on was a big
113problem within schools it increased after sex education came in it got larger it got more of a problem and that's going to continue the further down here we go we have to find a way to put an end to all of this thank you [Applause] hello my name is wendy and i live in wayne i brought tonight a copy of something out of the njea conference that was held on june 3rd and 4th 2022 workshop descriptions lgbtqia and plus an overview this is what they're teaching this is what they're emphasizing teachers to teach in the classroom so for anybody who doesn't think that this is really going on this is directly from their handbook understanding sexual orientation and gender identity is key it doesn't stop there is key to reaching non-conforming students i would like
114to know what non-conforming students look like what does that mean what does it mean to non-conform that's a scary term it sounds it it's terrible point number 10 we're going to skip all these other things but point number 10 lgbtqia plus curriculum inclusions in this session you will learn ways to infuse lgbtqia plus content into your lesson the terminology infuse means to fill means to saturate means to complete if you are not alarmed by that word infused and non-conformity i think we all should be everybody understands that people are different if you grew up and you went to school in yes you didn't learn about those things children of today are not responsible for that parents have an obligation a god-given duty when you are parent you defend and stand up for what you think
115is right for your children nobody gets to tell you what's right and what's wrong since when did that change since when did people have to fight and say that's not right and for people not to be heard and to be considered seriously children are are our most valuable asset in this country they are the future the confusion the unnecessary distortion where's the kindness where's be kind where's that and where does it stop it's a pandora's box a dangerous slope thank you for your time [Applause] hello and good evening my name is adam and i'm a resident of hampton road and for the past three years of my life i've worked as a suicide prevention counselor for one of the national suicide prevention hotlines each shift i had so many lgbtq plus and allied youth reach
116out who were hurting in pain upset and angry from not being accepted in their homes to not being accepted in their schools rarely i had youth reach out who were happy in their classrooms when that happened it's because the youth shared that their teachers in school included people like them whether in their curricula or extracurriculars it's because they felt safe and welcomed even by the smallest actions like a teacher calling them by the preferred name or having a small pride flag on the desk suicide is the second leading cause of death in all youth queer youth are four times more likely to commit suicide than their straight peers 1.8 million lgbtq plus youth consider suicide every year and at least one attempt suicide every 45 seconds learning about differences variation in identity matters having fact
117and reality based education in the classroom is so important and meaningful for a person's well-being and development making sure children are not only included but well-informed should always be the priority members of the board of ed approve and pass new jersey's learning standards thank you [Applause] i'm back didn't intend to be sorry about this diane tath at 36 lake charles but since i was addressed by somebody um and i do want to respond to the one woman who said children are our most valuable resources 100 up here 100 percent agree with that and as teachers something you should know is that we do call our the children in our classroom our kids i remember my children being confused by that when they were little i'd had to explain well when the kids are in my
118classroom they're like my kids because i'm responsible for them their parents sent them to me and when they're with me i'm going to take care of them so every time there is a code read in the building i did this many i can't tell you how many times as a teacher i did this and teachers all over the country in every classroom do this they contemplate what they would do to protect their kids because those kids in their classroom guess what they're my kids and in the event that that code red turns out not to be a drill i can't tell you how many times i contemplated that as the teacher the number one cause of death for children ages 1 to 19 is gun violence right now we have kids going to school saying
119am i safe they're amygdala the part of the brain that deals with fight or flight they're asking themselves am i safe so maybe instead of focusing on the things we're talking about now we've got kids going to school and we're asking them to learn but they can't because their brain won't let them because their amygdala the part of the brain that deals with the fight or flight response is focused on am i safe that makes it really hard for your cognitive abilities to work for you to learn new information for you to retain new information to take that new information and put it in lop it in with the stuff you already have and use it to be creative all the things we're asking of our kids in school so let's work together let's focus
120on a real problem which is that gun violence is the number one cause of death among children age 1 to 19. and let's do everything we can and institute gun reforms national gun reforms so that our kids can be safe but we need to work together on this all of us together so the children in our schools and yes when they're in my classroom they were my kids so that all our kids are safe so let's focus on gun violence and let's focus on making sure our children are safe let's do everything on our power rather than focusing on other things let's make sure our kids are safe in their schools in the movie theaters in our churches in our grocery stores let's make sure our children are safe thank you cindy simon stolen i
121wasn't going to get up and speak again but i feel that i've got to anthony mentioned this idea of dividing people into groups i'm sorry nicholas my apologies nicholas mentioned dividing people into groups as if it is a new thing the truth of the matter is it's not a new thing the second i entered the wayne schools as a child i was the outsider i was viciously bullied in a time where that wasn't even considered bullying and the adults did nothing about it we are all humans we should all be being taught to respect each other each other's beliefs and to treat each other with decency the other thing i want to mention and i want to make sure the board is clear on this concept of non-conformity to conform to societal norms means to
122do what society expects you to do so when i was growing up that meant wear dresses and skirts in school we could wear pants wear dresses and skirts to certain kinds of events like dolls do girly things it meant don't play sports don't want to be a wrestler don't flip baseball cards with the boys there were these expectations the second great standards are simply trying to get people to realize that you don't have to conform to these things when you're different either because you can't help but be different like i am because of a disability or because you're just different you write different things or you dress different thing ways or you have different mannerisms on other people and by the way that's what a lot of the autistic children are getting made for fun
123of four is the different mannerisms that's non-conforming that's all that term means it's not something evil and sinister we need to respect everybody as individuals and it's the board's responsibility to make sure that that's what we're teaching our students [Applause] i just wanted to address something one of the women that was a teacher said a question am i safe and unfortunately a number of families haven't felt that their children are safe their values are being undermined and there isn't exactly an inclusivity because a lot of families with conservative values are feeling attacked and undermined and you know as we've gone on and we're hoping you'll consider that they want to be included too what i'd like to share is i had said that families in previous i don't know how many months ago families are
124going to pull out of the school system and they'll homeschool and i will do what i can to support them as a home educator for 20 years with seven kids a little bit of experience i want to share a good report i have networked and and come alongside different families to see and to help them during this tumultuous time and instead of children being educated and and the focus on sex and gender identity i saw children learning um how to write paragraphs and how to write in script and do addition subtraction double digit multiplication cursive handwriting and they memorized the preamble to the constitution these were seven-year-olds and six-year-olds they played outside together they had normal skirmishes and reconciled and were best of friends and came from different backgrounds they're not thinking about everything that
125is is trying to be implemented right now they were excited to learn about photosynthesis and the water cycle six and seven years old let them let them learn about the constitution and government let them memorize the preamble this is what our six and seven-year-olds can do and as more parents pull their kids out if they don't feel safe i will help them memorize the preamble as well this is what our children need they need to be educated so that they can have successful futures suny soy black oak ridge road i cannot believe my ears when i hear all kinds of people saying all kinds of horrible things about america i'm an immigrant no one has ever been kinder to me than americans no one i have held down a job my husband has held down
126job for 37 years we have lived at the same home for 42 years i've been married for 47 years my son is a cardiologist he doesn't just do cardiology he does heart transplants i am an immigrant america is not a mean place it is not america is not a mean place everyone is accepted here and i want to go on to say that when we're being lectured about how disrespectful we are we can add other people on the board as well [Applause] madam speaker no one approached besides him i would make a motion for him to be the last speaker second thank you hi everyone my name is tom vandenberg sixty-niner trail oh all right raise the mic thank you put it up a little bit all right oh i think does that work you
127have to kind of raise the whole arm a little bit all right i'll just hold it that's fine sorry i'm really short so my name is tom vandenberg um i write for out in jersey which is the state's only lgbtq magazine i also live in wayne and i've heard a lot about this curriculum so i just wanted to make a few comments i agree with a lot of people that you know gender identity itself should not be taught in second grade what the curriculum says though is not gender identity it may use that term but what's really being taught is gender stereotypes right what we've been saying you know can a boy become a nurse can a girl become an astronaut for the fifth grade masturbation is discussed isis dust as an example you don't
128have to teach it the local board of ed of ed has the power to determine what these things are so let me turn to eighth grade not everyone is straight vaginal success exists oral sex exists anal sex exists this curriculum is lgbtq inclusive because not everyone is straight and some straight people engage in other activities i'm a little bit younger than many of you no offense but back in my day i remember hearing straight people talking about certain of these things and they had no idea what was going on they thought that these things wouldn't lead to stis we heard a very impassioned speech by a lady wearing a beautiful rainbow top saying you know we're teaching kids anal sex and being very passionate about it this isn't a kama sutra class let's be clear
129this is not kama sutra okay this is how to not get an std that's all it is it's just so that students are aware so they don't get an std and if anyone is touching them inappropriately if there's any molestation they are protected that's all it is i want to quickly turn to father's day we've been talking a lot about um some people took offense to that i have to say that i actually really liked students we're doing on father's day my father didn't accept me for being gay he told me that i was going to hell when some of the students were talking outside with people out there they were told similar things by some of the people in the audience so it goes to show i think i'm sorry these things still exist
130and so we need to be accepting of people and accept them for who they are because otherwise abuse continues in our school system i wasn't going to show up today but during the last meeting ms wenting and mr prasakis voted on a resolution that would force um or essentially would have our school break the law and not implement the curriculum and the the issue that i was hearing from a lot of the lgbtq students even here in wayne is that they feel stigmatized and discriminated against by that action saying that this curriculum because it's lgbt inclusive should not being it you know should not be included is harmful to their mental health they said so i just want us to all consider how to actually be inclusive and i would ask these two board members
131what they're going to do what measures they can do to be accepting of lgbtq students what are some positive things that they can do do these board members support lgbtq equality and how are they going to do this in a positive way thank you thank you [Applause] okay [Applause] excuse me thank you old business oh sorry administration comments thank you [Laughter] i'll just say that i'm not as optimistic as mr duffy was okay the um i guess the thing to do is maybe we'll we'll run through some of the things that were um said that um we can answer all right and maybe there's some things we can answer we'll try to do the to our best first of all um so there's comments about school safety and so loss perhaps in part of the
132board meeting mr moffatt read into the the record um a resolution that allowed the district to move forward with a contract with the police department that will at some point next year maybe not the first day of school but um we will we're in the process of now moving forward with the township to hire police officers for every school okay so it means okay so that that's a positive it's a very positive thing that probably should have been mentioned um to one of our one of one of the speakers spoke about like you know with common core so we don't have the common core i just want to clarify that um mrs prusakos you asked about the ed committee that met last week a report was delivered last week mrs leighton you asked about the
133opt-in and opt-out option and what that means for you as as or what it would mean for teachers that's something that has to be considered because obviously when there is a very specific thing that students are able by parent approval to learn about or not learn about then that would have to carry through across all subject areas okay so that's um so we respect everybody's wishes regardless of the subject um there was another point made about the garwood board of education um the idea why can't this board do the same thing as garwood or maybe wanakew not i don't really know much about wanaku but i do know about the case with garwood i know mr geppert spoke about it because he's also the attorney for the garwood board of education he talked about that
134a few weeks ago but it makes sense to mention that again the garwood board of education did not actually end up approving a resolution to not follow the standards okay so that's not what actually occurred mr gepper you're the attorney from my understanding it was basically the garwood board of ed determining that certain language would not be used is that correct yes the the garwood board's resolution was very specific identifying curriculum instead of the standards and also identifying the terms that have been thrown around this evening as being what they objected to at that point they as i stated at the last meeting they also still face the uh process of approving the health curriculum so this is really an initial step in what could be a long process okay so mr gepper the other
135question is if a board member because that was something that was brought up if a board member decides to vote against following the standards and determines that they you know they're using a positions board member to to vote against the standards then i mean to begin with you face ethics charges immediately because of the code of conduct for board members you can't that was pretty loud okay so you would face that but but in addition to ethics violations what are the other consequences potentially for a board of education refusing to follow the standards well the standards are different from the curriculum as i said the curriculum the board has much more discretion over both with respect to the regulation and other things with the standards you run the risk of violating the statute there's a
136statute that gives the commissioner of education the right to withhold state aid for any action in including the law but other things as well from the commissioner so you've run that that risk along those lines and that's something that certainly we've discussed at the board level before okay so i guess um let's see mr gepper can you also tell the public about the opt-in opt-out issue and specifically what is required so there's no question about that there's there's a specific requirement i know a lot of people here tonight have mentioned about why can't it just be opt-in why do we have opt-in opt-out isn't it the same thing i mean theoretically it should end up the same way but there are differences based on what's required yeah this the relevant state statute 18 8 35
137hyphen 4.7 states any child whose parent or guardian presents to the school principal a signed statement that any part of the instructions in health family life education or sex education is in conflict with his conscience or sincerely held moral or religious religious beliefs shall be excused from that portion of the course where such instruction is being given and no penalties as to credit or graduation shall result there from so the statute itself specifically provides for an opt-out provision for a parent if they have a problem as a result of conscience with it there is no basis for an opt-in so that is the procedural problem that a school district would face the statute provides for an opt-out but it does not provide for an opt-in process okay so now let's let's move on to the
138topic of how this would actually play out in in classroom okay so basically when you look at what i mean and of course the curriculum is not written yet right so that's another issue that that remains ahead of us but what i'm thinking is basically that as far as by the end of grade two right so that would be probably two days worth of lessons okay that's what's different that's it it's two days worth of lessons [Music] or two um two periods two periods two two lessons two lessons maybe three i mean if once the curriculum is written but you're talking about a very short period of time okay so then you go to fifth grade that's probably same kind of similar thing maybe one to two lessons that's what would be different um eighth
139grade probably about the same thing one maybe two days something like that and as it stands right now those lessons also would be delivered at the end of the marking period so basically at the elementary level we have trimesters right so there's a rotation the students would receive that at the end of the trimester so no none of this is going to be happening to start the school year okay and the other part is for the secondary right those are quarterly so end of the marking period is when the students would be given this instruction the next part about it is i mean just like as a rhetorical question and i don't know if it makes sense to like kind of continue but the torical question is the for the people who are on this
140side of the room are you likely to ever agree to the with the people on the other side of the room the answer is maybe on some things but not on this right and same vice versa you're probably not going to agree with the people in this side of the room which is which is why i think that um the legislators recognized what's happening or what would potentially happen and offered the opt out right it's the bottom line is they have an opt-out so for these few periods during the school year where maybe you disagree with whatever the curriculum is then you cannot you can have your child opt out vice versa right if there's something so anybody has the ability any parent so the idea is that a group of people can't come to
141a board meeting and make a determination about what all parents are comfortable with this this group can't determine what this group has their children exposed to likewise this group is unable to impose their will on the other side of the room if you think about it that way right that's the idea likewise the board does not have the flexibility to go ahead and say we're making a decision for all children and all set parents there is flexibility but the flexibility is with you and if you think about that most of you at somewhere along the line you've many of you have talked about parental rights right and so really what that is is it puts in the hands of the parents the parents are the ones that get to decide about what's appropriate for their
142children and what's not appropriate now as far as the district is concerned um i have i've basically talked about these pe standards we've provided you updates we've talked about how this would play out in in real life right like how how's this gonna look and how would you be notified okay so what i'd like to do is basically if you have your phone right right there is a qr code right and so we're gonna have these qr codes you'll be able to look any time you want and you're able to get an update on what the wayne board of ed is doing when it comes to health and pe standards so that's all you're gonna have to do and the latest information about it will be available to you and bill if you could if
143you go to the next could you advance it do you want to talk about this now yeah so mrs reichman is going to talk about basically where we are this is the latest news and the latest information in response to many of the questions that were raised at the last meeting we put out a memo through blackboard connect that's our communication vehicle and we shared this on the website and on our social media channels for community members to access recognizing that not all stakeholders are parents of children in the school and and you have a right to this information as well we wanted to share it here tonight so this is what was shared out last week it went out through an email it was on the social media channels it's here tonight for for
144you to view i i have heard from some parents um and and you know in full transparency i've heard from parents who share that they were very comfortable with the process that they're very comfortable with the information i've heard from other parents who feel differently and would like you know more information or express concern as many of you share tonight so that's just really re-emphasizing what dr toback said that there are differences of opinion i think the most important thing is you know to just reiterate what the process is we are sent broadcast from the department of education and detailing updates to standards updates to curriculum that we're responsible for making each summer we reapprove all of our curriculum and all new curriculum updates are presented to the committee for review this is something that
145we do annually and um this will be included in that process teachers we whenever we write curriculum we we post it becomes a job opportunity for teachers at this year more so than ever before the goal was to not disrupt classrooms and i know the request was to have this before the end of school there's been so many disruptions and a lot of lost time with instruction and concerns about not having consistency in education the jobs were posted many of our teachers who are working on this work are also parents and many of them live in the community we always try to strike a balance and consider who the applicants are and who are the best people so that we have just a good balance in terms of skill sets ideas and contributions representing the
146majority of people the the work will be completed i know there was a request to have it in in july um we have made accommodations so that we could bring it to the education committee for review we we also developed a google form we'll include links to the new lessons we'll we'll send them out this way so parents can click right on these lessons you'll be able to view them there will be full transparency and bill can you just advance to the next slide many of you may already be familiar let's talk is a platform that's easily accessible to any community members whether you have children in school or you just have a vested interest you live in the community and you'd like to share input we have already added a tab for health and
147peace standards whenever you're comfortable at any time if there are ideas that you know you think of that you would like to express or communicate to us after this evening you're welcome to communicate that way once the lessons are made available we're asking you to share your feedback this way we we get hundreds of emails so this way they're all in one place and we can put together a report in in detail what is shared and and best reflect um to the board what the majority of the community is communicating to us and what individual stakeholders everyone's ideas and thoughts count uh in in terms of keeping these lessons simple we have a timeline and and that is also detailed here in elementary school we're not planning to facilitate any of this instruction until the
148last trimester of school ideally it would be after memorial day so there's plenty of time for continued conversations and input from parents and if we need to go back and revisit there's ample time health is in one quarter of um instruction for all eighth graders it would be in the last week of the health quarter so so that also gives plenty of time to share your feedback and ideas nobody is looking to create controversy or put anything out that would not consider all of your thoughts and and i think that the adjusted timeline will give us time to continue the discussion and seek your feedback uh i i plan to be in all of august we have teachers who are invested in this work um and i know that there are many teachers who have
149children in our schools who have um who will be i'm sorry participating in this work and and that's really it so we encourage you to use let's talk um we're reading your comments and your feedback and um we're interested to hear your concerns and you know the hope is to work together as a community to best meet the needs um and do what we're tasked with in a way that people are comfortable and again providing that opt-out option you mrs reichman excuse me we'll start there you could come up mr robertson you can ask questions after the meeting be happy to answer them thank you okay all right new business go ahead new business i'm sorry man president if i could i apologize for being tardy once again um it's important for me to return
150here uh i did miss much of what was talked about before but i without pointing out uh some of my colleagues i have had private conversations with them and this is a work in progress nothing is written in stone at this point all right um am i optimistic yes i'm optimistic i feel that all of us can get along gay straight transgender however you identify yourself we're a community i didn't move into this community because i want to be just in a and i'll say it in a white dominant community that is anti-gay or anti-lesbian or any of that i'm here because this is a great community that all of us can strive and do better for all of our children i didn't get asked to be elected on this board without the intentions of
151working for our children that being said you and i've i've said this before and i'll reiterate it again what you're complaining about to us is what is being forced upon us by our state legislator if you have an issue with this we are the end of the road if you have the issue with it now please let me finish so last time that somebody didn't let me finish they got their way so let's not go down that road we are the end of the road this has been voted on by the state legislator and is being told by us now prior to this meeting we were told last time that the resolution that was brought up we would be violating the state law and all board members correct me if i'm wrong if i'm misspeaking
152we were told that we would violate the state law if we voted on the resolution that was presented if we violate the state law i would encourage every person who stood at the podium today and i have no idea it's 11 o'clock so i have no idea i'm assuming there was enough what what they would like to cut in schools would you like band cut or whatever cup because our state aid will be slashed if we violate the law however i was informed today that there is a way that we can re-define or take out certain terms whether that happens or not i can't sit here and promise you i'm not the man behind the curtain i wish i was but i could tell you that i sit on a dice with a bunch of
153people that have concerns for one side and the other but all have the same goal in mind of our children learning and being in part of a great school system that i can tell you without a doubt and yeah we have our differences absolutely a hundred percent but without we all are trying to work together because this is something that was shoved down our throat we didn't ask for this we didn't lobby for this this is something that came to us so this is what we have to deal with and i understand all of your concerns on this side of the room and that side of the room but that's what that's what we're dealing with to try to find a common ground a medium way that we can deal with it do i believe
154that some of these conversations need to be talked around the dinner table and not in the classroom a hundred percent but that's not what the state says the state says right now as far as we know this is what we have to do and that's what where we're at now and what we're putting in place now with the uh online surveys and all that is finding out where the community stands and you have to bear with us because like i said this we're at the end of the road and it's getting shoved down our throat all right i understand i understand that i understand so so in november show up and vote i i encourage it that's the democratic process that's what everybody's right is uh i'm sorry but if that wasn't the news that
155you were all promised i apologize but uh that's that's how i feel and like i said if there's anybody on this dice that feels different they can have their moment to speak sorry but thank you so much for everything you do it seems to me excuse me i'm i'm sorry this is not the time for you to speak ma'am this is not the time just man we we have to conduct the meeting we still have to complete the meeting ma'am we would ask that you control yourself excuse me excuse me please okay any other board member have comments mr fatale uh first i'd like to start off by thanking my colleagues the board mayor vergano and chief mcniff for putting something together that we could continue to keep our students safe and putting a goal
156for putting police officers in every one of our schools it's something in my opinion that's 20 years overdue and should have happened a long time ago we cannot put a price on our kids safety um miss jen i do have to agree with you class sizes are important and when we do go to the retreat it is a topic of conversation with the development and it is something that we all have to look at as the development comes into this town uh tori yes i did abstain and as mr geppert started elaborating more on certain things we're understanding the legalities of the of the curriculum and what we can and can't do i was going to touch on the opt-in opt-out unfortunately i got beat to the punch in regards to that uh i do
157have my opinions about the curriculum and phrases or terms that are in there that are alarming to me and i did bring up to my colleagues and they respected my decisions they might not agree with me but they have respected my decisions um though i don't put that out in the public so everybody knows that or posted on social media i do have my opinions as well um i'm sorry because i took a ton of notes tonight and i'm all over the place we were and we see we did receive a letter with a bunch of names on it uh one of the the last the first sentence of the last paragraph we have every confidence that this community elected board will perform its due diligence and weigh in the consequences of this decision and
158we expect that the right choice will be made when considering the gravity of this matter i agree with you and i do think that we will be doing that going forward uh i do thank you for everybody who did sign this and did provide me and i was provided a copy of this i will be going through this again even though i have read it multiple times um i'm sorry i i didn't get your name when you spoke before with the mic with the microphone yes uh thank you for speaking and i do i do agree with you that the local board of ed does have the power to determine what goes into this curriculum and it is something that we all have to sit down and work on as a group and i do
159believe that the administration uh and kudos to harry for help pushing that up from that september date to getting it into july is something that we do have to work on so we are more transparent with the people who did vote us into office and the people who didn't vote us into office everybody so everybody knows where we stand on this subject matter uh nick i'm sorry to hear that some of your classmates are being bullied but i hope that you and your your friends do stick up for them and do help put an end to that because that is very important um jeez that being said because i'm having a hard time reading the rest of my chicken scratch if i can read some of this at next meeting i will get back to
160you on this but again thank you everybody for coming out expressing your opinions and how you feel about everything tonight because it did not go on now unacknowledged i did acknowledge everybody and i do think everybody does bring valid points and concerns to the podium when they speak uh but next time you'll have five minutes to talk so thank you mr pavlock um just quickly you know people people are throwing terms around curriculum lesson plans and yes i did abstain on the motion at the last meeting the lesson plan is probably the most important educational document there is that's what the teacher uses in the classroom that's why i keep saying and i've said it every week up here i want to see the lesson plan that's where we have the latitude of how it's
161going to be delivered in the classroom take the curriculum put it on the side i want to see how that's going to be delivered in the classroom we can massage that all right as somebody said one of the speakers tonight it doesn't have to be graphic do i agree with it all no but i think you've heard from enough people and some people who do this for a living legally that there's consequences to it as a police officer for 34 years there's a lot of laws out there i didn't agree with but you know what at the end of the day still had to follow him i assure you i will look at this at every lesson plan when it comes out and it's going to be here you heard again tonight this isn't something
162that's going to be taught week one it's going to be taught later in the year and yes we'll have times in fact i'd even ask the administration come september you know the end of september once everybody's back let's have a community roundtable with the second grade parents with the fifth grade parents so there is no question about what it is and how it's going to be done and jen i think it was yeah we have to work on that that is an issue that was brought i brought up about you know it's just not health and pe because in today's world we're teaching math science and everything else too all right thank you mrs weintech hi everyone thank you so much parents for coming and speaking to us and you can hear me oh sorry
163since i was personally addressed i wanted to say i am for teaching acceptance it has nothing to do with acceptance we in my family have some members who would fall into the lgbt group and we love them since they came out there was no we did not skip a beat and that's just how our family is i teach my children of acceptance and the golden rule every day i rather tell them include everyone as opposed to exclude on nobody likes to be excluded but i am a parent i have a 14 8 almost 18 and an eight-year-old and i worry about my kids and i want to make sure whatever we do and we do have to agree um on going forward that it's age appropriate and that's kind of where i feel the parents
164struggle with some of the terminology and being age appropriate so i'll end it here um just wanted to congratulate all the seniors coming out of wayne valley and wayne hills i'm excited next of next week for looking at them at the graduation so congratulations the teachers as well great job this year thank you oh i'm gonna drop my pride flag where to begin um i'll tell you what bothers me you think i'm disrespectful i i'm not meaning to be disrespectful but i can't always con it's not my goal to be disrespectful i'm here to listen and i do listen however i do have a problem with one thing that members of the public do and i'm not going to point out any individual misinformation serves no good purpose what we need is if you want
165to come up here and talk to us about what we're doing or not doing you need to cite that accurately because otherwise the community gets the wrong idea and we're not doing our job which is to make sure that you're properly and fully informed about what we're doing i sit here and i have people mouthing to me i'm crazy this is what i have to tolerate while i'm sitting up here it's it's a little distracting i'm disrespectful don't get me started um for some reason people seem to think it's appropriate to to send me these social media posts about me trust me i don't read them i'm not interested in them i don't get my facts from facebook i don't give a rat's patoot what you have to say about me on facebook by all
166means tell me to my face i'll listen it's my job to listen i enjoy listening but i don't enjoy misinformation we have standards here by all means cite them that is what we have to work with we don't have a choice in the matter whether i agree or disagree is moot but one thing i will say i will stand up strongly and fiercely for the lgbtq community clearly the gentleman who got up and talked about the suicide we had a former student here several months ago and he talked about how he thought about suicide often in high school because all they ever taught was vaginal sex he felt like he was a freak he was an outcast he was treated differently the way we plan to teach it is simple like the other gentleman said
167not everyone's heterosexual and our students are not all heterosexual isn't that clear they came here this evening and you also have the option to opt out but that is something i will stand up for i think the experts who i absolutely know for a fact child psychologist were consulted pedagogy experts were consulted uh age appropriate doctors were consulted everyone was consulted when the state board of education was considering these standards you don't have to agree with them i i don't necessarily think everything about them is perfect but i will rely on the administration to hug that line closely because we do know that there are people in our community that aren't pleased with it and you also of course have the option to opt out and that's important because there are people who are okay
168with the curriculum and think that it's important that we include everyone in our community in our classes and i'll leave it at that but the misinformation yeah that's what bothers me and again if you have anything to say to me contact me directly you can skip the facebook thank you um okay so i have a lot of notes here and i definitely know that some people were looking at me as far as whether or not i was or was not paying attention believe me i wrote it all down um about what everyone has said and i generally write everything down at a meeting so i have notes so anyway um there were some pieces of misinformation and i will cite them as someone who has again chair of the ed committee had half like really
169have to know these standards um first of all mr robertson you stated curriculum in lessons but we don't have like lessons they don't exist so that's the first part mr esposito stated genderqueer as part of our curriculum it is not in our curriculum it is in the library it is not part of our curriculum very important and also there is citation of someone by mr robertson that went through early puberty we are talking about puberty as part of these lessons that's really important so why are we railing against the fact that we're having a puberty discussion that he i don't know why that was even brought up um as far as this there were other people again that stated they had a problem with terminology so you're okay with teaching vaginal sex but you're not
170okay with talking about oral or anal sex let me let me talk to you about something that happened to me my freshman year in high school a bunch of the boys and girls were talking about different sex acts guess what they were heterosexual and talking about these sex acts so and you're taught in eighth grade so you're ready for high school this is an eighth grade topic because the average age of students becoming sexually active is around 14 in our area or even younger depending on the town you're living in so excuse me so taking a look at those demographics as someone whose husband is a pediatrician and we actually go over this health information all of the time it's very important to me that these students understand the repercussions of such ass actions so
171that they don't contract stis so that they don't become pregnant so that they actually do understand that abstinence is an option but if we don't talk about it and prepare them for it how can we prevent it how can we allow them to have bodily autonomy over themselves to say no to a boyfriend or a girlfriend that's part of it and you can choose as we have said to opt out of that lesson but plenty of parents opt in and i can tell you that i was taught that in eighth grade in new jersey okay thank you [Music] um oh mrs kazan i'm sorry there was just one thing i wanted to say to the teachers that got up and mentioned that these are your kids thank god you feel that way because if we're
172going to have a child in your care we have a there's a there's a legal term for when your child is in a school building it's in loco that means in the absence of the parent is that is that the definition mr that means when you're not there that teacher is their parent it's a legal term that's used in education and again thank god because i want that person to love my child and your child so much that they would protect them from harm that they would get in front of a shooter for them excuse else's me we have a public portion we may come up and speak at the next meeting thank you okay i would like to thank our administration who worked with our mayor and the town council and chief mcniff the
173police department so that we can move forward to have more class iii officers in our school buildings in the coming year given the state of um the nation as it is we need to take those precautions for our students and for our teachers and staff um there is nothing to see here now because there are no lessons you will see the lessons i don't know of any other area that's being taught in the school where you see the actual lesson use might see the math book but you don't really see how the teacher is teaching the lesson there's going to be a lot of transparency when it comes to this area health and pe i'm a grandmother of three children under the age of three they will be going to wayne public schools i want
174them to have an education i want them to know the facts i do not want them to be hyper-sexualized during their early childhood and i think that is the fear that many of you have we are not looking to do that we want to keep them safe and we will give them age-appropriate information have a good evening we look forward to all the graduations next week thank you very much [Music]