November 12, 2020: Board of Education Meeting

001of november 12 2020 is convened 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 roll call was taken the meeting was recessed and is now being reconvened please rise for a flag salute i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you okay did we do a roll call mr moffat at the previous meeting i'll call roll uh mrs albanese here mr bubba mr giordano here mrs kazan here mrs kumar here mr pavlak mrs put up here and mrs sheer here okay dr

002toback um okay so good evening we're holding our board of education meeting at anthony wayne middle school again due to the limited number of people that may assemble indoors this in-person meeting is limited to the board of education members some administrators and our board of education attorney however the meeting is open for public view and participation in the same manner as our other meetings held using zoom so this evening we'll be discussing our return to school plan this plan has evolved over the past few weeks since it was originally presented and includes three important actions one consideration of high risk time periods so it's clear that the holidays are a time when people will gather and this being the case the school district plans to go virtual for one week following and for two weeks

003following i'm sorry following thanksgiving and for two weeks following new year's holidays involve an influx of college students and relatives and sometimes this leads to an increase in kobe cases like most colleges and universities we're establishing this bub for a period to reduce the possibility of outbreaks at schools even though in person instruction is lost you may gain in-person instructional time in the long run two virtual wednesdays the second phase calls for the elimination of virtual wednesdays at all grade levels and a change in cohorts um three the merging of the high school cohorts so in other words move from three cohorts to two cohorts class sizes are small across the board at both of our high schools and combining cohorts would not lead to an inability to maintain social distance so based on the

004work completed over the past two weeks it is clear we are able to move ahead with all these actions the question is whether or not we should move ahead because right now we have a major increase in positive coveted tests and in some ways i feel that we're fighting to just keep hold of what we have in terms of in-person instruction so the reason i mention that is because the numbers that we have as of today okay so um based on a recent survey of our nurses our nursing supervisor we have a number of um additional students and staff members that have tested positive so we have eight positive tests for staff members we have 29 staff members who are quarantining we have 26 students that are positive and we have 101 students who are

005currently quarantining keep in mind this increase took place during a week where the district was working remotely and keep in mind the amount of contact tracing that would be necessary and taking place while school is in session because that contact tracing has to happen immediately the fact that we were remote means that the number of staff and students who do not need to quarantine is greatly reduced if we were not remote this week our quarantine numbers would be much larger well the latest guidance from the new jersey department of health clearly shows that covet cases are on the increase we are still classified as a minimal risk region another part of the process since we originally unveiled phase ii two that proposal we solicited feedback from the community and so quite a few members of

006the community participated um in an email and um so ultimately mrs reichman if you could talk a little bit about the feedback we received from the community yeah sure good evening everybody to maintain [Music] actually i guess it was consistent at all levels i'm sorry um students have an opportunity to see their teachers faces but what i did see um amongst elementary teachers is the importance of being able to see your teacher's face and make that direct contact smiling on the other days they have the combination of in-class students and at home students and they're masked at all times another thing which that was shared that was important to the teachers is it gives all of our staff a mass break for the day many shared that wearing a mask for the entire school day

007is something that's hard to do and they've adjusted but it is nice to know that they have a day where they have a break from this it was um reflected that wellness activities are infused and they see value in these and it was also highlighted that as the weather gets colder more and more time is spent in the school buildings initially in the fall and we've had some nice weather many of the activities were held outside windows have been open and so having the wednesday off is just less time that's in the school parents also commented that many now prefer based on what has been happening in the community with the upward ticking copa cases as is that they would like to maintain the virtual wednesday um many comments reflected the surge in covet cases

008an uptick in pasay county specifically very few parents indicated that they would like to see a return on wednesday or a full return in school i think it was under five as of yesterday afternoon there were several comments about the high risk periods and it seemed pretty consistent and unanimous that parents and staff all seem to be in favor of the virtual weeks following thanksgiving and the winter holiday breaks there were also several parents who and um community members who suggested we consider going fully remote the three days leading up to both thanksgiving and the winter holiday breaks due to the fact that many will be having out of town guests in their homes so that was a concern regarding the two cohort model in the high school the majority of parents who responded are

009in favor of switching to a two-core cohort model but maintaining the remote wednesday this way one cohort of students is in the building each week they would have the four day rotation be home on wednesdays um and we wouldn't be mixing cohorts in the building on any given week special ed still seems to be a concern um parents were looking forward to having their children in school five days as opposed to four days if we were to return on wednesday and you know we're still working through each of those issues recognizing that every student has individual and specific needs and encouraging parents to work with their teachers case managers and um we're working in the central office to look at ways to provide additional support and guidance and that concludes the summary of the email

010so at this point what i'd like to do is open up a discussion um for the board of ed to talk about these issues and uh to hear additional feedback from the board okay we'd like to go first mrs albany thank you first of all took the administration for i know the tremendous amount of work that went into the considerations on all the different aspects of the plan um i appreciate the feedback as far as from staff members from parents uh from students concerning you know their day-to-day life and how this affects them i i do like aspects of the plan i think that it's very well thought out i do think that we need to based on the numbers and the changes in the community since we met two weeks ago i think we

011do need to look at the start date for phase two and that maybe november 30th is not the right date for us and we try to maintain what we have we get through the holiday periods and we look at the start of a phase two perhaps sometime in january i think it's a good plan i just don't know if it's the right plan for us to try to move forward with at this time thank you anyone else mr giordano i also want to uh salute and thank the administration for their very very hard work on this um we're a board that listens to the will of the people and it sounds like through our thought exchanges and our contacts that we should heed the will of the people and i concur with miss albanese i

012would even go so far as to say we would start maybe mid-january giving the a one week or a two-week runoff after new year's when many people are still going to travel we've seen situations with a holiday like halloween now we're going to have thanksgiving and then we're going to have christmas and new years it may be prudent for us to look at that as a reopening time great plan as with every plan you have to be able to roll with the punches and the state's getting punched right now so this is a good idea for us to kind of bob and weave a little bit and make sure that we are not just sticking to the plan for the steak and sticking to the plan and sticking to the dates for the sake of

013sticking to the dates so um i'd say listen to the people in this case and i also agree with miss albanese thank you anyone else mrs cher um i just want to say that um it's a good plan i obviously thank the administrators for all their work but the i still see no reason why as of november 30th we cannot combine the high school it keep the virtual wednesdays i agree with that the teachers need to need the time and to see you know be home but there's no reason why the high schools cannot go into their two cohorts and basically you put it out to the people you ask them their opinion and overwhelmingly the high school parents want two cohorts their kids are not getting enough time in person and they don't want

014to go and be in person when it's just them and a teacher sitting in a room so based on the numbers because i did ask about this based on the numbers we would have no problem going to two cohorts as of november 30th and still being able to social distance with the numbers that are in our schools right now so i would like to push the board to really consider the two cohorts for the high school thank you mr pavlak we're looking at a moving target here as we all know things change by the hour by the day by the week we look at where we were two weeks ago and we were all ready that this plan it is an excellent plan and the administration has done a wonderful job in putting it together

015um but we look at what's changed in two weeks and i ask what's going to change in the next two weeks the way everything is trending now it's not trending in the right direction in two weeks from now this whole conversation may be mute because the governor and his infinite wisdom may decide we're done no more everything's virtual so i i think we have to put the brakes on this and i think we why i appreciate what mr share says and i really appreciate what the parents say and all their input and i agree with them but we know what we have we've done well with what we have why try to change it now enforce the issue that's my concern by forcing the issue of combining those cohorts and going to two it the

016outcome may not be good and i don't know i may be totally wrong but again i'm not just reacting i'm looking at data from a lot of different sources that tell me things aren't going the right way folks and we know again we know what we have we've done well with what we have i do not support coming changing this on november 30th at all at best my earliest would be in january um the two take the two weeks after christmas and then in that time it gives us time again to look at the data see where we are then make a responsible decision based on the data not just do it because we said we were going to do it and so that would be my recommendation thank you anyone else we're having a

017wonky internet connection this is frozen okay this is pot up hi thank you um plan one has been phase one has been i think a terrific plan to get our schools open with to have children return meet their teachers and i think we should stick with it for a while in the words of many of my colleagues up here on the board the scientific data that we're faced with right now does not support a move to phase two and until things start pointing in the correct direction that the positivity rate goes down instead of up we should just stay the course thank you anyone else i'm sorry i was on a mute um go ahead and message chair i just wanna i just want to say that when we're talking about this have we done

018well yes but even the governor came out with a statement that i'm looking at right now saying that he's not planning on shutting down schools could it happen yes of course the numbers are going it could happen but as of right now the rumors about him shutting down schools are rumors they are nothing more than rumors and there have only been 140 cases six cases linked to 36 school outbreaks if you think of the numbers that we have around here school is not where these kids are getting the outbreak so holding them back from their education and as someone as a parent who is seeing the ramifications of all this for her own child it's it's very difficult and while we still can put them in school and get the more in-person time they get

019with the teachers the better off these kids will be so i just i cannot push it anymore my daughter has not been in school in a month that's how the high school works with three cohorts i want you to all understand that that my daughter has not seen the inside of the school in over a month that's insane what is she getting from that so i just i i really i get that you don't want to move to phase two i'm not ready to just say let's go back in i get that the numbers are going up i see all that but the bottom line is is that we haven't had that many cases because of our schools our sports have been running phenomenally without cases we're one of the only districts that can say

020that these high school kids have been together they're on a soccer field together they're on a football field together they're on a field hockey i can name every sport it's happening right now they're together so putting them in a room where there's six of them instead of one or two of them with a mask on socially distanced is not what's going to be risking our child's life right now when they're all running around on fields together with no masks sweating training and everything else together so i i beg of you to please just take a minute and just consider this i realized that i happen to be i believe the only person on the board right now who even has a high school child but just so you get an idea of my daughter's cohort

021c she's not seen the inside of a school building in over a month so please just give a minute to think about that and remember that the middle school is in two cohorts already always has been thank you mrs kumar um so i agree that we sh with what it seems to be the majority that we should be we should consider phase two in january so and i do think that the plan as we looked at it two weeks ago was a good idea but as we're seeing the numbers within the county i think it's a good also a good idea to just stick with where we are and what seems to be working um as far as the cohorts in high school i do want to see them reduced to two cohorts however i

022actually think because the way the schedule is over the next couple months because we're talking about okay they're going to take time off for this because we're not we're going to be virtual for two weeks because of the holidays and everything else and also taking a look at we did get the numbers if we did reduce to two right now we're going to be able to socially distance them but if anyone gets added so if anyone opts back in we may not be able to socially distance those students and this was a discussion we had an education committee so right now with the numbers as they are in terms of coveted cases in town i am not ready to go to two cohorts because of those numbers and i just want to stick with where

023we are even though i do agree we should have more children in the classroom and as a former high school teacher in town i do think it's important for them to be there i just don't see with the next couple months how it's going to be able to work so i'd really take like to do that in january as far as that goes this is put up if the enrollment in person and the high school is that low i would agree with mr chair and say we should try to blend the cohorts into two if we're already doing that at middle schools um i could see where that would be a good idea and stay with plan one but with two cohorts at the high school thank you anyone else before i weigh in okay

024i think we should proceed with the uh after thanksgiving and after holiday break high risk virtual weeks i am okay and agree with continuing with wednesdays the way they are because that seems to be the consensus from the community as well as the board the cohorts i appreciate mrs shares position and as long as we could do that safely i think we should because my goal and i think everyone's goal here is more in person education if it's doable without putting anyone at any unnecessary or additional risk so if we could do those cohorts and still put off the rest of the plan until mid-january um and do the extra virtual weeks i think that that's the best way to go and at this point unless anyone else has anything to say we'll listen to

025hear what the community has to say shortly and we're not voting on this this evening we'll be doing that next week we have back-to-back meetings this month because of the holiday so we'll finalize this all next thursday correct dr toback yes this is a public work session and so it is listed as a public works session item if the board wanted to move ahead um we could if the board would choose to just wait didn't follow the normal process then we could wait till the next court meeting it's a public works session item so we're moving it forward anyway okay we're not approving it tonight not approving it moving it ahead for the to vote for the next meeting okay very well um okay so unless you care to add anything dr tobacc your hiv

026report yeah i just have to add a few quick things here um one with regard to the diversity equity and inclusion goal we continue to make progress with this important goal and at this point all the committees have met today was the first meeting of the committee to develop a district mission statement we look forward to seeing that work take shape and sharing this at our january meeting the last board of ed meeting i discussed completing a thought exchange regarding our diversity equity and inclusion goal due the fact that we were handling a large number of coveted issues we were unable to move ahead with the thought exchange however we will be moving ahead soon keeping in mind that this is a one-year goal and we are only two and a half months into the

027year as far as the hiv report goes during this reporting period there were three incidents reported as hiv after thorough investigation only one of the reported incidents was found to be an actual case of hiv that concludes my report okay thank you dr toback now we'll go to you mr mother with the revisions to the agenda it's my pleasure to report there are no revisions to tonight's agenda that's the first i think okay on this portion of the meeting is open to citizens for comment on agenda items only presidents are distinguished residents are to state their names addresses and subject matter comments to five minutes per person okay well it's my place ready members of the public are discouraged from speaking negatively about an employee or a student the board bears no responsibility for comments

028made 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 giordano mrs cher i actually have a comment could we not not your turn i'm sorry but it's about the public we have 176 attendees we have a large amount of attendees could we possibly consider moving it to three minutes instead of five well at this point there's a lot of purchases respectfully there's four hands raised i'll continue thank you so if i could uh ask mrs is she a second on the motion so we're still looking in a second no no i i already recognized mr giordano and mrs cher i thought you were my second you're not my

029second oh i'm sorry then mrs albanese thank you did you want to weigh in mr pavlak okay very well start welcoming our members of the public in good evening torrey esposito 47 woodlot road in wayne again thank you to the administration i'd just like to echo mrs cheers point about the schools you know the longer that the kids are in there the better i understand pushing it back but let's be realistic january when it's 15 degrees out there's snow on the ground are are they really gonna go back at that point um i think if we could try to do it now and get a little bit in um that'd be great and to mshear's point my kids are involved in a ton of activities with kids at different schools too so what's the difference

030wayne does have the option of keeping your kid all remote or if your kid wants to go and you can do that so i think that's what makes it good that you have a choice to do that so i think if the the more our kids can get in and have that face to face my kids love school i mean i'm i'm paying two thousand dollars extra a month on top of the 53 taxes so my kids don't fall behind um so i just think if we can revisit that november 30th date to really get them that extra day and the parents that don't want them to go on that wednesday stay home um anything that could be done be appreciated because realistically january's probably not gonna happen and my other point um so understood

031with the two weeks remote after the holidays are we gonna read are we gonna do this again in february with president's day break and then are we gonna do it again for spring break i'd rather have them go virtual those days and end school earlier if i can get my kids out in the spring and may on on on june 1st may 1st i'd rather not have any breaks anymore if we're going to keep doing this every other month thank you thank you hi my name is uh david ginsberg to amy way um a a couple things uh for you guys hey thank you for all your hard work uh on this uh plan and and and you know to echo your point doing things to change by the hour here right so i really

032appreciate the work that went into it and certainly the pivoting tonight um i think the the last guy actually brought up a good point that i didn't think of is um you know i i definitely understand thanksgiving and christmas break i agree with that um but but what is the long-term plan right with with a lot of break spring break think uh you know martha king uh you know presidents it's something just to think about on on do we eliminate those and and try to get out of school earlier but my points i really wanted to bring up where i uh wholeheartedly agree with the almost all you guys about uh pushing phase two off until you know hopefully mid-january maybe it is february i think uh obviously no one really knows i have a

033kid in elementary school and i think at least for the elementary and middle school to push that off and to keep wednesday's virtual is a really smart idea with the numbers rising the way they are um and i just want to get a point of clarification so uh make sure i understand it right in the proposal i guess from a couple weeks ago and or tonight the two weeks after new year's would be virtual um which i think is a smart idea then the pre and post thanksgiving if someone mentioned it i guess during the opening statements post thanksgiving is the idea would be virtual for a week and then pre-thanksgiving there was like two days before thanksgiving break any thoughts to doing what we just did for um for teachers conventions i think that

034worked out really well where we just made those two days virtual uh versus having people in school for like a day or two uh and then going virtual so if you just let me know and answer that that would really appreciate it the pre thanksgiving and the post thanksgiving clarity but thank you for all your hard work thank you we'll answer questions at the end sir next caller hi can you hear me yes uh katie clock 34 hillcrest drive um thank you for all your hard work we greatly appreciate it and i understand how hard and how quickly you've been moving into making the um diversity equity inclusion um goal met as swiftly as possible um i had a couple questions on how can for the thought exchange will that be posted on the website

035and how can we access that and then last meeting you said that the public does not need to know who is on these committees for diversity when asked but um i was just wondering um reasoning behind that that is all thank you so much for all your hard work thank you next caller hi eileen d'amico 29 manor drive um once again i want to thank the administration as i did on the last meeting the plan you know i think is a really good one um i do actually echo many of the board's sentiments and that um you know perhaps it makes sense to push back the majority of phase two um a little while although i also tend to to agree with mr esposito is you know we don't know what january's going to bring

036and it could just as easily go much further south and get much worse january february march um as you know flu season continues so you know what does that look like for these kids then in terms of their ability to be in school and be educated in school in some form um that being said though i i do want to you know kind of jump onto the the high school and the two cohort versus three cohort bandwagon a little bit um i sighed a hundred percent with mrs sheer on this and her sentiments you know i keep hearing and that that what we have is working and i guess broadly speaking um not only in district but across the state it seems to be working if you will from the covet standpoint um in that

037we keep hearing that the numbers that we're seeing the upticks and numbers aren't being caused in the school so that's a good thing so it's working but quite frankly it's not working for everybody on a student basis it's not working you know it's not working for everybody i think in a lot of cases kids are perhaps muddling through they're making their way through um but i don't call that that it's working um you know i'll speak personally it's not necessarily working in my household um and i'm sure i'm not the only one so i guess from the high school perspective i would urge you that if it can be done safely with the proper social distancing in line with all the necessary protocol that you really consider merging these cohorts i know mrs sheer said

038her student her child hasn't been in school in a month if we continue as it will be my son will be out of in-person school for six weeks and then you know there's a week in and then he's out again until mid-january or later um quite frankly that's not that doesn't work um it doesn't work for him you know there's just there's too much at stake this year there's too much at risk um in a lot of different regards you know educationally and i i just i really urge you to consider that i also urge you consider these kids mental health um you know again especially at the high school level if they're sitting in a classroom and it's a high school student and they're one teacher or you know just this complete remote and

039sort of isolation feeling what is that doing to their mental health you know again their physical health of course is tantamount i don't want anyone to get sick um but the flip side is that just really needs to be considered and and looked at and so if there's a way to merge those two safely within the confines of all the necessary restrictions and requirements i i just asked the board um to to really consider at least that piece of it and moving forward with the merging of the two cohorts and if parents and students aren't comfortable being you know in the building in a slightly you know larger size group then they do have the option to stay home as mr esposito pointed out and you know they can certainly exercise that option um and

040and the kids can stay home so that's it thank you very much thank you um there's a caller ilian nunes you have an older version of zoom and we can't admit you i recommend you try to call in or update your software next caller mr dr burchard i'm sorry um hi this is melissa casa messina 95 robin hood way just calling in about the high school cohort thing i cannot agree with mrs cher anymore that i already do and what mrs d'amico just said my son is in the same cohort as mrs d'amico he will also be out of school for six weeks if governor murphy said he's not planning on going virtual if he does us being down to two cohorts has no bearing on that these kids are either going to be in

041school or they're going to be all virtual because governor murphy shuts it down at this point i'm a i'm a frontliner i'm a hospital rn have the numbers ticked up barely we are not anywhere even close to where we were back in the spring god willing it doesn't get to that point but it is not bad right now these kids need to be in school and if they can stay socially distanced now is the time to do it waiting till january is way too long these kids are losing way too much time they are losing interest they are losing the ability to learn it's it's just not fair at this point they need to be in school please go to two cohorts at the high school thank you next caller hi this is jenny franklin

04221 key lana drive i would like to really write what the other high school parents have said um the high schoolers need more time in school there's just really no other way to put it they need more time in school going to two cohorts i believe is the pop the best solution for that i would also like to ask that the administration consider uh in a situation where we do have to go to a remote week like we are in right now where everyone is virtual that there be requirements asked of the teachers that they must make use of their google meets and things like that to reach out to the students on just as they would as if the students were in school and that uh that be continued um as much as possible

043from their homes i'm seeing some situations where when we're home we don't get when everyone is home they don't get any contact time with the teacher on those days and i think that's unacceptable thank you thank next you hi john marks 391 black oak um thank you for everyone's hard work with the plan um i agree i'm pushing phase two back um until probably the new year just to kind of see how everything goes my only comment was i was just trying to figure out um the community i know the i wasn't sure i didn't get a parent survey so i wasn't sure if that was sent out via email or was it the thought exchange i personally prefer the email so i feel like anytime just my suggestion or my comment would be anything

044where we try to get information from the community or parents as far as input i feel the the email is better um communication wise than the thought exchange but again i just wasn't sure where we were getting those numbers from so if you could just let me know where we got those thank you so much appreciate it thank you [Music] next oh hello hello is it my turn yes i'm sorry i've never done this before my name's stacy gerstein 21 ruskin court i have two questions um for the wellness wednesday is the only option that we are either in person on wednesdays or wellness wednesday could it be a regular instruction day and my other one is i don't see why there's any reason why there shouldn't be in person school on the monday tuesday

045before thanksgiving that cohort a has already missed so many days and it's not as if people are traveling before then i understand the week after thanksgiving but there's no reason monday tuesday should not be a regular school day my final question is if we do switch to all virtual weeks will the teachers be teaching from their classroom where they have access to all of their materials or will they still be teaching from home that's all okay thank you next hi my name is brittany farrell i'm at 23 woodlot road i just wanted to get clarification as far as the early childhood center will that be in phase two with the children going five days a week because my four-year-old who has an iep is supposed to be there five days a week and he only

046goes obviously two and the days that he has to go virtual the instruction is maybe 20 minutes and it's not even instruction it's single welcome song what day the week is it and they're done um he had his first virtual speech session today and that was far more successful than any of the other instructions he has gotten at all from his teacher um i think that the younger kids need to be in school more than the high school kids i understand the high school kids you know mental health and all that but they can handle going virtual the younger kids cannot the early childhood kids they need to be there five days a week or four days a week if you want to keep wednesdays as well as elementary school kids i have two kids

047at lafayette and their teachers want them there every day the parents want them there every day if you don't want your kid there then don't send them i don't think it's fair that the kids are struggling mentally because my child has not been in school for two weeks he's mentally done he's checked out he's in second grade and his depression now is back where it was in the spring it's not fair to them and it's not fair to the teachers who have to do double the amount of work to get them all on the same page i appreciate everything you guys have done but i think a lot more needs to be done and i agree with with mr esposito that if we don't get them in school now january's not gonna happen it's really

048not my husband's a first responder he's a police officer so he's been there every single day since his be this has started there's no reason for them not to be in school they're going to be exposed from their friends they're going to be exposed outside of school they're not going to be exposed with masks on three feet apart it's not going to happen i just i think there needs to be more support for the kids to be there four or five days a week especially the early childhood kids because they are getting nothing if they're not in school it's a 20-minute vid 20-minute zoom and they're done they're saying hi and that's it my child screams and cries hysterically every day he has to do a zoom so you need to think about the younger

049kids as well not just the high school kids thank you thank you next andrea mchale 82 hershey road hi i just wanted to thank everyone for their hard work i know it's not an easy situation for anyone i have children in on in all levels elementary middle school and high school i'm worried about all of them you know mental health physical health but i will say that i would like to offer my support for switching the high school from three cohorts to two cohorts these high school kids they have a lot on the line not a not a lot of time to catch up they have one two maybe three more years of school before college they need every minute of in-person instruction that they can get right now and i just wanted to reiterate

050um the importance of that i think we need to switch to two cohorts i do support um waiting till january um for phase two but overall um i i just i really think it's important for these kids to get back in person as much as possible my son tells me that he's got maybe four kids in class with him when he is in person for his four minimal days of the month um so you know if if that doubles to eight kids you know in person i i just don't see that being that much of a difference thank you so much for your time thank you next hi this is dan daly 53 osceola road i'm a parent of students in the wayne school system i also happen to be the william township emergency management

051coordinator um as as having that role i think it's very important that um we look at the big picture of the whole community and it's important for people to have the accurate data so i know that everyone's been um discussing that there is data tonight but i would just like to go over some of it just so that the community is informed um there's definitely an increase in coronavirus cases right now there's no doubt about that and you know it's on the rise um i think it's important to point out that there's a great uh increase in the amount of testing going on as well we in wayne township have now begun providing testing many doctor's offices are providing testing so you know i'm going to give some data off of the state department of

052health website and um you know very current data from today so there's there's already been 5.124 million tests given in new jersey and that is pcr tests so i believe that doesn't even uh include the rapid test so you know as i said there's a tremendous amount of testing going on which of course as the second wave is coming in that's definitely going to increase your numbers i think it's important for people to understand the level of um the acuity that's happening right now so just i want to compare for everyone you know back when things were really out of control uh back in april in may um april 29th there were over 6 000 people in the hospital in new jersey related to kovid and as of yesterday there were 1800 so 1800 is

053still significant we've gone up but in comparison to the peak we're in much better shape there's also 117 people in the state on ventilators right now um obviously no one wants to be on a ventilator that's a really serious situation but there are nine million people in new jersey so um i think when you compare that it's it's still quite low i think it's important for people to take the precautions that we all know are necessary like wash your hands keep your distance you know wear your mask when you cannot those things are important um as far as schools uh statewide the state is saying that there's 192 cases linked to school outbreaks um which of course you know nobody wants any kind of outbreaks in the school but it's important to note that there's

0541.37 million students enrolled in the state of new jersey right now and there's 2600 schools in the state of new jersey k through 12. so um you know in comparison uh things are going very well in the school setting um as far as mortality which of course is probably the most important issue uh you know back in the middle of or i'm sorry like early april on april 6 there were 493 lab confirmed deaths uh over these last few weeks you know there's numbers being reported per day such as four seven you know number numbers in that that area so fortunately the cases are rising but so far the um mortality is staying low which is a really good thing um you know for everyone and that of course is what we want to see

055so um i just wanted to point that out so that the community's aware that while we have an increase it's we haven't seen it reach the level of um acuity and uh you know danger that we saw in the past obviously could it go there we don't know so we do need to be careful um but based on you know the data that's here um you know i i don't want to even give an opinion other than to say i wanted to make sure everybody in the community was aware of it so thank you next caller thank you hi my name is christine gentilly from 33 marlton drive i also have a daughter in the high school and i completely agree that they have to go back to two cohorts she's in cohort a i

056mean she's a freshman it's a terrible way to have um your freshman year but she's in cohort a the last time she was in school was last week in october if her next time that she's supposed to go back is the week after thanksgiving if that week is all remote the next time she will be in school is the middle of january that's 10 over 10 to 12 weeks it's absolutely ridiculous they have to they have to combine these cohorts there's some of her classes have two kids in them they got and they need to do it before january it's got to get done as soon as possible thank you thank you very much next caller hi eda ferrante wea president i'd just like to point out that during this whole discussion there was never

057any talk about the effect on the educators the teachers and the support staff in our buildings you know they are very scared and out of their minds in fact in terms of this virus and um what it's doing to um not only the state the county and this country i'd also like to point out that educators also have families and children of their own that they're concerned about um so we need to remember that i would also like to say that there has been no answer as to what administration is going to do should more kids now want to go back into the classroom after the cohorts have been combined so unless that's answered you can't possibly go ahead with this plan to bring these two cohorts together um and i commend the board members

058tonight that are you know talking with a coast with a cautious tone and really being mindful that this virus i mean i looked at the map today in particular the county and passaic county is red so thank you for your time thank you next hello hello my name is jason coburn i just wanted to give a slightly different perspective than i think a lot of people haven't heard from i work at the wayne ymca at a virtual learning program and i deal with almost a dozen kids on a daily basis who are always in virtual learning and i just feel that it's not at a level that it should be and i get that a lot of teachers are trying very hard to keep these students engaged my group is specifically second grade students and

059a lot of the days i feel like i'm teaching them more than their teachers are just because either it's hard for them to focus but their teachers haven't fully planned what they want to do and i understand it's not easy for teachers to teach younger kids uh in this virtual format but i feel like they need to work to find a different way that they can do it because it's very difficult for me to teach material to eight different students or ten different students when i only have a high school diploma and i don't have any experience teaching and i'm trying my very best and i know a lot of parents are happy with our program and the way it's running but i just think the teachers need to try a little bit harder to

060make sure that their students can understand whether that's doing more one-on-one meetings or whether that's doing more just to really try and make it so that these students can understand their information because it's not getting through at a level that i think it should for a lot of the kids thank you okay thank you dr burchard okay hello hello yes tiron hi um my name is ellie verduan and i am a proud teacher at wayne hills i love my job and the best part of the day is seeing the students whether in class or virtually i want to thank you for recognizing that we are going into a high risk period and maintaining the virtual wednesdays so that we can have the deep cleaning and then of course after the holidays when we know some

061families will be getting together with extended family um is more risky uh as far as combining the cohorts i have always maintained that i work with the most dangerous population the parking lot is the most dangerous and of course the parents are not keeping tabs on high school students as they would a first grader a kindergartner so as you can see with the halloween party what that caused us to have to go virtual uh this week and luckily last week we were already virtual uh so as far as combining the two cohorts there's still a good population of students in the hallway okay and they really are not socially distancing we have to keep reminding them of of that so i just am a little scared with the thought of combining and i i hear

062the parents i know they want the kids in school believe me i want the kids in school it's the best it's so great seeing them uh but to recognize that things have been working so far as far as safety and our health so please consider that before you combine the cohorts and as far as the google meets we at the high school are on the google meets for the entire 40 minutes we also encourage our students to join us at 1 30 during our office hours i've had many students that are advocating for themselves which is really a great thing and i see them i'll even do it with one student so anyway i just want to say i i love i love teaching i love the kids but please consider before you join back

063to uh two cohorts thank you so much and thank you for all your efforts thank you can i get a mover to close public session mr pavlak second mr giordano ilian nunez i'm sorry tried calling in if you refer to our website there's a phone number and you can come into this public session which will be in just a few short minutes your zoom is not working okay moving on committee reports mr bubba so technology met tonight with myself and mr burchard we discussed um a few different items on the agenda that aren't on the agenda but we discussed a few different items that are of importance all the devices the new laptops are out and we're now working on the paras who are going to get the chromebooks that the teachers didn't use and

064they should be out tomorrow we have done more swivel training and that will continue for the rest of the time as more come in we have given new tools with google enterprise we've given you tools for teachers for google me which is always good and we are looking for two more schools by the end of the year to add for phone system to help with security which that was good news and the last thing i noticed we talked about was we need to add another position of a teacher trainer we have one right now that handles every application for the whole district and frankly it's overwhelming with everything that she has to do so we think it's time and the committee thinks it's time that we added one to help with some of that we

065alleviate some of the issues with teachers having a place to go with to the trainer who's actually going to train them on the applications and that is my report thank you mr bubba mrs albanese thank you the finance committee met tonight here at anthony wayne middle school um in attendance for the board of education or mr matt giordano catherine kazan and eileen albanese administrators and president president were bill moffatt our business administrator as well as cheryl lighty the assistant business administrator we've reviewed the agenda items that were on tonight's agenda we went over the comprehensive maintenance plan which is an item required for budgeting we approved the cancellation of checks we reviewed capital projects closeouts which were basically projects started several years ago that have been completed so those line items have been uh finished

066and closed uh the mresco contract is up for review reviewed a budget transfer that had to do with the facility committee we looked at some budgeting items we are looking at the end of the audit being finished up and a report to come to the board shortly we had a discussion about unemployment update which will again come to the board we're still seeing additional claims and there have been several items disputed by the um by the business office the board will again receive this year virtual binders that will start shortly where mr moffitt will start uploading information for the board to review we're again looking at our food service contracts health insurance for chapter 44 which will be reviewed at a later date by the administration this these are options for employees and they're fielding

067a lot of employee questions and information for employees to consider and that was the uh that was our meeting for tonight thank you thank you mrs albanese is there anyone else who has a report this evening this is put up i have two reports thank you uh the policy committee met this afternoon at one o'clock um our liaison is paula clark head of human resources and in attendance were mr pavlak mrs kumar and myself uh we went over and reviewed 11 policies that uh have come up have been forwarded to the district through strauss esme and policies are basically formed from laws that new jersey state especially the department of education passes or reviews and then it comes to the local school district in this case being wayne and they are regulations that we have

068to inculcate into our our own school district to make sure that we comply with the laws put forth by the state so this afternoon we went through 11 different updates um and they're on the agenda if people would like to look and see what we've been looking at so thank you that's the first meeting uh the next meeting was the education committee that met at five o'clock this afternoon our liaison is donna reischmann assistant superintendent and uh mrs share mrs kumar and myself were in attendance we reviewed the october 8th education committee minutes we also went through the agenda items before us this afternoon um we have we'll be having approval of two dual agreements uh with one with rockland community college and one with njit there will be an expansion of unified sports in

069the district which supports our special education students and that will also include the early childhood center we have a new club starting at the high schools it's called deca deca and it stands for distributive education club of america and has to do with advertising and marketing and that will be paid for by a grant which is terrific um we also uh got a preview of the 2122 school calendar uh there are five different versions that we looked at and those will be coming forward through committee and to the full board and the ensuing weeks so thank you very much you mrs put up i think that's it tonight for committee reports okay can i get a mover for the agenda for the public work session items or the whole agenda anybody madam president mr baba

070um i move that we move the whole agenda on consent okay can i get a second a second oh i got you mr pavlak first okay any discussion on the agenda items emergent or public works roll call mr moff mrs albanese yes mr bubba mr duffy is i don't see him he is absent mr giordano yes mr pavlak yes mrs put up yes mrs sheer yes and mrs kazan yes motion carries thank you okay on to our final 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 be lit 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 for comments

071made 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 okay first caller oh can i get him over sorry this is albany's mr giordano thank you you're on hello there you are okay i'm sorry my computer was having technical difficulties um okay we're having the same go right ahead abigail 20 style on road um thank you to the people of wayne for your support in the 2020 election it warms my heart to see that many voters of wayne supported me through this election to my friends and family thank you for supporting me through the election and giving me the encouragement to run for the wayne boe to the winning candidates congratulations on winning this

072selection i wish you the utmost luck in continuing to serve wayne to the best of your abilities thank you to the entire board of education and the administration for your hard work during the pandemic it is truly appreciated most importantly i would like to thank my parents my brother anthony and my neighbor nancy for supporting and encouraging me throughout this election i could have not have done this without the support of the wayne community thank you next hi can you hear me yep okay katie clock34 help us drive again um i just want to once again thank you especially for how timely you are moving in a fashion for your goal of diversity equity and inclusion um i would once again just like to stress the imp um thank you again for the um movements

073made and thank all of the teachers in um the history curriculum but i would once again like to stress the importance of diversity in um english curricula um and in um learning about diversity and equity and civil rights um in younger grades um in like picture books and stuff as well as in the english curriculum as um for high schools learning about different important authors because um authors like james baldwin and maya angelou are both um not only importantly because of their importance in uh history but also because they are some of the greatest american writers and um leaving them out of the story just doesn't do literature justice um again i would really like to thank you for how much care you've been putting into this issue um and i'd also once again like

074to stress um uh or not stress uh ask why uh the uh the public shouldn't know the members of the committees um but thank you again um bye thank you next hi this is alan tampescu gibbs drive can you hear me yep um i have two uh things first i want to um mention that this week in honor of veterans day the skyla koufax school where my son attends put together a video and i thought they sent it to all the parents i thought it was a wonderful way of recognizing all of the different veterans who are relatives of the various teachers and students of the school and i thought it was spectacular so i want to commend them for such a fantastic job in doing that secondly um i just wanted to follow up

075from my question from two weeks ago i don't know if it was answered earlier because i came in a little late as to whether the two-week notice provision for virtual to in-person or vice versa is staying as is thank you okay thank you can i get a mover to close public session mr giordano mr pavlak i'm sorry uh elian nunes but your zoom is still not working if you have a question feel free to email any of us with that question okay all business new business i'll get to you dr toback i'm sorry miss kumar sorry my mute button isn't working well today for some reason i just wanted to uh thank all the veterans for their service um and also this weekend's a pretty big celebration for a lot of our students and families

076uh this weekend diwali is being celebrated so i did want to wish everybody happy diwali this weekend that's all nice thanks for the start thank you okay we'll get to final board comments after dr toback addresses some of the public comment okay this is then i have a lot of notes here but i did notice that um quite a few of the members of the public commented about the need to merge cohorts so that's certainly what those concerns are acknowledged and heard loud and clear as far as david ginsburg he asked if there was a long-term pandemic plan the district does not have a long-term plan our plan is broken into phases knowing that the pandemic is something that really changes very rapidly so we felt that having a phased plan would be more helpful

077for the district as opposed to having a long-term plan because like you said there's so much uncertainty um the other question um had to do with the holidays and can we eliminate holidays in order to end the school year quickly and maybe go virtual or some other um you know maybe look at some other options the holidays that the district grants are in for the most part tied to contracts and so the employment contracts for the different bargaining units of the district specify which holidays have to be offered to the employees so that is in large part why there's really not much to do in terms of um moving holidays or eliminating holidays katie cluck asked about the thought exchange and so i explained it a little bit before um but her question was how

078would it be posted and so the answer is it would be on a website and um so it'll be on our district website it'll be sent out by social media um it'll also be sent out by email to those who we have emails for but any any member of the public would be able to participate um she also asked again about the identity of the committee members i can't comment on that i'm not sure about the origins of that i know that there was a discussion about that but i don't remember any of the details to be quite honest um so as far as um jamie franklin i know your comments were heard loud and clear and i will be giving you a phone call tomorrow i'd like to talk a little bit more to

079you about the specifics of your concerns um let me see here um one i didn't catch the last name john is the first name wrote about the opportunity to comment um on the phase two plan so the phase two plan opportunity to comment was posted with it on our website and there was an email to uh that you were able to send comments and um however you felt um fit or whoever would like to send in comments about the phase two plan so it could so we had about about 260. okay so mark mary 270. okay um okay the next few comments were comments about um emerging cohorts at the high school level um so ida ferrante the the association president for the teachers um asked a comment or made a comment or asked a

080question about the administration and that there has to be a plan what if more students return and so basically that's been something that was part of our original plan and it's something that was discussed at our last meeting it's related to mr compestu's comment at the last meeting we talked about having the requirement to remain within either a hybrid environment or um if if you were virtual for the marking period since that time we've reviewed um the concerns and so what we'd like to do is keep the two-week notice provision but we also know like he said there could be a significant impact on staffing although we don't see that happening to be quite honest but the idea is that you have the two week notice provision but then everyone who is going to come

081back into um the school from from remote would come in at the first school day of the month okay so there'll be a little more time that's kind of a compromise position i think really works out well for everybody so you do have the two week notice provision principles have the opportunity but again going back to what was said right from the very beginning of our first phase there's no guarantees and so the schedule that you might want as a student may not necessarily be the schedule that you get due to class sizes and the need to make sure we maintain social distancing okay um let's see what else we have here i think that um that covers all the questions that were asked [Music] i don't really remember the nature it's not our policy

082certainly not okay oh what happened to my meeting you're still there okay um back okay uh all right so you're finished doctor yes i am sam okay thank you very much board comments mr giordano thank you i wanted to um first congratulate uh the people who are being reelected to the board of education congratulations uh mr pavlak um mr duffy and mrs kazan uh i thank you for a very well-run campaign uh my daughter missed by about 300 votes we're all very very proud of her and one thing i do want to say is as a parent the greatest gift you can give a child is opportunity i think we all try to present opportunities throughout a child's life and as they grow and they blossom you present more opportunities to them and you see

083how they spread their wings and soar and in a very short period of time my little girl grew up into an adult and i just want to tell her i love her very much and i'm very very proud of what she did whether win or lose i think she's fantastic and look out world here she comes and very well done for all of you thank congratulations anyone else have any closing comments mrs fuddup um uh ms ferrante called in and mentioned that we hadn't mentioned teachers or we weren't talking about teachers well you can't talk about teachers without talking about students and their families and our bus drivers and the aides and the paraprofessionals and the custodians because everything is interwoven into this fabric and it's it's a community effort it that's why we're sticking

084with phase one is because we care about everybody thank you thank you mrs potter anyone else this is cher um yeah i have a few things i i want to congratulate all the board members that were re-elected to the board it's wonderful and thank you for your commitment i wanted to thank mr daley for calling in and giving the numbers that he that he gave and someone in his position he gets all the numbers and it's just nice to hear the reality of it the actual perspective especially since the governor literally just tweeted before that it's all a rumor about him closing schools i wanted to say to ms ferrante that this board has always cared about the teachers and showing their affection for the teachers i don't think that it has anything to do

085with not caring about how the teachers feel um but it's it's not you know the teachers are very concerned i get that but the teachers are also out in the world too they they're in the grocery store stores in target where they're bumping into a lot more people than the six students that may be sitting in front of them if we combine high school cohorts so i just don't think that people showing concern for their children wanting to be in school more has anything to do with them not caring about the teachers i am a teacher and i deeply care about my profession and anybody who is in my profession um and i just wanted to go for katie cluck's sake um i know it was kind of just brushed over here with miss kazan

086and dr toback and i just want to make it clear that dr toback said that is not our policy we do not give names out of our internal committees you would be giving names out of teachers on committees that in all honesty don't need to hear from the public that's not that's not their role as far if you want to contact administration please by all means you have their email contact them and come and speak at the board meetings but to give out teachers names that are on actual committees i i wouldn't think that that would be fair to do to any of our teachers so i just wanted to reiterate because i feel like it was kind of brushed over and they have asked at quite a few meetings already which is why i

087brought it up last time because they kept asking people keep asking who's on the committees so that's why i actually brought it up last time saying that we don't give out those names so that they're getting an answer to their questions thank you mr pavlak thank you um first of all i'd like to congratulate mrs gazette and mr duffy on the elect on their victory in the election um and i'd like to thank the citizens of wayne for having the faith to re-elect me for another term here i know nothing's official yet and we don't know when it's going to be official hopefully next week or the end of this week tomorrow we're not sure but thank you everyone i hear the high school appearance loud and clear and i think this combining the cohort

088um we need a little more discussion uh with the administration on this um and even i'd like um input from dr goldberg as well mr daly brought up some really good points uh numbers um so i think moving forward uh i'll send an email to the president and to the administration uh with my questions and hopefully we can resolve this by next week thank you everyone thank you mr pavlak anyone else oh this is put up i was going to move to close thank you can i can i speak first [Laughter] he didn't just you shouldn't be jumped right in there i usually go last [Laughter] okay so no one else then i'm gonna go last then we'll we'll take your motion mrs butt up okay i have a few things first of all uh

089i want to thank all the stakeholders who weighed in on phase two uh i've received multiple emails i didn't answer them because i felt we would be answering all of you here tonight so i hope you were able to tune in um we are moving cautiously and i think that's the best course of action um i want to commend miss giordano on her run for the board i want to thank you for attempting to step up and serve your community i'm sure we haven't seen the last of you good for you and thank you for your congratulatory wishes i also want to congratulate and thank my colleagues for their re-election i'm happy to have everybody back together we have important work that we're still doing and i'm looking forward to continuing our work together i

090want to thank the public of course for the overwhelming support this was quite the voter turnout which i like to see in any election i think it was fantastic and uh i hope it's uh a pattern that continues um democracy is important and uh that's what it's all about showing up and casting your vote um miss cluck uh on another topic i hear you have many many suggestions i recommend you put them on paper and you send them in so that we can share your thoughts with the committee as far as your authors and your books and uh the things that uh are important to you and uh they'll be considered um but calling in isn't necessarily the best way to get that across to our committees i'm not suggesting you stop calling in i'm

091just trying to help you get your voice heard at the proper place um okay uh we'll be back next week and at that point i'm sure we'll have a final answer for you on all of this and thank you for your input and have a good night and i'll take a move to close mrs put up mr giordano thank you all have a good night