001they are dedicating tonight's moment of silence it's with a heavy heart we dedicate tonight's moment of silence to our dear friend employee and longtime lain resident Suzanne Kerensky Suzanne passed away peacefully with her family by her side on May 29 after a hard-fought battle with the coronavirus she leaves behind her loving husband of 40 years Jay her two daughters Jaime and Sarah along with her husband Darrell and her beloved granddaughter Sadie Willard Suzanne was a dynamo who was involved in every aspect of her children's lives as well as service to the community while raising her girls she was involved in the PTO nurse at Camp Barrett Ann's as well as the cooking lady and produced countless plays at the Y in her spare time she continued her education and became a certified school nurse as
002well as received her master's of curriculum and instruction when supervise her certification from Colwell College Suzanne returned to work as a school nurse in 1998 and dedicated more than 20 years to the Wayne Public Schools she began a school nurse at Schuyler Colfax middle school went on to become lead nurse and finally serving in her role as supervisor of health services as part of the Wayne schools administration the governor honored her service during a press conference on Tuesday this virus is cutting too many lives short we mourn them all Suzanne's family has set up a scholarship in her name and anyone wishing to donate can send a check made out to the Wayne Board of Education with a note specifying it is for the Suzanne Kerensky Memorial Scholarship and send it to the board offices
003at fifteen Ellis Drive our hearts go out to Suzanne's family and long list of dear friends as we say goodbye to a selfless woman who gave so much to so many rest in peace Suzanne we will all miss you flag salute please rise I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America you could I mean everybody I can't so I can sue the Republic for which it stands one nation okay no whirlpool again right mr. Moffet we'll go straight to the superintendent's report dr. tobik just quickly before I get to my report it would also like to echo the sentiment expressed by so many people miss Kazan in her state and many others regarding Suzanne Krantz key she was truly a person who was loved by everyone who met her she just
004she is she had such a presence and our board office she was so rooted in the community as a professional there is there is no one who was more up to speed and aware of issues related to school nursing and we miss her every day we miss her every day she is in real real source of strength for the school district for so many years and there's so many programs and so many things that happen in the school system that in many ways have her as the foundation so there's there's no there's no words that can describe the loss that we experienced so now well I'd like to get on to another topic that is very important in the community like to as part of my administrative summary report I'd like to talk about graduation
005so it's very important for leaders to stay calm and focus their thinking even the most difficult of times and at this point I would think we can all agree that were at a difficult moment I'd like to suspend our district goal report later to our next Board of Ed meeting to make time to talk about what matters most right now which is the recognition of our high school seniors under normal conditions the community would enjoy a host of wonderful in person that recognized our seniors as they move on to the next phase of the lives sadly all these events were taken for our seniors and their families and we can all sympathize now we are in a state of disarray as a community when it comes to recognizing our seniors this is only adding to
006the difficulties for the class of 2020 and creating turmoil fact is that Kota 19 continues and will continue to create turmoil adding to the turmoil are the constant changes in the form of executive orders that happen with little or no advance notice adding to the problem are examples that run counter to social distancing requirements one example I've heard repeatedly is how come a thousand people will be allowed on a beach with social distancing but we can't hold a socially distant graduation for our students there dozens of questions there's examples counter examples and she answers as always our top priority is the safety and well-being of our students and staff members as well you can be very careful to adhere to the executive orders and social distancing requirements the district has struggled keeping up with executive
007orders because there is a press conference there are questions from the community and expectation for a response and then days later guidance from the New Jersey Department of Education nobody is to blame because these are unprecedented times but we are constantly playing catch-up latest changes were announced on June 9th at 1:00 p.m. with little advance notice States limit on indoor gatherings went from 10 to 50 people and the limit on outdoor gatherings went from 25 to 100 people the number for outdoor gatherings will increase to 250 on June 22nd and to 500 people on July 3rd assuming the downward trends in the state's Cova 19 outbreak continues and means New Jersey schools would be permitted to hold outdoor graduations up to 500 people as of July 6 prior to this announcement just two days ago
008the school district was constrained with a limit of 25 people for an outdoor event he's still a requirement we are unable to have any modified in-person event before July 6 at that point were able to host an event for up to 500 people which still does not allow for a traditional graduation event for a large school like ours where we have an overall attendance of at least 2,000 people we oregano understood the anguish so many were feeling and he recognized the constraints the district faced he sought to resolve the problem they're working with other residents to hold a full graduation event on June 18th and when Valley on June 19 through Wayne Hills the Board of Education respects any effort to help the community through a difficult situation in an unprecedented time what's the best
009for our students the Board of Education has made it very clear that we want nothing more than to celebrate the class of 2020 with all of our students we are unable to do what the mayor is planning in a fortunate part with the municipal graduation event is that the school district is unable to be officially involved involved because we would be violating executive orders and we would be risking state aid and other action against the district and employees so it's not that we don't want to be involved keep in mind that I am NOT suggesting in any way that staff members cannot attend nor have I direct anyone to not attend but staff members cannot take an official role we're all living under these executive orders and there's certainly beyond my role as a superintendent
010of schools to violate any of them because they are in place to protect all residents from Cova 19 as we all know Lane was not untouched by Kovan 19 in our district suffer greatly with the loss of a beloved colleague and longtime resident as you heard just a few moments earlier again our first priority must be the safety and well-being of students and staff members some of the questions the school district would ask if we were running a large school event include what implications and liabilities exists when holding such a large event during this public health crisis what about the spread of Kovan 19 and what happens if a resident does become seriously ill or worse who would be held responsible and what kind of legal defense could be offered how do we reconcile that
011almost every major college and university just under this academic year with virtual events due to executive orders and safety concerns I believe it as a community we can do better what I'm suggesting is that we meet with mayor verrano and try to discuss this issue further but expectedly we are able have up to 500 people at a school sponsored graduation event which is still not a full graduation but we have a good option with that five hundred percent limit the other option is to recognize this year for what it is it's a year like no other one possibility is that we may not be able to find another way to move ahead in that case rather than add to any turmoil or confusion community that might exist the school district would state take a step
012back we scheduled the broadcast of our virtual graduation to a date and time that does not conflict with the events for June 18th and June 19th even though our graduation was scheduled for that day June 18th at and then consider other options but do not interfere with the municipal events of Jamaica and Jamaica regardless of any other outcome we wish our graduates and families well as they enjoy the recognition from the municipality on June 18th and 19th and we look forward to seeing all of you on July 30th but what will be a wonderful graduation event another way for the class of 2020 to look at this is that instead of having one awesome graduation you will now have to this point I'd like to open the floor for board members just discuss these ideas
013and offer other options anyone wishing to speak so if the trend keeps going that we can that it's going to be 500 on July 6th now I realize that that doesn't allow for one graduation for each high school because we'd probably need about a thousand people at a minimum based on 300 plus students to parents and staff so you're probably at a thousand if not a little bit more at that point but the trend is leaning towards higher numbers if we kept the Savior date date which you know I thought was crazy in the beginning just based on the do-e and the fact that we weren't allowed to have any in-person graduations question is would we be lucky enough to be able to do something on the 30th with a full graduation rather than right
014now it looks like it would be two graduations per school and that would be if you did them on the same day you'd have to do them staggered because you have to clean according to the rules set out by the governor and that situation so the other day when we discuss things I think keeping that date and being able to do a full graduation that is our best opportunity it's not going to happen on July 6th as the governor has said because it max it's going to be 500 people so that's my thought keep the date and let's see if we can get a full graduation in school more okay so as far as the overall situation as we discussed yes till I 30th hopefully we could have even possibly more than 500 people my
015concern first of all as the mayor decides to go through with this and the governor has stated that it's against the law that he goes through with this and there's no social distancing because he's expecting everyone to arrive at the exact same time so that's something we need to consider more on our end as a district when we're talking about our possibility even on July 30th so staggering people as they enter so that's just a general concern and then when we talk about July 30th maybe people may not want to go on July 30th if they decided to go to the mayor celebration it might be worth it for us to put out some type of student survey or parent survey to see what their interest is and also keeping in mind who knows based
016upon some of the statements by the governor today it might be called off in some way shape or form based upon what has been said today in the press conference anyone else this is fun I agree with mr. Bubba that our best option is July 30th and I'm hoping that the governor eases the restrictions even more after July 6 you speak a little louder please I'm hoping that the governor will ease the restrictions even more after July 6 so that we can have a graduation similar to the one in the past I know that we all want to wish the class of 2020 well and the best way we can do that is by keeping well thank you mrs. Potter anyone else okay the only thing I want to say is hopefully in spite of
017the governor's comments today that it's the event is happening on the 18th and 19th or run smoothly and actually happen then after that we have a lot to think about we have to think about either more opening up of the state which could work in our favor if we want to do the July 30th and then on July 30th if he governor opens things up sooner because right now it's 500 at July 3rd who knows maybe by July 10th he's gonna say you know what all bets are off no-limit outdoors which will be wonderful because then we could plan a full event for each high school so at this point I think we should give it a couple weeks and revisit it because right now we only know what we know and that's been the
018problem all along obviously with the planning process because it's you know death by a thousand cuts and then ripping the band off band-aid off so slowly so I definitely agree we should continue thinking about our July event and wait and see for now let's hope it all goes well again for the graduates and I think moving the virtual was a nice idea fully support that because then they can have that event their event every event here event their event so hopefully like I said the governor will continue to lift the restrictions into July and you can revisit this at our July meeting and for now continue with the save the date of July 30th if the board is in agreement with that I don't think we're voting on it we're just talking about it am
019I correct mr. dr. Toback I'm sorry yes the other thing I just want to throw in there is just the idea of moving the the virtual event so both high schools have excellent virtual events that are in production they're scheduled to be delivered on the 18th however that obviously that does conflict at this point the board does have as part of its normal process you approve a date for graduation so it is something that we we normally do this is obviously very unusual you year so a virtual event is the board have any preference to when we would we would show the virtual event is that something that you would like to talk about or is that something you would like us to consider and coordinate with the mayors of N and with our with
020our administrators I think that's a decision I don't I don't have an issue with you and the principal's deciding that anyone else okay mrs. Sherrod did you miss all of that I unfortunately I did miss most of it because I'm my son was receiving an award I was watching so I'm very exciting about that wonderful congratulations I want an update real quick yes if you won't mind I would greatly appreciate it I'll give you the I'll give you the Reader's Digest is mr. kempert showing his age well basically we're talking about movie virtual does anyone have a preference on date so that it won't conflict with the events that are already scheduled for the 18th and 19th and then July keeping our July date with the hope that and dr. doback was just saying it
021even at 500 it's not a full graduation because for the number of students we can't get everybody in when you add parents etc unless we did it in two stages yadda yadda but the bottom line is we're all pretty optimistic that come July just like he's told us every couple weeks here's more here's more here's more we can most likely have a full-scale graduation if we just hold off another couple weeks in wait and see and you know see that the other events go smoothly and then go from there and discuss this at a later meeting and just keep xxx for now so this is comment time if you had anything you wanted to add oh I have a lot of the dish a lot I want to add but okay I'm not going to
022at the moment we're not all gonna cry tonight are we okay is and this is really like for the public that's listening and watching right now as I sit here I'm a board member unfortunately I cannot take my heart out of it because I have a graduating senior and I were graduating eighth grader it's horrible what everybody's had to go through this time whether it's a graduation a loss of a family member no matter what the extent that this is affected people is horrible however what I do need the public to know is that the be commenting and the obnoxious meaning meaningless remarks that are being made about the administration and the Board of Ed is very that is one reason that I'm so emotional right now is because I sit here you think we
023just meet every other week there is so much more to this job that goes into it an administration has been planning since day one for these kids to have an in-person graduation whether people want to believe that or not I have been fighting since day one for my child to walk across the stage along with all of his friends and that includes hills and valley kids because my husband and I are very involved in the community and the fact that parents would think that we really for them to say that that some of these people do not care about these kids is so hurtful and I just want people to know that it is so hurtful and that this administration has done everything to make sure that this district stays top-notch through a time where
024we have no idea what to expect these teachers have stepped up and done everything that they've needed to and these teachers deserve the right to go and say goodbye to their children those are their children too and they I'm a teacher I spend more time with some of these kids than some of the parents do these are our kids we want to say goodbye to them these teachers want to say goodbye the staff wants to say goodbye unfortunately the mayor did not involve us in his plans and I wish that we had worked together my only suggestion at this point and then I'll done my speech but my only suggestion is this point is that the shared services committee meets with the mayor and we try to come together to bring this town back together
025so that we can do exactly what everybody is saying they want done celebrate for the children it's not about the moms the dads the guardians it's about the seniors and I'd love to say the eighth graders to fix car all of them I wish we could celebrate all of them in this manner but for right now if everybody truly truly believes that this is about their seniors and not about them then let the school system do their job and the school systems job is to graduate their class mr. rue ik and mr. pals loose have the right to stand there and graduate they're seniors on their football fields at the place where they have put in all their time and effort for four years and anybody who wants to talk to me it's s sheer
026at Wayne schools calm please if you have any questions or you doubt that I am fighting for my own child let alone yours please contact me because I would love to talk to you about it that's that's all I have to say sorry I took so much time Thank You mr. Sher you have every right to speak on this topic mrs. Kumar I did want to say and this was I was waiting for the right time and I feel like it is the right time now so this is my last class of students that will be graduating this year as seniors I had them as freshmen in the chemistry courses and it's very emotional for me I don't know when I'm gonna go back to teaching I'm at home with my son and I do
027miss teaching and I miss being with those kids and the idea as Stacey said that we are not interested in graduating them is just not true and if you have actually watched any of the board meetings since this all happened almost every meeting someone has said something about the seniors someone has said something about trying to get them to graduate in person and really honoring them and if we take a look everything that the seniors have asked for and the parents have asked for in their surveys we've looked at that and we felt again that if we can push back the date we could have try and grant more of the wishes that were asked for in that senior survey so again if you really have questions about things and you want to know what
028we think I think it's important to ask and really go to the source and I think some of that is part of what's going on here but we really do want the seniors to graduate with their teachers with the staff with the community that they want say goodbye do cuz that's what it's about for them I know parents want to see their kids graduate I know that's important too but it's also you know some of its the rite of passage for the students say goodbye to that community they've been with for the past four years and we all want that for them thank you mrs. Kumar anyone else I think I've expended enough emotion but I will say one thing I hate Facebook that's it it's not a way to communicate with the board it's
029not a way to communicate with anybody on a serious matter or topic if you want to talk to any of us we're available we serve you you elected us to serve you and to protect and educate your children and we take that job very seriously we're gonna get upset go ahead dr. Tariq stop the Facebook we have email addresses ID I'm not gonna read it anymore I'm gonna kill my account so I just wanted to let the board know that mr. schirra brought up the potential of having a shared services committee meeting and so she brought that up and I just wanted to make sure that we didn't move on to the next section of the meeting if there's further discussion who's the chair of the committee we haven't had one since I've been president
030I don't even recall right now I don't know if we made a chair per se I feel I think it might be me maybe it's me no well anyway I know I'm on it so you know you got two people on the committee better willing to meet you I believe all committee McDonough and I who's the administrator dr. Toback you yes well feel free to call a meeting okay it's an established committee I don't know what we're gonna discuss but we can talk about that with an agenda prior to should we go on with the rest of the admin summary with your report yes yes please okay thank you so um there's a few things I'd just like to talk about this evening one of them is the work of the reopening school committee so
031classroom school buses schedules food service extracurriculars classroom activities projects assemblies shared experiences every part of the school day before and after school experience will need to be modified consideration given to social distancing to resume operations next year and in addition to all the work associated with closing this school year we're also working on a comprehensive plan to reopen for next year so I'm having a report that the district has a good start and considering many of these issues as a return to school committee and eight subcommittee is continue their work considering these many issues one of the things that I think is helpful was the creation of a mock classroom at Randal Carter elementary school which helped greatly with be able to see exactly how a socially distance classroom would look does not look like
032the rich learning environment we normally have because under social distancing many items that would normally be kept in a classroom would need to be removed students are spaced at least six feet apart there are 83 staff members oh and I'm going to share out a photo of that classroom with all of you and this is part of perhaps can describe a little bit more because I'm asked her to talk a few minutes there are 83 staff members and five parents that are involved with our committees and subcommittees and we're all so happy this week 12 and Chris Smith the Wayne Boys and Girls Club to take part in our discussion we also welcome other community agencies to take part in these discussions so that we can share ideas in here are the perspectives if there
033any community agencies that would like to take part in these discussions about reopening school social distancing or any of the practices that the district is considering as we look forward to reopen next year please feel free to reach out I'll be happy to include you just put up you are the board member who is the delegate to the committee and so I was learning if you had any comments you would like to share with the board thank you dr. doback I've been sitting in on some of the committee meetings I'm overwhelmed by the amount of planning and work that it will take to reopen in September knowing that in all probability that some type of social distancing will have to take place so a lot of the committee's are coming up with plan a plan
034B Plan C one of the communities I'm sitting on is assessing student progress in the fall when they return how do we do that on the secondary level many classes stand alone you might have US history one may be a lead into US history too but you have to identify the important components of you assisting one before they move and what did they miss as they're coming into US history - math is important because math skills build one on another so they will have the assessed foreign language skills will have to be assessed as students move on to the next level on the elementary level and on the secondary level we've talked about the social and emotional health of our students we're not going to assess some of the day they walk into the building
035we need to give them time to adjust we have certain programs in place like I ready or in the elementary level that will help us figure out where the kids are in their academic development we're going to pay special attention to and have a summer session for our special education students we have we're aware of our basic skills students English as a second language students and we just want to engage where they are but all so first have them feel comfortable coming back to the environment then we get into PPE will students be required to wear a face mask when they come to school what will that look like on the elementary level how can we pull that off will it be face shields the PPE committee and other committees have reached out to experts
036in the community help that the PPE committee has has reached out to healthcare professionals to get their opinions about various equipment that we might need I said I'm on the disinfecting committee mr. miso has always done a great job he's trying to figure out how to deploy his staff to make sure that there's a third shift on what it looks like right now that will come in after the general cleaning of the buildings for disinfecting we have a parent on the committee whose real life job is disinfecting commercial properties and he's been very helpful as far as you know types of cleaners and what needs to be done there are some that will last for 48 hours but you also have to make sure things are safe for our students and for our staff so
037there are a lot of things being taken into consideration I've been very impressed with the work that's being done as we move forward and it will be ongoing during the summer so that's my report thank you I just have two final things first of all in response to some concerns that have been expressed by some former students regarding the diversification of our curriculum we're working on developing a strict goal for next year at this point we've created a draft goal which is focused on diversity equity and inclusion has a far reach into many areas of our operations so we look forward to sharing some more about this goal in the coming weeks finally my HIV report during this investigative period there were five incidents reported as HIV after her investigate one of those reported incidents
038was found to be an actual case of HIV and they said we would normally do our end of your goal summary report but we're going to forego that knowing that we've already cut a lot of time and we can do that the next meeting and I think it would work out better then that's ignore call dr. Kovac so we got HIV you report tables for now revisions to the agenda mr. Moffitt yes we have a few items tonight in the public work session area under M the human resource section we have a change in m1 which is a PDS approval for extracurricular coaches we are adding wayne hills number 22 Ryan Bailey change from assistant coach soccer boys to head coach soccer boys step for eight thousand six hundred and ninety five we have under
039M 12 salary Justin we're going to revise number one on attachment the spelling should be V ITT ozi under o PWS resource school resource finance will be moving the PWS item school resource finance which is the approval of a finance energy savings plan down to the section v under emergent resource finance as new item 3 I'll go into that later in agenda we have an item in t emergent human resources T 13 approval of additional compensation that reads revised resolution to read resolved at the Board of Education upon the recommendation of the superintendent approves the following additional compensation for staff members for the 2019 2020 and the 2020 - 2021 school year in the emergent school resource we have that moved item from the PWS which is approval to average for bids to finance energy
040savings planned project we will be amending the date in paragraph 4 and it will be changed from February 14 2022 June 2nd 2020 and we're going to be inserting and adding two sections the first section reads as follows the energy savings plan submitted by Ameresco and developed with the professional staff of the Board of Education dated June 2nd 2020 or as otherwise determined by the business administrator for Secretary of the Board of Education is hereby approved and adopted as the energy savings plan of the school district section 2 right after that states the board approves and adopts the recommendation of approval from the Board of Public Utilities of the energy savings plan dated June 2nd 2020 and authorizes the Board of Education to post on its website in accordance to n JSA 18 : 18
041a - 4.6 C parentheses 3 further down on the agenda under X which is emergent school resource legal we're adding two items tonight the first item is the approval of memorandum of agreement which reads which is for the teamsters which is recommended as reads resolved at the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent hereby approves the memorandum of agreement between the Wayne board of education and local 11 affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters dated June 3 2024 an extension of the collective bargain agreement for a one-year period from July 1 2020 through June 30 2021 and further authorizes the board president and secretary to execute same on behalf of the board the business administrator and superintendent are authorized to take all further steps required by the terms of the memorandum of agreement
042to further implement sane the other additional one is number 2 which is the approval of the memorandum of agreement which is WPA and that reads resolved at the board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent nearby improves the memorandum of agreement between the Wayne Township Board of Education and the Wayne paraprofessional Association dated June 9 2024 an extension of the collective bargaining agreement for a one-year period from July 1 2020 through June 30 2021 and further authorizes the board president and secretary to execute same on behalf of the board the business administrator and superintendent are authorized to make all further steps required by the terms of the memorandum of agreement to further implement same that concludes the revision to tonight's agenda thank you very much mr. Moffat this is the public portion on agenda
043items only this portion of the movie so miss Kazan I'm so sorry to cut you off before you go on can you just mr. Moffat can you just tell me the revision I missed the one for the memorandum for the paraprofessionals that what the number was it is x number two okay thank you sorry Thanks okay back to the public portion this portion of the meeting is open to citizens for comment on agenda items only residents are to save their name addresses in 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
044be responded to tonight or at subsequent meetings under oath business can I get a mover I move mr. chair mrs. Kumar I see one hand raised at the moment hello hi please state your name and address for the record my name is Kim totora I live at 11 South Pole Court and I'd like to make a comment with regards to the graduation portion of tonight's meeting I in the beginning of the meeting when dr. Toback was talking I thought it was great and I'd like to acknowledge that I'm hearing that the town and everybody wants to come together we'd like to give the students if possible three graduations a virtual the mayor ceremony and the school traditional one if possible because these students have been robbed of most of the rest of their senior year
045and I really want to acknowledge that that was great and it finally started sounding like a coming together and focused on the students and trying to get them some memories and something other than a void for their senior year but I do have to comment that towards the end once again I heard division and blame and negativity and I just wish we could stay away from that I hear that you know it's you know it's not an either/or these two ceremonies I think what the mayor is doing while it's not traditional it's something to possibly get these students together in case the governor ties our hands further and there can't be a second ceremony and I acknowledge that we love our students to get together with their teachers and administration and all of you but
046it doesn't have to be an either/or and it doesn't have to be any negativity in addition I heard that we should be going to the source and I just want to acknowledge I sent all of you attending this meeting here and email two weeks ago a positive email no negativity we had over a hundred parents from both wayne hills and wayne valley come together and what we brought were some real positive three simple proposals to try and get keep things positive and i did not hear back from any of you other than one person so when I'm hearing here's my email address and reach out to me I did and you did not respond to me so I apologize I'm insulted by the end comments but I want to acknowledge and thank the beginning comments
047especially dr. Toback what he took us through and I we could get all three ceremonies and I'd love to the kids to acknowledge all three and what is important about the first ceremony is there are children who are leaving for school and I know one in particular leaving for military school and will not be able to attend the leader ceremony so please keep that in mind and as the negative comments came in we kept saying let's focus on the kids but it sounded like let's focus on the students if the school can be involved and I want you to know parents had also opted to say if you can bring the students together even without us we'll help with that so I just hope that we could stay closer to the beginning of the comments
048and positive and not get back to all that negativity towards the end and you were reached out too so thank you thank you ma'am let's see another phone number so we'll need to know your name and address so you know who we're talking so we're hearing from rather Stewart Reznor 82 new Street can you hear me yes sir you know I really don't understand what the mayor thinks he's doing and I'm I am really annoyed by it the school board seems to me has a purview over graduation and where the mayor ever got the idea that he could unilaterally do something like this when we look at today's data that 26 states or 52 percent of the states are reporting an uptick in corona virus cases in the last month another eight states or sixteen
049percent are considered to be flat the remaining 16 states are 32 percent have decreasing coded 19 cases it's astonishing me to me that a man who went before the township every day for a while they're giving us the sad statistics that we've been listening to is now waving a red flag if I could use that phrase against all this data that's going on do you realize in these states this thing is jumped up 36% in Arizona they are now running out of beds the way New York City did just a while ago and the Indian nations are under siege over this this thing has run wild through the society run wild through the world for that matter and for the mayor to come along now and put everybody's health at risk because for some reason
050he thinks he's got a better idea is astonishing to me you all know that I spent timing up that William Paterson University test site on those early days and I will never forget the faces of those sick people that came in those cars over and over and over and over and over and over with children screaming in horror as those swabs were put up their nose by people wearing hazmat suits this is not a game this is not a joke and this is not the time for political grandstanding or some sort of stunt I just heard the lady talk about she doesn't want negativity let me say something with all due respect to the lady this is not negativity this is deadly serious deadly serious right across the country right across the globe we don't
051have control of this there is no vaccine there is no medication that you can take to stop this thing from taking your life and everybody else is if and when somebody carries it to any one of these functions and then taste it away you are fooling with disaster mr. mayor and I don't know I don't know what it's going to take to get through to these people that this is deadly serious and I and I the the fact that you've memorialized this nurse is not lost on me today thank you very much thank you sir next mr. dr. Bouchard I'm sorry believe there's a Stacy with their hand up hi Stacy Lupo 36 with mott Road in Wayne I'd like to thank everyone for speaking up about their concerns today especially the gentleman that just
052spoke before I would like to address that for a second because I think everyone does take Cove it very seriously most importantly I think our kids take Cove it seriously because they have lost so much because of coalbed I think everybody has lost whether you've lost a loved one we've all lost people I knew Suzanne very well I've lost loved ones I think everybody has been touched by COBIT in some way shape or form and I think everybody gets it we had a wonderful protest in front of the Municipal Building on Saturday that many of you attended there were over 1,500 people there and I don't understand why this gentleman has a concern now about a ceremony in front of the mayor's office on the 18th and 19th when we had over 1500 people in
053a beautiful peaceful protest on Saturday you cannot pick and choose where you allow people to be okay to be in large settings it's part of our constitutional rights to protest those people protested because that was their constitutional right I don't think it's fair to pick and choose what you are going to get upset about when people congregate so I just wanted to address that to the gentleman in addition to the comments earlier I'd like to follow what the lady before had said thank you dr. Toback for trying to bring things back to some normalcy I am one of the parents who's working on the committee with the mayor and we all just want what's best for our kids I think everybody wants what's best for the kids unfortunately after Monday when we received the email
054from the district we fell and I shouldn't even say we felt I can tell you the kids felt they became a pawn in a political game of egos and politics and I want you all to remember this is about our kids this is about the kids it's not about what the parents want and I'm sure there's parents that want a lot the kids just want to walk and every day for a week it's been road block after road block after road block if you drive past Wayne Hills in Wayne Valley until yesterday or I should say today you would not know that we had three hundred and thirty seniors graduating from our schools there is not one thing commemorating our seniors in front of those buildings and two until two parents reached out to miss
055Kazan and asked her why our emails have not been answered so when you questioned why our emails weren't answered and you all said we could give you we should reach out to via email I know I personally wrote many emails to dr. toe back to mr. paderewski to the board I know a hundred people were behind an email that went out last week or more so hundred and fifty and no one responded except one person so I understand that everybody is very frustrated but you need to understand that we are very frustrated and not only are we frustrated the kids are frustrated the jig is up everybody they know who is running all the shenanigans that are going on they are not stupid they know that they have been failed they have been failed you
056failed them no one recognized our seniors would it have been so difficult to show any support for them on any school property until parents had to reach out over and over and over and over again and now you have signs on Hills because you were able to accommodate that and the valley could still have nothing except a parent reached out and tried to get these signs redone and is paying from out of her own pocket so that Valley can be represented so we don't have to tell children to rip their sign of their lawn and bring them back to Valley these are the things that when you ask why people are so upset and why these kids are so upset that you need to take a look back and see what was done and quite
057honestly nothing was done and if you were working behind the scenes it would have been fantastic if you shared that with people and most importantly if you share that with the kids I know that you're trying your best it's a terrible situation that everybody is in but you need to think about how the kids feel about this I'm not sure I can't speak for the kids kids on the hillside I don't know but I can tell you the kids on the valley side have feel they feel deserted and I don't blame them I don't blame them I've tried to shine positivity in our house with different aspects but when your kids drive past your school every single day and there's nothing there representing them that's sad so I would leave you with that thank you
058for your time I appreciate everything you're doing and in the words reflected before I hope we can all keep everything positive and move forward to do what's best for the kids we've offered support to the school several times and no one has reached out to us so I hope that if someone needs help reach out to us we've offered help committees have offered help we were here to help all along and unfortunately we were ignored ma'am I'm sorry I have to interrupt you here five minutes it's been over for a while but thank you very much we hear you we have reflected on some things that could have gone better and when you know better you do better and that's certainly how this board feels about communication I'm pretty sure unless anyone wants to I'm
059not saying we were terrible on communication but there was certainly some issues that could have maybe perhaps been communicated better especially whether we called something a celebration or a graduation I know that that was something that was a bone of contention but was there anything that anyone wanted to respond dr. toe back to the public portion there wasn't any real absolute questions they were just statements I do want to say one thing that's okay go ahead this is come on I know that at the end of the day I agree there was an issue with communication and I do think that some of us were thinking that certain people were taking the ball that weren't taking the ball in certain cases and I know for for the case with me also as we talked about
060thinking about all of the students as part of this graduation ceremony part of the concern is we're already losing six hundred and twenty five thousand dollars for next year and if we were to hold a graduation against executive order and condone that we may lose even more money we're also losing extraordinary aid for next year that's already a fact so thinking about the entire district and all the kids unfortunately does have to come into this consideration and again it's not that we don't want things for the seniors but you have to think of all of the kids in the entire district and as I said I want nothing more than to be there when my last class for a while is going to be graduating nothing further okay we'll move on with the agenda we
061have committee reports is anyone writing with the committee portion I'm sorry I'm sorry I moved to close am is Bashara thank you I just forget to close it just assume everyone knows it's over go ahead mrs. share and that getting mr. jeer down okay I'm sorry for anybody who raised their hand after that we will have a second public portion in very short order where you could speak on any topic graduation was an agenda item so committee reports mrs. I have report from the occasional committee led by mrs. Rashmi and the share mrs. Kumar and I were in the me meeting Thank You along with Corinne we're armed secondary depression we talked about our summer intervention program for special education students there were as I mentioned earlier there is going to be a two-week summer
062intensive when we talked about already a program that will help us with our assessments actually during the summer session when the kids come back in the fall you talked about new middle school science program there was a committee made up of 11 teachers and three principals it's called amplified science and it would be online training for new teachers before we get back to school also AP US history called American Pageant it contains a lot more current materials there's a stress on diversity and current issues then we also had a discussion about our curriculum and inculcating diversity in various areas the district is going to conduct a curriculum audit to look at all our curriculums and see what type of diversity is represented whether it's um Hispanic or african-american authors we're also going to we also
063have other things diversity is not just about race or looking at how deep the acceptance of children with special needs children with autism there in LGBTQ curriculum that will be coming into the middle school and that's also part of the diversity effort so that's the direction that we're going in thank you did I see another committee hand up it's not I'm gonna hold up the phone so mr. Duffy can give his report there's nobody's feeling attention mrs. Alba nice just a quick update that the Finance Committee met tonight we or did not complete our meeting so we're gonna have another and we'll do our report at the next meeting okay I'm gonna let you speak now okay hold on okay go ahead this is mr. Duffy giving the technology report with myself president we had
064super shard we had mr. black and we spoke about some of the good things that are coming to our district which have come through this district we had five pounds of Chromebooks that are available to go out to our sixth grade and our ninth grade students usually their orientation each one of them their Chromebooks by orientation we also have security things that have gone on we have a phone system that's going to be put into in two different phases we look forward to maybe a phase three for security purposes I'm not going to tell everybody what schools they're going in but this is a in every classroom that will act as a PA system which will replace the old PA systems we're looking to have three schools fun and then face to another three school
065son and looking forward to having all our schools completed in the near future on top of that there with those PA systems will also be locked down strobe lights that will alert parents coming in that there's a lot down so that is all I have to report thank you and thank you for bear with a bare with me with this technology issue Thank You mr. Duffy I'm gonna put you on mute but we'll need you for a vote shortly hold on okay now we will move on was that in for committee I'm sorry did anyone else have a committee report no okay so now we'll move on to our emergent administrative which will approve all of these PWS items for the next move them to the next meeting can I get a mover I would
066move the entire agenda if you would like to make that motion okay mr. block is moving the entire agenda do I have a second second mr. Giordano thank you for that now remember we have abstentions on which was it that's two okay you will know you're extending your abstention item alrighty um roll call mr. Moffet mrs. Albanese yes mister Bava you're here and then next is mr. Duffy mrs. Jones yes mr. Giordano abstain on x2 mrs. Kumar yes on everything and abstain on x2 I'm staying on x2 mrs. mr. Pavlik yes and I will abstain on x2 abstain on x2 mrs. putt up thank you mrs. Shearer yes on everything abstain on x2 mrs. Kazan yes I said yes okay just turn you want to be a star I see that he's adorable star alrighty
067we'll move on to the next public portion this portion of the meeting is open to citizens for comment on any topic residents are to state their names addresses in 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 legally responded to by the board other comments may be responded to tonight or at subsequent meetings under old business can I get a mover move mr. Giordano second mrs. Potter okay I see a couple of hands there state your names Stewart Reznor 82 News Street I'd like to respond to the gentlelady's uh remarks about the black lives matter demonstration at the Municipal
068Center if the lady was inferring that somehow I was there she's mistaken I decided not to attend because I was running a fever for a week and a half at a hundred and one point nine and it was my choice to not possibly infect someone else and I thought that the demonstrations all across the country were ill-advised in terms of a pandemic not that the issue wasn't legitimate or isn't legitimate but the pandemic actually put an element of personal risk above and beyond what we've seen on the evening news so I did not attend if BLM had done a driving protest the way they did in Morristown and Parsippany in many other places I'd have gotten the car and I don't honk my horn and flash my lights I didn't do that I stayed home
069so the gentlelady may be under Miss prehension that I participated there I don't see why the mayor can't do a drive-by I don't see what's wrong with if you go to the Santa Monica Daily Press calm in my hometown they're doing a drive-by in the car the Santa Monica High School students are doing a drive-by and I don't see anything stopping the mayor from doing that right now and I will say one more time again the mayor high-stepping pulling an end run around the boards per view here is astonishing to me I don't know of any situation where the board has gone around the mayor or council in any of their decisions in the manner that the mayor has done this nor have I heard a word out of the council about the mayor's unilateral
070decision and I'll say it one more time again this is deadly serious stuff this whole thing is deadly serious I've had the strange feeling of having the statistics of the Vietnam War of 58,000 lives lost lifted off my shoulders with the over 120,000 Americans that have died to this pandemic and the many hundreds of thousands are more than potentially coming so one more time again this is not a game this is so serious and you folks have held the line and from what I've heard the comments I've read myself you're being vilified for taking the the more careful route and following the governor's instructions whether the governor be a Democrat or a Republican thank you one more time again another hand raised okay all right hi my name is Brandon pergola 7:55 Berdan Ave and
071Wayne it's actually questions more than making statements which is everybody seems to be doing one is do you think there will be any impact and I know that one of the members had had brought it up just recently to the potential state aid reduction because we are going against the governor's orders and number two is in regard to looking forward after you know obviously the school year ends and we dealt with what was one of the you know strangest times you know in recent memory you know keeping people locked up in their homes do you see when we open up the school year back in September whatever that may look like that we will what we know as the current virtual learning system being the exact same or are we looking to approve upon that
072because what I can say is you know fortunately for for my family and I know everybody's different and and and I'm not trying to in one family against the other you know we were fortunate enough in this pandemic to you know still be employed and all of those types of things it's very very difficult being two working parents having a full-time job and spending four or five hours a day teaching your children and you know following the lesson plan but there's no real virtual learning going on necessarily and the teachers are doing their very very best this was something that I understand you know we thought was a two-week problem I get it so getting us through this year um I think what we've done and what everybody has done as a community has been
073outstanding but I do think that there is some room for so I'd love to hear some of the feedback that you think would work and might be implemented thank you sir we'll respond after everyone has spoken and you're very attractive woman looking at your picture say hi to your lovely wife I know you everyone I'm not picking on the person no I don't know next and raised mr. Borchardt go ahead hello hi hi I apologize this is Kim totora 11 South hold court I'm not gonna keep going back and forth I just want to respond because twice I've been referred to my earlier comments and I guess support for the three graduations just want to clarify I don't believe anybody is not taking covert seriously and I don't believe anybody is suggesting we don't follow
074safety for call you know protocol I think they've clarified that I you know I think the town pool is open or opening outdoor dining is opening the beach is opening so I don't think we're suggesting you know to to not follow restrictions or we're not taking it seriously we're just trying to follow the same safety procedures to accomplish another event and that's what we're doing and the protests the reason why it's you know Cockrell it's just because there were so many Wayne students there even younger than seniors and there were you know three times as many participants so we're just trying to say if we could do that safely we should be able to do this safely and I don't think again it's an either/or that we're trying to risk lives or have a graduation
075I don't think anybody would be in support of that thank you thank you I see no other hands can I get a mover remember this time now nobody wants to move too close share mr. dancer gotcha okay dr. Toback do you care to answer some of the questions they were it was just I believe one gentleman had some questions yes sir so as far as the state for the district we were expecting a loss the state but not due to any involvement or the social distancing issue or the restrictions that are placed on the district for graduation so that would be something that could happen potentially if the district were involved in the graduation event that are against the orders that we have as a school system so under those circumstances we could lose aid
076at this point we're not know when the woman was commenting about the loss of aid there are two areas where we have a lot of state already one of them is our extraordinary aid account and the other is a formula aid and so formula it is something that comes to the district as part of a formula right so basically the state calculates how much aid we would receive so the one we know about for sure the other one we know about for sure that we'll lose but we don't know exactly how much yet the district is always looking to improve so we know the virtual learning experience has not been easy for everybody and it's been very difficult in many cases and so one of our goals for this year we're looking at as a
077potential goal is certainly to to revise and have a distance learning 2.0 plan so if you do go back on a distance learning model hopefully we'll see a lot of improvement some of it involves technology some involves development so there's a combination of things looking at to do during the summer so that we're ready for the upcoming school okay can we get air conditioning and this board office oh my god it's warm in here all right well we've looked through the agenda all business new business anybody's business mrs. Kumar just quickly as we had stated and a few people board members have stated that we've had some communication issues internally so I did want to suggest that maybe we do some type of professional learning together through the New Jersey School Boards Association on communication
078because it seems that there are issues with different top-down to other people I mean I know that you know I'm a new board member but even there it just seems like that might be something to consider as board members for us to do together thank you yes just to address a couple items just the distance learning mr. Peres gallop I agree with you it was not the greatest thing in the world what we had to put together and literally less than a week we've learned we you actually had this conversation as a board about how we can move forward with a ugly versus part of even discussed it as part of her report it was something that we never dreamed of last September that we would even have to and it still today is quite
079a remarkable thing that we are even here today where we are as far as communications yes I think we could have done a better job everybody could have done a better job and this is Kumar I offer you my risk communication class that I teach at Ft you be more than happy to do it for all of you for nothing in less than a semester I'll get into one 123 our beauty if you like as far as honoring our students I said this last weekend at a meeting and I I hate honestly anybody who wants to honor our students I don't care if it's the New York Giants the New York Yankees the New York Mets you name it I don't care if you want to one of our students in honor of our students
080let's make it about the students let's stop this back-and-forth and I've seen on social media and everything else this one that one and everything else about the kids the bottom line I understand I appreciate where mrs. cher is coming from I have a daughter who graduated from college who had College pulled out from under her at the last minute her senior trip to Switzerland gone her graduation god never even got back to school because school got closed on spring break could see her friends I get it believe me I get it every day I feel what you people feel and I can honestly sit here and say that that I understand where each and every one of you parents are coming from tonight when you talk about graduation you talk or call it whatever you
081want it's semantics in my opinion call it whatever you want but as long as we can do what we can do safely and yes the school district at OU has a lot of constraints put on it and there is also a lot of reverberation we can get from the state all right I get that I understand that and again if anybody wants to step up to the plate and honor our students I'm all for that I'm not getting into the politics I'm not getting into it's this it's that or whatever as long as it can be done safely and as long as it honors our students that's what it's all about thank you thank you mr. Havelock anyone else well we're not going to see you again at a public meeting until after the events
082on the 18th in the 19 so good luck I hope everything goes well I hope our students enjoy it I hope there are no interruptions to the plan we all want the same thing at the end of day because none of us will be doing this job if we didn't care about our students believe me we put in a lot of time and energy once again no increase in our pay in the budget this year you know it's still zero which we know going in so we're not complaining but we can do it a lot with a lot less of the free grief not that you're not allowed to grieve your elected officials but I think you get the point so good luck have a good evening thank you all very much and if I
083could get a mover to close I'll move to Giordano seconded by mr. Pavlik thank you all and have a good evening thank you for coming to our meeting good night stay well eat you best of luck stay well