March 4, 2021: Board of Education Meeting

001good evening the executive session of the wayne board of education public works session meeting of march 4th 2021 was convened virtually and hosted in the media center of anthony wayne middle school 201 garside avenue wayne new jersey the statement of compliance setting forth time date and location was read in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings act and the roll call was taken the meeting was recessed and is now being reconvened can i get a mover mr giordano mrs cher uh please rise for a flag salute pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all would you like to do a roll call mr moffatt mrs albanese here mr bubba here i

002do not see mr duffy with us at the moment mr giardano here mrs kazan here mrs kumar here mr favilac here mrs put up here and mr shearer here dr toback start with you this board of education meeting is being held at anthony wayne middle school again although other than for a handful of district employees the meeting is largely a virtual meeting as has been the case throughout the pandemic the meeting is open for public view and public participation using zoom and is also broadcast on channel 7. it seems as though every board of education meeting this year is a meeting of great consequence and this board meeting is no exception this evening's agenda includes two very important topics first we'll have the first public input session for the next year's school budget budget development

003process this year has been a challenge with many factors that influence the budget and some level of uncertainty mr moffatt will be taking everyone through a detailed budget presentation in a few moments following mr moffatt's presentation we'll be taking on the board members and the community to our phase 5 return to school proposal which was already shared with the community last night to allow for review in advance of this meeting and an opportunity for residents to formulate questions based on the questions we received last night we developed another faq which was distributed to the public this morning based on that feedback we also made some changes to the original presentation to clarify different points that appear to create some confusion we're making every effort to respond to questions from the community because you know how

004important these decisions are for our students our parents and for the broader broader community we know the road back to normalcy has been long and bumpy and that many are experiencing great frustration along with a certain amount of exhaustion although it is very clear that the virus is still out there and remains a threat we also see signs of progress when it comes to the vaccine and a generally downward trend when it comes to new cases hospitalizations and other metrics surrounding the virus if you notice on the agenda there is no resolution to approve a plan tonight this meeting is a public work session mrs reichman and i will be sharing the proposal in a few moments this is the standard process the board follows especially when considering such an important action such as the

005next phase of our return to school the intent is to allow two weeks for public comment and feedback and then we will incorporate that into a finalized plan for board of education consideration on march 18th in addition to the feedback we receive by email we'll also be asking parents to complete a survey specific to your child this will be an incredibly important part of the planning process as we look forward to finalize our efforts for the spread the survey will be distributed to parents tomorrow electronically and will be open for one week this is a very important survey and we hope every parent will complete one survey per child but um we'll get to that a little later right now what i'd like to do is introduce our business administrator mr moffitt for a presentation

006about the budget mr moffat thank you dr toback and if i could ask mr i should say dr burchard to start the presentation good evening to all who are in attendance good evening welcome to wayne township public schools tentative district budget presentation for the 2021 to 2022 fiscal year the presentation will provide an overview of the financial condition of the district discuss the full-day kindergarten program being implemented for next year a listing of important dates in the budget creation process influencing factors on the budget district initiatives included not only in the general fund portion of the district budget but also identify funds available through grants initiatives that were included in the budget macro level information estimated tax impact and then a summary of the tentative budget also known as preliminary budget at the end wayne

007township public schools is an overall positive financial condition it has a surplus position of 4.2 a capital reserve coming in at 5.8 which is a reserve that could assist the district address some future facility needs should they arise the district also generated about a million seven that we could use in the future budget and that will reduce the need for taxes the board also has available to a bank cap of about a million dollars and the board of education is proud to be at their last year of a three-year phase-in period for a full-day kindergarten program which the third third year cost is coming in at about a million seven for the 21-22 budget year again that's a three-year phase-in plan with the final year being a 1.7 million dollar cost this is the wrong

008presentation is that the right presentation okay bear with us a moment and uh look into the slideshow being corrected i'd sing but you really don't want to hear that thanks for the vote of confidence mrs peta most likely we would like to hear that actually oh sure you would no thank you that'll that'll remain on youtube for the rest of my life [Music] or end up in a tick tock shut up stacy sure be chuckling because i don't know what a tick tock is i know you are and i have no clue and i'm okay with that ah technology okay do we have a resolution yes it should be coming up okay we're getting there please be patient sorry for the delay the full day kindergarten program was contingent upon a number of items the

009first was continued increases in state aid and although we had a minor setback last year and reduced the amount of additional state aid this year we anticipate this year being 2122. the district anticipates 1.3 million dollars which will go a long way to offset the full-day kindergarten program here in the district the board of education also invested in preakness school and created the early childhood center which relocated the pre-k program from a number of locations in the elementary schools and brought it centrally to the preakness school we had a some minimal financial setbacks although covid 19 pandemic was a major issue we were able to budget around it and we'll be able to bring the three year phase-in program to fruition and offer it starting september 1. obviously we have continued board of education support

010in bringing a community to the full-day kindergarten and we also experience a reduction or pace of other facility or capital projects here in the district although there are a few that we continue to to watch and implement that the reduction has allowed us to focus on the full day kindergarten and prepare classrooms before that start in the fall full day kindergarten was not contingent upon these items listed here on the slide the first is it did not cause a situation where we had to redistrict our elementary schools we did not have to put art and music on a cart nor did we have any major reductions to our extracurricular activities we didn't have to reduce or diminish our educational foundation or our opportunities nor did we have an increase in class sizes so the kindergarten

011full-day kindergarten did not cause any of these items nor did it cause an increase in class sizes the cost of the full-day kindergarten program moving from a half-time basis to full-time program is estimated to be 1.7 million dollars that is inclusive of 15 full-time teachers which include salaries and benefits 15 classroom instructional aids lunch monitors additional furniture for all program needs instruction materials again for all program needs professional development also for incoming teachers so they're ready to go on september 1. again total estimated budget of 1.7 million dollars the big question when we talk about the full day kindergarten program is where is the money coming from and at this stage of the 1.7 million dollar number for the final phase in amount and the cost of the full day kindergarten is all set by

012an increase in state aid of a million three and we were able to go back and reduce the general fund appropriation lines district-wide to offset the additional amount of nine 339 dollars to totally offset the 1.7 million dollars here's a list of important dates today is march 4th and we're sharing a preliminary budget tentative budget with you in this presentation and that's the public's first input session the second input session is dated march 18th at a regularly established board of education meeting the actual tentative budget is due to the new jersey department of education county offices on march 20. once they receive it on march 20 they'll review it ask the district several questions they upon approval then we're able to mean the district is able to share and advertise information with the general public

013and advertise in local news sources with our public hearing set for may 6 which is the final adoption of the district budget influencing factors on the budget planning process this year on the revenue side at least on this slide is listed tax levy increase of about 3.1 which is 2 percent bank cap was available to the board at a little over a million dollars we did benefit from an increase in state aid which is a formula aid from the state of new jersey which increased about 1.3 million dollars unfortunately we will be losing some revenue as it relates to employee contributions due to implementation of chapter 44 which was passed this past summer and the board will have to absorb about a loss estimated at this time at seven hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars

014we will be able to continue to use general fund balance which is surplus which again is uh tax relief at 1.7 million dollars and we also released earlier in february the elementary and secondary school emergency relief funds which is so known as sr2 which is a second wave of funds from the federal government to offset the burdens placed on school districts as it relates to the covet 19 pandemic influencing factors during the budget process as it related to appropriations we knew that if we took salaries this year which is 2021 and uh increased them by at least two percent that would generate roughly two million dollars in projected costs for next year health benefits another large component of our district budget that's 12 percent and that would generate about four thousand dollars in cost for

015next year we knew we had the final phase of the full day kindergarten that was budgeted at 1.7 and pcti tuition increase which we just received indicates an increase over last year about 341 thousand dollars earlier in the presentation you heard me mention sr2 fund allocations were released in the amount of 1.8 million dollars as are two funds can support various different programs but what's listed here are the areas that we'll have to address which would be programs in areas most impacted by coven 19 disruption is about 1.5 or 1.6 million dollars available to those programs we'll have about 118 thousand dollars available for learning and acceleration programs 45 000 that's available for mental health and support services and right now we're planning with the idea that we have at least a hundred thousand available

016for uh ppe and related supplies again a total budget is about 1.8 just note we continue to plan this information was shared with districts the middle part of february and we continue to plan for this grant initiatives included in our general fund budget will include the continuation of envisioned math school-wide literacy national geographic and amplified science programs and the all-important related digital subscriptions funds will be available for online learning assessment digital subscriptions we'll continue with linkedin data warehousing and assessment system and associated professional development we'll be acquiring two new textbook series the first is in art history at the high school level the second is ap history we'll also have funds available for the continuation of the diversity and equity and inclusion goal and the related professional development training program and of course the phase

017three of the full day kindergarten program a withdrawal from capital reserve in the amount of 1.2 million dollars will allow the district to implement backup generator program which is a multi-year program addressing some critical needs that we have the three areas that we'll start with is pines lake elementary school that project as part of the overall program is estimated at 530 000 and that will allow us to maintain in the event of a power outage a fire alarm system lighting refrigeration and it functions so we'll keep them up and running as well as keeping the heating and ventilation system operational second area has to do with our transportation department we have a location at the north cove that project is estimated to be 270 thousand dollars that again critical infrastructure is communication and pumps again

018these are water pumps at the site and obviously communications are for vehicles and dispatch and it'll be portable and flexible enough for district-wide use the second location in transportation is our bus garage which is estimated to be a project of 360 thousand dollars and an infrastructure there we're concerned about is maintaining communications with our vehicles again uh communications from driver to main office i want to make sure the alarms are maintained and again we also want to maintain our it functions and communication software part of that bus garage plan is also to address mechanical repair equipment to make sure it's operational in a power outage initiatives included in the budget by way of a lease purchase arrangement through pcia uh and an estimated amount of 1.5 million dollars would include a telephone system phase 2

019upgrade at 250 000 estimated the continuation of the district's one-to-one computer program in the amount of 738 thousand dollars which would cover the following four grades the first grade again that's district-wide fifth sixth and ninth grades also included in the lease purchase would be two special needs school vans which should be equipped with wheelchair lifts at eighty-eight thousand dollars each that comes in about a hundred and seventy six thousand dollars three new 24 passenger vans at 234 thousand dollars and on new and two used facility vehicles most likely two used vans and one new pickup truck district security will continue to be upgraded we are awaiting uh funding of the alyssa law grant which is in the amount of 439 thousand dollars we had hoped to receive this amount in the current year but unfortunately

020it's been delayed and we anticipate it next year which is good because we were able to continue to plan and identify two new areas that we could upgrade or expand so it's james fallon and john f kennedy both elementary schools so we're able to add those to the list from last year so they all include tunis day james fallon john f kennedy lafayette pack and act ryerson albert payson terhune and those are all elementary schools and george washington middle school also get an upgraded or expanded security vestibule we're going to continue to add cameras as needed and that's been funded year after year from an ngisig which is our insurance a carrier through a grant program that they offer annually and as previously stated on the slide the pca funds had financed the phase two

021phone system which is integrated in our overall security plan this slide you see a pie chart that represents total revenue to offset the operating budget the subject tentative budget as you can clearly see the largest portion is from the tax levy and we're looking at about 91.6 which if you think about it is about 92 cents on every dollar comes from the tax levy areas i'd like to highlight are the fund balance which is one percent and that is funds available from the prior year again fund balance that is used in this year's budget to offset need to raise taxes so it's a form of tax relief the other relief i would like to say is the capital reserve which we're close to one percent at point seven and that offsets the programs that we

022have in our capital projects and then the second largest category of revenue for our operating budget is state aid and that comes in at close to six percent at 5.8 here's another pie chart for you it reflects the appropriation side of this year's budget and if you add up academic programs of student support at 11 student transportation again busing four percent and student activities at three percent that gets you to 58 of the overall pie chart uh represents direct contact student related services with facilities coming in at about 10 administration at six and employee benefits finishing out at 22 percent an estimated tax impact of a tentative budget on an average assessed home here in wayne township you'll see as the average is listed there as 229 309 which if you look at the impact

023on an annual basis it's 186 dollars monthly at 15.47 or 51 cents a day we have others listed as you can see for house 100 000 it's an annual amount estimated at 81 and a half a million dollar property as assessed would come in at 405. the tentative budget summary looks as follows the tax levy increase from 155 million to 159 million roughly 2.6 and that includes a bank cap uh amount of a million dollars which was available to the district state aid increased by 1.3 million dollars which is a 22 increase from the prior year we were able to use a budgeted fund balance again this year at 1.750 which is no increase over last year uh the estimated federal amount which is the semi-amount is reduced slightly down to 113 851 which brings

024the total operating budget in at about a 174 million dollars which is roughly a 0.5 percent increase over last year non-public programs uh hover at about a four hundred and fifty four thousand dollars federal aid which is e-s-e-a and i-d-a uh coming at about 1.8 million dollars charter school transfer payment is 42 512 that's new for this year we did not have a charter school allotment in last year's budget we also have a debt service tax levy which is separate from the general fund balance or i should say the general fund operating budget which comes in at 2.9 million dollars which brings the total preliminary budget or the tentative budget up to 179 million dollars which is an increase of 2.3 percent over last year i would at this time like to point out that

025this tentative district budget in the presentation here tonight is in the process of being reviewed and approved by the board of education and will ultimately be submitted to the county office department of education to be reviewed based on feedback by or from the board of education or the county office this tentative budget could be altered and changed but once it is approved by the county office the district would be would be able to advertise in anticipation of the budget hearing which again is scheduled for may 6. again please note that all of the financial information in this presentation is subject to change this slide is the end of my presentation thank you mr moffatt that was a very thorough presentation uh at this time i'll open it up to the board if you have any

026question or comment or you could go through the mrs albanese hi hi thank you uh thank you mr moffatt um i have a couple of questions and maybe information that would be helpful to the whole board um could you tell us today or estimated for the year however easier for you what our total covet expenses or related expenses would be whether they're cleaning or ppe or ppe or whatever um and then what money we received either through the s or two grant or in any other fashion that we received to offset that i know we received the million three in additional state aid um and i'm interested into the justification for adding the bank cap in for people who aren't aware the bank cap takes you over the two percent tax levy so i'm interested

027in the justification for why that was added in and why it was felt it was needed so i'm not asking you to answer them now but maybe you could share them with the board thank you yes i'll get back and put that in a q a yes the board um as we've mentioned through the finance committee there will be a q a that mr moffatt will update for all of us to participate and read so that we're fully aware of what's going on did anyone else want to have a comment here this evening before we move on okay thank you dr toback or mrs reichman who wants to go first on the phase 5 plan and thank you mr moffat again that was great so i'll get the discussion started but before i did i

028did just want to mention that the budget presentation represents really a culmination of many months of work on top of all demands placed on the business office through the pandemic so it includes thousands of projections and estimates and just a whole host of considerations that really are too numerous to mention i did want to thank mr moffat and all the employees of the business office for all of your effort to put together a wonderful primary budget so yeah at this point dr burchard if you could pull up the presentation phase 5 proposal okay go back okay so um what we'd like to do is start a presentation and later on this is rational get involved but i didn't ask her she was nice with explaining this graphic she found this graphic and uh there was

029an inspiration would you like to explain um how you explain the graphic sure there's been a lot of conversation generated around this graphic around the state and the the point is that we're all traveling the same road and it has been a very bumpy road this year for all of us and ultimately the goal is to end in the same destination which is to have a full return to school but you know depending on the district depending on funds available that are available depending on what the cobit situation is there's so many variables to consider we've all had to take different roads and different twists and turns throughout this journey but again the ultimate goal is to bring everybody back and tonight we're planning to share with us our next proposal for phase five dr

030next page please okay so just to get started it's good to look at where we are right now okay so this is the first slide um for tonight it's our current plan so uh as you know at this point we've merged our high school cohorts from three to two and this week we eliminated our virtual wednesday um and as you can see april 19th is the date when the proposed phase five would start and you can see in between now and then we also have a spring break from march 29th to april 2nd okay so that is our current plan our current phase if you can go to the next slide please dr bashar okay so this is information that was provided by governor murphy regarding the status of schools across the state and so

031you can see that there are at this point 110 schools out of the 811 cited that currently have all in-person learning you can see that 533 have hybrid instruction of some fashion that includes us um and you can see that there are 142 districts in the state that have all remote learning okay so that's where we stand compared to the rest of the state if you could go to the next slide please okay so the important updates um one of the problems with the pandemic is things happen very quickly and so actually this is not totally accurate our teacher vacancies though this is accurate our teacher vaccines are available based on occupation starting on march 15th so that is a huge development and so hopefully that will be expedited for our teachers so that we

032are able to get our teachers vaccinated as quickly as possible i did have a discussion with mayor vergano this week about setting up some clinics in our schools at this point indicated that probably would not be possible um he did always thinking of the school system he was involved in a meeting with other mayors from across the state trying to seek out a solution or a way that we would be able to do that particularly based on the fact that we have our own clinic here in wayne one of the few communities that has our very own vaccine clinic and at this point that's not permissible we've also reached out to st joe's hospital in paterson to see if perhaps we might be able to form a partnership with them to allow our teachers to

033be vaccinated quickly and easily so the part of the update that's not accurate says passaic county is no longer identified as a high risk area as identified by the new jersey department of health so unfortunately today a new map was produced and we'll show you that in a few minutes but we are back to being a high risk area um so that means our quarantine requirements go back from it says here from 14 to 10 now goes back from 10 to 14. but there's other encouraging news out there for example pennsylvania eliminated travel testing and quarantine requirements completely connecticut is on the verge of making some changes to their plans for how to respond to out-of-state travel um we are also seeing a good sign with students beginning to return in greater numbers at our

034elementary schools and we'll show you that in a few minutes um so right now the new rate that we put together led to 54 additional daily substitutes that we've been able to hire so that's really great news for the district that puts us in a very strong position um then the other thing we have is and what's not quite accurate because we found out after school that we have more staff members returning so instead of four staff members we have seven staff members that were on medical leave that are returning to work after being vaccinated so that's good news i'm sure there are more to come so added together there's definitely progress there's definitely reasons to be hopeful and things aren't moving in the right direction if we can go to the next slide please

035okay so here you can see the percentage of the request for change to instructional models just recently from february 15th to march first okay so the fact of the matter is that you still have a significant number of students going out to um all virtual and then but you have more students that are coming back for in-person hybrid so and you can see the numbers at the elementary level are significant in that students are returning for in-person hybrid and you can also see at the high school level that there's a significant number of students that went from being hybrid to now being all virtual so that's a trend that has been in place for quite some time okay and you can see at the end of the 262 in person that's the change to in

036person and then the 180 to all virtual okay so still a significant number of students in the district going to all virtual okay the covet 19 update that's something we provide at every one of our meetings when we're talking about of our next phase or if there's plans or there's things that we're looking to do with regard to our recovery from the pandemic so dr burchard if you can go to the next slide okay so this is the table that i regularly include for board meetings and so it generally shows the trend in new jersey and there's a line of best fit and so you can see that in general um all the key statistics that are maintained for the chronovirus for each state are on a downward slide so that's great news and though

037you can't see at the very end of the graph that there is a little bit of an uptick right now i'm sure that's probably what led to say county being once again along with other counties being identified as high risk so we do have an uptick not only in the state but also across the nation there are um you know there's there's more as things open up and people start going about their lives um there are now um there's an increase in the number of cases if you can go to the next slide so this was the activity report from the new jersey department of health as for the week ending february 20th okay and you can see at that point that passaic county in the northwest part of the state was identified as a

038moderate risk area if we go to the next slide please dr burchard this is the slide the most recent slide that came out yesterday and it shows that i'm sorry today and it shows at the weekend february 27th so there's a little bit of lag now the northwest part of new jersey is high so we're now back to being a high risk area okay so that's the latest chart that is available if we can go on to the next slide so here you can see very clearly on february 8th and then compared to february 25th their numbers are approximately the same there is activity in the schools and there are cases that um just today that are not included in this chart there's a number of additional students and there were a few staff members

039that tested positive and are now in quarantine so students are back they're interacting with one another and so there are some cases but it's still within reasonable limits and not too significantly different from where we were on february 8th if you can go to the next slide thank you so i just wanted to show that this is our most recent new jersey department of education guidance which will come into play tonight because ultimately um what we're going to talk about is social distancing that's one of the big things that pertains to our next phase of reopening so six feet or the maximum extent practicable that can be achieved by ensuring students are seated at least six feet apart but like i said there are options for the district if we reduce it and we provide

040additional pe and you can see that there and particularly the physical barriers are identified and are commonly used to allow for this okay so at this point if we can go to the next slide this is the cdc executive summary updated february 26th noting that and of course this is not a law per se this is not an absolute but um ultimately the recommendation is to maintain the six feet and um that's really the standard that still exists for social distancing so there are like i said there's a lot of things that we need to talk about and we're going to get to a discussion about a questionnaire because we do want to know about the preferences that exist within the community um if you can go to the next slide okay so at this

041point this is where i'm going to jump off and mrs reichman is going to take over to talk about schedules and some of the specifics of the phase five plan at this point as it pertains to the elementary students dr porchagi can advance the next slide so i'll start by sharing the proposed preschool schedule preschool students will be invited to return five days a week we will maintain the am and pm sessions the am session would run from 8 20 to 10 the pm session would run from 11 20 to 1 and then we would maintain special ed programs daily from 8 20 to 1 20. students will continue to receive a snack um in an outdoor period without a full lunch or recess period and we would have death shields for all classes one

042thing that's really important to note is not all death shields are are created equal and i've just been following the conversation around the state and and really listening to teacher comments and parents comments as schools reopen their doors and bring students back we made a concerted effort to find the most sturdy and durable desk shields so that each student would have their own it would be something that would stay with them travel with them and something that is reliable once it's in place on their desk there are many very inexpensive options and um we did not feel like that was something that was really sustainable for staying in place and not causing a disruption to class so a lot of thought went into any of the decision making we can advance the next slide um

043this is our k-5 proposed elementary school schedule 8-2 students will return five abbreviated days um school would end at 145 special education which is our ocr out of class resource and esl students um would return for the five abbreviated days in grades three to five um and i'm sorry k through five of 145 dismissal for all students followed by the win period what i need now which would run from 2 o'clock to 2 45. students will continue to receive a snack and an outdoor period without a full lunch or recess period sodexo will offer and provide grab-and-go lunches at dismissal desk shields would be in all k-2 classes to maintain distancing um to the greatest extent possible and make sure that we have that extra layer of protection knowing that we very likely would not

044be able to maintain six feet and we would determine the feasibility of a return forward term for grades three to five on may 3rd so just to clarify all cades 2 students would be invited to return monday through friday grades 3 to 5 we would start by bringing back our ocr which is our special education students and our esl population and then we would reevaluate with the plan to return the remainder of the students in three to five on may 3rd we can go to the next slide this i edited him because as um once a presentation was shared out last night many emails came in we did dr toback and i spent quite some time last night reading through all the emails many of you are aware we did put out an faq today

045just to respond to some questions that appeared um on many emails so we did realize and recognize that we need to provide some additional information and some clarification and as a result we shared the faq and made some updates to the presentation so this was just um to elaborate on the special ed piece i think there were some confusion out of class resource student is our special ed population students who are in the class for part of the day and then leaving the class for part of the day for special education concentrated classes you can go to the next slide this again is just providing more information many of you are asking why are we not bringing back grades three through five in its entirety on april 19th class sizes in three to five are

046significantly larger we have district guidelines and we are very very strict about maintaining those guidelines whenever we exceed those guidelines we add an additional teacher an additional class so at this point we know that um our kindergarten maximum class side is 20 students first grade we have a max of 22 and second grade is a max of 23. in anticipation of the return we would expect that we would not have 100 return uh based on the information we have now the number of students who remote and reading the volume of email that has come in there are many many parents who still indicate that their preference would be to maintain their child as remote throughout the end of the year anticipating that we could have 70 of the students in the class which is the

047greatest likelihood with the death shields we would not be six feet apart but we would still have a manageable number for three to five it's really important for us to gather all this information because we could have situations where we have 28 students in a class with a teacher that's a very crowded class with older kids larger deaths and though there would be some consideration to reassigning kids possibly setting up some remote classes once we have the numbers but again that would be information we'd gather from the survey and take some time to sit down and work through so that we can offer parents up options so and maintain social distancing to the best extent possible you can go to the next slide so for the kindergarten proposed schedule this was a challenge because we

048wanted to minimize disruption and we also wanted to maintain the program we have teachers who travel to schools they need travel time and they also need to have travel time and they also need to have some time for prep planning and setup in their separate location currently the way it's set up there is an overlap time and any student who's in our kindergarten program has a second teacher so right now the way it stands current traveling kindergarten teachers teach morning and afternoon sessions in two schools so we wouldn't be able to maintain that with the two and a half hour sessions five days a week with the new proposed schedule we also did not want to have to reassign your child to a new teacher because that would be disruptive and new parents have indicated

049that they would be uncomfortable with that understandably so in order to maintain the current teacher assignments this schedule would give us the travel time so that the teacher can get to their next class and maintain their two sessions sticking with the class assignments they current currently have students who have a traveling teacher may be asked to switch to an am if they're in an am to a pm session or vice versa we could also present options um if a parent was unable to switch their am to a pm or the other way around to reassign them but again until we know what the return looks like we won't have all this information so this will take some time if the current two and a half hour schedule was maintained many kindergarten students would be assigned

050to new teachers so i'm repeating what i said but i just want to make it very clear that we did reduce the time but the time will be made up if you look at the last bullet with a virtual special which would be offered outside of the two-hour kindergarten block currently in the two and a half hours they have their special built in so we're making up the time afterwards and and again this is in an effort to keep your child with their current teacher and really not disrupt the schedule and assignments for the teachers who travel we could go to the next slide from 2 to 2 45 we will continue to offer the win period what i need now and that's a time where we can provide academic support social emotional learning and

051other opportunities which will be detailed on the next slide so we can move ahead the presentation will be updated on the website tomorrow because we did make some changes but this was something that was shared last night students are dismissed at 1 and any student who's remote at that point can begin the win time immediately after the 145 dismissal other students obviously will be enroute to travel home so at two o'clock um they can join one of these groups each week students will be assigned to one small group instruction for a specific skill area they'll also have an opportunity um if they're involved in instrumental lessons and windows art any other special programs to sign up for those periods that there will be availability daily to meet with counselors and sign up for different social

052groups and sessions that are offered by the counselors and we also recognize that many parents may have desire to choose some days to have their children do something outdoors on their own of choice and it might be a way for them to socialize with neighbors and things as the weather gets nice and they can be outside so there'll be a lot of flexibility with this and you know all of this was considered and thought about very critically with the feedback and information that parents were able to provide for us i know many parents wrote in today and had questions about having a child at home k12 student and then having a third fourth or fifth grader who one in school and then one who's working from home and they expressed concerns about driving their child

053to school and then having to pick their child up what would they do with the at-home child there'll be lots of flexibility when you're driving your child to school if you needed to bring your other child with you which we understand there will be flexibility and a time period when students can log in to their first period the same thing at the end of the day there'll be time in advance of dismissal for kids to log off at before joining the win period and what we would suggest is that you discuss this and communicate with your classroom teacher so that they're aware and the building principle and again we can be very flexible to accommodate whatever your needs are you can go to the next slide at this point i will share the secondary plan

054and we can go to the next slide and we'll start with middle school middle and high school we'll be returning to a full day for middle school students we will maintain the cohorted model we did see that we have many more middle school students returning to school which we are happy to see and with the wednesday return students would be in three days one week and two days the next week we'd be alternating between the a and b cohorts go to the next slide here you see the full day schedule starting at 8 00 a.m and concluding at 2 45 p.m you can advance to the next life um middle school lunches that was something that was not a challenge to sort out at this level because as you can see fifth sixth and seventh

055grade students eat lunch at different times so we do have flexibility each lunch will be broken into two groups one group will have a recreation time outside the other group will eat lunch in their designated location we'll have prepackaged lunches offered from sodexo students will be able to spread out with six feet of distance in the designated areas this is a time where infection really can spread and we have to be diligent about making sure that our students are six feet apart the designated lunch areas will be sanitized between periods and whenever possible students will have the opportunity to eat outdoors we explored the idea and just received information about renting tents for our middle and high schools and this would enable many students to eat outside at both levels and we would also be

056able to use the tents to have or hold outdoor classes um when lunch is not being served go to the next slide academic support for our middle school students will be offered we'll have after-school programming for academics and social emotional needs and book clubs guidance counselor check-ins and targeted math and the ela programs are a few things now being planned and prepared for and more information about this will be forthcoming from the individual building principles next slide this is our proposed full day high school schedule again we will maintain two cohorts cohorts will continue to follow a four-day block rotation and we go back to the 7 20 a.m start time and the 219 end time you can go to the next slide sodexo will offer prepackaged lunches students will be spread out in designated

057locations to ensure six feet of distance when eating again we are looking into bringing tents to both of our high schools to expand the eating area and offer outside opportunities staff members will be present to monitor students during the lunch period seniors will be permitted to leave the campus to eat lunch and we will continue to make sure that each area is sterilized between the periods additional support for high schoolers will be offered academic support sessions counselor support groups and for virtual students will have google meets available so that they can participate in these opportunities and more information about this will also be provided at a later date i know many people have written in and asked about combining the cohorts for high school because the numbers are low i think it's important to also

058share out that i've received many many requests from parents who said they don't call into meetings but wanted to um just put it out there and make it known that they were not in support of combining cohorts we have had a number of outbreaks in the past couple of days uh the concern about combining cohorts and moving so quickly is we are still not out of the woods daily have notifications being sent out of students and staff members who are required to quarantine and this could potentially end up in a full school shutdown so maintaining the two cohorts to start until we have more information gives us an opportunity if we needed to shut down classes or a cohort to maintain school for the other cohort i think it's important with the information we have

059now to move slowly and and see how things go and it's something that we can reconsider and revisit you can go to the next slide if you look at this slide what it shows you is with all the protocols that we're putting in place with the proposed plan we're basically falling into the medium risk category for most things the cdc and the department of health and wayne and our county superintendent is still recommending maintaining six feet of distance and i realize that is not consistent across all the counties passaic county has the numbers have been high we have had outbreaks in our district which we're reporting daily and you know we are prioritizing bringing kids back and doing it as safely as possible the death shield is one measure that we're taking the tenth in

060the middle of the high school is another measure that we're taking and just taking a cautious approach with the larger classes to re-evaluate the needs and consider the possibility of hiring more staff and then determining locations is something that's super important and we can go to the last slide so if um if i could talk about the surveys real quick one of the important parts of the planning process will be a survey that will go out to parents tomorrow we're also into some other surveys but um for the purposes of this meeting we're going to talk about um the surveys as it pertains to our parents and for our students so the key questions that we will need to answer is how many students will be returning um we want to know how complicated because

061we've seen a lot of different feedback from various members of the community parents who in some cases are comfortable knowing that social distancing standards would not be able to maintain in other words students return to school but even if the classrooms are fuller uh we may not be able to maintain the social distancing standards and there are plenty examples of districts across the state that are functioning in that way um other parents are not comfortable and at this point especially like at the elementary level we still have even with the influx of students we still have about 25 percent of our parents that have determined that they're going to keep their kid virtual we talked a little bit about kindergarten earlier mrs reichman indicated that the plan that we're recommending would allow for these children

062to maintain the same teachers they have in some cases there might be some other things we can do but we want to assess how flexible parents might be with changing teachers because that will allow for some additional opportunities to change up instruction and maybe to meet needs a little bit better so we're going to find out a little bit more about that with our survey we also need to find out how willing parents are to commit to the instructional model so this is a big topic in the community we know that we've received some questions some call-ins about the desire of parents to be able to maintain the flexibility that the district has offered when it comes to deciding whether your child will be virtual or will be i'm sorry we'll be virtual or we'll

063be in person um so that's something that many people feel is a strength of the plan that we've used this year and we understand that that is highly valued by many of our parents um one of the things though that would really help is if we're able to find out if there are parents who are saying for whatever reason they have at home or for whatever belief they might have if they are absolutely certain that they know their child will not return for the remainder of the year so if we can identify the parents that are that are saying absolutely i know for sure my child will not be returning that might help us out depending on the school and the situation we might be able to set up all virtual sections for some of

064our students and then from there we'll be able to have a full in person not a hybrid full in-person opportunity for learning for the students that are now back at school in person so that may be helpful but again it's not it's not something that's required if parents are comfortable with sharing that that's great if parents are not comfortable and you want to retain that independence and your ability to make decisions for your child then that's fine too but like i said if there is that there are parents out there that that truly know that they're not going to return their children um for any in-person instruction that also helps us so the other thing i wrote here is will there be an effort to gain the system okay so this is um not meant

065to offend anybody but what it is meant to do is um it's it's a it's a consideration anytime you have a survey right because in the end if you do an anonymous survey um especially with the technology we have available at a school district there's really not much we could do if one person decided to take the survey 50 times and another person decided to take the survey 75 times we would not necessarily know that we do we are able to monitor ip addresses but even then a person could basically complete as many surveys as they have devices so um we we need to make this survey personal okay and so what that means is that the survey is kind of going to be a combo we're going to um ask parents to determine their

066comfort level with some of the the things that we described and also to determine what their actual plans are when it comes to april 19th okay so ultimately this will be a survey that will largely pertain to a return on april 19th april 19th and each parent will be asked to complete a survey for their child so ultimately you may have different beliefs about what you would like to do in the survey will allow you to express that in addition to what your specific plans will be so that's the survey and like i said that will go out it'll be distributed electronically and parents will have one week to complete the survey okay we go to the next slide i think that's it right okay so that concludes um that presentation [Music] let's open it

067up to the board for any questions or comments mrs kumar hi um so i wanted to thank you for really going you know into detail about everything but also um going out and making sure that we get those tents because i think that's really key to our ability to possibly serve lunch and be able to open full-time um really as far as safety and everything else and i just hope that in our community we're able to hopefully continue on this downtrend and uh be able to open more so that's it anyone else this is cher oh it's always me okay so some of these concerns i've already brought his attention but being that it's a public work session i i want the public to be aware of what i'm thinking um so first thing was

068you mentioned the ocr kids some of them are only pulled for two subjects like math and and language arts is usually what they're pulled for so i'm curious are those kids if they're going to be in five days a week they're going to go to their separate room for the math in english but then for science and social studies the rest of the day are they going back so they're mixing with the other kids or how's that going to work um again not asking you to answer all these today it's just just putting out there with um i personally think the survey should have gone out already i'm a little concerned that it hasn't um you know we're presenting a plan then we're going to put the survey out if people say they don't like

069it they like what you know we might have to just change this entire plan um i want to see if the teachers are being surveyed on their thoughts about cohorts kids in the classroom watching all the different aspects of it i think the teachers have you know crucial say in what should be happening in the school since they're in it every day um for the elementary schools i'm a little concerned about the process i am very happy let me start with that the k-2 is going to be in school that's wonderful and the special ed and esl what i'm concerned about for the elementary level is that right now we have the kids and i could be off on my timing but i believe they're leaving at 1 45. at two o'clock starts their win

070program i'm assuming we have kids that take a bus so they're not getting home at two o'clock i'm assuming even the kids that are being picked up from school by the time they get home so now i have a kid who's been uh in the school all day still probably online for a lot of it um because there's virtual kids and you want them to within 15 minutes they if 15 minute time period they're going to get picked up go home sit down probably eat something and get right back on the computer have we looked into possibly keeping them there till like 2 30 and getting and doing i'm not saying doing away with win because i know that's when they get their extra help but somehow i feel like it more might be more

071beneficial if we're keeping them in school longer hours because i believe the teachers don't take their elementary don't take their preps and lunch or preps and or lunch till after the kids leave anyway so i'm not saying keep them there till 3 20 but i just don't see a kid running home in 15 minutes that's not going to be a ver a kid you know when you're going to extra help you they need to be paying attention so jumping in on a call none of these kids are going to be happy i don't see that as a very beneficial time to be helping them personally um i was wondering if we had considered making longer periods of time for the decision between virtual and hybrid again deciding every two weeks it's it's ridiculous there's no

072reason for it um i i know we received an email about it i'm not taking a seat away from a kid of course you're still getting your education but you either choose virtual or hybrid and you stay that way for at least a month if not more that's my opinion um if there's any if we can consider pushing the k-2 date if we could push that earlier then maybe we can get the three through five in by april 19th when the rest of the schools are going to be opening now i realize that you're saying it's the numbers that are going to be a problem but the numbers are not going to change by may 3rd so the 3 through 5 are still going to have 28 kids in that class those numbers aren't changing

073so i don't see the difference of why they can't come in april 19th instead of us just considering them on may 3rd i know i'm throwing a lot at you i'm sorry i have a a lot of concerns um as far as the win program goes for the elementary is this more planning time for the teachers aside from their planning that they're already doing um is it an uh is it an opportunity like i just want a little more explanation on it if i have a kid in math today who's not getting the lesson at all am i saying to that kid hey johnny come to win today or is it pre-schedule that's i just want i'm very confused about the win and i just wanted to get some more information on that if it's

074scheduled in advance if the teachers have to plan for it um stuff like that and then for the middle school and the high school you had talked about the time that they're getting their extra help educational help and social and emotional is after school programs however after school doesn't really work that's you know when a lot of them have sports and or go to band or you know whatever they're doing and are these programs virtual or in person since some of them are going to be at school and some of them are going to be virtual i don't understand how that's working either have we considered in in the high school level for lunches letting juniors leave the building too at valley and hills there's shopping uh i'm sorry nutshot food that's basically across the

075street from both of them so i i know some of them they wouldn't have cars juniors a lot of them but there is walking distance and it's going to be beautiful out have we considered because it would put less people in the buildings to make it easier for us figuring out lunch i'm almost done um my biggest question and you're going to hate this question but i have to ask it why are we waiting till april 19th i see no reason why we are waiting till april 19th that is so far from now in the grand scheme of things if we have to do state testing then we're basically bringing these kids in for state testing and that's it so they're not getting their education their normal education back anyway so i'm just curious why

076all of this would have to be put there's no reason i don't see why it couldn't happen within the next like three weeks i don't you know i just think april 19th is very far in the future from now and i would like to see this happen much faster on that note i'm going to say thank you for the presentation and all the hard work you're putting in i absolutely appreciate it and i know i'm just putting another wrench in the plan but i think it's necessary i will say on a side note my daughter went to school for four days today and i'm looking at a different kid so anybody who doesn't think the social emotional is making an effect on the high schoolers and the older kids they're wrong i see it every

077day thank you anyone else mr pavlak just a couple concerns um i echo this mrs sheriff expressed some of the concerns that i do have but just a couple questions that i do have um in the elementary model how are we providing an inclusive environment for the three through five kids they're doing a share for special ed on their own where's the inclusion uh i'd like you know if you could get to me on that um also the uh cohorts in the uh high school let's say we have to shut down cohort a is cohort b now got to go five days a week or are we going to stick to the schedule of having nobody in school you know three days one week two days of next week it's a concern um i i

078would like personally to move up the schedule if possible especially with the uh k for two you know if it's possible to um maybe take a look at it and see if we can begin that maybe the middle you know in two weeks or so and there are i mean are there vulnerable populations the little kids and they need they need in person more than our middle school and high schoolers do everybody needs in school don't get me wrong but that population i i think really needs to thrive i mean we're basically in a lose-lose situation all right we have so many students who have lost either parents relatives friends family members whomever in this situation and you know one concern to me is about this rollback is to me it's not all about academics

079at this point and some of the stories i'm hearing the way some students are being graded we need to remember these children have a lot of things going on at home that social emotional part is going to be a major factor in bringing our kids back into the classroom and i'm glad to see that we've considered that but i'd like more information on that too how we're going to achieve that you know we all wish that we could come back to school and it's a lot more than just winging the doors open saying hey we're back to normal all right we have no objective yardstick to measure what loss is all right we've never experienced the situation we've experienced over the last year so we don't know how to measure this so i we have

080to deal with the social emotional part of this as well as the academic part it's not all about catching up on academics we need to embrace and bring these children together and give them an environment where they have where they're able to come together and i think we need to do that quicker than later um i mean i i have notes upon notes and i'm not gonna just i'm not gonna go on but i i just i just ask that we take a look at this thank you mr pablock will you all still obviously i'll go ahead mrs albanese i agree with a lot of what mr schier and mr pablox said so i won't uh bring up my same questions um one particular item that maybe stands out to me is um snack time

081versus lunch um in the elementary school when you're taking off your mask and eating you're taking off your mask and eating as a lot of parents have said their children are eating lunch um if we're going to say you're leaving school at 1 45 to get home for two o'clock to get back on a computer that child still isn't eating lunch until perhaps three o'clock if that's the way we're going to look at timing so to me it would seem to make sense as mrs schier suggested that the students do stay for a full day at that point if snack time and lunch time are becoming synonymous with taking off your mask and eating so i agree with that i agree with the fact that if we could look at moving up the time to

082get um k through two students back in earlier i also agree with the fact that numbers for three through five are not going to change if we're going to look at using death shields in replacement for the six foot uh social distancing that it makes sense for us to look to try to bring those children back as quickly as possible so i just want to echo i know a lot of those points were made but i think we need to look at if lunch is the issue lunch may already be happening and if that's the case racing kids home to get on a computer makes no sense as opposed to allowing them to stay in school do what they need to do because they've already eaten so i think that we need to look at

083that possibility too thank you anyone else okay well this is great oh mrs put up i wanted to thank i want to thank the administration i did not think it was possible to have more moving parts than what we already had but everything seems to be multiplying and i can only imagine the effort to put all of this together for the community so i really want to thank you i have a concern that passaic county rates were dipping but now they're back up i have a concern about spring break and families traveling and staff traveling and the week after we get back i know what i'm about to say will not be popular i was hoping that the district would consider going all virtual the week we get back from spring break and then reopening

084but moving up the plan as it was presented this evening so that we're not waiting until april to fuller fully realize the plan as it stands that's all i have to say thank you okay thank you mrs anyone else okay uh i want to thank the administration obviously a lot of work and effort has gone into this plan uh and the purpose of a public work session is for us to vet this it's a proposal um it's not carved in stone uh everyone should continue to send their questions to dr toback and mrs reichman and express your concerns and we you will receive answers before we have to uh reintroduce this introduce this at our next public meeting um like anything else uh some fine tuning is of benefit and definitely share those comments and

085concerns and that's what we're going to be doing shortly but first uh mr moffat uh revisions to the agenda yes we have a few tonight the first uh will occur in t emergent human resources items one through eleven specifically number three which is approval of appointment appointment of district staff number two appointment to read ltr assp item number four which is approval of revised items leave number two id number 3392 to read as follows january 21 2021 through march 9 2021 paid sick days march 10 2021 through march 15 21 personal days march 16 2021 through june 30 2021 fmla without pay and without benefits benefits noted below should be three would march rather 16 2021 through june 15 2021 benefits item number five which is approval of staff leaves number one id number four

086eight five five is withdrawn number seven approval of permanent substitutes number one ad pc number six excuse me pc number 99-11-50 backslash e-m-n and that is the end of the changes to tonight's agenda okay thank you mr moffat just looking at how many people we have online tonight um this portion of the meeting is open for comment on agenda items only residents are to state their names addresses and subject matter commons may be limited to five oh i'm sorry 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

087i get a mover mr giordano mrs cher okay let's get started hi this is uh david ginsberg from tuning away first off uh big thank you to the board of the administration of your continuing leadership i think the proposal is extremely strong um i have a second grader personally at lafayette um and so a lot of my perspective is coming from there um i also do love the full day k option by the way uh that's moving forward it's very exciting for our district and there's a tremendous amount of positives it'll bring to our community uh i do think uh to to answer dr toback's question uh but from the parents perspective i do think parents should have the ability to maintain flexibility with the chosen structured model um i think that has been a

088big strength of ours um to the shares point you know maybe you know you know once a month you can change it versus maybe multiple times a month a little too much but i do think we should maintain that flexibility uh i think i wholeheartedly agree with his putt-ups concerned uh it's very legit um about spring break i think we are foolish if we believe families will not be traveling and teachers might be traveling um you know more than our immediate states uh our neighboring states so i actually would be in favor of all virtual the week after spring break and then uh again going miss pogba's idea of bumping phase five up to 412 where you start the five days a week for k to two and etc for uh the other grade so

089phase five start on 4 12. um a couple questions for dr tobacco if you can answer obviously coming uh out of this in an faq is in the five-day model can you just walk us through um you know when school deep cleaning will happen right um is it is after the kids leave at 1 45 in elementary or when will that happen also if you can kind of lay out just some examples of what a class schedule for elementary again was k through two you want to use as an example or not um what that looks like when they go back five days i'm assuming uh they're in their classroom all day with their teacher versus not going to specials and other things like gym or art um to certainly limit exposure so if you

090clarify that that'd be great as well would love to see um pictures or renderings of these desk shields and just a little clarification was hard to hear uh mr ice creams when she spoke but are they fixed to the desks or is it just another thing that the kids have to bring home with them each night um and understanding with the desk shields in k22 um the six feet won't be um able to be maintained social distance so whatever the desk is going to be apart three feet four feet um just a little clarity there i think it would be great obviously in phase five mass that sounds like can continue to be mandatory which is an amazing thing um but will the windows remain open in the classrooms i assume as well um and

091lastly i actually put my mission shear on the wind timing and i agree um you know my son does not take the bus uh but certainly every time we pick him up get him home and by the way he hasn't eaten lunch at that point get him some food i don't think a virtual win at two o'clock is feasible i think either they stay later and do win in school or if it has to be virtual no problem but start that win at like 2 30 or 2 45 to give the elementary kids some time um the last question on when if you could answer is will the schedule for win be determined by the teachers as when the students need to go and i ask because i do think one's a great program but

092since it's been implemented i think my son has been asked to go two maybe three times max um and it's it's been implemented for some time so just trying to understand how the teachers will be deciding that schedule um and then dr tobacc how will the survey be distributed um is another question i would love to know i mean it's hard to that's your time mr ginsberg thank you so much next hi there cindy jaffe 10 sherwood street um i'm i'm probably going to have to call back because there's no way i'm going to get to everything but um i want to start with just saying that virtual and again i'm speaking at the high school level only i am of the strong opinion that virtual instruction is not working and hybrid instruction is not

093working and i've sent many emails outlining the reasons that i believe that to be the case i have not had one email responded to as of yet i'm not going to waste my time or your time repeating all those reasons but the takeaway is that there is a lack of incentive a great lack of incentive for high school kids to return to in-person learning it's evidenced by your own numbers on the slide tonight even with the virtual problems they still are choosing virtual the vast majority and many of those who are hybrid officially on paper are calling in on a day-to-day basis and going virtual i'd like to know what is being done to basically address all the problems that i have pointed out several times with hybrid and virtual and why the kids are

094choosing to do this and parents are allowing them to and um basically i'd like to know like what what's being done to monitor the quality of teaching and set parameters of instruction and and just deal with and address all of these things that have yet to be addressed um lastly for now i just want to touch on um last at the last meeting um i spoke up and there was a tap into wayne article written after that last meeting part of a concern i raised that evening was quoted in that article the quote read what are we doing about other teachers not those with valid 504 protected by law to remain virtual but the others who are not attending school in person because of a covet exposure what protocols are in place to follow up

095on that and ensure their re-entry back into school has done so in the quickest and safest way possible the article then quoted mrs kazan's response to my concern saying it was done so with the shake of the head and basically quoting her as viewing it as a ridiculous notion and way off face i want to clear up my concerns so the single quote is not taken out of context or misconstrued what some may not realize is that my questions that evening and in a follow-up email were a direct challenge to the frequently asked questions and answers that were published earlier that same day that particular frequently asked question went like this please advise how is the board of ed handling teachers and staff that are unwilling to report to school for their jobs dr toback's

096published response was this and i quote there are no cases where teachers and staff are unwilling to report to work however there are a number of staff members who have who are accommodated by law blah blah blah so i was challenging dr toback's response with a concern a concern that many parents have identified dr toback's claim seems to be that every single teacher who is absent or working from home is due to a documented medical reason that is accommodated by law we know that there are more teachers out than those with five-o plan 504 plans so it begs the question doesn't it i have the utmost respect for teachers especially during this unprecedented time many are going above and beyond i recognize that i applaud that but teachers are also human and as humans we

097are all we all sometimes can actually miss i'm sorry you can get back in the queue i will i will okay sorry that's your three minutes we want to get as many questions as possible next good evening tory esposito 47 woodlot road in wayne um the one consideration for the two o'clock win is also too kids go to aftercare so what about those kids and what are they doing about that um why are we first talking about tents and face shields on march 4th why weren't we talking about this in september to get these kids back sooner um and i want to echo ms scheer's point about her kid because i've seen such a change in my seven-year-old son now he loves going back to school he wants to go do sports now and i

098it just i i i can't it's just his attitude has changed and i love it um again let's can we if we can try to push up the timeline um and to mr padlack point about you know covet isn't the only thing killing people right they're everything you know people have lost their jobs financial hardships depression so cove is not the only thing that's killing people um miss put up when will you feel comfortable about with what number do we need to make to to get you to feel comfortable right all right so you want you're proposing a virtual after spring break are we going to do the same thing for memorial day everybody assumes you can't catch covert in new jersey do you but if you but if if you leave the state you

099can catch cobit you catch covenant wayne and patterson and lindhurst in westwood you can catch covet anywhere so let's not make that an excuse get these kids back back in sooner let's not go remote um thank you okay thank you next hi this is rebecca bradley i'm at 28 pittman police in wayne um first off i would really like to thank stacy share for her very amazing common sense questions that so eloquently echoed my own my concerns with this plan that see this plan that seems so arbitrary and the very real concerns of parents these questions these these dates that seem to come out of nowhere these surveys that take weeks and weeks and weeks to get sent for for what reason no one knows nobody can point to anything i have a second gr

100i have a first grader and a fourth grader and it's wonderful that you guys are proposing flexibility for the students should my set my first grader need to be picked up and my fourth grader needs to leave early and be late however that doesn't actually work for him which really is the main concern how does it affect the students not how does it work for the teachers unless we flexible but it's one more thing he has to deal with on top of me having to try to explain to him why there's no scientific reason that his sister gets to return to school and he has to continue to endure hybrid can't explain that because it's all arbitrary much like the schools are closed but you can participate in in-school sports and work out in the

101weight room but you can't take gym and touch the same equipment you guys delineate which side of the pool you're allowed to pee now it is march my son returned my kids returned to school last week for the first time in 75 days to a school system that looks nearly identical to what it looked like in september except now next week they get to go one extra day you guys are talking about this is phase five i hate to tell you guys but this is phase one b you've done nothing in the way of being proactive it's been reactive as mr esposito pointed out where have this where have the shields been i haven't heard from the doctor that you guys have hired where's the science i i applaud your effort to keep things moving

102forward but as we hear it from mrs put up about preemptive closings no other places no businesses no entities employ this idea that things will happen we should shut down these blanket closures which make no sense i can take hot yoga but my kids can't sit in school i urge you fill out the surveys now the numbers will look no different why do we have 28 kids in a class you have seven elementary schools you have surveys to do do them now figure out your numbers now get the kids in school now you guys are playing catch up there's 800 and something schools that are open every time you talk about passaic county numbers you're grouping us in with towns like patterson that are not on the same stage as wayne our number should be

103wayne numbers not passaic county numbers i urge you to please move the surveys along get our kids in school for those members of the board mr pavlak mrs albanese that are finally speaking sense of things that we've been saying for a year mental health is important these kids need to be in school the time for silence is over you guys need to be moving quicker i'm again i do applaud your effort but it's your time mrs bradley thank you next my name is donna reaver and yes i'm the first vice president of the wea but more importantly i'm an elementary school teacher and i'm here on behalf of these largely beaten up and worn down educators a year ago all we heard was how teachers were heroes we're done being heroes now we're just trying

104to survive each day and these new demands presented tonight really just border on abuse teaching children during a pandemic absolutely warrants certain requirements to be placed on teachers how could it not we're not disputing that but the demands that are continually put on the elementary teachers of this district are unacceptable it seems like every time we turn the corner elementary teachers get yet another directive completely different from the last directive and we're just supposed to be able to adjust and execute it on a dime and we have to make it work because the plans were created solely by administrators and apparently as mrs reichman said tonight it was they were also changed after critical consideration on parent input but the ones who really know and i mean truly know what will work in a hybrid

105classroom are the teachers they're the experts tonight we're presented with yet another plan another change that once again adds to the demands of the elementary teacher and once again teacher input was overlooked oh wait no i'm sorry it wasn't overlooked it was promised by administration who then turned their back on their promise and on the teachers of our youngest students the idea of essentially eliminating social distancing in a k to two room was never discussed with a teacher a teacher who has to yell through two masks now their desk shield to reach the in-person kid in the back of the room behind their shield which at that point let's see if it's still on the desk or on the floor as well as be heard by the virtual students on the computer teachers were not

106consulted when the win period was put back into the schedule after it went in and then out and in and i'm sorry i've lost track at this point i don't have enough time to tell you all that's wrong with the win period and i won't even get started on the problems of bringing k to two back five days and not three to five or the fact that our kindergarten teachers have been under tremendous amounts of pressure trying to make an overlap work for more than six months only to be told that there was an alternate solution all along teachers went from heroes to being shown no respect if it was not evident enough at the last board meeting when half of the board members did not even congratulate the educators of the year it's surely

107evident now i urge you to fix this plan have the respect and the good sense to consult the professionals our teachers who live this day in and day out this might look simple on paper but i can assure you it's not and this plan will be a disaster thank you next hello you need to unmute software problem okay next caller hi mario coletti sevenberry drive um first i would just like to say that uh although there are very good things in this plan like uh getting the elementary school kids back in the classroom uh sooner rather than later although not soon enough in my opinion and as well as getting the uh students with special education needs and iep into the classroom five days a week i do have some questions to start off with

108regarding the plan i have to i mean really i don't want to take up too much time with this because mrs share mr potluck kind of uh pointed these concerns out i have a second and fifth grader a fourth grader excuse me so the pickup times and the drop-off times are going to be very difficult um i don't know what the you know with maybe having 10 extra minutes for drop off and pick up as a grace period like 10 minutes earlier and 10 minutes later for pick up and drop off for example might you know be reasonable that way i don't have we don't have to either cut my son's time short or you know quickly uh run out uh and pick up our daughter while he's still in class um and the other

109my other concern is why the lag between the two um i don't see why it can't just be done at the same time um we you know we'll have the numbers and you should have the numbers soon i don't believe there's much reason why we can't just have them do both at the same time because that will eliminate a lot of the problems for the paris and the teachers alike um in that regard and i just wanted to uh just to make a comment on a few things um again you know yes covert is still a problem and i i i know it is a problem but when we're looking at things too we just want to echo another somebody else brought it up to that to say it incorporates the entire county and wayne

110numbers are actually quite good in in regards to numbers as the mayor's been updating and uh as we've been getting reports from the state um and also with regards to um going virtual over spring break i gotta strongly suggest not to do that um one of the main reasons is you know johnson johnson vaccine's a one shot vaccine teachers are available march 15th not really too much of a reason why most teachers can't feedback at least get the johnson johnson vaccine before spring break and be fully uh vaccinated by that time they get back and finally uh i know there has been some discussion regarding the social distancing but again this is also based in science in that the six feet rule is only really supposed to be incorporated when there is no masking or

111other physical barriers between people and it is evidenced by not only the cdc having flexibility but also the world health organization stating that three feet with masking in uh schools especially elementary schools are acceptable standards and do not increase the rate of transmission or outbreaks in the community and finally i just want to end with this uh you know this pandemic we've all been in it together i just would like if everybody could stop pointing the figures at this group in this group and that group uh i was very upset with some of the comments made at the last board meeting regards to a certain group of parents and being irresponsible we are all in this together everybody has the opportunity to be responsible or irresponsible and pointing fingers at one group or another is

112not helpful in any way moving us forward or for all thank you thank you next hi tara daly 53 osceola road according to dr toback's presentation more students at the high school level are going virtual my son's class had a maximum of five students in his cohort when he is forced to stay home some of his classes have zero students in them if by your own admission the enrollment for in person is low why can't the cohorts at the high school level be eliminated why are the students that want to be in the building being being marginalized you keep talking about the students that want to stay home we know there must be a virtual option but why is the district allowing changes to instructional choice to be on a rolling basis why are we

113not having parents make the choice for the rest of the year respectfully it is march why has this survey not been put off put out already and in conclusion i would just like to thank mrs sheer uh for her comments today she since this has started um these meetings back in the summer she has by far been the most responsive board member i appreciate mr pavlak also stepping up tonight and mr albanese uh i want to echo mr coletti's comments about that we've all been in this together this is the anniversary today of our first covet case in new jersey the adults in the room teachers board members administration parents we all need to stand up collectively our children are watching us and seeing how we behave pointing fingers back to halloween at the last

114meeting by mrs put up and talking about uh community behavior that's not going to get us anywhere we cannot control people's behavior that we have to stop pointing fingers and talk about a plan that's moving us forward we know what to do wash your hands wear your masks that's all we can do this is a virus and a virus is gonna virus we have to do our best by our children thank you thank you next allenton fescue 41 gibbs drive can you hear me yep i listened uh to the board uh last week and at the end a board member suggested that the current two-week notice for a board member suggests that maybe the two week notice for a child to return to school be extended to possibly a full marking period and in the

115faqs it says that for phase five we're asking parents who are certain to remote to commit to that for the remainder of the year but also mentions the two-week notice provision in the same faqs like a prior caller today mr ginsburg i agree the flexibility afforded to parents with the two-week notice provision is viewed by many as a strength as dr tobeck has stated that places parents in a position to make decisions and do what they see as best for their children removal of a two-week notice provision is a takeaway for students parents and it actually hurts teachers it takes away flexibility in fact governor murphy's executive order specifically provides that eligibility for remote learning be quote unconditional procedures to return to school we all want to be in school but there could be an

116in-person student who has to become remote by no choice of their own why would that child have to wait to return to school when able miss reichman stated today and i agree that we have all taken different journeys and roads but we all want to get back to school there are a host of legitimate reasons why parents need that flexibility how that helps everyone miss sure today said it's ridiculous the two-week provision i could not disagree more remote students may not be able to return on april 19th but they should not have to wait long periods of time to return vaccination timings could be a factor a student may be not able on april 19th to return due to pre screening symptoms or they may be in contact with someone who has coded and what

117about the governor's order that says it's unconditional is the governor's order also ridiculous was the two-week notice provision that mr you voted for for the entire year was that ridiculous too i i respectfully submit that if you change the time frame to a longer period parents may then return their child to school when not appropriate because they may not want to miss a deadline and that would not be the best thing to do i'm certain it will encourage or obligate some parents to make decisions for their child not in alignment with their best interests finally parents students deserve that flexibility placing restrictions in april when the flexibility was there the entire year that is what is ridiculous that's your time mr timberski thank you um hello uh this is lindsey miller with teacher anthony wayne

118can you hear me yes all right thank you um so looking at the plan from the middle school level i do feel like the longer periods offered by the new schedule are a step forward i kind of miss the longer periods from that temporary virtual time of 35 minutes but i'm worried that completely eliminating office hours will be a disservice to many students while we've yet to return fully to normal especially as long as the significant population remains virtual that's kind of the main sticking point for me that significant population without office hours it becomes very difficult to offer students who need it one-to-one attention in this ac in this kind of simultaneous in-person and virtual instruction if i'm operating the full virtual meet and speaking to in-person students there's not really a place in

119that for one-to-one interaction with the virtual students especially if they're the shyer students who don't want to have other people listening into the conversation that can happen in a normal classroom setting where you have small groups you can be in one corner of the room conferring with the student but not really when you're plugged into the computer it's suggested that after school initiatives might be able to replace office hours but i don't think it really effectively can this would require students to extend their screen time and school day when they might have other commitments i and many teachers are already putting in extra hours of planning and even providing after-school support to students during a typical week and i really don't know how much energy and time i have to step that up further teachers

120are human and have limits and some of them already have after-school commitments as i do to extracurriculars academic support pro programs and their own families while extra money may entice some to staff after school initiatives there are limits and the plan to meet all student needs shouldn't require that component there needs to be something in the day to get that interaction for individual uh virtual students i almost think that something more akin to the 35 minute periods with a shorter office hour period might work to reach a kind of compromise position here for both groups but i don't i don't necessarily think that should be permanent but just feels necessary to be equitable to all groups as long as there's that significant virtual population i have many students who depend on office hours to get

121reassurance check in or simply connect with another human some have come to see me just to talk about their projects their family struggles with kovid and i think they'd panic having that taken away in some of their cases because they aren't really students who are vocal in the whole classmate by the time the schedule is implemented i expect i'll be vaccinated i'm not thinking of this in terms of lowering my contact time with kids my students for the large part i expect will not be there's still a health risk for them and their families and i feel that in order to give an equitable virtual option we still need the some sort of time built into the school day for those students to get that small group and one-to-one support thank you for your attention

122i know the plan is complicated with all these parts uh and i appreciate all the work you're doing thank you perfect timing next caller hi donna del maro wayne hill's english teacher my concerns for the phase 5 opening plan are as follows but i would like first if you could confirm as well that the district will allow teachers to participate in the survey thanks to the administration for creating plans in this ever-changing confusing situation physics can be seen so here are my clicks of virtue coming back for in no possible way students retire have you can teachers must hybrid value added for increasing consider attending break as we loosen students will still be residentiated will do well double musking in february in may and skiing has its during office several times a day specifically fortress

123who will superintendents take off their give me a little bit of office hours spotted for same teaching five periods and students time to consult with especially stand with many women last september uh schedules in person learn the red zones just to give up or did the texas and here are about the fourth looking period all of us and then many other disciplines such a move for one year and have a great night next also i want to thank you guys because you guys have a really secure plan like it's really solid and i really appreciate the covet updates at board meetings um so and also sorry about all the parents um now that if you now if you just uh listen to the teacher's concerns and utilize their input that'd be perfect thank you thank

124you don't go to the library and look for me [Music] next eileen amigo 29 manor drive um i actually had a bunch of questions tonight but apparently uh like many others mrs shear is channeling a number of us tonight so all i'll say for most of my questions was ditto to everything she said especially with her comments to re and request to accelerate this process and not continue to wait and kick the can down the road to get things moving forward um i also have a similar thought to those of mr esposito earlier with regard to travel and i'm wondering if there is some data that's being utilized when we are making decisions whether or not to um go to more in person and move forward that says that you're more likely to get coveted

125from some other state versus right here in our lovely state of new jersey um last i checked we have one of the worst case counts overall in the country so i'm not really sure what the big concern is there you can get cove it here just as easily as you can get it anywhere else um the other thing with regard to high schools and noticing that a larger number it seems have elected to go virtual versus hybrid i'm just curious if any effort has been made to talk to the high school students you know via some sort of communication method and or their parents to find out why they're electing to do so um i know i've spoken to a number especially if seniors at wayne hills where my son attends for other reasons and

126i think some of those conversations might be enlightening so just might be worth looking into if there's an opportunity to do that um and then last uh with regard to some of the comments i think it was by mr tampescu and maybe some of the others i'm a little bit confused i thought what mrs sheer was suggesting earlier which i agree with actually is having parents commit to virtual if they're going to do so through the end of the year but obviously if you choose hybrid and then your child needs to quarantine or get sick god forbid or some other thing that would put them out for a period of time they would then be allowed to return to the hybrid if that were their choice i thought that was sort of the plan we

127were moving toward and what she was simply suggesting was if you're choosing to have your child stay virtual at this point and they're healthy and there's no other reason just for whatever reason you're choosing to keep them virtual that you commit to that through the end of the year um i just want clarification to make sure i'm understanding correctly that that's the direction that's being proposed i think that's it thank you very much okay thank you next caller you could star nine when you're on the phone to unmute are you there next caller hi this is catherine rich 57 ellicott lane in wayne i just wanted to say thank you to stacy shearer for standing up for the parents of this community mrs albanese dr pavlak i have lived in this town for 39 years

128and i appreciate all the support and i'm not going to repeat anything that mrs shearer said because those are all my sentiments so thank you we need to get on the right direction thank you next hi i'm amanda morgan i'm a teacher at wayne hills high school um i just wanted i said actually i have a few questions with regards to the high school schedule the passing times have been shortened um but with one-way hallways and also needing to clean if we cut back down from eight minutes back down to four minutes we're actually cutting into instructional times we have to stop early so that we can clean um our desks and all that um also the elimination of office hours i feel like it's taking away from the virtual students there as i mentioned

129about academic support after school would that be a stipend position or will that be um just on teachers to give extra help after contractual hours and last thing about virtual after spring break i know many many of my students are going away out of state and i just feel like instead of you know a caller meant about being reactive versus proactive i feel like maybe going virtual even just for a week is going to be um us being proactive as a district thank you thank you next julia hilde dardia 87 poplar i have been outspoken in favor of full day kindergarten for six very long years and i've also been at these planning meetings before where it was included in the preliminary budget and then taken away it looks promising that you will finally get

130it over the finish line this time and i want to encourage you to commit yourself to making it happen and thank you in advance for continuing that commitment even in the face of covid please don't forget the long and twisted road that has led us to this point additionally while i no longer have a kindergartner i think it's shameful how little school time they're getting this year when we move to five days have you considered bringing back k-rap for the end of the school year historically that program has been very popular and a money maker half a day wasn't enough so less than half a day is abysmal we will spend the next few years helping these kids catch up i encourage you to do everything you can to improve the school experience for our

131kindergartners thank you thank you next star9 to unmute am i correct on that dr bouchard yeah okay it's star sixth on you star nine to raise your hand ah star six say i was wrong yeah sorry you wanna try star six okay next caller oh wait hello there oh there you are okay guys we can how what about those students that actually are look are being taught in the virtual manner what are the learning um tests that we're doing for them and what are these um situations with grading logistics i my kid it's in middle school and um there's certain situations and when teachers are giving him um you know the understanding of the fact that this is very hard for a middle schooler and any other student um the time sometimes things may be

132late maybe to submit in the same day where are there other teachers that are actually being on point and disregarding that the kid may be sick maybe having um migraines this is one thing that is being observed for students who are chronic now and virtual that they are getting this um triggers of having migraines um what are what are these new logistics i think we should also be focusing on how these uh the kids are being graded and whether it's virtual or live specifically in terms of how they're being managed in the technology aspect um the other um the other question or the other comment i would like to commend that person to call it in about the teachers they need their reptile i myself am an educator and it's i i feel like i

133in double i don't work for wayne but i do work for another district and i stay up until like 10 11 p.m trying to kind of meet all these different guidelines to make sure each other my kids are actually learning finding different ways because it's a different essential teaching through a computer and it is our responsibility to make sure that we're teaching our kids what they need i know there's so many challenges um let's give some credit to our teachers and i really really are very proud of our teachers and wayne i know they're the push in our kids whether they're virtual live i could see it from my kid he's being pushed so i would say a little bit to teachers a little bit a little bit understanding and there has been um but

134um i'm just let's just give credit to the teachers you know did there there are the heroes aside from doctors and nurses they are the heroes so let's not forget this i know we want our kids back at school as much as i would love i love my kid but i'm following the science in the what the science says wear your mask okay and be careful my son it's um asthmatic so i'm being careful he's going to be full blown on virtual but um i'm commended too that's your time ma'am i'm sorry to interrupt thank you for your call next caller hi this is maria paranzo 14 chicopee drive first i wanted to say thank you to all of the board members and the administration and for to all of the teachers who have done

135you know an incredible job in in very trying times um i know this is you know something that you never could have anticipated um you know to to have to teach in an environment like this but you know thank you for all you're doing every day um i've two two issues to bring up um first is that i strongly disagree with requiring parents to commit to an all virtual um you know course of learning for the remainder of the year or for parents to have to commit to any kind of learning for you know schedule for a you know a duration of time or an extended period of time this is this is it we're in a pandemic this is a virus um you know situations change on on on the drop of a hat

136and it's it's not right to penalize kids who might otherwise want to be in school um but now they're forced to uh because of some arbitrary guideline to not have that opportunity um i unfortunately have a situation where i have a immunocompromised family in the house and you know we've been trying to get the vaccine for them we're finally able to schedule uh and get a vaccine next week it will take a little time for the immune immunity to take effect but i'm looking forward to the time where my daughter is able to go to school again um and i'm sure other families are in the same situation where they you know absent absent of um you know having situations like that in their home would have their children in school um i i think

137that we're trying to cater to um a group of people who are very vocal and and upset because they want their kids to that they think that by forcing people to choose there will be more people that you know either choose to be in school um and that's not right for people who truly want to be there but are waiting for the ability to get a vaccine um and and most people aren't even eligible for a vaccine yet so let's keep that in mind um teachers aren't even eligible for a vaccine until the 15th so you know i just want to throw that out there um so i strongly disagree with requiring um families to have to choose and make it an extended period of time that they can't they can't change their options um

138everything's changing and we need to be flexible and that's what the right the law requires too that we'd be flexible um secondly i know there was discussion about children's social and emotional issues and and certainly they've been through a tremendous amount this year so many have um you know not had the opportunities that others before them have had and um i just want to you know throw this out there are we considering um sort of making up maybe next year some of the fun uh you know fun activities that they might otherwise have had this okay ma'am i'm sorry i'm sorry thank you thank you next star six unmute it's laughing happy night it's okay enjoy it you're on hello are you there hello next caller almost had him hi this is kim woodard from

139uh 15 and overdrive can you hear me yes wonderful um i wanted to first of all again as um so many have done i want to thank thank mr chair and mrs albanese and mr pavlak for the sentiment earlier uh so many people are are really appreciating what what they have said um and i i do as well um you know just to reiterate the fact that we are not accelerating the process to move things along and have these decisions made earlier is just extremely surprising um so many people have called and said that they want flexibility but i just don't think they understand that with the flexibility they're asking for the school will never be able to commit to a plan so i think people need to understand where you know you you have

140to have you have to commit we have to have a plan and i i fully uh would support uh changing every quarterly or you know every two months but the idea that it's completely open i i just i don't understand what how that's rational just a couple questions that i had um as was on the screen pennsylvania has removed their travel restrictions so i'm wondering when wayne will be looking to do the same thing my second question is why are the playgrounds so closed the sports have been open pretty much this entire time they're sharing equipment they're sharing balls for sports but yet elementary school playgrounds are closed yet you can go across the street to greenvale and there are playgrounds open there so i'm not understanding the rationale with that and then the third

141question i have is with whatever new program we have will there be an aftercare uh program and if we have it will kids be able to socialize in it i have a second grader myself he was in the aftercare program at the beginning of last year and they were not allowed to socialize so i immediately pulled him out i would love to use those services but if the kids can't socialize with each other it doesn't really make any sense thank you for your time thank you next where'd they go next hello unmute can you unmute next caller dr burchard hi amy nazarco 91 chestnut drive as a parent in the district i'm just going to say i understand how important school is for elementary school children and middle school children those are the ages of

142my children and i'm also a teacher at the high school so i know how important it is for teens i know how important it is to be in school but we're still in a pandemic i wish we weren't i wish i could change that but that's just a fact and i have some worries about the plan that you're proposing um my first worry like a lot of the teachers is i have no idea how office hours are gonna work with the full day um i was wondering if somebody can elaborate on that i have so many obligations after school that i'm barely making as it is and i just don't see how i can spend any more time at school after 2 30 it just won't work my parents are stretched then watching my kids

143as it is i just can't ask them to do any more many other teachers have family obligations elderly parents children um you know other jobs to make ends meet and i just don't see how they're going to fit in this extra work after hours um i also want to address the high school lunch hours there is no set cafeteria at this point in time you know we need to wipe down clean off tables clean off chairs things like that and i'm just concerned about the massless students that do not have a permanent place to go and be safe they don't have permanent chairs they don't have a specific spot in my classroom they have a chair they know their chair they come in they take a wipe they wipe it down they make it safe

144they won't have that and i'm just wondering how that will work and also who will monitor students and their masks when they are eating versus not eating in the hour-long lunch um finally longer days just means longer screen time my kids are already my my own personal children are sick of computers they're just sick of them they don't want to be on the screen any longer than they have to be um i see this as a teacher and a parent and i just wonder how we're going to address screen time because there are still kids who will be completely virtual um and finally just a few people were talking about teachers being vaccinated by april 19th and frankly i unless the town steps in and helps that to happen i don't see how that's going

145to happen i'm not saying that the town should step in i just just i cannot wrap my brain around how that's going to happen madonna is a full four weeks between doses and then another two weeks for it to take effect and we can't even sign up for um vaccination appointments until march 15th plus finding an actual vaccination appointment is very difficult to put it mildly i've been looking for my elderly relatives i've been doing it for hours after school in addition to everything else that i do as a parent um so those are my thoughts i'm just those are my questions have a great day thank you next hello go ahead hi um this is jody tribasian 37 smith lane first of all i'd like to thank the board of education for releasing the

146plan or dr toback um in time for us to review it formulate questions be able to send emails um suggestions and comment on the plan itself that's very helpful and i'd like to thank you for that number two i'd like to thank the board members for actually speaking their opinions today i think that was wonderful for us to hear actually what you're thinking if in support or not in support i think every board member should come out and actually speak about what they're feeling right now you know it is very important now for us to come together as a community and push together for our children to do what's right for the students the teachers and everyone in this community kovid has been a nightmare for everyone but it is time to move forward thank

147goodness we are in a better position to say these things okay i have concerns with the plan um i think that there's some positives in it as well i know a lot of time went into it um but i do think that people are frustrated because there's this lag time where we could just be a more proactive in sending out surveys possibly earlier to get feedback get actual numbers and be able to make appropriate decisions okay that makes a difference okay i don't understand what the difference between snacks and lunches in the elementary schools i don't understand how my child can sit in a lunchroom now or an art room have a snack okay but can't then finish the entire day with a lunch it makes no sense to me so i'd really like someone

148to explain that to me the rationale for that why our children can't have a full day of school in person because they can't eat in the classroom or they can't eat a full lunch i'm just confused to that regarding uh quarantining over spring break um you know we all have to have personal responsibility in this i don't think that people who don't travel should be penalized and not have their children attend school for others that have the right to go on vacation we have these rights okay if we want us to quarantine if that's the rule of the district which i think we should post and i'm not sure if that's out what you are requiring right now that needs to be stated and we will follow it but to penalize an entire system for

149a spring break that people are entitled to does not make any sense okay um i know people are frustrated i know the board is frustrated parents are frustrated uh people are impatient and yes we are impatient because we just want rationales provided for the decisions that are being made april 19th please tell me why that date was created why can't tomorrow my children have a full day of school i appreciate your time thank you for all you're doing we appreciate the teachers and all they are doing as well thank you very much that's your time okay next hi this jenny franklin 21 kilana drive um at last week's board meeting um a supposedly small group of parents were chastised for being impatient with the progress that the administration and the board of ed have made

150in getting the kids back to full-time school as part of that small group of parents which actually number in the thousands i felt that that was not fair to us when we started the 20 20 21 school year we were told that our children would be on a hybrid schedule in the fall and then as time and the pandemic allowed they would hopefully be moved to full time last week my high schooler went to school for three days in one week which was amazing for him that successful week of school was his 10th 11th and 12th day of in-person school this entire year and he has gone every day his cohort was allowed he has not missed any time when you do the math and compare hours in school for this year versus hours in

151school for a normal year for the first 105 days the high school students of wayne have been present in school eight percent of the hours they normally would be eight percent we are not impatient we are frustrated we are disappointed and we are so so eager for progress to take place more quickly so many high schoolers have decided to remain virtual your presentation and your numbers support that tonight and there's more going virtual than the other way around that's their choice this has left empty heist empty classrooms at the high school level let the kids who want to go to school be in school every day combine the cohorts the other issue i would like to discuss which no one has mentioned tonight but i think it bears mentioning is regarding senior activities i know

152that the school administration is in the process of planning the end of the year events for heist for both high schools and i trust that they will do everything they can to make those events wonderful for our kids my request to you is this please do everything possible to make sure that these events award ceremonies scholarship nights graduations are in-person events after a year of this virtual the kids can't take any more thank you thank you next hi can you hear me yes great this is evie wenting seven seminole f um thank you uh the board and everyone involved for putting the plan together i really appreciate your time i echo all the parents sentiment with stacy share looking up for the children and her wonderful comments mr pavlov and miss albanese as well so

153thank you so much i heard a whole bunch of teachers calling in and they were concerned about the office hours so i wonder if survey can be asked of parents how many times their children participated in office hours and also ask the teachers how many times do they how much time do they spend on the office towers so i have three children my middle schooler never took up any office hours and my first grader did maybe two or three times we reached out to the teacher and my high schooler two times that i can remember um so i'm just curious what do those numbers look like to make sure that you know we're not taking anything away or i just i can't imagine because in my house it doesn't look like that much time spent

154on office hours is needed but i may be wrong so i um would see you know what would wanted to know if we can find that out so that would be great that's my only comment i believe a lot of the parents had some great comments my all school children want to go in school and be in person actually what happened is with the cohort c my son went in by mistake and then was sent home just because we he missed the day on thursday and he went in on tuesday because he's so excited in going in high school so if you can get those kids to school sooner rather than later um we in our house definitely greatly appreciate it so thank you [Laughter] clearly your child agrees next caller good evening yes good

155evening hi my name is kathleen steele i'm a teacher from pines lake school i want to thank all of you first of all for your patience and your hard work um it is a thankless task and as i've said on previous times when i've called in nobody knows what it's like in somebody else's shoes unless you walk a mile in their shoes and i think that that's true of your positions as it is of teachers positions parents positions as well um so my question is this going with this new plan were any elementary teachers involved in the design of the phase the natural blood of the phase and not only elementary teachers but were there other disciplines included like bishop esl reading specialist there are so many moving parts in a building that people just

156can't think of all of them at one time or in one meeting so where all of these different disciplines can consulted prior to the development of this plan um the win period i i don't even really have words for the win period and the confusion that it has caused for teachers and parents alike when office hours what is it really and what are you making it to be because parents are confused teachers are confused so if it was supposed to be the win period during just virtual days okay i got that and that's where teachers have to plan there's way more planning involved in that it's not just semantics um so is it something that the teachers have to plan but then we were supposed to go back to office hours when we were back

157to school but now it's a win period and within that win period their social emotional learning there's reading specialists there's bishop there's instrumental music what is it and who's attending because parents are confused they think their kids should be on every day from two to two forty five but guess what the teacher didn't dismiss the kids they didn't all get picked up until 105 and then the teacher has the nerve to have to use a bathroom and stand online waiting for the bathroom prior to getting back into their classroom to get the kids back on the screen for more screen time i think there needs to be a lot more discussion about what that's supposed to look like so parents are clear and teachers are clear and it really should not it should be more

158flexible group time and not so much of a planned time that it sometimes appears to be and how could we not consider being virtual after spring break how is a principal supposed to staff a building i know that that hasn't come to come up when people speak about it and get angry about how could we go virtual but really this staffing is going to be a huge issue and that needs to be um a consideration and snack and lunch i i totally get it and i'm curious has anybody walked through a building when children are eating and seeing how many kids and how close together they are without a mask or have you walked through a building and seen the cohorts already the one first grade that has 15 kids in it with their backpacks

159everywhere in the desk shields and that's before all the cohorts are combined it's tight and those i think i saw mr richmond get that um that's your time man i'm sorry thank you it's okay thank you okay can i get a mover that's our last caller mr pavlak mr giordano okay thank you to all the callers certainly there will be a lot to address in the upcoming faq committee reports mrs share tonight the technology committee met it was myself the bubba mr duffy dr burchard and mr blanchard um and it was we were given a safety update on the district so i'm not really going to share too much of that thank you this evening the finance committee met and um mrs kazan mr padillac and myself were in attendance along with mr moffitt our

160business administrator and ms lydic who is the assistant business administrator um i'll make this very brief since the main portion which is the budget for the coming year was prevented presented very nicely by mr moffat earlier in the meeting we went over the usual school funds report contract for professional development the check register and remaining bond items for anthony middle school and bus service special services health services and it was very productive meeting and we have a budget that we're working on kudos to administration in the business office thank you any other committee reports this evening okay let's move on to the agenda i get a mover i remove the whole agenda as one item okay can i get a second mr giordano any discussion on the agenda items okay roll call mr moppet this

161is albanies under t emerging human resources item number 10 line number two no yes to the rest mr bubba under tea emergent items number 10 no to number two yes to the rest mr duffy is he here he was a moment okay i do not see him what mr giordano under uh t emergent human resources item 10 line 2 the vote is no everything else is yes mrs kumar yes mr pavlak uh under t version item number 10 no to number two yes to everything else this is put up yes mr shearer yes mrs kazan mr duffy is trying to reach you um i'm a yes is he calling well he was going to try because he had to go out on a call but he wanted to vote on the agenda do you have

162his number he's texting me because he had to run out on a call so he left his computer but so it wouldn't be right to understand to call you would like me to reach out call him i'm trying him you there here here i'll give you to mr moffett okay thank you be safe out there okay all motions passed duffy is at the firehouse you need to go save lives motion carries yeah thank you yes okay um move on to our second public portion this portion of the meeting is open to citizens for comment on any topic residents are to state their names addresses and subject matter comments may be limited to five minutes per person members of the public are discouraged from speaking negatively about an employee or student the board bears no responsibility

163for 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 mr g or dano mrs share star six to unmute still no luck next caller hi cindy jaffe 10 sherwood street again um i just want to uh continue on my point from earlier sorry to beat a dead horse but i have not gotten any answers from my emails or my last time speaking so i just keep asking the same questions back to what i asked about getting teachers who are out because of covet exposure back into the schools like what are we doing to get them back in and um i just i keep asking that because we

164keep hearing about for months and months how staffing is an issue and it's interfering with our children's full return to school in person we're paying subs 200 and 225 dollars a day we know about the number of teachers with medical conditions that are protected by law and nobody is denying them that for certain but i do think the concern we have is a valid concern to ask about the number of others and what we're doing and how we're getting them back as quickly and as safely as possible to minimize the in-school teacher absences whenever and however we can i also wanted to give you mrs kazan an opportunity to clarify how you felt about that concern because i feel that maybe your response at the meeting was misconstrued by some entirely up to you but

165again this is just one of many questions that i've had in regards to the problems that exist with the current hybrid in person and virtual learning model and again i have asked i have outlined all the concerns i have i really really am begging somebody to answer to those concerns because we want our kids our high school kids especially back in the school but if there's no motivation to get them back they're not going to go back and i agree with the reasons that they don't want to be back the technical issues um actually that's virtual let me start with hybrid the lack of any social benefit whatsoever even you know even going to two cohorts they're still sitting in class right now with two to four kids um we're getting into spring but in

166the meantime it's been absolutely freezing because the windows are still being open i still don't understand why that's the case um and the lack of an educational benefit to sitting in class the teacher the teachers themselves are telling you how hard it is they have to sit there and they're taking most of the time taking attendance and then there's just such little time left to teach so what can be done about this and what is going to be done about this there's there's i just don't know what more i can ask or how much more i can beg for you to address these issues the kids who are in school also are not getting the advantage some of the advantages like it or not that virtual students at home are getting they're doing things like

167as a group effort that are supposed to be independent work but guess what they're talking to each other and they're doing it together they're doing the same thing with assessments nobody wants to admit it you all don't really want to admit it but guess what it's happening so there's an advantage to being virtual the kids know it the parents know it and i want to believe that everyone else knows it so what are you going to do about it so that the time again i'm sorry okay please respond thank you next hello can you hear me yes we can hi i'm katie clark from 34 hillcrest drive um i just want to address uh i saw recently that pascal valley and hills are changing their racially insensitive mascots um with and i know we're looking

168at our diversity equity inclusion uh program and our lyrical and i was wondering if maybe uh like the committees have considered getting in contact with them seeing how they did it i i think that might be beneficial um i was also wondering um i know that the diversity equity and inclusion goal was a year-long goal so i know it's going to take a long time i was wondering if there has been any consideration to make it an ongoing goal um and to like continue doing implicit bias trainings to continue like just continuously looking and updating and making sure thing um the curriculum is both up to date and um sensitive to racial issues as well as making sure it's inclusive and accurate um i there the systems and the issues in place right now have

169400 years of colonization slavery and history behind them so it's going to take a lot of time and effort to undo all of that so i was wondering um if consideration to make it ongoing has been made thank you so much for all the board has been doing the uh power uh the powerpoints and the presentations uh are kind of what keep me updated on what's going on in town with kovid so i just really want to thank you for all of your hard work and i appreciate it a lot thank you okay next tori esposito 47 woodlot road um i'm confused why would staffing be an issue after spring break um i think that um if we had to use five emergency days we wouldn't have a spring break that we'd have to go

170to school and i think isn't aren't teachers told that they can't plan any vacation time during spring break um or is it that the staff in the schools are planning to leave the state when the parents were just scolded for doing that as well um and then mass as far as i'm concerned aren't gonna they're still gonna be there in september so i think just hearing and talking with the mask on like my kid would rather do that and sit in a classroom than sit in front of a computer so i just that that point keeps coming up it's just just a point at this point um and then you know you hear all the teachers calling about having to pivot and change direction welcome to welcome to a working family some some teachers i

171called in that had parents very lucky to have parents to watch their kids some some families don't have that so just be grateful that you have somebody because other families are scrambling and also holding down a full-time job where they can get fired any second of any day um and there goes your entire there goes forget forget a covert that that's going to be a financial death thank you thank you next caller hot mike [Music] hi allenton pesky 41 gibbs drive i'd like to follow up on my support of kids returning to school but opposing a suggestion to take away a strength in the wayne program which gives students and parents flexibility with the two-week notice provision in what are very difficult times some scenarios to consider what if a student comes back to school

172on april 19th and for some reason on april 23rd needs to be become remote let's say because they came in contact with someone who had coven they will be blocked from in-person schooling for the entire year another scenario what if a parent gets vaccinated on april 10th wants to do the right thing for their family and wait the three weeks for the vaccination to take effect they miss the april 19th deadline but wants wants to come back to school in late april they have to wait until the entire school year to return to school i heard a prior caller named maria correctly state that family situations are changing that is it that it is not right to penalize kids some may be truly waiting for a vaccine in their family and that she's in strongly

173disagreed with extending the two-week notice provision that you currently have in place and i heard another caller earlier today say the same thing and in fact dr toback i agree with you you've written to me that this flexibility places parents in a position to make decisions and do what they see as best for their children so in april we're going to take away that right that provision right before the end of the school year is that what we're talking about here and i again bring up the executive order of governor murphy which one board member shook her head when i said is that ridiculous you know the governor in his executive order said specifically that it needs to be unconditional but we're gonna make our students wait to june to return to wait for the

174entire school year to pass before returning i think that's unfair and i think the strength of the wayne school system program right now is in place it's worked for the entire year and it should not change thank you thank you next caller last time star six you there hello hi can you hear me uh yes thank you i'm so sorry oh i've been trying so hard i can't get through i'm just calling on my cell phone so i can't see okay all right my name is danielle piano and most of you know my name already from you know sending emails in about the special needs students i just want to um first of all thank my son's teachers for all the hard work that they've done this year especially mr hagan for giving 110 every

175day she even when she's frustrated trying to get through her iep classes she tried harder with p tried harder every day and had patience and had a smile on her face i've been advocating for my son and his classmates who have had ieps in math and ela since august i've been trying to get them in and every time that i've asked i've been told we can't mix the coal horse they can't go in and they're just a small group of kids in each grade um yesterday i was very happy to see even though i made the mistake because i didn't know what ocr was and i said you um i sent an email saying you ignored them again but then i um made the mistake i didn't know what ocr was so i apologize for

176sending that email um but you know it's great that the kids um kindergarten through fifth grade are going to be able to get this service and i'm very happy you know my son's in fifth grade and i'm very happy he's gonna get this but i couldn't be happy fully yesterday because you left out sixth through twelfth grade what about these children that have ieps i mean don't they matter i mean there's only a few of them in each grade level and i see that middle school you're not letting them back in five days in high school either so you know i want to be happy for my son but i still want to help try to get them in five days these children have learning disabilities i mean they should be the first in every

177town that's open or has that has had school open from the beginning has had these children in and i don't understand in this town i i grew up here i went to public school here i came back after i got married and to have children and to have my son go to a great school system and it's just been a fight from day one for special needs students and you know he's in fifth grade already and i just find that very shameful this is a very great terrific school system and it seems like these kids with special ed or ieps are always left out and i don't see no plans for sixth through twelfth grade so i'm just calling in to advocate for them thank you very much thank you next caller hi um can

178you hear me yep thank you uh leslie i apologize calling on behalf of the iep kids as well um i'm very happy that the k through five get to go um i wanna say i have two children sixth and seventh grade they're both at anthony wayne middle school i adore all of their teachers they have been more than accommodating throughout this entire process my seventh grader is actually the one with the iep my sixth grader is in the process of actually being classified his teachers have gone above and beyond to accommodate any assignment they've made themselves available to me um countless emails phone calls even text messages um uh offering office hours but my children for the first time this week got to go to school for three days and they were ecstatic they came

179home they were happy that they can complete their work in school that they can interact with their teachers and just say how much easier it was for them to be in the classroom so i'm asking to get the iep kids in five days a week it would be beyond helpful um especially in a home with two working parents that are really trying to make this work it's very very difficult working 40 hours a week and then coming home doing hours of school work catching kids up i'm more than happy to do it but more has to be done to get my son back in school five days a week he was so happy this week both of them that they can complete their work on time get to work with their teachers and it would

180just mean the world if they can get back um i know the teachers are doing everything they can and i appreciate all of them and the board for trying to work through all this it's not easy it's not easy on the parents either i'm sure it's not easy on the teachers um but i just want to say please keep fighting for the kids with ieps they're really struggling thank you and i'm president seeing no one else this is cher can i get a second mr giordano you are the motion man of the night you win okay oh business this is all business report comments new business what comments mrs cher um i i just wanted to clarify something for mr tampescu i hope i'm saying that right i'm not asking for you to make a

181decision for your kid to never come back to school i'm asking for there to be a little more of a time frame because i understand that as a parent you might enjoy the freedom of having every two weeks to make this decision but it makes it very difficult on administration on teachers and i i did shake my head at the governor's executive orders that it's not a law it's an executive order and yeah there are some things in government that i do shake my head at and i don't agree with i'm entitled to do that um i and and just to clarify if you choose to go to school and then your kid comes in contact with someone with covid or god forbid gets kovid of course they're allowed to they have to go home

182and quarantine for two weeks that's not taking their spot away that's not someone making a decision that's something that they have to do and when their two weeks is over they'll come back because they chose to be an in-school student so that example i that you keep giving doesn't really work for me um and again you know that i answer every email i get so please feel free to email me if you have any other concerns about how i'm feeling on the board that being said i do try and answer every single email so i hope that people are getting my responses um there is information that i obviously can't share but you the public also has to realize that it's a it's a catch-22 there's no winning here so i do try and answer

183every email but then i know that this week on social media there was a parent who was making fun of me for answering and not giving a good enough answer so i'm just asking everybody to again i've asked before to please keep an open mind because we are also board members are also working full-time jobs i am a virtual teacher i'm sure you saw me standing up i am a virtual teacher myself who has been in a chair and on a computer since 7 30 this morning so when i'm done with all that i do try and answer all your emails and i i do appreciate all the thank you emails that i get for making the time but as an elected official i feel like that's something that i should be doing so everybody

184have a wonderful evening and thank you for your comments and thank you to administration for all the hard work on everything i'm on mute thank you mrs cher are you done is there anyone else what was up a long time ago um did you have something to say mr duffy no um i apologize for not being here for the entire meeting um wearing two hats tonight but uh i appreciate all your uh all the concerns of the people out there this is not a easy decision to make um yeah i wish it was easy but it's not thank you thank you for being a first responder you had important things to do this evening and you try to also come here so thank you for that uh and do what you were elected to do

185anyone else have any further comment this evening well as dr toback mentioned earlier um these questions and comments will be compiled considered and an faq will be updated next week but i'd like to address a few things um as far as board members commenting i just want you to know that board members advocate all the time behind the scenes we sit in committee meetings we fight hard for you we discuss these things at length before we even get here so if we're not necessarily vocal it's not because we're not doing our job it's because we've already done it and uh continue to do it i i'm the board president so god knows i'm on the phone with dr toback uh i probably talked to him more than his wife which it could be irritating i

186asked my husband um but we do we do uh we just don't always come out and say things vocally here because i think at the end of the day most of you know who know us understand that we all want the same thing uh we're not happy with education during a pandemic we're quite upset by it and i think i exhibited a little frustration about all of it last week and because we're starting to feel a little beaten down too because we can't give everything and we understand the frustration and the comments that i made were not directed at any person not even at a particular group they're more at the situation i receive communication from multiple sources email i look at some of the my least favorite place facebook um and sometimes things get

187a little out of hand they get a little ugly and i was responding to that and mrs jaffe i know you a long time i don't take shots at you and i hope you know that uh you're entitled to ask questions you're entitled to make comments and uh those emails dr toback i think he'll get to them next week i'm hoping uh if not i'll look through them myself and uh yes everyone's entitled to uh speak their mind ask questions and articles are written for clicks put it that way things were said and taken out of context and that's unfortunate but um again we all want the same thing this is a proposal send in more questions if you have them or concerns and we will address them and hopefully before this school year is

188over uh we'll have more in-person instruction that is definitely the goal it has been from the beginning um and we're looking forward to some of the guidelines being lifted but that requires the virus numbers to drop as you can see they just went in the wrong direction new jersey has a very high rate uh so i kind of agree with the callers who said what does it matter if you leave the state if we're in the hot state so um you know we're gonna have to do the best we can and uh that's all i have to say tonight if anyone was offended by any of my comments uh i'm sorry if you were offended but they weren't directed at anyone specific and i'll leave it at that so can i get a mover to

189close mr pavlak mr giordano have a good night