001oh yeah one more time it's so wonderful you wanted both i guess [Music] um okay the executive session of the wayne board of education regular meeting of december 16 2021 was convened in the conference room with the wayne board of education 15 ellis driveway new jersey the statement of compliance setting forth time date and location was read in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings act and roll call was taken the meeting was recessed and is now being reconvened please rise for a flag so in a moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we'll begin with a presentation by dr toback sorry hold on one
002second move to reconvene mr bubba this is put up i think you'll need another recall roll call rather mr moffat sorry mrs albanese here mr bubba here mr duffy here mr giordano here mrs kazan here mr kumar here mr pavlak here mrs puddup here and mrs sheer here now you can go thank you ready all right can everybody hear me okay good okay so mr wisniewski okay so this evening we're pleased to recognize wayne valley assistant principal scott wisniewski who recently received the visionary leader of the year award from the new jersey principal and supervisors association since he was first hired in 2016 mr wisniewski has been at wayne valley he works as a supervisor of math computer science and counseling so just a few words about mr wisniewski and his work so the role
003of the school leader changed dramatically in the past 20 years for several reasons especially when it comes to dealing with student issues one factor includes technology cell phones computers and the impact that those devices have along with social media students are communicating at all hours of the day and night and now schools are responsible for addressing many of those issues because new jersey hiv laws require schools to investigate incidents 24 hours a day seven days a week and i can assure you that's a tall order however mr wisniewski did not receive this award because of his ability to handle an extraordinary workload or because he does an excellent job with dealing with hiv issues he received the award for visionary leadership he received the award because he along with the outstanding staff and administrative team
004at wayne valley envisioned ways to transform the climate and culture at wayne valley high school he believed that the traditional role of the assistant principal could be transformed where the focus was not rules and reinforcement but instead fostering a school culture and climate where students love to be in school and feel a strong connection to their teachers and to other students he continued to push and build upon his vision each year mr wisniewski received this award because he took a vision and a collection of good ideas and made them into a reality that benefits all staff and students at wayne valley the net effect can be seen in the number of disciplinary referrals made by the staff five years ago it was common to have over a thousand disciplinary referrals written by the staff each
005year that number has now been reduced to about a hundred or less how can school leaders better handle hiv cases that occur after school off of school property the answer is to prevent those cases from happening in the first place because there is respectful school culture where bullying is not acceptable how does a school successfully connect students who are struggling with services and supports they need the answer is to develop a school culture that encourages students to be leaders and not bystanders and to create awareness of available supports how can school leaders find ways to help students who are suffering and feel alone in the world the answer is to develop a school culture where all students feel connected and valued how can school leaders address mental health issues when the system is already over
006taxed the answer is you apply for a grant you win the grant and you bring mental health first aid training to your school mr wisniewski wrote a winning grant that allows training for high school students to identify understand and respond to signs of mental health or substance abuse how does a school leader maximize services for students you create a culture of cooperation where students are first where school employees in all areas are encouraged to share information and work together efficiently so congratulations mr wisniewski and thank you for all you've done for the students and staff of wayne valley high school [Applause] okay mister hold on mr i was wondering if you can come forward i know you had a few words you wanted to share good evening glad everybody can come out tonight this is
007my 24th year in wayne and over the course of those years i made a couple decisions a couple that i'm really really proud of one is being able to convince mr wisniewski to leave his assistant principalship in dumont and come join our team at wayne valley and not only am i very proud of it i'm very lucky to have him so i want to congratulate him i want to say how proud i am to work with him to be able to write a letter in support of this for him so happy that his wife and children are here to see it and uh just congratulations awesome job there's the girls get them on camera [Applause] come on up for a photo op family yeah come on up girls and we stations go over here if
008you'd like to get a photo it's a little better sure okay [Applause] i guess i'm going to stay up for a moment a couple other decisions i was really uh lucky to make i think and proud to make one of them was oh 20 years ago i think when i was able to convince kathy zinram to be my assistant coach the wayne valley girls basketball program she took over for me in what 2003 and has had great success with the girls basketball program the nuts decision which is really bright of me i think was a hirer as our head soccer coach we see the results of that decision one other decision i was very happy and proud to make was to bring mr droshop to us from west essex we were able to convince him
009where he was there for too many years we won't say how many and he's done a great job leading our athletic program this time i'd like to bring up mr trajok and introduce miss synrett [Applause] before i introduce the girls soccer team i just have to say and i work with scott wisniewski every day and he is amazing he is an amazing administrator we are very lucky to have him in the wayne school system so i'd like to begin by thanking the board of education and dr topak for recognizing and honoring our wayne valley girls soccer team tonight [Applause] now we wouldn't be here tonight if we didn't have one of the top coaching staffs in the state we have coach kelly where's the zach who is our varsity volunteer coach and a pr wayne
010valley alum our freshman coach is james cam who's also our head coach for voice fencing and boys golf our jv coach is mike patowski who not only leads our jv team to very successful seasons every year but is also a very valuable varsity assistant during tournament play and then of course coach kathy synram in the six seasons i've had the pleasure to work with coach simran she has built our girls soccer program into one of the best in north jersey and now one of the best in the state coach syndrome was recently named 2021 new jersey girl soccer coach of the year by nj.com congratulations coach central on to the team what an amazing season our team had an incredible run of 17 straight victories and along the way they won the independence division of
011the big north conference for the fourth or was the fifth year in a row coach zinram five okay there we go five out of seven they won the passaic county championship for the first time since 2007. they won the nj siaa north one group three state sectional for the first time since 1999 and they went on and made history with our first ever state championship by defeating princeton 2-1 in overtime at kane university it was the first ever state championship for passaic county public school girls soccer team which is a that's an incredible accomplishment so um i'm proud to say that i loved watching this team play they were unselfish they played with passion grit and resilience they played with valley pride and they had fun i really enjoyed i really had fun watching you
012guys play this year so thank you for making my year this past fall now with great effort and attitude comes great rewards several of our players were named to the first and second team all league all county all north jersey and all state teams but they didn't play for individual glory because if they did they wouldn't be standing here today they played the game as was was meant to be played as a team and truly enjoyed playing together as one in addition they are true student athletes they're members of the national honor society their peer leaders and their average average gpa is 3.82 they are an amazing group of young women who will go down in the wayne valley history as the greatest girls soccer team of all time congratulations ladies coach zinram can you
013please come down do the honors and announce the members of our 2021 wayne valley state championship girls soccer team [Applause] first up gabby hammer [Applause] [Laughter] meghan josek [Applause] mackenzie mcgregor [Applause] eva maher [Applause] izzy wrathjen [Applause] alyssa was icky [Applause] almazy [Applause] maria funicello [Applause] danielle joyner [Applause] jessica lee [Applause] this is fast madison pyro [Applause] tori ryan [Applause] bree starling [Applause] maddie testa [Applause] [Laughter] and our seniors emily bolson [Applause] injury erin clark [Applause] carly hunzak lexi jassin unfortunately could not be here tonight emily joseph [Applause] astrid mcgraw kelsey ramos [Applause] and last but not least giuliana vivino [Applause] congratulations coach get up here bro move the chair what do you want something back you guys love each other thank you yes says eileen matt stacy there we go [Applause] great job guys
014[Applause] [Music] [Applause] congrats girls [Music] i know you're all leaving congratulations ladies fantastic season have a good evening get out of here thank you thank you again pretty cool give them a minute to exit okay i think we're quiet enough moving on to our board member recognition program this evening for our outgoing board members we're going to begin with mr giordano who will be presented by mr don pavlov mr giudano on behalf of the entire board of education i want to thank you for your service though it was short your impact will be felt for years in this district because it's always been about the kids that's the cliche we hear all the time but it's always it is with you a motto you've lived by your entire time here on the board and i
015thank you on behalf of the board and the citizens of wayne for your service [Applause] yes excuse me boy i wasn't expecting this one this is great i thought i'd be over there in the corner like i'm always in the corner that's okay i'm gonna pick one indulgence here balance oh i try to be balanced my fellow waynites i wish to take this time to thank you for support during this three-year ride if i were to describe this journey i would say was a real roller coaster some people think that means it was a bad thing but i feel just the opposite roller coasters are the biggest rides with the longest lines of any ride at the amusement park they look scary from the outside and some people will never set foot on one but
016i do notice that when people get off the ride they're always smiling and that's how i feel the twists and turns of this journey have been a mirror of those people riding one of those fast moving and thrilling events while some people remember the spirited debates between board members and those that came from the public i'll remember all the things as we as a board accomplished all day kinder carton is something that comes to mind and i can hang my hat on the many accolades the district has garnered from the state and from the media at large also stand out like our fine young ladies who won the championship there's still much for these board members to do let's take a moment and remember the great things we have done for our students over these
017great years with these great volunteers since i never served in the military of the police it was a thrill for me to be able to place my hand on the bible and swear no to protect and defend the constitution of the united states i was walking two inches off the ground for days after that many excuse me many of my family have long served their nation in many different ways and i was able to add my name to those who have served in some capacity and that's definitely been checked off of my bucket list my father served in this town's juvenile council in the 1970s one of my uncles served as the board of education president in his hometown of kearney for many years in the 1980s i have many policemen in my family including
018police chiefs officers and even those wounded in the line of duty i had to think that many of them can now can counter me as a person who threw his hat into the ring and said i want to make a difference and i hope i have of everything i look back upon i'll be entirely grateful to be able to present my son anthony with his moving up ceremony certificate after finishing george washington middle school the only other thing i can remember just as fondly was being able to hand my daughter abby her high school diploma in both cases i was able to tell them how proud it was of them and how much i love them right at that important moment being able to show my love for them in such a magnanimous way is
019something that i will take to my grave i owe a debt of thanks to the board of education for giving me that chance i hope with all the controversies we have weathered over the past few months no matter which side of the topic you're on that you understood that i was always in the best interest of students and the citizens of wayne that i had in mind no matter whether you agreed with my vote or disagreed with my vote i always attempted to conduct myself as if every single subcommittee meeting executive meeting professional workshop or meeting in town chambers was precious and they treated with respect and reverence because that is how i felt i accidentally listened to a conversation between assistant superintendent donna reichman and some other administrators a year or so as they
020walked into the room they didn't know i was actually there so they were speaking freely for that but the only thing i remember from them saying to me was well i'm not sure how mr giordano would handle the situation but he's always a gentleman and i know he will handle it like that i want to call that conversation out because it was and always will be my intention to act as a gentleman to honor my parents for raising me this way and to set an example for my children to follow so i just want to thank donna for unintentionally reinforcing me that was doing my best and of course i was setting the right right tone excuse me i wish all the current board members the best of luck you have many challenges ahead of
021you but i know they have wayne's best interests in mind to departing members the best of luck health and happiness you did a great job and finally to those who are coming into the next meeting buckle up the roller coaster ride is about to resume you'll love it you'll hate it and maybe even fear it but in the end you are here for the students and the citizens of wayne above all this is a team effort you are not alone you'll be great thank you all and god bless [Applause] thank you so much thank you mr giordano moving on to our next board trustee stacy share and she'll be receiving her plaque from mrs putta [Applause] when i was elected to the board as everyone else you come on you're a volunteer and you hope
022that you have a great working relationship with your colleagues on the board and i like to say that i have you don't expect to make friends [Applause] especially someone who is such a passionate person a passionate teacher and a passionate board member and the thing i love about you the most thank you stacey [Applause] that's very tall okay i don't have a whole type speech like that um it's funny you should say that what you love about me the most is what other people hate about me the most but i can say that in my five years of doing this you can say whatever you want about me i am truthful i am a straight shooter and whether the public agrees with me or not i made my decisions and i never i never went
023back on them i whatever i said in the executive meetings was the same thing i said in public and that truthfulness is one thing that i was aspiring to achieve when i came on the board because when i ran every time i ran it was always about transparency and one thing that i could always promise people was that i'm to tell you the truth you're not going to like it half the time but i'm going to tell you the truth my my friends and my family say to me constantly why do you do this they watch the meetings they hear the meetings and they just can't i see them shaking their heads in the audience now they couldn't even believe it and say why do you do this and i honestly can say yes there
024were some very rough times but there were some really really rewarding times i got to work with a great bunch of people and hear everybody's perspective on things i got to sit and defend what i think is one of the greatest school systems that's why i moved here that's why i'm still here and and i will be here until my children are done with school then i'm out um but wayne the wayne school district has so much to offer between the the wonderful administration we have and the passionate board the passionate parents like you can't ask for more and i am very proud of this town i'm so proud of the schools and i'm proud of everything that i have done for this district i really just want to thank everybody the parents my fellow
025board members my lovely friend suzanne we were we did get very lucky we started together and we are now true friends administration you've done a wonderful job um and i just want to say the best of luck to everybody i want to wish the new board members the absolute best of luck um it's it's going to be a challenge i'm not going to lie to you it's going to be a challenge but just please stay truthful to everything that you've thought even when the public doesn't agree with you stick to it because that's what's important one thing i want to say is that i am obsessed with elephants anyone i wear around my neck all the time i have it on my ring i have a tattooed on my body everybody who knows me knows
026they're all over my house i'm obsessed with elephants and the reason i bring that up is because most people think that you have elephants in your house and it's just for good luck that's not it the reason that i think that elephants are so important and i i love what they exude in the world is because they're a sisterhood and if there's an elephant that is in trouble or needs help all the other elephants will stand around it facing with their back to the the hurt the injured elephant and just watch and be on guard to protect the injured elephant and that's how i look at it right now is that some of our students all of our students no matter what their gender what their race what their religion what their sexual identity is
027they all need to be protected so let's take a note from the elephants and protect all of the wayne students thank you so much [Applause] my least favorite type of board meeting not a fan of goodbyes and last but certainly not least our longest serving trustee leaving us this evening after nine years of service to this community mrs alvarez [Applause] presented by mr bubba always nine years what you've meant to this board i don't think anybody will really fully know for another 10 years your ability to see the future and see ramifications of decisions five years out is like nothing i've ever seen before and i hope that other board members especially the new ones come in come in and understand that decisions made today do not affect just today they have to see everything
028and i think that was one of the things that i don't think anybody did on this board better than you did on a personal note my first year on this board was not as much fun as i would have liked it to have been the one person that was always there anytime i had a question any time i had an issue you were always there you were always the one that is the person you are so i want to thank you for your service to this board to this town your perspective but also your friendship okay thank you very much mike okay it's been a pleasure and a privilege to serve on this board for nine years i've had the absolute honor of working with not only this group of colleagues but many extraordinary board
029members over that time i've been able to learn from them ask questions of them and watch how they role modeled being the best board member that they knew how to be and that happens in every decision in every meeting and in every conversation that the board has to come to some type of collaborative decision i've also had the honor to work for the last several years with what i think is one of the best administrative teams wayne has these are people who every day are dedicated to doing what's right whether it's easy or it's hard so that the students and the staff and wayne receive absolutely everything possible to provide the best education for our students so i want to thank my colleagues currently on the board as well as my colleagues over the past
030nine years the achievements that we've we've had over the last nine years are never the result of one person they're the result of collaboration of many board members who work tirelessly to make sure that first and foremost student education and student achievement are uppermost in every decision that's made so i thank previous board members i thank current board members and i would like to speak maybe for just a moment to the next year the next many years we have many very dedicated board members who will be continuing on this board we have three excellent new board members who will come in and i know will do their absolute best to learn to listen but to bring what they think is right every day to the decision-making process for our students so i congratulate you we
031welcome you and we support you and i want to thank you for volunteering to step up to this job where i promise you there will be many many more good feelings and many many more senses of achievement and i made a difference then there will be times where you're not so sure that that's the case so we thank you we appreciate that you'll do this you have our support again i want to thank everyone involved at the district and my final challenge something i kept in mind for the past nine years is for a board collectively to come together reform every year but strive for the same goal to make wayne the best world-class district for our students in our staff so thank you again for the past nine years it's been my privilege and
032my pleasure thank you okay before i sit down i'll open it up to our administration for comments so so much has already been said but um the administration would certainly like to thank our outgoing board members arlene albanese matt giordano and stacy shear for their many contributions to the board of education and also for their support over the years um so just a few personal notes about um our board members so for the public this is a very demanding group and um they're a group of board members that are demanding because they care deeply about the school district they ask the right questions our outgoing board members all have their backgrounds that lend to a benefit to the board we have two educators and we have an accountant and so the financial expertise educational expertise
033have been a major driver to a lot of the enhancements we've had over the past few years so um some really important initiatives some unbelievable accomplishments in just um you know a relatively short amount of time of course full day kindergarten the early childhood center facility enhancements technology enhancements when you hear from our when you hear from our financial position from our auditors in the coming weeks you'll come to understand the strong financial position of the district all these things were developed over time during the time period um you know that our our board members were leaving the board they participated in all these discussions they had a major part in moving all these different projects ahead so um i for one will certainly miss all of them we look forward to maintaining contact with
034you to staying in touch and i just it's hard to really understand from the public what advocates our board members are for students for the community and um their commitment to the students is certainly extraordinary from from my point of view and um i will certainly miss all of you and um thank you for doing a wonderful job and supporting us over all these years [Applause] anyone else from the administration feel free board member comments at this time okay i'll save your thoughts to the end moving on superintendence report uh superintendent has some very important updates for us this evening so listen closely look good oh thank you so much mr meredith so this evening i'm going to focus my reporting on the covet situation in our school system and across the state so at
035this point we experience we're experiencing a sharp increase in the number of cases of covid among our students and staff and so i wanted to report to the community we do not have a presentation tonight but i provided the community with a table that shows the dramatic increase in coveted cases and as you can see when you add it together the number of students that are under quarantine the number of staff members are quarantined you could see significant increases doubling tripling depending on the category that you look at significant increases um and so we've made a number of announcements about different things that are happening in the district as a result recently the new jersey department of health moved all of new jersey into there's a map that they produce the map is now all
036orange means that we're all in a high risk area a high-risk region of the state which required some changes including a change in the amount of quarantine time when students are unfortunately exposed their close contacts things like that okay so what we did is we released an faq so i'm just going to talk about that for a few minutes because there's one thing i wanted to address at the very top of it first question that was asked regularly is there a plan to shut down schools after the holiday break okay so the answer is absolutely not there is no plan there's rumors there's speculation there's a lot of social media activity about that but there is no plan to shut down schools instead every effort is being made to keep our schools open which is
037why we're taking steps to selectively shut down in sit certain situations some classrooms and some other situations where we're absolutely forced to do so and again there's no um there's no enjoyment in in taking that kind of action i talked a little bit about the quarantine time back to 14 days but the next part of the faq is why does my child have to continue to quarantine if the entire class is placed under quarantine my child was already fully vaccinated had coveted previously or was already under quarantine so there's many parents who have said well that makes no sense why did i have my child vaccinated why am i following the rules what's the point if in the end there's a situation where even though my child is vaccinated they have to quarantine so what
038i'd like to do is talk a little bit about some changes that came about yesterday and today so there is new guidance there is new information from the new jersey department of health based on these different updates that were distributed across new jersey over the past few days the first one involves the change in quarantine time so as i said previously there was a 14-day standard that existed when there was a quarantine that has been reduced to 10 okay that's one option or you can go back to the eight day option with testing but that's not an option that was selected here in wayne so we go back essentially at a minimum to where we were previously with the 10 days of quarantine after further discussion with the wayne department of health there's also um
039consideration again there's there is a bigger picture in the bigger picture when it comes to quarantine sometimes is concerns about keeping whole schools open so in some cases there's there's action that's taken by the department of health we do work closely with them we ask them for their guidance we ask them for their feedback and what they think should happen so originally there were there were classes that were quarantined and so the whole idea of being quarantined on top of being quarantined in other words students leading up to a full class quarantine may have tested positive and may have been quarantined individually but then once you get to a certain threshold where there's three or more students that are under quarantine that's considered an outbreak and so when there's an outbreak in a classroom and
040this mostly applies to elementary schools then the entire class the students and staff were quarantined okay so after further discussion after hearing concerns from parents we have to go back and we are we are working with the department of health to look at that to basically consider the fact that if someone a child is quarantined then they should be able to continue in school if a child is already under quarantine and that quarantine expires and they can come back to school before the rest of the class is quarantined is up then those students will be able to return okay however there are some problems with that okay so just being honest with the community we have had a tremendous problem even though we've raised sub rates even though we're have one of the highest sub
041rates the pay rates in the county we've had a lot of problems obtaining substitutes and so when if you go over like i have a summary of where we are with substitutes because a lot of what we're talking about would require substitutes because sometimes teachers are quarantined sometimes you know with their students in other cases we need to hire substitutes to watch students who are returning to school in some cases it could be a very small number of students might have one student's reporting back to class where everyone else is under quarantine depending on the circumstances but one of the issues that we face is the fact that in some cases we have about a 70 75 on the high end where we cannot fill substitute vacancies so in other words we are already way
042beyond our limits in terms of dealing with absences so that is definitely a struggle and even in the best case of scenarios we have about one-third of our substitute vacancies unfilled depending on the school and depending on the week so this is all you know depending on you know the different situations at each of our schools so we really are our stretch to limits and so i guess the the main point for all of our parents is we are looking to make some changes based on the new guidance but that those new changes will not happen immediately we're going to work on rolling those changes out when we're able to do it um but there are no promises in terms of um you know the feasibility of some of these things so yes we're able
043to do it yes we're able to move ahead um how that will work out how that will look in the end is something we do have to work on so um that's that report and also um i don't know mrs sam were you going to report on the retreat at all okay so just a week ago the board of ed participated in a retreat to consider some significant issues and to hear information from our architect from our business official so ultimately the board was able to discuss the affordable housing projects that are going to be built within the next few years the board received a projection on enrollment for the next five years as was able to discuss not only the overall impact of the construction on the school district in the short term but
044also in the long term to analyze the attendance zones to look at possible facility projects so prior to the pandemic there was a number of important facility projects that were under consideration that were revisited by the board of editor retreat so it was a very productive retreat the board also heard an overview of enhancements to our educational programs over the past year or so and so i believe it was an extremely productive retreat and i believe the board received a tremendous amount of valuable information that will allow the board to to think about solutions to some significant problems facing the community in the coming years hiv oh i'm sorry okay do you have it okay thanks thank you okay so unfortunately this has been a very busy reporting period during this reporting period there are
04517 incidents of hivs that were investigated since the last report four of those cases were deemed to meet the criteria of an hiv incident okay thank you dr chobak now we'll move on to our student representatives a number of wayne hills automotive technology students participated in a virtual behind-the-scenes tour of raw shades racing engines in mooresville north carolina this unique learning opportunity was sponsored by the universal technical institute taught english vp strategic partnerships and marketing hosted the event and showed student the facility that produces over one thousand purpose-built racing engines annually the students learn how research and development partnerships with manufacturers such as ford and toyota result in not only racing engine improvements but also include advances in passenger vehicles aerospace and even the medical industries miss hearts foods won classes made pies last weekend
046in anticipation of thanksgiving the lattice work was optional and they successfully completed beautiful apple pies for the holiday weekend during the month of november 90 members of the wayne hills leo club created over 100 thank you cards to be distributed to deploy troops veterans wounded warriors and their caregivers boot camp graduates and first and frontline responders via operation gratitude wayne hill's school leo club wanted to give their things to our american heroes the wayne hall student council held its annual spirit week during the week of november 15 through 19th this yearly tradition is designed to foster a sense of charity and caring and this was accomplished through healthy competition between each grade level students earn points by wearing themes clothing for each day collecting gift cards for community members in need and by competing in
047penny wars the money collected will be donated to a local charity 24 students from the wayne hills leo club and six from the wayne valley leo club visited mentally disabled adults at found abilities in wayne for a holiday party their mission statement explains that fan abilities was created to provide individuals with disabilities a safe secure and supportive environment that will promote a sense of self-worth acceptance in the local community this is accomplished through social interaction supervised games and events and services through volunteer efforts leo club members and special adult adults some of whom are graduates of wayne hills and wayne valley connected while singing seasonal carols and eating pizza and baked goods provided by the leo clubs may have organo and others from town hall also joined in the fun however the biggest attraction by
048far was when santa joined the party he distributed 25 gift cards to each of the 21 disabled adults on behalf of both wayne leo clubs a wonderful day was had by all and memories were made that will last a lifetime very uniquely with over a hundred individual athletes participating in the north jersey high school singles bowling championship senior zach jordan and erica cassidy took the first place trophies for both boys and girls respectively zach jordan was also recognized by the bergen record as athlete of the week both boys and girls swimming are off to a great start with several meat ones our winter track teams are ready for our first polar bear meet that will be hosted at wayne valley also on friday 12-17 to open the season our dance team is making its return
049debut to hills with a halftime show for boys basketball this friday with a full roster our wrestling team will host passaic on wednesday 12-22 to start their season as well the wayne knights ice hockey are off to a strong start with this with a season record of 4-2 against some very strong competition and lastly are wayne hill ski team has been hitting the slopes and are seeing significant improvements on time leading into the first few races thank you [Applause] congratulations to miss aller and ms caccione for receiving the governor's educator of the year award from wayne valley high school a recognition a recognition well deserved for the dedication of the biology teacher miss aller an education specialist miscaccion loom valley assistant principal scott wisniski was named the nj psa visionary leader of the year award
050for wayne new jersey every year the new jersey principals and supervisors association honors the outstanding work of leaders and students across the state the national honor society is once again conducting its kids helping kids program which takes place weekly at the wayne public library with this long-lasting program the nhs students offer extra help tutoring and tutoring to elementary middle and high school students on thursday december 16th the winter concert performance will be held at 7 30 p.m in the wind valley auditorium this concert will be featuring valley's talented chorus chamber choir and symphonic band on thursday december 9th wayne valley held a well-attended orientation for all incoming 8th grade students and their parents they were able to tour the buildings view the classrooms meet staff and upperclassmen and discuss many opportunities available at valley representatives
051from various clubs activities and sports teams were stationed around the building located by an interactive map for the future students to engage with congratulations to senior maddie martin on being awarded the news 12 scholar athlete award for december maddie is a three sport varsity athlete for tennis fencing and golf along with being an outstanding advancement placement student with a 4.14 gpa congratulations to mali maddie and we wish you the best with the last two seasons of competition at valley congratulations to the wayne valley girls soccer team on the historic njsi double-a group 3 state championships with their victory over princeton for the first time in school history a team won the group 3 title with aaron clark chelsea kelsey ramos and emily jozak and ashton mccraw awarded all state champions and congratulations to kathleen sinram
052who was awarded the nj.com girls soccer coach of the year thank you so much ladies were there any donations for the evening mr moffatt all right so the wayne education foundation donated 3439.50 to george washington middle school and the donation is to be used for the purchase of 10 ipads and 10 cases for the ipads the insera supermarkets donated 1 000 to the preakness early childhood center and the donation is to be used for the school playground the marine education foundation donated 25 v7 pro wireless mice to be used with chromebooks for mrs rika's first grade class and this is for the jfk elementary school and this was an amount of 252. and 97 cents the a pizzerian pto donated a cover expenses for camp fairview and this was a donation of eighty dollars well
053thank you to our wayne education foundation and our pto's for all they do for our students it's amazing uh at this point we're moving on to revisions mr moffa mr moffatt yes we have four tonight under tea emergent human resources t number one which is approval of district staff line number one colleen monahan is to read 19 162 dollars prorated for step two of the paris salary guide 5.5 hours per day no benefits t number two approval of revised items under line number six corey and gunstra g r u n s t r a revised end date from december 17th 2021 to december 31st 2021 under number t3 approval of appointment of certified and non-certified district substitute line number one maria mcsaud m-a-c-k-s-o is rn revised from hourly rate to 200 per day and the
054last change to tonight's agenda is t number seven approval of resignations and retirements uh line number one is catherine carnevale revised date from december 23rd 2021 to december 31st 2021 and line number two carol c a c i o p p e revised date from december 23rd 2021 to december 31st 2021. that concludes the changes thank you 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 student 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
055or at subsequent meetings under old business can i get them over mr scott black and mr giordano anyone on agenda items come to the mic sir i can't hear you yes michael goddessman are the superintendent's report is the superintendent's report considered part of a gen design sort of technically okay just a quick question i know there was mention of the retreat where there was a discussion about the where there was a discussion about the uh upcoming forthcoming foreboding increase in student population and it was reported today that it's estimated we're going to have in total somewhere around 2 987 units being built in our town over the next five to seven years many of which are two and three bedroom uh units which would leave me to believe that that is going to contribute to
056a substantial increase in school population i'm just wondering if the board or or the administration has been given any type of estimated numbers as to the anticipated rise in student population due to those developments thank you jenny franklin 21 key lana drive um i'm here today as a former wayne schools parent of 18 years i just thought it was really important that we have someone on this side of the podium say thank you to these three board members um been here a long time and so have many of you in this role and other roles and you need to know that as parents we appreciate your hard work mr giordano you have always stated that you wanted to hear from both sides of the aisle all the time and represent both sides of the aisle
057and you have worked hard to do that and we appreciate that thank you for that and for your service mrs sheer i remember your first board of ed meeting here i don't know what the issue was but we were here to talk about something and i was uh amazed at your ability in your first meeting to speak candidly and honestly and truthfully and you didn't care what anyone thought you were going to tell the truth about how you felt and you've done it every meeting since then and i have admired you for all your years here and i wish you well um mrs albanese i don't even know where to start you have been on the board since my children were in elementary school i have sat in many board of ed meetings with me
058down here and you up there in those nine years of yours you have been the epitome of class and professionalism every step of the way you were always my favorite no offense because like me you had a soft spot for the arts and whenever my children were here with something with band or fighting for an agenda or whatever you always showed that that was important to you and therefore we all notice that as as parents of children in the arts who often are the first things cut and you fought hard for them and we really appreciated that i feel that you have had some difficult treatment this year and you didn't deserve it and i hope that you are going out as you said with pride and um know that the things that you did
059here were great and we really do appreciate it and i needed you to hear that from this side of the podium thank you tori esposito woodlot road i had a question on the superintendent's report are you able to disclose out of the positive staff members or people that get covet how many of them were vaccinated and i only asked that because in in a in a utopian world if everybody's vaccinated and is in a classroom and there's 20 kids and five kids get it then the whole class has to quarantine so i guess where do we go from here i mean we've come so far as a district and i'm so happy to hear that that the court that the close contact stuff is going to get get revitalized i don't want to go back
060to cohort i don't want to go back to remote kids are wearing masks my kids are so happy to be in school so i guess can you disclose that when you do your reports so then we can try to figure out where do we go from here even if they are vaccinated that they're still getting it that's it thank you madam presidency no one rises move to close mr pavlak second second mr giordano okay moving on to the committee reports this is albanies thank you on the communications committee met tonight uh board members in attendance eileen albanese uh catherine kazan michael bubba and dawn kumar as well as the administrator dr mark toback we had some discussions about things dr toback has already mentioned in his uh report including new quarantine guidelines that just came
061out late this afternoon one thing that we did have a lengthy conversation about is a new software program called insight that the district is exploring at this point to replace thought exchange there's actually some additional abilities that this program might have it's cost equivalent and the district is looking at perhaps making a change down the road to something that would be more user-friendly and give members of the community a better opportunity to communicate directly with the people that they have questions for so something new to come it's a new software program and there'll be more information about that to come in the future thank you that's it thank you ms alvin giordano yes thank you um the personnel committee met today they did not meet last month and since there was no agenda so in
062attendance is myself miss puttup and paula clark the director of hr compliance and labor relations we move forward the minutes from the september 23rd meeting the committee had no questions about the agenda during the meeting itself we reviewed revised job descriptions in the business office and facilities and central office administration and that was basically it i think that concludes our committee reports am i correct okay moving on to the agenda can i get a mover madam president if i can move the entire agenda as a consent agenda i'll full agenda seconded mr bubba yes discussion anyone roll paul mr moffatt mrs albanese yes mr bubba yes mr duffy yes mr giordano yes mrs kumar yes mr pavlak yes mrs puttup yes mrs shearer yes and mrs kazan yes motion carries thank you we have some
063retirements to read mrs put up i'm going to read a retirement statement for mr jonathan praille the wayne township public schools would like to congratulate mr john praille on his retirement mr prell began his career as a physical education teacher in september 2001 and had spent the bulk of his time at lafayette elementary school students loved attending his gym class because of the fun activities he developed and the positive relationships that he built with his students he created many lasting memories for his students especially those surrounding their favorite day of the entire school year yes field day we wish mr preyl a wonderful long and healthy retirement it was my pleasure to work with mr prail and i wish him well i also have a retirement statement for ruth schechter ruth has been a paraprofessional
064in wayne township public schools for the last 11 years during her tenure ruth has supported our students and programs as an lpn paraprofessional serving in various capacities such as one to one with individual students and as a shared paraprofessional working with all of our students within the classroom setting regardless of assignment she always puts students first and takes her job very seriously most recently russell simon has been as a job coach supporting her students as they learn how to become productive and contributing members of our community along her journey here in wayne ruth has touched countless lives of fellow colleagues teachers families and most importantly the students she has served these many years the wayne township public school district and particularly your friends and colleagues at wayne valley wish you a very happy and long
065retirement with your family thank you sorry mr bubba elaine barbieri senora barbieri's career in wayne township public schools began at wayne valley high school in 1999. elaine taught spanish at wayne valley for nearly 20 years during that time she had the unique ability to connect with students parents and her colleagues alike her class was student centered and every year her students appreciated her hands-on approach that frequently utilized online resources that created an atmosphere of fun while her students learned always eager to help she was a mentor to many of her colleagues her collaborative nature demonstrates her unselfish approach to education always having the best interest of our students and the world language department in mind in 2017 she was assigned to teach spanish at randall carter ryerson and pacquiao for the next four and a
066half years senora barbieri made spanish in inaccessible fun language for the elementary students at all three schools we wish elaine the very best in retirement in many safe and enjoyable years spent with her family in florida rumor has it that elaine will be spending most of her time in disney world congratulations on your retirement mrs kumar lori budd miss bud began working at wayne valley in january of 2005 and she was brought as a fitness and project adventure specialist miss bud was involved in the design of mount demarist our outdoor climbing tower along with our climbing elements over the years miss budd has revamped the project adventure curriculum into one of our students favorite physical education activities based on safety fun and achieving the impossible all while creating an environment where students searched for learning
067opportunities to stretch and grow during the experience consequently miss bud students learned the importance of teamwork trust problem solving communication and connecting with others miss bud began coaching the boys swimming in the winter of 2006. when miss budd took over there weren't enough members to fill the roster within three years william valley was runner-up in the passaic county championship in the following two years wayne valley won back county titles made the states as the team twice which culminated in miss bud being selected as the passaic county boys swimming coach of the year throughout her tenure she instilled a team mentality allowing her our athletes to understand that although they may be alone in the lane they are a team outside the water we will miss the impact miss bud had with her project adventure classes
068and supporting our student athletes we would like to thank miss bud for everything she's given to wayne valley students and staff and we wish her the very best in the future with her retirement thank you mr pavlak robert blanchard robert blanchard joined the wayne township public schools as the assistant director of facilities management in september of 2018. prior to joining our district robert worked his way through the hackensack hawthorne midland park and farewell and public school systems holding various supervisory positions in the custodials and facility maintenance during his time in wayne robert has been instrumental in the management of all aspects of facility maintenance buildings and grounds and custodial operations mr blanchard also provided valuable recommendations for school safety and security planning and spearheaded many district safety and security improvements robert also worked closely with
069architects and engineers to complete many of the school facilities projects including the recent opening of the early childhood center at pregnance and the expansion of our kindergarten program during covent 19 pandemic roberts supervised the cleaning and maintenance procedures in all the buildings ensuring a healthy work environment for staff and students he worked tirelessly and provided leadership for our custodial and maintenance staff when needed during this difficult time since january 2020 robert has been the interim director of facilities management and has taken on those additional responsibilities all while maintaining his focus on our staff and students he continued to hold high custodial standards and at the same time kept the facilities open and operating robert has been a tremendous tremendous support to our building administrations and central office team he always makes himself available to respond
070to our questions and to help us get the supplies we need on hand to maintain the safest environment in all our schools robert is always a pleasure to work with and we will all appreciate his hands-on approach when it comes to supporting us with our facility needs robert when not at work enjoys spending his free time through beautiful back roads on his motorcycle with family and friends enjoying the wind in his hair and even a few bugs in his teeth we wish him the best in his retirement thank you mr padley i think that concludes the retirements okay next public portion this portion of the 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
071of the public are discouraged from speaking negatively about an employee or a student 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 mover move who's that mr giordano mrs cher okay this is a prank just hello my name is stephen kuipers and i'm a former resident of wayne new jersey and i'm here once again to voice my support for the lgbt content in the school libraries at the last meeting i heard many people state that we all want the same thing and to listen to what the other side is saying and i hope that those assertions were made in good faith as i implore you to
072listen to my story i was four years old when i can imagine my first crush i saw a man at the grocery store and i couldn't stop looking by five years old i wanted to get an earring just like my dad's and i was told not to get it in the gay ear by eight years old i was already hearing stories about distant family members who are gay he was kicked out of his church where he played organ for decades for being gay some extended family members wanted nothing to do with him so he moved to arizona i've never met him by nine years old i wanted to hang out with my brother in the neighborhood kids they rode bikes played on trampolines all summer long but as soon as i joined everyone started calling
073me gay i was 11 years old when i was finally explained what being gay meant and i spent the whole night crying at school i'm told that i sit like a gay person run like a pansy look at your hands like a queer and now i can't even move without worrying someone might think i'm gay i was 12 years old when i looked up homosexuality in the bible only to read the unrighteous shall not inherit god's kingdom by 13 i had spent the last three years of my life praying to god to not make me gay please take this away from me so i can have a normal life and by 16 i was trying to force myself into relationships with women because if i didn't people would start asking questions now imagine if there
074had been a book in the library that could help me understand these things imagine if i had teachers who could have educated me on some of these concepts the fact that in 2010 i thought that there was no hope for me as a gay person in wayne new jersey that i would be contemplating suicide because i had become so disillusioned and indoctrinated to believe that being gay meant i would never be happy is frankly appalling but you know what it doesn't even end there in 2013 my family started to go to a more progressive church 15 minutes down the road from here i tried to get involved volunteer take classes to become a member only to be told that i couldn't because i was gay and they wanted me to swear a vow of chastity
075eventually i tried to reason with the pastor and an elder a man i known since i was a child i told them that a gay man following in jesus footsteps sounded better than a dead kid and a coffin but they disagreed they told me that even though gay marriage is legal they will never marry me in their church as an adult i've worked jobs where co-workers and supervisors passed break room secrets about my sexuality up until 2020 i could have been fired for being gay wayne valley didn't even have a gay straight alliance until 2011 a year after i graduated graduated and a few months ago a pride flag was torn down from a church right up the street my family's church so do not tell me an actual real-life gay person that there is
076not anti-lgbt rhetoric at play in wayne these books will save lives and yes maybe not your kids lives but maybe somebody else's kids so thank you for listening to me and again i go back to the mission statement we affirm the humanity and dignity of all learners we enact necessary change for the opportunity and equity for all under the guiding principle that education is a human right we provide students with equitable access to education that empowers them to positively engage in a democratic society and contribute to a global community thank you [Applause] godzman at the last meeting i began to see some change the narrative changed from one of division to one of everyone indicating that they were in favor of diversity and inclusion so i decided it was time for me as an individual
077to take a look at the other side and what their positions were so i filed an oprah request and asked that i'd be provided with copies of the book challenges that had been filed in hopes of getting a better understanding of how we could bridge the divide and come to some compromising consensus i was provided with the uh with the submissions of three different individuals who i've confirmed are members of the wayne education restoration facebook page and unfortunately one of them was absolutely appalling and has really shaken me on our possibility of reaching consensus and i felt that in the interest of transparency i really needed to read some of the comments that were made in this challenge any and all material that challenges biological norms must be examined for the dangers it poses to
078biologically normal students emasculation of young men is child abuse any child that that has a degree of mental instability it requires for them to be confused over their sex gender should be handled by a family doctor the entire book perpetuates lies that contradicted science so tell me who is going to stand up and fight evil if all the boys are wearing dresses acting like princesses the book perpetuates lies that contradict science any child that has that degree of mental instability that requires them to be confused about sex or gender should be seen as a safety hazard transgenderism defies nature and biology biology and nature do not in any way support chromosexuality or transgenderism if everyone was homosexual the world would go extinct let's talk about the science the american psychiatric association said in 1973 that
079homosexuality is not a mental illness in 2013 they indicated that transgender is not a mental illness i mention this tonight because this is what we go up against i want to find consensus i want to come to compromise but as i've said before if you talk if you walk the walk you got if you talk talk you got to walk the walk if it is and and i'm not saying that this is the opinion of everyone on that side but we need to compromise okay sir that's your time nicholas one thing i just wanted to bring up short so first time in a while it's going to be short um my first time ever but um i i know there was you said that uh dr tobacco said that we wouldn't do the virtual learning
080after uh the holidays and that's what we're going to try and do the best our ability which is great news because i definitely heard a lot of other things and i'm glad we're that that was clarified we're not going to do that but i hope we don't look at virtual learning as an option even if we have all these heavy loads of cases we need to find a way to do something that will let us be in the building because virtual learning it killed our brains it destroyed us it caused suicidal thoughts in many students and it was damaging and even those numbers that were reported at the last meeting were terrifying from the testing terrifying and we we we can't and we're we're still talking about virtual learning as an option if things get
081bad enough i don't think that should be an option and i hope none of you think it should be an option if things get bad because if things get bad we should figure out a way to do it we've been living with this thing for more than a year we should figure something out that we could go to school no matter how bad it gets if if it's like a bubonic blade well that's different um we're talking about this like the omri con that has cold like symptoms that is not as severe as the other variants well that's been said on even controversial news networks and scientists have said it and doctors have said other than dr fauci obviously but um but i don't i don't understand why we would look at that as an
082option and also if this masking works so well i wonder why so many students are getting a covet it's interesting i i really think it's very much coming from out of school more so than in the school it's really really confusing but yeah that's all i have for you tonight harry posakos wayne new jersey uh in the spirit of the holiday season and with the peace poll that i see in the back i just wanted to come up here and uh say thank you to the outgoing members for offering um you know your wisdom and your advice and your uh your assistance um also wanted to say uh you know uh i believe wayne township public schools are a safe space uh i believe uh you know we're all human beings and i think we're
083all in favor of diversity and inclusion so if there's a an issue you know i i believe that you know they get reported and we have those those hib reports so um we had a very difficult campaign this year uh uh you know something i didn't expect for for board of education you know something uh um that that was really intense and everyone's talking about the vision um you know so in the spirit of bringing everyone together um you know i i wanted to come up here and say that i forgive uh anyone who you know made up nonsense about me and my running mates and and the other candidates putting out nonsense out there on social media on flyers we had pastors former attorneys want to be politicians you know teachers unions you know
084calling us extremists and other other nonsense so i wanted to say you know i forgive you know i'm i'm a good christian we have the peace poll um you know hopefully 2022 we all come together we all realize you know we're all human beings we're all here pro-education we're all pro education we're all here for the kids you know we have 7 500 students in this public school hopefully we can increase the enrollment versus you know the declining enrollment that we're seeing so um and and hopefully we can increase um learning and have have the kids catch up you know to what they lost during covet so hopefully we'll we'll also keep the schools open i know we have uh the continuous uh covet challenge so just wanted to say uh happy holidays to everyone
085all the holidays that that everyone's celebrating and uh see you in 2022. [Applause] okay mover adam president see no one else rise and move to close public session padlock second mr bubba okay wrapping up did you have anything dr toback i think the only question that required a response was the demographer information for mr goddessman and i think mr esposito wanted to know something there's basically out of the report so as far as mr gottisman's question the enrollment um the anticipated increased enrollment is approximately a thousand students that's obviously from pre-k actually those are k-12 statistics and as far as mr esposito goes at this point as far as the students are concerned the information we have is voluntary so it doesn't necessarily mean we have accurate figures regarding the vaccination of all of our
086students because like i said that's voluntary with the staff we do know there's a requirement we do not report that um it's something we could look at i would have to take a look but it's not something that we we have readily available but the student part would not be accurate board members mrs kumar um i have a question about the 10 days i wasn't quite sure what you meant by the reduction from 14 days to 10 days and one mic on one around i can't hear you yeah sorry reduction from 14 days to 10 days and what other things kind of went with it i feel like there was something else yeah sorry okay so the new jersey department of health issued a new cali report on december 10th the calorie report indicated that
087all of new jersey was reclassified well some parts of the state at that point were moderate risk coveted right others were high risk in the south at that point the whole state became orange high risk at that point there was a there was guidance that was also previously provided by the department of health that said if a region is in high risk then the quarantine period went to 14 days so there were other options previously where you could have a 10-day quarantine so the district previously settled on a 10-day quarantine that was then elevated to 14 however those options that we had previously were now restored as of today about 3 30 3 40 this afternoon we're able to go back to a 10-day quarantine period okay i just wasn't sure what how that happened
088um and then the next question i had was is there any advice for vaccination and students or anything coming forward from the department of health and the possibility of reducing quarantine for maybe those students i know it's hard manageably to do it with substitutes and keeping classes but it's just a question yeah so so in general um the the discussion with our local department of health here in wayne was regarding um okay so we have a number of situations where we have outbreaks in classrooms but yet those classrooms have students that have vaccines and so the idea is we are able to look at and allow those students to return to class but the issue is what the students will be returning to because if the rest of the class is under quarantine so these
089are at the elementary level the rest of students are are quarantined that it's very difficult for the students to return to class and what kind of learning environment is that things like that so those are the types of situations that the district will be addressing we will make an effort to work with our health department and to allow those students to return but there's also situations where students are quarantined so there is for example in the days leading up to an outbreak being declared right there are typically students a few days in advance that are already placed on quarantine so they would say your first student in the class test positive and say that's on a thursday on the following tuesday the entire class is quarantined but those students have already been quarantined the one
090that was out the prior thursday there was a period of time of their quarantines so technically based on the quarantine guidelines they would be able to return earlier but again the question becomes what is it that you would be returning to as a as a student and what kind of a scenario um would the student have if they if they return to school so that's what we have to work on due to the shortage of substitutes and and staffing problems that we already have um that that might be a little bit of a challenge that's why i said there's no no promises that we're making about how that's exactly going to look but we're certainly going to work on it no sorry you can speak to him after the meeting anyone else mr pavlock um
091i'd just like to thank my three fellow board members who are leaving us tonight um it's been a challenging couple years for everyone up here and they've always stood up when they needed to you make a lot of friendships during your time on the board with people as evident tonight with mrs puttup and mrs cher i've had a great friendship uh as well and i will continue with mrs albanese who's always the voice of reason and just a wonderful person as is everyone up here you know people think we we you know the only time we're here is when you see us here we're not and especially the board president board president you're working seven days a week it's full-time job but everyone's here for for the right reason and the new members coming on
092are coming on for the right reason it's about kids it's about education and it's about molding our district to be the best in the state we have one of the best school districts in the state of new jersey and we need to as a group come together and to everyone i have a great holiday merry christmas happy new year be safe please during that time thank you this is put up speak a little louder and closer to your mic people are having a trouble hearing thank you how's that okay again i want to say thank you to my colleagues who are retiring from this phase of their public life but i'd like to think that we will see each other again whether it's a another committee in the school district or other service in the
093township and i want to wish everyone very happy holidays i know that uh not everyone celebrates christmas hanukkah just passed but however you celebrate i want us to all look forward to a wonderful happier and healthier thank you this is cher i just wanted to take a moment to say happy holidays to everybody and i wanted to take a moment just to talk to the wayne teachers and the wea um it has been a privilege to work with you and i want the teachers to know that i still have their back even though i am not on this board the teachers are the backbone of this district and they deserve a huge thank you and they deserve a very nice vacation right now because as someone who's in the schools on a daily basis you
094you really have no concept what the teachers are facing right now as far as the amount of work the stress from helping these kids get through the tradition the transition of coming back from school and i just want all the teachers to know that they are very much appreciated in my eyes and please enjoy the holiday break thank you this is kumar i wanted to separate my final comments on purpose um first i do want to thank all of our outgoing board members for all of their service i've only been on the board shortly but i really do appreciate all of your insight and these past few years serving during a pandemic have definitely not been easy and i admire all of your dedication everyone on the boards dedication these past few years um and
095i really just hope everyone here and then the rest of the community enjoy their holidays remain safe and healthy and hopefully we have a good 20 22. that's it this is albanese this will be the last meeting for the wayne board of education for this year i want to wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season in january the board will reform elect new leadership so i wanted tonight to thank mrs kazan and mrs puttup for stepping up into leadership roles for the last two years for all the committee work you have done and the long hours that you have put in in order to make sure that we have the organization that we have your work with the administration your communication to the board i want to say thank you for your service to
096the board thank you mrs albanese mr bubba i just want to say first everybody i hope everybody has a happy and healthy holidays happy holidays is nice but healthy at this point in time it's probably much better i want to say to the outgoing board members i'm going to miss not the arguments not the late nights where we've you know fought in chambers because that's been done before too um but really for always just being there and believing in what you believe in we don't always agree god knows that happens all the time but we all walk out of it holding our head up high knowing that we did the right thing and that's what i want really the outgoing board members to know always know you did the right thing it wasn't always pretty
097weird always get our way you didn't always get your way just it's the way that things work so that's kind of what i want to say to the all board members and into the new ones i will say again come in really understand and jump in and looking for the right word at the moment um well no i wasn't the participation you're going to do no matter what because that's what you're going to be there just understand that there is a greater good and while an individual want or need is an individual want or need everything that happens on this board is a consensus and that's what we're trying to build the consensus to get to the next level and then when we reach that level the consensus will be to get to the next
098level after that it's all steps but it has to be done in a consensus it is not a me game so that's kind of just the message i want to really is that it's not about me it's about all of us because nothing gets done without five votes so happy holidays and i've talked enough tonight so i am done thank you mr bubba anyone else any administrators oh mr dr toback so i know mrs zane you're about to make a statement and what i wanted to do was just basically take a moment to thank mrs kazan mrs put up for their leadership as officers on the board of education i would like to say that being a board president at this moment in time is probably the most difficult time ever to be a board
099of education president whether it's here in wayne or in any other community but tough people respond in tough situations and in many cases they stand call stand tall even under difficult circumstances and mrs stan i believe you as board president stood tall during your entire time as as the board president and you've dealt with a lot of very difficult scenarios and what's even more impressive is the fact that you're a volunteer you do this for your love of the school system you love the students and the love of the community so i would just like to recognize you for your perseverance your leadership your commitment to the community and your continued influence on the school district whether as president or as board member something always remember thank you so much dr toback that means a
100lot to me [Applause] now i'm all choked up i have to make my comments i don't yes i do be quiet i get the last word for the last time i was struggling with a positive year-end message this year despite the availability of vaccines we are still in the throes of the pandemic we continue to deal with the struggle to keep all students in the classroom no matter how hard we try i truly sympathize with parents who need to deal with the issue of child care during these quarantine periods that are starting to pop up once again while we've made tremendous progress we continue to have those challenges the important thing to know is that we all want what you want we always have and will continue to our goal is simple educate every child
101who comes through our doors and give them everything we can within our power to succeed i can't overlook the clear division in our community i can only hope that we can all find a way to improve our communication with each other and move forward toward compromise on the issues that are lingering i'm willing to work on that in the best interests of the students and staff we must this is to come to an end it's causing harm to everyone involved we just heard a very passionate speech from a former student frustrations are understandable but we have to figure out a way to handle our discourse better these meetings are not working i believe in some cases they're making things worse tonight we say goodbye to three community servants eileen with nine years of service stacy
102with five matt with three all of these trustees have worked hard and putting countless hours of their time to serve all of you i hope you take the time to thank each of them whether you agree with a vote or a comment or not it is important to look at the totality of one's contribution these members have contributed plenty we are also losing a group with vast knowledge of what has been done and what yet needs to be done in our district there's something to be said for experience i'm hopeful that we can welcome a new board in january and move forward in a positive direction tonight is my last meeting as board's president it's been a difficult two years for education and to be in this position during it although being in this position
103has given me a closer look at the day-to-day of the district and taught me quite a bit if you think wrangling the community is hard try to hurt board members to consensus we are a tough and passionate crowd i don't expect that to change i thank everyone who stepped who stepped up and supported me in this role and look forward to sitting to the side as a trustee once again i'm not leaving just switching seats finally thank you to our teachers administrators custodians bus drivers paraprofessionals substitutes in central office for all you've done to keep us going during this pandemic i wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season see you all back here in january where we will roll up our sleeves and get back to work thank you and finally mr bubba you're
104moving to close mr pavlak you're seconding nice you