September 9, 2021: Board of Education Meeting

001the executive session of the wayne board of education regular meeting of september 9 2021 was convened in the conference room of 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's meeting meetings act and the roll call was taken the meeting was recessed and is now being reconvened please rise for a flag salute and a moment of silence for the victims of [Music] with 911 and justice for all thank you [Music] can i get a mover to reconvene put up mrs albanese roll call mr moffatt mrs albanese here mr bubba here mr giordano here mrs kazan here mrs puddup here and mrs sheer here dr toback do you want to start your presentation now

002okay you'll give me let me know when you want us to okay very good good evening everybody so um today was our first day of school here in lane we're pleased to report that while there were some bumps on the road the opening of school went well at 14 of our schools the early childhood center at preakness school did not have school for students today but instead had a parent orientation an ice cream social and a pto meeting but the students at the ecc will start school tomorrow i'd like to thank all of our employees for a successful start for the school year our teachers did a wonderful job with welcoming our students and doing a beautiful job with creating a warm and friendly environment our custodial maintenance and facilities department did a wonderful job

003with preparing our buildings and today our students and staff walked into well-stocked and extremely clean school buildings additionally i would like to thank all members from the administrative team in our buildings and in the central office for making sure that our schools have adequate inventory of instructional supplies and everything they need for a successful start for the school year i also like to mention that there is some exciting news for all of new jersey every year education week produces an annual quality counts report where every state's education system is ranked i'm pleased to announce that for the second consecutive year new jersey public schools were ranked as the top of new jersey was ranked as the top state for education by education week the close second was massachusetts so that's really that's quite an accomplishment

004for our whole state and i'd like to just do a round of [Applause] all the educators in new jersey all the boards of education for all that they're doing to advance public education um as mentioned there were some bumps on the road today and one problem we had was our new phone system so mr moffatt if you could just give a very quick update on our phones and also advise parents if there's an issue with the phone system it's only in very limited areas right due to the recent flooding at the district's bus depot located at the north cove we had to relocate our dispatchers for the school buses to preakness school and the move to other locations with buses as a result of these moves we are experiencing telephone issues mainly in the transportation

005office which we are working to resolve please be patient with us as we anticipate to restore normal operations in the phone sometime next week in the event you cannot get through to them uh feel free to do two things at this point you can email the email address is wtps underscore transportation at wayneschools.com and uh one phone line is available and i'll give it to uh everybody here tonight it's 201 713-5817 and hit extension 2640 and again if you can't get through on that number because we are experiencing a high volume of telephone traffic feel free again to use that email address again wtps underscore transportation at wayneschool.com thank you okay so i'm going to move along with my report so i'd like to take a few minutes to talk about full day kindergarten so

006it was very exciting it was really very delightful to be able to gather this morning to celebrate and welcome our first full-day kindergarten students here in wayne today we saw 489 full-day kindergarten students enter the school system as you all know it has been a three-year journey to get where we are today since we initially announced our plan to bring kindergarten into the district but the journey really started seven years ago with several wayne parents banded together and there was an upswell of support for full-day kindergarten while it was not financially feasible at the time it set the ball rolling to consider how full day kindergarten might be possible because this district needed to invest in both full-day kindergarten and early childhood education because our buildings are not large enough to host both full-day kindergarten

007and our early childhood pre-kindergarten programs the other factor that allowed us to move ahead was our new governor and ultimately he decided to invest in our state's public schools by increasing state aid to almost every school district after many years of significant reductions so overall it was not easy to get to today it was great to have a part in delivering something that people wayne have been seeking for so many years to be honest the plan to bring full day kindergarten to wayne was a little bit risky because it was reliant on some things out of our control things like state aid extraordinary aid continued support through three budget cycles those are all certainly things that are not guaranteed school finance is built on stability and with most costs being fixed and increases kept to

008a minimum it's not easy to add significant additional costs into the budget recognizing there's also a two percent cap at the same time the stars at least over wayne were aligned for example the preakness school new wing even though it was operating as a branch of the library a few years ago was once in elementary school it was last used in the 1970s but it had two things that we needed most already in place so one of those things was plumbing the preakness school original school buildings had plumbing in place for bathrooms in each of the classrooms so upon reconstruction the plumbing was available and that kept the cost very reasonable secondly the preschool the preakness school had 12 classrooms that we needed to house our early childhood program in one location and the office

009space and space for other therapeutic services one last benefit for the community a few years ago the future of preakness school was in question it needed a lot of work and with no specific purpose at the time it would have been difficult to justify the additional expense in order to complete renovations with all the new construction projects coming to wayne preakness school has become essential in housing the additional new students will be seeing in the future as these projects are completed give you some sense of the cost year one the plan involved 1.5 million dollars in renovation to the preakness school including security and fire alarm upgrades and the installation of playground equipment which was primarily funded by donations you're too involved hiring our initial staff our principal jessica hammond child study team support staff

010and all the technology and furniture needs were also put in place at a cost of 1.2 million this year we included an additional 1.9 million dollars in the budget and most of those funds will go towards staffing and instructional supplies we more than doubled the size of our kindergarten staff to accommodate the nearly 500 students we have enrolled in our full-day kindergarten program today so i'd like to just um close by taking a moment to recognize a number of people including our former director of facilities john maso and our interim director bob blanchard i'd also like to thank our district trades people for all the work they did in completing as much work as they could in-house and also murray paving and construction for their excellent work on this project thanks to bill moffett for

011his work on both the budget and oversight of each phase of the renovation work thanks to director of elementary education don auerbach for developing both an excellent early childhood program and our pre-k student for our pre-k students and an excellent full-day kindergarten program thanks to our assistant superintendent donna reichman for her ongoing work in the development of both academic programs and her many suggested design ideas throughout the project thank you to dr jessica hammond the ecc principal for putting it all together into a high-performing early childhood center thank you to all the parents who offered ideas and advocated for full-day kindergarten and finally thank you to all the board of education members past and present for all of their contributions and making this idea a reality for the community without the continued support from the

012board of education none of this would have been possible as far as the hiv report goes i'm reporting the following data related to harassment intimidation and bullying incidents in the wayne township public school district there was one incident investigated since the last report and it was deemed to not be in the category of hiv so this time what we'd like to do is go on to a presentation so so that everyone can see the presentation you take a few minutes because the board is going to have to move from their location to the seats down below and mrs reichman is going to take over she's going to discuss um last year there was um when it comes to communication about our plan and about the all the information that's necessary uh for parents to know

013about there was a lot of ques there's a lot of uh there were situations where people would say well listen we have like 50 pages of stuff to remove we have 100 pages of stuff to read from the board of education um we tried to do everything we could to simplify basically the information that is the information parents ask about most so right now i'd like to introduce mrs reichman and um she's going to do the presentation on our district website this time board members come down below thank you dr tobak before we continue i don't want to gloss over that full day kindergarten so quickly i i'd like a round of applause for everyone involved for bringing that important pres up program to wayne [Applause] thank you hmm so good evening everyone can you

014hear me [Music] is this better yeah thank you uh over the past week many of you have reached out with questions about the return to school plan i know many people were on vacation when we made the last presentation there are also people who are trying to plan weekend travel and thinking about the upcoming holidays and we're seeking out information as dr tobak shared we were trying to figure out the simplest way to share this information so that you have easy access and of course you're always welcome to reach out to me and i'm happy to respond but again we'd like you to have this at your fingertips we have been updating this up through today and we'll continue to do some do so so that you have real-time information on the top of our

015home page if you see right where the cursor is there's a back to school tab if you go to that it brings you to this page and what you'll see is on the side here we have information related to any topic that you may have questions about we also and i shared this at the last meeting have this simple diagram at the bottom and if you click right on the yellow dot my apologies there's a filter on on this um computer so you will have access to it at home i did indicate at the last meeting that you also can access this diagram from your phones all of the information that's shared on the schoolhouse is consistent with the information that's shared on the side and i'll just take you through a simple tab vaccination

016status brings you right here and you have the most up-to-date information many of you have asked about travel that was a big one on this page you'll find there's two links right here for domestic travel and international travel if there's any updates provided by the department of health and the cdc and the new jersey department of education it will be updated here in real time so as you're making plans you can keep referring back to the website another question that has come up quite a bit is physical distancing and i think it's important to highlight that we have made every effort we had a wonderful first day of school i was able to get out and visit many of the schools we've made every effort wherever and whenever possible to maintain three feet of distance

017between our students and we are advising teachers to maintain six feet of distance this is super important because when wearing a mask if three feet of distance is maintained six feet for teachers and if there is a situation with a covet outbreak or a reported covet case in a classroom as long as we can reveal through the contact tracing process that mass were born and students were properly distanced we would not have to quarantine those students the goal obviously is to keep schools open and to keep our students and teachers in school which is why it's super super important to maintain all of these roles and be consistent across all schools and all grades pre-k through 12. again at your leisure take a look and just browse through the tabs that we have here if

018there's anything that you think would be helpful to share out just write to me and we're happy to continue to add to this it's a work in progress it's here for our community to provide information at ease and allow you to have it at your fingertips my apologies for the interactive diagram and the filter you will be able to easily access it on your home screen and on your phone so you're welcome to try it any suggestions please reach out we're always happy to hear from you thank you is okay [Music] um does that conclude your report dr toback yes okay mr moffatt revisions to the agenda yes we have a few tonight under the emergence section section t which is human resources number one approval of appointment of district staff for the 2021-2022 school

019year remove the following line number eight rosemary elente number 11 michael sarbone number three that is item number three approval to rescind items ad number five which is diane aschon ksci scpa james fallon resignation date august 31st 2021 number four approval of additional compensation number seven block schedule lunch supervision on attachment before wayne hills or move number one a la aja and replace with scott summers add on wayne valley number 37 margaret and i'll spell the last name q u i n t a v e l l a add number 38. lauren spell last name a-s-p-i-a-z-u on number 13 which is the sixth period assignment on attachment all assignments that are not full year stipends should read prorated a number 25 revised type in from twelve thousand two hundred twenty one dollars to twenty four

020thousand 442 prorated number 39 again on on number 13. revise stipend from 11 500 to 23 000 and remove number 132 which is teresa johnson and finally no i'm sorry there's two more left number five approval of extracurricular advisory secondary on attachment george washington middle school removed number ten michael sabron instrumental and vocal show step number one 0.5 at 1 184 dollars [Music] and lastly under number 19 approval paraprofessional assignment on attachment remove number one eight nine uh just sepenina and i'll spell last name t-r-i-p-i-c-c-h-o [Music] that concludes the revisions to tonight's agenda thank you mr moffatt before we begin the public portion i just want to make a couple comments um you'll notice that there is no longer a sign-in sheet at the podium we've had some issues with uh people taking photographs of

021it and some people have a level of discomfort with their information being so accessible so along those lines per our policy if anyone doesn't feel comfortable giving their street address you do not have to you can state your name and that you are a wayne resident only if you are from out of town we would prefer per our policy that you say so and your business here if you're affiliated with some group or whatever the reason may be and those are the changes 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

022responsibility for comments made by the public comments regarding employees or students can be legally respond cannot be legally responded to by the board other comments may be responded to tonight or at subsequent meetings under all business can i get a mover i'll move mr bubba mr giordano okay agenda items only anyone seeing no one rise mrs kazan i moved to close second second mr giordano okay let's move on to the agenda uh we have committees that met this evening i would like to go first this is cher [Music] the technology and safety committee met tonight with myself dr burchard and michael bubba we discussed some summer projects the technology department worked on network upgrades that were originally delayed due to covid we have a new content filter it's a new web-based content filter filter and

023this appliance gives the district access to new features to inspect student traffic uh we the department purchased a new tool called goguardian for the staff it's to help them and better engage the students while they're on their chromebooks the tool allows teachers to gain valuable instructional time by keeping students on task and as far as our one-to-one chromebooks they rolled out new chromebooks chromebooks for students grades one five six and nine and with this change the district is now one to one in grades k through 12. that was it thank you mr share next mrs up the finance committee met this evening mrs kazan and myself and our administrators mr moffitt and miss leideg we reviewed the check register various financial reports our contracts and transportation agreements we had an update on the audit the

024auditors came back into the district and they've been here for about a week and a half they will be done shortly and the audit report will be available before the end of the year um the new demographic study will be done shortly um we went through three policies that pertain to the finance committee and mr moffatt also unveiled the 2223 budget plan and if any board member has a suggestion about the budget calendar or something that they would like to see for the upcoming budget year please feel free to contact mr moffitt's office thank you the education committee met today um ms albanese myself and donna reichman were in attendance for it uh the agenda covered the review of the july 19th and august 19th uh committee minutes and agenda items uh we're very happy

025to reach the dual agreements for dual credits at bergen community college seton hall university lim college lincoln tech and at fdu under the curriculum area we reviewed elementary science secondary ms or middle school ela basic skills and secondary high school world history uh curriculum changes uh there was a couple of walk-ins regarding residency that were also reviewed thank you anyone else with the committee assignment i noticed there's some people in the back of the room that aren't wearing a mask officer because we have exemptions for these gentlemen in the back would appreciate if everyone follows the rules okay oh wait till it's okay police officer will handle that can i get a mover for the agenda madam president i move that we move the entire agenda as one item thank you second full agenda mrs

026put up second mr giordano discussion any questions or comments roll call mr moffat mrs albanese yes mr bubba yes mr giordano yes mrs puddup yes mr shearer yes and mrs kazan yes motion carries thank you 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 of the public are discouraged from speaking negatively about an employee or 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 can i get a mover move mr giordano second mr bubba [Music] torre esposito woodlot road i have

027no issue wherever people know where i live i believe in the second amendment woodlot road thank you so i need something to explain to me about what was buried sir can i just stop you minute we don't have our time keeper going yet i apologize okay vice president's falling down on the job here okay you're good to go thank you quick quick question on the back to school forms there was something buried about unvaccinated children can't leave the tri-state area and if they do they need to stay home for 10 days that counts as absences with no instruction so i'd like that clarified dr toback miss reichman next week will be 84 degrees on monday are you making max optionals or are you waiting for kids to pass out any i like the board's thoughts

028on the crowd at the valley football game last friday thoughts on the teachers lunch last week that happened at anthony wayne with massless teachers taking selfies that were somehow taken down which is interesting um and also what's the reasoning for having the meeting at a school it's certainly not for the crowd of people that are here is it because a certain democratic war candidate complained about it at the last planning board meeting did you think we wouldn't show up because we have to be muzzled we won't be muzzled not today not tomorrow and not anytime soon it starts november 2nd it starts with dethroning the king and it's easy as one two three brian battifield 63 camilo drive can't hear you i have to take it down is it on is it on better okay

029ryan battischel 63 kilo drive i'd like to disagree with some of the comments previously this was not this was not a good day at school this was not a friendly day at school and i'm not talking about the masks i'm not talking about the letter that went out at 2pm on a friday when certain members decided to then leave directly afterwards and not come back until today i'm not talking about the last minute procedures put in place to override doctor's notes i'm not even talking about the parents that are splitting from each other and causing splits in our schools and our children i'm talking about the kids in the school i'm talking about how there is vaccination bias going on within the school people calling each other out and saying i will not go near

030you because you have not been vaccinated i'm talking about racism in our school today this morning i don't care what they're saying i want you to listen to me today this morning when my daughter went into school and the girl next to her said black lives matter white lives don't you're white you don't matter this is going on in your school driven by your agendas that have been complained about continuously and this is what we have been warning you about and on the first day back at school on the first morning back at school this has occurred here in this town in your schools and i'm not even talking about the high school this was at lafayette this was an elementary school these were fourth graders and if you think this kind of thing is

031acceptable this is what you are bringing in every time you start saying that there is a need to have separation in race every time you start saying we need to be standing up here and calling out all of these different things from all of these different communities you start creating segregation and you start making these things happen and this is your responsibility now and i expect you to solve it fast can i take my mask off to speak or i have to keep it on can you keep i can take it off oh okay now all right i'm here to uh joe jim fries with wayne new jersey uh i'm here to obtain a clarification of the school district's mandatory vaccination policy first of all i'm referring to executive order 253 by governor murphy regarding

032mandatory vaccinations of school district employees as i as i read this this order it requires school district employees to get vaccinated against covet 19 except that they're they can opt out and instead get tested either once or twice weekly and then however if you read further of in that order paragraph 7 says nothing in this order shall prevent a covered setting from instituting a vaccination or testing policy that includes additional or stricter requirements so long as such policy comports with the minimum requirements of this order a covered setting may also maintain a policy that requires more frequent testing of covered workers so i'm asking for a clarification what what exactly is the policy of this school district regarding mandatory vaccinations of its employees will it institute a stricter requirement than is required by executive order

033253 will will it make vaccination a condition of employment and eliminate the option to get tested are you allowed to do that under the law will you institute more frequent testing and i frankly i don't understand the order where it says get tested once or twice which is it once or twice and who makes that determination the local school board i i you know i don't understand that i need a clarification of that as well but uh i think it's important that the that the board institute a mandatory vaccination policy for its employees uh in order to um prevent the spread of covet 19 in the schools in order to protect the students as well as the teachers and the administrators and the staff uh i just need a clarification as to what what exactly

034is the mandatory uh vaccination policy of this school district i think thank you hello could you hear me hi my name is nicholas dalianes i'm not going to give my address but uh um i have a question for you mrs kazan on when i spoke at maya at the july 15th meeting when i spoke at the july 15 meeting in uh the municipal chain chambers at the end of when i was speaking you said that if you had anything to say about it we will be breathing in september and you did not act upon that on august 26th you acted against here if you applaud i'm sorry continue you acted against us you acted against my fellow students if you're curious with my first day school was like this this is how it was like

035when i walked in i it was a normal day except i couldn't see smiles because you're not going to let me see people's face you'd expect me to be able to hear and socialize let's go to lunch when i was at lunch i would i was forced into a tiny cubicle forced to wear a mask at every second without any breaks like you said i would have mask breaks throughout the day i did not have one throughout all seven hours of the day and when i would ask for one they said that you will be the reason our schools close and you could kill people why would your staff tell me something like that why would that happen in your district why would you lie to me about us having mass breaks you lied that's

036not true true you already passed the opportunity to get rid of the mandate at least give us breaks at least enforce us to have breaks we weren't able to go outside today during the rain so we were inside so when i was in a cubicle with a mask on i could assume can i have a mask break i asked and they said no no you can't that's not allowed because you're gonna kill people with the delta variant that's what i was told that is completely unacceptable for someone to tell me that and this board always talks about me and my fellow students as if we are your pawns and we we are almost like objects we are not talked about as humans i want you to acknowledge me and my fellow students as humans human

037beings we deserve a right to breathe to this moment ever since 2 45 my my face has all irritated it has rashes it's painful because i had to wear a mask with no break for seven hours throughout this day since eight in the morning and you allow that you let that be okay today i also had a few students come up and say thank you for coming to the meeting and speaking from me i agree with you and i thank you because they couldn't do the same so it's not just me it's a bunch of students that agree with me and the fact that i don't have a board that even cares about my well-being and my fellow students well-being is sad sad to me thank you seeing no one coming to the podium i

038proved to cause mrs kazan i wrote some stuff down this time to make sure i got all my points across mark faber delena little little sir mark faber wayne so i want to share some perspectives on uh people who support all this new teaching stuff some interesting developments in the school and in the country and i have some questions so first the perspectives on the people who support crt equity and a lot a lot of this other ideological stuff i've been told disagreeing with teaching crt sel gender identity or anal sex makes me racist sexist homophobic or even a white supremacist emotion perception individual truth are more reliable than facts statistics and logic the rallying cry of my body my choice is perfectly acceptable for abortion but not for vaccines and masks if a black

039person does not believe they are a victim of racism in the united states they are branded to sell out uncle tom or even the black face of white supremacy yesterday a white woman wore a gorilla mask and threw eggs at a black republican candidate for governor in california but no news outlets covered the story no one called it a racist act but the media is quick to say that kamala harris's approval ratings are so low just because she's black and she's a woman they claim voter id laws are racist and disproportionately impact minorities and suppress their ability ability to vote because they're not able to get the proper id however they support vaccine passports firearms ids driver's licenses and passports they claim all white people have an inherent bias an inherent racist bias whether they

040know it or not and obtain success not from hard work but from white privilege these same people often resort to bullying or censorship to silence people who disagree how did we get to a place where it's completely acceptable to judge the beliefs and motives of all white people when we have been fighting for so long that people should be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin how did how do these people rationalize taking the opposite position of multiple issues that share the same basis for an argument do these perspectives seem to support inclusivity of all people regardless of race gen religion sexual orientation and that we are all equal do these people truly care about other people or do they support the causes because it makes them feel

041better about themselves and in their own minds they are morally superior are these teachings what we want for our children is this the definition of critical thinking in our country some interesting developments in the schools in the country objective standards for grading students have been deemed racist in some school districts and are being eliminated in favor of more subjective measures focused on progress rather than subject mastery a public school system in new york introduced a new curriculum teaching all white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism kindergarten classes are shown videos of black children shot and killed by police instructing them about the dangers of police brutality several schools have segregated classrooms to provide safe spaces for minority students away from their white classmates in the name of equity the virginia department of education

042is seeking to eliminate its accelerated math programs below 11th grade teacher fired after being exposed as an antifa recruiter where he bragged he has 180 days to turn children into revolutionaries i'm back before you continue sir is there anyone else that wishes to speak at this portion you'll have to wait until the end right there i'll come back thank you good evening board members uh today was the first day of school as we all know um i would just like to take a minute out to thank um certainly all our custodians our secretaries our building administration uh no matter what side of the issue you might be on any of this there's no doubt that they did just incredible work i know today also the director of elementary ed and the director of secondary ed

043they are in their respective schools seeing how things were going i think it speaks very well for the administration that this is uh this is going on and i just want to thank all the people on behalf of the teachers we'd like to thank all of those parties for just everything they did to get us going today thank you hello don challa wayne valley 2012 rutgers 2017 i'd like to clear up some confusion for both the board of ed and the public critical race theory is a law school legal theory here's what fox news says courtesy of frequent guest and political strategist christopher ruffalo admitted to doing and i quote we have successfully frozen their brand critical race theory into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions we will eventually turn it

044toxic the goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think critical race theory we have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with americans next on the may 19th edition of fox news special report with brett bayer the the anchor announced it appears crt is becoming the new hop-on issue on the campaign trail after that fox news chief washington correspondent mike emanuel said if this issue works on the governor's race in november in certain swing states it will likely be part of the gop campaign playbook in the midterm elections next year this is not a conspiracy theory this was admitted to straight from the horse's mouth the crime and the confession it's a rich man's trick the goal

045is to spread a big lie make parents into single-issue voters for midterm elections particularly the swing states here's my idea dwayne bordevage should write a letter to the nj department of education dear nja department of education the board has heard from a substantial number of community members at its recent public meetings many of those participating in the public comment portion have expressed beliefs that critical race theory that fox news trick and other right-wing media fear-mongering nonsense are deep in the 2020 new jersey student learning standards that you have provided even though these community members haven't read the student learning standards let's trust them after considering the concerns expressed by those individuals we request that you change the njsls to meet the agenda of the most outspoken members of this aspiring hate group including dehumanizing people

046who are not white and heterosexual that's fine a-okay because they're not a minority in our town teaching that science is a matter of public debate not the documented observation identification description experimental investigation and theoretical explanation of phenomena performed by intelligent people teach abstinence instead of sex ed because abstinence that's going to work great am i right freedom and democracy what do they mean they mean that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge please change the curriculum to match that accordingly and yes please continue to give us lots of money to teach all this thank you wayne boy to bed that's my plan [Music] cindy simon ratzer wrote wayne no one should be fit made to feel that they are less than or that they don't matter that includes a white child that includes

047a homosexual child that includes a child that doesn't identify as gender typical nobody should be subject to division but the reality is the one board of ed the folks sitting up here didn't start that the vision existed long before anyone on this board ever got elected when i went to school kids picked on me because i was different i suspect when my parents went to school kids picked on the different kids then too the reality is that these differences are there we need to celebrate where we are similar we need to share we have common ground but we need to acknowledge the differences i was told that i couldn't go to people's houses because i couldn't see and i understand why people believe that there's a young man standing in fear repeating what he's been

048told that if you can't see someone's face if you can't see someone smile you can't socialize i can't see anyone's face in this room i can't recognize anyone's face in this room does that mean i can't socialize does that mean i can't live a full normal life i don't blame the young man for repeating what he's told i think he truly believes it i will tell you from my totally blind friends from birth my legally blind friends those who can't recognize faces we socialize just fine it is important that we have an inclusive education that teaches people about the different ways people's life's experiences are and how they go about life so the people that are different from the usual aren't the targets of discrimination aren't the targets of exclusion and aren't made to feel

049like we don't matter and we don't belong nicholas you need to wait until everyone has spoken i'm sorry ma'am well that's our policy man go right ahead he can stand to the side he'll be left my name is ardith cardinis from sunset terrace and my comments are regarding uh you're looking to change the correct curriculum to address racism and implicit inclusivity so my question to you the board since you are the ones representing us you're the sample representing the larger population who of you have taught your children to be racists and to exclude people that are different from themselves because it certainly can't just be us what makes you think that if you didn't teach your children to be racists the rest of us did and i don't see any diversity on this board either

050what i see is a bunch of rich white people and according to your inclusivity training each one of you is the problem right [Music] so of course i don't actually believe that but you see my point i was judging you by the color of your skin not what you've done to help the wayne community not how you've raised your children and not by your morals and ethics critical race theory makes race the lens through which proponents analyze all aspects of american life it's an effort to reimagine the united states as a nation driven by racial groups each with a specific claim on victimization crt divides along racial lines by creating negative stereotypes rather than seeing people as individuals made in god's image it teaches one group that they are the oppressors and the other that

051they are the oppressed and every single person falls into one of those two categories so tell me how children can learn and grow if half of them are constantly being told they're less than the fact is they're not less than they're all equal every race every shade equal no one better than the other so why teach them that and for whatever it's worth me esposo s mexicano my husband is mexican born in mexico and never once has he felt marginalized or discriminated against at work or in our community the white community if anything black and brown people tell him he's too white and what does that mean where do you draw the line since when does work ethic and success equal racist where does the victim mentality end it never will if you teach it

052applying the philosophy of critical race theories or social emotional learning or inclusivity training or whatever it is you'd like to call it would only violate a multitude of american civil rights laws by treating people differently according to their race it should not be elevated in american classrooms and we the people do not support it good evening michael fatale stone hill road uh first and foremost i want to thank the wayne police department for being here today protecting us we appreciate the effort of the men and women of that department something that we all could agree on it is very nice to have full day kindergarten today it is a very good accomplishment and thank you very much as someone who attended kindergarten here to be at school today at 3 20 even though i couldn't

053see the smile on my daughter's face it was very nice to be there when all other kids were getting out as a family who has two parents who work all day it has helped us drastically so that being said i wanted to say thank you for implementing full-day kindergarten here thank you hi luisa wilshire wayne resident i am not going to plead with you to save our children tonight as i have in the past instead i'm asking for help with statistics i tried to find the covid stats on children in wayne no hospital will give them out the wayne health department is also silent is that because there are zero cases you say you aren't the experts but you at least know the numbers it's really disturbing that no one on this board can have

054a medical conversation but yet you are practicing medicine with our children this is a national emergency right and you are in charge of our kids in a national emergency making medical decisions for them right can you at the very least find a medical expert in wayne who can speak to us who can answer how many hospitalizations do we have of children here in wayne my hypothesis is there are zero zero kids in hospitals due to covid just like there were zero deaths of kids under 18 in all of new jersey again zero and i'm guessing guessing prove me wrong zero kids in hospitals could it be because this virus has a 99.9 survival rate in children that's almost zero deaths you guys what are we doing have you thought of the risks of your medical

055interventions what happens when our children have medical side effects due to the procedures you are mandating who is liable for that since we are here practicing medicine it is only just for you to produce someone who can speak to these issues because the side effects will start soon lastly why are you discriminating against unvaccinated children why does a vaccinated child not have to quarantine the new jersey department of public health reported wednesday that 14 813 fully vaccinated breakthrough cases of covid have been identified so far clearly the vaccine is not working like a true vaccine even if it provides the benefit of some decreased risk of getting covered the vaccinated still get it and pass it along so i ask you again why are you discriminating against the unvaccinated children when everyone has a risk

056of getting coveted and passing it along is it because they have a lower risk of once they're jabbed because if the level of risk is the only element we're looking at here then each child should be looked at individually for their level of risk for covid then only the high risk unhealthy children would have to quarantine is that fair or we can be fair and not punish anyone for their choices in life because no one should be forced to eat healthy or exercise or get jabbed just like you can't mandate healthy lifestyles which i would love to do to increase chances of survival you can't mandate getting jabbed no one is responsible for anyone else's health you are not responsible for my child's health i am please make the quarantining fair for all please stop

057the discrimination before it starts thank you good evening my name is tremaine cunningham i'm on 1600 watts of road i too support the second amendment um i'm here tonight to give some perspective um that you many tonight don't have being a health care administrator so i want to say i want to commend the board for the work you've done and keeping our community safe our children safe i understand all the moving parts and how difficult it is because i do it for a very large health system every day i have not had the luxury of being able to quarantine safely at home i have been on the front line in health care since day one so i have a different perspective discrimination are you kidding me this is a health epidemic people are dying i

058am losing doctors every day who are fatigued who are burning out because people are dying this is not to discriminate against the vaccinated and unvaccinated this is to put it in to an epidemic that is killing people every day yes your child may not get it yes there may be zero covet deaths of children under the age of 18 but they can pass the covet virus on to an adult who will die if they're not vaccinated the difference is the vaccinated have a chance to survive i can still get coveted i'm vaccinated but i may not die from it i have a good chance to survive and that's what this is about so when you get to say things like oh it's it's it's you know you're compromising my rights what about my rights to

059live what about the rights of those that are dying in the hospital you're taking up hospital beds because you're refusing to do your duty which is to protect not just yourselves but each other my eight-year-old daughter went to school today she had a wonderful day she wore her mask all day she took it off when she went outside and took her breaks she felt safe she saw she felt protected she felt that you guys did everything you needed to do so that she can go to school and feel safe and not transmit any disease back home to us to her grandmother we also don't want our teachers getting sick because i can't afford to have you guys shut down the school again those of us that had to teach these kids last night i'm not

060a teacher it was hard so i need my teachers to be safe i need the kids to be safe so please don't politicize something that shouldn't be politicized learn the facts come spend a day working on the front lines with me and my doctors come help us put toe tags on dead bodies in ice trucks before you stand up here and talk about your rights and discrimination if the dead could talk i bet you they'd have a different story to tell they'd be happy to wear a mask to take the vaccine just to take another breath at the end of the day this is not about politics this is a health epidemic it's your time ma'am thank you very much maria de luca pranzo wayne new jersey first of all i just wanted to thank

061the board of ed for implementing full full-day kindergarten i think it is a wonderful addition to our town i think it makes our schools stronger our community stronger and i know it took a lot of work and effort to get us here so thank you all for all the hard work that went into making that happen um i also wanted to say that my child too went to school today and when i asked her how it was when she came home she said it was great today she goes but i'm tired and i have a lot of homework so i really think that our children take their cues from their parents and they reflect and mirror the beliefs and and the feelings that their parents have so if we want to make our child's day

062better then we need to be positive about what's happening in school about our ability to go to school and if it means wearing a mask so be it if it means getting a vaccine so be it because i know so i i know that my child is much better off learning in school than being virtual at home and i know that most people feel that way i know that most people would rather have their children in school where they can learn from their teachers see their classmates interact with one another socialize and that's what school is all about it's not just about the education it's about the socialization it's very difficult to do virtually so i'm i support anything that helps to keep our children in school and safe i'd also like to thank the

063police that are here today and in our community for keeping all of us safe for keeping the community safe and for keeping everything running smoothly and then lastly i've heard some discussion about the curriculum and how there's discrimination in the curriculum i think there's a misunderstanding about what's being proposed in the curriculum i read through it i read through the whole thing there's no discrimination in the curriculum it's the curriculum talks about inclusivity about making sure we include others about making sure we celebrate diversity not shun one another and any misunderstanding that others may hear may have about that i would i would implore them to go back and look and see what it actually says in the wayne new jersey curriculum not what you see in another state not what you see on tv

064but what it actually says in the curriculum because there's nothing but positive feedback and positive policies that i can see in that curriculum so um so that was it i just wanted to thank everybody and have a great day pam masik i received a letter today saying that you had a discussion and executive session about my employment status do you have an answer to this mr geffer can you advise the board on this topic yeah the board is not allowed to discuss personnel matters in public so you can't tell me if you fired me or not it's my job you can say it i was supposed to be allowed to respond but i didn't get this letter till this afternoon there was no way for me to respond even though it was written on the

065second and stamped on the third department excuse me not a topic for public discussion said i could have it done publicly i got nothing to hide do you have another item i'm here today as a concerned parent hoping to get answers to some questions possibly take steps towards better dialogue and transparency between the board of ed trustees and the community for three months we've been engaged in what seems like a battle with board of ed members who were elected to represent all school parents and children in the wayne community from my perspective it seems as though a number of our representatives have made this more about themselves their personal preferences and an agenda that supports party politics this one time i hope i'm wrong many parents and some students have been at the podium repeatedly

066requesting the freedom of choice regarding the wearing of masks miss kazan stated at the august 19th board of ed meeting masks they're mandated and they're mandated by medical professionals which we're not we're not health experts that should not be our job it's a decision i'm not willing to make to put anyone's life at risk in our school district we have too many people in our buildings for me to be wrong about that sounds reasonable this leads me to my first question tell me you're a hypocrite without telling me you're a hypocrite and i'll go first miss kazan why after that meeting did you and your friend miss pranzo go to maggie's no masks and no social distancing why do you get to have your freedom of choice aren't you worried about the community or does

067kovit only start on september 9th miss reichman you reported me for having my mask down while i was with learning disabled children during our break time and and and recommending i not be rehired and i'm sure that's why then how come on august 18th you're at trader joe's no mass no gloves breathing on the fruit no social distancing why are you allowed to have friends basic address the chair why are you allowed to have freedom of choice and now i'm going to get fired learning disabled students need to have your facial cues at times and when we have snacks we'll i'll continue on my next round hi my name is jacob van lunan i'm a wayne resident um it's hard to gather my thoughts after the insanity i just witnessed um everybody cheering behind me

068should really be ashamed of themselves um okay now before we get into anything uh i think one of the most important things to talk about here is the fact the mass command date is a statewide mandate the people in front of me right now have nothing to do with the mask mandate being enforced or not if they don't enforce the mask mandate our schools lose state funding our property values go down our property taxes go up our children are less safe our parents are less safe we're less safe you're like yeah i feel like none of you get that like they're not in charge of this they don't make that decision and yet everybody's here arguing that they do make that decision it doesn't make any sense um i've also heard people bring up crt

069here again again this is a boogie man this is something that hasn't been brought up in the town of wayne by anybody except for the people behind me right now if you read the curriculum there's nothing about crt it's completely like made-up monster for them to all get riled up about and it's absurd um that's all i have to say and thank you guys for all the work you do hi my name is sandy and i live in wayne and um i came here 8 30 at night if you notice with my kids getting them ready for bed is what i should be doing right now where my oldest son who started his first day at wayne valley comes to me and says um mom i have to tell you something please don't get mad

070at me please don't get mad at me all right great what happened he's he opens up his chromebook to show me some surveys and right away i said wait a minute i filled out i filled out the opt-out sheet where you will not be getting surveys what what is this all about so this is so i'm here can you explain to me what was that opt-out survey paper that i filled out in which i thought i was opting out of surveys because my son received a few in various classes his math class his biology class i believe his english class as well maybe others i don't know he submitted one of them in which they asked him for his gender what what what do you identify as what is your preferred gender for math class

071i i [Music] this is math class my son has a name clearly he's a boy you can refer to him as his first name i'm not going to say it okay i don't want to embarrass him because he's here tonight or obviously him what on earth does your preferred gender need to do with with math class and if i filled out that survey where i opted out what what good was that does that is that only for surveys that are given by the administrators because i'm not sure do the teachers take it upon themselves to decide if they also want to give out other surveys um and then and then does it not count does my opt out only count for official surveys given by um administrators that's that's my confusion because then how will

072i know what kind of questions uh that the other teachers are asking so the the english teacher asked even though it was a survey all strictly about questions that you would think are normal for english class books do you like to read do you not like to read okay other teachers two of them biology and math class asked in addition to other general questions what is your preferred gender now i opted out of that nothing to do with his gender identity his his sexual preference sexual orientation whatever you want to call it so i i'm very upset with that i'm very upset with that and and i am raising my voice to the man that just spoke behind me no no you should be ashamed of yourself what do i have to be ashamed of

073what do i have to be ashamed of coming up here this is this is i'm upset i'm upset i'm a parent i have four children in the district i i have a lot vested in the town okay thank you for your time dana aliquin wayne resident i wanted to tell you all how great my daughter's first day of school was but her first day is on monday although it didn't happen yet i know it will be amazing because she will be unmasked and not surrounded by plexiglas she will be able to see her teacher's face and understand her social cues and there will be smiles shining all day every day the fact that we had to remove our daughter from the school system to give her these accommodations that she and every child who wants

074them deserves is nothing short of insane the fact that i am now paying to give my daughter an education in what was considered normal conditions almost two years ago is something i never in my wildest dreams thought i would have to do but here we are we had to uproot our child because we felt that the mental emotional and physical risks of being masked for six hours outweigh the benefits where there is risk there must be choice all parents should have the choice to send their children to school masked or unmasked this town has swayed drastically over to one side we are not trying to sway it back to the opposite side but back to the middle where choice lives where people can decide what's best for themselves their families without discrimination where both sides

075can be right and there are certain people on the board who are standing in the way of this happening certain people who do not have the best interests of all of our children at heart certain people who a few short weeks ago spoke the words that if it was up to them children would not be masked in september i'm curious to know who flicked that switch back please do not use our children as pawns for your own political gain it is a selfish act that shows you are not upholding the oath you took but you can all prove me wrong right now and hold another vote to rightfully send the drafted letter to our governor let all voices on the board be accounted for since they weren't all heard last time around show us that

076you have our backs and you support choice whether the governor drops the mandate or not we will know that you stand with us and not against us and the brave members who stood with us last month we applaud and appreciate you i'm curious why the other members who oppose the letter being sent are catering to a loud minority in town a group who name calls and slanders the other side on social media a group that sends threats when someone has a different opinion than theirs different doesn't mean worse or better and everyone has the god-given right to form their own opinions please help us fight for parental choice shaina kegelman wayne resident first it's unfortunate that stacy share could not be at the last meeting i and many others feel that the vote to send

077a letter to trenton did not take into account the majority of the board of ed there was an injustice and one member did not get to voice her opinion we want to hear her voice her voice matters too second has wayne considered removing the plexiglas from each student's desk for the school year is there a reason other towns do not have them up at every desk nothing looks more unwelcoming in a first grade classroom than 20-something shields for mass children with hidden smiles how many of you have spent some time with a young child that looks over to you to see your facial expression engage if they're doing something okay our children are completely missing such a critical part of their social and emotional development those are words i've noticed you all really like to

078hear in these new curriculums i did unenroll my son this morning for this reason i have stressed the difficulty he will have learning and while i know your hands are tied with the mass i haven't seen anywhere in the executive order where plexiglas was mandated lastly the pastor who has posted about those of us who don't want sex taught in our public schools he is sharing that we are homophobic and transphobic this is completely false and how dare he spread misinformation i support the gay community i do not support teaching masturbation or sex into impressionable minds my nine-year-old neighbor that plays dress-up with my four-year-old daughter is not mature enough to learn about these vulgar topics this year not supporting defining anal and oral sex in eighth grade certainly does not make me anti-anything and

079teaching teaching not all families look the same is not the same as teaching sex when we focus on the basics enough is enough it's a sin how political this board of ed behaves you are playing political science you care more about what king murphy and trenton thinks of you than worrying about your job your job is doing what's best for the children you were elected to represent and i've asked before when does it end my name is bob nollman i am a resident of wayne thank you for full day kindergarten i think it's a wonderful thing that you folks persisted and especially thank you to mrs kazan who's been a long time supporter of it takes a lot of guts to stand up for something that is at some time unpopular because people are worried

080about taxes but the education of our children is paramount i am a vietnam era veteran i believe in the second amendment thank you but how lame it is to have to listen to the false claims made by this angry group of pro-trump supporters who are attempting to dumb down america and upend the advances that we've made in civil rights civil discourse and a more just society in their attempt to oppose public health realities of the current pandemic is sheer madness especially in light of the fact that our under 12 year old students are still unvaccinated and can be spreaders but i will not waste my time in addressing these phony paper tigers that they have created rather i will use my time to implore the board of education members not to be bullied by this

081rude loud ridiculous protestation that we hear every time there's a meeting please see it for what it is as a crude attempt to advance a false political narrative that opposes the teaching of factual history and denies our historical realities this is a national right-wing assault on equality and equity and it is trying to resurrect the failed tea party takeover of the recent past and deny reality so here is a novel concept how about leave the education of our kids to the educational professionals instead of politicos and how about we leave science to the scientists so to those of you who determine our curriculum content you folks sitting here and i do believe that all of you have the and i hope have the best interest of our children at heart and uh this is not

082a political game stay strong your job is to protect us from political ideologues and radical philosophies and to say stay true to unbiased academic and professional values i spent many years as a new jersey mayor so i know that it takes guts to stand up to loud mobs with their torches and pitchforks but that is your job stay strong don't be swayed by this transparent assault on the better parts of our culture please see this right-wing mob for what it is facts matter we're all entitled to our own opinions but we are not entitled to our own facts thank you [Music] okay calm down or we'll clear the room calm down go ahead man um brittany coral wayne resident i just have a question i noticed that myself included and the gentleman who just spoke

083before me who i assume is in favor of masks um and in favor of mass for our students i noticed he pulled his mask down to speak when at the microphone and i'm wondering why why why would you do that why would you do that right because it muffles your voice makes it difficult to communicate and difficult to be heard now imagine you're a nine-year-old or a six-year-old and you're sitting in the back of a classroom at the very back far away from your teacher behind a plexiglas shield that is dirty and smudged and difficult to see through and there's a glare and then you have a mask on have any of you sat behind those plexiglas shields with a mask on and tried to speak and be heard to your student to your teacher

084or someone standing at the front of the room it's insanely hard and it's frustrating and guess what i don't know why a hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer money were spent on that when there's not a word in murphy's executive order about it can anyone explain that to me okay why okay awesome because i'd love to know because there's other towns around us that have not done that so i'm not sure why that was done i understand that with the mask executive order that you guys say that your hands are tied i get it like we said we just wanted you to have our back voice our opinions make our opinions heard to trenton and to governor murphy and just say hey would you consider making it optional that's it that was obviously too hard for

085you guys and i'd like to echo the sentiments of the people that have spoken before me and michelle i'd love to know what your vote would have been had you been here um i also have a couple of comments contrary to what mr frieswick requested tonight i would beseech all of you on the board to fight and protect those of us who are choosing not to receive experimental gene therapy in the form of a vaccine does mr frieswick believe that vaccines are effective i'm sure that he does otherwise he wouldn't have gotten one so i'm confused why he's so obsessed with everyone around him also being vaccinated is that how it works everybody has to be vaccinated for it to work i would urge all of you look at israel the highest vaccinated country in

086the entire world do you know what other title they're holding right now the highest covet infection rate in the world this is not a coincidence people and we all know mr gerardano said a vaccine mandate is coming for our kids i'm urging you to protect them and protect the parental choice because guess what you're going to have a ton more people leaving this district if you don't in england public health england medical advisor dr susan hopkins says it is important that primary school children don't wear face coverings she explains that this is because covet infection rates are so low among their age group and wearing face coverings could affect their development does that matter does that count here isn't that part of health development does that count and i'm also i'd like to point out

087i'm also a front line worker i was a nurse i worked the entire pandemic until i left on maternity leave so i was nine months pregnant on coveted floors too okay and guess what the unvaccinated are not the only people in these hospitals and i just think it's incredible that you would like to pin this on the unvaccinated when did you know that if you receive a vaccine and even your second vaccine but it hasn't been 14 days since you're since the the jab you are considered unvaccinated in the hospital it's an interesting fact look into it nicholas telling us i'm back again one thing i want to make clear in this room is there is one very large stereotype which is disgusting there's people that have came up here and talked about how i'm

088mirroring my parents and that is disgusting just because i'm a kid does that mean i can't be smart intelligent that i can't have an opinion it has to be my parents opinion because i do not agree with everything with my parents and for those who came up here that were in favor of masks and pulled their masks down i would like to remind them they are in a school and i can't do that when i come up to talk to my teacher in a classroom so why should they why should they be able to do that mrs kazan at the last meeting you voiced your concern saying from us to work everyone has to wear them when you said that through a maskless voice so why would you say that when you're not wearing a

089mask yourself in there now you're in a school so you have to but in there that makes no sense at all and for someone else who came up here and said if you don't uh go by the state mandate you'll lose funding well what's funny is is people are attacking governor ron desantis for not uh for taking funding from schools that will force mathman dates for his mandate to not allow them to have mandates so it's a little reverse to me so it's okay for uh that this doesn't make sense now we're going to go ahead and continue to let this happen in this school district where children are demonized if they don't want to wear a mask if they are not vaccinated that's just disgusting and i i don't understand how we people said

090we are going to transmit it to our older people or this or that well they have the opportunity to get vaccinated if they get the vaccine then why should they be concerned about me why should they be scared of me ah i am an eighth grade student at anthony wayne middle school and i loved my school sixth grade was the best year of my life seventh grade i could say is the worst year of my life that i have lived because of this board failing me it you failed me then you are failing me now and not once could i say you ever succeeded me on curriculum you never succeeded me on mask you never succeeded me on learning an education and you let this happen mrs kazan why did you not vote yes to

091sending a letter if you said if i had a if if it was up to me you would be breathing in september you said that on july 15th and then you go to the meeting on august 26 and you vote no to do anything that's hypocritical you are going against your own words yourself yourself you're trying to hear my brow beating could you stop clapping saying saying is one thing doing is another thing if you want to say something you have to do it especially when you're in elected position like this it makes no sense and students have no voice in who their board is and their board is the this board is the very board that fights against me so stick up for me please stick up for me thank you thank you hello

092again while i was waiting in line at the last born while i was waiting in line at the last wayne board of ed town hall a few seated individuals began to speak at me saying i should sit down and that i should not speak because i don't have kids in the current wayne school system i did not acknowledge this poorly thought out and rude attempt at discouragement a few of the seated individuals then continued to go on about how living in wayne are paying property taxes isn't enough of a reason to allow one to speak either however these are the same individuals that erupted in applause when a certain pastor with an unsuccessful governor run came to speak at previous wayne portobed town halls the guy neither lives in wayne nor his kids who go

093to wayne schools he lives in new vernon he doesn't even pay property taxes there he got his mega church to buy his mega house he exploits a loophole he thinks he deserves it doesn't live in your town doesn't pay property taxes doesn't have kids in your school and he got a roaring applause do you think he's your friend he wants to dismantle your public school system put the achievement on his resume why would anyone do that that's how you secure funding from right wing dark money big oil non-profits the critical requirement for getting ahead in republican political world so what's going on here why can't i speak while out of towners can it's all about narrative bias the strategy is to create a big echo chamber no matter what bring out of towners those with

094political ambitions paid protesters whatever means necessary to create a loud echo chamber use it to deceive you the wayne board of ed elected officials pressure you into thinking that the echo chamber is right and that the echo chamber is the majority that you're not doing your job i'm not going to tell you the strategy doesn't work because some board of ed members have gone ahead and proven it last time that it works with the mask letter i'm telling you not to fall for it or at least don't fall for it again let's talk about how we should treat people insults bullying discouragement deception making things up as you go along thinking you can get away with it just because your favorite president did that's a shining example for the next generation isn't it i don't

095care what side people are on you shouldn't treat people like that period later a member of the board had the audacity to say that the pro-mass group needs to start respecting other side's opinions i don't respect the layman's opinion on how to fly a plane or how to build a bridge perform heart surgery let me be clear i don't respect fox news state facilitated propaganda nor do i respect its followers who masquerade as free independent thinkers while guzzling down carefully crafted corporate interest fear-mongering we should all respect each other as people however unqualified dangerous opinions on highly technical matters are a different story this group is here trying to play at being epidemiologists you need a phd for that and now they're here trying to play it being historians a lot of qualifications for that

096one too what's next they think all this is your fault when it's you know coming from new jersey department of education mass mandates the curriculum 2020 statewide new jersey student learning standards if you guys are talking about sex ed that's in there this is widespread throughout the whole the whole state they think it's your fault they want to make the curriculum they don't know who makes the curriculum let's leave things to the experts before we embarrass ourselves part two courage isn't the absence of fear and i know there's other teachers and paras and staff that are feeling targeted and fearful and that's why i'm back up here so for the record i wish the address to address the incident whereby mr toback and miss reichman reported me back in july some teachers and students oh

097so some teachers and students need to connect without their math back to a personnel matter no no this is a public person they just talked about politics you're telling me i can't address how i explained written a policy about personnel being discussed in public matters state law prohibits the board from discussing they're not discussing it by letting you can't discuss it this is a one-sided conversation so no we can't discuss it matters i'm not asking you to discuss it it's my business we're up here a mom came up here and talked about what happened where her kid today and and that was personal this is a personal issue i'm being taught i feel that you had i got a notice that you that i was being um discussed my employment because i was written up

098because mr toback and mrs reichman were in my class for 90 seconds when the rest of the administration and teachers go without their masks it's on camera i can prove it i have parents that'll back me up and you're gonna because of 90 seconds i'm wearing it working with learning disabled kids you know what this is like this is like the wizard of oz when the almighty powerful oz is bellowing commands and the citizens tremble well courage isn't the absence of fear but i'm here so others know to have courage and speak up do you know when the curtain was pulled back there was only a little man blowing wind now you want to fire me for exercising my freedom of dress the chair ma'am i told my children i raised them everybody anybody can

099take away your home your jobs your relationships it can affect your health no one can take your integrity or your faith those are two things that only you can choose to give away i suggest you search your hearts find some integrity and do the right thing because i consider this harassment intimidation and bullying which is a two c statue in the new jersey criminal code of conduct it's any engagement of communication that repeated pattern of behavior that causes annoyance or alarm well i'm very annoyed and i'm quite alarmed [Music] so for the record stop that's your time oh cause nobody else did it ryan battlefield 63 ryan battershiel 63 kilo drive um i just want to address the crt stuff i don't care what they call it my daughter experienced it in school that's what

100we are talking about the continued racism that's getting into the school and how that's being supported i don't mind if they put it down as a theory as something that's going on somewhere else but this is creeping into our schools whether it's coming in through your curriculum whether it's coming in through your teachers whether it's just coming into the school it's getting in and it's getting into our kids so we have an ability to opt out of all of these conversations that go on for sex education for diversity and inclusion for everything all the way up to the black movement which i believe the supreme court has said must be in there and i actually agree with that they have a valid reason to be in there from the history of the united states all

101of my kids officially from this moment on opt out of all of those conversations as it happened we had sent a letter to the teacher beforehand saying that we did not want them involved in any of these conversations the very teacher of the young girl that was then pulled out pulled aside and told that her life does not matter we never received an answer from that we asked at the ice cream social and she said she was not allowed to give us an answer that it had gone up the chain somewhere and she was not allowed to give us an answer this is my answer they will not be taught any of that while you continue to support this radical movement to put these things in front of my kids and i am not talking

102about some theory that comes out of fox news i'm talking about what they experienced today thank you sorry that's it twice okay so pick up where i left off so several schools and i'm saying this one again because i really want you to think about this one several schools have segregated classrooms to provide safe spaces for minority students away from white classmates that's actually going on today okay then i want to jump to something a little closer to home a social studies teacher in wayne new jersey who also served on the committee to recreate the town's mission statement signed the zen education project's pledge to teach crt whether it is against the law or not sir you can't talk about it i didn't give anybody a name but you have a teacher that that signed

103a pledge that said even if it's against the law they will teach it you can report that privately that you should deal with it's actually out in the news i didn't find it on my own i stumbled across it in a news story that's all over the united states that needs to be dealt with so crt does exist and people are pledging to teach it okay it also says that we need activist teachers in our classrooms an active definition of an activist is a person who uses or supports strong actions such as public protests and support or opposition of one side of a controversial issue okay so i want to give you an example of equity oh actually before i get to that is this this whole direction that i mentioned of all the other

104things that are going on in schools is that where wayne is headed are we going to these dramatic drastic changes and we're just doing it a little bit slower than everybody because you want to get us used to the fact that you're going to take us in this direction of all this craziness that's going on okay so we had in 1981 landmark case abbott versus burke rulings by new jersey supreme court changed the state funding formula to ensure that new jersey's poorest districts received the same level of funding as the richest districts i would say that's a pretty good example of equity why do these 10 districts well the top 10 districts received 39 percent of state allocated funding and they have an average rank in the bottom 80 percent of our 577 school districts

105in new jersey why why doesn't it provide the results that it's supposed to it doesn't seem like equity always works okay so is your objective to provide our children the same quality education as the highest ranked public private schools in the united states because that should really be the equity that you're searching for is for us to be the best that there is if that's not your goal then we should really figure out why i want to know right before our eyes history is being rewritten erased and being viewed through the lens of today's standards rather than those that existed at the time who will validate the information added and read the books on suggested reading lists that are added to ensure that everything is fact-based and not based on a newly created set of

106facts to support a current narrative or ideology i sincerely hope that the board will think long and hard about the unforeseen consequences their choices here may have to our children because they have the potential to have be lifelong impacts please keep the proverb in mind the road to hell is paved with good intentions as you make every single decision and how we move forward lastly i would love to hear what your vote would have been stacey cindy simon i'm still in line they haven't run me out of town yet i'm going to be very quick there needs to be very clear policy that is enforced across the line when you're dealing with scenarios like a child who is white being told that i think it was he or she i apologize that he or she

107does not matter that same policy applies to the black child who was called the n-word or the child who happens to be straight but is willing to defend the right of other people to choose not to be straight from being called the f word the policies and the rules have to be the same you can't allow one form of hate or discrimination and not allow another there should be no hate there should be no discrimination all the children should feel welcomed and parents look the number one influence on children is going to be their parents we we can point fingers at the scope board all we want i don't think the school district is the reason that a little child came in and called um you know that other child you know is saying that

108child didn't matter and i don't think the school district is the reason why per se that there's other children being called the n word and and the f word i think education is part of it but i think it starts at home we need to as a community start supporting each other and start respecting each other that's all i gotta say have a policy be consistent regardless who is the target of inappropriate conduct luisa wilshire again cindy i can't agree with you more i echo her statements i didn't expect that and i'm very very happy to hear her say that because that's exactly what i was going to say i also was going to say my experience with crt and you all know it because my child was the child that had a lesson that

109was inappropriate in school i've spoken to many of you about it it's been taken care of um i'm still not sure how many schools it was shared with but that's another story that donna and i will discuss but i do want to share with the public that it does happen so there's people that stand here that are not in the schools that don't have children in the schools they say i've never seen crt you're not going to see it again the the way that it does happen when it does unfortunately i know it's not you guys i know you're not telling people to go teach crt that's not happening i know it's some rogue teachers that decide that they want their agenda to be shared with students and they might go and teach what they

110feel is appropriate that's where i would argue and please ask you to keep a very very short leash on teachers and see what they're teaching in their lessons we know the curriculum is not going to have crt in it we know that we don't need to look for that we know it's squeaky clean no crt we know that it is smoothly intertwined within lessons from teachers so i urge you to hold those teachers accountable because that's where you're going to see it stop that's where we're not going to come and complain anymore is when we know that the teachers are held accountable when we come to you with our examples and i'm very grateful that my example was taken care of but i also want to let the public know that it does happen and

111it did happen to my child secondly what i am going to be looking at is sel because from what i read and what i learn that is the avenue for crt to be implemented in schools that's what we're hearing so prove us wrong show us what is going on in sel because right now i heard first day of school that there was about 10 minutes of sel in elementary schools every day i didn't know that that was going to happen why didn't i know that can you tell me what's going on in those 10 minutes a day because that's 50 minutes a week that's almost an hour of loss of academics which our children already lost a lot in academics last year so i'm shocked that you would throw in something on sel for 10

112minutes please if it's something amazing that's going to help our children please let us know i want to know what those lessons are going to be in sel daily to our children in elementary school thank you anthony shakur pontiac drive wayne i'm here today because my kid and actually this little guy over here brought it up that because of his mask he had a rash on his face and it was burning and itching this was my kid last year he had a bacterial infection on his face on his lips his nose his cheeks from his mask the only way to get this whatever this bacterial rash off was to either have it scraped or topical solution one i'm not having anything scraped off the face of my seven-year-old and two we can't apply a topical

113application because it's in his nostrils and on his lips into his mouth i want to show this to these people all right you guys can look at this all right monday through friday the rash would flare up when he wore his mask he would go home saturday sunday it would calm down monday tuesday wednesday it would flare up again i'm no doctor but i think this is a bacterial infection caused by the mask i looked up a couple things online just to see there was a study found a bunch of parents took their kids mask that they wore for a day sent it out to get tested came back with a whole list of bacterial infections and pathogens and all kinds of good stuff i didn't even bring that list with me because i don't

114want to embarrass myself because i can't pronounce half of the bacterias that are on that list so school was exciting for my kid but now it's not he's actually crying doesn't want to go back to school because he doesn't want to wear a mask he doesn't want his face to burn and itch and now he's dealing with the stress and anxiety of having to deal with this so we respect the fact of any parent that wants to send their kid to school with a mask just how as i ask those to respect us if we decide to send their kid to school without a mask thank you oh and one last thing before my three minutes is up i couldn't see who said it but somebody emphasized how uh they maintained social distancing and everything

115was great the first day of school but yet you're about 12 inches apart you're about 18 inches apart you're about you you may be okay but you guys that's all thank you hi my name is annette colliserto i'm a resident of wayne and i devoted my whole life education all right and uh when i went to school i applied for a scholarship the highest test grades if you got the highest grade then you won the prize you got the scholarship it was the best now and i've taught a lot of different things you know and you do madeleine hunter all of these things came into teaching and now even though i'm retired i still sub i subbed here in wayne i was the french teacher the kids were wonderful they said merci beaucoup when i

116left i thought they were great anyway now i'm i'm reading up on all of this crt and all these catchphrases critical race theory s-e-l what does that mean social emotional learning and the objective you always have to search for the objective is to help students you make students get the students to develop their true identity and purpose so that's the whole reason for this correct so that the kids can develop their true identity and purpose and how do they do this well the harvard scholars and the law said that this is attained based on critical race theory that's how you teach a kid to develop their true identity and purpose okay sel social and emotional learning race gender social justice prosperity for all equity okay used to be equality i learned everybody was equal that's

117how we were brought up nobody taught us how to reach our social gender identity we learned we had guidance counselors if we had a problem guidance counsels do a great job okay so now if you go back to the basics of this they get their identity and the basics is the oppressed and the oppressor well guess who's the oppressor racial white race guess who's the oppressed the people who aren't of the white race and that's that's what they're bringing into the classroom that's how they're helping kids reach their identity it used to be equality now it's equity what is equity you guaranteed something in return not the best gets the prize not the best wins you don't get rewarded if you're the best now it's based you have to allow for gender race racial differences

118this all gets into it is that it is my timeline yes ma'am i didn't get to the best part okay thank you good evening my name is donna river i'm a teacher at james fallon today was a good day the kids were happy to be in school the teachers and staff were happy to be in school can we just bask in that for a little bit let's be kind courteous and respectful the public portions of these meetings have been anything but lately there has been heckling and campaigning in the isles as people are speaking people are giving others the finger the district is not only abiding by an executive order but they are doing something to keep our kids and staff safe so maybe just maybe we can join together and focus on making this

119making the best out of this pandemic situation for our children thank you all for all of your hard work maria de lucopranzo again wayne new jersey i just wanted to when the past speaker was up and she mentioned social emotional learning i was confused because it wasn't what i read into what social emotional learning was so i had to google it while i was sitting there so i just figured i would read what it says what is sel social emotional learning commonly referred to by its acronym sel is the method of promoting holistic child development by teaching students skills such as self-regulation persistence empathy self-awareness and mindfulness why are schools teaching social emotional learning social emotional learning has practical benefits for the classroom by teaching students to regulate their emotions pay attention and work well

120with their peers but it does a lot more than that sel has been shown to boost students test scores and grades promote on-time graduation and college enrollment increase students financial earnings as adults and support their mental and physical well-being i just thought i'd share that with all of you as i'm sure you're all aware because you've been involved in the development of the curriculum thank you okay i just want to finish with this it just seems to me incongruent that you you based a child's emotional development on looking at that kid's five years old looking at other kids through a racial lens now which we never did before in all my years of teaching we never did and they try to how do you they measure a kid's success in this you can't have measure

121everybody's success by one set of goals in the upper grades now i taught mainly high school what if a kid hears this in high school and and he rebels and he says i don't buy this theory i don't feel that i'm superior i didn't oppress anybody nobody oppressed me and that doesn't that doesn't help my emotional development so what happens to that kid is he now labeled a bigot or a racist because he disagreed with the theory does this go down on his record does this dossier follow him until he graduates and then when he applies for college admissions do they look at this and hold it against him oh this kid's a racist he's he's not going to get the job you don't know it's happening every day to people i don't think it's

122going to work in high school these kids will fight back i know some of them that i had would and they're going to say you're not going to pin that on me and another kid will say well my relatives didn't do anything to you why should yeah i mean these things let's get real this is how kids talk and that's why sel or crt whichever you want to call it they start by indoctrinating five-year-olds because they know they can be made they can get these five-year-old kids to accept and feel guilty about things hitler had the same theory you know if you got a kid young enough you can you could mold that kid into whatever you want and be persuaded but this is the usa it's the greatest the most racially integrated country on

123this earth everyone clamors to get here okay we have now i think we're now 25th in reading and science among other countries of the world because maybe now we're basing too much time on racial differences and social things and everything but the parents in wayne especially are very smart and they're not going to leave their kids emotional learning up to crt and sel or whatever you want to call it and so it is not a community-based movement this sel sel came out of the hierarchy not out of parents concern for their own children so i say listen to the parents and parents keep on fighting hi jermaine cunningham again from ratzer road you know i moved to wayne about four years ago i brought my house here specifically for the school system i wanted my

124daughter to have access to the best academic career that i possibly could afford her and i moved specifically here to wayne and it's very frustrating for me to sit here as a woman of color and hear things like oh why does race matter why is color being when it does matter when it's every day in the news still current it's still impacting the way that we live i'm a black professional woman and i have to walk through white space i have to code switch and i have to make myself small so not to offend it upsets me when words like diversity and inclusion are used to provoke you why does that upset you equity equality you don't know what that means equality means that everyone has access to the same resources equity acknowledges that some

125people do not have those same advantages for instance i bet you kiss your kids every day and send them off to school and say have a great day be safe work hard do well but do you also have to tell your child hey don't be loud hey you're beautiful don't let people pick on you because of your brown skin do you have to arm your children because of the color of their skin to be protected against the onslaught of of of of harassment no that's an example of your privilege so equity recognizes that other children they don't have that and so the curriculum is seeking to educate and expose children to all the differences that make up this world this is a very diverse world it's a it's getting more diverse every day it's a

126textured fabric is what we are and that's all the education is seeking to do is to expose them that this is what families look like this is what different races look like different and to respect it if you hide that information if you hide the history and things that have happened how are children ever expected to improve upon it sankofa it's an african adage that means pick up the gems from the past to enhance the future learn from the mistakes i'm sorry the past offends you but it happened and it continues to happen and i did not move to this town to have anybody sanitize my child's education i want her to hear it all learn it all and then it's my job as a parent to put it into context for her if she

127doesn't like something she hears she comes home and discuss it to me i as her parent will put it into context for her this is a partnership the teachers and the parents i'm not relying on the teachers you may completely educate thank you madam president seeing no one coming to the podium i move to close second second mr bubba moved seconded by mr giordano okay dr toback did you want to address anything this evening or will you handle that another time [Music] okay [Music] okay what about now better all right so um i guess there is a lot to talk about um i'm not sure if i'm gonna answer every question that was asked tonight and i'm not sure that i'm going to sufficiently respond to all the different concerns because there's a lot of

128topics that were raised there's a lot of issues there's a lot of things that um you are or you're concerned about so i guess some of the things that we talked about or some of the issues that were raised there are issues about vaccine masking critical race theory there's concerns about medical decisions being made by non-medical personnel there's questions about policy there's issues about division there's questions about surveys there's questions about the weather there's questions about football games there's questions about shields so there's all kinds of different questions i guess some so you have to understand that the school district every school district whether it's wayne or anywhere else is built on policies policies are a reflection of state law okay so that's that is the bottom line so we have lots of different policies

129that clearly spell out what the district does in a variety of situations okay so for example if there is a situation where a student makes an appropriate comment right that that was raised tonight those issues are investigated and there's an hiv report depending that is reported every meeting regarding these types of issues okay there's also um the other thing is there's requirements there's requirements in school there's requirements out of school so the issue of football games and how students are seated at football games and how students are together during football games and what they do after football games those are all things that are you know they're on school property but they're outdoors there's rules for that now if you don't think that the administration of the board doesn't see that there's maybe some inconsistencies

130out there regarding you can go to a restaurant but then you have to wear a mask in school you can go to a concert and you can wear you but you have to wear masks in school all these things too many people don't make sense and we understand that but ultimately there is this executive order that requires when you're in school you have to wear a mask another policy that existed last year students wore masks throughout the year right when we were in session students wear masks and so there is no new policy regarding if you have an issue concerning your child wearing your mask there's no last-minute decisions about that there's been a a procedure that we've had since last year that allows parents to come forward and say listen my child has this

131issue my head child is that issue there's different reasons why you might want to do that there's been some parents who have um who sent us a variety of emails about um they have specific issues and we guide them through the process and we say hey you know how what is it that you have what is your documentation things like that so there's a process there's there's policies there's processes in place to deal with many of the issues you brought brought up tonight um i know that there's a lot of discussion about critical race theory right and so the fact is that um critical race theory is is something that is a hot topic across the country but as one of the parents pointed out it is not a part of our curriculum at all

132anywhere but there's another piece to it that maybe you don't know about and so there were uh there were a few cases that were brought to the attention of the administration last year and as pointed out they were investigated okay that the number of cases that were reported that were looked into numbered a total of six i believe so i don't have my statistics with me believe there were six cases of um situations where parents took exception to lessons that teachers were teaching and that's you know keeping in mind last year most of the year parents were able to hear what's happening in the classroom so the point is that there were there were six situations of which not all of them were found to be inappropriate and the whole point is that out of

133thousands and thousands of lessons yes the district has procedures to to deal with these issues um with regard to masking in the weather okay so um when the parents raised the issue about that um so we have this executive order and yes there is an exception for when we have excessive heat okay today was not one of those days tomorrow's not gonna be one of those days maybe monday is but if that's the case on monday then the district makes adjustments the weather forecast as it is it's you know maybe you could rely on what's going to be forecast for tomorrow but to rely on that for what's going to happen on monday and to to rely on that information now to make a decision about that would be inappropriate it would be like me

134calling a snow day you know the a week in advance it just it would make sense um with regard to surveys so there was a parent who raised an issue a very emotional issue about surveys so the opt out that we have in the district if you read it is it pertains to surveys relating to like things that the district the district survey okay so something that comes from the district level not something necessary that's a classroom survey so classroom surveys are in many cases conducted by teachers all across the district very simple basic things and so if there's a concern about a particular question that was asked that's an issue for the building principle to first deal with and handle um much like i said if there's if there's an issue where um there's

135a inappropriate comment made by a student that's a code of conduct violation and that would also be something that's handled by a policy there's a question raised about shields right why do why do we have shields who's who's paying for these shields why do we spend all this money on shields so if you recall last year there was a we we um we lived in a little bit of a different world right because in the end nobody had a vaccine okay so we had this um this return to school plan and we had um you know our schools were shut down for a little bit of time in the middle of the year when the pandemic was at its worst as we started come back and as we started seeing more students in the school

136yeah the district bought shields because that was what was recommended at the time okay so you have a road back you have um a different set of rules now shields are not required but we still have these shields so they're not required that's that's no secret but are they have they been installed in classrooms at least for the time being the answer is yes not all classrooms and so it all depends but um ultimately yeah we do not necessarily have to have a world of shields and masks and everything like that however right now they're installed well it doesn't doesn't mean we shouldn't have them and really it's it's kind of up to a teacher if you have a class of 28 then having 28 students in class in close quarters maybe maybe it is

137a little bit better to have shields because ultimately you could have some very crowded classrooms um another thing is like so sort of related back to the football game i i neglected to mention this but if school employees are outside of school right where board members are outside school they work on those rules so the whole point if someone is somewhere in the community and they're not wearing a mask it's because they don't have to right just like you don't have to um like i said there's rules they're very specific to schools everything else there's another set of rules and most cases especially if you have your vaccine you don't you don't have to wear a mask right so that's um that's just another thing um let me see what else we have here there's

138a lot of things we talked about um so we talked about the issue of vaccines so um mr freesick wade raised some issues about the district policy regarding mandatory vaccines okay so there is no district policy about mandatory vaccines that's an executive order from the governor of the state okay um that order does not take effect until the middle of october and the reality of the order is that it's not totally spelled out yet as far as exactly what happens but we have time to do that that's why it takes effect october 18th it's not something that has to happen immediately but those are all things that would be discussed in public um so that way the public is is very much aware of what's being done um the other thing that was brought up

139there's like a lot of um a lot of speakers tonight spoke about really what are like like national issues and you rightfully are concerned about how these issues might make their way into the school system okay so national issues that you hear about on the news or you read about these are all things and i understand you're concerned about the future you're under cons you're concerned about the school system that your children will be attending and what they'll learn from the school system um i i think we had this forum and we have all this information we've spent a lot of time putting together a presentation we did everything we could to try to help the community understand um everything that we could possibly put together regarding our curriculum regarding concerns that people expressed about

140sex education that information remains online i think it answers just about every one of the questions that was asked tonight and of course the very clear thing is that there's this time period where there are new standards there are requirements that will be eventually attached to those standards but none of that exists right now so like if you're saying well my kid learned this from this new curriculum no they didn't because there is no there's nothing new regarding the curriculum right now none of those changes have been made um there's there's there's a few minor changes that we did talk about regarding some issues of diversity but the diversity um the mandate that all kicks in later down the road okay so um let's see if there's anything else here um trying to just go

141through if there was questions that i didn't answer mrs richmond do you have anything you'd like to add is there anything that you would like to um share you're good okay go ahead oh we've talked about that sure um but first i just wanted to comment that um on august 6 governor murphy signed an executive order 251 which we've talked about many times which is mary wearing maths in schools beginning august 9th we followed the executive orders in our schools what we do outside of school may not be consistent with what we do in school because when we're in school we follow the executive orders it's my goal today and every day today marked my 18th first day of school and it's always my goal and number one priority to keep our students and staff

142consistently in school in the safest and most healthy environment [Music] i have heard and fielded so many calls from parents over the past few weeks parents who returned to their jobs in the workplace who were able to share child care concerns and what type of situations they would be in financially personally just being able to hold their jobs hold on to them and the fear of what might happen if schools are closed so again it is so important that i emphasize the need to be compliant with the governor's executive orders because when there is a contact tracing situation that comes our way we work with the department of health we work with the nurses and we follow the rules and it is my job and my responsibility to be able to keep our school doors

143open and provide a place for your children to safely attend every day as per executive order 251. outside of school the rules are very different and we all make personal choices based on what we're comfortable with it may be based on your vaccination status maybe based on your personal beliefs but again outside of school is very different from inside of school it's also crucial that we follow the executive orders because we need to protect our federal funding the federal funding that we have received has been quite significant that is what has paid for the intervention programs the remediation programs our software programs to benchmark our students our enrichment programs we have wonderful plans for after school support help for our students for this year we had terrific programs in place for summer and again this

144was a result of federal funding that we received because we are in compliance with all of these orders and i think it's really really important to consider the thoughts and and feelings of our school community we have a very large school community over 7 500 students you can do the math and think of how many parents are impacted and many parents whose voices are not represented tonight so again it's not about personal opinions or it's about doing the right thing it's about doing what we all have to do doing our part to keep our doors open so our kids can safely attend school every day in listening to the concern expressed on the gentleman who shared the pictures of his son there are qualifying medical exemptions we have a process in place and i shared

145that at the back to school presentation everyone may not have been present for that go through your building principle if you have a concern if there is a medical reason why your child cannot be in a mask then go through the 504 exemption process if you have medical documentation it will be reviewed by the 504 committee and we can discuss this personally with you we would never want a child to be in a situation where they were uncomfortable and had a medical condition that impacted their ability to learn and function during the school day so again as dr tobak shared there are many policies and procedures in place we follow the procedures we have put policies in place and we're doing everything possible to keep our doors open and keep kids comfortable in the safest

146environment possible it's also super important that we protect our teachers and make sure that they're able to consistently be in our schools every day for your kids because it would be really difficult for them to get started with the teacher and and then have a disruptive environment where teachers home for 10 days oh i'm just trying to think if there was anything else i think that's it for me yeah okay so just um a few final thoughts so there's um a question about whether medical decisions about i guess masking and a bunch of other things are being made by non-medical professionals so of course you know most of the requirements that we follow come from either the new jersey department of ed but that's informed by the new jersey department of health so medical officials

147are involved in that not to mention the fact that last year and this year we had a bit of a celebrity dr goldberg right you remember dr goldberg so he was our consultant last year so he works here at st joseph's hospital but he is our medical consultant he works for the district and he gets involved when there are questions about medical decisions that have to do with the pandemic or any course of action the district is taking we consult with dr goldberg so he is still available to us we still have a consulting contract with him um then there's another question about um i guess quarantine right so the main point i guess is this whole thing with masking right i wrote that in my letter to our parents so the bottom line is

148if you're wearing your mask and you keep your distance right depending on the situation the fact is students don't have to quarantine which is which is a big thing and um that keeps more of our kids in school another thing i was i was hoping one thing we could agree to um for future meetings is to to do this it is very important to understand i know like a lot of people have over the past few months brought up the issue that the pandemic and the virus is generally not lethal to children [Music] right so people brought that up over and over again right that's been raised many many times we understand that but i hope that all of you understand there's a lot more to keep a district up and running during a pandemic

149than just considering that one fact okay there's a lot of people that work for a district there's a lot of people have medical issues there's a whole lot of people there's 1400 students in the district that are identified as medically fragile that have different issues medical issues that the parents are concerned about so and you also have the issue of the unvaccinated which some of you may disagree with but the fact is there's other people who say i wish my child was vaccinated i feel much safer so but that is something that that really i don't know like i just think it's it's no longer productive to talk about that the fact that there we know that and we're very much aware of that but again our goal our goal is to keep the district

150up and running and our goal is to um to make sure that as many people get um the education that their children deserve and that their children need so we want to make sure that our schools are in session i think that um that covers just about everything well we don't we can't do that does that conclude your comments um i guess one other thing real quick so there was also questions about how many students are have coveted and how many um students um right now there's right now there's 110 cases among our students and we report that at most meetings um you know this is not one of those meetings where we we do that report because we have other things that we're discussing tonight but there's 110 cases right now um four of

151which were reported today so the the virus is still active in the district 110 is a lower number for our our situation and we talked last year about when things kind of get a little tough to cover in terms of staffing and you know the number of students that are are contagious so um but right now we have 110 cases of verified um cases of covet among students and staff not right now i don't have i have a report that i usually give to the board but i don't have it right now i will say that the pattern generally follows that the high schools are much larger schools and those are the places where most of the cases happen okay that's it yes thank you board members any comments anyone i would just like to

152answer nicholas's question i'm sorry i guess he went home to bed uh so we can get up and get ready for school tomorrow i i definitely think we should look into possibly uh nicholas's claims that he had zero mass break i would like that investigated as far as my changing my mind i did i did it because the pandemic changed its mind it went from green zone to red zone in a matter of a few weeks after i made my statement i'm not afraid to change my mind when the conditions change and the conditions change dramatically and quickly it happened several times last year just when we thought we were hitting a spell of great news the virus would rear its ugly head so as far as my vote i voted the way i did

153because i feel as an elected official we have to follow the rules and we should set that example and losing funding is not an option losing a child is not an option and those are not things i would encourage or ask a governor to change his mind for i'm sorry i voted my conscience i didn't vote politically and i don't feel my vote was hypocritical but of course that's how i feel uh and nicholas i hope you get a mass break we'll look into that and we'll look into any of the other claims you made about how a teacher may have spoken to you that is our job to protect students the other comment i would like to make is that we do have a chain of command a lot of the situations that were

154brought up here can be discussed with your teacher personally or with your school principal as far as where i go for a cocktail on my free time i'm not going to tell you where i'm headed this evening but if you want to take more pictures i'd like a copy i hope you got my good side i do need to remove my mask to have a drink um and finally uh what was the last thing i wanted to say oh mr esposito we moved we we didn't move the venue per se as far as you're used to the summer this summer we have usually only two meetings we ended up having four typically we have two meetings a month the first one is called our work session that's what we're doing here this evening uh work

155sessions usually include presentations the full discussion on matters that we move to the next meeting normally those would be in our board offices at 50 nellis drive and considering the um attendance that we've been seeing from people like yourself we did not think that was a large enough venue for this meeting so we moved it here so that everyone could spread out feel comfortable be as distant as you like our next meeting will be as usual at the council chambers so um nothing nefarious uh this is our normal order of business so i hope that answers your question can i get a mover mrs putta second mr giordano meetings adjourned thank you [Music]