September 24, 2020: Board of Education Meeting

001the executive session of the wayne board of education regular meeting of september 24 2020 was convened virtually through the district software program 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 please rise for a flag salute and a moment of silence for justice ruth bader ginsburg 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 dr toback would you like to begin so we're fortunate to be in our third week of the first phase of returning to school with high school athletics back and

002preparing for competition in just a few days we wanted to take a moment to thank the entire community for being responsible on any given day you can find an article about a school or a school district shutting down due to covet related problems which result of parties or other off-campus large-scale activities as i've said before our ability to continue is fragile and largely dependent on what happens outside of school so please continue to be cautious please avoid planning any parties or large-scale events that are not compliant with social distancing guidelines because these kinds of events regularly lead to school shutdowns you only need to look a few miles away for example in pompton lakes that district shut down in all likelihood is exposure as a result of exposure of students to an outside event at

003least the high school did i'm sorry about that everyone has shut down their sports teams due to a large scale party chatham shut down due to a labor day weekend gathering in other cases schools have been shut down after parents returning from out of state travel with their children in states where quarantining is required returned to school and filed false screening reports at this point we're approaching the midpoint of the first phase or roping reopening of school plans and we'll begin to work on the next phase of this plan soon but we need your help to get there now is the time to remain vigilant and cautious well there are many positives when it comes to reopening our schools one negative is the problems we've had with technology especially at the elementary level many users

004are experiencing drop google meets choppy sound and choppy video these problems are largely seen at the elementary level it has to do with the new chromebooks that were purchased this summer as a secondary device for our teachers to be used primarily for live streaming lessons the problem is that these new chromebooks have computer chips that are known to create problems with video conferencing software google is working to resolve the problem but we also ordered new dell laptops for our elementary teachers these laptops will be in the hands of our teachers in about a month between now and then we'll be using some existing technology like our ipads and some cases our older chromebooks also we previously spoke about a video conferencing device known as the swivel 100 of these devices were ordered during the summer

005and after being back ordered they ship to the district and they should be here any day like many school districts back to school night is very different this year and all of our back to school nights are virtual i've had the chance to see some back to school night presentations and i would like to congratulate our administrators and teachers for doing an excellent job making the most of this opportunity to connect with our parents the wayne country public schools are proud to announce that when us news and world report released their 2020 best high school rankings both wayne high schools were included among the best high schools in new jersey and the united states wayne valley was ranked 104th among 409 high schools in new jersey and 2362nd among the 17 792 high schools from

006across the united states wayne hills was also ranked highly by u.s news and world report was 101st among 409 high schools in new jersey and 2244th among 17 792 high schools nationally wayne hills moved up slightly from the last ranking while wayne valley dropped slightly because both high schools are ranked so closely and due to rounding both wayne hills and wayne valley rank among the top 25 percent of new jersey high schools and the top 13 of all high schools nationally so an update regarding the extension of free breakfast and lunch for all wayne students the usda has approved an extension of the summer seamless food program this week making every child in wayne township eligible to receive free breakfast and lunch the program was approved for all of our schools until further notice as

007part of the wayne township public schools return to school plan lunch will continue to be available when pre-ordered for all cohorts virtual students via the wayne schools online lunch order site message has been sent to all parents and is posted on the website this time i'd like to turn the report over to don richmond to talk about equity diversity and inclusion good evening everyone the district is excited to share that we will soon be working with educational consultant and staff developer tamika reef to assist with this very important work and help our committee members as we embark on our stand against racism bias and discrimination in all forms to ensure educational equity tamika brings 25 years of experience in education and is known for doing whatever it takes in order to enhance the improvement of

008student learning and achievement as well as empowering and enabling teachers to improve equity outcomes for all students she has presented multiple workshops on implicit bias microaggressions racism and the impact of those factors on educational equity mysteries will focus on working with the committee to evaluate district operations for equity diversity and inclusion in the areas of human resources as it relates to hiring and practices student scheduling student achievement english language curriculum and history curriculum the administrative team will be supported by tamika to note areas of strength and identify areas for growth within their buildings and various district departments by june we will complete a formal assessment of our district's programs policies and practices through a diversity equity and inclusion lens and publicly present the findings the results from this assessment will help us frame out our

009next steps and plan for the continued implementation to further our commitment to this goal additionally a keynote speaker al hassan suso has been scheduled for the morning of november 3rd district and service day alhassan suso was the 2019 new york state teacher of the year he will be sharing with our staff his personal journey to demonstrate the power of perseverance and determination his story details how he overcame incredible odds and came out on the other side as a true change maker impacting the lives of students and educators while maintaining his deep african roots our dedicated school counselors continue their work with our new place for heat program and have expanded this to address the topic of cultural competency we continue to develop programs to expand our ability to understand and effectively interact with our students

010across cultures by educating our students about different cultural practices represented in our rich wing community we will continue to increase awareness and develop positive attitudes towards cultural differences this concludes my report at this point um yes thank you wayne township public schools was notified yesterday of a kona virus relief fund grant in the amount of 273 thousand dollars 467 the formula state of new jersey used to allocate the subject fund was to take resident student enrollment and multiply that by a factor 25 per student plus a allocation meant to address low-income student needs the source of this grant program is part of the 100 million application from the federal government to assist public schools with defraying costs associated with the opening of the 2020 2021 school year and that 100 million dollar allocation was originally

011part of the kona virus aid relief and economic security act which was known as cares and that act was passed by the federal government at the beginning of the pandemic eligible uses of the the grant funds are as follows air filters computers and technologies specifically we could use for chromebooks and other computer devices for educational purposes personal protective equipment known as ppe which will consist of masks gowns face shields and soap and cleaning and sanitizing supplies we await further guidance from the department as i said that we've uh received notification yesterday and uh we await for the uh further uh guidance as far as how to apply or what type of regulations that would uh cause uh the accounting of this uh information um and uh that'll be part of our budget for the 2021

012uh fiscal year and will be uh identified in uh fund 20 as part of our funds uh and our total funds for our budget um and that also covers the um time period from march to december 2020 so any type of purchase or costs incurred during that time period is eligible for that fund the funds from this grant um that concludes uh the update with the relief fund grant thank you mr mother and uh to wrap things up for our reporting tonight during this reporting period there were no incidents reported as hiv thank you dr tovak mr moffat do you have revisions to the agenda at this time yes i do the areas the emergent human resource area or tonight where our revisions are so i'll start there items one through eleven under emergent human

013resources t dot three is approval of appointment of district staff for 2021 school year revise number one judith carbonelli add 4.5 hours slash day no benefits revise effective date from september 8 2020 to september 25 2020 t5 approval of unnamed clubs revised number nine on attachment for or said from eric der der dearing to patricia null the next revision is at t6 which is approval of appointment of secondary extracurricular advisors delete on wayne hills list number eight daphna gary and number nine jen piro as fbla co-advisors add joseph torso student council advisor step 4 6 047 add fernanda saber rindo as student council advisor step four six thousand and forty seven dollars item number t7 approval of additional compensation number one six period assignments revised number 10 name should be jenna ferreira not jennifer ferrer

014on attach list t9 approval of leave requests delete item number one which is employee id 6108 in its entirety and lastly t11 approval of appointment of district leave requests i'm sorry approval of appointment of district substitutes ad number two tina parr which is a sub nurse daily rate of 200 a day that concludes the list of revisions for tonight's agenda thank you mr moffatt this time this portion of the meeting is open to citizens for comments on agenda items only residents are to state their name 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 a student the board bears no responsibility for comments made by the public comments regarding employees or students cannot be legally responded to by

015the board other comments may be responded to tonight or at subsequent meetings under old business can i get a mover mr bubba mr giordano okay i don't see any hands raised see no hands raised i move to close okay this is cher mr duffy okay sorry you'll have to wait to the second portion um moving on with the agenda item j approval of minutes can i get a mover i'll move it mr bubba second mr g are down now any discussion roll call mr moffatt mrs albanese yes mr bubba yes mr duffy yes mr giordano yes mrs kumar mark yes mrs pudup yeah mrs shearer and mrs kazan yes motion carries thank you at this time we'll have committee reports who would like to go first mr bubba yes to bring up the document okay

016facilities in transportation met tonight with myself mrs puttup mr maso mr mata and mr skibitski um first item on our list is the ecip2 is close one issues left in the contract that is being ironed out we're going to start with new bulbs because it's a quick way to get things going with savings seen right away we're also looking for a construction project meeting to happen in november so we can start planning out the rest of it the pto at james fallon has donated sixteen thousand nine hundred dollars for a new playground uh john is taking the lead and getting things ready and it will be started soon and done in three phases at ap trihome the pto donated a kiln for thirty four hundred dollars and we're saving the pto about 2500 because the

017facilities department is doing the installation on uh in-house so we're not paying anyone to come in and do it um the facilities department is reviewing their district responsibilities for their employees and job descriptions and they're looking at to see where they can make some efficiency changes cleaning and disinfecting is happening every day including saturday disinfecting is done daily starting at 3 30. so that's good for everybody the horri child center is just about complete finishing up the final details the carpet with the logos will be there monday and we also receive the town permit from the town to put up a vinyl fence that we will be moving forward with and then we discussed future projects for the um facilities department so we looked at phase three for the next generation science standard that wayne

018valley phase four for wayne hills with the next generation science labs two of those several buildings need fire alarm upgrades so we're going to be looking at that in the next couple of years seven of our elementary still need generators and that's a huge undertaking that we're going to have to do because every time we lose power it costs us money we have to put somebody on firewatch they have to stay in the building so down the road we are going to have to look at that we're also going to look at looking down the road at replacing six spoilers we are replacing some with the ecip at wayne valley but there's still six others um three routes that will need to be planned out over the next few years just to make sure they

019stay in good shape and electrical upgrades as we do the um generators and the boilers we'll be doing electrical upgrades to make sure that everything runs efficiently and that was the facilities part of this meeting and oh we all said one other thing the um november third presidential polling locations we actually asked the county last year to try to get us out of having them at the schools and this year they added four more so now we're going to be open in sixth school we're not gonna be in session so it's not a big deal from that perspective but we asked and they added so i don't understand um then we talked about transportation the opening weeks the transportation department is very pleased with how things are going right now they're running 25 54 seat

020bus with 127 routes there's 40 route vans covering 170 routes seven of those are out of district six others are in and out um the ecc challenges have happened with bus england so right now they started with 15 routes they now have 16 and they're heading towards 17. ridership about a thousand kids a day on the average are on the buses social distancing is going well there's a max of 17 kids on a 54 person bus disinfecting happens between every route right now we have 3 480 registered riders with 2464 bus stops every buses have drivers sometimes ridership can be low depending on the cohort schedule and parents taking their kids and dropping them off and some buses leave in the morning and basically they run routes all day long because they're going from the

021starting out at the high schools and going all the way through the rest of the bay our inspection schedule with the buses is going to happen late october and we will be prepared as always and then we have our yearly um transportation report that has to go to the state by october 30th that is being worked on and we'll be um done by that date and there's four events that are aging out at the end of the school year right now we are going to be buying two now and then we're going to look at two in the next when the next budget cycle comes around and that concludes my report as always very busy in the facilities department thank you mr bubba mr cher personnel uh this evening personnel met it was myself mr

022pavlock miss kumar miss kazan miss reischmann miss clark ms sir and mr dr trobeck so we discussed personnel issues unemployment and technology and scheduling for paraprofessionals thank you as always to monday confidential matters in personnel uh mr giordano communications thank you thank you um communications subcommittee met this evening it was composed of dr toback myself mr duffy and mrs dominis uh short but sweet one in this case we discussed issues based upon community input on various topics and we discussed many issues that were brought up in the press those that were considered major issues have been addressed earlier this evening and in previous meetings by dr toback and that is our report thank you anybody else me need to report okay very well moving on human resource items madam president if i could uh make

023a motion to move all uh as a consent agenda m through v okay second second mr share roll call mr moffat before the roll call we do need to read a retirement and a resolution so should i do that before the roll call do you think okay so mrs albanese if you don't mind doing the retirement yeah tonight we're going to read a retirement from margie kimmel margie is the true heart of pines lake school by her desk she has a sign that reads secretaries are the core of the school after 28 years of service this could not be more true mrs kimmel has served multiple generations of the pines lake community as and has ensured the smooth and effective functioning of the school the pines lake staff knows her as the problem solver and

024the resolutionist trusting in her experience and knowledge to resolve these issues beyond just the secretary mrs kimmel is also a trusted friend a helpful grandmother and a caring parent to many in the pines lake community to the pines lake families mrs kimmel is a welcoming presence she greets all families with kindness and represents pines lake school as the welcoming and inclusive environment that it is we are so very grateful for her many contributions and wish her the best of luck in her retirement the pines lake staff and community will miss her laughter and smile she has loved serving the pines lake community and only a pandemic could make her retire this is kimmel congratulations the best of luck enjoy your retirement and for me personally and for my three children thank you for all of

025the welcoming that you have done for every child who walks through those doors thank you and in honor of hispanic heritage month we have a resolution that will be read by mrs kumar resolution recognizing hispanic heritage month whereas from september 15 through october 15 2020 the united states celebrates hispanics heritage month whereas the borough of the census estimates hispanic population living in the 50 states at more than 59 million people plus an additional 3.3 million living in the commonwealth of puerto rico making hispanic americans 18 of the total population of the united states and the largest racial or ethnic minority group in the united states whereas in 2017 there are close to one million or more latino residents in the commonwealth of puerto rico and each of the states of arizona california colorado florida georgia

026illinois massachusetts nevada new jersey new mexico new york north carolina pennsylvania texas and washington whereas between july 1st 2008 and july 1st 2018 latinos grew the population of the united states by approximately one million two hundred thousand of the individuals accounting for more than one half of the total population growth during that period whereas the latino population the united states is projected to grow to 107 million people by 2065 which point the latino population will comprise more than 24 of the total population of the united states whereas the latino population in the united states is currently the third largest population of latinos worldwide exceeding the size of the population in every latin american and caribbean country except mexico and brazil whereas in 2018 there were more than 18 million 701 184 latino children under 18

027years of age in the united states which represents approximately one third of the total latino population in the united states whereas from 1996 to 2016 the number of hispanic students enrolled in schools colleges and universities in the united states doubled from eight million eight hundred thousand to seventeen million nine hundred thousand and hispanics now make up twenty two point seven percent of all people enrolled in this school in the united states whereas more than one in four public school students in the united states are latino and the share of latino students is expected to rise nearly 30 percent by whereas 19 percent of all college students are latino making latinos the second largest racial or ethnic minority group enrolled in higher education in the united states including two-year community colleges and four-year colleges and universities

028whereas a record twelve million seven hundred thousand latinos voted in the presidential election representing a record 9.2 percent of the electorate in the united states whereas the number of eligible latino voters is expected to rise to 40 million by 2030 accounting for 40 of the growth in the eligible electorate in the united states by 2032 whereas each year approximately 800 000 latino citizens reach 18 years of age and become eligible to vote a number that could grow to 1 million per year additionally adding 18 million new latino voters by 2032 whereas in 2018 the annual purchasing power of hispanic americans is estimated 1.7 trillion dollars which is an amount greater than the than the economy of all except 17 countries in the world whereas there are more than four million three hundred seventy thousand hispanic-owned

029firms in the united states supporting millions of employees nationwide and contributing more than one trillion seven hundred billion in revenue to the economy of the united states whereas hispanic-owned businesses represent the fastest growing segment of small businesses in the united states with latino owned businesses growing at more than 15 times the national rate whereas as of august 2018 more than 28 million latino workers represented 17 percent of the total civilian labor force of the united states and as a result of latinos experiencing the fastest population growth of all race and ethnicity groups in the united states the rate of the latino participation in the labor force is expected to grow 20 by 2024 accounting for one-fifth of the total label labor force whereas with 66.1 percent of latinos participating in the labor force latinos have

030the highest rate of participation in the labor force of any racial or ethnic group resulting in an expansion of the latino labor force at a rate that is three times as fast as the rest of the population whereas as of 2017 there are approximately three hundred twenty six thousand eight hundred latino elementary and middle school teachers 77 033 latino chief executives of business 54 576 latino lawyers 73 372 latino physicians and surgeons and 15 895 latino psychologists who contribute to the united states through their professions whereas hispanic americans serve in all branches of the armed forces and have fought bravely in every war in the history of the united states whereas as of 2019 there are more than 000 hispanic members of the armed forces serving on active duty and approximately 1.2 million hispanic veterans

031in the armed forces including 136 thousands latinas whereas as of 2018 more than 399 thousand hispanics served in the post september 11 2001 overseas contingency operations and hispanics represent 12.1 percent of the total number of veterans who have served in operations in iraq and afghanistan since september 11 2001 whereas as of august 2019 at least 688 fatalities in iraq and afghanistan were members of the armed forces who were hispanic whereas an estimated 200 000 hispanics were mobilized for world war one and approximately 500 000 hispanics served in world war ii whereas more than 80 000 hispanics served in the vietnam war representing 5.5 percent of individuals who made the ultimate sacrifice in the united states in the conflict even though hispanics comprised only 4.5 of the population of the united states during the vietnam war

032whereas approximately 148 000 hispanic soldiers served in the korean war including the 65th infantry regiment of the commonwealth of puerto rico known as the bariqueneers the only active duty segregated latino military unit in the history of the united states whereas 60 hispanic americans have received the congressional medal of honor the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force bestowed on an individual serving in the armed forces whereas hispanic americans are dedicated public servants holding posts at the highest levels of government in the united states including one seat on the supreme court of the united states four seats in the senate and 36 seats in the house of representatives and whereas hispanic americans harbor a deep commitment to family and community an enduring work ethic and a perseverance to succeed and contribute to society

033now therefore it be resolved that the wayne board of education one recognizes the celebration of hispanic heritage month from september 15 2020 through october 15 2020 2 esteems the integral role of latinos and the manifold heritage of latinos in the economy culture and identity of the united states and three urges the residents of wayne to observe hispanic heritage month with appropriate programs and activities that celebrate the contributions of latinos to the united states thank you mrs kumar while that may have seemed long it certainly was eye-opening and we're thankful for the contributions of our latino americans um thank you for taking the time to read that and i'm assuming there'll be lots of things going on throughout this month in the schools to continue to honor those contributions and to teach our students what they're

034about at this time we'll go to the second public portion oh i'm sorry you have to do a roll call mr mike right it's been so long since we've made the motion right mr duffy made a motion for item m through v which was seconded by mrs sheer and i'll call roll mr bubba yes to and i'll abstain on my name on the immersion i think it's t items or the v vietnam or the s item sorry um my name in the uh number seven on the yes i am just everything else mr dovey yes yes yes dear dano i'll stay on s7 and yes on everything else mrs kumar uh abstain from s7 with my name and yes on everything else mrs put up uh yes on everything except item s7 my name mrs

035shear yes to everything except i'll stand on s7 for my name mrs albanese yes and i'll abstain on s7 for my name mrs kazan yes it's staying at s7 motion carries thank you very much okay back to the 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 a student the board bears no responsibility for comments made by the public comments regarding employees or students cannot be legally responded to by the board other comments may be responded to tonight or at subsequent meetings under old business can i get a mover move i think that was mr duffy

036and mrs cher we're ready good evening board members uh my name is dennis carroll and i'm making a statement on behalf of the wayne education association representative council few things are more difficult to deal with than the issue of race uh our history includes the sanctioned excuse me the sanctioned kidnapping enslavement of africans brought to america for the express purpose of forced unpaid labor after slavery black citizens endured the everyday violations of their rights tactics including lynching burning of their homes and churches and other forms of domestic terrorism began their citizenship their voting rights their simple rights to go about their life without harassment was dishonored from this from that day to the present we see nightly evidence of how far we have to go in providing all americans with the same rights as others

037not only in words but in deeds our black citizens have always been the victim of this crippling racism the biggest difference is now it's being videotaped we have to believe our eyes we have a race problem and it permeates every community in ways that we see and in ways that we don't wayne is certainly no different over the past several board meetings many of our students and former students shared their first-hand accounts of the many racial divides that our district still needs to overcome we are asking that we all do a better job of listening and responding to their concerns at last month's meeting there were those in the board disregarding the speakers and instead focused on their devices or other matters the kids spoke of their experience of being marginalized please understand that your

038lack of attention towards our students and their experience was in fact an act of marginalization while board members displayed various levels of attention last month's meeting game innate gave a name and a face to that indifference and we're speaking to you mr bubba and we're speaking of you they shared their heartbreaking stories of racial prejudice and their day-to-day burden of studying while being non-white and waned while this was going on it was clear you weren't listening while some spoke you're visibly laughing it's unacceptable please please understand that when people see board members acting in such an apathetic fashion it naturally gives rise to questions about how seriously they are taking this issue and i'm certainly not speaking to all members moving the district forward is difficult when there's indifference and unwillingness to change but our

039students feel this pain our society and our schools must start to seriously and thoughtfully deal with the causes as well as the effects of prejudice to all the groups that suffer we command the district in moving forward and developing a program to deal with this problem what we heard tonight was absolutely fantastic mr baba we would invite you to join this effort so that you can better understand the problem and so that you can participate in the conversations and the solutions our kids are smart they can see through in sincere efforts they want to know that the district cares and that they will do something about it something meaningful something real to these students and former students that have spoken know that we hear you we understand your pain and we know that we have

040to do more we know that we have to do better and that we the educators also need to grow to learn and to better understand your concerns and your fears we're committed to working to fix these problems to that end the wa has formed a social justice team in conjunction with social justice advocates from around the state our only goal is honest conversation in real action uh we were we are looking forward to working in concert with the district uh in this effort if not we can work without them but no we'll be working and your teachers are here to listen to learn and to help make our schools welcoming to all thank you very much thank you mr carroll next mrs kazan the next two speakers have an older version of zoom which won't

041allow them to participate i'm sorry i think i was on mute uh cheryl nyberlin and edward nazarco uh you will need to phone in if you want to make a public comment your zoom is not compatible hopefully you can do that i don't see any other hands raised is there anyone else that wanted to make a comment i don't see anyone else at this time so if those two callers have a question feel free to email the board or the superintendent because unfortunately we cannot hear you madam presidency nobody else moved to close mr duffy mr bubba okay thank you moving on to old business anyone new business this is cher uh yes i just wanted to ask a few questions myself um my first question is i know that dr toback had mentioned the

042computers for the elementary school teachers i was just wondering what the turnaround time was going to be for that um and i'd also like to get if we can get a very clear explanation on how the the wellness wednesdays work across the board from my understanding i was told that elementary had to present new material where as middle school and high school were not presenting new material and to me that seems like a conflict why some would have to and some wouldn't so maybe i'm not understanding it correctly um so i think that that the parents and myself i don't know if any other board members and staff if you could just go through and explain exactly what a wednesday should look like for the teachers and the students that would really help me um

043and on that note i just wanted to say thank you to the teachers that have reached out to board members i'm assuming that you're all following the proper chain of command and going through your your principles and your supervisors first but as a board member i do appreciate if you want to be heard we we appreciate hearing from you i appreciate hearing from you so thank you for all the teachers that reached out and i tried to get back to most of them i'm sorry it got a little overwhelming so i was not able to reach out to everybody thank you yeah sure so there's two questions the first one is about the computer turnaround for the elementary teachers so we did order um at the very beginning of the week probably monday we ordered

044approximately um new dell inspiron computers at a cost of about 286 000 so there's a process involved in distributing the computers because ultimately district software has to go on those computers there's an image that has to be produced on each and all the software licensing and all the other details that go along with distributing a large number of computers off to be taken care of adding that all together adding delivery time the estimate from the beginning of the week was about four to five weeks it may be sooner than that and the reason why we might be able to do some things a little bit sooner is because we would like to do the distribution in phases so as soon as we have a certain grade level number ready to go we'd like to distribute

045at those grade levels and we know that one of the grade levels on the lower grade levels k12 especially are the grade levels that are really having problems when they have dropped google needs and they're experiencing difficulties with technology ultimate's very hard to get the students back so that's the grade level that we would like to focus on first those three grade levels and then distribute to grades three four and five so that's so hopefully like i said within about a month all the teachers should have the new computers in hand okay so that's that question um so wellness wednesdays are things that have been you know a lot of people have asked about wellness wednesday from parents to you know there's a variety of questions about it there's a very thorough explanation that exists

046in our back-to-school plan and there's also a very thorough explanation that exists in our parent guide so in in in some the the wellness wednesdays provide um opportunities for students and teachers to one pursue wellness goals so there are obviously some some wellness activities that can be associated we've only had a few so far it is true that at the elementary level they became more instructional than as opposed to the high schools and the middle schools so there's no question about that however a change was made this week to allow for additional activities um so there's there's some programs in art there's programs in physical education um relaxation techniques things like that so we have made a change at the elementary level based on some of the concerns that have been expressed about the act

047the academic nature of the wellness wednesdays well certainly there is an important part of academics that still can be incorporated as far as additional tutoring as far as providing help to students that are in need of help students who have questions it's also an important aspect of meeting the needs of our special needs students so in the end those students also receive services on those days so there's no clear-cut way of saying definitively every teacher will do this every teacher will do that that is not part of what wellness wednesday is about but there are common programs and some other things that we will be doing along those themes along with like i said opportunities to reach out and also opportunities for teachers to plan and prepare themselves for the next coming the coming days

048so that's the general idea behind the wellness wednesdays and mrs reichman i don't know if you had any other comments you'd like to make about wellness wednesdays are you good i think i think you covered it um beginning next week there'll be a number of additional wellness activities that will be offered by the specialists along with counselors and anything from art music media activities that could be presented as well as providing additional time which i think you already said for remediation small group instruction and an opportunity to just review the lessons and material that was taught throughout the week i i think that's really good i think you covered it whole business hey hi this is kumar um so along the lines of the wednesdays um i think there may have been something mentioned about

049this in facilities um but there are teachers that need to use the wi-fi on wednesdays and have been requesting to come into school they said they've been addressed um i just wanted to know what the status of that was okay so i sent out an email to our staff members based on some feedback that ultimately teachers were interested in coming to school on wednesdays to take advantage of the resources they have to take advantage of the technology so we offered that earlier this week to teachers if they wanted to come in on wednesday what we did do the prior week was we adjusted our cleaning so that way the intense cleaning that happens on a wednesday happens on the second shift so the same amount of cleaning goes on that goes on during the second

050shift instead of the first shift that allows teachers to come in the only thing that we ask the teachers to do is if you do come in on wednesday you have to be out by 3 30 so that ultimately the district's cleaning process also can be can be followed very good anyone else new business word comments this is put up i'd like to thank mr carroll for calling in this evening uh what he had to say is extremely important and the district has also been working on plans as outlined by mrs reichman to help inculcate better understanding of systemic racism in our district and making steps to prevent it thank you i also want to thank the teachers who reached out i feel for you having been an elementary teacher myself unfortunately uh solutions will

051not happen overnight i know that the administration is working on that so please hang in there and feel free to email at any time thank you have a good day okay anyone else all right i'll wrap up i echo my colleagues sentiments about our teachers we received your emails they were passed along to administration um we are listening and as i said at the last meeting like any plan there's a time to plan and there's a time to implement and now we're seeing the bugs the kinks the glitches and we'll address them as quickly as we can but uh know that we're here to support you and we appreciate the feedback thank you mr carroll also um that sounds like a very interesting initiative that i'm sure we'll have discussions with with administration just to

052see how we can possibly incorporate that and share what we're doing as well i want to thank the pto's who always are so generous uh the playground initiative for fallon is amazing and the apt kiln that's a nice contribution and uh thank you to all the ptos i'm sure there'll be more to come because as always you're very generous and we appreciate that so if there's nothing else i'll take a move to close mr bubba again thank you all and have a good evening